The Little People

Like many cultures, my Cherokee culture has stories of (usually invisible) little people who make things happen. Ours are called nunnehi. This sounds like the kind of thing that modern people (including, of course, most modern Cherokees) scoff at. But when the belief originally began, it was, in a sense, logical. You see people and animals doing things. And you see things happening without apparent cause. Ergo, invisible people or animals must be doing them.

But ever since the time of Newton we have needed to give up the idea of supernatural causation. We now know that little people or angels are not necessary in order to move the sun across the sky (which does not actually happen) or the Earth around the sun or create new species or make spring return each year. The idea that the natural world operates by its own laws is not a new Darwinian idea, but goes back to the beginning of modern science. I believe that, regardless of whether there is a God or not, intercessory prayer is as unacceptable of an idea about how to make things happen as are voodoo dolls.

The idea of spiritual causation is not stupid; it was quite reasonable in the past. It is just time to let this idea go.