Defending Belief Systems

Bill Nye, the harmless children’s edu-tainer known as “The Science Guy,” managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.

As even most elementary school graduates know, the moon reflects the light of the sun but produces no light of its own.

But don’t tell that to the good people of Waco, who were “visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence,” according to the Waco Tribune.

Nye was in town to participate in McLennan Community College’s Distinguished Lecture Series. He gave two lectures on such unfunny and adult topics as global warming, Mars exploration, and energy consumption.

But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.

At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled “We believe in God!” and left with three children, thus ensuring that people across America would read about the incident and conclude that Waco is as nutty as they’d always suspected.

(Originally sourced here.)

Now as humorous as this situation is and as tempting as it may be to either make fun of or defend these people and their positions on religion or science, let’s see if we can step back a moment and look at the larger picture.

This is a perfect example of what happens when people buy into a belief system, no matter how logically sound (or not), no matter who originally sourced the words that people choose to believe in.

Remember, spiritual truth is experiential, not a belief system.

The taste of an apple is experiential, not a belief system. No matter how accurate the description, all words must first be filtered through the speaker’s personal perceptions, thus altering and limiting the totality of the experienced Truth.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. A few words, or even an infinite amount of words, could not possibly encompass infinity, the entirety of an experience. There’s no way you could tell someone what the experience is like and have them fully understand. The best you could do is help point out a pathway another person could walk in order for them to experience it for themselves.

Once they have done so, words are no longer necessary, for you both already understand experientially and no words need be spoken.

Whenever people get caught in trying to describe or talk about something, it would be very helpful for them to realize there’s no way they could ever describe the experience perfectly, both because words could never adequately describe an experience, as well as because each person’s experience will be personal and unique having been filtered through a person’s individual awareness.

Religion was originally intended to guide people to the personal experience of God, not to be a substitute for it.

Getting stuck on the verbalized substitute will always lead to situations like the one illustrated above, to a greater or lesser extent. It’s merely a matter of degree.

The past few thousand years of history have shown us this.

All beliefs are something to ultimately be dropped altogether.

Yes, even the belief 2+2=4. You can experience it. No need to have a belief in place of the experience.