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Passed Down Wisdom Someone once told me that if you exercise then you should be balanced in how you do it. If you push on a muscle, then you should pull on its opposite one. Now I don't know if this is true or not. What I mean is that if you don't follow this procedure then I don't know if you will develop problems. Nor did the person who told me this. She told me because when she trained in physiotherapy her teacher told her that. So did the teacher know this from experience? I don't know but I suspect that this was simply handed down 'wisdom'. Sceptics often pick up on this handed-down wisdom and point out that it is unscientific. The problem is that much of what passes for science is in fact handed-down wisdom too. If the person doing the handing down has a Phd or some credentials then it is deemed to be scientific, otherwise it's simply old wives tales. People believe what they want to believe, but what do we mean by belief? When he was the Archbishop of Brisbane, Dr. Hollingsworth used to write a regular column in the local paper. In it he regularly talked about social problems - 'we' (or, more usually, the government) should help the poor. Occasionally he mentioned Jesus, usually in some social context, and God he mentioned very rarely, maybe 2 or 3 times a year in the years I read his column. So here's a strange question: did he (or does he) believe in God? To ask whether an archbishop believes in God sounds absurd but when you consider that to get that post you have to pass a number of academic exams and do quite a bit of political maneuvering, it becomes apparent that the person in the post is not necessarily the most pious. George Orwell writes in one of his essays about a woman he met who told him that as an unbeliever he was doomed to hell - a place of eternal punishment, but she carried on chatting over a cup of tea. Now, if you had told someone that you had been diagnosed with cancer and were going to die shortly in a great deal of pain, the person would be sympathetic and concerned. This woman was telling him that he was going to suffer pain eternally but didn't act like someone who was concerned. So I would ask: did she really believe it? In other words, did her actions follow her words? I would say not and I would also say that Dr. Hollingsworth didn't believe in God.