I’ve started attending Toastmasters International along with some friends from work. Today was my second visit and (along with others) was called on for a 1-2 minute impromptu talk. Without knowing the topic ahead of time I wasn’t able to prepare. I won’t win any awards for my talk (or be invited again soon 
but the topic that I was given force me to put some ideas together I hadn’t thought about before.
The topic I was given was “The Bible or the iPad”. I had to think fast.
The idea for discussion came easily enough, I actually had it by the time I walked up to the podium. And I’m not afraid of standing in front of groups and don’t recall any shaking. I did notice that I spent an inordinate amount of time looking down instead of making eye contact but I’m usually pretty good at that so I think it’s because I was still formulating my thoughts or that I didn’t want to show my lack of confidence in my talk.
Here’s what I came up with. I won’t fumble here as much as I did in front of the group; here you just get what I was thinking. And I’ve added more here that I didn’t think about quickly enough when on my feet.
Growing up I was always taught that morality comes from religion. I was taught that without religion people would be naturally evil. “Religion is necessary to keep people from hurting each other”, I was told. “Atheists are evil people, believing in nothing”, followed when the idea was pursued.
But then I fell away from religion. Well, that’s how it’s viewed when you start there and leave. To me, though, I escaped from the mental bonds, the traps of anti-thinking within religion. I grew up mormon and was told very clearly (you can find this quote from the church leaders easily enough) that “when the prophet has spoken, the thinking is over”. I was taught specifically NOT to think.
So when I finally allowed myself to think for myself I thought critically of everything I’d been indoctrinated with. This included the teachings that atheists are so evil. What I found surprised me. It was the people who believe in religion that start and prolong the wars, who bilk trusting people out of their savings, who fill our prisons. It’s religious people (not all, of course) who teach their children that they are better than everyone else and that anyone not believing like they do are evil.
And then I took some religion courses and got detailed history. Wow. That will change a lot; things aren’t like I was taught in Sunday school.
I’m also a crappy liar. That factors in here.
So as I’m thinking about the topic of “Bible vs. iPad” I know I’m not going to be able to say anything nice about it. Geez, for all I know, all but 2 of my audience members are deep religionists. Not good. And the iPad is a great device but I’m not so thrilled with it that I own one, so I’m not sure where to go with that.
But here’s something I’ve been thinking about and read a little on that did have some relation to both of those: that morals are not provided to society by religion, but that religion copies the morals of society. Societal change is what drives accepted moral and ethical behavior, not religious writings or teachings.
And so by the time I got up to the podium that’s what I was going to try to express. Except that as soon as I started forming words I realized that I was only in the “here’s some information most people won’t like” category and that I didn’t have anything positive or meaningful or predictive. So I pushed a little bit further. And here’s where the new thoughts came in.
If society dictates morals and fundamental religious teaching requires isolation from information and directives to deter thinking, then widespread availability and use of communication devices such as iPads, iPhones and other rich mobile devices means that isolated data fails.
If everyone was able to see everything and was willing to compare, contrast and consider what they see, then I believe there would be a fundamental shift in the moral landscape of the entire world. I believe that an age of new enlightenment would begin.
Perhaps it already has.
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OK, I think I know why I blew it so badly at the Toastmasters talk. It’s because I *still* haven’t clearly formulated this!
I don’t have my workbooks yet but perhaps I’ll find that impromptu speaking has less to do with the mechanics of delivery and more to do with how fast one can form the structure of one’s thoughts. I think I’m pretty good at presentation when I know what I want to say. Perhaps mental essay formulation at speed is what I really need to work on.
Well, I do keep looking for things that are hard – found another one!
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the two co-workers I went with did quite well on their talks.
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