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Deus Ex Machina

Entry 170, on 2005-05-10 at 13:24:54 (Rating 3, Comments)

I thought it was about time I launched another tirade against religion, especially Christianity, although I believe the following applies to all religions. In my conversations (or is that debates, or maybe arguments) with believers I often wonder why they believe in something which so obviously contradicts common sense and the primary philosophy of our modern world, science.

It would be unfair to say everyone has the same reasons, or even that people only have one reason, but I think a primary reason in many cases might be simply that its easy and simple.

There's an old theatrical construct, dating back to Greek times, called "deus ex machina", which has a literal translation of "god from the machine". In the old Greek plays a machine would lower a god onto the stage to resolve any situation which might seem hopeless to the hero.

Since then the meaning has become more abstract, and it now means any mechanism which resolves a seemingly hopeless situation. Its still used in plays, movies, etc, but it is also applied to a broader range of situations.

So I was thinking, is believe in god the ultimate example of deus ex machina? We have a situation where the world is hard to understand, and other explanations might not provide a level of comfort required - for example evolution, and humanities descent from ape-like ancestors isn't attractive to many people. So the answer is to resort to the old compensation mechanism.

Another key factor is the element of suspension of disbelief. From an objective point of view these unlikely interventions seem contrived and unrealistic, but the traditions required the people viewing the play to set aside their usual critical thoughts and just accept what was happening. Again, I think this fits in well with the special status religion is given in our society. Criticising a person's religious belief is generally not well accepted, for example.

So there's my theory. Religious belief is just a comfortable way of people deluding themselves and ignoring reality. Belief in god is the ultimate deus ex machina!

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