The human mind is naturally superstitious because of memory encoding optimization. Institutions exploit this weakness for the enslavement of victims. Philosophy and science can understand this and help mitigate the negative effects.
Because the brain is limited in space and size, the mind must use algorithms to encode memories and to recall memories. These algorithms are based on optimization of brain resources in common environments and experiences. Also, memories are compressed and then reconstructed upon recall. All these simplification and optimization procedures introduce situations where the compression algorithm introduces artifacts or "short circuits." For example, all optical illusions are based on these type of "short circuits" of the brain's visual optimization schemes.
To my understanding, in Christianity the highest moral use of the brain is to believe in God, Jesus, Heaven, Angels, Salvation without any demonstrable evidence at all. It is considered the greatest use of the human mind to believe something that you have never seen or experienced, with just faith and without any real evidence at all. For example, a belief that God answers your prayers without any knowledge or proof of God's existence at all ever.
To me this idea is a betrayal of the intellect. It is a betrayal of logic and rationality and the self. It is a betrayal of what it even means to be a human at all. It is the greatest intellectual deceit, and deception in the history of thought.
copyright(c)2015
William Schaeffer
And just think...in Europe 500 years ago, I could be tried and executed just for expressing that same thought (and nothing else). THIS is how far the deceit will go and how thoroughly the perpetrators are afraid of being exposed. They will KILL to keep their influence, because they cannot maintain it through logic, reason, and truth.
ReplyDeleteFor the philosophically inclined, I have an interesting exercise: Imagine that the original message of Jesus was not based on "Faith." Read the Sermon on the Mount. Read the Nag Hammadi Texts, Read the Dead Sea Scrolls, Read Josephus. Imagine that Jesus actually had a logical and pragmatic message that was not based on delusion or fantasy. WHAT WAS THAT MESSAGE?
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