In my bible study class tonight my minister called me a "post modernist" thinker, after I told him that I though a person's interpretation of the bible can change depending on where they are in their life. I had to look up a definition of post modernist thinking on Google, since I hadn't heard that phrase in a long time and didn't quite remember what it meant.

When I looked up definitions for post-modernism, I realized he was right about me. I do believe that beliefs needs to be understood in context. You have to know the history of the belief, because we don't experience life in a vacuum. It's six degrees of Star Wars. Remember when Obiwan Kanobi tells Luke that your understanding depends on your point of view, so he could say from a certain point of view that Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker. It all comes back to Star Wars.

But I think I've been a situationalist since I was a kid. I remember sometime in grade school, I'm thinking 4th grade but I'm not sure, a teacher asking the glass what we would do if someone were to break into our house, and there was a gun near by. Would we shoot the person in self defense and be justified? Would we not shoot the person because killing is wrong? Was there such a thing as absolute law. She then went around and asked everyone in class what they would do and why. This is the kind of exercises you get in class when you're taught by ex-hippie liberals.

I don't remember what anyone else said, but I do remember very distinctly what I said. I told her that there was no such thing as absolutely right or bad, that it all depended on the situation, that there was no such thing as black and white and life was all different shades of gray. I remember my teaching looking at me, and telling me that I was a situationalist.

How I became a situationalist is a mystery to me. When I look over at my education, I was definitely taught from a very young age to always question authority, to never take anything at face value, to always study and learn before making any kind of judgement. That it was my responsibility as an educated person, to use my mind and my intellect to navigate my way through life. Strange huh? Were other people taught this? That education was valuable, that learning was life long process and that one should never stop learning. Blame my idealist, ex-hippie teachers for this.

What I learned in college only reinforced the kind of education I received in school, and I went to public school all my life. College taught me 1) always use primary source documents; 2) question all secondary documents because it's interpretative - like the media; 3) if possible read primary source documents in the original language, and if you can't be very sure you understand the motivation and philosophy behind the translation; 4) never believe anything you read or hear until you can research the facts for yourself; 5) everyone has an agenda in any form of communication - find out what the agenda is; 6) when studying any issue, you need to read all the literature on the issue, so you know what other people have said and where you fit in; 7) if you don't understand history, you're bound to repeat it, everything happens in context; 8) it is your civic responsibility to study the issues that affect your life and your community; 9) life is a participatory act, you have to participate, you have to vote, you have to contribute to the conversation, otherwise you're not living a life and you might as well be dead; 10) ideology without humanity and practicality is a bad idea.

I'm sure there were more, but that's all I can't think of right now. I've never really thought about all the things I learned in college like this before. I'm like wow! Very, very interesting!