Don't drink the kool-aid

Honor's Literature has definitely made me rethink alot of things that I thought I believed. This, accompanied by the fact that my friends are stinkin' geniuses has made for many nights thinking about doctrine, faith, reason, sin, and my basic world view. What is a sin? Are all sins the same? Is prostitution the same as an arranged marriage? Can faith and reason be seperate but equal? Should one account for more than the other? Is capitalism really the best course?
All of these have been posed to me this semester, and honors was greatly responsible for it. I can't help but think because of it, isn't that what education is all about? Education isn't about classes, teachers, great thinkers of the past, great ideas of the present, or great possibilites of the future. It's about taking something you've been taught all your life, and examining it to see if that's what you truly believe. It's about developing your own thoughts, feelings, and convictions. It's about forming your own opinions so that you don't, in Dr. Mashburn's words, "drink the kool-aid." This is a reference to cults that convince people to kill themselves because one person believes they will go to Heaven if they do.
At first, honors freaked me out. As it kept going, I got even more freaked out. But in the end, I've come to realize that while it is deep, thought provoking, and confusing, it's not quite as scary as I once thought. I've realized that the teachers don't want you to spout back the answers they give you. They want you to form your own and believe it with all your heart. What's more, they want you to be able to defend it. They want you to always leave room for more knowledge but to know what you believe and why at that point in time. And though many of my sophmore friends told me this at the beginning of the semester, I couldn't really believe that until I came to the conclusion myself. That, is the point of honors and...more importantly, the point of education.