Imagine for a moment that American folklore was very important to me. Not just important, but that my entire system of faith and ethics was wrapped up in these stories so tightly that my whole world would come crashing down if those tales weren’t actually factually true.

I know from hearing and reading the stories, and seeing the Disney cartoon that Pecos Bill, desperately needing a drink of cool water, struck a fencepost into the desert, dragged it behind his horse, and dug the Rio Grande.

Now when I visit the Texas border and look out at the river, I can marvel at Bill’s work and how it still survives today. I can theorize where the stick was dragged and hypothesize how much the riverbed has eroded since to form the wide shallow stream that flows before me. I can praise God for giving Bill the miracle of finding the source spring and the strength to dig all those miles. And the incredible horse to pull him along as he did it.

Now you must be thinking that I’m being ridiculous. Those stories were never meant to be taken seriously. Besides, there is an abundance of evidence that the river is a naturally-occurring stream with its existence far predating the appearance of any thirsty white cowboys.

To that I must say, why are you persecuting me? My religious texts are infallible, and they were inspired to say that Pecos Bill did the deed, not some pseudo-scientific theory of evolution. I have the facts before me, all I need to do is look at the river for evidence -- Bill’s drag-path, old splinters, etc. -- and anything else found is inconsequential or a Satanic distraction.

Some of you may be getting my point now, but silly me, my hyperbole is way out in AnnCoulterland, so outrageous that it falls outside rational debate. It’s likely not even the bored cowpokes telling tales on the trail believed a word of these stories.

OK, then what about the cherry tree? Or more accurately, the cherry stump.

For generations, schoolchildren were taught as undeniable fact the story originally written by Parson Weems that a young George Washington chopped and mangled his father’s cherry tree with a hatchet. Young George confessed, and because of being contrite and owning up to the deed, he was forgiven with no punishment by his dad. In more recent times, this story has been consigned to the realm of myth, half-truth at best. But instead of regarding Weems as a fraud and liar, we understand the purpose of the story, and it survives as allegory used to teach honesty and parental compassion.

But if you want to believe it’s true, it helps to have proof. Research on the credibility of Weems’ tale, at least according to Wikipedia, has been inconclusive. The tree is long destroyed, and the hatchet would have been used on countless other pieces of wood, obscuring any possible evidence of its first kill. A true believer’s best course is to find the stump. Actually, the first step is to believe the stump is there. Then, once that belief has taken hold, it’s only a matter of finding it. It must be there. No stump, no story. No story, and my belief that being honest with my parents was a lie.

I came up with the overall title of this column, “Reality Is What You Make It,” years ago as kind of an informal motto. I accept that it has its limits, that it is more a reflection of how we mold our perception of and reaction to the “real world.” But there are some people who take the RIWYMI concept and really run with it. They believe they can actually conform reality to their worldview.

Take for instance, those who want to have made available at the Grand Canyon the story, presented as fact, of how the great chasm was formed suddenly from drainage during the Great Flood depicted in the Bible.

Roll your eyes if you must, but there are a vast number of people who believe the Good Book is 100 percent factual, and could thus accept as a valid theory that this is how we got the Grand Canyon. This is taking my thinking of the story of Noah and the Ark in directions I hadn’t gone before. I find myself asking questions.

If this is a true story of a man’s faith saving him from an unexpected deluge, was the Flood truly global? Scripture seems to say yes. Physical evidence is hard to come by, especially as it would be a one-time event occurring over the course of a couple of months thousands of years ago. Was the Noah family the only human survivors? Scripture again says yes. Outside sources find flood myths in other cultures, but not the exact Biblical story. One can hold the view that this proves the Bible, while non-biblical stories are oral distortions far removed from the original tale (taking a huge spoonful of faith that the Genesis version is the right one).

So you’ve got people of faith accepting as fact that several thousand years ago all of humanity was reduced to a single Middle-Eastern family. Thus these same folks who don’t believe in evolution at all, still believe that mankind diversified into about a dozen distinct races in just a few thousand years. Just making sure I follow the logic.

More questions: Creationists state the dinosaurs were around prior to the Flood, but were left behind. (We’ll leave aside the evolutionary evidence that not even all dinosaurs were on earth at the same time, since we’re going with the notion that evolution is bunk.) Why? Why, of all the dino species, did only those of the crocodile family get taken on the ark? The answer can’t be due to personal danger, as various predators (including the crocs) made the trip. While the supersize species wouldn’t fit (and why did the Lord request a precisely-sized vessel that would be too small?) there were plenty that were smaller. Why were pigs and rabbits, later to be declared abominations in Leviticus, allowed? Were there koalas, kangaroos, lemurs, raccoons, llamas, and other natives of distant islands and continents on the ark? If so, how did they get there? And how did they get home?

According to an article on the website Conservapedia, which does seem to be an actual resource for far-religious-right thinking, the kangaroos made the muster and journey home by land, as all continents were still joined as Pangaea, later drifting apart to their present state.

Yes, we have anti-evolutionists grasping onto an evolutionary concept to justify literal belief in a Biblical story. I wonder what the Conservapedia entry on “irony” looks like.

Instead of toying with the entire history of the planet, denying a slow process of continental drift, but accepting one that would practically have Australia visibly moving, and assuming incredible migrations of non-migratory animals (If this was all just God’s miraculous work, why not teleport them to the ark and back? Why not send only enough area-native species to Noah to get the point across that he’s preserving Creation, and let the rest go, then re-creating the ones that will live in a post-flood world?), how about we instead focus on the lessons this ancient allegory has to teach us.

I don’t think the Almighty meant for us to be so worked up with conforming the real world, a world he has already made as he saw fit, to the words on certain pages. The stump, if it ever existed, rotted away years ago; stop looking for it.