All you have to do to believe there is a god,
or many of them, is to imagine something
unlike everything else you know for sure.
We know there is matter and energy.
We can trace their evolution back about
14 billion years; something like that:
a monstrous explosion of matter and energy.
Everything else follows: Radiation. Stars.
Galaxies. Dark matter. Planets.
Here and there, complex atoms and molecules,
some so complex we call it life: self-replicating
organisms. Earth. Life. Morning Glories. Death.
Beyond things like that, we know nothing much.
One can imaging a Council of Eternal Elders,
beyond detection, beyond matter and energy,
beyond time and space and things we can know,
but of such things there is absolutely no evidence.
It is just imagination. A game of Let's Pretend.
If there were evidence for a Council of Eternal Elders--
perhaps something seen by the Hubbel telescope,
or a message written on tablets of Elvin Mithril found
in a swamp in Jerusalem, or on a hill in New York,
we could examine them. There are no sightings,
no mysterious tablets; nothing! Joseph Smith
claimed to have found golden tablets, but
nobody else ever saw them. Joe may have been . . .
well . . . a little odd. People do hear voices,
now and then, and maybe even see sunburst bushes,
but thunder and lightning and sunburst bushes
are not far from illusions and delusions and madness.
There are people who claim to talk to god,
and to have been transported to Venus
on triangular-shaped unidentified flying objects.
Yes, indeed.
I used to read about tribal peoples who honored
shamans, or priests, or witches (whatever named)
who seemed to me to be madder than hatters.
They talked to things and critters no one else
ever saw, either; the wind, the spirits of the east
and west and south and north, to rocks and trees
and ancestors and moonlight and bags of keepsakes.
Are all of them completely mad? I used to wonder.
Why do they call these delusional madmen holy men?
Sometimes the advice they got was good: Go
somewhere else and hunt! The spirit of the bison
is angry with you here. Go to Montana!
Sometimes the advice of the holy ones was awful:
Sacrifice a young girl! Put out the female babies to die!
Cut off a finger! Fast for seven days! Cut your skin
and hang yourself on leather thongs until you faint.
Why do we do things like that?
Why do we imagine Councils of Eternal Elders?
Why do we listen to people who obviously are crazy,
or who hear voices? Why do we mutilate ourselves
to make it rain, or to find food? Why subjugate women?
Why do we support enormous organized bands
of shamans who tell us what to do, and give them money?
I used to be one of them, you know.
It was not a very good fit. I quit.
I think we imagine other realities because
the one we have, the universe we are in,
the only thing we know for sure, is not simple.
It is almost incomprehensibly old and large.
It is complex almost beyond our ability to know.
It does not come with an answer sheet.
It has no blueprints on file.
It is gloriously out-of-scale to our own lives!
Whether we look for something larger,
or for something smaller still, they are there!
Out in our locust tree, this morning, there are five
new Morning Glory blossoms. Yesterday's blooms
are folded and still. Tomorrow, there may be more.
If it is not possible to understand how good it is
to come to life and blossom in a tree, how
the only difference between the Morning Glory and us
is our time at blossom, and a huge and incredible
ability to comprehend what is going one, and to stand
in amazement and delight that all of this is true,
then perhaps finding a shaman who talks to
the wind, who hears voices, who will tell you
what to think, what to value, and what to do
might be a clumsy and useful way to get through.
I think not. I cannot imagine that.
or many of them, is to imagine something
unlike everything else you know for sure.
We know there is matter and energy.
We can trace their evolution back about
14 billion years; something like that:
a monstrous explosion of matter and energy.
Everything else follows: Radiation. Stars.
Galaxies. Dark matter. Planets.
Here and there, complex atoms and molecules,
some so complex we call it life: self-replicating
organisms. Earth. Life. Morning Glories. Death.
Beyond things like that, we know nothing much.
One can imaging a Council of Eternal Elders,
beyond detection, beyond matter and energy,
beyond time and space and things we can know,
but of such things there is absolutely no evidence.
It is just imagination. A game of Let's Pretend.
If there were evidence for a Council of Eternal Elders--
perhaps something seen by the Hubbel telescope,
or a message written on tablets of Elvin Mithril found
in a swamp in Jerusalem, or on a hill in New York,
we could examine them. There are no sightings,
no mysterious tablets; nothing! Joseph Smith
claimed to have found golden tablets, but
nobody else ever saw them. Joe may have been . . .
well . . . a little odd. People do hear voices,
now and then, and maybe even see sunburst bushes,
but thunder and lightning and sunburst bushes
are not far from illusions and delusions and madness.
There are people who claim to talk to god,
and to have been transported to Venus
on triangular-shaped unidentified flying objects.
Yes, indeed.
I used to read about tribal peoples who honored
shamans, or priests, or witches (whatever named)
who seemed to me to be madder than hatters.
They talked to things and critters no one else
ever saw, either; the wind, the spirits of the east
and west and south and north, to rocks and trees
and ancestors and moonlight and bags of keepsakes.
Are all of them completely mad? I used to wonder.
Why do they call these delusional madmen holy men?
Sometimes the advice they got was good: Go
somewhere else and hunt! The spirit of the bison
is angry with you here. Go to Montana!
Sometimes the advice of the holy ones was awful:
Sacrifice a young girl! Put out the female babies to die!
Cut off a finger! Fast for seven days! Cut your skin
and hang yourself on leather thongs until you faint.
Why do we do things like that?
Why do we imagine Councils of Eternal Elders?
Why do we listen to people who obviously are crazy,
or who hear voices? Why do we mutilate ourselves
to make it rain, or to find food? Why subjugate women?
Why do we support enormous organized bands
of shamans who tell us what to do, and give them money?
I used to be one of them, you know.
It was not a very good fit. I quit.
I think we imagine other realities because
the one we have, the universe we are in,
the only thing we know for sure, is not simple.
It is almost incomprehensibly old and large.
It is complex almost beyond our ability to know.
It does not come with an answer sheet.
It has no blueprints on file.
It is gloriously out-of-scale to our own lives!
Whether we look for something larger,
or for something smaller still, they are there!
Out in our locust tree, this morning, there are five
new Morning Glory blossoms. Yesterday's blooms
are folded and still. Tomorrow, there may be more.
If it is not possible to understand how good it is
to come to life and blossom in a tree, how
the only difference between the Morning Glory and us
is our time at blossom, and a huge and incredible
ability to comprehend what is going one, and to stand
in amazement and delight that all of this is true,
then perhaps finding a shaman who talks to
the wind, who hears voices, who will tell you
what to think, what to value, and what to do
might be a clumsy and useful way to get through.
I think not. I cannot imagine that.
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