Christmas Watch 2005: Meet Virginia
My first shot at rewriting a Christmas classic was so well received, I decided to do it again. See the original here.
DEAR I AM: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is a God.
Papa says, “If you see it on The Evangelical Atheist it’s so.”
Please tell me the truth; is there a God?
-Virginia O’Hanlon
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the gullibility of a gullible species. They believe everything they’re told. They think that anything can be just because they want it badly enough. All minds, VIRGINIA, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of seeing only the truth and rejecting superstition.
No, VIRGINIA, there is no god. He does not exist as certainly as invisible pink unicorns and square circles do not exist, and you know that they are imaginary and self-contradictory. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were only Christians! If would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be nothing but childlike faith then, no science, no exploration to make comprehensible this existence. We should have no understanding, except through dead books and ancient myths. The eternal curiosity with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Believe in god! You might as well believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch the whole universe to find god, but when they don’t see him, what would the believers say that proves? Nobody sees god, but they refuse to take that as a sign that there is no god. Some of the most suspect things in the world are those that neither children nor men can perceive. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, and that’s a good indicator that they’re not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen world, but if they’re real, we’ll find them some day.
You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, and there is a veil covering the unseen world which the best scientists, or even the united minds of all the best scientists alive, can tear apart. Only faith, fancy, obscurantism and fundamentalism can keep that curtain in place and keep us from viewing the genuine beauty and wonder beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else.
No god! Thank goodness! he does not live, and he will eventually be erased. A thousand years from now, nay, maybe one hundred years from now, he will be nothing but a memory, making glad the heart of the realist.
~I AM~
December 21st, 2005 at at 1:05 pm
“…maybe even one hundred years from now” no one will believe in God? People will always believe in god. If the belief in god depended on scientific evidence, no one would believe in god now. Why do you think it will be different anytime in the future?
December 21st, 2005 at at 1:38 pm
I’m afraid I have to agree with Braidwood, here. I think it’ll be a LONG LONG time before we see a significant change in the number of believers out there… though, as England has shown, a country can become decisively more secular without giving up its overall religious customs and institutions.
On the other hand, I’m hoping the damage America is doing now in the name of fundamentalism will disparage that theological practice for centuries to come.
December 21st, 2005 at at 2:38 pm
Wait, is this post alluding to Billy Joel and Train?
Whatever it was, it reminds me of Richard Dawkins’ letter to his daughter. Remember that?
December 21st, 2005 at at 2:48 pm
OK, first of all, I said maybe. Second, I’ve been moved to optimism by my celebration of the wonder of the birth of Christ. Well, maybe not. The original says ten times ten thousand years there, and I thought that was terribly pessimistic, so I erred on the side of hope.
December 21st, 2005 at at 3:05 pm
Yeah, I go for hope, too. One hundred years it is! This version is much better than the other one.
December 21st, 2005 at at 4:24 pm
Sadly, I cannot see that part of humanity ever giving up it’s beliefs in imaginary sky friends. They’re simply too perpetually gullible. But perhaps in the future we can get them back in the confines of their churches where they belong and the fuck out of my government and day to day life. What I’d really like to see in the future is the churches taken off the exempt list for paying taxes like any other business has to in this country. That to me is the ultimate offence to the seperation of religion and government. Yeah, that shit on our money can go away too.
December 22nd, 2005 at at 1:53 am
People always talk about this “square circle”, yet everybody skirts the circular squares. How convenient.
December 22nd, 2005 at at 12:10 pm
My husband and I were watching something the other night and a scientist claims to have found a gene that he believes lends one to more readily believe in god. If that’s true, maybe we can do gene therapy.
I have to research this more. I’m very curious.
Another Christmas classic, I AM. Bravo!
December 22nd, 2005 at at 5:27 pm
Found another good blog with similar thought, though from a different POV:
Gnosos.
December 22nd, 2005 at at 7:20 pm
Jolly Good. You could make a career out of that.