The Omaha guide., 1956-01-06

The Reason For Belief
CONDENSED for radio IS WHY BEIIEvE?, broadcast December 49,
Belief, and especially religious belief. requires a kind Of effort,
even a kind of determination. For there is almost nothing which may be
proposed to you to be believed today which may not be contradicted
tomorrow. Even the most solemn truth your best friend uHers may
be contradicted, yet you are committed to believe in your friend, to
have confidence in his reliability and his word.
Today you are asked to believe in democratic principles; to-
morrow you will meet someone who shows himself wholly unworthy
of the confidence which belief in democratic principles must place in
the unsolicited human being. Today you m asked to believe in the
possibility of peace; tomorrow you must read the opinion of a top
military strategSt that since preventive war is an immoral concept
for a democracy, we must use the threat of retalatory power to deter
the enemy from the first blow, although, he argues, it is the first
blow that is likely to win. Today you are asked to believe in God, or
in the security of moral principle; tomorrow you will see decisions
taken in important places that haven't the slightest relevance to
such belief.
1t is not strange, therefore, to discover in many people a belief
against belief, an antibelef, such as my friend expressed one evening
in the middle of a rather hectic pursuit of beliefs in general. Why
do you have to believe something's" he asked. "Why believe any,
thing at al?-ha, ha, hal" His explosive laughter punctured the
inflated atmosphere of argument and inquiry-probably at about
the right time-and his question was exactly the pertinent ques-
ton. But he seemed to be p roposing his laughter as the answer.
1t seemed to me then that he sat among us as a kind of friendly
PLATE, content to ask, "what is TRUTH" vet without any urgency
or intent to find any other answer than laughter, and it seem
ed to me that somewhere in the marginal shadows of the room
Jesus of Nazareth stood listening. as it seems to me in fancy he
has been listening ever since the walk to Golgotha for some resol.
ution of the great dlemmas Of moral consciousness and human
intellect.
But so difficult is it to be without belief of some kind that
to repudiate belief implies mother kind of belief. My friends
question, although he followed it with laughter, implied another
question. why believe anything at an?" he had asked; and it
seemed to me he should then have asked, "Why not lust take
life IS it comes?" This is the antibeief imnlied Nv The ranmdi.
alton of all we commonly call belief.
Let us admit at once that it has great appeal as an alternative
to the effort men and women put into believing, and to the war
ring thought and feeling that become engaged in that effort, and
to the overconcern of most of us to be right, and proven right,
and acknowledged right in what we believe. There is a kind of
power drive that seems to creep in and displace the genuine
concern for truth in belief in persons and churches and nations,
in laymen preachers, professors, scientists, and politicians. By con-
and harmless, downright pleasant, in fact. Yet 1 am sure that the
practcabIity, and the wisdom, and even the happiness that seem
to attach to this view of taking life as it comes ire of a speci
Gus sort, and that it is passively subject to all the ills of anger and
dogmatlsm that afhict the intense and pmposeful quest for things
Consider, for instance, that no one really does-just-take life
as it comes. Instead we make plans, perhaps not extensive
ones, but plans of some kind. A week ago some people told me
they are planning to go to Europe in the late spring. They are
not content just to take life as it comes, and wait until then to
see whatever vacation notion pops into their minds. My friend
plans his work ahead, though he really can't be sure there will
be any ahead at all, or, if there is, whether he will be there in
person haven't asked him, but I'll bet he buys life insurance
and participates in some kind of retirement plan. The combina-
ton of these two kinds Of planning has always struck me as one
Of the funniest things in the world, for it is so revealing of two
of our major fears: we're afraid of dying too soon, and equally
afraid of living too long, and with reference to these two fears
we aren't willing at all to take life as it comes. And think Of
the superior wisdom of repudating religious Or moral belief, but
stalking your whole unknown future on the value of a dollar.
My friend might say that a dollar is, at least, a more down to
earth kind of thing than God, and can see his point, and yet
that would be a tremendous assertion to make and to believe.
tirement plan because these are conventional things to do. Wen,
one of the dangers of just taking life as it comes is the danger
OF falling into conventionalty as a way of life.
We don't take life as it comes. We plan, and then try to
accommodate planning and the unforeseeable; we prepare, and
provise in the recurring situations for which we have no prepar-
alton.
MOIeOVeI, II o IAN - just - take life as it comes
For too much comes, and it comes as a fux of unsorted, uncount-
able experiences of pain and pleasure and mixture. There is al
severe necessity for everyone to select what he will pay attention
to and respond to. When a man leaves his house in the morn
ing to go to his work, he has in mind a clear destination and an
arrival time that rule his journey from home to work. This
means that ne cannot stop to watch a bug cross the sidewalk, and
he cannot follow the rescue squad when it crosses the inter-
section ahead of him, and he cannot dawde in front Of store
windows o hang around the news bulletins at the radio station.
Enough kinds of possible experience can be presented to him be-
tween home and work that if he followed a free kind Of impul-
sive response and just took life as it came, he might not arrive
at work at all, indeed, he might not even get home by nightfal.
! should not want to say that would be bad, for it might not. But
If one intends to get to work, then he must get there. and to do
it. he must refuse to pay attention to a great many things along
he way. That is to say, it is The man who has the direction, and
not the fMx of things. /
But even without a direction or a destination we have to
reach and most of us do have one - we could not Just take
life as it comes. Shall l simply give equal attention and con-
Germ to everything that comes my way? l would be limp as a
dlshrag before the day was half over and an emotional and in
tenectual vacuum. No tears or laughter left in me. and no ideas
either, and no words to tell my emptiness, even. I should if /
tried just to take life as it comes, be utterly at the mercy Of
experience which. In its unsorted and unsolicited occurrence has
no mercy for me at all. ALI of us have certain days when signifi-
cant and demanding experience happens too fast and in too great
quantity. ALI of us have had or will have certain years when
this seems to be true, when too many things of too great magni-
Itude for the heart happen and we cannot assimlate them, indeed,
cannot really experience them, as fast al they occur. There is
of absurdity, and forgotten debts to punctualhy coming due at the
1880 49, I--I