Daydream Believer
It must be nice to be a person who requires no evidence. Such a person can look at the world through the rosiest of glasses and believe in anything he or she desires. Faith frees the mind from reason and responsibility. I started thinking about all the wonderful things I would believe in if I were such a person. Here are my top 30 in alphabetical order. As you’ll see, the definition of “believe in” varies throughout the list.
“Believe in me
Help me believe in anything
I want to be someone who believes”
-Counting Crows (Mr. Jones)
~I AM~
August 6th, 2005 at at 2:55 pm
I’ll throw in “A United Ireland”.
“Without love, I believe in love”
August 6th, 2005 at at 3:02 pm
Although we have no scientific proof, I do honestly believe that there is at least one other form of life out there in the Universe somewhere. It just seems too big a Universe for there not to be, especially since we have found other “solar systems” out there. If we do find positive evidence of previous life on Mars or some other planet, I think that lends even more credibility to the existence of other life forms out there, but until we have a smoking gun, is this belief the same as believing in a god?
But I don’t believe that we have been visited by other life forms (aliens). I think it would be totally cool if we were and I would definately volunteer to go with them (like Richard Dryfus did in Close Encounters), but since we have no hard evidence, I’m not convinced.
August 6th, 2005 at at 3:05 pm
A very nice list, although I would add magic carpets to it. Disney’s Aladdin really sold me on that one.
August 6th, 2005 at at 3:12 pm
I don’t think belief in aliens really is equivalent to a belief in a god. To be clear, it’s definitely not anything like following a religion because you aren’t believing that you know how the aliens feel about moral issues, what humans they’ve had sexless children with, etc. But a belief in aliens seems to be more of an exercise of probability and everything is entirely consistent with what we know about the world. No laws of physics would have to be violated in order for aliens to exist. A god however, is something that exists in a supernatural realm. Now, we have no evidence that any sort of supernatural realm exists in this first place, so to believe in a god that exists in this supernatural realm is a real strech imo.
Now if you ever dedicated your life to glorifying the aliens, then yes, it’s comparable
August 6th, 2005 at at 3:19 pm
Delta:
YES! I want a flying carpet. Nice addition. In fact, if I can have a flying carpet, I don’t need the personal rocket pack.
Bruce:
I think Delta is dead on. It’s all about probability. You can find a thousand ways to attack the Drake equation, but it still makes a good deal of sense as long as you appreciate its limitations and understand that it’s not making any claims.
August 6th, 2005 at at 7:25 pm
OOOH! How ’bout El Dorado? I’ve always wanted to visit a city of gold. Of course, only I would be allowed there other wise everybody would take the gold and the value of it will drop greatly.
August 6th, 2005 at at 7:57 pm
I only want a magic carpet if it comes with some sort of force field or Super Velcro that keeps me from falling off! If I get that, then I’m all for it. I AM, did you Easter Bunny experience turn you off of wanting him to be real?
Definitely Santa. And St. Nicholas, though no one else knows who that is.
I’d like to believe that all of those really cool looking infomercial products are really as cool as they make them seem… especially the Magic Weight Loss Pill ads.
I’d like to believe that others believed in the Sanctity of Marriage, the way I do (and the way my husband had better!).
I’d like to believe World Peach was possible.
Guess that’s it for now.
August 6th, 2005 at at 8:03 pm
Uhm, right. That’s supposed to say “World Peace”. A world peach would be a rather strange thing to want to believe in.
August 6th, 2005 at at 9:09 pm
Now Now. We all know that Atlantis is real. ::hums the Stargate Atlantis tune::
August 6th, 2005 at at 10:00 pm
Don’t say that addict_no_more, the World Peach loves you!
August 6th, 2005 at at 11:45 pm
Any particular reason you lumped String Theory in with all that other crap? And I’m not sure I understand the parenthetical explination.
August 7th, 2005 at at 12:15 am
Stephen:
I’d like to believe it. There’s not much evidence for it. It’s the item on the list (other than Moose, perhaps) that I’m most likely to get to actually believe some day. I’m not maligning String Theory.
August 7th, 2005 at at 2:18 pm
I love the idea of String Theory, but considering most of it’s principles are currently untestable, it is a matter of Faith I guess
August 7th, 2005 at at 7:58 pm
I want to know why you don’t believe in moose. There must be a delightful story there.
Delta, the World Peach loves you, too. It wants you to pet its fuzz.
August 7th, 2005 at at 8:58 pm
Let’s just say that despite being in all the right places at all the right times, the wild moose of the world have witheld their love from me. I have been so unsuccessfuly in my attempts to see moose in the wild that I have to assume that any captive moose I may see from time to time is, in fact, animatronic.
August 8th, 2005 at at 11:18 am
Don’t know if this will be of any interest, but it reminded me of an “Alphabet of Bullshit” that I was working on a while back…
The Alphabet of Bullshit:
Aliens, Atlantis, Astrology
Bigfoot, Bermuda Triangle
Chemtrails, Crop Circles, “Channeling”, Creationism
Demons, Dragons, “Dowsers”, Dianetics
ESP
Fairies, Faith Healers, Flying Saucers
Ghosts, Ghouls, Goblins, Gods
Homeopathy, Holocaust Deniers, Hell
Incantations
Jesus
K
Loch Ness Monster
Magic, Mind Reading, Magnet Therapy
Noah’s Ark, Nostradamus, Numerology
Ouija Boards
Psychics, Phrenology, Perpetual Motion Machines
Q
Raelians
Spirits, Souls, Spoon Bending, Scientology, Sasquatch
Telepathy, Telekinesis
UFO’s
Voodoo
Witches, Warlocks
X
Yetti
Z
August 8th, 2005 at at 1:39 pm
I belive in whorled peas.
August 8th, 2005 at at 3:51 pm
When I was a child, around the 25th of December, I liked to sing about peas on earth as they really sucked to eat and that is where they belong!