Monday 5 March 2012

3: Very Superstitious


The writing’s on the wall. At least, it is if the recent trend in declining miraculous intervention is anything to go by. Let me elaborate.


One of the key elements of the faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses is the observation and identification of divine or supernatural interference in day-to-day life. In other words, one of the things that separates ‘the truth’ from, say, Lord of the Rings, is the fact that you can actually see and hear reports of the Characters in the Bible (like Jehovah or Satan) intervening in the world today.

Think of the experiences in the yearbooks; that moment of sudden divine intervention which magically allows a financially challenged yet spiritually faithful family to attend an assembly at the last moment. Or think of that demon story you heard; that friend-of-a-friend who bought some old trinket at a yard sale, and was subsequently plagued by Satanic forces until the item was finally burned. An honest person may seriously feel that these things only solidify his understanding of the universe as a battlefield between Satan and Jehovah. If you are such a person, I hope you will accept an invitation to re-examine these stories from the perspective we agreed in previous chapters – an objective look at the facts.

First of all, I’ll ask you directly – have YOU ever had such an experience personally? Have YOU directly observed a demon or an angel interfering in your affairs? The question is relevant because, troublingly enough, the vast majority of these so-called demon experiences are related second, third, fourth or fifth-hand, or beyond! If you answered “yes” to that question, we’ll discuss you in a moment. But for now let’s focus on the vast majority of publishers – those who read of these stories in publications like the Yearbook, or those who hear these demon stories passed down in gravely serious tones by fellow believers at gatherings.
If you fall into that category – then you are faced with an immediate challenge should you desire to view the story objectively. Carl Sagan, a famous scientist noted for his fondness of clear and objective thinking, once said “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Are any of these ‘extraordinary’ stories of the supernatural which are advanced by your fellow believers backed up by even a shred tangible evidence, let alone extraordinary evidence? Of course this is never the case, so it follows that we should treat these stories with an eyebrow raised firmly in suspicion.

The stories you hear are a product of Chinese whispers, passed from person to person. Another unfortunate fact is that the people passing these stories along are, like you once were, biased – their minds leaning towards anything that re-affirms their assumptions about the universe. Is it not then likely that such stories could be exaggerated in such a way as to impress fellow-believers? In such a way so as to reinforce their already-held common beliefs? Of course, the answer is a concerning ‘yes’. Even the accounts which are printed directly in the literature that the Watchtower Society creates are second hand stories which are published by those with the ultimate bias.

Think objectively yourself, for a moment. We have been recording our history for around a century now. For decades we have had the ability to record audio and visual footage. Here in the twenty-first century we have the situation where the vast majority of the population carry high quality recording devices around in their pockets, 24 hours per day. Why is there no such evidence to back up those extraordinary claims made by believers the world over? Occams Razor is more than sufficient to slice through the issue, here. What is the simplest explanation? That there really are spirit forces tinkering with the world in unseen, yet mischievous ways? Or that the stories can all be attributed to coincidences, exaggerations, and perhaps even a shade of dishonesty?

Another common theme with ghost or demon experiences is that they have a noticeable tendency to occur at night, or around a time when a person is in a near-sleep state. Ask yourself- why is this a common theme? Is it because demons like to wake the sleeping as well as the dead? Or is it because near-sleep is the time the brain is most likely to generate illusions?

As for the stories where Jehovah and his angels magically intervene in our affairs, equal scrutiny will reveal that they are equally questionable. Just as with the demon stories, the purported angelic direction suffers from the bias of its tellers. You may hear the one story per year of when a Witness just happens to knock on the door of someone who was praying for help at the time. But, given the millions of doors we knock on each month, it is a coincidence that is bound to happen. And since we are naturally biased and want to see divine guidance in our lives, it’s only natural that these coincidences become famous as ‘acts of angelic guidance’. Through the lens of objective spectacles one can clearly see that these supernatural acts are not very convincing.

Even if we grant the tenuous notion that that these angel and demon stories were true, we are still left in an embarrassing predicament. Why so?

If we were to think chronologically about the acts of divine intervention throughout the Bible, and subsequently right through to our lifetimes, we are faced with an uncomfortable decline. Think of the first act of divine power recorded in the Bible – that of creation. Creating the universe takes a lot of power. The amount of energy in our Sun alone is absolutely staggering; a fact which, ironically, the Jehovah’s Witnesses frequently quote. We know there are billions and billions of suns in the observable universe, illustrating the point that creating the universe is a powerful act. Think too of some of the other acts in the Hebrew Scriptures; the flood, making the Sun stand still, knocking down the walls of Jericho. Now progress to the Greek Scriptures. We have a virgin birth, a man walking on water, a couple of resurrections, and some people learning new languages. Finally, let’s focus our attention on our day. We have…coincidences…second hand stories about demons… You can see the decline.

A satirical graph - not meant to be taken literally
This on its own would be troubling enough, but there is an even more embarrassing truth: one could argue that almost inversely proportional to the decline in miracles is an increase in our species’ ability to understand and record natural phenomena in the universe. This is an embarrassing fact for the bible indeed.

Let us sharpen Occam’s Razor one final time this chapter; Ask yourself- what is more likely? That the supernatural forces are just getting weaker, needing to hide themselves more from us to avoid unwanted media attention? Or that the more we understand the universe and can record it, the less fooled we are by coincidences and things we don’t understand?





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