Religion: The Circus Mirror

A lady says to me, "How can you not believe in God?" I pondered the question and replied with the obvious, "How can you believe in a God?" Her patent answer was, "Faith." Interesting isn't it, or is it? She gave me, sincerely I might add, the usual explanations, "this world can't be an accident, the Bible tells us…etc., Jesus said…etc., I have faith in…etc."

Not unusual explanations, unremarkable. The basis of any religion is faith, the belief in things unseen, unheard, and uncertain. That is not a bad thing. I have faith that I will sell my novels and someone will say, "hey I like the writings of Stan Grimes." Faith keeps me writing. Does my faith have any basis? Will my faith make me a good writer? No, only my writing will make me a better writer. Reality is a slap in the face sometimes.

The majority of the world's people have faith in an unseen being they name God. God is the blanket they cover themselves with at night. He is the shoe they put on in the morning facing another day of reality. It is the helmet they wear to keep from being slapped by reality. Reality hurts, it bruises, and tears at our egos and our self-esteem. Reality is the floor length mirror telling you that you're too fat, too skinny, too ugly, or too frail.

God is the circus mirror, which makes you see only the beautiful you. Religion is a group of people using the same mirror. There is strength in numbers. We found that out when George W Bush was reelected in 2004, primarily by those people using the circus mirror. Belief and faith in a God is the fighter of reality. It is spiritual marijuana stoning the collective masses into a subconscious wonderland that never has and never will exist.

Atheists are loaded with biological explanations, bullets of data, ready to slap the believer with reality. Some atheists are so darn intelligent it scares me. Their logic and proof of the earth's genesis is enough to boggle the mind and I believe every ounce of what they say is true. A flashing red light should be strung across the path "some" atheists are on. Problem. Feeding intellectual dogma into the mind of the average Joe Blow Believer only strengthens Joe Blow's faith in God.

If one looks at the intellectual bell curve, one will see that the majority of this world is filled with the average Joe Blows. Intellectualism will only stimulate the interest in the intellectuals exchanging information, not Joe Blow.

Structurally, atheists are scattered. There is no real cohesive organization or pulpit from which the atheist can preach. Therefore, their words are often unseen, unheard, and unadvertised. Some atheists will surely counter this limb crawling statement, and I admit that perhaps I speak too collectively. There are atheist and freethinking organizations that meet regularly, but they carry little bite with their bark. In other words, atheists have little representation in the public arena. Hence, religion will always (I'm crawling farther out on the limb) win the reality/faith controversy. The circus mirror will always distort the reality that humankind wishes not to face.