Stretching your Beliefs
It seems that people who believe in some kind of god, any kind of god, even ones they’ve created for themselves, are more acceptable than those that do not.
I was chatting with a lady I met last Sunday at Massimo Pigliucci’s presentation. She told me she held a belief in the supernatural, though not one that aligned with mainstream religion, and seemed offended by the idea that I didn’t believe in any sort of deity or supernatural hocus-pocus whatsoever.
You don’t believe in Yahweh. You don’t believe in Zeus. You don’t believe in Odin. You don’t believe in Allah. You don’t believe in Amaterasu. You don’t believe in Shiva. You don’t believe in Lao-Tien-Yeh. But you draw the line of disbelief somewhere, authoring your own version of these concepts in an overextended effort to believe in something supernatural.
However, I don’t feel the need to create my own belief in god or the supernatural for the same reason I don’t feel the need to create my own belief in fairies.
I don’t believe in Tinker Bell. I don’t believe in Oberon or Titania. I don’t believe in the tooth fairy. I don’t believe in sugar plum fairies. And I don’t feel the need to create my own belief in fairies just because the concept of fairies exists.
Nevertheless, people who stretch their beliefs do seem to prove at least one thing – god, like religion, is a human construct.
I was chatting with a lady I met last Sunday at Massimo Pigliucci’s presentation. She told me she held a belief in the supernatural, though not one that aligned with mainstream religion, and seemed offended by the idea that I didn’t believe in any sort of deity or supernatural hocus-pocus whatsoever.
You don’t believe in Yahweh. You don’t believe in Zeus. You don’t believe in Odin. You don’t believe in Allah. You don’t believe in Amaterasu. You don’t believe in Shiva. You don’t believe in Lao-Tien-Yeh. But you draw the line of disbelief somewhere, authoring your own version of these concepts in an overextended effort to believe in something supernatural.
However, I don’t feel the need to create my own belief in god or the supernatural for the same reason I don’t feel the need to create my own belief in fairies.
I don’t believe in Tinker Bell. I don’t believe in Oberon or Titania. I don’t believe in the tooth fairy. I don’t believe in sugar plum fairies. And I don’t feel the need to create my own belief in fairies just because the concept of fairies exists.
Nevertheless, people who stretch their beliefs do seem to prove at least one thing – god, like religion, is a human construct.
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Comment by Kevin (Idolizing Reason) on April 9, 2009 at 12:20pm -
Nicely said. A god is a god is a god. All hail to the powerful flying spaghetti monster. Now THAT's believable! ;)
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Comment by Rev. James Thomas Hicks, D.D. on April 9, 2009 at 2:33pm -
I beg to differ. The Invisible Pink Unicorn is the supreme deity in the known & unknown universe. The Invisible Pink Unicorn would whoop the shit out of that fictional flyin' spaghetti monster.
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Comment by James on April 9, 2009 at 2:44pm -
Very well said indeed!
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Comment by samuel thomas on April 9, 2009 at 5:58pm -
Fallacious! Everyone knows that Russell's Magic Teapot reigns supreme.
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Comment by Chris Hebert on April 24, 2009 at 5:15am -
Excellent post. It is mind boggling how such otherwise rational human being can create these worlds in their heads and try to pass it as fact. So much so that they are even willing to kill or be killed for some imaginary magic genie that gives rewards and does magic tricks. Ironically enough the religious of this world need to truly meditate on the childish yet applicable words of one guy in particular.
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, reasoned as a child..when I became a man I put away childish things"
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