Contend, by Philip Revell: Enlighten Your Mind

You know how politicians often refer character traits or human reason to get a vote? Let me give an example: a candidate for office might say, “If you care about the poor, you should vote for me” or “If you value Democracy, I’m the candidate for you.” Obviously, this entails if someone doesn’t vote for that candidate, they don’t care about the poor, or are Communists. This trickery, however, is not limited merely to politics. It is pervasive in many areas of society.

This week, I experienced one of these loaded statements in a bookstore. This past week, I took a trip to Borders to kill some time before meeting family for some frozen custard. As I was glancing through the isles, I noticed a shelf titled “Enlighten Your Mind”, or something to that effect. The books on the shelf were intended to give a person greater understanding, and make a person more reasonable.

Interestingly enough, one of the books on the shelf was Why Evolution is True and another was Misquoting Jesus: Revealing the Inner Contradictions in the Bible. So here’s the problem–as culture has widely received, intellectualism becomes synonymous with Naturalism and Atheism. Here’s another problem to go along with that–most people in America claim some sort of religious affiliation; however, they recognize that the really smart people don’t hold to any religious faith. The playing field has become very one-sided in popular culture.

More to come on this….