Faith, Non-belief, and the Parable of the Many Moons
Pretend you’re out on a clear evening, not too long after sunset. It’s a waxing gibbous moon — almost full. If someone asks you to point at the moon, you’ll of course be able to easily. Since it’s a waxing gibbous, you’ll be pointing Eastward and up. And if you ask someone else to point at it the moon, they’ll be able to point at it as well — again, Eastward and up.
Let’s make it just a bit harder. What if someone asks you to point towards the Sun? You obviously couldn’t point at it directly, since it’s after sunset. But you can still point roughly towards it, right? If you look back at the waxing gibbous moon in the east, the big bright side will be facing down at the Earth, and also towards the West, where the Sun recently set. So if you point away from the moon, towards where the bright side of the moon is facing, you’ll be pointing at the Sun — this time, Westward and down. And anyone else who looks at that moon will also be able to point towards the Sun in the same direction: Westward and down. Even though you can’t see the sun, you can see its effect, so you can deduce where the sun must be.
But let’s go a step further. What if someone then asks you to point to the second moon? What can you do? The best thing you can do is shrug. But what if they start pointing and saying “There it is! See?” But if you can’t see any evidence of it yourself, the only thing you can do is watch where they point and try to point in the same direction. Or you can just be honest, and continue shrugging.
But things can get worse. What if multiple people start pointing at different spots in the sky, and claiming that the other second moons aren’t real, but their’s is? And then you notice that some people are pointing at the same spot, but you’re not sure if they’re actually seeing anything, or if they’re just watching each other to see where they point?
Do you claim to see a moon? Which moon do you choose to claim to see? Or do you remain honest, and continue to shrug?
This second moon scenario is what faith-based religions seem like to atheists and nonbelievers. Nonbelievers may also grant, however, that, just because you can’t see a second moon doesn’t truly disprove its existence. Maybe your eyesight just isn’t as good as these other people. But the fact that you have several different “see-ers” that can’t seem to agree about the moon does seem fishy. And there’s also a big question underlying all of this, namely: What reason do I have to believe? Why should I even think about second moons in the first place?
After all, if none of these second moons have any obvious effect, visual or otherwise, that is detectable in any consistent way by a consensus of people, then, at the very least, the existence or nonexistence of any second moons is probably not very important, right?
There doesn’t seem to be a good reason to think about second moons. But there is a good reason for most people to think about faith-based religions. And the reason is, most people are pressured to keep their faith by their social network. Our parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends are people of faith. And if you’re not, they may get mad at you. Or think you’re going to hell. Or that you may corrupt them. And if we want to maintain our relationships, we need to profess our faith. But we don’t want to lie. So we don’t just say we believe — we *want* to believe. We TRY to believe.
But in the end, anyone who believes in a religion is really continuing a notion that’s just as lacking in evidence as a second moon. And that’s probably a bad thing. Because it prevents consensus. And that causes arguments. Arguments that can never be resolved. Because the things that people of faith argue over are things that other people can’t even see or witness in any way. And that causes tribalism and fear and hatred.
Wouldn’t it be better if we all just believed in the things that we can all see? That’s what science tries to be. And it’s still hard.
People of faith often claim that nonbelievers exercise the same amount of faith in their non-belief as believers. But that’s not true. Atheists believe in things you can point at — or at least things you can infer from things you can point at. Like the sun’s position at night.
But faith asks you to believe in more than that. There’s even a famous Bible verse that touches on this. This is Jesus explaining to Thomas that people who didn’t have the benefit of seeing him with their own eyes will be blessed because they needed to belief on faith, rather than on sight:
John 20:29: Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
Not all faith is equal in magnitude. It’s common sense, plus it’s in the Bible. The faith required to believe in the moon is less than the faith to believe in the second moon. The faith required to believe in the moon is less than the faith to believe in the God of Abraham.
And that’s all non-believers and atheists are saying, really. They’re not trying to completely and utterly disprove the God of Abraham, because they know that we can’t definitively disprove anything. But what atheists and non-believers are trying to do is convince people that the God of Abraham is not worth talking about. And furthermore, that believing in these faith-based gods is actually very detrimental to human well being.
At some level, if you are to get on in the world at all, you have to put some trust in something. For instance, you can trust your own senses. You may trust your eyes to see where the moon is, and where the sun must be based on the moon. Nonbelievers and atheists are aware that they do participate in faith at this level. Because people don’t have a choice not to at least interact with what they see and feel.
But we don’t have to trust every person who claims to see a second moon. Nor do we have to pick one person, or any people, to trust of the many who may claim to see a second moon. Or a religious faith.
You don’t have to believe in a second moon.
You don’t have to believe in a religion.
Atheists believe in things you can point at. They believe in things that we can all point at together.
Shouldn’t we all be pointing at the one moon together? The one Sun? The one Earth we all live on? Isn’t that more harmonious? Isn’t that better for everyone?
