Of Pastors, Fanatics, And Fewer Traffic Laws

This past Sunday, my pastor said that religious fanatics were driven by fear of uncertainty, not by drawing nearer to God. This makes a lot of sense to me, because those who appear intent on creating a bunch of new rules seem to bear the same characteristics, whether they are in the religious sphere or the secular one. Most obviously, they get rather upset with me because I point out uncertainty and try to show how we should embrace it.

An interesting example of embracing uncertainty came viaCafe Hayek. The Washington Post has an article on Bohmte, Germany, where they got rid of their traffic laws. The point of it? If there is more uncertainty, you pay more attention, and therefore have fewer accidents. They are tearing out every sign and all the dividers between pedestrians, parking lots, and streets.
This has worked elsewhere.

And, of course, in the Christendom, we should have enough sense to let God make the sort of decisions that only He can. I often think we are at cross purposes with ourselves, insisting on implementing processes that by their nature bring forth the opposite of what we want. Like proclaiming unity while creating divisions, for instance. That's just putting the fault line in the ground. And for what? So that some can focus single-mindedly on one thing, while ignoring everything (and everyone) else.

Wow, apparently this post is about attention!