Double Standard

This year in my basic statistics classes, after I give the announcements I begin class by giving them two pieces of information.

• Something interesting about myself.
• The number of the day.

The purpose of the first is so that the barrier between professor and student can be breached. Getting to know me as someone that has a life outside of work and does things that are fun and interesting can help build a connection with students that I never had.  Today, I went to the skeletons in the closet, and informed them of something I'm not proud of for the purpose of showing them I'm human and I can overcome difficult times. 

Today's "Did You Know" segment of the two times in my life, one at age 18 and one at age 23, when I spent a night behind bars.  I didn't go into specifics, but I could tell they did find this information very intriguing. 

The number of the day was 50, which is a percentage of Americans who answer NO when asked, "When people claim to be Muslim and commit acts of violence in the name of Islam, do you really believe they are Muslim, or not?"  This came from the Public Religion Research Institute and was included in their article, "Americans' Double Standard on Religious Violence." 

The double standard becomes apparent when you ask Americans the other question, switching Muslim/Islam with Christian/Christianity.  Then, 75% answer NO.  This is very interesting.  

When I present such data I need to be careful.  Instead of drawing any kind of conclusion, I remarked on how it made me think of how I would answer the question (using Christian/Christianity or Muslim/Islam) without having read about the study previously.  Would I answer yes to one and no to the other and have a double standard? Or would I be consistent in my answer and say either yes to both or no to both?  

Indeed, this is a difficult question to answer.  I can find in both the Bible and Quran passages that would condone and encourage acts of violence, so I could see somebody using those verses and thinking they are acting as a true Christian or Muslim.

However, I feel all of these verses are antiquated and do not deserve merit. The modern day and reasonable Christians and Muslims understand this, so to act out in violence in the name of either is an act of ignorance of what being a modern day and reasonable Christian and Muslim means.

It is complicated, but it deserves thought.

Consistent and Complete

Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem proved that the title of this post is impossible for any set of axioms that you adopt.

On one of my many walks between home and office, I thought about the significance of this and the human psyche.  I place myself, and the axioms and tenets that I adopt, into an incomplete category.  This is where I have found the most comfort. I am more comfortable in a framework that is consistent in my day-to-day learning and understanding of the world. Incompleteness isn't comfortable by any means, but I've accepted the fact that there are things that are true within my system that cannot be proven within that system.  This means, confusingly, that I cannot accept some "truths" as true, since I do not have the capability of knowing them to be "true."

Then I began to think of those who take more comfort and embrace a complete system of axioms and tenets. Within their system, these people have the ability to accept "truths" that I cannot accept, because they can be proven and are acceptable within their system.  However, this complete system of theirs is inconsistent, and hence has contradictions by Gödel's theorem.

Nobody likes inconsistencies, either.  So, those that take more comfort in a complete system either go the Walt Whitman route: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes," or they take the following stance.

Life is full of complete and consistent people. Whichever one you are, we need to remind ourselves that the other person could be inconsistent or incomplete, and that there's no changing that.

There is at least one important thing I've learned as a consistent person who accepts his incompleteness, and that is there are a lot of complete people out there that do not want to hear about nor accept how inconsistent they are.

Which are you?

I'm reading Gödel, Escher, Back: An Eternal Golden Braid again this summer because I love this book, and it fosters thought experiments like these.