Why do intelligent people still believe in religion? 11: Paradigm shifts are harsh! | GinaConspiracy
Just imagine you woke up tomorrow and discovered that there was irrefutable proof that the Holocaust was actually done by America and Hitler was the good guy but was just the scape goat First thing you would do mentally is reject it
You know America would never do that, America was the good guy in WWII, it was a righteous war against the genocidal nazis However if the evidence was too powerful, and you felt you had to accept it, that would involve changing everything about your world view Psychology has discovered that our memories are not video playback but are constantly being rewritten and reinterpreted as new information is processed If something as huge as Hitler being a good guy and America being the villain was to come to light, the level of memories that would have to be altered and be reinterpreted would be insane So much so that that many could not cope with it and either kill themselves or completely deny it in the face of evidence as Turkey does about the Armenian genocide, and Japan does about the Chinese sex camps as their belief that their nation can do no wrong is so strong they will never admit it
I'm sure many of the German citizens underwent sort of psychological mindfuck when they found out that their great and beloved leader had slaughtered millions of people in the concentration camps I remember the day Obama was elected Everyone was kind of in a daze I couldn't get my head wrapped around the fact that finally no more Bush, and the this was the kind of country that would elect a black man president I was elated but intensely overwhelmed at the all the new information that came in as the entire reality seemed to shift
I remember seeing my boss who looked like he had just lost his best friend that day, as his candidate hadn't won and the evil socialists were now in power Now imagine that you woke up tomorrow and discovered that there was irrefutable proof that your loving merciful, all-powerful, all-knowing god who you thought of as a caring father and a best friend, didn't exist This was a deity all of you memories were tied to and you based your entire life around Could you really go through the mental stress involved that would allow your mind to survive this paradigm shift? Every single one of your memories would have to be rewritten, all of those time you thought you experienced miracles from god would have to be rewritten as statistical probablities Every memory you had where god held you and helped you get through a rough patch would have to be rewritten as you getting yourself through it
And every memory of a good and loving a just god would have to be rewritten as an evil blood thirsty vengeful god once you actually read the bible without bias and started reading what it actually said You social life and even marriage would be ruined Sudden paradigm shifts are literally like a harsh hallucinogenic trip, the brain starts running light years a second as it tries to fit all of the new information in place, much of the time not very successfully as the new information begins harshly altering everything you know about life The brain doesn't like this so it has many defense mechanisms from it including the ones discussed in this series such as rationalization I have a feeling a factor involved in the evolution of these mechanisms was a way to prevent suicide when the truth became to horrendous or overwhelming
People like my mother who found religion in their teen years or later have to go through this kind of paradigm shift as they have to analyze all of their actions words and deeds as well as their views of their past memories how they see the world They now have a whole new plethora of things that they have to study and new mental construct they have to create for themselves to be good according to that religion This kind of sudden change creates the illusion that your holy book, in my mom's case the bible, had mysteries that were unknowable which she would never fully understand but should study it for the rest of her life to become more like god It is also emotionally and mentally overwhelming as your mind begins to change I however never had the paradigm shift as an adult, I was raised in it
I knew the bible like the back of my hand and all the rationalizations one could use to defend it I walked, talked, ate and slept Jesus, to the point that my Jesus like compassion led my to become cripplingly depressed at the thought of all the suffering people around the world and the ones burning in hell for all of eternity at the word of my all-loving god It was my fear of hell that kept me Christian, my paradigm shift happened long before I became an atheist, it just required the knowledge and research for all the pieces falling into place to allow myself gladly accept that god wasn't there It is said that persons over 50 have a ridiculously low chance of changing their beliefs This is because unlike young people, with few memories, older people have mounds of memories and mental constructs that if the reality of the world was to ever force itself through all of their psychological defenses the numbers of memories they have that would have to be changed would take the rest of their life to reprocess
It would be like learning have to walk all over again as an elderly adult The overwhelming vastness of it all would probably make the majority of them commit suicide as they have not had the time or mental power to create new mental constructs needed to processes and deal with the reality change When they claim that they can't imagine how we can be happy without a belief in god, they are showing that they really couldn't be happy if they didn't believe in a god Another advantage that younger people have over older is that we are in an environment of constant change Most of the older generation now spent most of their childhood with little and slow change in technology and then remained as oblivious to it as possible unless they were the type considered nerd in high school
Change was a bad thing to them, it meant upheaval and social disharmony Our generation and earlier are used to and have been raised to readily accept change especially in technology and discovery Any major change, such as the discovery of Ardi or homo florensis or the fact that homo florensis is now classified as a descendant of homo habilis is quite overwhelming but thrilling as the pieces fall into place We gen xers and earlier will be much better prepared for new technology than they ever were, even as we get older This is also why gen xers and younger are good at learning and understanding the impact of greenhouse gas emissions and why older people see it as balderdash
At this point in time I don't plan on ever deconverting my mom and definitely not my grandma as there is no way they could deal with it emotionally What I would consider a triumph is if I could convince my mom that hell didn't exist as I don't know how shes mentally dealing with it, I think she may think it is just a phase, and if I could make her believe that gays aren't evil and trying to convert us all to their agenda Even better is if I could get her to reject the old testament as barbarism, and creationism as unscientific but I doubt it So remember, if you are talking to a religious person, there are serious emotional and psychological protection mechanism to protect them from the harshness of a paradigm shift, hopefully we can come up with some mental constructs to help the transition for believers to be a little less painful
Source: Youtube
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