So maybe the book I have to write is about faith: Blind Faith, Bad Faith.
I think the election was about too many people having faith. Having blind faith in a man with blind faith. And it will turn out to have been bad faith.
But then, I think all faith is bad faith. I'm a scientist. I don't like faith. I don't understand faith. I have no faith in faith. I don't understand some peoples' need for faith. I fear faith. I fear what people do in the name of faith. I fear what people do out of blind faith (as in this election).
I need to understand faith so I can fight it. So I can persuade people to dump it. I honestly think it's brainwashing / child abuse / a social disease. If people weren't brought up to believe in the necessity of religion, would they truly feel it? If there were secular rites of life passage as deeply entrenched as today's religious rites, would anyone still need religion?
I understand that some people want facile answers to life's mysteries and difficulties and finitude. But wouldn't it be just as easy to train people to accept scientific answers (including "We don't yet know") as to train them to accept ridiculous faith-based God answers?
Damn, I wish I lived in a secular society!
Maybe I need to write an s.f. novel so I can invent that world and write about it and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why do new phony religions (think Scientology) get all the publicity and followers and money? How in the world did Elron pull in his first gullible "believers"? (Or was it just money all along? The current believers continually and knowingly fleece the newcomers.) Why is such obvious horseshit more exciting than science and reality?
You can't even talk about this in polite society. You can't say, "Religion is crap." We're not allowed to be that dismissive of peoples' holy (crap!) faiths. Religion is treated with such unthinking, unquestioning respect. I don't believe in unquestioned authority.
And holiness! Don't get me started! The bullshit shielded under "holiness"! How can any thinking person believe that there could be any such thing? And how could anyone living in today's world believe it, when the ideas they hold holy are in direct conflict with the ideas someone else holds holy? What a concept! What a crock of shit. And how infuriating that I can't say so out loud! I hate having to bite my tongue.
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