The Great Divide

I believe the hardest thing one can do is to be impartial towards his ideas.

An atheist will need to lay down his pride and empathize with the views of a religious fanatic, reading, fully absorbing the religious texts he chooses, fully immersing to get an overall sense as to why a believer beliefs.

A christian will have to abandon all arrogance and biblical education and come to his world with a blank slate, trying to put himself in his position without quickly jumping into easy conclusions.

It takes a man of incredible humility to be able to traverse to and fro this great divide.

What happens when we add a man who is neither an atheist nor a christian into the pie? It just gets messier.

Therein lies the main problem. It is fruitless reading a christian text against non christians, neither is there a point in reading an atheist's rant against christianity, nor a transcendental new age spiritualist against christians and atheist, for all are writing in their own perspective coming from fundamental differences in their own belief systems.

What then is the best approach? Wittgenstein expressed it aptly:

'What can be shown, cannot be said... Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.'


-- and so maybe the christian Calvinist Doctrine of Predestination made sense, for how can a man ever be 'saved' in the christian sense when he was already destined to be who he is believing in what he believes even before he became?