Faith v. Reason

The following is a letter to my students:

“Who Cares”

If I were conducting this class 10,000 years ago, my lessons would include the following topics: 1. How to hunt large animals with a sharpened stick; 2. How to make sharpened sticks; 3. Which plants are edible and where to find them; 4. How to make fire; 5. How to build a temporary shelter. I would have chosen those topics 10,000 years ago for the very same reasons I chose the topics I teach today. My job is to arm you with the knowledge you require in order to live successfully in this country on this Earth.

You may ask: What’s the point? Why does this matter? How will I ever need this knowledge in the future? Who cares?

I require no followers. I seek no apostles. I would never ask anyone to accept any of my ideas on faith. But, these are big questions that I think deserve a response. Before you read on, permit me to answer your question with one of my own: Do you value your life? If so, know this:

1.The skills necessary for survival have changed over the past 10,000 years: The fact that man must think to sustain his life has not. Other animals have things like wings to fly away from danger, sharp claws to defend themselves, hard shells, sharp quills, or brute strength. Humans have none of these things. Humans survive because we evolved an excellent brain. Our brain is our “basic tool of survival.” [AR] A teacher is someone who cares about the survival of mankind. A rational teacher is the only one who can make good on that promise.

2. An individual must think [that is, reason] in order to sustain his life. If he refuses to do so—if 10,000 years ago you ignored my lessons and ate poisonous berries—the individual dies. Your survival today does not require that you know how to hunt, fish, or gather berries, so I don’t teach these skills. I teach reading and writing and rational thinking.

3. To think rationally the first thing one must come to grips with is simple: A = A Or stated another way: Existence exists. And still another way: What is….IS! This is called REALITY. On Earth, the only reality we know of, the fundamental question for every man or woman is the question of their own existence: “To be or not to be?” To live or to die? So I ask again: Do you value your life?

4. There are millions of people out there—running countries, starting churches, leading armies, writing books, creating art, selling philosophy, gathering and making news—who do not accept the validity of my #3. They do not believe reality is an absolute. They do not believe in the value of your life. They demand your sacrifice. They believe that their wishes have the power of creation. They believe “if I think it, it is so.” They take short-cuts—gathering dreams, whims, feelings, and mystic revelations—and arrive at what they call “the truth.” Their truth has little to do with WHAT IS. Everything to do with what they want. They claim to love mankind: they hate the human mind and human science. They are the growers of your fears and the collectors of your sacrifices. In exchange for your actual life right here on Earth, they promise an imagined eternal life in some “better place.” I teach so that you may identify irrationalists of every stripe and know there is no better place for a human being than here on Earth. Earth is the planet that made our existence possible. We are the best product of this Earth.

5. Because humans love their children and want them to survive, we teach our young. Humans pass knowledge on from one generation to the next. Human knowledge of this world has been accumulating over the thousands of years of recorded history. Human knowledge about the world we live in is today better than it has ever been in the history of the world. Humans continue to add volumes to our knowledge stores, volumes that extend human life through medicine, volumes that make it possible for humans to see with our own eyes worlds billions of miles away, volumes that make it possible for us to live comfortable, pleasant lives. I teach children who will one day have children of their own.

6. Humans make errors. Honest humans correct them. The ancients made many errors. They had only their five senses in raw form with which to make observation, reason, and draw conclusions about the nature of their existence. With technology we have enhanced our five senses a billion fold. We don’t have to guess the definition of star. We know what it is, how far away it is, what it’s made of, where it came from, and how to get there. We don’t have to make up stories about how man came to exist on this planet. We can read his entire history. It’s written in every cell in your body on every strand of your DNA. A man of integrity loves the truth. I teach so that you may learn to recognize the truth when you see it.

7. Irrational philosophies are the greatest threat to freedom in this country; indeed, they are the cause for the lack of freedom elsewhere in the world. Altruistic moral codes are dominant in the history of the world and in the world today. They are immoral codes that teach self-sacrifice is the key to moral perfection. The purveyors of these vicious ideas survive [in many cases growing wealthy, strong, and politically powerful] by your sacrifices. The survival of our Republic requires that you understand the value of your life and the absolute necessity of your freedom. That the purpose of your life is to live it. That there is no higher purpose than the pursuit of your own happiness. That your brain belongs to you! A moral man is one who earns his success by the power of his creative mind and his productive spirit and who deals with other men by trade, by persuasion, but not by force. I try to demonstrate the power of these ideas because I want you to be happy, too.

I care.