Miracles were a lot easier in the middle ages. When someone did something unusual, the tale would grow in the telling. And so, the simple act of helping a stranger would quite quickly morph into a miracle, and with human nature for embellishment playing a major role in miracles, we soon had an act of God. Accelerate to the 20th and 21st century – as information became more readily available it become easy to check the factuality of an event. A quick Google and you can find out whether something happened. Even the disappearance of MH370 is not a mystery – there is enough readily available information to at least be sure it wasn’t taken to the heavens by aliens.
So, today we can easily verify that the Turin Shroud is not the death mask of Christ. Science TV shows us how Madonna statues cry. The mystery has gone out of pretty much everything.
And in tandem with this access to knowledge has been the growth in atheism. In many ways, it is a sad thing, because imagining that there is a warm glowing place in the sky waiting for everyone is a comforting thing. Equally, knowing that there is this really hot and bad place for wicked people aids the feeling that although wicked people get the better of nice folk in this life time, when they are dead they will be well and truly punished.
Sadly, that fantasy has gone. And it has an important consequence – my life. In the middle ages, my life belonged to God and therefore the church. Government’s seized on this and claimed the lives of their citizens for their own to do with as they pleased, including playing war.
Now, my life is my own to do with as I see fit. I have the right to life, and equally, the right to death, such as assisted suicide. This change in perception of life has led to an entirely different way to value life. If there is nothing after death, then I had better maximise the time that I exist.
I should enjoy a drink (better yet, several). Experiment with drugs and sex – generally have a super time because frankly, this is as good as it gets.
Are we better off knowing nonsense when we see it, or were we better off believing in a fantasy? In many ways, how beautiful would it be to once again know the innocence of childhood? But on the other, I don’t want to believe in a lie. I am not an atheist – I am somewhere in between. Because somewhere, deep inside me, there remains a little bit of the child that wants to believe …