Just watched a fairly interesting TV documentary on all this Mel Gibson/Passion business. I don’t know if interesting’s the right word, really. Hmmm. I’ll give that some thought.
60% of Americans are Christians, apparently. I don’t think this figure surprises me—I’d be curious to hear the comaparitive statistic for the UK. I’d imagine it would be significantly lower, but perhaps I’m wrong.
I wonder how many of these people could articulate a coherent/credible reason for their faith, as opposed to it being something they take for granted, having been indoctrinated from an early age and not having the presence of mind to ask the right (or wrong) questions? Is the dynamic really so different to the acceptance and reinforcement of bigotry (because your parents were, yada yada yada), the status quo, etc? ‘My family/tribe’s dogma/system says thus—who am I to say otherwise [bleating sound]?’
How many belief systems survive/thrive on their own merits? Let’s be clear, the notion of the inferiority of black people in America (and over here) was a belief system, and clearly had no merit whatsoever… in fact, it was/is a scum-minded contrivance. Yet it thrived, and frankly, hasn’t been entirely destroyed to this day. I’ve answered my own question: these attitudes can easily persist without merit! They only ever recede if the opposition is strong enough, and willing to make the point with force if necessary.
We’re creatures of habit, and we love having our habits handed to us on a plate. Never give a single intelligent thought to any of it. Easy. Religion is the easiest gig of all: it answers every single question with one grandiose swoop. Never be bothered with existential angst, friends! Never waste time wondering what it all means! This is the only answer you’ll ever need! As a neat bonus, you get a set of rules for behaving nicely, since you’re too uncouth to figure it out for yourself. Enjoy.
Too much of what constitutes our society is about encouraging the death of interesting thinking. Too much of it offers safety and complacency for the terminally dull and insecure. Ironically, I believe far fewer of us would be terminally dull and insecure if we weren’t virtually programmed that way from day one. It’s crowd control, innit. The machine wouldn’t run so well if all its little cogs weren’t turning smoothly.
God forbid, if you’ll pardon the pun.
Hello,
What about thinking people who weren’t indoctrinated at an early age but converted later on their own? (I’ve seen it twice–am I still allowed to post here ? 😉
I suppose it depends on if their ‘thinking’ makes any sense to me. I’ve yet to encounter an intellectually defensible argument about this stuff (even The Italian Fellow was flummoxed by the challenge). The trouble is that ‘faith’ of any stripe is called that because it necessarily involves the individual to agree not to think too long or too hard about the almost invariably intangible object/issue in question. Which is awfully boring, as it depends on the imagination of someone else…
The main difference between whoever wrote the New Testament—there’s a degree of dispute about this—and L. Ron Hubbard is largely one of cultural proliferation over an extremely long time period. I could claim to have all the answers right now. You can’t invalidate that claim without absolute contrary proof—and most of my followers wouldn’t listen to this proof anyway. That’s how ‘faith’ works; ask John Travolta.
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