I BELIEVE IN TOADSTOOLS.

An essay, really, about belief.

What exactly is belief?

I mean, if you believe in something does it actually have to exist in the real world?

And if it doesn’t exist, what relevance does it have to anyone other than the one doing the believing?

There are many people who believe in God and don’t care whether that deity exists or is pure fantasy: they believe in him in much the same way as I might believe in toadstools. Or not.

They beseech him for personal benefits. They beg for an end to illness in a loved one. They usher their children into his churches. Their faith in the existence of that god is so complete that they can’t possibly conceive of any other gods. If a Muslim speaks of his god they pooh-pooh it because it’s not their god, forgetting that maybe it once was.

Then there are some that believe in wealth. They see their time on Earth as being a time when they must accumulate as much wealth as they possibly can, partly because they believe it is their duty to pass it on to future generations and partly because living in splendid luxury is nice. But their deity, if you like, is hard cash. Or an off-shore bank account with negligible taxation. That kind of wealth.

Then again there are some who believe in time, in its passing, of a progression from the amoeba to a glorious future incarnation of life. They see themselves as part of that progression but it never really crosses their minds how tiny their part of it is. How minute. They simply believe what they believe and pull their partners towards the boudoir in order the perpetuate that progression.

But most damaging of all are those who believe in their own rightness. In their own grasp of existence as being so perfectly in tune with something out there that their pronouncements are perfection itself.

I say damaging because in the political world one person’s odd beliefs touch on all of our lives. Take the current unease about whether the UK should or should not belong to the European Union. There are some who believe that it most certainly should not and in recent years they have gone out of their way to discredit everything European to the point of converting a sizeable band of brothers to their belief.

Like ministers of religion, they have used lies and deceit masquerading as hard evidence to make their point. Ministers of religion will tell you about the creation according to the book of Genesis in which a moving account involving a man’s rib being converted into an evil woman is enticingly told. That very book is their hard evidence. It cannot possibly be wrong because it is so tremendously ancient. Wasn’t it conceived way back in the bronze age? Or stone age? Nobody knows because when it was initially conceived it wasn’t written down on account of there being no such thing as writing. But the stories that were told evolved into becoming the book of Genesis and were written down long after the first draft of them, so to speak, was told over crackling bonfires after dark.

Scientists will tell you that they believe such accounts to be so much tosh.

The same kind of belief applies to lies in all walks of life. In the USA President Trump knows this and calls everything that doesn’t fit in with his particular view of life “fake” news. Or, in other words, lies. In the UK those whose personal belief involves a tiny island sailing off into the future once more in control of an empire it should never have had is on the rise. I say should never have had because it involved taking advantage of those who, through no fault of their own, had evolved a less aggressive and possibly incredibly happier and different society.

And there are some who believe that empire should return. Do the world a bit of good. Give the foreigners a treat. Make them bow down to the Brits like in the olden times.

In their own belief systems they are right. In mine it so happens I believe them to be very wrong.

So who is right? And has reality and truth got anything to do with it? Shall we believe in the biblical account of the creation because it is nice and convenient and put us in a special place in our minds and gave women an excuse for being inferior? They’re not, of course.

Shall we believe in the inherent right of a tiny island to dominate the world because of some innate superiority within it? It’s Prime Minister is happy to pursue her course involving personal wealth because she believes (or so she says) that she has the support of a bronze age Jewish deity. In fact, it’s amazing how many Western leaders are working, according to them, in cohorts with that particular deity.

Me, I’m not so certain.

I reckon that the world would be a darned sight happier place if you and I and everyone else worked out what’s mutually best for all of us, and lived our lives along those lines. And if being mates with fellow humans a scant twenty-odd miles away across the sea is a mutually good thing, then let’s be mates. We might even find our best friends amongst them. Why, some even find life partners in other nations, and that must be a good thing. Ask Nigel Farage if you don’t believe me.

And lets all believe in toadstools because I know they’re real.

© Peter Rogerson 08.02.19

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[Samuel Dickens]

And so it is. Count me among the toadstool believers. Personally, I feel like a tiny passenger on a miles-long train who seeks truth and understanding, but knows the effort may be futile.