Brought Up To Believe

College campuses are like mecca for anyone with an opinion or a belief to extol. I guess they think that college kids are easily manipulated. Which is at least somewhat true. I mean, most college kids are trying to figure out where they are, questioning their beliefs, putting them to the test. It is part of the whole college thing. It always seems like the crazy people are the ones that are the most vigorous. Today we had what turned out to be just one family, parents and a daughter, out prophesying on the lawn near the largest building of classes.

I'm probably not the only one who is immediately turned off by people carrying signs like these people were. I don't know what it is about psychology, maybe it's the color scheme or something, someone should look into it. But whenever anyone has a crazy message to spout they always seem to have the same kinds of signs.

These were about repentance and how we are sinners in the hands of an angry God. After my philosophy class they were still there, and had been for a couple hours probably. So I stayed and watched.

The guy started spouting off about this that and the other, and attracted a group of kids watching, which was actually quite large. The overwhelming vibe from the kids was opposition to this guy. Some heckled and made jokes, and others argued with him and just tried to get their point through him by being respectful.

I wasn't focusing a whole lot for 2 reasons. 1 was that I'd already got the jist of it, and at least the general aim, and I was seriously thinking about it internally, and have been thinking about stuff of that nature for a while. The second was it was a lot of meaningless babble half the time where there was no real meaning.

He basically at one point lamented us all, especially the males at first, for going to college. Because we should be learning or already have learned a trade like carpentry. And we should be married and supporting a family. The girls on the other hand are 18, 19, 20 an apparently should be having babies already. He was concerned that they're going to end up Old Maids. "OR if some of you have already lost your maidenhood you'll just become old hags!"

And it was just an irritation and something to get a bit angry about at first, saying completely ridiculous things. But then he actually brought his daughter out, and said he was looking for a husband for her (apparently on a campus of heathens.) She's 19. And she looks pretty normal. And she started to talk and ask questions, and I don't know how she managed to do it. I would NEVER have gotten in front of that crowd and talked and especially supported that guy, who was already being completely sexist.

She seemed to sort of understand why we thought her dad was off, and she said he's a great dad and not just some sexist and so on. AND she was fairly intelligent. But I immediately felt sorry for her. She said first that family should come first for women. Okay, fine, you can think that. At one point she literally said "we're basically baby machines."

She's been raised in a home where people and the body and the mind are regarded as basically evil. The father said people are basically evil. This girl was somewhat normal and I pity her. I felt really sad for her, because you could tell she was a sweet girl, but she's been raised in a crazy environment.

The dad said he would not have married a woman he knew was barren. I don't remember everything he said, and a lot of it wasn't really intelligible anyway. He said that all we do is party and have sex and who knows what else. And then he went on to say, when he brought his daughter out, that he was looking for a husband for her. Apparently a college campus full of pagans and sinners is where he starts.

The guy started lamenting selfishness, which is apparently the cause of all our woes. He said that theft and drug use and etc. were selfish, which they're not. He said something to the effect of (I'm only rewording this to make it more clear) "There isn't one of you who hasn't criticized the selfish nature of other people, but you don't change your own ways." And I thought about speaking up and saying "I haven't." But what's the point? I could've argued the Virtue of Selfishness but he was a zealot and he wouldn't have understood what I meant by selfishness anyway.

He's just another one of those people that thinks we are supposed to suffer. We can't seek happiness in our lives, that's immoral. Oh they grant humanity a little bit of selfishness, "we have to live, right?" but beyond that they say that to pursue one's happiness is wrong.

I felt most badly for the girl. She seemed very nice, but her psychology is so wrong.

Which reminds me, he said some of us are getting degrees in "psychology, sociology, and philosophy" and there's no job market for that. Well, ignoring the fact that there IS a demand for at least psychology and sociology, God forbid we pursue a life of the mind. We should all be out having babies and supporting them! unwed 18 year olds! The hags!

Anyway, that girl has grown up in a home where she's taught she has no end in herself. She's merely a means to the ends of others. She's supposed to have and raise babies and that's it. She's been taught she's not supposed to pursue her own happiness, that she has no worth of her own.

So that's it. I don't really have an argument. I don't really know what I think, and this is just beginning to get my thoughts in order. I know that it was an irritation, I'm not sure why. I'm turned off by his rejection of the mind, by his rejection of reason. I don't think that his method will win any converts, and if it does, at what cost will it do so? I know I'm generally put off by it but I don't know why. I know that it's insulting to be told you're going to hell.

I think I have a lot of questions and things just to think about right now, about law, morality, religion, and philosophy. And I think this played on that in a negative way, that is; This came into my thoughts and I reacted negatively. That's what college is for. Maybe I'm coming into it at the right time, when I'm really ready to search for knowledge and find out more. Who knows? I've certainly changed my beliefs repeatedly in the last 4 years and I'm sure that will continue to develop. I didn't used to be a libertarian. And now I'm as irritated by the people who want to control our life styles as I am by the people who want to control our economy.

I think this guy is repressive, I think he's wrong, I think this is a problem that I have with a lot of people like him. But I'm still not certain what it is that is deep in me that reacts so negatively. Why do I not just walk by and dismiss it? OR if not that why don't I get actually angry like I do at other things. I just have this general negative reaction that I can't quite describe. But I'm still trying to figure out exactly why.


I was brought up to believe
The universe has a plan
We are only human
It’s not ours to understand

The universe has a plan
All is for the best
Some will be rewarded
And the devil will take the rest

All is for the best
Believe in what we’re told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we’re sold
 
Believe in what we’re told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death


In a world of cut and thrust
I was always taught to trust
In a world where all must fail
Heaven’s justice will prevail

The joy and pain that we receive
Each comes with its own cost
The price of what we’re winning
Is the same as what we’ve lost

All is for the best
Believe in what we’re told
Blind men in the market
Buying what we’re sold
 
Believe in what we’re told
Until our final breath
While our loving Watchmaker
Loves us all to death



Until our final breath
The joy and pain that we receive
Must be what we deserve
I was brought up to believe

BU2B