May 2024 Newsletter
Bigfoot is Unreal 👣👣👣
Hello Readers,
I recently made a colossal error on social media: I became entangled in a Bigfoot discussion.
The original post was on a Gen X group page, with that famous picture of Bigfoot (actually a large man in a fur suit, but I digress) and a few lines about how the user loved those old 1970s mystery shows like In Search Of with stories about Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle, the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs, ghosts, etc.
For the record, I don’t believe in any of it. But as a kid, I believed in all of it. However, like my belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the authenticity of professional wrestling (sorry, I should have included a spoiler alert for the youngsters in the audience), my belief in unexplained mysteries faded and eventually disappeared.
To my surprise, many social media commenters also asserted a belief in Bigfoot. A user posted a link for his Bigfoot podcast, which I won’t be listening to. (Okay, maybe I will listen to a few minutes of it; I am a little intrigued). Others posted about their openness to considering that Bigfoot is real.
I commented about the lack of Bigfoot corpses (I pride myself on livening up conversations with uplifting content) – why haven’t we ever stumbled across one? They are the hide-and-seek champions of all species, only captured on grainy film a few times over the past half-century by moonshine-soaked back-woodsmen and reality show camera crews. Never mind that hunters have scattered trail cams throughout thousands of acres of woods without a credible Bigfoot sighting.
It was speculated that they are really good at collecting and burying their dead, concealing their massive bodies in graves that are never discovered. Somehow, none of the thousands of developers nationwide over the past few decades who cleared land for construction projects ever unearthed a single unexplainable giant skeleton.
The most irreconcilable problem with the concept of Bigfoot concerns the creature’s inferred intelligence. Based on its behavior, we receive mixed signals.
If the Bigfoot species is so creative and clever that it eludes discovery, how do they settle for existing like animals in the woods, without shelter or fire? Are we to believe they are satisfied eating raw meat, grubs, and berries? Never showering, and no smartphones, Amazon, Netflix, or DoorDash? Meanwhile, humans live nearby with their Starbucks, roofed dwellings, and stoves.
The propensity to believe in the In Search Of mysteries exposes our strange yearning to believe in things we cannot see or prove. The world contains an untold number of fascinating wonders we can see and touch, yet there we go, trying to summon grandma’s spirit from beyond the grave or find some giant man-ape lumbering around in the Canadian woodlands.
Many of us still profess ourselves as religious, but we have become more and more secular since the 1960s. That diminishment in a belief in a higher power created a vacuum. What do we believe in instead? Ourselves, material consumption, mindless entertainment, and celebrity and athlete idolatry. Toss in unsolved mysteries and conspiracy theories as well.
The truth is that many of the remaining self-professed believers don’t truly believe, at least in Western society. Most are engaging in Pascal’s Wager, the theory that everyone should go all-in on worshipping a god, whether they believe or not. If there is a god, jackpot, eternal life! If there isn’t, you are in the same position you would have been in if you never worshipped, so it is a breakeven or win scenario.
The problem is obvious. If the god you worship is all-knowing, he/she/they/them would understand you were faking it, right? If you could conceal your lack of faith from your god, you could conceal anything, including those sinful thoughts that relentlessly flow through your wicked mind.
Pascal’s Wager is no wager at all; it is a colossal gambling liability if you don’t believe. St. Peter will hook you up to a heavenly polygraph machine at the Pearly Gates, and you’ll fail miserably. Down, down you go…
So, back to Bigfoot. We don’t really believe. That “belief” fills a vacuum created by a failure to believe in something divine. Bigfoot “believers” just have too much time on their hands, just like I did in 1982 when I was convinced pro wrestling was real.
I’m taking June off from the newsletter to work on my book, so I will see you in July!
Take care,
All humans "believe".. in something or somethings (likely the latter). We all have our idols and worship. So 'believing' in something, anything, is as normal and natural as breathing. Faith is belief in the unseen. So like Christians' belief in God, is it really a stretch to extend that to a belief in an animal?
Many an atheist will tout the "where's the "proof" (of God's existence)? Well, the proof is all around, if one simply bothers to explore, and many a book has been written on this ("The Case for Christ" being, probably, the most noteworthy).
In the end, it's not about religion. Religion is man-made; FAITH is God-made. People can, and do, turn ANYthing into a worship activity.
I digress. Belief is a choice and we all have to choose. And the GAMBLE is a serious bet. All-in or all-out.
"I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is." –Albert Camus
Do you have any idea how vast the Pacific Northwest forests are!? What’s next? Megaladon is extinct!? Blasphemy!