Taking someone elses word for it?

[Anonymous]

I think there’s a huge difference between taking “someone” else’s word for it and taking “everyone” else’s word for it.

If literally nobody else admitted to believing in God, that might give me pause to at least use a different word!

In the case of the experiences you mentioned, BDR, I think there is a lot of leeway for all of them except cigarettes. It’s hard to find otherwise sane and impartial advocates of cigarettes.

[Anonymous]

Excellent post! This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

I’ve always been one to explore and make my own mistakes, not taking someone else’s word on something.

When I was two, I liked to touch everything, and one day, my mom saw me touching the burner of the kitchen stove. It wasn’t on. She told me not to touch it. I immediately touched it again. She explained that it got very hot sometimes and could hurt me. I touched it again to prove that I wouldn’t be hurt. I began touching the burner every time my mom was in the same room (out of defiance, I guess), and she would repeatedly tell me not to touch it. After a couple days of this, she turned the burner on at the lowest setting and told me not to touch it. Of course, I touched it. I never did that again. 😯

This trait has stuck with me all my life. There are a few exceptions though. When I see someone else experiencing pain or distress, I learn from observation. I’ve witnessed many friends grieving for departed loved ones, and I know that is not a feeling I ever want to experience so deeply. I see how much it hurts them and I don’t ever want to have to hurt like that. Life happens though, whether we want it to or not.

My boyfriend and I were in a car crash three weeks ago. Last summer in Driver Ed, we were taught by a trauma nurse who had seen some pretty badly mangled crash victims and had to tell many parents that they would never see their children on this earth again. It was obvious to me what an impression these experiences had made on her, and I believed her when she said a car crash was an experience to avoid at all costs. When I left my house three weeks ago, I didn’t intend to have that experience, and would have happily spent my life inside the crash-less box had the fellow not ran a red light. The moment after impact, I looked over at my boyfriend who had been knocked unconscious and thought he was dead. A second later he was awake, screaming in pain, and trying to crawl through the window. That split second was the most horrible moment of my life, and I never want to relive it. Grief was way too close for comfort.

But here’s the thing. As awful as that experience was, I wouldn’t trade the memory of it for anything. If the thought police could come and erase it, I wouldn’t want them to. We both learned a lot about each other and grew a great deal closer from the experience. If somebody had told me before the accident what I would gain from it, I still wouldn’t have wanted to go through with it. But now that I’ve experienced it, I feel as if I’ve earned the memory and lessons from it.

I’m lazy. I’d rather take somebody’s word for it that losing my family will hurt than actually experience it. Unfortunately, it will happen someday. But in cases like the church’s endless rules and various doctrines, I’d rather find out for myself what works/what is true for me. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.

Unfortunately, taking someone’s word for it is optional only in the latter case.

[Anonymous]

We take other people’s words for most things.

What about the Earth being round for example? Most of us only believe that because we’re told so. Yet it looks very flat, and there’s little or nothing to say that it isn’t to the naked eye.

Same with evolution – evolutionists may slam creationists, but the truth is that most people who believe in evolution do so, not because of any tests etc which they’ve done, but because experts tell them so.

[Author]

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