Science Fiction Tales

Unexpectedly, Science Fiction class has become this semester's treasure chest of interesting experiences and provocative conversations.  There is a European woman who sits to my left and is commendably outspoken in class, though she always says things that I vehemently disagree with.  Friday's class was no exception. The in-class conversation had been monotonous and predictable. I had failed to keep up an interest until the last two minutes, when someone brought up God.  I don't remember specifically what God was in reference to, but we inevitably began discussing religion, and religion led to talk of Christianity.  The European woman made the assertion that people with faith are immature because they follow God.  When children are children, she said, they see their parents as all knowing and all powerful. However, when those children grow up, they recognize that their parents are flawed. Instead of maturing and accepting that everything is imperfect, these grown-up children turn to a perfect loving God and thus are delusional and stagnating in immaturity.  She said that because 'true believers' admit that they need something in their lives, they are not fully developed.  By the time she finished explaining her idea, class was over, so the professor and the woman and myself headed out into the hallway and discussed the matter for 20 more minutes.

She has a very distinctive look. Much more fun to draw than Professor X.

Professor X debated her on her definition of a true believer.  He said that since everyone is different she couldn't create a blanket definition of a true believer.  He debated her on her assertion that true believers need God or religion to complete their lives, telling a story about a friend of his who feels complete all by himself, but is religious because he wants to be.  I didn't get too involved in the conversation but I did disagreed with her negative view of 'neediness'.  Just because religious people need God does not make them immature or inferior.  In fact, I believe that the difficulty of closing one's mind to the world and being able to admit a great need is something that is elevating and liberating, not naive or restrictive.  I also believe that one can only recognize this need through personal revelation from God, so it was pretty hard to argue with her.  In the end we all disagreed. But it was a great learning experience.

Really, whenever I get into these conversations, I always feel extremely incapable of defending my beliefs, even though I often know why the opposing party's views are wrong.  I'm hoping that quietly listening to these conversations for a while will allow me to sharpen my own arguments and prevent me from making bad arguments based on emotion.

Another thing: What's wrong with being one-sided? I keep hearing that I need to keep an open-mind, but when you know what's right, why would you be open to anything else? I don't mean that people should be inflexible or closed to good arguments, but I think having an open mind to everything at all times prevents one from really understanding what they believe.  Something to think about.