I Only Believe What Makes Sense – to Me
Jun 17th, 2011 by Kimberly
I have a confession to make: I missed the Tonys this year. Sunday night I was out with my best friend, having dinner and two desserts. (It made sense at the time. You had to be there.) In the face of my brother’s and my friends’ wild enthusiasm for the event, I logged on to youtube.com and watched a few numbers.  They were right, it looked like a great show.  One of the best numbers was the song “I Believe,” a clip from what may be the year’s most unusual show, The Book of Mormon.
A young Mormon tenor – nobody wails devotion like a tenor – sings out all the things he has been raised to believe, including some of the stranger tenants of his religion: the voyage of ancient Jews to America; the Garden of Eden’s location in Jackson County, Missouri; the planet that will be the young man’s reward for a life spent making the right decisions.  The song is funny and simultaneously completely sincere.  If you don’t happen to belong to the Church of Latter Day Saints, you may be tempted to scoff.   Indeed, many went so far as to post their scoffings there on the site. How could anyone believe such completely illogical things?
While I’m not Mormon and don’t necessarily share their views, I had trouble with the digs. As a person of faith, I’d have to be a huge hypocrite not to sympathize with them. I’m a United Methodist. Our church has always believed that a virgin gave birth to God (well, part of God, since the rest of God was busy being God), that a piece of shrubbery caught fire and gained the power of speech, and that a guy could be in a cave overnight with lions without becoming the entrée.  A rational person who heard me mention these things out of context might well decide I should be medicated. (I already am, so there.) Thinking similar thoughts, a couple of commentators graciously extended the disdain from just Mormonism to church in general. No sensible person could ever take such things seriously, they insisted.
It’s true, many things about religion – mine and everyone else’s – are quirky. But do the oddities stem from divine inspiration, I wonder, or human development? Just as an intellectual exercise, I looked to see how many completely secular ideas people have held to be true that push the bounds of logic.
1. Trickle-down theory is the quickest path to prosperity. “The best way to take care of everyone is to give more money to the people who have the most money.” Really? I studied political science in college during the Reagan/Bush I years. We heard a lot about supply-side economics. Didn’t make sense then. Still doesn’t now. But our government was (and some say still is) run trusting in its merits.
2. Comb-overs disguise baldness. Yes, it’s declined in popularity over the last decade or two. But we’ve all known someone who went out in public assuming this to be true. (Corollary: ponytails make balding men look younger. Please, let’s stamp out this fallacy, before one more innocent bystander has to suffer.)
3.  Gay men all lust after young boys. For decades, possibly centuries, people have bought into this theory. Why? We assume straight men want grown-up women. Why would favoring a different gender suddenly give one a preference for the underaged? And yet, homosexual men have spent years fighting the stigma.
4. A healthy childhood features stories about a fat man who drops presents down the chimney in the middle of the winter and a rabbit that brings eggs and candy in the spring. The rabbit takes a sadistic joy in making said children ransack their homes and yards to get to the treats. I have an outsider’s perspective on this one. Santa Claus (and all other super-sized character-people) scared the snot out of me when I was a kid, so my mother told me when I was two that he wasn’t real. (Even when I knew it was just my Great-Uncle Tom in a red suit, I still didn’t trust him.) To one who never spent any quality time believing this story, all of you who continue its existence look like you’re trying to induct your offspring into some sort of candy-laden cult that is heavily discriminatory toward the vertically-challenged.
5. All houses must have a lawn. Doesn’t matter if the house is in the middle of the desert, surrounded by sagebrush and saguaro cacti, some of the owners will install a sprinkler system, plant a lawn, and spend a fortune in order to pretend that they live in the middle of a golf course.
6. Seatbelts are unnecessary if you’re driving carefully. You think I’m reaching, but I’m not. I’ve had people say this to me within the past five years. I have to explain, as patiently as possible, that while I will do the best I can, I have no control over all those other people on the road. It is possible for one of them to hit me while I am not in fact doing anything wrong myself. Take my word for it. (Or at least the word of the body shop that fixed my car last winter.)
7. Facelifts improve appearance. I suppose there is an exception or two out there. But I live in Los Angeles, and in general, when people choose to have their own still-aged skin tightened up it does not make me envy them. It makes me hurt on their behalf, and wonder what they’re squinting at, until I realize that that their eyes can no longer fully open.
And of course, let’s not forget the one we’re all guilty of:
8. Things I do while watching my favorite sports team affect their chances of winning. “They lost because I didn’t watch.” “They won because I wore my team jersey.” “They’re down two points. It’s because we’re eating popcorn. Quick! Make some nachos, like we had when they won last week!” Reason would indicate a lack of effect either way on a game that’s being played in another city/state. This does not stop millions of sports fans from observing certain rituals in the privacy of their own living rooms, in order to ensure a favorable outcome.
My conclusion? We might want to ease up on the Mormons. We’re wired this way.  Even if you don’t believe any of the things on this list, you believe in something that can’t be proved.  (Fairies? Time travel? Diets that let you eat as much cheesecake as you want?)  Human beings can’t live on logic alone. With or without religion, we will find a way to take some kind of leap of faith, testing the limits of common sense. Why? I don’t know. Maybe rationality just gets boring after a while.  As long as we just believe these things, it really doesn’t matter.  The trouble only comes when we start forcing others to believe the same illogical things that we do.  As long as you aren’t hurting anyone, I say, believe whatever brings you peace.
Hey, anything can happen. Â Someone made a musical called The Book of Mormon. Â What further proof do you need?
Kimberly believes that someone reads this blog besides her family. If this is not true, and all the hits on the website really are her mother, please don’t tell her.
I still don’t know how to put tags on my posts- you’re so cool. I loved this blog and have realized that I missed a couple of weeks- off to read the other I missed.
P.S. This is NOT you mother.
And just so you all know, The Book of Mormon (the musical, not the religious guide) was written by the guys who created South Park, and has been called “sweet and heartwarming” by critics, from what I heard on ABC News.
There are many myths and fantasies that people cling to well beyond adulthood that should go by the wayside just as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny for kids.
Kimberly, as usual, you see through the mist and bring into focus what is simply stumbling around in the world to the rest of us. I can 100% agree with everything in your column. Except, being hard wired this way, I will not let up on Mormons. I’ll even given you the tooth fairy!
Well done my friend!