It’s been a little while since I updated a post here on my blog, and while I’ve been deficient here, my webpage has been updated with my activities. I recently took a trip to Hawaii. Although I had been there with the Navy, it was nice to see it from the eyes of a tourist. My photos are at juddspitzer.com

So hurricane season seems to be winding down, and life is getting into the pre-holiday mindset. An abundance of Halloween candy riddles the office like gremlins saturated with water. Yet political debate and banter doesn’t rest for a moment.

Plamegate, Meirs Nomination, Indictments, FEMA, the Global War on Terrorism, and on and on…

I could sit here and write about each of these things, but there are plenty of places for good coverage of it else where.

I think that it is much better to address the notion that people will hold on to a particular belief no matter what. You can tell someone based on facts presented that something is one way, but to convince someone to change their belief means that they have to be open minded. That doesn’t mean that someone should automatically be convinced to believe anything… but it does mean that if you are presented with the facts, you will at least give those facts the benefit of review.

Take the case of creationism now morphed into intelligent design… The people behind these ideas want their philosophy to be taught as science. See http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html for some good debate with both pros and cons. There are people who fear that the Creator is being erased by science that they will push a non-scientific view of the universe because it is contrary to their religious beliefs, and of course everyone should be forced to acknowledge that belief among the “scientific” possibilities.

Intelligent Design says, you must believe in a creator.

It is that single ideology that many people can have issue with, because people have different opinions about creation. I no quicker expect to change the minds of people who spend their life proselytizing about religion than I can of people who spend their life in denial about the science of Fung Shui.