We Are Spineless Fools

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. ~ Winston Churchill

After getting into a 170 comment Facebook argument with one of my lovely friends from school about a status I posted with a joke about Atheism, people came up to me in the following days and questioned my reasoning for doing something like that. People advised me to keep all political and religious ideas off of Facebook, to avoid conflict. This incident made me realize how much people hate conflict. But on another level, this advice bothered me. People will forgo any talk about religious or political views just to avoid a conflict or to make sure they don't offend anyone? I think this is a dangerous path to be on. If we live our lives specifically making sure not to offend anyone, people won't get any exposure to ideas that challenge them. We will become drones trying to make everything lovey dovey and not caring about issues that actually matter in the world. I'm not saying we need to go out of our way to offend people with what we believe but we can't let people's feelings get in the way of believing what we believe.

If I could go back and do it again, I wouldn't do anything differently. My Facebook debate with my friend did many great things. First of all, it challenged what both of us thought of as true. This is always a good thing; I don't care how strong you are in your beliefs. Secondly, and more importantly, my debate on Facebook made an impact on many other people whether that be students at my school or people across the country that I know through Facebook. It's always good to get people involved and get people thinking about the big questions of the world. I cannot tell you how many conversations my argument started with people I would have considered strangers or mere acquaintances before. Of course, I probably alienated some students because of my argument. I learned a couple days later that someone was extremely proud of unfriending me on Facebook. However, this is to be expected. Usually, people that are alienated by rational discussion are intolerant and narrow-minded.

Do I think everyone always needs to be debating and arguing on Facebook? Of course not! My point is, we need to be actively engaged in both religious and political thought. I don't believe everyone needs to be deeply involved in either of these things but I do believe we all must know what we stand for. We all need to have a spine. When people don't have spines it is extremely easy for people to be lobotomized by either political party. The left has capitalized on these blank minds; to find out how, read Jason Mattera's Obama Zombies.

I would highly encourage every high school student to study both liberal and conservative ideas before they go to any college. Almost every college across the country is so far left it's ridiculous. If you don't have a spine and / or brain by the time you reach college, they will take yours out and replace it with a liberal one.

I believe everyone has the duty to humanity to seek truth. If something they believe in isn't true, why are they believing in it? I believe everyone should question what they believe to be true both in religious beliefs and political ideology. I challenge everyone reading this to find out what they believe about these issues. Form opinions, learn something, challenge yourself.