Truth unfolds in time through a communal process

I am brand new at blogging.  I often find that putting words down in writing helps me clarify my thought processes, but I am a raw beginner. Maybe there is someone out there that will be interested in what I have to say now or at some future point.  I understand that I might be mistaken in some points along the way, or that someone else might disagree with what I have to say even when I don't think I am mistaken.  I hope that this blog can become a place for people with diverse viewpoints to communicate on equal footing in a reasonable way.  

In the words of Carroll Quigley, one of my favorite historians, the essence of Western Civilization (mentioned in my previous blog post) can be summed up in the phrase "Truth unfolds in time through a communal process."  That is also what I hope this blog can become - a place for me and others to search for truth and learn from differing perspectives, though united by a faith in Christ.  Where I am wrong in my assumptions, I hope I can be corrected.  I hope I can admit where I am wrong and come to a more solid foundation of truth through interaction with others. I hope I can hear diverse perspectives in comments and posts from others along the way.  I hope to help connect Christian thinkers from different backgrounds to find common ground while at the same time understanding our differences in good faith and individually cherishing the points where our views diverge.  And over time, through the communal interaction of our different ideas, I hope greater truth can be unfolded.

Of my blogging inspirations, Arnold Kling (who is Jewish) puts perhaps the most effort into trying to promote good faith reasoned intellectual engagement.  His askblog has the tagline "taking the most charitable view of those who disagree."  He wrote a wonderful little book about trying to understand the other side, called "The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Divide." He postulates that progressives see the world primarily through the oppressor-oppressed axis; conservatives use the civilization-barbarism axis; and libertarians principally see the world through the freedom-coercion axis. By understanding the lenses others use to view the world, Kling says we can better engage each other in good faith discussions rather than talking past each other. Arnold Kling's most recent project is to discourage tribalism and encourage good faith intellectual engagement through what he calls Fantasy Intellectual Teams (a la fantasy baseball), where players pick a slate of public intellectuals who are then scored based on the following criteria:

• Playing devil's advocate with your own views
• Thinking in bets
• Admitting caveats
• Participating in formal debates
• Kicking off a discussion
• Open to changing mind
• Evaluates research
• Steelman opposing viewpoint

I think the fantasy approach is slightly comical but I hope it brings attention to the need for better engagement.

Another good example is Tyler Cowen, a colleague of Kling in the George Mason economics department, and blogger at Marginal Revolution.  Cowen considers himself agnostic, but advocates for religion in a "Straussian" way.  This post illustrates some of Cowen's principles of intellectual engagement, including this gem:

"When describing a person/group/idea that you dislike, if you feel the need to attack them, it is akin to pushing a “button” that makes you temporarily dumber. You don’t want to be pushing the button yourself or in fact, spend time around/reading others who do."

Other bloggers that I like to read because they tend to argue from a reasonable neutral basis include Ann Althouse (no religion?) and Scott Alexander (who is Jewish).  [No link provided for these two, as the language or themes are sometimes NSFW.  You can easily look these blogs up.]  Scott Alexander is a thought leader among the online Rationalist community.  He is a great example of someone who does tremendous amounts of research on a topic and dispassionately moves where the data indicates, though his value system differs significantly from mine in some ways.  I feel a lot of sympathy for Scott Alexander and the Rationalist movement, and I will probably post more on it in the future.

And last but not least deserving of mention is my father Jeff Lindsay and his blog Mormanity.  I consider him to be on the cutting edge of apologetics regarding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints specifically.  His example has shown me that even in the realm of religion one can learn and come closer to the truth by listening to and engaging with those who disagree.  True religion has to be rational and reasonable, and (at least when all is known and all mistaken assumptions are shed) religious truths will be supported by truths generated from all other modes of learning.