Smoking Man: “Well that doesn’t matter. Most of them have ceased to believe in god.”
Jeremiah Smith: “Why?”
Smoking Man: “Because god presents them with no miracles to earn their faith.”
Jeremiah Smith: “You think when man ceases to believe in miracles he rejects god?”
Smoking Man: “Of course.”
Jeremiah Smith: “You rule over them in god’s name.”
Smoking Man: “They don’t believe in him, but they still fear him. They’re afraid not to because they’re afraid of freedom.”

He’s absolutely right. 80-85% of Americans are nominally Christian, but how many of them actually believe in god, and how many are just afraid not to? Some of that fear is because of societal pressures, but I think there is a fundamental fear of freedom, innate in human nature, that provides a broader explanation for this phenomenon.

There is, alongside the fear, a desire for freedom. When desire overcomes fear, slaves are freed, democracies are formed and theists become atheists. When fear wins out, the weak are willingly oppressed, dictatorships arise and religion waxes. The balance between the forces reaches an equilibrium somewhere in the middle. Humans want to be free, but not too free.

Gods are, as they always have been, tools of domination. However, they are more insidious than other such tools. Weapons and economic tools are external. If you shoot me, it doesn’t matter if I believe in the bullet. If you take my money, I don’t have to believe I’m poor to be unable to feed my family. However, religion is different. It is a seed, planted in the victim, that grows into an internal control system. It must be accepted, or it doesn’t work.

So, why do people accept religion? It’s easier than responsibility. If you have a set of rules by which you live your life, you don’t have to make as many decisions. Many of your actions can simply be ascribed to your faith, and the repercussions of those actions aren’t your fault. Gods make for excellent scapegoats. However, there are some things we want to do that gods don’t allow. True believers would refrain from doing those things, but most people don’t.

It’s terribly obvious to anyone who examines the facts and evidence (or lack thereof) that god is a fable. In fact, in the modern world (at least in the west), most people live as though god were a fable. Think about the “Christians” you know. Would they behave the way they do if they actually thought, deep down inside, that there was an all-powerful, vengeful god watching their every move? If the threat of hell were truly tangible and present, would self-professed believers lie, cheat and steal like almost everyone does to some extent? Isn’t it more likely that these people don’t really believe, but have some motivation to hold on to god that is so strong, they can’t even admit it to themselves? Perhaps this is why Christianity has been so dominant. A forgiving god removes much of the cognitive dissonance. If you can sin all week and then ask for and receive forgiveness on Sunday you can reconcile your behavior and your religion. The Christian god became popular because he’s easier to “believe in” than many others.

Don’t open your eyes. You won’t like what you see.
The devils of truth steal the souls of the free.
Don’t open your eyes. Take it from me.
I have found you can find happiness in slavery.
        – Nine Inch Nails, “Happiness in Slavery”

Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort which it brings.
        – Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Morals

Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.
        – Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

~I AM~

“I saw a ghost.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

See? That argument is over.

I’m interested in the third type. It is this third kind of encounter that is sought by ghost hunters and spiritualists to convince the rest of us that there are spirits among us. I also think this evidentiary type of encounter, whether experienced firsthand or reported by a third party, is the kind most likely to make a person start believing.

48% of Americans believe in ghosts. In the UK, it’s 68%, which dwarfs the percentage of Brits who believe in god. In large parts of Africa and South America, the number is probably pretty close to 100%, as ghosts are simply accepted as a part of daily life by many indigenous cultures. With these numbers behind it, this is clearly a topic worthy of serious consideration.

Everything I will present from this point on is pure speculation and opinion. I have done no research and conducted no experiments. Until this topic came up for GOD or NOT, I never really spent any time thinking about ghosts, but they are an important component of many of the world’s religions, so it’s about time I did so. In talking about ghosts here, I mean specifically the spirits of the dead. I will also use the word ‘haunting’ in a specialized way. For my purposes, haunting is to ghosts as UFO is to alien spacecraft. There are certainly unidentified flying objects. It is all but certain that they are not flying saucers from Mars. (As I do believe that there are other intelligent species in the universe, I have to throw in that caveat.) Similarly, ‘hauntings’ occur. They are not caused by ghosts.

So, how do we explain a haunting of the third type? I will base my hypothesis on a few basic tenets of the human mind. First, when we see an effect, we search for a cause. Most people do not believe that things “just happen.” In fact, it is this search for an ultimate cause that is partially responsible for god. I have discussed that previously. Second, humans have intuitive physics. This is also sometimes called naive physics. You know that if you drop a ball, it will fall. A two-year-old child knows that without any understanding of gravity. You know that if you run into a wall, you will not pass through it. You do not need to understand the nature of matter to come to that conclusion. The problem with intuitive physics is that it’s flawed. For example, imagine a situation in which you are on an airplane and there is a target on the ground. If I ask at what point you should drop an object so that it hits the target, most people will say to drop it when the plane is directly over the target. In their experience, things fall straight down. Intuitive physics doesn’t adjust for the forward motion of the aircraft. Third, and finally, humans project. In other words, they assign some of their own qualities, thoughts and emotions to other people, animals, and sometimes even inanimate objects.

When you put these three items together, you have a haunting that seemingly qualifies as an evidentiary encounter with a ghost. Something physically happens in my presence. I look around for a cause, because there must be one. My weak intuitive sense of physics doesn’t allow me to discover the cause for some reason or other. If something happens and there was no reason for it to happen by itself, it must have been caused by the physical expression of will. Voila! I have a ghost.

This physical manifestation reported in a haunting can be a book falling off a shelf. It could be a cold spot in a room. It might be EVP on a tape, “spirit orbs” in a picture or the flashing of an electromagnetic meter. Whatever it may be, the observer can’t find a cause. There is a draft from a window, a vibration from a passing train, dust in the air, faulty wiring, etc., but he doesn’t pick up on any of that. Therefore, if the book fell off the shelf, someone pushed it. Since there is no one else obviously present, that someone must be invisible. Who is invisible? Ghosts. The logic behind it is really pretty good. The only place it falls down is the lack of a rigorous search for a physical cause, but that is a scientific problem, not a logical one.

I don’t mean to suggest that this is the only explanation. Certainly, there are other effects that play a role. People are more likely to feel they have encountered a ghost with a prior suggestion that a location is haunted. Some people are simply more prone to belief in ghosts. For example, women are far more likely to believe than are men. However, I think I have a good basic framework for one of the ways in which a mundane, unexplained event turns into a ghost.

Now, the number of people actually having these experiences for themselves is quite small in comparison to the millions who believe. There are many places to place the blame for the dissemination of this kind of tripe, but I point squarely at cable television. Specifically, I blame the History Channel and the entire Discovery Empire (Discovery, TLC, Travel Channel, etc.). These were once reputable sources of information, but they now more frequently serve as clearinghouses for superstitious mumbo-jumbo and biblically-inspired, Christian-biased propaganda programming. The National Geographic Channel seems to be holding onto its integrity for the most part, but the others are lost. So, with the supposedly rational, scientific mass-media outlets succumbing to superstition and presenting this kind of material in ways that are questionable at best, is there any hope? When educational programming more closely resembles children sitting around a campfire than scientists sitting around a lab table, where are we? The answers haunt me.

~I AM~

You are suffering from demonic oppression. This obsession can cause depression. In fact, one of the main side effects is the use of lots of words that rhyme with possession, but are less serious. This problem was first diagnosed by a Canadian Catholic priest who is so proud of the work he’s done that he goes by the pseudonym “Father Mike.”

He tells us that triggers for this condition include occult activities, drugs, alcohol and pornography. These cause people to “get weighed down.” The good Father performed cleansing rituals to release people from the loose grip of evil in the late 70s and early 80s. He provides a dramatic example of one of these procedures.

Father Mike says the scariest thing that happened in those years occurred when a man seeking help was seated in a heavy oak chair with solid wood armrests. Once the prayers started, the chair lifted about six to eight inches off the ground and began to bounce. The team members had to hook their feet over the chair rungs to hold it in place. Father Mike found it terrifying, but the team kept praying. The man in the chair at one point told the team he was tired and wanted to take a break and go home. They knew it was the evil spirit trying to distract them, so they kept going. Five hours later, the man was free and “mercifully” had no memory of what had taken place.

It may look like possession to you, but IT IS NOT. It can’t be, because exorcism requires special permission from the diocesan bishop. “Cleansing rituals,” on the other hand, can be performed without all the Pentecost-red tape.

Father Mike says that a big problem is rampant misdiagnosis.

He says that much ignorance and lack of awareness surrounds the role of the demonic in mental health, and “sometimes people were simply sent off to a psychiatrist,” when they had a spiritual problem.

Tom Cruise could not be reached for comment.

In fact, when Father Mike was serving near a mental hospital, two or three psychiatrists began sending some of their patients for deliverance prayer because of the success of the prayer team.

I want names. These psychiatrists should have their licenses revoked. Also, I think Father Mike should be as close as possible to mental hospitals at all times.

Father Mike once counselled [sic] a woman who hated her husband. He told her she would have to forgive him if she was to be free.

“Oh no, I couldn’t do that,” she said, with a chilling smile. “That is all I have to live on.”

“She got up and left and I have never felt so much in the presence of evil.”

I’ve felt more evil than that TODAY, and it’s only 9am. Is it just me, or does Father Mike need to get out more?

“Evil spirits will not look at a crucifix,” Father Mike says. “It symbolizes defeat.”

+ Feel the burn, heathens.

Reading an article like this in “Canada’s Largest Religious Weekly” make me wonder if there is any hope at all for mankind. You could have told me this was from The Onion, and I’d have believed you. Belief in god is bad enough, but there is widespread belief in demons, ghosts, etc. Are people so bored with their lives that they need to pretend that they’re possessed? Is it just the power of suggestion from a charismatic priest?

I have to go. My chair is starting to buck.

~I AM~

The article is inspired by a 3,000 page paper written in 1967 by a Stanford University anthropologist by the name of Robert Textor. In the paper, he simply sought out correlations between various attributes of cultures around the world. As it turns out, ecology was an excellent predictor of all kinds of things about a given culture. Textor’s work shed light on a prominent dichotomy. Most of the world’s cultures arose in either deserts or rain forests, and their ecological backgrounds had a huge effect on religion, among other things.

I highly recommend reading the entire article, but here are some of the paragraphs that deal with religion:

Begin with religious beliefs. A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods. Polytheism is prevalent among tribes in the Amazon basin (the Sherenti, Mundurucu, and Tapirape) and in the rain forests of Africa (the Ndorobo), New Guinea (the Keraki and Ulawans), and Southeast Asia (the Iban of Borneo and the Mnong Gar and Lolo of Vietnam). But desert dwellers the bedouin of Arabia, the Berbers of the western Sahara, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, the Nuer and Turkana of the Kenyan/Sudanese desert are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One.

This division makes ecological sense. Deserts teach large, singular lessons, like how tough, spare, and withholding the environment is; the world is reduced to simple, desiccated, furnace-blasted basics. Then picture rain forest people amid an abundance of edible plants and medicinal herbs, able to identify more species of ants on a single tree than one would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in this sort of setting must seem natural. Moreover, those rain forest dwellers that are monotheistic are much less likely to believe that their god sticks his or her nose into other people’s business by controlling the weather, prompting illness, or the like. In contrast, the desert seems to breed fatalism, a belief in an interventionist god with its own capricious plans.

So, as if you don’t already know, which type of culture comes out on top?

Which kind of culture would you prefer to get traded to? When it comes to the theistic part, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other to me. As for the other correlates, desert cultures, with their militarism, stratification, mistreatment of women, uptightness about child rearing and sexuality, seem unappealing. And yet ours happens to be a planet dominated by the cultural descendants of the desert dwellers. At various points, the desert dwellers have poured out of the Middle East, defining large parts of Eurasia. Such cultures, in turn, have passed the last 500 years subjugating the native populations of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. As a result, ours is a Judeo-Christian/Muslim world, not a Mbuti-Carib/Trobriand one.

So now we have Christians and Jews and Muslims in the wheat fields of Kansas, and in the cantons of the Alps, and in the rain forests of Malaysia. The desert mind-set, and the cultural baggage it carries, has proven extraordinarily resilient in its export and diffusion throughout the planet. Granted, few of those folks still live like nomadic pastoralists, guiding their flocks of sheep with staffs. But centuries, even millennia after the emergence of these cultures, they bear the marks of their desert pasts. Our vanquished enemies in Afghanistan, the Taliban, and our well-entrenched Saudi friends created societies of breathtaking repressiveness. In Jerusalem in recent years, Jewish Orthodox zealots have battled police, trying to close down roads on Saturday, trying to impose their restrictive version of belief. And for an American educator with, say, a quaint fondness for evolution, the power of the Christian right in many parts of this country to dictate what facts and truths may be uttered in a classroom is appalling. Only one way to think, to do, to be. Crusades and jihads, fatwas and inquisitions, hellfire and damnation.

If nothing else, this article gives us a better understanding of why monotheists are the way they are. Of course, having been raised in a desert culture, it may also explain some things about me.

~I AM~

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an… Economic Conservative (78% permissive) You are best described as a: Libertarian Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

If you take the quiz, leave a comment with your results.

I don’t usually give much away about myself. Want to know more about me? Here are some other quiz results…

Your Personality Is

Rational (NT) You are both logical and creative. You are full of ideas. You are so rational that you analyze everything. This drives people a little crazy! Intelligence is important to you. You always like to be around smart people. In fact, you’re often a little short with people who don’t impress you mentally. You seem distant to some – but it’s usually because you’re deep in thought. Those who understand you best are fellow Rationals. In love, you tend to approach things with logic. You seek a compatible mate – who is also very intelligent. At work, you tend to gravitate toward idea building careers – like programming, medicine, or academia. With others, you are very honest and direct. People often can’t take your criticism well. As far as your looks go, you’re coasting on what you were born with. You think fashion is silly. On weekends, you spend most of your time thinking, experimenting with new ideas, or learning new things.

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Materialist 100% Modernist 94% Existentialist 88% Postmodernist 56% Cultural Creative 31% Romanticist 13% Idealist 6% Fundamentalist 6%

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

You are an Atheist

When it comes to religion, you’re a non-believer (simple as that). You prefer to think about what’s known and proven. You don’t need religion to solve life’s problems. Instead, you tend to work things out with logic and philosophy.

18.75 %