Wanting to believe

This morning I was reading a blog post about a well-known quasi-military club for boys and their struggles with inclusion. They have a long history of excluding gays but under intense pressure from you know, progress, they have decided that gays are people, too. The rub is that even though this organization will now officially sanction openly gay members and even adult leaders, they also allow each local group the freedom to follow their own beliefs regarding inclusion. And since upwards of 70% of these local units are sponsored by religious organizations, this means that de facto exclusion of gays continues over much of the country.

As a kid, I was a member of one of those local units, sponsored by and meeting on the premises of the Catholic church to which my family belonged. So I saw no problem with the 12^th requirement in the organization’s Law calling for reverence - specifically, reverence to a god. Since god-worship was part of my normal at that morally unchallenged point in my development, I had no problem with this alignment with religion. Frankly, I’m not sure I even noticed it. At monthly meetings we all stood and recited the organization’s oath and laws and dutifully recited the Pledge of Allegiance and (if Father Holland was on the scene as was frequently the case) received his benediction.

I’m not sure I was ever aware of anyone being denied admittance to good ole Troop 641 on the basis of sexual orientation. Which is not to say it didn’t happen. Lake Hills at the mid-century was not what you might call progressive. So, possible. And I didn’t think of my troop leaders or my parish or my friends as bigoted. But of course, in those days they wouldn’t have called it bigotry. They would have called it ‘protecting the normal boys.’

Okay, back to the present situation.

Most of the posts were the typical back and forth until a particular comment gave me pause. One commenter in support of the organization’s position said, “People should be free to believe what they want to believe.” 

No, they shouldn’t.

(I’ll pause for a moment here while you re-read that three times and spent a moment wondering if I’ve taken leave of my senses.)

Please understand it’s not people’s beliefs with which I take issue, it’s how they came by them and the extent to which they advocate to make their beliefs a part of my life.

“… want to believe.”

Seems to me that wanting and believing don’t properly belong in the same sentence.

You should believe because all the evidence points in a certain direction and no credible evidence speaks to the contrary.

Too many people in this last election cycle based their votes on what they wanted to believe. Their jobs were outsourced so they wanted to believe it was the result of skullduggery rather than just market pressures. They wanted to believe that our country’s woes can reasonably be blamed on recent immigrants, as though we’re not an almost entirely immigrant population.

Some people wanted to believe that all men talk that way when women aren’t around, because otherwise, they had to admit Trump is what he is.

When we want to believe we start down a path of illogic that leads inexorably to moral ruin.

Believe because the information available to you supports the proposition. Believe because you’ve no reason not to and the kind and respectful thing is to assume the other person is both honest and knowing. Believe because empirical evidence leaves you with no alternate explanation.

Just, please don’t believe because you want to believe. The world is littered with folks who wanted to believe their abuser would control his (or her) impulses next time. And youngsters whose parents wanted to believe the minister or priest had their children’s best interests in mind. And decimated populations that wanted to believe their country was ‘better than this.’ And religionists who really believe in the Christ or Muhammed or Yahweh, or, or, or… but cannot accept that the beliefs of other folks are not morally repugnant.

Believe if you must but please don’t pretend your beliefs are compelling or that I should share them just because you want to be right.

You’re not. You can’t prove a God, much less a Word of God, so don’t tell me our laws should bow to your unprovable religious mythology. Embrace your religion, love your god but please keep all of the above out of our politics.  Because the end product of wanting to believe leaves us with Pence and Ryan and Trump.