Let's be more skeptical

Pre-reading meditation: Before you continue reading, ask yourself these: 1. Am I a sensitive little prick? 2. Am I an overly religious person who -- despite how logical a religious argument is -- will snap at it? 3. Do I hate thinking?

If you answer any of the above question with a "yes," please stop reading and go watch Spongebob or do something else. Just, please. Stop reading.

Have you brushed your teeth today?

If you're like tons of other people, chances are you would smear your toothpaste all the way along your toothbrush, just like the above image.

Now I don't know about you, but I smeared toothpaste all the way along my toothbrush because the guy in the TV commercials did so. Or probably because my parents taught me how to brush my teeth and I kinda went along with it. Whatever.

Turns out, that we don't actually need to put THAT much toothpaste to brush our teeth. Apparently, the amount of toothpaste we need to use daily doesn't exceed the size of a pea. Which is like a measly 1/3 of the amount of toothpaste we use daily.

Mhm. That's the amount of fluoride we actually need daily.

The guy in the TV commercials put that much toothpaste because: 1. it looks good on TV, and 2. it makes you buy more toothpaste, which nets the company more profit, duh. I'm not saying that the way most people brush their teeth is wrong, it's just sub-optimal.

I'm writing this because I had just attended a motivational seminar and by God, I was more scared than I was motivated. I heard the speaker said one little obnoxious phrase and IMMEDIATELY afterwards my eardrums were pierced by the chanting of hundreds of people repeating what the speaker had just said. It was eerily scary how easy it was to manipulate Indonesians (or brainwash people in general).

When did we start believing everything? When did we stop asking questions? When did we stop being skeptical? Or maybe we didn't fully stop being skeptical, we simply stopped being skeptical at some things. As George Carlin put it, "Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they will have to touch it to be sure.”

We're skeptical all right, but we're skeptical at the wrong things. We accept things that we cannot immediately prove. We shut our eyes close to the things that we do not understand and we stop asking questions. In this instant generation, we demand everything to be instantaneous. Instant noodle, instant rice, and instant pudding. Not only food, we also demand instant answers. But really, there is no such thing as "instant." Even instant noodle takes three minutes to cook and instant pudding takes 10. When we do not get instant gratification as per our questions, we lose interest and immediately stop asking questions.

I know it's cringe-inducing, but since I'm already talking about skepticism, I might as well talk a little bit about religion. Despite what I had written above, I am a christian (by that I mean I believe that there once lived a guy who died for my sins). And I know, unless some freaky genius invents Doraemon or time machine, I would have no way to prove that a bearded guy actually died for my sins, and that's where faith comes in. I get it and that's fine.

But there are things that we should be more skeptical about. (I know I'd get some angry feedback simply by writing about this. Ask me if I give a damn). For example, let's go and read Malachi 3:10-11.

10 "Bring one-tenth of your income into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house. Test me in this way," says the LORD of Armies. "See if I won't open the windows of heaven for you and flood you with blessings. 11 Then, for your sake, I will stop insects from eating [your crops]. They will not destroy the produce of your land. The vines in your fields will not lose their unripened grapes," says the LORD of Armies. 

If you have been a christian for quite some time, I'm sure you're fully aware about tithing. Direct your attention to verse 11. I don't know about you, but to me, it sounds awfully close to extortion. Anyway, for Christians, it has become so natural (as natural as smearing toothpaste all the way along our toothbrush?) to freely give 10% of our income. And that's fine, it's your money and I couldn't care less about the way you spend it. But there are kids out there that give 10% of their income pocket money that they receive from their parents to the church. I mean, IT'S NOT EVEN YOUR INCOME, WHY ARE YOU TITHING IT. And again, please be aware that I don't think children tithing is wrong or bad or negative in any way (I have to bold this because apparently some people, as indicated by the below comment, are butt-hurt by this post). I just think that there are so many children tithing without knowing what tithing actually means (they just do it because their parents do it or whatever). And them tithing without knowing what it actually means is bad.

I'm not asking that we all should immediately be more skeptical. All I'm asking is the next time you brush your teeth, remind yourself this: "Something doesn't immediately become true simply because you have believed in it for forever."

If my writing somewhat offended you (despite the warning I had put at the start of this post), please know that I sincerely apologize and I meekly ask you to go fuck yourself.