Escaping Indoctrination

Lebanon's atheists on losing their religion > .

The Arab world in seven charts: Are Arabs turning their backs on religion? 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48703377 .

Reciprocity versus Tolerance

Semantic quibbles:

The purpose of religious tolerance has always been, and remains, to maintain the power and purity of the dominant religion in a given state. Most dominant religions in most states today profess tolerance, but they also seem to feel especially threatened. Religious nationalist movements in the United States, Europe, India, Turkey and Israel all want to strengthen the relationship between state identity and the dominant religion. In each case, democratic elections have reinforced the significance of the majority’s religion to the meaning of state and nation, elevating the power of that religion. We can see a rising chauvinism in the mix of Catholicism and politics in eastern Europe today that portrays liberals and communists (often a code for ‘Jews’) as enemies. We can see a similar dynamic in the Turkish celebration of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. And we can also see it in the reemerging influence of Evangelicals in the US, as defenders of ‘religious liberty’ in their associations and businesses, and against ‘Sharia’ – as they imagine it – in the public sphere. 

Even as religious nationalism gains strength, claims to membership in the ‘West’ rest in large part on a political avowal of religious tolerance. When religious nationalists claim the mantle of tolerance based on the legal protections that exist for religious minorities in their states, they are not wrong. Tolerance has indeed historically been a framework for people fundamentally different from one another to live peacefully together. Which is precisely why it is time to dispense once and for all with tolerance as a model for relations between groups.

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In the 1960s the New Left asked if the idea of tolerance – especially of speech and political diversity – served only to shield governments, corporations and the elite in continuing policies of economic and racial oppression. More recently, a school of international-relations scholarship has emerged emphasising how the foreign policy guiding Western governments now divides the world between the tolerant and the intolerant in much the same way that it has always distinguished between the civilised (whites) and the barbaric (everyone else). Even so, the question of how tolerance – religious tolerance in particular – could be a tool of domination strikes many people as counterintuitive or perverse. Tolerance is deeply rooted in the canon of apparent modern ideals: as an inherent good, a necessary individual ethic, a pillar of Western civilisation and proof of its superiority.

Yet tolerance, as an idea and an ethic, obscures the interaction between individuals and groups on both a daily basis and over the longue durée; the mutually reinforcing exchange of culture and ideas between groups in a society is missing in the idea of tolerance. Groups do not interact in isolation, they share reciprocally, sometimes intentionally and sometimes inadvertently. If it is true that a global society exists, what its best parts embody today is not tolerance, but reciprocity, the vital and dynamic relationship of mutual exchange that occurs every day between individuals and groups within a society. For teachers, journalists and politicians to begin to speak in terms of reciprocity instead of tolerance will not do away with intolerance or prejudice. But words are important and, as much as they reflect our thoughts, they also shape how we think.

Idealising tolerance embeds dominance. Speaking in terms of reciprocity instead of tolerance would both better reflect what peaceful societies look like, and also tune people’s minds to the societal benefits of cultural exchange.
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Reciprocity is a philosophy, a social ethic, a way of seeing the world, and a psychology. At its most basic distillation, it can serve as a description of both what binds individuals and groups to and within a society, and the mutual exchange of culture that serves as the lifeblood of all prosperous societies. Finding a new framework to approach societal problems is important at a time when ideological differences resting on economic worldview seem to be fading. Because one set of ideals (for diversity, pluralism and exchange) is being challenged by another (for intolerance or, at best, a return to a highly contingent tolerance), a space has opened for a new civic philosophy.

To develop the concept of reciprocity as an individual and collective political ethic we can teach it, study it and write about it. Most of all, we can talk about it, shifting away from a binary vocabulary that counters intolerance with calls for tolerance, and toward a discussion of shared histories and mutual obligations. We must also individually and as groups acknowledge our own civic responsibilities, to our society and to one another, as we respect the contributions of others. In the elected representatives we choose, the policies we support or oppose, and the causes we take on, we can idealise reciprocity as a positive good, and measure ourselves and the progress of our societies against that ideal.

https://aeon.co/essays/reciprocity-not-tolerance-is-the-basis-of-healthy-societies .

I Believe Not God

The concept I’m about to describe is really quite simple, yet mistaken statements abound.

The world abounds in claims about which I have neither heard nor will ever hear. About those claims, I have no belief.

Babies have no belief in gods because they are not cognitively capable of making a decision based on the lack of evidence. Babies are not atheists, they are simply not cognizant. Equally, trees, rocks, and nematodes do not believe in gods, but they are not atheists.

Technically, atheism is equivalent to the belief that there is no god. For some reason, non-believers use waffle language that panders to religious hypersensitivity.

  

We have all heard hedging statements of the form: “I’m not saying that God does not exist, I’m saying I lack belief.”

Sorry, fence-sitter, you might be saying you feel uncertain, or you might be trying to dodge the illogical demand to prove a non-existence, but you are actually flunking Logic 101.

Rationally, we should not believe in anything for which there is no evidence. Further, only a concept can be argued into existence. Yes, there is abundant evidence of the god concept, but no good evidence for the existence of a deity, particularly an interfering deity.

Even more damning, believers have searched and searched and searched for valid evidence, but cannot produce any. Most damning of all, Christian apologists now emphasize Fideism—belief not only despite absence of evidence, but Faith touted as more admirable because it is held in the face of zero evidence. I can think of another term for obstinately clinging to a belief despite the lack of evidence, and despite repeated refutation of all apologetic arguments. However, the term is not flattering, so let's settle for "deluded".

I could say ‘I don’t believe in fairies’, but I am actually saying that I hold the mental state that fairies do not exist. In other words, saying that I do not believe in fairies is logically equivalent to saying that I hold the belief that there are no fairies.

The same holds for deities: “not belief in god” is logically equivalent to “belief of not god”.

A belief is not a fleeting idea or vague opinion, subject to forgetfulness or rapid change. Instead, it is a persistent mental state, the manifestation of relatively fixed neural circuits. In other words, whatever we believe persists whether or not we are thinking of it at a given moment. A believer in A will be a believer in A when he falls asleep and when he wakes in the morning.  

Time, evidence, and persuasive arguments might convince a person to abandon a belief in A and realize that the reality is not A. However, the process is often slow because the neural “belief-circuit” and associated circuits must be rebuilt.

Light dawns slowly, if at all, for believers because they have a strong emotional investment in maintaining a delusion that promises eternal life—and all for so little effort. Simply believe in the unbelievable, and you too can comfort yourself with the illusion of being Special to a Fickle, Narcissistic, Punitive Parent, who will eternally cook you—and, as a bonus for the malevolent, your enemies—if you fail to believe.

Cognitive Distortions

I'm repeatedly struck by the irony inherent in whining that atheists denigrate the cognitive capacities of religious fundamentalists, while proclaiming that belief in a flawed ancient text will ensure that the believer—and only the believer—will defy the laws of nature and live when dead.

How to become a religious fundamentalist:

[under construction]

1) Early indoctrination helps, but is not essential.

2) The following does not apply to all believers, but to the worst religionist fundamentalists. These types exhibit a cognitive disorder characterized by:

a) Emotionality versus Thinking.
b) Narcissism versus Humanism.
c) Authoritarianism (RWA, SDO) versus Tolerance.
d) Defective Moral Compass.
e) Deception versus Truth.

In keeping with these problems, religious fundamentalist take pride in emotionality, fail to recognize their narcissism, take pride in authoritarianism, label those with subtler moral attitudes as "sinners", and refuse to recognize or admit that they heap one logical deception upon another.

Narcissism versus Humanism

Core post: Cognitive Distortions.

Narcissism versus Humanism

Children are natural narcissists, but most of us outgrow egotism as we mature. Those raised by authoritarian parents appear to be less likely to shed us-versus-them mentality.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder lies at the extreme of a spectrum of attitudes that ranges from a realistic view of self within society to megalomaniacal self-aggrandizement. Those who are high on the self-focus spectrum overvalue their own concerns at the expense of others.

Narcissistic Personality (link)

1. Characteristics
1. Grandiosity, unrealistic self-expectation
2. Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty
3. Believes that he or she is special, unique and can only be understood by high status people or institutions
4. Sense of entitlement
5. Need constant admiration
6. Impulsive and anxious
7. Takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
8. Doubts own adequacy
9. Arrogant and displays haughty behavior
10. Envious of others
11. Lacks empathy

Authoritarianism versus Tolerance

Core post: Cognitive Distortions.

Authoritarianism (RWA, SDO) versus Tolerance.

Fundamentalists hide behind "love the sinner, but hate the sin". However, they are actually sugar coating their hatred of any individual who doesn't bow to the narrow edicts that they publicly advocate (but not necessarily follow).

Ironically, this is the attitude that the Jesus Myth inventors preached against.

“Authoritarianism is something authoritarian followers and authoritarian

leaders cook up between themselves. It happens when the followers submit too

much to the leaders, trust them too much, and give them too much leeway to do

whatever they want—which often is something undemocratic, tyrannical and brutal. In my day, authoritarian fascist and authoritarian communist dictatorships posed the biggest threats to democracies, and eventually lost to them in wars both hot and cold. But authoritarianism itself has not disappeared …. the greatest threat to American democracy today arises from a militant authoritarianism that has become a cancer upon the nation.” [italics mine]

Bob Altemeyer, The Authorarians (pdf)

Deception versus Truth

Core post: Cognitive Distortions.

e) Deception versus Truth

Ironically, those who rely on fallacies of logic and deny reality (truth) in the mistaken (false dichotomy) belief that the only choices are "God" or science simultaneously make claims to being in possession of "revealed Truth" (essentially, Gnosticism).  They fail to apprehend that one cannot create a "Truth" by denying truth.

Atheism Playlists

Will the world never be free of counter-factual, anti-rational delusion and religion-inspired violence?

Why does it matter? Inculcated in childhood, religious belief ruins, even cost, the lives of fanatics and their victims. Just as insidious, insistence upon belief in an invention for which there is no good evidence requires denial of reality coupled with cognitive distortions.

Cognitive Distortions:
Emotionality versus Thinking.
Narcissism versus Humanism.
Authoritarianism versus Tolerance.
Defective Moral Compass.
Deception versus Truth.

Atheism versus Delusion





Atheism versus Delusion playlist contents.



Errant Anthology by Men




Errant Anthology by Men playlist contents. 


Escaping the Final Deity

Escaping the Final Deity playlist contents. 


Psychology of Delusion

Psychology of Delusion playlist contents. 


Sociopolitical Inventions - Deities

Sociopolitical Inventions - Deities playlist contents. 


Taking the Mickey




Taking the Mickey playlist contents.