Belief versus paradigm evolution Part One

I taught for over 30 years with the Edmonton Catholic School Board. I came up through that same system from the third to the twelfth grade. I was baptized, confirmed, and married in Catholic churches. And yet I never 'believed', not even for a moment.



That is not to say that my life has never been touched by the metaphysical. To this day I avoid stepping on cracks lest my mother suffer even more pain in her 96 year old spine. I make wishes when I throw coins in fountains or see the first robin of spring. I even cross my fingers when my team is in jeopardy and read Tarot cards for other people. But I never asked god for any favours, never begged the intercession of the saints when my report card was bad or prayed to Mary when my father was dying.



Does that make me a hypocrite? I don't think so.



Finger crossing and crack avoidance are an attempt to influence chaos. I believe in chance but I don't believe that it can be influenced by incantations and gestures. I'm just well socialized when it comes to age old attempts to do so. I don't really believe that the fate of my mother's back is tied to my maneuverings on sidewalks, nor do I believe that holding my thumbs (the Austrian equivalent of crossing one's fingers) will guide the ball into the top corner of the net. I do it because it gives me the illusion of control over chance, the same reason that so many athletes have a specific order in which they don their battle dress, tokens in their lockers, and prescribed rituals before and during the game.



It's all about control and the ultimate control is over fate and our eventual demise. All fear is fear of death and all belief is an attempt to impose order on chaos. Religious belief with its rituals and incantations professes to provide a link to both death and chaos by eliminating both through the intercession of a supreme metaphysical manifestation called ‘God’. As the prime mover, creator, and custodian of ‘everything’, this all powerful, all knowing, all seeing entity keeps chaos (often personified as demons or Satan) at bay while we are alive, and grants us ‘everlasting life’ if we worship him and obey his rules (also known as being a ‘good’ person).



Is belief in such a champion somehow wrong? Is being a good Christian or a good Muslim or a good Jew something to be jeered at and criticized? Yes and no. Or, rather, no and yes. Jeered at, not so much since we are all entitled to our beliefs and, being beliefs, these should be open to scrutiny rather than derision. Criticized, most definitely if a critical examination of theistic belief structures leads to the evolution of humanity’s paradigms concerning existence.