The “Merlin” television miniseries tells the story of the fabled wizard from his youth on to his reclining years. The primary antagonist of the story, Morgan LeFay, is the embodiment of magic. At the climactic ending of the series, LeFay is trying desperately to cling to her power and control over the people who fear her. She appears in her fury and rants about the power she holds. At this point, Merlin, and all the people present, simply turn their backs to her and ignore her ranting. The instant they cease to believe in her, she fades away.
In the classic story of Peter Pan, Tinkerbell has just swallowed the poison meant for Peter. As she lies there dying, the story breaks the fourth wall and asks all the children watching these events to clap their hands and repeat “I do believe in fairies!” The collective belief of the children revives the heroic Tinkerbell.
In “The Neverending Story,” a boy named Bastion finds a book about a fantasy world that is being destroyed by a massive force called “The Nothing.” As he continues to read, he is drawn into the story until he comes to realize that The Nothing is, in fact, the collective unbelief of an increasingly practical and unimaginative world. Only by becoming part of the story can Bastion save Fantasia with his belief in the power of imagination.
In the core rules of the popular “Dungeons and Dragons” role playing game, we find that magical powers are granted to people by various gods. The gods themselves gain their power from the belief and worship of their numerous followers. The more followers a god has, the more powerful that god is. If everyone stops believing in a god, that god ceases to exist, and you can create a new god simply by convincing people to follow your made-up god.
It is, indeed, a post modern idea that something exists simply because you believe it does. The postmodernists claim that Muslims and Christians can all live in harmony, simply by respecting one another’s beliefs, despite the inherent contradiction. What is true for me is not necessarily true for you. Where, then, does truth come from? Well as my salesmen friends like to say: truth comes from perception. This would mean, of course, that nothing existed or had definition before an intelligent mind existed to define it. If God was invented by man, this idea has some philosophical problems, because we presume that man came from somewhere which means there must have been truth and substance prior to consciousness.
The immediate problem, however, is the TYPE of God we see in the Bible. If man were to go about inventing gods, it seems logical they would invent gods that would justify their actions and beliefs. Indeed, in most ancient cultures, the god of that culture was only as strong as the people he protected. If the Asherites triumphed over the Jebusites, then the god of the Asherites was hailed as being stronger than the god of the Jebusites. Long live the god of the Asherites. Yet throughout the scriptures, the God of the Hebrews consistently gives his people into the hands of their enemies because of their rebellion.
Perhaps the Hebrews were just really poor warriors, but remiss to abandon their beliefs, they made up stories about God being disappointed in their behavior and punishing them? This does not explain the continued existence of the Hebrew people, or the perseverance of the belief in this God. Every god-centered faith from that era has died out EXCEPT for the Hebrew notion. Why is that?
It is clear from the Biblical account that God created us for a purpose against which we rebelled; that He holds us to a standard we are incapable of living up to; and that in order to be reconciled to Him we must approach Him with humility, admitting our errors and our utter dependence on Him. In every way, this God appears to hold the high ground and belief in Him seems to demand a drastic change in our lives and attitudes. If God was a creation of my mind in order to accommodate my pre-existing notions and beliefs, why does belief in him demand such an alteration of my pre-existing notions and beliefs?
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