13/10/2024
My Findings on Skeptics Day
Lately, I've engaged in a lot of discussions with people who have different ideas or notions of reality than I do. Despite my human tendency towards confirmation bias, which in some cases told me to argue or immediately dismiss notions or ideas that I disagreed with, I listened and engaged on a completely different wavelength. Not judging, not deciding if true or false, not pitting my powers of observation against the characters of the people I engaged with. I listened and considered ideas that were far from my own particular ideas of the world. I heard views and opinions on abortion, climate change, immigrants & immigration, vaccines, billionaires, capitalism, Democrats & Republicans, psychedelics, Jesus, Covid, s*x trafficking, and much more. In no case did I repudiate or tell anyone that their view was wrong or espouse a view that I said was right. In some cases I was asked my opinion and I gave it as 'In my opinion..."
If you are hoping for me to tell you the 'truth' about any of these things, I'm afraid that you are going to be disappointed. If there is anything that sets me apart from most of the people who I engaged with in these discussions it is that. I don't know any truth about any of these things. I have opinions on most of them. The scary thing - the thing that I think makes Skeptics Day so important - is that I engaged with intelligent people, charismatic people, people who I would describe as respectable - and from them, I heard so many 'truths' that conflicted with 'truths' from others among them that it quickly became apparent that while everyone seems to think they 'know', no one actually 'knows' anything at all.
I remember reading the Way of the Peaceful Warrior, long ago. In it, the guide, Socrates asks Dan if he knows where he is. Dan answers yes and a series of questions quickly lead to the conclusion that we are all in uncharted territory. No one knows where we are. Certitude is dangerous.
How can we not know where we are? The earth is spinning around the sun. The sun is spinning around the galaxy. The galaxy is spinning around the universe. Try to map that with you Google Maps application. It's impossible. The bigger reason is this - where are we in relation to what? The same kind of thinking needs to be taken with all of these hot-button issues that people are obsessing over.
In relation to what? It doesn't always work, but generally it points the way. We don't know where we are so how can we be sure that we know anything at all? On this Skeptics Day - I questioned all of my assertions, all of my perceptions, all of my precepts, ideals, and ideas. Do you want to know what I found?
I know what is good and what is bad. Sometimes I do bad anyway. Bad for my health, bad for my community, bad for my self, bad for my planet - I know when I do it. If I don't know, it doesn't count, but usually, I know. So (I suspect) do you. I'm not sure why I do bad, but I'm certain that I do and I do it willfully, even if I want to deceive myself about it. I also do good - and I do that willfully too, but just as there are times that my 'self' rises up and says no to doing bad, sometimes it also rises up and says no to doing good. I don't really understand why, but it happens. If you don't grok that, think about the run you didn't take, that time you didn't go to the gym, the time you walked by garbage and left it on the ground...
So - I know those things. I do bad. I do good. Sometimes I don't do bad. Sometimes I don't do good. Maybe you see where this is heading...
On Skeptics Day - I reaffirmed: Stop doing bad things. Start doing good things. Help other people stop doing bad things and start doing good things. So, I'm doing that by writing this and sharing it.
You can do the same by sharing this.
It's the Baoist Creed. Stop Tox, Do Rox, Help Others Stop Rox, Do Rox.
https://www.Baoism.org
