Intellectual Honesty

Intellectual Honesty

Dear Friend:

It is not that I cannot take criticism or disagreement. It is the intellectual dishonesty, the sophistry that I cannot stand. When I post my views in this forum--- or any forum, for that matter—I welcome dissenting views. That’s the only way for me to ensure my views can hold water. When I write, I am not looking for agreement or admiration. I am looking for and/or expressing facts and truth as I know them. I try my best not to fall into the 17 logical fallacies that any textbook on rhetoric would warn the student not to commit. Please note the word fallacy derived from the Latin fallere, meaning to ‘deceive”. I take no pleasures to deceive anybody. I would rather like people to accept me and love me the way I am. That’s why I’m committed to intellectual honesty. I don’t twist somebody’s words in the heat of argument. Above all, I am set on the path I chose for myself a long time ago and that is to learn as much about the world and the universe I live in as I can, within the confines and limitations of my intellect.

The search for knowledge led me to examine the “verities” pronounced by some religions. And I came to a conclusion that most men are motivated by power and mind control, and not by truth. Yesterday I copied the views of Einstein on religion so we all at least have a frame of reference whenever the issue of religion comes up in the discussions in this forum. His views are not different at all from those who have spent time thinking about the subject. Everything that rises will converge. More and more thinking people have come to a view that Buddhism is not a religion. The Dalai Lama himself said, Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind. In psychotherapy today, Buddhist psychology is one of the approaches employed. I have not heard of Christian, Islamic, or Hindu approaches; I could be wrong in this regard because I am not informed enough. When a person is mentally disturbed, a guidance based on facts and logic can help, not on a reliance on some far-fetched dogmas or wishful thinking. I maintain that one of the reasons for mental disturbance is due to the inability to accept reality for what it is. The key thing is to know what reality is and what is not. A woman who was long into delusions now is accusing me of not facing reality. I find her accusation grossly ironic because this very woman once believed that God “took care of her”. Upon hearing her assertion, I asked her a rhetorical question. “Why it has to be you? What’s so special about you? What’s about those millions who died in the Holocaust, in the killing fields of Cambodia, in Darfur? Just to cite a few examples. Why did God not listen to their prayers and entreaties?”

As I wrote once before, I believe Buddha was the only thinker among those who gave birth to “religions” advised his followers not to follow blindly what he taught, but to examine reality, to examine closely the teachings to be sure they were logical and to work out their own salvation with diligence. There is much talk of faith nowadays. To my puny mind, it is hogwash. Acceptance should be based on facts and logic, not faith. Faith is a word employed by sophists when they encounter resistance.

In the past, I have done many things I am not proud of. I have fallen prey to anger and pride. To those I have hurt, I ask for their forgiveness. I know I have been bragging about languages, but this bragging has done me some good. It forced me to go back and study some languages quite assiduously so I would not be caught to be intellectually dishonest. The truth is that I only know one language well enough to express my thoughts in it.

I would like to borrow a word from NDN and conclude my piece with the signature

Peace.

W.