Many of us claim to know the most about that which we know the least. This aberration can result in feeling and acting self righteous. Self righteous thought manifests as a temporary or sometimes chronic condition of being “self-righteous”; the particular target of this self righteousness can be related to an emotional charge that hasn’t been thoroughly processed through the intellect…in other words, some people may have a predisposition to this state of mind due to partially processed information. Whether a character defect, lazy-brain or an uninformed brain I think most would see self righteousness as disagreeable despite the source or the object of self righteousness. I would guess that we all could be or have been subject to this repugnant state of being. Not sure the mechanics of how we succumb but it might be that it can reside beneath our awareness, bypassing our normal “bull shit protector” criteria for knowledge also known as our epistemic system; possibly through acceptance of faith as a legitimate source of knowledge or scientific theory as immutable fact. In defense of religion, I hope to prove, that faith is a normal and necessary condition of man while scientific theories are tools to improve man’s condition.

I believe that I can also prove that much of science is a religion.

Someone once said that “all politics are local”. If we peal back the obvious meaning of this statement a bit, there is more to see. First, the obvious meaning is that people vote on what is directly effecting them before considering the broader dynamics of national or global politics, for example. A second derivative might point to our tendency to myopic points of view wherein we are limited by our own personal experiences. If we, for example, have had limited experiences with one partition of a particular religion and this experience was not a satisfying experience we would naturally tend to leverage this direct experience and along with our judgment or invalidation therein include the entire offending belief system of which our experience is merely a part—possibly an aberrant part. This judgment could be accurate or not but this method definitely saves time. This experience may have produced fear, disgust or even hatred if you have felt bamboozled. If however after this limited, unsatisfactory experience there still exists somehow an interest in further evaluation, more data must be gathered to make a more accurate assessment.

If you accept my premise that roughly 80% of any population are “sheeple” or followers, then you might share my appreciation that weekly “Church-going” offers an incredible reoccurring opportunity for the work-a-day average folk to partake in a pause to consider something outside of their normal diet of sitcoms, football and movies…to consider the profound, the supernatural, the philosophical…to ask questions and to contemplate their existence. Of course they have guides on this weekly tour and they have structure. In Christiandom we call the guides preachers and the structure is a combination of tradition, dogma and liturgy. Of course there are many out-of-band sub-currents weaving in and out of this dynamic weekly communion of the “sheeple”. Examples would be the tour guide’s need for money and validation from an ever-increasing flock and you have the social element of friendships, etc.

So what are some of the benefits of church going? The first one I have already mentioned…the meeting once a week to ponder matters of the profound. You might consider your fellows uninformed, unenlightened or buffoons but you share much with these mere mortals, I assure you. For the astute, there is much more, I think. The astute have the opportunity to directly observe, appreciate and try to understand the interplay of the archetypes on display; to breathe the aroma of the sublime and seek to understand the emotional and metaphysical content. Other benefits are a sense of belonging to a group, joy, happiness and opportunities to interact socially. For me, the “be attitudes” and the sermon on the mount represent pearls of wisdom that have produce much good thought and understanding in my life and have also stimulated my intellectual curiosity on my quest for understanding.

Ah…but you say this stuff is for the weak-minded and cannot be true. Evolution, science and the belief in my own intellectual powers are the mooring by which I will secure my ship.

What if I could prove to you that faith was pervasive and more importantly a necessary part of the human condition? There are too many examples in every day life. You believe that this metal box with wheels you call a car will get you to work safely or you would probably just stay in bed that day, right? You believe that there is something you can do to improve your current status in life or you would just stay in bed and never get up. You believe that if you will your finger to move or your hand to grasp a glass of water that it will obey…what if you didn’t believe? Would your hand tremble? Faith is a necessary part of everyone’s life every day. The person who commits suicide is the eternal optimist because he believes that the next world or the lack thereof will be better than this. So belief is the natural state of being and there is nothing wrong with believing.

So how do you know what you believe is true? You know the same way you know all things… by experience.