A guy goes into a bar in Ireland and orders a Guinness. (Smart guy!)

Life.

The bartender says, “Hold on a minute,” reaches under the bar, takes out a little brown packet, tears it open, and pours its powdery contents out onto the bar.

“What’s that?” asks the man.

“This is a very good powder, very expensive,” says the bartender. “If I pour this on the bar each time I serve a Guinness, an elephant will never come into this bar.”

“But,” the man says, “there are no elephants in Ireland.”

“I know,” says the bartender, “I told you, it’s a very good powder.”

After an initial laugh, I began to think more deeply into the joke: How long has this been going on? Who sold him the powder in the first place? What if we found out the bartender’s father’s father was the first one to buy the powder? How will anyone convince the bartender to quit blowing his money on this worthless powder? Anyone trying to tell him that there has never been an elephant in Ireland and that elephant-related bar deaths and damages are negligible is going to be met with a blank stare. What to do?

The only way to help this guy out, it seems, is to bring an elephant into the bar.

Our unexamined beliefs are costly. They’re costly to us and to anyone who attempts to get us to examine them. (How much would it cost to ship an elephant to a bar in Ireland?) Usually the people who lead the charge to get us looking at things differently pay the higher cost. Sometimes they pay with their lives. Lincoln. MLK. Neda Agha-Soltan. Fortunately we have always had a few people who believe it is worth whatever cost they might pay, if only they can get us to examine the ways in which we are living poorly, wasting time, money and talent to perpetuate worthless or evil systems of belief.

Faith.

I am a Christian. (Yeah, I cringe when I read that too… There is so much baggage attached to that name in our culture.) So, it should come as no surprise when I identify Jesus as the one great belief-buster in history. He lived. He died. And he took his life back up again in order to shake up our ability to keep living unexamined lives. He’s the elephant in my bar. And yes, I hold to all those strange beliefs that go along with having Jesus tearing up my place, you know, the popular ones like this being a created world, restricting sex to marriage and telling others about Jesus. Before you stop reading this because you’re expecting some kind of Jedi mind trick even as you read these words… “You will accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You will sell your landspeeder and send the money to me immediately…” please lend me just another moment.

Let’s get it out there: One of the reasons we cringe at the name “Christian” has to do with their incessant need to convert people to their point of view. They’re always running around with end-zone bible-verse placards and slapping stupid stickers on their bumpers (Eternity: smoking or non-smoking?) while the rest of us are content to leave people alone. Live and let live. It’s all good. Whatever you want to believe, whatever way you connect to God, or don’t, hey, that’s all good.

But it’s not all good. We don’t live and let live. And some of the ways people choose to connect with God causes them to blow shit up; airplanes and abortion clinics. And that is a problem that exposes a problem with the “Hey, it’s all good” mentality.  We really do think some things are wrong, not just inconvenient or stupid. And as soon as we start talking right and wrong we’ve moved into the realm of belief systems. Not just belief systems, but belief systems we think everyone should agree to and live by, and if they don’t we either try to convince them we’re right or we move to marginalize them as dangers to “society.” We, in fact, become evangelists for our belief systems.

The problem sticking out of this idea like a compound fracture is this: when we’re surrounded by enough people who believe the same things that we do for long enough (think in generations, not by decades) we forget that not everyone believes. We forget the reason we started to believe in the first place. We stop believing in believing at all. Our beliefs all morph into group think, which is actually to say “no think.” Really bad stuff can come of this. The stifling of creativity is a common victim. Discrimination against race or class or creed also rears its head here. Even genocide emerges from this way of “non-believing” believing.

So, if I promise not to try to use some Jedi ju-ju on you, can I just point to a few beliefs you may have that you’re probably not examining? Or have never examined at all? Saying “all religions lead to God,” or all “faith systems are equally valid,” is not a statement of fact, it is a statement of belief. It is actually a fairly elitist statement of belief. It manages to nullify most of the teachings of the major religions which definitely don’t agree with each other or with you. It manages to say you and those who agree with you have the only point of view wide enough to see all of God and all the other believers are too narrow-minded or flat out stupid to see what you see.

Elephants.

Another aspect of this belief system is usually the addition of a non-conversion clause. Not only do people say all religions lead to God, but they add that no one should attempt to convert anyone else to a particular faith. And that is just a downright double-standard. You are allowed to evangelize for your faith position that “all roads lead to God.” You, if queried, are likely to insist that it is what anyone should know and believe. You say it with sincerity and vigor. But no one else is allowed to do the same? Nuh uh, I’m throwing the flag on that one. Unsportsmanlike conduct.

Or, maybe you’re of the opinion that there is no such thing as god at all and therefore no such thing as belief. All educated people, you’d say, agree with you. You are in a tough position two ways. First, no educated person can show you some convincing proof that god DOESN’T exist, and therefore you must begin, as it were, on his ground, the ground of faith. Your opinion that there is no god is a belief system. And one you would probably like to evangelize others about, too. I mean, think of all the terrible things wrought by religion! Crusades, Jihads and Genocide! The world is better off with no god!

But then we come to the second reason you’re in a tough spot, and one much more difficult to overcome: are you willing to say there is nothing in this world that is absolutely wrong? Nothing that offends you, that you would stop altogether if you could? Now, no tricks and nothing trite here. I just want to know why wrong is wrong. Is it just chemicals and electricity in our brains? Instinct? Think about what you believe and you’ll find concepts of right and wrong creeping into your mind. If its just biology working its way in you, how do you say the biology working its way out of the rapist is “wrong.” Can biology be wrong? Like I said, its a tough spot. Hard to live with integrity when you really hate evil, but have no way to explain why you do. Believing that there is nothing to believe in turns out to require a lot of faith.

I have some beliefs that offend people, but I know they are beliefs and I can give a pretty good account for them. I also believe in living generously toward the poor, never letting race or sex or creed or class define a person’s worth, that violence and revenge lead to violence and revenge so I should always look to forgive and seek peace, and that we are all free to choose or reject God.

And I know why I believe those things, too. It was the elephant in my bar, not a Jedi mind trick that got me here.

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