COMPARING BELIEFS
If you can place a young boy within a
society that widely believes in the Tooth Fairy, and teach him the sacred
importance of believing in the Tooth Fairy, he will most likely believe in the
Tooth Fairy until the day he dies. If you can place him within a society that
widely believes the earth is flat, and teach him the sacred importance of
believing the earth is flat, he will most likely believe that the earth is flat
until the day he dies. In either scenario, he will almost certainly teach his
children to believe the same and to pass those beliefs on to his grandchildren,
great-grandchildren, etc. People believe what they are taught it is important
to believe, and the vast majority will stick to those beliefs throughout life
despite overwhelming evidence and observations to the contrary.
Individuals in the Islamic states were
not taught about Tooth Fairies or flat earths, but rather about the final
prophet riding a winged horse into heaven and suicide bombers who receive a
reward of seventy-two virgins in paradise. Individuals in American Mormon
communities were not taught about tooth fairies or flat earths, but rather
about an enormous Jewish kingdom in
While God could choose any absurd method of interaction he wanted, we never
stop to consider if God would
manifest in this way. God could
choose to continue his declaration to the world by having a man read it out of
a hat, but would he? God could choose to retrieve his final
prophet by sending him a winged horse, but would
he? God could choose to communicate
with a man through a talking donkey, but would
he? God could choose to give
salvation to the world by sacrificing and resurrecting himself in bodily form,
but would he? Since any of these scenarios
is physically possible if we assume the existence of an all-powerful deity–and since
rational evidence for these claims is practically nonexistent–belief boils down
to whichever book you were raised to think is reliable. It is not a matter of
accepting that one must be true and
deciding that our hastily chosen belief sounds the least superstitious (or
perhaps just as good as the next), but rather determining if any suggestion can
stand on its own as a sensible avenue for God to take. The reasons given for
each belief are driven not by rational thought and reasoned arguments, but in
response to indoctrination, bias, and cognitive dissonance, which too often
yield rationalizations and other superficial answers. So you must excuse me for
not joining the crowd who laughs at specks in the Puritans’ eyes when there are
planks in just about everyone else’s.[i]