(449)   Thu 16 Oct 97 15:23
By: Caroline Evans
To: Dan Ceppa
Re: Ritual Cannibalism
St:
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Dan,

DC>
DC>Very few xians have even an inkling as to the origins of the
DC>religion they practice.  They know far more of the origins of
DC>other religions, especially those that are called pagan.  They
DC>decry those religions as superstitious.  Yet, by their same
DC>arguments, their very own religion is just as superstitiously
DC>oriented.  They just find a way to deny that fact to themselves.
DC>
DC>... To accept faith because it is customary... is to be lazy. - Nietzsche

    I think their squirming has a lot in common with another group
that clings tenaciously to delusional beliefs...  psychotics.

    In a psychology textbook (Behavior and Life by Frank Bruno) the
following conversation between actual institutionalized psychotics
was reported:

    Patient One :  I can walk through walls.
    Patient Two :  Let's see you do it.
    Patient One :  I don't do it when people are watching.
    Patient Two :  So you can't do it if I look.
    Patient One :  I didn't say that. I said I don't do it while
                   other people are looking.

    This conversation was included in the text to give the reader a
"feel" for psychotic belief systems and the squirming replies
psychotics offer to those who find objections to their beliefs. I can
see no difference between the insistence by Patient One that he can
walk through walls and the many insistences that the religiously
deluded offer for their beliefs. Their steadfast resistance to
reality pretty much settles any doubt as to the psychotic nature of
these beliefs.  "Invisible magic beings" may have been a reasonable
hypothesis for a naked prehistoric bushman who was trying to understand the
world around him. It is not a rational belief for humans who have
acquired the wealth of knowledge that we have today. The hypothesis
of "invisible magic beings" has been shown to be false and those who
cling to bushman beliefs are no more suited to function in the real
world of today than would be a Zinjanthropus.

    If we had a largely unpopulated planet with practically
unlimited resources, as did the primitive bushmen, then lunatic
beliefs are no problem... the nuts can head out in the wilderness
and believe insane thoughts without infringing on others. Nowadays
is an entirely different story. The planet is fully populated and
there is no "someplace else" the deluded can head off to.

    We have discovered that the human brain is very malleable in its
first decade and that evil visited upon children can have lifelong
and inescapable consequences. Actual physical/chemical pathways are laid
down in childhood while unused ones wither and die. A child's brain
eventually becomes less malleable and as adults the learning process
is much less efficient. Pathways set down in childhood tend to
remain. Destroying a child's right to think clearly is no small
damage. A religious upbringing that includes irrational beliefs in
invisible magic beings tends to destroy the child's ability to think
rationally and thus tends to destroy the child's sanity.

    A parent who lobotomized her healthily noisy five year old child
to make him quiet and compliant would be condemned as evil beyond
description. A parent who physically damages a child's brain with
irrational beliefs has committed an act that is equally evil and
should be condemned equally.

         The habit of irrational thought carries through to other
realms... making the victim less able to learn to think logically
and rationally about non-religious subjects. This is where we see
compartmentalization... folks block off the "religious/irrational
beliefs section" from the rest of their thought processes. This
compartmentalization is akin to that of serial killers, like Ted
Bundy, who compartmentalize "the beast" and function otherwise as
upstanding "young republicans". A compartmentalized belief system
may temporarily allow its believer to function in the real world
while privately holding insane thoughts in check. Despite outward
"normalcy", however, the tension between the two beliefs is always
there and stressing the believer.

    We can see this here in this echo. Regularly, the religiously
deluded offer up religious beliefs that are neither internally
consistent nor consistent with observed reality. In virtually every
case you will discover that the deluded were exposed to religious
indoctrination either formally or informally in their early
childhood. Some, however, are quite adept at computer-techie stuff
and/or other workaday subjects in which they display no signs of
irrationality, having resorted to compartmentalization in an
attempt to retain their sanity. Others seem to be incapable of
rational thought and offer up all sorts of nonsense on every
subject. They apparently have weak compartmentalization skills or are in the
grips of full blown psychosis. I think that Bill Kochman is probably a
full-blown psychotic.

    Those who understand that religion and philosophy are exercises
in abstraction akin to poetry or art can deal with these issues in a
rational manner... they know that abstractions exist within the
human mind... but those who wrongly imagine that these internal
abstractions are concrete external reality have taken the step over
the line into the land of delusion and insanity.


    Sincerely,
    Caroline





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