The Weapon - Resurrection - part 16
By Diana the Valkyrie
A comparison of churches
Update: 07/06/2003 to valkyrie05



"OK, here's my reasoning. Let's start off with the Church of the Guardian.
Those folks are actually worshipping me, they're treating me like a god."
"Goddess." "Whatever. And I'm not. That's for sure, I'm The Weapon, and I can
do lots of neat things, but I'm not a goddess. So they're just flat wrong. All
those statues of me, pictures of me, praying to me. They've just invented the
whole thing. I want to explain it to them." "Don't," I advised, "the last
thing they want to hear is that they've been acting like fools for the last 20
years." "But they have to listen to me, they think I'm a goddess." "That's
exactly the reason why they won't believe that you're The Weapon, and no
matter what you do, if you tell them you're the Guardian of Humanity and you
aren't a goddess, then they can only resolve the problem my assuming that you
aren't. It would get very messy. But never mind about them for now, you're the
important issue here. Carry on."

"OK, so why did they invent this religion? It must be because it brings them
some sort of comfort. They've seen what I can do, and they want me back, so
they've convinced themselves that they can affect the outcome of things by
praying to me. That they can ask me to come back, via the power of prayer, and
I will." "And will you?" "Whether I will or won't, a bunch of people
worshipping me as a goddess isn't going to affect the issue. So they're doing
something that's totally futile, except that it makes them feel good, because
they feel they're doing something constructive. The power of prayer. It's all
about lying to yourself."

"OK. Go on with your analysis."

"Well, after that it starts getting complicated, and David, you've had a long
hard day, I think you need to go to bed." Damn, she was sending me to bed. "I
don't want to go to bed just yet." "David ... " she said, warningly. Damn, she
was doing it again. I've got to find a way of dealing with her intimidating
me. Maybe I can negotiate? I turned round and looked at her.

"But Wendy, I'm really interested in your analysis. Suppose we do this; I go
to bed now, but you come up with me and talk to me." She put her head to one
side. "All right, let's do that." Yes!

So I got into bed; Wendy sat cross-legged on top of the bed and continued
talking.

"The next thing I notice, is that there doesn't seem to be any real difference
between the Devil-worshippers and the God-worshippers. Even their rituals are
pretty much the same. And each of them says that they're good and the other
lot are bad. So how do you know which lot are right?" I nodded. "David, I'm
asking you. How do you know?" "You don't. You have to have faith."

"Faith. McPherson was always talking about faith, that we had to have faith in
God, and what he meant was that we had to just believe, without any actual
reason for believing. And since I thought it would be good for Duncan, that's
what I did. My reasoning was, if it's all nonsense, then it does Duncan no
harm, and if it's all true, then it's right to believe, and maybe I can do
some good for him that way."

"But?"

"I missed an important point. The alternatives are not 1) believe, and 2)
don't believe. I fell prey to the fallacy of the excluded middle. There's a
third alternative. Believe something else. So, what else? Well, today showed
me that there's at least two alternative religions, which on the face of them,
look just as plausible."

"There's millions."

"Yes, I guessed that. The only numbers that make sense are zero, one and
infinity. Once you've got a few of something, you probably have lots. So
anyway. The Church of the Guardian looks just as likely as the other two. And
the Planet of the Guardians sounds as plausible as heaven or hell. So! Because
I'm me, I *know* that the whole "Church of the Guardian" thing is just
mistaken. But if I weren't me, I'd find it just as attractive as the other
two. As good as the other million, I expect."

"There's differences. The Devil worshippers do something very yucky with
chicken blood."

"Sure, and the God worshippers claim that they eat human flesh. I suspect that
a lot of these religions have got unpleasant aspects. No, that's not what's
important."

"So what's important?"

She changed position, so she was kneeling on the bed, resting back on her
haunches, looking at me. "You know perfectly well what's important." "Duncan."
She nodded. "A few chickens plus or minus, a few biscuits and bottle of poor
wine, I don't care about that. Duncan is important, nothing else. And the
question is, is he in Heaven, Hell or the Planet of the Guardians?" "Or a
million other afterlife places." She nodded. "So which is it?" I asked.

She took a deep breath. "None of the above." "How do you know?" "I can't be
certain. But how do you choose between a three equally likely possibilities?
Or a million? You can't." "You can eliminate one of them." "The Planet of the
Guardians, yes. How stupid, don't they know, I don't come from a planet, the
People don't live on planets, they just like totally made that up!" "So that
leaves the other two." "No, it doesn't. Because they're on exactly the same
basis as Planet of the Guardians, there's no real difference. Except that I
know that Planet of the Guardians is nonsense. So the others probably are,
too. They totally made up all this stuff, Planet of the Guardians, heaven,
hell. David, why do people lie to themselves? I can understand why people lie
to each other, but why do they lie to themselves? And how, how can you lie to
yourself, how is it possible?"

I sighed.

"Wendy, it's this death thing. You don't have it, or at least, you have it so
rarely, it isn't a big issue for you. But we have it all the time, we see it
from the time we're children right up till the time we die, and we have to
come to terms with it. Where's the hamster gone? Where's the cat gone? Where's
granny gone? One day you have your loved one with you, the next day, they've
gone. You know how that feels."

She nodded.

"So how come you all know it's just a fable? How come these priests can tell
me all this stuff, in total seriousness, and seem to believe it themselves,
and at the same time you humans know it's all just a story? What was I
missing?"

"What you missed, was Santa Claus." "What?" "Father Christmas. He's an
essential part of every child's education. He brings the Christmas presents to
good little boys and girls all over the world." "Yes, I know about Santa
Claus, but that's just a fairy story that parents tell their children, I did
it too, but no-one really believes in it."

"Ah, but they do. Very very young children believe everything they're told by
authority figures like parents and teachers, it's the fastest way to learn.
It's only when they get a little older, that they gradually come to realise
that Father Christmas is just a story. So, they pretend to believe it for a
while, because it's such a nice story, and they leave the mince pie for
Rudolf, and they get their presents, you could call it a conspiracy of belief,
No-one ever actually tells them that Santa Claus doesn't actually exist. But
they know. And they know this, despite the fact that their parents told them
he exists. And it's an important preparation for the next stage in their
educational development, the realisation that there's other things like Santa
Claus that you got told, that are also fables. And you never went through
that. That's what you were missing. But don't feel too bad about missing it,
some humans never accept that Santa Claus doesn't exist. Or they do accept
that, but they haven't been able to apply the lesson learned to other fables
that their authority figures told them."

"And heaven?"

"That's because death is part of our life. So we try to comfort each other.
And part of that comfort is the afterlife, the possibility that they aren't
actually gone for ever. The chance that we'll meet again in heaven, or
wherever. The problem was, when they tried to comfort you that way, it had
exactly the opposite effect that it has on us. Because you don't want to wait
several billion years to get back with Duncan."

She sniffed. She sat back, then leaned forward and clasped her arms round her
knees. "Which brings me back to the important issue. Where's Duncan?"

"Wendy, Duncan is dead. He's gone. That's it, that's all there is. The only
thing that's left, is your memories. And that's how the dead live on, in the
memories of those that love them."

"David, I guess you know how much you've helped me today. And you're right, I
didn't need someone else telling me another set of myths, I need to think this
out for myself. And while I do that, you need to get to sleep, I can see
you're exhausted. But there's one more favour I want from you tonight."

"What's that?"

"Can I hold you while you sleep?"

. . .