Belief

Thanks for the comments Shirley.


I’d be willing to bet the farm that as far as religion goes, you and I agree more than we disagree.

Let me give you some examples.

There are some 850 million Hindus in India. They worship a plethora of gods. And they really, really believe they exist. For example they believe that Adi parashakti is the Supreme Being. As a dyslectic person might say, she is the top dog. Other lesser dogs (sorry, lessor gods) worship her; Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, just to give three examples. And sorta like our Christian god, she makes the rules and has the power to control any situation. Hindus believe that one of their gods, Ram, built a 28 mile long land bridge between the southern tip of India and the island of Sri Lanka, in order to save his Princess who had been kidnapped by an evil god. And how did Ram pull off this amazing feat? Why he used an army of devoted monkeys, that’s how.

Oh go ahead and giggle! I tried to keep a straight face when I read it too but couldn’t.

I used to delight in watching monkeys in a zoo. When I read the Ram bridge nonsense my mind immediately tried to imagine all the monkey poop that must have been deposited on the sacred bridge. Must have taken millions of monkeys because when the bridge was near completion, they would have been carrying their rocks over 28 miles. Several hundred billion tons of rocks, stretching for 28 miles; all carried by monkeys.

But here’s the thing. 850 million Hindus really, really, really, believe it. They really do!

Do you believe it?

Neither do I. So we are in agreement that Hindus suffer from delusion which is defined as:

1. “A persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence.

2. A false or mistaken belief or idea about something.

Now lets look at the beliefs of Muslims.

Muslims believe that an illiterate mule driver, Mahomet, while sitting in a cave, received revelations from the angel Gabriel, which led to the Koran. There were no witnesses. They believe Mahomet rode a winged white horse to Heaven and back (with one stopover in Jerusalem.) There are 1.47 billion (and growing) Muslims who insist the story is true. Do you believe its true?

Neither do I.

So again, we agree that 1.47 billion Muslims plus 850 million Hindus beliefs are delusional. We are now up to 2 billion 320 million people who are clearly delusional. (See definition above)

As the commercial says, “But wait!! There’s more.!!”

Joseph Smith, a shameless con man, who lived recently enough so that his claims can be demonstrably proven false, convinced his early followers that he was visited at night by the angel Moroni (rhymes with baloney) on several occasions. The angel told him where to dig up some plates inscribed with a “lost” ancient language from which, (with some magic reading stones conveniently buried with the plates), he was able to decipher the Book of Mormon.” No witnesses. In fact, he claimed that if anyone else dared peak through those magic reading stones they would be struck dead immediately. If Joseph’s death threat seems vaguely familiar to you, I turn your attention to Exodus 19: 12-13 KJV. There you will discover why.

Today, we have some of the most powerful and intelligent people in our government who have fallen for Joseph Smith’s con job. Mitt Romney, who could become our next POTUS, (President of the United States) Harry Reid, the Democratic leader of the Senate, Orrin Hatch, former Republican Senate leader; Jon Huntsman, another presidential candidate; all highly intelligent but clearly delusional. Mormons claim around 13 million adherents. Can 13 million people be delusional? Well if 2.32 billion people are delusional, certainly we can safely include another 13 million among the ranks of the slightly insane.

Do you believe that Joseph Smith really dug up those plates?

Neither do I. So again, we are in complete agreement.

But wait! There is more to go! To paraphrase the late night commercials, "call now and I will send you another 1.19 billion!

Children of devout Catholics are taught to believe (before they reach the age when they can reason for themselves) that the wafers and wine consumed at communion, are actually….not figuratively….actually…..the body and blood of a person who has been dead for 2000 years. They give it a big name; transubstantiation. As if a big name will make it more believable.

Do you believe that? That its really the blood and body parts of Jesus?

Neither do I.

So again, we are in agreement. Add to our growing number of 2.43 billion delusional folks another 1.19 billion Catholics, and we’re up to 3.62 billion. That's well over half the planet’s population of 7 billion that hold “a false or mistaken belief or idea about something.”

But I have had this discussion too many times with devout believers to think it will have any effect, so let me help you better understand where I am coming from.

First I am going to make a claim. Now when we make a claim we should be able to offer proof that the claim is true. Here again, I have no doubt you and I will be in complete agreement.

Here is the claim: “It is impossible to believe something we disbelieve.”

So how do I prove my claim that it is impossible to believe something we disbelieve? Actually its ridiculously easy.

I want you to believe that you are Barbara Bush. I’ll give you a moment and I want you to try as hard as you can to believe you are in fact, Barbara Bush. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....



Couldn’t do it could you? Not unless of course you have gone completely insane.

So once again, you and I are in complete agreement. It is impossible to believe something we disbelieve. Nobody can.

So here is just a small list of things in your inerrant bible that, try as I might, I cannot make myself believe.

1. That donkeys talked, (Numbers 22–24)

2. That long dead saints popped up out of their graves on the day of resurrection and ambled into town (Matt 27:52) Here is an event even more incredible than the so-called resurrection of Jesus and we never hear anything more about it. Not just one person back from the dead as in the case of Jesus, but “the bodies of many saints came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." An incredible event, offered almost as a throwaway line and never mentioned again in the entire bible.

3. That Noah got the entire species of animals on a tiny boat and the rain came down till it covered the highest mountain by 15 cubits (Gen: 7:19-20) and where the temperature at that altitude  would be 43 degrees below zero. Frozen hippopotamus anyone? But before they froze solid they would have died from hypoxia since mammals (with the rare exception of a few birds) cannot survive above 25,000 feet.

4. That rain fell at the rate of 6 FEET per hour, 24 hours a day for 40 days and nights without letup, which is the rate it would take to equal 29,087 feet of water

There is a word for people who claim to believe something they disbelieve. And its not a very flattering term. They are called hypocrites. Another word for hypocrite is fraud. As for myself, I have too much self respect to be a hypocrite. That is why I can never profess to believe something I just cannot make myself believe.

Who do you respect more; a hypocrite or a truthful person?

If there is a god, then he/she/it is likely responsible for us having our large brains. We should consider it a gift. The worst insult one can give another is to reject a gift. If you are not using your wonderful 1500cc 4 pound brain, it is tantamount to rejecting a gift. And if god will strike Uzza dead in an instant simply because he instinctively reached out to steady the Ark, (1 Chron 13:10 and 2 Sam. 6:6) how much angrier is he going to be for those who fail to develop the wonderful gift of reason and critical thinking which we are all naturally endowed with.

Remember, the very first murder in the bible occurred because of a rejected gift. (Gen 4:5-8)

Shirley the bible was not written until at least 37 years after the death of Jesus. We know that because Mark, the first of the four gospels, mentions the destruction of the Jewish Temple which took place in 70 A.D. Only if Mark had been written in 70 A.D. or later, could there have been any mention of it.

All four of the gospels give different and conflicting accounts of the resurrection. Your preacher knows that but won't tell you. Ask him why there are four different stories about what happened on that day. He will dance around the subject and make all kinds of excuses to “harmonize” the four different accounts. But one thing is for sure. You will never make a man understand something if his very job depends on him not understanding it. Preachers are always trying to "harmonize" contradictions in the bible. A harmony is something that requires more than one musician. If the bible is true, it should only have one account of an event, not four separate and different accounts.

If you are a Christian, then you have no choice but to believe that more than 3.62 billion people we mentioned are going to hell to suffer in unimaginable torment for eternity. I say “more than” because we left out the Buddhists who also reject Jesus. Jesus himself has condemned them. (John 14:6.)

Your beliefs do not necessarily make you a bad person. Will Rogers said, "We are all ignorant....just about different things. But what he failed to understand is that there are two kinds of ignorance. My kind (I'm ignorant about almost everything) and willful ignorance. Willful ignorance, in my view, is the most egregious sin one can commit. In this day and age there is no excuse for willful ignorance.

You most likely believe for the same reason that Muslims and Mormons and Catholics believe. All that was put in your head at a young age before your brain had developed enough to attain any degree of logic or critical thinking skills. Once its crammed in there and reinforced week after week, unless you possess a great deal more intelligence than the average person, you, like the Mormons, Muslims and Catholics, can never rid yourself of it.

The philosopher Eric Hoffer said,"An empty brain is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish, thus the difficulty of introducing anything useful into an empty brain."

Today we see religious groups spending tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars on "creationist museums" which promote willful ignorance and fill young people's heads with rubbish. Contaminating the minds of young children is a flagrant sin. This is a serious offense. The perpetrators should not be honored. They should be arrested.

I took a course on argumentation once and I will never forget what the professor said. “The easiest argument to make is when the audience knows little about the subject and the speaker has plenty of time.” Throw in a dynamic speaker and it’s a slam dunk.

Nothing fits that description better than people who have been carrying their bibles around with them for over 50 years and still have no clue what is in them. Preachers prey on intellectually lazy people because they know they have lots of time and their audience is too lazy to find out facts for themselves. Believing is easy. All you have to do is show up. Knowing is hard. I suppose as a person who worked two jobs for most of his life, that is what bothers me more than anything else about "believers". They are fearful and intellectually lazy. Fear and ignorance. A lethal combination that will destroy civilization.

Finally, you will note that every time I used the word “believe” or a derivative of it, I emphasized the word. I did that for a reason. "Belief is a weasel word. I had to use it nearly 30 times in this short essay. Its sad that we can't even talk about religion without constantly using the weasel word, "belief.

"We cannot just latch on to any “belief” that makes us feel good. Someone once said that telling somebody something just because it makes us feel good is no different than not caring where our money comes from so long as we have it.

We need proof. Without proof to back up our beliefs, the first thing you know we will have Muslims flying airplanes into buildings at 400 MPH, Christians shooting doctors in the face and parents withholding life saving procedures from their children.

And we will be denying our children the most valuable gift we can bestow, the ability to reason and think critically.