Science and Religion

Faith.

We are confronted by a paradox in modern times where faith is both the attacker and the victim. Faith in science pitted against faith in religion. Parallels can be drawn between things like the origins of God and the Big Bang theory. The average person's interest in religion tends to dwindle when confronted with specifics of dogma, those weird rules like what color you can wear on a certain day or the types of materials that can be worn together. Similarly, a person will often become confused or disinterested when fed the outlandish but overall communally accepted statements of science. Few people can truly appreciate the gravity of millions or billions of years, or the intricacy of advanced physics, with theories reaching out into the seemingly metaphysical.

Universally the message is the destruction of faith. Do not believe in religion, do not believe in science. Do not believe in the state, do not believe in the self. I want you to believe whatever you feel is true. My goal is to show you what I believe and reveal to you the truths I see. If you come to share my faith then we can work together, and if not, we'll go our separate ways.

My belief.

I believe the state and its citizenry are not abstracts, but in fact very real. The state is the land, the people, and their shared identity. At the core of this idea is the old wisdom, "you are what you eat" and "the circle of life". Each and every person is somehow connected to the earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust. The land beneath your feet is real, you can reach down and touch it right now. That same land you've walked over your entire life grew the food your parents ate, fed the animals that gave them milk and cheese and butter, surged with the flow of rivers that would supply power and drinking water. Your parents breathed the air of the nation and metabolized the fruits of the nation and eventually conceived you. Your connection to the place you were born in is not an abstract societal construct, it is an undeniable physical fact.

If the state is real, the land itself is very real as we all know, and the connection of the people to it is real, then the citizenry is very real. The citizenry after all is simply the people of the land. We just ascribe rights and responsibilities to those people when we call them citizens, and distinguish them from foreigners who are visiting. This leaves the question of shared identity and unity, and whether that is real or not. To answer that question we need simply look to the family. Is your connection to your family real? Is your shared familial identity real? Of course it is. We all know it instinctively, but can prove through the science of genetics that families are connected. If two families occupy the same space, eating and drinking the same food and water, mingling socially, aren't they connected? Aren't neighbors residents of the same street? Is the street only a societal construct, a figment of the imagination, or is it a palpable unification based on proximity? We have unnamed streets, unpaved roads, spontaneous clusters of people all across the country. Their sense of community isn't diminished due to a lack of title.

Conversion.

A person might read what I have to say and think that I am xenophobic and hate immigrants. I can assure you that isn't the case. I would put forward this analogy - imagine you were having guests over for dinner but you didn't want them to move in with you. Would that be considered xenophobic? I don't think so. We all know that our relations to other people are fluid. It may take time, but that same guest that stays for dinner might one day become a lover, a close family friend, or an in-law. It might one day be that that person IS invited to live in the guest room or the basement or whatever, but that takes time.

Assuming the principle that people are connected to the land through daily activities like eating, sleeping, and recreation, we must assume that a person's citizenship is subject to change. We have established arbitrary bureaucratic goalposts for personal convictions out of necessity. We simply don't have the time to interview every immigrant on a daily basis to see if they've truly melded with society. A person might become a real citizen of the nation while stepping off the boat, like someone struck by love at first sight. A person might spend decades in a place and never truly embrace it, somehow resisting its allure. And a person might even fall out of love with their homeland and seek a new place, and set down roots there. It is an individual decision we strive to verify in the community for practical reasons.


Have faith in your country and your countrymen, as well as yourself. Faith is not flimsy wishful thinking, it is solid confidence in something that is real. You are real. Your love is real. Your patriotism is real. Don't let others erode your will with superficial attacks. Now is the time for strength!