So You Want to be Smart

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 9:10

I think education needs to have a high priority in everybody's life; I'm just not sure that we are going about it the right way. I mean think about it.

We send our kindergartners to school and Teacher reads them the classic literary work about Jimmy's two mommies or Lisa's two daddies. Soon they're being introduced to really intelligent concepts like our ancestral ascent from the bottom of the primordial soup as amoeba which evolved into monkeys which evolved into us--never mind that there are still monkeys! They're bombarded with all sorts of atheistic, anti-Christ, anarchist propaganda that usually goes against any kind of common sense parenting. Then they're given prophylactics and little pink pills and encouraged to go experiment, and if the experiment produces undesirable results, a secret trip to the local PP can fix your little red wagon and no one ever needs to know.

Our culture tells us that in order to be successful and make lots of money, we need to be a rock star or football star or porn star...OR we need to pursue higher education. And what does higher education give us? A Bachelor of Science, otherwise known as BS. Not satisfied with a four year degree that takes no less than five years to earn? That's okay, because next you can get an MS, or More of the Same BS. Still not ready to enter the work force and put those papers to work? Get a PHD, where it's Piled Higher and Deeper! Or as one friend of mine puts it--you spend four years learning a little bit about everything, then you do a Master's Degree to learn more and more about less and less, and finally you get a PHD after which you know everything about nothing.

I have nothing against education, and I have nothing against pursuing higher degrees. Perhaps one day I'll earn something more than my 98.6 degrees. But it has been my observation that a lot of people are educated far beyond their intelligence, or at least their capacity to function rationally in the real world. Getting an education has become a god in our pantheon of cultural universalism, to be pursued at all costs to the forsaking of all other constructive pursuits, and then when we get our education, we either don't know what to do with it, or we're overqualified for any job we might want to get.

Some people think that an education, a degree, and letters after their name are actually what is important in life. But what so many people, educated and not, often fail to understand is that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Getting to know the Lord is true understanding. Want to know the meaning of it all? Know the one who made it all mean something.