Did we forget how to question?
A couple weeks ago, I received the following unsolicited email. Usually I delete this emails because, well, they are junk mail. The subject heading was “who is saying the holocast did not happen?” It was forwarded to me which means this must have been really important to the sender. I opened it and read the following…(All subject and email spellings are as I received them).
another sign that then end times are nearing …
(NAME WITHHELD TO PROTECT THE MISINFORMED)
Subject: In Memorium
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:42:00 +0000
Recently this week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it “offended” the Moslem population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russia peoples looking the other way! Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be “a myth,” it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.
This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide! Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world. Please send this e-mail to 10 people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.
Please don’t delete, it will only take you a minute to pass this on.
Wow! I am sure news like this would have been in the New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, or the USA Today. Any word out there on it? I read the BBC website multiple times each day and never saw this headline. Of course, I could have missed it while sleeping so I thought I would do a little research.
With a key word search in Google and 2 minutes of my time, here is what I found at BBC. This email stated that the news occurred recently as “this week”, when in reality this was some chain email started last April. It also states the holocaust has already been removed from curriculum. False. Click here to read the report that this email is basing its claim on. Here is the Historical Association’s website, they wrote the report, and what they say about teaching historically controversial subjects. Anyways, the email is false and misinforming and ignorant people somehow believe this crap.
The point here is DO YOUR RESEARCH, and QUESTION, QUESTION ,QUESTION!!!! When individuals choose not to question, they forget to seek the truth in any manner. They begin to develop hatred based on lies, only slowing down humans ability to live in harmony. This email was a rather small matter and fairly easy to question. But, in the grander scheme of things, some important people forgot to question and now we have ourselves a little mess in Iraq.
I just watched the movie “Jesus Camp”. Talk about brainwashing the children. No questioning. Accept it all at face value. These adult evangelical extremists are as bad as any other extreme group out there. It is really sad when you have to create a lie so that others will hate with you.
How can any truth be sought without questioning?
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tsavet tanem!!! Here is a short story for you that goes with the point:
Two weeks ago I had to go to the capital to meet a Diaspora who was helping us. He was excited to have someone to discuss politics with and he quickly launched into conspiracy theories about the GW administration and 9-11. One of his claims is that the Jews in America helped planned 9-11 and the owner of the World Trade Center wanted the attack to happen. He sited many various examples such as the WTC owner taking out insurance and such. Needless to say, he was an avid reader of emails such as the one above and took them as truth.
After 20 minutes of his rambling, I politely began to discuss with him the big picture. I asked questions like, “If you owned a property that was worth billions of dollars and you knew that in 1993 it was attacked, would you refuse to purchase a few million dollars of terrorist insurance?” I continued, “You own a billion dollar building complex on the ocean and oceans are known for creating large storms called hurricanes, knowing this would you refuse to buy a few million dollars of hurricane insurance?” This line of questioning when on and at the end he looked at me and said, “Wow, I never thought of these things like this.” I almost fell over.
After further questioning, I realized the man has very little formal education. He has a few certificates but in general he has never been talk to use critical thinking skills. It is something we take for granted but this was an American born and educated person from the greater LA area who could not use deduction and reasoning to understand the bigger picture.
To make this germane to the post, education is important but it must be varied. My complaint with Christianity is that “true believers” use this idea of faith to keep out or shout down other ideas or opinions. Take for example the Pope who just yesterday called the Catholic church, “Christ’s only true church”. Did he forget that the Catholic church is not the oldest Christian church in the world? Seems a bit bold to be able to call ever other Christian in the world, “not true believers of Christ”.
The question we face in the future in both our lives is: how much religion to we bring into our child’s life to build moral foundation while not encouraging that child to become radically ignorant?
I believe posts like this are a good start. Simply asking “why” and not taking the answer “because” is a great start!