The Roles of Contradictions, Absurdities and Trivial Nonsense in Faith

A question often asked by non-believers is “Why do you believe a book with so many contradictions, absurdities and trivial nonsense?“  However, this question is assuming that one cannot believe such things-when in truth, these things actually foster faith, not diminish it.

I will address each in turn, and what role in particular they partake in fostering faith.

I. Contradictions

Ask any believer and he will say that contradictions are one of the following-

a. non existent
b. taken out of context
c. due to translation errors
d. the result of us “not understanding God’s will/our inability to comprehend a being such as God.”

This particular posts deals with a. and d., the outright denial of contradictions and the belief that the human mind cannot understand a being such as God.

The former (d.) is of course, owing solely to outright denial of obvious facts.  The great holy books are literally peppered with contradictions-from the trivial to the truly earth shattering.  Only the willingly blind could deny they exist, as evident by the fact that non-believers can easily spot them with minimal effort.  In order to deny such a critical issue requires a great deal of faith-using your emotions rather than your logic.  As a result, even the most logical and well developed argument against these contradictions toward even the most intelligent believer will accomplish nothing when he denies their very existence.  Faith is in many ways less about what you can’t see and more about what you won’t see.

The latter is a more powerful and first responder more or less to the issue of dealing with contradictions.  Denial is not even necessary when one refuses to think about it because he believes that God is far wiser than himself and hence, always right.  Denial at least requires some thought, whereas assuming that thought isn’t even possible on this issue nips the problem in the bud.  There is no reason to think or worry about the contradictions-God knows all and he makes them consistent.  There is no way you could ever understand a being like God, so don’t even bother trying-just have faith that he knows all and wants the best for you.

II. Absurdities

This is not a universal attribute to the fostering of faith.  The stories of creation for instance, if taken literally are obviously absurd.  More astute believers see these as analogies.  However, as children and even some adults go, absurdity is a powerful energizer of faith, and it is these two groups who are my focus.  While many analogies are absurdities, not all absurdities are analogies in regards to religion.  It is the latter group of absurdities-those not attached to any analogy-that are my focus, as even a non-believer can draw wisdom and inspiration from some of the analogies and parables contained within a holy book.

Absurdity is loosely connected to the issue raised above (I, d.), wherein the logical mind cannot explain how such a thing is done.  When there is no logical reason why such a thing is a certain way, the mind begins to shut off and stop thinking about it-but rather, simply believe it is the cause of a higher power.  It is assumed that the creator of all laws can break them at a whim but beyond that no thought as to how such a thing can happen occurs or is even possible.  Faith begins to step in where logic is impossible.

III. Trivial Nonsense

I once said that if you want to hide the truth, bury it in triviality and boring rambling.  Sadly, it is still a habit of many intellectuals to hyper-articulate what they write, and spend five paragraphs explaining what a single sentence could have managed easily.  Credulity is based not only on wanting a thing to be so, but also in not wanting to pursue it further.  Trivial nonsense and passages that don’t teach anything but yet persist not only adds to an already long holy book, it also builds onto the image of holiness for the holy book that has all the answers must be long.  It has been my experience that the greatest philosophers-the most brilliant men of any age have been able to express themselves in few words, whereas hiding something in plain sight is easy when it is intermixed with an array of pointless and hyper-articulate passages.

Put another way, Jargon is perhaps a sufficient example of this.  Your doctor explains something to you in such a way that leaves you thoroughly confused and intimidated, so you just nod your head and agree.  In another example, a person with a specialized interest rambles on (I hope I’m not seen as such a person!) and others agree with him without much thought-either because they assume he knows more than they do. 

People want an answer-they don’t necessarily want to understand it.  I argue a bit deeper however, and say that we can only believe what we do not truly understand, and by making a holy book impossible to truly understand, belief is the only resort.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re probably right.”

When we sufficiently understand something, we often move on to something else.  So long as we do not understand something but are rather rewarded for trusting it anyway, we tend to hold on all the more. 

The role of entertainment in controlling the masses

“Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to play by looking at bright picture books.” 

-Etienne de la Boetie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude

Entertainment has always been an intrinsic part of keeping the masses under control.  Eric Hoffer would, almost exactly 500 years later, in 1951 note in The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements-

"There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society’s ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom.  In almost all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is reference to vast ennui; and in their earliest stages mass movements are more likely to find sympathizers and support among the bored than among the exploited and oppressed.  To a deliberate fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should at least be as encouraging as that they are suffering form intolerable economic or political abuses."

Boredom it seemed, was such a powerful force in the eyes of those in power that they would often spend lavishly on fairs, circuses and constructing impressive centers of entertainment such as the Colosseum.  

No ruler, benevolent or otherwise-has ever spent so much money on a thing he felt was useless to the perpetuation of his power.  However, in those cases where seemingly all forms of entertainment are banned yet the people do not live at near starvation levels as we see in parts of Africa, such as in pre-occupation Afghanistan, control can only be maintained by fear and constant hustling.  In the bland and flavorless U.S.S.R. under Stalin, or the uniform individuality suppressing China under Mao Tze Tung, control was gained by the constant regimentation of nearly every aspect of life.

Again, Hoffer seemed to have understood this well-

"The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives.  To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.  The goals are concrete and immediate.  Every meal is a fulfillment; to go to sleep on a full stomach is a triumph; and every windfall is a miracle.  What need could they have for “an inspiring super-individual goal which could give meaning and dignity to their lives?”  They are immune to the appeal of a mass movement.  Angelica Balabanoff describes the effect of abject poverty on the revolutionary adore of famous radicals who flocked to Moscow in the dearly days of the Bolshevik revolution.  “Here I saw men and women who had lived all their lives for ideas, who had voluntarily renounced material advantages, liberty, happiness and family affection for the realization of their ideals,-completely absorbed by the problem of hunger and cold.
     Where people toil from sunrise to sunset for a bare living, they nurse no grievances and dream no dreams.  One of the reasons for the unrebelliousness of the masses in China* is the inordinate effort required there to scrape together the means of the scantiest subsistence.  The intensified struggle for existence “is a static rather than dynamic influence.”

*(Hoffer wrote this in 1951, where China was not the rising giant she is today.  The policies of Deng Xiao Ping aided greatly in the rise of China to her position today.  Nevertheless, your mother‘s scolding of “Think of the poor starving kids in China!” whenever you poked and prodded your peas with a frown WAS true at one time-so listen to you mother and eat your peas)

Boredom is not an issue of those who struggle for food every day, it is a symptom of those who have met their basic needs and require something else to divert them.  The poorest regions of the world have little to worry about in regards to successful movements against them so long as their people live on the border of starvation.

When considering the ways people are kept under control, it is more prudent to focus on their individual needs rather than outside methods of control.

So it may also be that economic hardship spurns revolt not only by forcing the people to realize what they have lost (or may lose) but also by cutting deeply into their entertainment budget, and eliciting boredom during which they have little choice but to boil in anger about their situation.

Ignorance is bliss, but so too is denial-and entertainment is an excellent way to deny our own miserable affairs-and hence, a way to control the masses.