Wade Patterson is a senior majoring in communication. He can be contacted at [email protected].Mankind has constantly questioned everything throughout time. Aristotle questioned the nature of reality. Galileo questioned the order of the universe. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. questioned the standards held by society.
These men and many others asked questions that led them to more truth. They asked questions in order to find an answer.
Now, you might say to yourself (in your mind, of course, because people stare at you when you talk to yourself out loud) that the only reason you ask questions is in order to find answers.
I only wish that this article came in stereo so that you could hear the sad “tsk” sound I am making because of your naiveté. Asking questions for the sake of an answer is old-fashioned.
Today, a person asks a question for the sheer impact the question will have. He actually asks the question so that the question develops into entity that no one can defeat. If someone can come up with a question like this, then that person has truly achieved something.
A common example: If a person goes back in time and kills his grandfather, how can he go back in time and kill his grandfather? This question poses quite a challenge. Who would be able to answer it?
Even if someone did provide an answer to this question, would you be satisfied with the answer? Why did you ask the question in the first place?
When I ask this question, I really do want an answer. What is your motive?
I suppose that all these questions really center on beliefs. What do you believe is truth? Do you believe truth is something we can actually know?
Well, let me stop this philosophical train before it gets off track. I don’t want you to get distracted by the word belief and truth, because people confuse the definitions of these words sometimes, so let’s keep it simple.
When you ask a question about something really important, do you want to create an answer-gobbling monster, or do you really want to know the answer itself?
Well, the nature of the question depends on whether you would accept the answer or not.
If you asked me what my favorite ice cream was, and I told you that it was Rocky Road (the greatest cream concoction to ever be put in frozen form), would it make sense for you to say that answer did not satisfy you.
We act as if asking a good question means we should get an answer that jumps out, does a few songs with dancing, then washes and details our car before satisfying our curiosity. Why can’t we accept answers for what they are?
I don’t think being skeptical about certain things is a bad thing, but we just might have taken the analysis of the answer overboard.
I encourage you to question things, but do it with the goal of finding an answer. Don’t spend a lifetime running in circles only to end up an old, hobbled skeptic, all questions and no answers.