Dismissing the Impossible posted by Ben

I hear about a lot of stuff that the empiricist in me dismisses as impossible. For instance, one friend of mine will tell me with complete belief in her eyes about the time she was abducted by aliens for five hours on the way back from dinner at a pizza place. A few friends have told me in far greater detail than I ever wanted about the shape shifting that they have witnessed at exorcisms. And these are just the accounts of the supernatural from people who I know and whose honesty I would generally vouch for without a second thought.

If there's anything that the last year has taught me, though, it is that belief and reason are seldom bedfellows.

For me, the world is basically a place that makes sense scientifically. Oddball phenomena can be explained rationally and the use of one's reasoning skills is a great way to solve problems.

I don't intend to discount the unknowable, mind you. Theologically and philosophically, there are countless things that we do not understand about the world and our place in it. Morality, ethics, and yes, faith, all are integral parts of that human experience.

But for me, there is a strong line between that which we can know and that which we cannot know. Theologically, to see proof of God is to make faith in God unnecessary. It doesn't make sense for the supernatural and the natural to mix, especially in the realm of human experience.

So how can one respond when confronted with an experiential faith that runs counter to the verifiable, or to logic, or even to basic morality and ethical codes? How does one react to the friend who says "Sure, you can prove your point of view, but you're still wrong."

Simply to discount those personal narratives seems an act of disrespect and is bloody close minded. So I listen quietly, intently, trying to figure out where they're coming from.

I get some satisfaction from the post-Jungian psychologists like James Hillman and Thomas Moore, who take the basic notion of the archetype and really engage the power of the conscious and unconscious symbols that we create. As a screenwriter, I find their modes of analysis especially useful for making sense of a work's thematic underpinnings. But they still generally maintain that disconnect between real things with symbolic value and imaginary (or conceptual, or spiritual) things with symbolic value.

Another temptation is to read these stories as after-the-fact retellings of prosaic events where the impossible images better convey the sense of the storyteller's experience than a strictly factual telling would. Certainly we can and often do remember through the lens of narrative, rather than as an objective, third-party observer.

But that still doesn't address those who will insist "No. This is how it really happened. I saw it with my own eyes and felt it with my own hands."

And as I wrote earlier, the logical extension of what seems to me to represent a disconnect from observable reality has become a major part of the American political and cultural landscape. For a frightening percentage of the U.S. population, there is a higher truth than mere facts. "So what is there was no proof that Iraq had WMDs? I believe that they were there and have been found. So what if our soldiers are torturing prisoners? I believe that all our boys and girls oversees are moral, upright citizens who only want to spread democracy. So what if abstinence only education programs statistically result in more STD s and unwanted pregnancies? Telling our children about safe sex is a crime. So what if Bush is destroying what I love? I believe that God put him into power to save us."

At some point, is listening respectfully to a mob that has willfully gone insane still the best thing to do? Or are we responsible for speaking the truth, over and over again, in an effort to counter this increasing tide of evangelical madness whose leaders seek to distort both the words of the Constitution and Christianity, merely as a vehicle for the acquisition of power or the imposition of a theocratic police state?

Or is it possible that the truth is not enough to set us free? (Or as Gloria Steinem said, does it have to piss us off first?)

It's not enough to insulate ourselves with the like-minded. It's not enough to ridicule the deluded (even though doing so can be terribly cathartic). We have to subvert the power of those who are in control and we have to speak the truth in a language that those who have been deceived will understand.

Years ago, a close relative was a key figure in defusing a cult who planned a massive explosion in a secluded fishing village. To do so required two vital steps. First, the cult leader had to be sequestered, so that he couldn't continue to lead his flock toward a future of death and destruction. Second, a priest who spoke the cult's language had to bring the cult members back to reality gently and honorably, which took a few weeks of intense bible study, discussion, and deprogramming. (And removing the dynamite from the boat!) Disaster was averted. The planned conflagration never occurred.

You may draw your own conclusions about how these lessons might be applied on a national level. The alternative, however, is to allow a destructive belief that denies fact and reason to wreak immeasurable havoc on America and on the rest of the world. And we must remember that those conservatives and Christians who have been deceived (and not all have been) are not just aggressors, they are also victims who will need our love and compassion when the truth comes knocking.