A Reason for Views

Often it will be of help to us in life if we have a reason for views. I believe that often the greatest mistake parents have in relation to their children is expressing judgments on activities which have no thought out rational.

You may see for example a condemnation of video games with the rational of "you wasted all weekend playing those games." Of course the parent may "waste all weekend watching TV." It is often in the church you find many people expressing preferences for things as moral absolutes.

If they like golf than it is fine way to spend a weekend, but it is wasteful to spend the weekend surfing. It is often that there are constant streams of viewpoints which contradict each other on principle because they are preferences and not the absolutes they are claimed to be.

Of course it makes sense how many viewpoints there are floating around which have no clear rational base. We tend not to like to think. And to the degree we do not thing the more the rationality of our judgments comes into question.

It is difficult to understand how the person who spends the weekend surfing is in question and the golfer above reproach for his use of time. Maybe it is that the surfer is assumed to have questionable friends while the golfer's friends must be above reproach? Maybe an answer can be found but often many judgments simply lack any rational basis.

And that is often the issue in parents and people in the church expressing claims about reality. If the claims have no rational base thought out they are likely to be off. The reality is often there is far too many viewpoints. We would be better off with far fewer viewpoints expressed after more thought.