When The Truth Becomes Irrelevant

The night sky is taunting me. It offers me a spectacle of a million sparkling stars and one beautifully luminescent moon. And quietly it asks me, all this beauty, all these marvels, were they created by one divine God?

As I ponder the question, as I stand here beneath the mottled sheath of darkness that is the night sky, my gaze shifts from the unreachable stars to the humble ground. And there, lying amidst the dirt and the weeds are a few rocks the size of my fist. Just seeing them, I already know that they are hard. But how? How can I be so sure that all such rocks are hard? Someday, will it be possible for me to see something that looks like one of these rocks but is not hard? Maybe. But so far, I’ve already seen thousands, perhaps millions of rocks in my life and all of them were hard. Is it wrong for me to expect that all rock-like things are hard? If I see a rock being hurled at me, should I remain standing where I am and believe that the rock is soft because I have no proof that all rock-looking things are hard? See, in my mind, I have already created a model of how the world works, and in that model, all rocks are hard. Can that model fail someday? Perhaps. But while it is not failing, should I assume that my model, my understanding of the world is wrong? Should I just live my life without a mental model of how the world works? Should I just make every observation, every step in my life, without any expectations (both the right and the wrong ones) of what’s about to happen next? Should I just keep walking calmly while all the possibly hard rocks are being thrown at me?

Suddenly, a car’s bright headlights flash from behind me. And before the driver can blow its horn and shatter the night’s romantic serenity, I move out of the vehicle’s way. I stay out of the way? Why? Because if I don’t, the damn car will run over me. How do I know that? Have I ever seen a man actually being run over by a car? No. Have I seen animals being flattened by trucks? Yes. Why do I expect that the same thing that happened to dogs and cats can also happen to me? Because according to my understanding of the world—my model—humans are just as vulnerable as their lowly animal counterparts. Can my model fail someday? Yes. If I am insane, or if I am merely dreaming, that car can not kill me. If that thing with a headlight is not really a car but a hologram, my model fails and that thing can never flatten me. But should I go on crossing the street mindlessly each day, believing that not a single one of the speeding cars can kill me?

Which makes me wonder how man discovered fire. When one ancient man first observed that rocks produced a spark, what could have driven him to keep scratching more rocks? What could have prompted him to believe that the sparks could possibly produce fire? While he kept scratching those rocks against each other, did he have absolute proof that the rock’s spark could produce fire? I doubt. Proof, he had none. But he certainly had a rough model of how things in the world work, a model that had been based on countless observations—which must have included his observations on how lightning produced fire upon striking the ground. And based on that model—which must have been flawed given his limited knowledge—he acted, until he produced the miracle of fire. Was it wrong for him to believe in his flawed model? Should he be called a fool for having faith in something he wasn’t sure about?

Why did man ever decide to trust reason? When one of the earliest hunters, was in the forest, observing the wild animals, figuring how they behaved, figuring how they could be captured, did he have absolute proof that his mind had the capacity to model the lives and behavior of these creatures? No. Was he wrong in trusting his mind? Should he have just believed that the world followed no definite order? Should he have just counted on luck for his fate? When humans began to think critically, did they have absolute proof that critical thinking would be more practical than depending on pure luck? No. Should they have stopped thinking critically early on? Was it wrong for them to have faith in the capacity of their minds? Was it wrong for them to have faith in Reason? No matter what they say about the impracticality of faith, one thing can never be denied: the light of reason began to exist only through the spark of faith.

It’s easy to predict that rocks are hard when you’ve proven to yourself that all the rocks you’ve seen are hard. It’s also easy to trust your mind and Reason when all your life you’ve benefited from them. But what if you find yourself in a situation wherein you have to predict the outcome of something you have never observed before?

I imagine myself walking in the dark. Alone. Or so I think until I hear the voice of the woman I love. She seems to be from afar, for the sound of her voice creates an eerie echo. She tells me that she knows where exactly I am, even though we are both in the dark. She warns that there are murderous men not far behind me and they are about to kill me as soon as they catch up with me. But, unfortunately, she says, I cannot run. Because ahead of me, between where I am and where she stands, is a cliff. She tells me that I may be strong enough to leap across the cliff and the men behind me are not. I, on the other hand, consider fighting the murderous men in the dark. Can I successfully leap in the dark across that cliff? Or am I better off repeatedly unleashing punches—stabs—in the dark until I get rid of all those murderous men? While I go on thinking, there is a truth that eludes me. Is it better to leap or to fight? But in this kind of situation, the truth is impossible to know until I decide to fight or jump. And in this situation, when the truth is impossible to know, the truth becomes irrelevant. Because I don’t have to wait to know the truth before I act. The best thing I can do is to either leap or stab in the dark.

I wonder how terrible the ordeal of the first farmer was. When he decided to till the land, to spend several months nurturing his crops, did he ever fear that the crops may all die before they could be harvested? Did he ever fear that a storm or a tornado may suddenly wipe out his crops? That he could have been better off, spending most of his time hunting instead of farming? Of course he did. But could he know when the storm will strike? And since it is his first time to farm, can he know if the land is fertile enough? No. And when he’s about to sleep at night, when he was seeing in his mind images of his wife and children starving after his failure with the farm, what could he do to avoid that nightmare? What could he do, given his limited knowledge, to protect his farm from the ruthless forces of nature? He could take a leap in the dark. And then hope that it would work. He could pray.
Often, the prayer has been regarded by intellectuals as a monument to man’s failure to take control of his fate. The prayer—a plea for God to intervene—is often viewed as a symbol of human weakness. But in reality, the first prayer was a milestone on the road to science. It was a glaring proof that humans deeply understood the world they were moving in. Because when humans began to pray, that was when they fully acknowledged that the universe followed a definite order and that by aligning their acts with this order, they could bend up benefiting from it.

Today, I still cannot prove that those stars, that moon and that sky were created by a divine God. But I do know that when I go to sleep, I want to be safe. When my loved ones are asleep, I want them to be just as safe. When I wake up tomorrow, I’d still want to see the faces of the people I love. And if ever they are taken from me, here should be a good reason for it—a reason that will ultimately be beneficial for them. How do I make sure that all my loved ones shall be safe? That if we suffer, our suffering would be for something good? The truth is, I can never be sure. That’s why I take a stab in the dark each night. I pray. Should I be deemed a fool for doing that? Should everyone think me weak?

A lot of things have happened in my life. Some are good, some horrible. Do they make sense? Yes. But only if I include God in my mental model of the world. Can my mental model of the world fail someday? Maybe. Is it possible that I may be wrong in believing in God? Yes. But until my model fails, until my faith is proven wrong and dysfunctional, should I go on living without a mental model of the universe’s order? Should I go on living without believing anything unproven? Should I go on living believing that nothing that happened in my life makes sense?

I am not saying that we should all believe in God. But if I do believe in a God I never saw, I still deserve respect for it. There is nothing irrational about that. As long as my belief does not compromise the welfare of another human being, I have the right to stick to my faith.

Going back to the scenario I mentioned earlier, the one in which I am supposed to choose between leaping and fighting the murderous men in the dark, if I happen to be walking alongside another man in that same scenario, and we make different decisions; I to leap in the dark and he to fight; should I respect the other men for his decision? Of course, I should. And in the same way, I respect all atheists, agnostics and believers of faiths other than my own.

Now, say we both decide to jump and I’m the one who goes first. And then after a while, the other man hears me screaming as I plummet to my death, hence proving to him that the cliff is too wide for a man to leap across successfully, should the second man also leap in the dark? If he jumps even after hearing my screams, his act will not be one of faith but of stupid fanaticism. In the same way, when clerics believed that the earth was the center of the universe even though Nicolus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei had presented sufficient evidence proving otherwise, the clerics’ act was not one of faith but of stupid, closed-minded fanaticism. When supposedly holy men stubbornly believe that the universe was created in six days and biological evolution never occurred, even though sufficient evidence says otherwise, theirs is not an act of faith but an act of stupidity.

On the other hand, if we make our decisions simultaneously, and I happen to die after jumping while the other lives on after courageously taking a stand against the assailants? Does that make me a fool? Does that make him the wiser man? What if I live and he dies? Should I be deemed wiser for surviving? Or should I just be dismissed as the lucky one. Truth is, wisdom alone cannot guarantee that one’s decisions would be correct. Maybe my belief in God is right. But in this case, being right does not prove me wiser than any atheist. Maybe the atheists are correct in believing that there is no God. But being correct alone does not make them wiser than believers like me.

I believe in God. Which means that I already took a leap in the dark. The leap hasn’t ended yet, though. For the truth hasn’t fully revealed itself to me yet. I am still airborne, hoping that I will land somewhere safe. Will I plummet to death? Maybe. But even if that happens, it will happen not because I’m a fool.

I will only fall because I am human.