People joke about entering ones 20s and the passage on from teen years as a transition into \u201cno longer knowing everything\u201d If that\u2019s what teenagers are characterized by than I guess the arrogance of ones 20s comes from knowing that your knowledge is limited but believing that what ideas you do have are your own. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m headed out of my 20s now. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s striking to me how people got on so well for so long without the internet. When I got the flu last month I had to google my symptoms and find out what to do about it (Rest, plenty of fluids, and chicken soup btw) but hundreds of years ago none of that information would have been available, and I would have relied on the collected knowledge of the elders of our community for what to do. What would they have said (rest, plenty of fluids, chicken soup probably) <\/p>\n
The Christian Church, for most of it\u2019s existence (AD 0 to AD 1530) unanimously valued tradition as equal or greater in authority than the bible. And even that was often just considered another source of tradition. Most Christians in the world (the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox + Anglicans for good measure) still do. <\/p>\n
And as to the rest of us, do we really think we are so evolved? Perhaps we have head-knowledge that scripture is the final authority but do we really follow that in our analysis of ideas. Do we prefer to follow what scripture appears to say even when it goes against what we were taught in church? It seems to me that most of us protestants have gone right on following tradition and merely stopped citing our sources. <\/p>\n
For instance. when I use the term \u201chead-knowledge\u201d I\u2019m drawing upon a memetic tradition in the American Christian subculture. you are inclined to agree with me because you have heard that somewhere before from someone reliable. But where did it come from? I for one have no idea. <\/p>\n
Consider also the phrase \u201cright relationship\u201d particularly the restoration thereof. Christians from every group I’ve been apart of agree that it\u2019s important to restore right relationship to god, to one another, to whatever the thing we are trying to advocate for is. But the way it\u2019s phrased it\u2019s obviously borrowed from someplace. I goggled it, and still have no idea from where. could be the Quakers or the Jesuits, maybe I\u2019ll ask an old Jewish lady. <\/p>\n
How many of the ideas that I draw upon on a daily basis come from somewhere else without my being able to identify it as easily as these two examples? How many of my ideas are shaped by other ideas that come from these traditional sources. Is there any idea that I currently hold which does not rely on the work of someone who came before me? <\/p>\n
I don\u2019t expect there is. but I\u2019m not inclined to fight it. If I were to arrive on this planet as a wholly logical observer, and could not receive any past information I would come to different conclusions, about the world and what\u2019s important. But I believe most of those wholly logical contemporary conclusions I would draw would be wrong. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m probably just prejudiced though<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People joke about entering ones 20s and the passage on from teen years as a transition into \u201cno longer knowing everything\u201d If that\u2019s what teenagers are characterized by than I guess the arrogance of ones 20s comes from knowing that your knowledge is limited but believing that what ideas you do have are your own.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n