Truth, Faith, and Fiction
  by Len Schwee

Truth is conformity to fact or actuality, and it is verifiable. Good examples of truth are physics, chemistry, biology, cosmology, and other sciences. Sometimes difficult mathematics is required to express the truth.

Fiction is made-up stories. People enjoy fiction without believing it, and they have no trouble with this. Someone said that truth is stranger than fiction, but not so popular.

There is confusion, however, about faith. The problem arises when different and contradictory religions each claim to be the true faith. This is impossible. Many faiths must contain made-up stories. Since there are so many religions, figuring out what is fact and what is fiction is a large problem. People tend to believe what they were taught when they were uncritical children. Revelation, Thomas Paine pointed out, is a revelation only to the person receiving it. When he talks about it, it is hearsay. No doubt, a very real dream can be mistaken for a revelation. Once I dreamed that I had my car painted green. The dream seemed so real that I had to go to my garage and look at my car. It was still gold. It is easy to be fooled.

Since faiths need conformity, they contain beliefs which were fabricated to control people. Pope Pius XI expresses his desire for control, conformity, and his fear of liberty in the following passage, "Whoever disturbs the pupil's faith in any way does him grave wrong, inasmuch as he abuses the trust which children place in their teachers, and takes unfair advantage of their inexperience and their natural craving for unrestrained liberty, at once illusory and false." The Pope, of course, believed that he had the one true faith.

For nonbelievers, the story is different. Someone said that faith is believing what you know ain't so. Ambrose Bierce defined faith as "Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." Faith is belief in other people's unsubstantiated opinions. In other words, faith is hearsay. Faith is also about control.

A nun told my first grade class to turn our gas stoves on high, and hold our hands four inches above the fire as long as we could. Then we would know how hot hell will be for eternity. I feared hell for many years after that experience.

When 5,000 different religions all claim to be the true faith, we can logically conclude that there can be at most one true faith. But there is another possibility--that none is the true faith. Since science is atheistic, the proper logical conclusion is the latter.

Many of these false beliefs are irresponsible and immoral, and cause considerable hardship for believers. A good example is a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. Forcing falsehoods on impressionable youngsters using the threat of hell is criminal. We in the United States talk proudly of our liberty, but most do not enjoy it because of conformity to a false and morbid morality dictated by duped charlatans. Controlling ecclesiastical authorities are experts at taking the joy and pleasure out of life, and should be avoided. The enslaved not only conform, but they contribute and tithe toward their own subjugation. Fortunately, in this country, people can still free themselves from this wretched submission without being burned at the stake.

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