This is the station that my train-of-thought has taken me. Join me here and I will fill you in on where I’ve been:
Firstly, I read a short story by science fiction author Harry Harrison. Some of the best science fiction will provoke discussion, and this story certainly provoked me to discussion (with myself). In ‘The Streets of Ashkelon’, an alien race (of the noble savage type) is visited by a Priest and a Trader (just a regular guy). The end result of the story is that in trying to understand what the Priest is teaching, the natives sin — spoiling their natural ‘purity’.
Now the argument of the aliens is that belief in God needs proof. Proof He exists, that He cares, that He is watching. And the priest gives the regular arguments that tend to be given by fictional characters in these situations. That “creation is proof” but that “belief needs no proof — if you have faith”. These arguments are not the point of this post. Better and smarter people whom I admire have argued both sides for longer than I have lived.
What got me thinking though was the insistence of the aliens that they needed proof. For many years I didn’t think I needed proof, for much the same simple reasons that the Priest gave. And for years I had the conflicting idea that I had the proof I needed anyway if anyone should ask — creation. The reason that this idea conflicts is that the proof was really for me. I never felt comfortable with blind faith — although the idea that anything but blind faith produces a sort of logical loop never occurred to me. That is, the two statements cancel each other out: by saying that ‘Creation is proof’, but that ‘Faith shouldn’t need proof’ you are fudging things a little.
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