A Humanist Perspective On Reading
Being on a journey to find truth is a lifelong thing. It never stops, for the few people who are earnestly committed to seeking the truth meaningfully and without bias. And for me, a big part of that lifelong journey has been reading. Reading is what’s most shaped my life, most transformed me, and most allowed me to change and sometimes even improve the lives of others. So here’s an affirmation message about reading stuff.
I’m here as a friendly neighbor skeptic and humanist to remind you that you should read stuff. Reading stuff is cool, and also really important. And there’s lots of stuff you should read with an open mind. But the thing is, a lot of people don’t like reading stuff with an open mind. A lot of people encourage you to read stuff a certain way, and that’s… it’s not good.
As a skeptic and humanist I sometimes get told that I read stuff looking for mistakes. I’m sure some people do that, but I don’t. I read stuff and when I read stuff that purports to be non-fiction, that is supposedly about truth, science, philosophy, and history, I see how my own knowledge lines up to what the book says. When I disagree with the book I do research and I find that I was correct, I was incorrect, or more often than either of those two outcomes, I find that the truth is unknown or even in the middle where both I and the thing I disagree with have points in our favor. But that’s the thing about reading with an open mind and a heart aimed at the truth… Sometimes you’re right, sometimes you’re wrong, and you’re almost certainly never right 100% of the time, and the thing you’re reading is almost certainly never right 100% of the time either. And reading with an open mind helps you learn and drives you closer to actual truths about the world we're in and the universe we live in! How cool is that?
People find it easy to naysay people when they view them as being overly critical. It’s easy to tell someone to stop when they see mistakes and contradictions everywhere. It’s fun to tell overly negative people to stop being so negative. But an equally dangerous problem is when people tell you that a book is 100% right, 100% of the time.
Anyone who reads a book and then tells you to read it with the understanding that it is definitionally right, and just, and true, is not your friend. They are a friend of the book, not of yours.
If someone tells you that a book can only be understood if you view it as a 100% trustworthy source, that it is definitionally accurate and can never be contradicted, and before you even read it that to get the most out of it you have to agree with it, they are not interested in your earnest insights, or in learning WITH you. What they want is to sell you something.
They may not even realize it, in fact, if you take them on good faith, they probably don’t consciously realize what they are doing.
Nonetheless, they are not your friend. Or at least, they care more about the book then about you, and that sucks. You matter more than a book. Any book. Even, and especially, books that supposedly contain spiritual and holy truths. Books are replaceable, and you aren’t. Keep that in mind the next time people try to fight you, because you don’t like their books.