Ask a Fisher, Soak Your Brain

When theists such as myself engage in conversation with sectarian atheists, we learn nothing new about ourselves or the world around us. We are introduced to no new ideas or new perspectives, only to contradiction.

But conversation with a true freethinker is always challenging and rewarding. It requires me to interact with a different perspective, with someone whose thinking is not proscribed by all of the same premises and presuppositions I bring to the table. That's invaluable, not just for insight into their perspective(s), but into my own. If you want to know what water is like, don't ask a fish.

In other words, we need to listen to each other. Each. Other. None of us is smart enough, big enough or old enough to have seen and thought of everything, to have settled or dismissed everything. And none of us is so fully self-aware that we can't benefit from listening to someone who's not swimming in the same water we spend our lives in.

This same don't-ask-a-fish principle is part of why we Christians emphasize the importance of cross-cultural fellowship and ministry. Culture, like religious faith, provides a host of premises and presuppositions, many of which might be held unaware or unexamined. Sorting the presuppositions of culture from the tenets of faith can be a tricky thing. Tricky but important, because we don't want to elevate something we've simply absorbed as a cultural more to the level of religious or ethical dogma.

[via slacktivist, emphasis mine]