Believing

[liveonearth]

I don't believe in believing. I don't believe in anything, far as I can tell. I certainly don't believe in the white guy in a sheet being the boss of all that is. I have a whole lot of working theories about how things are, and those can be revised given new information. I'm not attached to any particular story about why things are the we they are. I'm not even sure that I am seeing things the way they are. My consciousness is a dirty filter.

Falwell was a true believer. He had faith. He was sure that he knew the truth. Anyone who believes in things without having a reason for them is a lazy fool. Traditional bigotry does not count as a reason. Anyone who believes in things in the face of a mountain of facts to the contrary is a pig-headed idiot.

I have sensations that tell me things about the world. I am even skeptical about those. People who say they just "know" that they have had previous lives (or whatever), because they can feel it in their bones, are giving more credit to those feelings than they rate in my life. I feel that "God" is everywhere, in everything. My friend Terry tells me that's because I have an over-active amygdala (brain part). Who knows. I feel it, but I don't believe it. I just don't know. It appears to me that a great number of people are utterly deluded.

I have a sticker on my truck that says MILITANT AGNOSTIC: I DON'T KNOW AND YOU DON'T EITHER.
That pretty much sums it up.

Comments

Pagan

[marijkab.livejournal.com]

I believe in nature and the natural world. I believe that having a belief can be a handy excuse to behave in unacceptable or harmful ways, and get away with it. Perhaps people who can't take the natural world as fact feel they need to make up fantastical fiction to cope, but that's just plain silly, to me. But you know me.