Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.
(Julius Caesar, Gallis Wars, 3.18.2)

Generally human beings freely believe what they want (to believe).

(pron = FAY-reh lih-BEN-tehr HOH-mih-nays id kwod WOH-loont KRAY-doont)

comment: Today is the Ides of March. The Ides of the Roman month came to be
the 13th or the 15th day of the month. In March it was fixed on the 15th day.
Early on, the Ides was associated with the appearance of the full moon as the
Romans followed a lunar calendar. Occassionally, like this week, the lunar
cycle coincides once again with these days that are now fixed in the calendar.

For the Romans the fixed days (The Kalends--new moon and then first day of the
month, the Nones--half moon, and then 9th day before the Ides) were
inauspicious days, that is, they were considered to be unlucky days. If they
could, they avoided making important decisions or businness deals on one of
those days. Marriages were never planned on these days. In face, the days on
both sides of one of these days were considered to be a bit tained, too.

Do you believe that? Generally, human beings believe what they want. But I
don't really accept this idea. The vast majority of students that I work with
walk in the door with some sort of belief system in tact, and for very few if
any of them it is a belief system that they have arrived at freely. They are
the belief systems that their parents have handed them and to some degree
insisted that they accept. For others, they are the belief systems that come
with playing on the team and being a member of the Fellowship of Christian
Athletes. In other words, if the beliefs have not been insisted on by parents
for membership in the family, they have been insisted on by friends for
acceptance in the clique.

Young Republicans and Young Democrats are typically those young people who have
old Republicans and old Democrats influencing their beliefs. The same is true
for most adults--their belief systems are rarely those that they have arrived
at as a result of free inquiry into the nature of things. Polls report that
the majority of Americans believe in God. I'd like those polls to ask how many
of those same Americans have any nagging doubts about that same belief. My
guess--they all do.

The words of this proverb are those of Julius Caesar who for quite a while acted
in Rome as if he could do whatever he wanted to. He apparently believed that he
was free to act apart from Roman mores and beliefs. He violated Roman sacred
space by bringing troops into Roman territory. He formed an illicit power base
with two other men, and then for a while ruled Rome as a dictator, casting aside
the Roman Republic which had been in place for nearly 6 centuries. The Roman
Republic never recovered.

Julius Caesar was killed on this date in 44 BCE by some of his "friends" who
likely felt that Caesar's beliefs had gotten out of hand. "Beward the Ides of
March" might be a call to somemthing more subtle: "beware beliefs that are
unexamined and unexplored."