On Darwin's Beard

04/26/2008 7:17 AM – 7:47 AM

And perhaps it was that Lucifer was the one who created hell as the only possible place that someone as vile as he thought himself to be could be allowed to exist. We do love our drama, us lower creatures. God is good and we feel that we must punish ourselves for not being up to the magnificence of his love. We’re weirdoes. Beloved weirdoes, but weirdoes nonetheless.

What I want of my faith is something a little less stupid and bullying. But I still want faith. Faith is one of those things that, statistically, is held by more happy people than not. It isn’t bliss that we should follow, perhaps, but happiness. Simple, ordinary, obvious ol’ happiness (which isn’t really all that simple, ordinary or obvious). And what is faith? I think it’s an action that’s end is belief. If knowledge is justified true belief (recognizing the Gettier Problem, but having no good solution to it as yet except to say, “well, yeah, it’d be really weird if that happened, definitely”), faith is acting (which I think includes thinking) as if a necessary belief is both true and justified.

Of course, with any discussion of faith, one runs into the asshole problem on the one hand and the flake problem on the other. Good faith, happiness faith sits somewhere between, I think. In science, it goes: observe, wonder, hypothesize, formalize the favored hypothesis, test, observe results, adapt theory accordingly, re-test, observe, adapt, re-test, observe, adapt – when you get to a point where you’re just removing and then replacing commas, you say, “Okay kids, check this out.” Then the rest of the kids try it themselves. Then they say, “Cool!” or “yes, but…” or “Dude, you totally missed…” Well, if scientists were not afflicted with the same types of assholes and flakes that afflict religion that’s how it would go. But how does one test faith? You can’t really. You can get as far as the formalization stage. Very bad things can happen there, though. Or maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t discount science for its assholes and flakes. Religion has its Darwin’s too (who included in his treatise on evolution a section devoted to all the problems that he’d found with his theory). God bless Charles Darwin who was as non-asshole and non-flake as his defenders and detractors are not. When I get to heaven, I will look him up and say, “thank you, sir. Damn fine job of not being an asshole or a flake. Very useful theory. Damn fine beard you’ve got there too, but do you ever find that you've been walking around for three hours with a big clump of mayonnaise sticking in it?”