Have You Figured it All Out

Like me, I am sure you have had those “Ah, ha” moments when something you had been thinking about and trying to make sense of suddenly popped together in your mind and it became clear and understandable. In fact you were probably thinking, “That wasn’t so difficult. Why didn’t I figure that out a long time ago?”

For example, men understanding women and women understanding men. Wait. That is probably not a good example. That light bulb of understanding women has really never come on for me or any other man. And women surely don’t understand men. I love the joke about the guy who was praying and God spoke to him and offered to answer one of his prayers – no matter what it was. The fella thought about it for a while and then said, “I am afraid of flying and have always wanted to go to Hawaii. How about you build a highway from the California coast to Hawaii?” God responded, “I can do that but that is a very selfish prayer. Do you realize how much of the earth’s nature resources I would have to use to build such a long bridge? Perhaps you have something else you want to request?” The man thought for a very long time and finally said, “Yes, there is something else you could do for me. I don’t understand women. Could you give me the wisdom I need to understand women?” The silence was deafening. Finally God said, “Do you want that bridge to be two lanes or four lanes?”

For since the beginning of intelligent life, as we understand it, humankind has been searching for answers to life’s difficult questions through rational thought and intelligence. Not a bad idea or an invalid approach. We have come to believe, given enough time, thought and research, we can find any answers we seek. In my lifetime we have discovered many things. It has been an amazing time to live. In fact I have lived long enough to see us come to some definite conclusions that have later been discovered to be incorrect. In my lifetime we have found the origins of the universe, twice.

The intellectuals of the early twentieth century decided that experimenting on live animals was a good idea. The leading thinkers of that time also espoused that “culling” the human race was the thing to do to improve our world. It was widely accepted in the university classroom until the atrocities of Nazi Germany took the wind out of those sails. Nothing like an Auschwitz and a Buchenwald to dull the interest in experimenting on humans and exterminating the “lower” races. For good and obvious reasons, those well respected ideas fell into disrepute following World War II.

When I was an undergraduate student, research proved and it was taught that human behavior was most strongly impacted by our upbringing and life experiences. Then we discovered DNA and suddenly everything about us is predetermined by the molecular structure of our DNA. Nothing was our fault – we couldn’t help it. "That is just how I am", became the mantra. Now we are starting to believe it may be a combination of the two. Forty years ago when I studied psychology, things like alcoholism or homosexuality were psychological sicknesses to be treated with drugs and psychotherapy. Now the common belief is that such things are all predetermined in our genetic makeup.

When the earthquake of 2004 caused a tsunami of catastrophic proportions to roar through the countries around the Indian Ocean and wiped out hundreds of thousands of lives and entire villages, the United States sent over hoards of psychologists and social workers to treat the masses of people who would be suffering from PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder). They dutifully set up shop and waited for the “customers” to show up. And they didn’t. The people of that region of the world, for various social, economic and religious reasons, were not susceptible to PTSD. The psychologists and social workers were so upset by the lack of response they were seeing they set out to educate the people on how the “should” be responding to the disaster. Sure enough, with enough education, people developed PTSD.

My point being we would do well to not conclude that just because something is the accepted thought of the day in academia, it may not be correct. Somehow we humans think that ours is the smartest and wisest generation that will ever exist on this earth. What we think is the ultimate on the subject and absolute truth.

I am certainly not anti-intellectual. I think an education is a great thing. I have one. It may not be the very best education money can buy, but I like it and enjoy having it. And I learned long ago to never confuse educated for intelligent. The process of getting a degree is much like getting out of prison on good behavior. It means one has learned to live by the rules, to say the right things and give those in charge what they want. If you do that in prison you get out early. If you do that in school they give you a degree. Again, an education is a good thing but I may not be all it is cracked up to be. Personally, I prefer making intelligent life decisions based on carefully gathered information and deep thought instead of spur of the moment, emotionally motivated decisions. I believe being well read is a great advantage in life. Logic is powerful stuff. Conversation about ideas is the best conversation one can have.

My point is, we would do well to keep in mind that we have limitations. No matter how smart we are, we have things to learn. The absolute truth that we espouse today will most likely be seen as not so clever sometime in the future. And there are some concepts that, even though we can discuss them and put some form to them, we probably will never truly and fully understand them. I am thinking of those people who try to think their way to God… those people who insist on understanding God before they will believe in God… those who won’t believe in God until God makes sense to them. My take on it is that they will never find God. The best they will ever do is belief in a God of their own making. One of the terrible realities of God is that God is un-understandable. The only god we can understand is our concept of God that is limited by our mental capacities.

The brain is a great thing but I am pretty sure we will never think our way to God. It is my understanding that God is discovered through faith and experience. God offers us a relationship that must be experienced, not just thought about. If God were understandable and explainable there would be no need for faith. How inconvenient.

Copyright © 2014, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved