Religion: True Believers

Well here it is on the second morning of this blog thing. I was awake early this morning. I like to lie in bed on a Saturday and watch the international news, drink hot, sweet tea, and moan about it all.

Apparently there is some unrest in the Middle-East! There seems to be a lot of anger about something. I think there is a tendency to over-reaction among people I would class as "true believers". True believers frighten me. It doesn't really matter what they "believe" in. That doesn't concern me. It is more the fact that true believers are able to justify any action they might take in defense of their "beliefs".

This is not a phenomenon that is exclusive to the middle-east. In the west we have had a long history of true believers and their over-reactions to perceived insults and threats. From the Crusades to the Inquisition, from slavery to civil war, from absolute monarchies to repubics to dictatorships, we have committed persecutions and atrocities in the name of one belief or another.

The ethnic cleansing of whole European communities even in our own modern time is an example of this "true believer" syndrome. The intolerance of the religious right and their absolute certainty that they are doing God's will can justify any outrage they might commit.

People who are "true believers" frighten me. They know no compromise. They will hear no argument. They will allow their ends to justify their means... to the extreme. Peace can only exist for these people when all opposition to their beliefs is exterminated. Any contradictory thought, word, or action by an "outsider" upsets their whole world view. Worst of all, in my opinion, true believers just can't take a joke.

I know that I know nothing. I do not know the whole nature of being. I am not privy to the workings of the mind of the deity. I am uncertain about the big picture. I believe we live in a world of imagination. We have fashioned our own cultures, imagined and created wonderful things for ourselves. From the Pyramids to the Golden Gate Bridge, from climbing down from the trees (control your anger creationists) to walking on the moon, we have let our minds construct a magnificent world. I believe that our beliefs are just another example of the remarkable ingenuity of our brains at work.

I believe that "true believers" are people who have allowed their brains to atrophy. I believe this...Truly.