Definition 2nd Draft

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; just as the thought is in the mind of the thinker. I cannot tell you what it means to be rational- not in the way you’d see it, at least. The dictionary only scratches at the surface of the meaning of many words, and this is one of them. “A person with reason,” is the only insight the ‘word bible’ provides. But, who is to say what is reasonable to me, is the same as what is reasonable to you; or anyone for that matter? This essay will attempt to go past the simplicity of the dictionary, to clarify. Diving into the meaning of the meaning, just to try to figure out what rational really means. To put this into perspective, polling shows that 91% of Americans believe in a ‘Christian God’ while only 3% show a disbelief in any ‘God’. To me, those 91%, who believe that every Sunday they drink the blood of a two-thousand year old prophet- are not rational, nor are they reasonable. To 91% of Americans, I, the Atheist- am the irrational- I must not be reasonable, if I do not believe in God. On my high school campus every few weeks a Christian group meets during lunch. They meet in the same room that I have the class before lunch in, and they bring pizza. Often unable to defeat the desire, in my hungered state- I attend. I remember one week, a man was giving a lecture; he was telling us all about how ‘we’, as Christians were saved- saved from hell, we all had a space reserved for us in heaven. I found myself disagreeing with every word, every vowel he spoke. All I could think of was just how irrational this man is. I’m not going to argue the existence of a supreme being, but does it make anyone irrational just because they believe differently than others? The short answer is yes, everybody is irrational; to somebody. As humans, we usually don’t think from other’s perspectives, we have our own minds, with our own thoughts. We cut out others and don’t realize the truth- we all have our reasons for believing in what we do, but we rarely accept the fact that others also have reasons. The long answer to the question is no. Nobody can be irrational. Earlier I brought up the phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and it’s true, what is beautiful to me, what is funny, what is sad; may not be to you. The homeless conspirator chanting that “the government is trying to control our thoughts! Through brainwaves, through microchips in our microwaves!” He is surely insane; right? How could anyone believe in such nonsensical garbage? No, he is not insane. Not in his eyes, in his eyes; he is the rational one. We are all crazy for not realizing that the government is out to get us. He uses reason, just his own; so that makes him rational, right? You or I cannot tell anyone what is reasonable: if it wasn’t reasonable to that person, then they wouldn’t believe in it. Humans are a judgmental species. Waging war over beliefs- the Americans fight against terror while Muslims are fighting for peace. We reject what we do not understand, what we don’t agree with. Ironically, we do not understand very much to begin with. Our opinions create conflicts, both fighting for the apparent rational side, when we fight, both sides are ‘right’ from their own point of view. What’s irrational is the conflict itself, in reality wars are fought over ignorance, not purpose, and certainly not what’s right. We cannot decide what is right to other people, nor what is wrong. Everyday you have feelings and thoughts. You go through your days thinking, and believing- it’s why you do what you do. So does everybody else, and they all believe they are right, just as you do. There are billions of people in the world, and sadly we don’t all agree, if we did then defining rational would be easy.

I’m a rational thinker, and so are you. What does rational mean then? I’m not so sure. I didn’t know the meaning any better before I wrote this essay. It means something different to all of us, I can safely say. Then we are all rational, and irrational. The dictionary only scratches the surface of some words, maybe because it’s impossible to reach the bottom. We’ve created a language, with words so intricate, so deep; that we get lost exploring them- and maybe that’s irrational, I’m not sure.