Uncertainty...

This morning I read about the Marines in Fallujah and the things they were finding as they worked their way through the captured buildings and headquarters of the Iraqi insurgency. They found makeshift prisons, video studios with the walls splattered with blood, mutilated corpses and on and on. The explanation was that the Islamic extremists who are running the insurgency apparently ok’d the torture and murder of anyone, Iraqi or otherwise, who assisted the enemy or behaved outside of an approved set of rules- like they wore a dress or didn’t volunteer for suicide missions.
I am not the student of history that I would have like to become. I always thought I would be a good historian- working my way through primary sources and constructing grand theories about the exploits of mankind. Given that for the past 30 years my studies have been limited to newspapers, opinions of friends and teachers, and all forms of western media I suppose I have a distorted view of history. One thing I do know is that throughout recorded history more bad and nasty stuff happened because some group of people thought that they knew better than anyone else. They thought they knew how to live better or how to behave better or that God was with them and not the others and they engaged in all types of mindless butchery because they were so sure that what they believed was right.
I don’t trust certainty of belief anymore- it seems to be an excuse to behave in a primitive and uncivilized manner. It is good to be unsure. It is good to be uncertain…the world would be a much safer place if everybody weren’t so damned right all the time…