Behind a thin pane of glass, in the back room of an ancient Armenian cathedral there is
a lance that pierced the side of a living God.
From the hole that it punctured sprung forth water and blood.
Slicing wafer and spilling wine.
It is among the holiest relics in this entire country, if not the world.
They call it the spear of destiny, and it touched Jesus.
But just like most things in life, the story is not so simple.
Because that lance is almost certainly a fraud.
Eight hundred years ago, a famous cathedral just outside the city of Yerevan was recorded
as containing a shocking relic: the exact lance that had pierced Jesus Christ on the cross.
This would have been shocking for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that
the lance had apparently survived in Armenia for almost 1300 years without so much as a
note stating it existed.
And with virtually zero wear and tear, at that.
But beyond that, it would have been shocking because the lance had already been found three,
possibly even four times.
And these weren't different pieces from the same lance, but entirely different lances.
Different sizes, shapes, ancestries, and final resting places.
None of these seem any more plausible than the last, and yet they were all treated as
legitimate by those who housed them.
And that clearly raises some issues.
Because even if you're the most dedicated Christian, who believes every word of the
New Testament as fact, surely having four separate lances causes a bit of cognitive dissonance.
But the purpose of this episode is not to cut the side of Christianity and spill out
all the water.
It's certainly not to look at all the various relics around the world and decide if they
are true or not.
The purpose of this episode has nothing to do whether this holy lance is true or the
other three.
Or for that matter, any of them.
It's to analyze the lie.
Because even if you believe that this is the holy lance, surely you understand that negates
the truth of the other three.
No matter your beliefs on God, you must understand three people lied.
And from my perspective, the lie is the only important part, because it tells us more about
human nature than it does religion.
This is an issue of legitimacy, unity, and power.
The more you dig into these stories, the less holy the decision making seems.
The spear of Etchmiadzin isn't alone in the reliquary.
A few inches to the right is a small piece of wood held in an ornate box.
According to the text written below, it’s a piece of Noah's Ark, one of the holiest
and most important biblical stories for the Armenian people.
In the Old Testament, the Ark was said to have run aground on one of the mountains of
Ararat, an ancient name for greater Armenia.
It’s such a foundational story here that even the patriarch of the Armenian nation,
the quasi-mythical leader Hayk, is said to be a direct descendant of Noah.
There's no way to specify which of the dozens if not hundreds of peaks the Bible was referring
to, yet over time one specific mountain has come to take the throne.
A mountain we now call Ararat.
There's no reason to believe that this specifically is the mountain the Bible is referencing,
but the choice of the Armenian religious leaders to state it as such says a great deal about
the purpose and value of relics.
Ararat is not currently under Armenian control.
It's Turkish, and its administrators Muslim.
Despite being a historic centre for the Armenian people, it looms over their capital city just
out of reach, miles past an impassible border.
Yet the land around it is known in virtually every language as Greater Armenia.
It was historically theirs.
The history of the Armenian people is a cyclical history of expulsion and return, of destruction
and renewal, of division and unity.
And just like their saviour alongside them, their survival has always required resurrection.
For this small indigenous group to stave off extinction, they’ve always needed to be
reminded of what's theirs, and why.
Even when it isn't.
Especially when it isn't.
For generations, religious leaders of Armenia wouldn't allow pilgrims to climb Ararat.
Their expressed concern was that too many pilgrims would break down the Ark, causing
it to disintegrate over time.
But surely, that wasn't their real concern.
Because although hundreds of people have claimed to see the Ark on the mountain, of course
none of those have been confirmed.
It's a biblical yeti.
A holy ghost.
Be it mass hysteria, religious zeal, or a straight up lie, any leader who'd done their
homework would know that the Ark wasn't there.
Or at the very least, had yet to be found.
So why tell pilgrims not to go?
If you know it won't destroy the Ark, why do it?
Well, as far as I see it, their stated concerns were only partially untrue.
Letting people on Ararat *would* destroy the Ark.
Not the physical item, but the belief in it.
People would have to come to terms with the realization that it wasn't there.
The historical fact wasn't factual.
And if it wasn't on Ararat, why was that mountain theirs?
Without a religious historical claim, how could they convince their society to die to
control it once again?
And if it wasn’t on Ararat, did it exist at all?
To me, the relics of Etchmiadzin are a way to remove the haze of the past in a time when
history was incredibly uncertain.
Their ancient facts meant to sustain modern belief.
And for a people struggling with the less-than-realistic parts of the Bible, having a physical item
that connected back to that history, would have been invaluable.
And certainly, the people who made them would have known that.
So did they think that the lie was justified?
That the ends justified the means?
Because surely people believe in the religion because of their lie and yet, they would have
known that it was false.
It's hard to say.
And certainly, there are reasons to have a relic in your church beyond inspiring your
people to see their history as biblically divined.
For the individuals crafting the lies around these relics, the purpose would have almost
definitely contained a personal benefit, as well.
More pilgrims, more donations, a stronger bishopric and more power within the religious order.
The holy lance of Antioch, for example, was even considered a fraud in its time.
But there's no question it helped inspire the holy warriors to crusade that much harder,
providing the religious zeal required to take a seemingly impossible fortification.
But while those personal reasons are certainly true, they're less of what I want to focus on.
Because the moment that lie is swallowed, it’s no longer the lie of the individual.
Now, it’s the lie of the community.
And while I'm certain I've already offended a great many of you with my analysis, I'm
gonna push the envelope a little further.
Because I'd bet many of you have dismissed this as a purely spiritual issue.
There’s an underlying current of our modern world that implies if we remove religion,
we remove unfounded belief.
But Christians aren't built differently than the rest of us, and the logic behind their
actions stems from something deeper than religion.
We're all capable of dogmatism, and we're all generally happy to believe a supportive lie.
Here in Armenia there are another series of relics, harder to find after the collapse
of the dogma that created them, but just as untrue.
These are the relics of the atheists, the Soviet Union's statist replacement of the church.
Among the anti-theists I've known over the years, there seems to be a common belief that
if you remove religiousness, you also remove ignorance and dogmatism.
It seems to me that they believe that it's learned, not innate.
But I don't think that's true.
Because there is this belief that if you're an atheist, you are no longer ignorant and dogmatic.
And yet, the evidence suggests otherwise.
Atheism is awash with dogmatism and ignorance.
Certainly not to the same respect as in religiousness, but it's there.
You just need to know where to look.
Just as with the story of Noah's Ark on Ararat, the Soviets crafted a history that could never
come true.
But instead of attempting to remove the haze of the past, they were attempting to remove
the haze of the future.
The state replaced religion, with virtually all the trappings therein.
The cult of religious leaders was replaced by the cult of Lenin and Stalin.
Relics in the form of statues and posters were erected around the Empire.
The promise of Communism stated that with enough time and effort, the government would
wither and die and the people would gain direct control of the means of production.
The hierarchies that had led to robber barons and tsars would be replaced by an equal, united world.
An impossibility.
A dogma.
And to convince people that the future could be what they claimed, they undertook a propaganda
campaign that permeated through every aspect of society.
Posters advocating industry weren’t religious, but they required the same suspension of disbelief
the church had demanded before them.
The promises would never come true, and certainly the propagandists would have known that, but
the theoretical future they were inventing through their art would allow people to unite
around this new ideal.
This imperfect, dogmatic, atheist society.
Which brings me back to the concept of the conscious liar.
Our technology has advanced, but have we?
Does Elon Musk truly believe that Mars is the best destination for the advancement of humanity?
Or does he just want to die a legend?
The moon is a by far a more viable, useful, and beneficial option for the advancement
of our species.
So why Mars?
It's just a relic of celestial science.
The symbol of that one small step on Mars is far more valuable to the true believers
than the reality of habitation on the moon.
We went to the moon, and it gave us no purpose.
The haze of the future remained.
So now, the belief is commonly pitched that if you want humans to advance further off
this planet, you have to believe Musk's lie.
You have to believe that when he steps foot on that red dirt, the promise of the future
is being achieved.
Even if you know that’s not true.
In the exact same vein, if you want to live in a Communist society it behooves you to
believe that what they’re saying is possible, even when you know it isn't.
We are given no purpose at birth, and for most us, we need the light at the end of the
tunnel just to be convinced to move.
To not be paralyzed with indecision.
As each symbolic lance is analyzed and found to be fraudulent, there's less of a desire
to check the others.
Because if that’s the light you’re walking towards, more information can do no good.
The best it can possibly achieve is confirming what its adherents already believe.
But the man who brought that holy lance to Armenia must have known he was lying.
Stalin knew he was lying.
Musk knows he’s lying.
But they lie for a reason.
Whether it’s because they believe the ends will justify the means or simply acting out
of personal benefit, it’s our innate desire for a dogmatic purpose in life that allows it.
Love it or hate it, in some way or another, we're all taking part.
But that isn't to say that science is bunk or we shouldn't analyze and tear down the
lies as we find them.
Simply that we need to recognize that something will always bubble up in their place once
torn down or achieved.
When you strip away a person’s dogma, often what you’re left with is a person yearning for dogma.
Most of us need a purpose, and relics make that purpose feel real.
As an agnostic, I don't believe we'll ever find what we're looking for.
I don't believe humans are capable of understanding the universe in full, and in a way, that's my dogma.
Certainly, there are belief systems that are far more likely than others, and some truths
that are very easy to disprove.
But those who claim to have any firm understanding of the universe, or of our purpose here, are lying.
Consciously or not.
We are born into a Platonic cave, staring at shadows on the wall, and we always will be.
Science can better let us understand the outline of that cave, but it can't solve the fundamental
issue within us.
A rocket can get us to Mars, but it won’t change why we went.
We will likely always create relics to imply a deeper meaning to our lives.
To remove the haze that we know we can never remove.
But no matter how much light we let shine in, we're always just going to be looking at the shadows.
This is Rare Earth.