Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Fails Safe, Drains to the Bilge

The title to this post is a phrase we commonly used while I was in the submarine service.  The impetous behind the phrase was the design of systems; plumbing, hydraulic, or valves that opened to the sea; if they failed, would fail safe, meaning closed or shut down, and then would drain to the bilge to be pumped overboard.

I thought of this phrase when reading a post at Cap’n Arbyte’s titled “Inheriting Religion." Within the post, Kyle mentions,

"According to the CIA World Factbook, India is 81.3% Hindu, 12% Muslim, and 2.3% Christian. The United States is 84% Christian. How do these percentages persist for generations, unless by the hypothesis that most people simply inherit their religion instead of studying to find the “right” one? Why doesn’t the Indian population have an incidence of Christianity closer to the United States, and the United States an incidence of Hinduism closer to India?"

Kyle also mentions a recent discussion he was a part of that chewed on just this subject and he ends his post with the following comment.

"This isn’t meant as a criticism of “most people” — it’s completely natural for children to accept what their elders tell them as truth. It is important to learn from others instead of rediscovering everything on our own. (There simply isn’t enough time.) Without a predisposition toward philosophy, or a person or event to catalyze the study of such issues, believing what your parents taught you is the default condition. However, it would improve the public discourse if people who haven’t seriously studied the diversity of beliefs would be a little more humble in the face of the fact that no matter what religion you believe (if any at all), two thirds of the population of the planet disagrees with you. And they feel exactly the same level of stammering emotional indignation that you do."

I think the phrase at the top of this post fits here pretty well. 

Posted by John Venlet on 03/30 at 11:41 AM
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