Why Even Bother Arguing?

Pearls before swine.

Growing up, I’ve always been mystified by that saying because one of my grandmother’s best friends used to say it all the time.

It was like some weird punctuator to her sentences. She’d be listening to something someone else was saying, then if she didn’t particularly like what was said, she’d say something really biting, turning up her nose slightly at the end, and finishing it with “Pearls before swine. Hmph!”

Initially, I thought it was something similar to that really odd saying from the American MAD Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman of  “what me worry” or even to the British “tally ho pip pip” that I often heard from really old people who came to visit my grandparents long ago.

It didn’t make sense to me at all, until I found out, quite recently, that it came from the bible.

Now, let me make myself clear. I’m not religious by any means, so I can’t claim that I quickly understood what “pearls before swine” meant, the minute that I read how it was an excerpt from Matthew 7:6, which is part of the Sermon on the Mount.

Non-Christians and/or non-bible scholars won’t possibly have a clue as to what I’m talking about, so here it is, in brief, according to Wikipedia:

Matthew 7:6 is the sixth verse of the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This verse contains an ambiguous warning about placing "pearls before swine."

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast

ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them

under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Reading further that Wikipedia article and clicking on the links led me to other write-ups about faith and religion (there's so much of it all over the Net), that eventually led me to some uneasy conclusions:

1. there is so much that is either confusing or divisive in religion and/or faith, that for a disinterested 3rd party like me, the question arises of whether or not arguing for one’s faith is really worth it. 
2. when one’s faith is being questioned, the fight or flight reaction is activated. It becomes a case of “if you disrespect what I believe in, then you disrespect me too, and disrespect my family/friends/clan/community/society/ nation/whatever," as well. 
3. wars fought in the name of God (whose?) “religious purity” and “exclusivity of salvation” are highly brutal and fraught with despair because what’s at stake is one’s belief, that has become the core of one’s existence.

As I said earlier, why even bother arguing or defending one’s faith? You either believe in something or you don’t. And if you can’t convince others to take your view, why resort to violence?

By doing so, you just negate whatever good teachings your religion or faith passes down to you.

Pearls before swine, indeed.

Welcome to an opinion piece by David Garcia.

 Got something to say? Feel free to comment. :)

----------------------------

Thanks to Josh Peterson for this real cool template design.