Imagine There Is No Heaven...

In a recent post by JB called, "Evolution Schmevolution: The Origin of Life According to One Religious Cult," she cites her own experience of dealing with people who distort truth to further their own agenda. She survived, and she has a tale to tell that made me think again about what drives people to come up with so many wacky ideas.

Sometime ago Mark Gammon wrote "Mohammed Sidique Khan" on which I threw a couple of witless comments about imagination being the root of terrorist behavior. My thoughts were not expressed well, and it might have come across as oversimplifying a complex and terrible issue, but I was trying to make a point about how people create realities out of imagination, something which cannot be regulated and therefore cannot be quelled so easily by carpet bombing and outlawing certain groups from organizing. Mark stated in one of his own comments to the blog "so many people are prepared to believe nonsense without thinking it through" and finished the comment with "SOMEONE explain that to me." Again, in my sloppy attempt to say something profound and provocative, I wrote a disjointed reply stating, "Ever since apes developed an imagination as a survival instinct to become humans, we have been doomed to survive and destroy."

First, I should admit that it is not completely my own idea at work here. I started thinking about this imagination thing after watching the BBC's Walking with Cavemen, where the final step to becoming human happened when our brains gained the capacity of imagination. Imagination developed as a survival instinct allowing humans to come back from the brink of extinction. In the program it shows a man burying an eggshell filled with water that he could use for a time when water is scarce. Through imagination he perceives a time when there would be a need for this saved water. I took this a little further, after watching the entire video and seeing how the early Australopithicenes battled rival tribes of their own kind in order to survive in a world with limited resources (assuming that this instinct has never fully left us), and added the imagination bit to explain modern nuttiness.

Where am I going with all of this? JB's post shows that a religion or cult may take any fact or idea and twist it toward its own purpose, without waiting for divine revelation to make an announcement. If God gave us the bible, then that is his final word. I don't see many potato chips with the face of Jesus actually saying anything. There is no mention of fossils or evolution in the bible, so for the church to get involved in the discussion is pointless. If your religion can't stand on its own, then you admit this by trying to defend it with the things you make up. "Inteligent Design" is a concept created by people who saw science as a threat. There is nothing in the bible that explains what we've found with science, so to start doing so is completely a fabrication of someone's imagination.

Now, I think an imagination is an incredible thing. Mr Rogers taught us to use our imagination, so it must be a worthwhile waste of time. Imagination allowed us to develop weapons, but also drives us to find cures for disease and to create fantastic literature. But imagination mixed with the survival instinct can be dangerous. Many people are still conditioned to believe that the enemy is anyone who doesn't believe or support the same things you do. Everything from politics, to sports, to music, to religion has its fans. Within these realms, there is the feeling of community. Sometime there is the desire to defend this community in order to assist its survival. Sports rivalries are pretty deeply rooted, but only become violent when alcohol is involved, and usually result in minor fistfights. In the case of religion, the survival instinct is the most dangerous, because the roll of imagination is the greatest here.

Once a terrorist, or a abortion clinic bomber (aka, a TERRORIST) begins to imagine the greatness of defending his religion, the possibilities are limitless. To imagine that one is doing "God's work" by stopping the enemy will allow terrible things to happen. I don't really believe that the Middle East is the only container of religious nuttery, it just so happens that the threat to them seems much more real, and their imaginations have really been running wild. The same thing could happen here if we aren't careful. What would have happened in Waco, Texas if it were a much larger group of believers. They had guns, you know.

We cannot regulate imagination, and I would not want to do this, but it's time to start recognizing that some of these deeply held beliefs are nothing more than the seed of someone's imagination, with a little history and law to make it believable and to keep people from going mad with it. I don't really want to say that all spirituality is all crap, but that's because I would run the risk of taking something precious away from a lot of people who matter to me.

My grandmother, whose health was getting better over the last few weeks, has suddenly taken a turn for the worse. Without a belief in God or some other spirituality, I will be the family member who will not be able to imagine her watching over us when she passes. Everyone else will say, "she is with Grandpa now," and "One day we'll all be together again." I'll hear this, nod and say, "yes, we will," so I don't take these thoughts of comfort away from them. I'll be using my imagination instead to put me in another place and time.