But It was this Emerson quote and David’s critique that really caught my eye.

“Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. — `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Remembering this quote has protected me from so many instances of shame and self-doubt for things I’ve said and stances I’ve taken. One truth I keep encountering again and again is that one cannot stay the same person throughout life. As we experience more and more, our perspectives change and consequently so do our beliefs. Change is the unchangable state of the universe, so how could one’s beliefs stay the same throughout life?

Yet society seems to value a certain consistency of belief. We are expected not just to share our opinions, but to be them, to swear to them as a lifelong conviction. People proudly declare, “I am a conservative. I am a Christian. I am a Democrat.” If you equate your beliefs with yourself in this way, there is no room to ever genuinely reconsider, not without an insurmountable bias towards the beliefs you’ve already embodied. You’ll always feel a compulsion to protect those beliefs, as viscerally as if it’s your internal organs that are threatened, because you consider them to be just as much a part of you.

When someone is that afraid of being contradicted, they are no longer concerned with the truth, only with protecting their priceless investment in what they have said. To honor a statement you made yesterday as a binding declaration of who you are is a tragic, yet extremely common mistake. This is the fundamental error that plagues humanity: to mistake one’s ego for oneself. Enforcing an impossible, lifelong consistency in what you say and believe can only lead to dishonesty and despair.

Someone whose opinions change freely with experience is clearly someone who is not guided by dogma or the expectations of others, but instead by a clear internal compass of inquiry and honesty. To such a “pure and wise spirit,” it is far more important to seek the truth than to be regarded as having had it all along. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” said Emerson.

Whenever I feel a pang of regret for something I’ve said, I remember that all I did was speak what I thought at the time in hard words, even if today I speak different ones. It’s only human.

Via-Raptitude.com

If more people, god fearing and atheist, acted like this we’d be doin’ pretty good.

Thoughts?

We are able to be the first to report that the practice of “bed jumping” has been banned by most major US hotel chains today.

“Bed jumping” is a new internet sensation where people take photos of each other in funny mid-air poses while jumping up and down on hotel beds. The practice has lead the members of US Hospitality Trade Association to agree on an association wide ban.

A spokeswoman for the organization gave us this statement:

The new internet sensation of bed jumping has cost the hospitality industry almost $52,000,000.00 in the last quarter alone. Most customers are not aware of the high cost of commercial mattresses. While manufactures are prepared for children to “bed jump,” the mattresses are not designed for jumpers over ~100lbs. Preliminary tests show that a mattress needs to be replaced after only 10-15 adult jumpers.

In the current economic market, it is not feasible for our members to absorb this high cost. The ban is meant to prevent hotels from adding a “jumping charge” to every room they book, which would increase the rate an average of $4 for every night.

Apparently it’s a big problem! I asked her what would happen to someone caught bed jumping and she said that the hotel would most likely not call the police, unless the staff observed actual damage to the mattress, though they would ask you to leave!

They’re idea is:

Atheists and other secularists who have a naturalistic worldview (a philosophy of life that does not involve a belief in God, higher powers, or anything supernatural) have been understudied by the social sciences.

The Center for Atheist Research was founded to address this omission, and seeks to give individuals across the religious/spiritual/secular spectrum the chance to contribute their perspective on topics within the psychology and sociology of atheism and secularity by participating in Internet-accessible academic research.

Sounds like a good idea to me! I took their atheists survey and I suggest you do the same.

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