Due to our language – which must be to say, thanks to the very nature of our minds, of which our language is but a reflection – we are required to imagine an agent behind every action.
By this same token of our human psychology, we are also just as compelled to imagine a motive behind every event.
Hence the belief in the supernatural, whether gods or ghosts or, for that matter, UFOs from other planets (or, even, from within the earth’s core itself, as hollow-earth theorists might say!).
Now what would we make of a simple mechanic working on DC electric motor repair who took a abrupt spark or the discovery of a mysteriously crushed bearing to be an omen of divine displeasure?
We would appropriately laugh them out of a job – laugh first, then seriously consider eliminating the person for the good of the public in addition to his or her own protection, even.
Yet we routinely humor even the most wild-eyed of so-called religious leaders who ascribe any number of natural phenomena to a supernatural agency.
Exactly why is this?
Now why should we ridicule a DC electric motor repair mechanic who similarly mistook basic naturally occuring events but not these religious people who take themselves and their delusions so severely – so seriously, in reality, as to prescribe it for all else, most of the time on pain of death and worse?
Moreover, what is it about the human being that seems to rather require such beliefs, such that our very psychology appears to be nothing more than a mechanism eminently hospitable to them?
Our need to make sense of our world.
That’s the answer.
And until we can mature to the point where we are comfy with – though not necessarily accepting of – the lack of an answer, we will likely continue to manufacture much mischief for ourselves in, as per Goethe’s warning, shrugging off the significant as chance while assigning intent to what is random.
Just as a mechanic engaged in DC electric motor repair does not mistake anything for something other than what it is, so too we must learn as a species to use our creativeness while not confusing it with reality.
