"The Devil and a friend were out watching the world go by.
A young man walked past and stooped down to pick something up. Said the friend, "What was that?"
The Devil replied, "A piece of the Truth!"
"You aren't going to just let him walk off with it?"
"Of course," said the Devil, "It won't do him any good - he shall turn it into a Belief!"
My inelegant retelling of someone else's retelling might at first suggest that belief is itself a denial of Truth; but since I suspect there isn't really any such thing as Truth (in a spiritual or philosophical sense) it doesn't really matter. Let us turn instead to the purpose and nature of Belief.
The Firefly episode Jaynestown, deals almost entirely with the idea of belief, in particular belief in falsehoods or inconsistencies.
Of the three separate storylines, the one detailing Shepherd Book and River is the more obvious.
When River inspects the preacher's bible, she finds inconsistencies, contradictions and logistic impossibilities. She sets out to "fix" his bible.
The Shepherd attempts to explain that faith isn't something to be fixed. That the content of the bible is internally inconsistent or outright impossible isn't important - the belief in something in order to change one's life for the better is the purpose of faith.
Much like the often fruitless discourse between atheists and the religious, River fails to understand him at the time, and Book allows her to keep his torn pages.
The substory involving Inara and Fess addresses the purpose of rituals and symbols - both having no physical place in the real world, but having genuine psychological significance. Inara notes that the loss of Fess' virginity has nothing to do with his being a man in any real sense, but it is a ritual of significance to his father. She explains that he doesn't feel any different because he isn't really any different - that he questions the nature of his manhood at all is indicative of his being a man already.
Heartened by his experience, Fess gains the courage to stand up to his father - and emulate a hero of his, the only other man to have ever done so. Although knowing that nothing has actually changed, having experienced his ritual has enabled him to "become a man" - something his father can no longer deny. Faith in a physically purposeless ritual has a genuine physical presence and purpose.
The main storyline addresses that of Jayne's legend among the poverty stricken "mudders".
Even though it is revealed to them that their belief in his heroism was completely wrong, they are still prepared to give their lives for him.
The physical embodiment or idol of their "messiah" - the statue of Jayne, for which the mudders caused a riot - is destroyed by Jayne himself, in front of the entire township.
Yet even so, Jayne bitterly guesses that they will probably restore the statue.
The significance here isn't Jayne - he's not the hero, god or saviour of the people. Their genuine saviour is their belief in who they thought Jayne was.
A grieving and impassioned Jayne confesses to them that he is not any sort of hero, and never meant to drop money on the town, saying "There aren't people like that! Just people like me!"
But the mudder's belief that someone free and important cared about them - them - is what caused them to stand up as a whole against their tyrant. Belief, albeit false, brought the township together and fuelled their community.
So do people who believe in falsehoods or impossibilities do so knowingly? Do they do so in spite of knowing the ridiculousness of their faith?
Perhaps some do - and if so, why?
Belief is a powerful and benevolent force in our lives. We are actually capable of lying to ourselves, both knowingly and in ignorance of the lie (seen an optical illusion lately?) in order to achieve something or to just survive.
Of course, as a result there are those who would exploit belief in the ridiculous in order to profit from others - whether knowingly or not - and we have a world full of "alternative medicine", cults, religious persecution and a whole rash of believers in paranormal events.
People believe in a god, ghosts, the afterlife, psychics, magical healing water and more, because it hurts so much to address the fact that we're tiny and insignificant. That we are a result of chance and that nobody cares about us.
Is it any wonder the world has to cling onto some kind of belief, even when it should know better?
Perhaps one day we will grow up and face the fact that the only ones who care about us are here among us - we can't rely on a god, a force of nature, the power of telekinesis or anything else to rescue us from our foolishness, or protect us in times of desolation.
There's nothing but us.
And so it is that I profess my belief - my completely unfounded and indefensible belief.
I believe in humanity.
One day, we might dust the mud off our clothes, tip our hat to the statue of Jayne, and stand on our own two feet to face the magistrate.
In the meantime, those of us prepared to acknowledge the flaws and falsehoods of our former beliefs would do well to also acknowledge how important and significant they were to us, and are to everyone around us.
Because all we have is here and now.
