The Greater Of One Elvis

                                                                          

Several months ago I saw Elvis coming out of a music store. A guitar was slung over his shoulder, perhaps one he had just bought. The carrying case looked new. It was snowing out, but extending downward from his leather jacket and into the milky powder, I could see what looked like a white jump suit – with something that glittered embedded in the fabric, possibly sequins. He was headed in the direction of a drug store, but I lost sight of him before he entered.

He looked older than I remembered. But I know I looked older too. After all, it was over thirty-five years since he had left the public spotlight. As a matter of fact it was his seventy-eighth birthday, January 8, 2013.

Elvis never died.

Such is the power of belief. Although most people associate belief with religion, that is only one of numerous sources of belief. And some of the others have a stronger hold on the faithful than any religious tenet. Tell a child there is no Tooth Fairy, especially one who has just found money under his pillow, and there will only be expressions of disbelief – you might as well claim there is no Easter Bunny; confide to an adherent of homeopathy that he's wasting his money on water, and be prepared to be berated as a tool of the medical establishment; maintain that there are no UFOs, and someone who believes he was abducted by aliens will expound on your blindness and ignorance; and if you suggest that the Warren Commission got it right, that a lone gunman shot President Kennedy – if you question the idea that there were co-conspirators on a grassy knoll – you're likely to be considered as in denial of the obvious truth, the truth that “they” are withholding from you. And if you suggest to a militant atheist that there is a G-d, you had better be prepared for a diatribe on the evils of religion.

Virginia O'Hanlon knew there was a Santa Claus, even if she needed Francis Church and the New York Sun to confirm that obvious fact. Elwood Dowd, a friendly creature described by Mary Coyle Chase, had no doubt that he was accompanied by a six foot, three and a half inches tall rabbit, though some others (but not all) thought him crazy.ⁱ We're all familiar with the story that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and was quick to fess up to his transgression. While we may not accept Parson Weems's story as gospel, few question the Truth behind the story, and our first President is held in reverence by almost all Americans.

Every nation has its sagas; every civilization its heroes. Where would we all be if we lacked a faith in our heritage? And if some of that heritage, questionable as it may be in fact, turns into our “history,” all the better. The same is true for both verifiable facts and for beliefs. And those who accept as fact some things that we doubt, deserve our respect and appreciation. After all, maybe they're right. It is easy to dismiss what they say with the view that they live by the maxim “I believe because it is absurd”ⁱⁱ – the leap of faithⁱⁱⁱ – but there are many things that seem absurd but are true. For example, you can turn lead into gold, and you don't require a Philosopher's Stone, only radiation. At present it may not be worthwhile financially, but it is possible. And there are many other ideas of science^iv that seemed bizarre at the time and were rejected, but are now recognized to be basic facts.^v

The principal rule is that it is unwise to be too quick to condemn the ideas of another – however you may question them.^vi Belief is a powerful force, both personally and internationally. It's the basis for most of the world's contention, whether the beliefs are religious or political.^vii And the ideas you condemn may be true.

After all, Elvis is still alive, even if you choose^viii not to believe it.

Next episode: “Bette And Beyond” – The Davis philosophy.

i      Dowd, that is. All children have imaginary friends. Fortunately we don't all grow up and cast off those we love.

ii     “Credo quia absurdum” – Tertullian, from De Carne Christi

Crucifixus est Die Filius, non pudet, quia pudendum est;

et mortuus est Dei Filius, porsus credibile est, quia ineptum est;

et sepultus resurrexit, certum est; quia impossibile.

                                                                   De Carne Christi V, 4 ( cited by Wikipedia)

It's interesting that the quotation is, itself, a paraphrase of the text, and doesn't actually appear in the wording cited. Nonetheless, the idea that a belief is, by definition, irrational cannot be faulted. Were it provable it would become fact rather than belief. And some beliefs are, indeed, likely to be factual, even if not yet proved.

iii     Attributed to Kierkegaard although he apparently never used the term.

iv     And science fiction.

v      Of course there were also basic and accepted scientific concepts in the past that were later found to be nonsense. Science is often seen as the rationalist's answer to religion but in many respects it's just another religion, even if it claims otherwise.

vi     Some of the are, to be sure, nonsense, but that can be established without your help.

vii    Despite the claim of atheists, religion is not the cause of most deaths in war, nor are religious people. Hitler and Stalin caused far more deaths than occurred during the Crusades or in other religious wars. And tyrants who are hungry for power or wealth have no regard for others – especially when they have no belief in any kind of punishment for their actions.

viii   Wrongly.