The Anatomy of Belief

“Conflict over belief is as worthwhile as conflict over a favourite colour.”

– Xenocrates

There are many systems of belief in the world. Most beliefs are propagated by the innate compulsion of their subscribers to derive purpose from the world around them. As such, religion is effectively a moderate transmutation of mythology, philosophy and science. It attempts to be the silver bullet that is the catch-all solution for all of life’s problems. That’s why religion is the most conspicuous of all systems of belief. It attempts to explicitly fill the gaps science and philosophy do not. However, there are some dark, disturbing characteristics about religious belief that a lot of religious people are either unaware of or seem to ignore altogether. Growing up in an environment that catered to the far Christian right taught me a lot of highly valuable lessons about these characteristics. This post details the top ten most valuable lessons I’ve learned about religious cognition. Most of these I learned after intense debate and oftentimes, vicious confrontation:

A Logical Explanation of God

“The idea of God is a pseudo-religious anthropomorphication of an extra-dimensional force of nature.”

– Xenocrates

y very first blog entry delved into the concept that we live in a very logically structured mechanised universe. My second entry sought to explain the nature of the master of this domain. Now considering all things, neither entry delved any deeper than our common understanding of these things. I say “common”, because those are ideas that anyone, given some careful observation of the world around them, could have derived on their own. The truth of the matter however, is that our understanding of God and the Universe is still a very human one. In the post immediately before this one, I explained that our obsession with love is not much more than our obsession with ourselves. The same can be said of our understanding of God and the Universe. What is really going to blow your mind, is that for the last 10,000+ years of recorded human civilization, we’ve always imposed a human image upon our understanding of our universe. Everyone from the native American Indians who worshipped the great spirit right back to modern day Christians have always worshipped a humanised God. 

What this post is going to do, is to throw everything you think you know and understand about God and our universe out the window – and start with very simple ideas, layering them with progressively more complex ideas, until we have a logical explanation of that concept we collectively refer to as God. Eventually, you will realise that we’re not doing anything different today from those who worshipped forces of nature that they barely understood. Now follow me closely, as this is going to be a very deep mind assault of epic proportions.

The Science of Deception

“Anything is justifiable in the name of religion.”

– Xenocrates

Over the last couple of months, my blog entries have focused on the lies most ubiquitously propagated by religion. I’ve sought to explain this phenomenon through analyzing the responses I’ve gotten from many folks – particularly those who’ve responded to me in person. From talking to these people, I’ve established a most discernable pattern: The average person is a linear thinker. They tend to accept most ideas at face value and interpret most problems using the most conspicuous parameters defined by that problem. They assume that the underlying premise is true so long as it appears to make sense – whether or not it actually does. This is why people believe so many of the highly illogical and perhaps even nonsensical things they do – especially as it relates to religion. In this entry, I will discuss some of the core ideas we’ve come to know in religion and how we can use critical thinking to expose the illogical nature of these teachings. You will see that deception is more of a science than an art and you will understand why it is used to snare the minds of the simple minded.

The True Nature of God

“God is the only being in the universe having any fun.”

– Xenocrates

In the previous post, I examined logical proof for the existence of some God. Today I will examine the nature of that God. One of the key sore points with most theists is that their definition of God contradicts their understanding of the universe. Needless to say, this gives most atheists fuel for their views, and makes most theists easy picking. Theists, particularly Christians, believe in the classical definition of God which are categorically false or self contradicting. It is by this that it becomes clear that most theists either don’t know what they believe in, or more likely, don’t understand what they believe in. A curious question can be asked from this point:

Is a belief, even if logically flawed, still transmutable to the correct idea on which it is based, or is belief bound to the idea on which it holds, even if it is an incorrect version of the original idea?