Reply #40: Another atheist view . . [View All]

I see a fundamental mistake in most of these posts. You assume that religious belief, fundamental or otherwise, come from some rational process - and that if we point out to them the logical problems with their belief they will "see the light" of reason and adopt a more benign worldview.

Have you considered the possibility that religion is actually the result of a hormonal / psychological process? Especially that strong ideological beliefs release chemicals in the brain that people become addicted to - just as much as crack or heroin.

This addiction is strong enough that these people will find some set of strong ideological beliefs to immerse themselves in, regardless of the underlying logic.

They will choose from those that society offers. (Part of the high comes from acceptance by similarly addicted peers.)

It is also probable that peoples' ability / desire to immerse themselves in strong ideological belief systems changes with meta-social circumstances. i.e 9/11 caused many who were on the border to cross over to eagerly seek that strong ideological mindset in order to relieve the anxiety of being threatened by terrorism.

I believe the US culturally (as opposed to Canada or Europe) consists of millions who don't have a socially learned mistrust of strong ideology. These new converts are the people who voted for our "strong leader" in the last election and put him over the top.

This mindset abhors ambiguity, seeks final solutions, loves strong, uncompromising leadership and violent resolution of conflict. They violently exclude those who don't "believe". They epitomize the "you're with us or against us" view and they believe the threat to them and their beliefs from non-believers is strong enough that it justifies any means to defeat the non-believers. In this case that means "liberals".

These are the people who take civilization to war. No amount of reasoning will change this. They will find their drug - and it's also true that in times like these, with the type of leadership we have, other, stronger forms of it will evolve to fill that need. And many more will die before this is over.

What I'm saying is there is probably nothing we can do to prevent them from having their Reformation - which is what these dark, destructive periods of human civilization are called. In the past, no amount of reason ever prevented them from playing out their destiny and killing many millions of innocent humans in the process - but good luck.