RE: Q&A2

There is a part of me that wants to give concrete, specific examples to answer this Q & A. I feel like so many of my opinions, feelings, values and beliefs have been challenged and subsequently changed since high school. I think that questioning what you believe is healthy. But to give you examples is to give you the what without the how and I don't know if I can do that.

I just don’t know how to go about starting to answer how my beliefs have changed. Most of my beliefs are shaped by the experiences I have with people. I can tell you that I believe that practicing homosexuality is right/wrong/not even the question to be asking but the reason I have that belief is because of the people I’ve met and the experiences they have related to me. I have a hard time relating to you these experiences in an articulate manner unless you've shared the same experience. Or I could try telling you my experiences and you could tell me your experience and maybe I'll change my beliefs based on your story and the relationship you have with me. I'm not saying my beliefs are all based on feelings. I think lots about why I believe what I believe. But can you separate thinking with your head (objectivity) and thinking with your heart (subjectivity)? I don't think you can. And maybe that’s just where I’ve been challenged the most in University: rationality is not objective. All we believe is based on our biases, our experiences, and our prejudices. I'd even argue that everything we know is based on some belief.

Let me try to give you some references to my thoughts. Out of all my classes, I’ve been most challenged about my beliefs through my English classes. Literary theorist Gadamer argues against being able to objectively criticize art: “Is it not true that when a work of art has seized us it no longer leaves us the freedom to push it away from us once again and to accept or reject it on our own terms?”

I’ve also been reading Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? written by Jamie Smith who argues that postmodern philosophy does not necessarily always disagree with Christian belief. (As a forewarning, it takes a lot of effort for me to read what he’s trying to say much less paraphrase his beliefs logically). Smith argues that Christianity agrees with Lyotard who argues that truth is a matter of interpretation. Does this mean truth is completely relative? No. There can still be a right interpretation and a wrong interpretation but it’s still an interpretation. In some cases, multiple interpretations are simply offering differing perspectives of the same reality and therefore are all valid. Don’t believe me? If you believe in the Resurrection of Christ, just look at the differing Gospel accounts of it.

I want to get more concrete than this. I don't want to just tell you how my beliefs about truth has changed. I want to tell you about what has changed in what I believe to be true. But I can't. Maybe it’s because if I start telling you about my experiences then it’s personal. It’s easier for me to get emotional or frustrated if you don’t agree because I can’t hear your tone of voice or look you in the eye. It's also easier for you to get emotional or frustrated if you can't hear my tone of voice or look me in the eye.

But back to the experiences point. Getting out of high school is challenging because you meet more people with a lot more ideas. Last year I remember recalling a couple of conversations I had with people during that day and thinking to myself that two years ago I would have never pictured myself helping someone through that. And maybe some of us were struggling with the same things (actually, I know some of us were) and we were just less honest about it then.

That being said, University has its own bubble. Just like our high school had a mould of what a person should believe/feel/think so does University. It might vary more significantly from faculty to faculty, professor to professor, textbook to textbook but each has its own assumptions. I believe it’s important that we evaluate what those assumptions are and the implications of those assumptions as well as how they fit with what we already believe. Maybe that means changing what we believe and maybe that means rejecting what people tell us and maybe we won't know what we believe about that issue until 5, 10, 15 years from now and we've experienced something new.

Most challenges to my beliefs don't come in the classroom but in my interactions with people (not all of who are in University). I went home this past weekend to not do any school and take a break. I come back to school and realize that this past weekend I thought a lot more about life's important issues then I did last week in working non-stop in writing essays for school. We can discuss in my Social Work classes what we believe about poverty but it's only when I meet someone impoverished that I really feel I am beginning to understand the issue at hand. And that's only just one person.