"The Cost of Belief" or...

..."The Ulitmate Dime Store Philosophy Essay"

Today’s homily is long, boring, and probably upsetting to many. If you don’t want to read my half-assed opinions on the nature of belief move on out and head to one of the sites over on the right in my link collection.

“Things are getting so bad the psychics are going out of business” a friend of mine said the other day. We were discussing the various businesses that had fallen by the wayside on our little island during the global economic collapse and he mentioned that a psychic in his neighborhood had closed up shop. We agreed that between that and the recent closing of a tanning salon in my neck of the woods that things were truly dire when the Staten Island Ladies Who Lunch can’t afford their weekly time in the booth during the winter followed by a quick card reading to assure them that their husband isn’t boffing his secretary (or perhaps “is boffing” if they’re looking for an excuse for a few afternoon delights of their own).

Yes friends, it’s bad when people can’t even afford to believe anymore. When they start cutting back on their funding of those who they think help them know the unknowable or control the uncontrollable you know discretionary spending is being cut to the bone. I wonder how churches are holding up in this day and age. Maybe they’re doing better since unlike psychics who people believe in to tell what’s going to happen a church is an earthly representation of a being people believe controls what will happen. Throw God a bone and maybe he’ll throw you one. Quid pro quo. Hey that’s Latin which is churchin’ language, ain’t it?

Belief is a funny thing but everyone has to believe in something. Even atheists are believers despite masking their belief in the guise of “reason” when any truly rational person realizes that there is simply insufficient evidence to draw any kind of conclusion. Atheists however will lord (pun intended) their belief over theists, calling the theists irrational fools while an atheist “knows” that no higher being exists. Note my quotes around the word “knows”, since the atheist’s definition of knowing does not jive with mine. An atheist believes that the absence of proof that God exists is proof of the absence of God. This is, of course the equivalent of sitting in a windowless soundproof room and arguing that it can’t possibly be raining outside because you can’t see or hear the rain. The answer is you don’t know and neither do I since I’m sitting in the same room as you. But that approach freaks people out. They need to “know”, and the way they “know” is by believing in something unproven and as far as I know unprovable.

Of course, part of believing is the burning need to convince others that your belief is the right one and theirs is not just wrong, but evil. And so it has been that both religious institutions and atheists alike have sent millions to slaughter over the millennia. I suspect that this part of the belief mechanism in the human mind evolved over time because humans are the top predator on this planet. We have no natural enemy at this point and therefore the only way the population can be controlled is if we do it ourselves. Therefore we evolve this “belief” trigger to make sure we keep wiping each other out so our population is under control.

I know, it sounds like I’m advocating all the mass slaughters that have happened over the millennia. I am not. I am speculating on a potential reason for them in the best way that my undereducated brain can. Maybe that’s what I need to believe in instead of opting for either the abstraction called “evil” or thinking that some folks is just nuts and some folks ain’t. The latter is scariest to me since I’m not ever sure if I’d be lumped into the “nuts” side or the “ain’t” side.

There I go again, a human being dividing human beings into two camps. Good guys and bad guys. It’s almost impossible to avoid, isn’t it? But we have to do it. We just have to do it because otherwise we wander through the day not knowing who to follow and who to distrust. Choose up sides. Pick your team. It doesn’t have to be God vs. No God. Heck, people have murdered each other over sports rivalries. It’s funny how when fights happen at sports events the knee-jerk reaction is to blame the beer and not the “belief” trigger that says “That so-and-so is rooting for the other team in OUR HOUSE and I’m gonna kick his ass!” This would be why I generally don’t wear any team apparel to sports events. If you don’t label yourself as one of the good guys or bad guys people will be more likely to just ignore you.

Sport is one belief system that appears to be doing well at least here in New York despite the Great Collapse. I hear stories that both the Mets and Yankees are selling tickets well ahead of last year’s pace despite increasing prices. Of course, both teams are opening new ballparks. “Cathedrals of baseball” I believe they’re being called. Interesting intermingling of religious and sports language, don’t you think? I would like to visit both places despite being a Yankees fan that doesn’t care much for the Mets. I like to think I’m someone who enjoys watching the games themselves. Like life, there will be winners and there will be losers and often that will be decided by factors out of the control of either side. Like life, it will end in a finite span of time although nobody knows what that span will be. Like life, I will be interested in how the game is played more than the outcome, because the ultimate outcome is always the same. As far as I know.