Hey everyone. So I'm not sure how regular this will become but maybe I will actually start blogging again more regularly, but who knows. Lately I have just had tons of thoughts on everything. Maybe it's because of school or maybe I'm just older and wiser and have more things to think about through life. So here goes.
I can't help but realize since I have been back in school how I feel so like I have been deprived of knowledge. Almost everything I learn about and read in school I wonder why no body has ever told me anything about this before. Now maybe it is just because of the courses I am taking in history, but I can't help but feel that everything in history is so important.
There are a few classes in particular that this is coming up. One is very vague I suppose you could say, but the class is called Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust and after every single class I walk out and wonder why on earth can I not even remember the holocaust being even vaguely mentioned in high school. I feel like the topic is somehow systematically eliminated from the material as if it is a dark spot in human history that need not be mentioned. People leave these embarrassing events in human history out of conversation because they are scared or uncomfortable talking about them, but really these are the moments that we need to be talking about the most.
That is the small topic.
It seems that all my other courses overlap in some sense all dealing with European History and Western Civilization. So far my favorite topic on all of this has been the Reformation. And in all my readings I have so far been most interested by John Calvin. Every time that I read about him I can not help but feel incredibly inadequate in my knowledge of really almost everything and the Bible especially.
I heard a quote one time and I can't remember who told me or who said this originally but it said. "The biggest problem with the church is that it teaches people what to think and not how to think." And John Calvin is especially critical of the Anabaptists (Mennonites fit in this) in their lack of intellect. So in this I am trying to become more intellectual I suppose and actually think about things, the topic that I have been most fascinated in is this whole predestination and idea of God's elect. All my life all I have ever been taught in church is the idea of free will to choose what we want and John Calvin essentially blows this idea out of the water saying us having free will to choose limits God's power to choose and be just. Regardless of everything my main point is that why in all my life was I just always told this idea predestination or really any other doctrinal quarrel was wrong without anyone even telling me what the other side thought or said on the topic. Really for that matter never even saying what my side ever thought or said on the topic other then that they disagree. Why do people limit the information that they give to you? Why are people so scared of giving both sides of the argument to people?
Anyways I feel like I am just ranting and going nowhere with this. However I do have a final point and thought of why I think about this. In regards to myself I am hoping to one day be a teacher, and I don't want to systematically leave out information that might cause people to think of something differently then I do. I think that teachers and professors have the most important job of passing down knowledge to the next generation, however if we only pass on our ideas that isn't moving us closer to anything, it's moving us closer to all being machines who don't know how to think for ourselves.
