The Belief Tank

This morning's "Doonesbury" cartoon took off on the plans for the proposed Bush Presidential Library in the forum of a daily White House press briefing. At one point, the off-panel Press Secretary says that the Library won't be "just a library," but that it will also include "a belief tank, to groom future legacy tenders." Asked what a "belief tank" is, the Press Secretary replies, "It's like a think tank, only without the doubt."

One of the recurring themes of this blog, as you know if you are a regular reader, is the danger of blind faith - religious or political. A little skepticism is a good thing, and it's always good to question those who are absolutely convinced of their righteousness...because you usually discover that they don't have any basis for this belief other than I know I'm right and you're wrong. Of course, you can take skepticism too far also, at which point it turns into cynicism - which is little more than belief in nothing.

There's an interesting series on National Public Radio called, "This I Believe," in which both famous and average people have about three minutes to talk about the beliefs that help shape their lives. Interestingly, I have yet to hear one talk about political or religious beliefs; most are deeply thoughtful pieces that look at friendship, outrage, and simple everyday concepts and activities that help ground us in our lives. I've often wondered how I would summarize all the random thoughts bumping around my head in intellectual Brownian Motion if I had to do it in the 300 or so words of a "This I Believe" essay. Perhaps I'll take a stab at it in a future blog entry.

But for now, let's return to the "Belief Tank" with which we started this discussion. Deeply held beliefs can provide a moral compass to guide our lives. But they can also be an intellectual crutch that allows one to comfortably ignore complex and often unpleasant reality. A cartoon hanging on my refrigerator door shows a man standing in front of two adjacent doors: one to the left labeled "Think Tank," and the other on the right labeled "Shout-Louder-Than-the-People-Who-Disagree-With-You Tank." I think that if you listen long enough to Fox News, any of the political punditry shows on network TV, or hysterical ranters like Glenn Beck and Nancy Grace on CNN, you will recognize that they reside mainly behind the right-hand door where, as one reviewer has noted, "(there is an) enormous ratio of words to substance."

The message today is simple: do your own thinking. Don't live in a comfortable "Belief Tank" in which you think you know all the answers. Listen to all sides, weigh the strength of their their evidence - not just the volume of their arguments - and make your own decisions.

That's the essence of democracy.

Have a good weekend. More thoughts later.

Bilbo