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elly's picture

Fear vs. Inquiry?

 You ask here, "can we ignore truth if we don't like it?" But I believe that at the beginning of this class we came to a conclusion that there is no such thing as truth but rather a series of expectations based on previous experiences (the sun will rise tomorrow because it did yesterday, and the day before etc etc) and everything is relative. I think that is why, despite the fact that these approaches to humanity are so difficult to nail down, we continue to try to solve the mystery. We fear the idea that there is no truth and that everything is relative and based on prediction, just as we fear the fact that evolution is based on chance. I believe that we come into every situation with our previous experiences and expectations present, and so it is hard for people not to fear the unknown and to believe in something they have never seen "proof" of because all of our personal truths are based on that past knowledge that we bring with us. So I suppose that I just have trouble imagining a situation where we would be able to be sure that we could "distinguish fear of the unknown" from "genuine objection or inquiry..."

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