Blog 2419 – 06.09.2022

The Passing Of Three Great Minds

On my thirteenth birthday, November 22, 1963, three great minds passed off this stage, the pragmatic President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, and famed atheist writer Aldous Huxley. Years later another man wrote about how a conversation in heaven might have looked like between the pragmatist President, Kennedy, the defender of Christianity, Lewis, and the humanist, Huxley.

The one thing these three men had most in common was that they were thinkers who questioned the conventional wisdom of their day. One seeking answers would do well to study all three of their viewpoints. The great liberal arts institutions once encouraged such studies. I am reminded of one definition of the specialist, “Someone who studies more and more about less and less till he (or she) knows absolutely everything about nothing.” Reminds me of the title of a Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing.

One of the best way to produce a generation of “Know Nothings” is to teach them what to think and not how. One learns how to think by examining all the evidence not just a single point of view. If your view point has merit, it will stand some scrutiny and examination and if not it is but a weak crutch that may fail you when tried. What we believe is only as good as it serves us. We were never meant to serve the Faith, but faith to serve us. Discarding beliefs that no longer serve us is a thinking trait that pragmatists, Christians, atheists, agnostics, and all faiths would find strengthen their arguments.

This world can I’ll afford to lose great minds to narrow mindedness. We are all so much richer for the thoughts great minds leave behind.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vMeLMcbpUSD9S5BlFwxWe4vDgx3wDiDp/view?usp=drivesdk

To Leave Something Behind