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The Rumpelstiltskin Effect: How Religion Turns Ignorance Into Knowledge

Ask a Christian where the universe came from, or what causes "miracles," and they will assure you the answer is God. And with such an answer, religion proves that its greatest miracle comes from convincing Christians that their ignorance of something must be proof of their knowledge of God. 

According to this logic, the reason we do not have all the answers to everything, is because our ignorance is intended by God to lead us to God. Brilliant! Put another way, religion worships ignorance as the greatest evidence of God's existence.

Hence, if we have no idea of where the universe came from, religion assures us that such a lack of knowledge of how or where, or even why or when the universe came to be, only proves it must have all come from God, and for whatever reason God wants, regardless of all the senseless suffering such a universe may contain.

In fact, if we have no idea why the universe contains such suffering, it is only as arrogant of us to presume it is senseless, as it is arrogant of a prisoner at Dachau to assume that all the suffering in the German concentration camps is without some "intelligent design" by the Fatherland, that perhaps the poor foolish Jew is simply too simpleminded to comprehend and fully appreciate. For if they understood the greater picture, of which the suffering Jew is but a single page in a several thousand page story, they would worship Hitler no less than the Christian insists humanity should worship God.

Like Rumpelstiltskin, Religion never misses an opportunity to find some hay of human ignorance, and through the miracle of people's willingness to believe anything that allows them to escape their fears, turns that ignorance into proof that God is real, and ultimately in charge of everything. It just so happens that by so proving, they convince people to give them their money for the experience of "believing" they will live forever, in a lofty paradise, with the guy who's son they are all guilty of murdering. 

    

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