Belief
“I'm a great fan of belief. When I was dying, I was like "OMG, what's going to happen next?" It was actually all very dull until I discovered Uncyclopedia.”
Belief is like optimism, only even sillier. Since the Dawn of Time, mankind has for example believed in pixies & goblins, werewolves and vampires, fairies and sprites, Santa Claus & the Easter Bunny, despite a total lack of evidence to support those beliefs. They have believed too that the other man's grass is always greener and Petula Clark even had a hit with a song to that effect. Other 'belief' songs include "I Believe I Can Fly" by Kelly, and "Believe, Belief, Below" by Electro Shock Therapy.
The need to believe in something, regardless of how silly or even illegal it might be, is one of the characteristics which sets mankind apart from other species. Dolphins for instance, do not believe in anything apart from fish, fun and fucking and in Uncyclopedia's unprejudiced opinion, dolphins have their shit a lot more together than most of mankind.
Belief In A Higher Power[edit]
Of the many belief-systems available for rent or purchase, belief in a higher power is among the most popular. Baptist Ministers in particular make much of the phrase "I believe" and use it to whip up crowds of 'believers' into an ecstatic frenzy. It seems to matter not a jot to these 'believers' what it is they are being urged to believe in, which is handy if you are a Baptist Minister trying to raise funds for your new orphanage or yacht.
Belief is to logic what yogurt is to Mount Everest. In fact, if you were to be able to transform belief into a 3-dimensional form, it would closely resemble yogurt- it would be slippery and kinda ukky-looking, soothing in a comfort-food kinda way, available in many different flavours, harmless unless ingested in very large quantities, and available 24/7 just about anywhere.
Paranoia[edit]
One of the most pernicious aspects of belief is paranoia. Who hasn't experienced the feeling "They're all out to get me!" or "Everybody hates me!" or "Government agents are following me all the time!"? I know I have. After 9/11 a great many people suffered from various paranoid delusions, for example "The US Government demolished the Twin Towers with high explosive and paid Osama bin Laden to get some of his homies to fly jets into them to make it look like terrorism in order to justify massively increased surveillance and quasi-military powers over the American People I mean have you read the Patriot Act?- are you aware of the powers granted to Homeland Security?- do you seriously think a couple of jets could knock down two enormous skyscrapers?" and so on.
Belief and paranoia are simply two sides of the same coin. It can no more be proved that God exists than that God does not exist, but that hasn't stopped billions of otherwise fairly rational people from claiming their Belief trumps the other guy's Belief. Go ahead- tell me you don't 'believe' in something? Are you sure? How about "I believe my luck will change" or "I believe the Government covered up somethin' real interestin' at that Area 51 out there in the Nevada Desert" or "I believe the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died for my sins and that one day real soon He's gonna come back to Earth and kick some serious ass"?
Disbelief[edit]
Disbelief tends to occur when belief is disappointed. It is a shocked reaction to the obviously predictable, and follows the same lack of logic as belief itself. For example: "I can't belief you just hit me!" (Rodney King to a member of the LAPD) or "I can't believe they fell for it!" (G Bush to D Cheney following Congress's signing of the Patriot Act) or "I do not believe you can be that dumb!"( J Mcenroe to Wimbledon line judge) or "I can't believe they fell for it!" (G Bush to J Bush following the magical outcome of the Florida vote re-count).
- See also: