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Battered Believer Syndrome
16/04/10 02:34 Filed in: Religion
Battered wives believe that their husbands love them. Battered wives believe that they deserve the beatings they get. It’s not true, nobody deserves to be physically and psychologically abused. Unfortunately these women still believe it. They also believe that one day things will get better, they just have to stay the course. This time he’ll treat her with respect, this time will be different. It’s an illogical cycle that leads to a loss of self worth that can completely destroy a personality.
Victims of these crimes are reluctant to seek help or call the police. It’s wrong, and deep down they know it but few people bring themselves to put a stop to it. The abuse just escalates until it reaches a tipping point, usually resulting in violence. The only way to stop it, is first to understand the behavior then to break the cycle.
Religion works the same way. Religious faith is a sister syndrome to battered wife syndrome. Religion tells you that you’re nothing, but that jesus loves you anyway. You’re a wretched lowly creature and you don’t deserve god’s love, but he loves you anyway. If you think that this is a lovely sentiment, that’s your first clue, you may be a victim of battered believer syndrome.
It seems more than just probable given all that we know, that we started out worshipping nature. Once we realized that so many things in nature have a logical and predictable pattern, nature became somewhat more understandable. But we still had questions that we could not answer, so we invented god. It’s now several millennia later and we can all see the obvious trend, the longer we as a species live the more we learn and the more like our imagined god we become. So why do so many people still believe that our collective delusion created us?
Well, all promises of an afterlife aside, I think that some who consider a godless universe realize that we humans may be on the top rung of the ladder. That would mean that we are responsible for everything and everyone on this planet, and maybe someday other planets as well. If we’re it, if it’s all on us, haven’t we failed? I mean we’ve got this amazing planet and look what we’ve done with it. Wars, crimes, greed, genocide. Is this human nature? Are we doomed without some celestial parent who will break up all this nonsense at some point? Not only that do we humans deserve this existence that we’ve been born into?
Who really cares? We’ve got these lives. We’ve got this planet. We have the power of our choices. We can choose not to support the catholic church, an organization that allows child rape and protects the rapists. We can choose not to believe in some ancient script written by people who could not even conceive of the world in which we now live. When someone tells you to do something you know is wrong in the name of god or islam or any deity you can choose not to do it! If you really want to feel like you deserve this life you first must be brave enough and dare to live it! You have to choose not to believe in things that can’t be proven, or don’t make any sense!
Some time ago I watched a Christopher Hitchens debate in which the moderator suffered from some sort of birth defect which made walking difficult. This moderator believed that in death god would grant him a perfect new body that would have no such defect. How ironic that the very religious organization to which he belongs is against stem cell research! The very area of medical technology that could allow (maybe not him) people to walk and function in the way that most of us take for granted. If that’s not battered believer syndrome I don’t know what is! This person actually thinks that he’s not good enough to walk without impediment unless god says that he is!
Science empowers people to do things that we’ve never done before, does religion do that? Science tries to find answers that we can all share, no matter what race, where we live or who we are. Religion DOES NOT even attempt to do this and it never will. God will not stop beating you. It doesn’t matter how good you are, how pure your spirit is. God will never stop holding you down, blunting your imagination, making you feel powerless to change the world you live in. It’s time to call the authorities, ask the questions and find out how to take control of your life. Imaginary friends can’t guide you, no matter how many people believe in them!
There is no god. Don’t take my word for it, the information is out there.
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Clinging to the god that divides us
08/04/10 05:03 Filed in: Religion
Victims of repeated rape and abuse often begin to identify with their attackers. Battered women often won’t testify against the men that abuse them. In both instances the victims will often protect the very people that are the cause of all their pain. When someone says they love you it’s a powerful thing. Many of us don’t hear those words enough, a few of us not at all. Tell the preacher that nobody loves you and you know what the reply will always be. Jesus loves you.
For someone who feels like nobody loves them these three words can seem like salvation. However for most people jesus would have to exist in order to love anyone. So even when you present a clear and logical case supporting an atheistic world view, the thought of losing the only person that loves you, proves to be more compelling than logic or reason. A delusion replaces reality.
But what about those of us with an abundance of love in our lives? Why would someone in these circumstances surrender their sanity in order to gain the love of the saviour? I think this stems from our perception of what love really is. Religious indoctrination of children installs the idea that god’s love is love’s most pure and perfect form. If this perfect love doesn’t really exist, does that mean that the love you feel for others and that others feel for you is a fallacy as well? Of course not, but these are the sort of concepts that religious leaders use to raise the stakes. The underlying concept being “god is love” therefore no god equals no love.
Whatever your circumstances the holy book has got a hook to snare you. Starting with these basic concepts and moving on to religious services. You sit in a room with many other people, you sing songs, people smile at you, nobody feels alone. You feel good, maybe even feeling quite euphoric. Then you’re told this feeling is god’s presence, the holy spirit or some other such nonsense. If your concept of love itself would be shaken in a godless universe, it’s not really a stretch that you would be willing to believe that these positive feelings are a result of god’s love. After all you have been conditioned from an early age to believe this lie. “Yes Jesus loves me, the bible tells me so”. Who is going to deny love? I mean god’s love is free right? And he’s not around to do anything objectionable to make you refuse his love. God loved us so much he sent us his only begotten son, to die on the cross. So what if god, jesus and the holy spirit are one and the same entity. Who cares if jesus did not actually die. The bible says he rose from the dead like some sort of zombie. It’s ridiculous! Religious organizations have been able to get people to believe these ridiculous things for centuries. Up until recently It has been the perfect crime! It’s a heist designed to steal your mind!
Enter science and technology. The scientific method, and the system of pier review produces information that is as close to the truth as is possible. No god, triune or otherwise could hold up to this scrutiny. Not only that, the very mindset behind scientific endeavor trains the mind to be resistant to religious dogma.
Religion strikes back! By camping out on what appears to be the moral high ground, the leaders of the faithful can undermine science. Never forget that the only reason they can occupy this moral high ground is that we in society allow it. After all, does it make sense that an organization directly responsible for killing thousands of africans on a daily basis (ie the vatican), is allowed to take the moral high ground over those of us who want to use science to unite the world?
Religion has been around for a very long time and hasn’t produced anything close to an ideal world, so maybe it’s time to stop clinging to gods that keep us from understanding each other and the world that we live in.
Billions Of People Infected With Potentially Deadly Disease
29/11/09 15:57 Filed in: Religion
In our lifetimes we’ve all seen or read about diseases that once killed millions, reduced to a minor inconvenience that can be avoided with a simple immunization. Our ability to defeat disease is a testament to the scientific method. This set of easy to follow rules provides the framework for any cure that has ever been. The experiments themselves may have been too complex for the layman to understand, however this simple framework that takes us from hypothesis to proof can be easily understood by almost anyone. This methodology has served humanity so well in fact, that I can only wonder why it hasn’t been applied to tackle the grandaddy of infectious disease; the most prolific epidemic to ever be set loose upon planet earth. This contagion that is referred to as “faith”.
In a post nine-eleven world, I need not site myriad examples of how faith can lead to fatality. The basic idea is that the more religious a population, the greater the possibility that extreme fundamentalist ideas, (like ethnic cleansing, genital mutilation, slavery etc.) will be tolerated or accepted.
In truth we all know the solution to wiping out faith once and for all is deceptively simple. All we need to do is to prohibit the teaching of religious doctrine to children. If we could manage to do that we could wipe out religious faith in perhaps one or two generations. This would yield a society based on secular ideas, filtered through the purifying process of the scientific method. At each new stage of our development, we could stand and rest on the best possible knowledge in any given endeavor. From these footholds we could then push off to learn even more. Can you imagine a world where we actually listen to the world’s foremost experts on any given topic? A world where all of science would be freely allowed to hypothesize, struggle through a process of falsification and then, after the rigors of this process are over, reach a proof as close to the truth as humanly possible? Even in those instances where the hypothesis is wrong, we learn new facts, unearth new questions and thus our understanding could potentially grow in the process. In short can you see, in your lifetime, a world where humanity begins to reach anything like our full potential?
Well, I’m sorry to say that I can’t, and I can say with some certainty, neither can you! Why the hell not? Well, it’s because we know that any time the findings lead us away from that which is written in the articles of faith, we’ll find we’re on a path riddled with land mines. Dogma-bombs are exploding overhead while we crawl through the barbed wire that is religious doctrine. It’s hard to concentrate with all this noise distracting us from proceeding in an orderly fashion. Instead of doing battle with the problems that we all face, science is in a constant battle with the infected. Those indoctrinated into a world view that teaches that belief without proof is a virtue. And so, we waste valuable resources on a constant skirmish with a disease for which we have a cure. If it’s true that the medicinal properties of reason are wasted on those infected by faith. how can we proceed?. Should we soldier on, with the heaviest of hearts, while we abandon the faithful? The unfortunate truth is that this is a triage situation. We’re trying to save a planet here!
It should be the goal of Atheists to marshal our collective political muscle before it is simply too late. If we are able to exert enough secular pressure upon governments to make more difficult, or illegal, the practice of infecting children with faith, we can begin to create a society capable of tackling the problems we face. We must turn our attention to the children everywhere on this earth. Wherever children are under educated and under fed, we must find ways to raise the standard of living. We must ensure that our governments will not fund any religious pursuit, and lobby for religious organizations to pay the same taxes as any similar secular counterpart would have to pay.
Whenever faith is held up as an equivalent to science, we must illuminate the incongruity. When those infected by faith site the holy texts to refute science, we must show those who are susceptible to the cure how one simply cannot compare that which is written in an ancient scroll with tried, tested and factual scientific evidence. It must be shown, again and again that the process that produces scientific evidence is as close to pure as we can make it, while the holy texts are based on outmoded ideas that have long been falsified. We must also recognize how the infection causes the faithful to act in any debate on the subject of religion versus science.
Religious apologists always seem to use the same arguments. When it’s an argument on something specific, the holy text itself usually forms the basis of it’s own undoing. At this point most theists will divorce themselves from the text by inventing a non-literal interpretation of it. This leads to a kind of religious rope-a-dope that produces a stalemate in nearly every contest. Since holy texts are not written in our current vernacular, these multitude of interpretations can go on ad-infinitum. As the debate rages on, another generation of children are infected. Therefore the only useful goal of debate is to make free thinkers of those who are at risk of infection. This increases the likelihood that the children of those hedging their bets will at least be spared contact with religioniogenic ideology, for the most impressionable stages of early childhood. Anyone who enters any such a debate should ask themselves if the format of the debate will allow this objective to be achieved. If not, the format will need to be altered, and when this cannot be done, the invitation to engage in debate must simply be declined. I have watched hours of video of Christopher Hitchens in debate with any willing theist. Thus far only one has ever come close to bringing something even remotely original to the discussion. Douglas Wilson, a pastor from Moscow Idaho, in the documentary film “Collision”, actually provides some intelligent and thoughtful points in favor of his variant strain of the disease known as christianity. He does this so eloquently in the film that you almost forget that he is infected. However when he says that he does not take the bible literally word for word, but nevertheless believes it to be absolutely true, it becomes very clear indeed that he must be counted as one who has been stricken. Pastor Wilson is one of a very few infected whose faith has not dissuaded him from thinking. After all it’s his faith that allows him to believe absolutely what he cannot take literally. So even he, one of the best examples of a thinking man’s theist, must cross an ideological bridge to allow him to have this absolute belief in the bible. It is unfortunate for him that this bridge of faith has absolutely no substance on which he can stand. He may invoke the name of god until he is blue in the face, but until he can prove the rationality of faith, he can only pretend to cross this bridge. It is obvious, to me at least, that it is only a world view warped by infectious faith that allows him to see his feet planted firmly on the other side.
I am neither capable nor qualified to develop a treatment protocol to reduce this outbreak. Those who are more educated and more intelligent than I am must engage themselves to this end. I only suggest here that the scientific method is the most likely candidate methodology for the rectification of this pandemic. However before we can go forward here all Atheists and Anti-theists must have a common set of objectives. This is essential because we do not, for the most part hold weekly meetings. We have no anthems, no fight songs etc. So our objectives must be made clear.
We must never forget the universal truth of science. This truth being that any information discovered by science is available to everyone. The mixture of two reactive chemicals (for instance) at standard temperature and pressure yields the same results for anyone, regardless of ideology. This transparency and independent verifiability is what makes science uniquely able to unify all the peoples of planet earth. The only reason that the pandemic of faith continues to propagate itself is that the majority of the population does not understand the science and cannot give the evidence the proper weight.
Victory over this viral infection will only be achieved when the vast majority of people realize, that even though for the time being science is a somewhat leaky vessel, it, unlike faith, holds water long enough to allow one to have a drink.
In a post nine-eleven world, I need not site myriad examples of how faith can lead to fatality. The basic idea is that the more religious a population, the greater the possibility that extreme fundamentalist ideas, (like ethnic cleansing, genital mutilation, slavery etc.) will be tolerated or accepted.
In truth we all know the solution to wiping out faith once and for all is deceptively simple. All we need to do is to prohibit the teaching of religious doctrine to children. If we could manage to do that we could wipe out religious faith in perhaps one or two generations. This would yield a society based on secular ideas, filtered through the purifying process of the scientific method. At each new stage of our development, we could stand and rest on the best possible knowledge in any given endeavor. From these footholds we could then push off to learn even more. Can you imagine a world where we actually listen to the world’s foremost experts on any given topic? A world where all of science would be freely allowed to hypothesize, struggle through a process of falsification and then, after the rigors of this process are over, reach a proof as close to the truth as humanly possible? Even in those instances where the hypothesis is wrong, we learn new facts, unearth new questions and thus our understanding could potentially grow in the process. In short can you see, in your lifetime, a world where humanity begins to reach anything like our full potential?
Well, I’m sorry to say that I can’t, and I can say with some certainty, neither can you! Why the hell not? Well, it’s because we know that any time the findings lead us away from that which is written in the articles of faith, we’ll find we’re on a path riddled with land mines. Dogma-bombs are exploding overhead while we crawl through the barbed wire that is religious doctrine. It’s hard to concentrate with all this noise distracting us from proceeding in an orderly fashion. Instead of doing battle with the problems that we all face, science is in a constant battle with the infected. Those indoctrinated into a world view that teaches that belief without proof is a virtue. And so, we waste valuable resources on a constant skirmish with a disease for which we have a cure. If it’s true that the medicinal properties of reason are wasted on those infected by faith. how can we proceed?. Should we soldier on, with the heaviest of hearts, while we abandon the faithful? The unfortunate truth is that this is a triage situation. We’re trying to save a planet here!
It should be the goal of Atheists to marshal our collective political muscle before it is simply too late. If we are able to exert enough secular pressure upon governments to make more difficult, or illegal, the practice of infecting children with faith, we can begin to create a society capable of tackling the problems we face. We must turn our attention to the children everywhere on this earth. Wherever children are under educated and under fed, we must find ways to raise the standard of living. We must ensure that our governments will not fund any religious pursuit, and lobby for religious organizations to pay the same taxes as any similar secular counterpart would have to pay.
Whenever faith is held up as an equivalent to science, we must illuminate the incongruity. When those infected by faith site the holy texts to refute science, we must show those who are susceptible to the cure how one simply cannot compare that which is written in an ancient scroll with tried, tested and factual scientific evidence. It must be shown, again and again that the process that produces scientific evidence is as close to pure as we can make it, while the holy texts are based on outmoded ideas that have long been falsified. We must also recognize how the infection causes the faithful to act in any debate on the subject of religion versus science.
Religious apologists always seem to use the same arguments. When it’s an argument on something specific, the holy text itself usually forms the basis of it’s own undoing. At this point most theists will divorce themselves from the text by inventing a non-literal interpretation of it. This leads to a kind of religious rope-a-dope that produces a stalemate in nearly every contest. Since holy texts are not written in our current vernacular, these multitude of interpretations can go on ad-infinitum. As the debate rages on, another generation of children are infected. Therefore the only useful goal of debate is to make free thinkers of those who are at risk of infection. This increases the likelihood that the children of those hedging their bets will at least be spared contact with religioniogenic ideology, for the most impressionable stages of early childhood. Anyone who enters any such a debate should ask themselves if the format of the debate will allow this objective to be achieved. If not, the format will need to be altered, and when this cannot be done, the invitation to engage in debate must simply be declined. I have watched hours of video of Christopher Hitchens in debate with any willing theist. Thus far only one has ever come close to bringing something even remotely original to the discussion. Douglas Wilson, a pastor from Moscow Idaho, in the documentary film “Collision”, actually provides some intelligent and thoughtful points in favor of his variant strain of the disease known as christianity. He does this so eloquently in the film that you almost forget that he is infected. However when he says that he does not take the bible literally word for word, but nevertheless believes it to be absolutely true, it becomes very clear indeed that he must be counted as one who has been stricken. Pastor Wilson is one of a very few infected whose faith has not dissuaded him from thinking. After all it’s his faith that allows him to believe absolutely what he cannot take literally. So even he, one of the best examples of a thinking man’s theist, must cross an ideological bridge to allow him to have this absolute belief in the bible. It is unfortunate for him that this bridge of faith has absolutely no substance on which he can stand. He may invoke the name of god until he is blue in the face, but until he can prove the rationality of faith, he can only pretend to cross this bridge. It is obvious, to me at least, that it is only a world view warped by infectious faith that allows him to see his feet planted firmly on the other side.
I am neither capable nor qualified to develop a treatment protocol to reduce this outbreak. Those who are more educated and more intelligent than I am must engage themselves to this end. I only suggest here that the scientific method is the most likely candidate methodology for the rectification of this pandemic. However before we can go forward here all Atheists and Anti-theists must have a common set of objectives. This is essential because we do not, for the most part hold weekly meetings. We have no anthems, no fight songs etc. So our objectives must be made clear.
We must never forget the universal truth of science. This truth being that any information discovered by science is available to everyone. The mixture of two reactive chemicals (for instance) at standard temperature and pressure yields the same results for anyone, regardless of ideology. This transparency and independent verifiability is what makes science uniquely able to unify all the peoples of planet earth. The only reason that the pandemic of faith continues to propagate itself is that the majority of the population does not understand the science and cannot give the evidence the proper weight.
Victory over this viral infection will only be achieved when the vast majority of people realize, that even though for the time being science is a somewhat leaky vessel, it, unlike faith, holds water long enough to allow one to have a drink.