God helps those who help themselves
We were walking back from Dick's Drive-In tonight and En and I had an interesting conversation. Warning up front: this is the confluence of religion and politics so I get to hit a bunch of hot-buttons all at once.It starts with climate change née global warming. The science behind this is getting stronger by the moment. The opposition is broken up into mainly two camps: 1) deny the science or 2) "well, it's god's will."I'm going to gloss over the first one for the most part. Not to try to make ad hominem attacks, but I think these folks can be summed up in a word: idiots. Science is what we build our civilization on. Just because you believe something doesn't make it any truer. Believing that things aren't getting warmer isn't going to make the Antarctic ice shelves come back. Similarly, believing that creationism is true doesn't make it less delusional.So, moving on the second part: "God's Will."This is actually two subsets. The first is believing that it is getting warmer; it's not humans but god just turning up the thermostat. I'm lumping this mostly with the previous argument... with a bit of spice to follow.This leaves people that understand that something's afoot and it's mainly from human involvement.Here's where that breaks down: if you know that something is up, and you don't do anything that is a tacit admission that you don't "help yourself." You are explicitly not helping.Now, I'll delve into this a bit more. What does it mean to "help yourself?" Help, in this case, means to use everything in your capability and means to get to some goal.Of course, everything, is broad.It means not just to do.It means to think.Thinking leads ideas. Ideas lead to questioning. Questioning leads to changing beliefs.Changing beliefs is anathema to religion. But to "help yourself" you must think.
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Thinking and accepting paradoxes shows a depth of character that I don't see in many people that mindlessly parrot what others say -- delegating the thinking that is required by the "help yourself" clause.