Jane_the_Bane
Gaia's godchild
- Feb 11, 2004
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The false assurance of knowledge is the wellspring of ignorance.
Religions (and political ideologies) all too often rely on what could be called the "felt truth":
there are many things that make people's neurological reward system flare up with all sorts of natural highs, regardless of whether we're talking about Christian converts gushing about their "spiritual rebirth" or Scientologists who've pumped thousands of dollars into "becoming clear" (just to mention two examples).
The assurance of absolute certainty and knowledge in the absence of demonstrable evidence of any sort should be a sufficient red flag for everyone. Christianity is not special in this regard. People willingly DIE for this feeling, as demonstrated by many a sucidal cult providing simple answers to complicated questions.
So yeah, the old rhetorical question "Would they face a gruesome death for a LIE?" has got an answer: "Yes, if affirming their beliefs felt like less of a threat to their identity than discarding them."
See, faith (and I include politics in this) becomes a part of people's self-concept. It's not just what they think, it's *who they are*. Facing the possibility that *who they are* might be severely compromised is apparently WORSE than ceasing to be altogether, true to your "self".
For example: when the "Heaven's Gate"-cult committed mass suicide in the late 1990s to be picked up by the "mothership" hiding in the Hale Bopp comet, there were certainly some among the soon-to-be-dead members who experienced cognitive dissonance. But it was easier to hang on to their beliefs and die than to confront the possibility of such a profound error.
In a nutshell: martyrs are basically like the protagonist of "Shutter Island".
Religions (and political ideologies) all too often rely on what could be called the "felt truth":
there are many things that make people's neurological reward system flare up with all sorts of natural highs, regardless of whether we're talking about Christian converts gushing about their "spiritual rebirth" or Scientologists who've pumped thousands of dollars into "becoming clear" (just to mention two examples).
The assurance of absolute certainty and knowledge in the absence of demonstrable evidence of any sort should be a sufficient red flag for everyone. Christianity is not special in this regard. People willingly DIE for this feeling, as demonstrated by many a sucidal cult providing simple answers to complicated questions.
So yeah, the old rhetorical question "Would they face a gruesome death for a LIE?" has got an answer: "Yes, if affirming their beliefs felt like less of a threat to their identity than discarding them."
See, faith (and I include politics in this) becomes a part of people's self-concept. It's not just what they think, it's *who they are*. Facing the possibility that *who they are* might be severely compromised is apparently WORSE than ceasing to be altogether, true to your "self".
For example: when the "Heaven's Gate"-cult committed mass suicide in the late 1990s to be picked up by the "mothership" hiding in the Hale Bopp comet, there were certainly some among the soon-to-be-dead members who experienced cognitive dissonance. But it was easier to hang on to their beliefs and die than to confront the possibility of such a profound error.
In a nutshell: martyrs are basically like the protagonist of "Shutter Island".
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