How religions disable our reasoning practices

Here's a marvelous excerpt from Andy Norman's book, "Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think." 

I read it this morning and realized it's a terrific way to explain what's wrong with the irrationality of religion. Norman imagines that someone wants to figure out how to best undermine human reasoning that enables us to distinguish truth from falsehoods, what's real from what's illusory. 

As you'll read below, what results is... (no big surprise) religion. 

Imagine yourself part of a team charged with stress-testing civilization's all-important reasoning practices. The team has an initial meeting, and the question is posed: How can we best disrupt human reasoning practices? The task is then clarified: How can we cause not just temporary disruption, but lasting damage?

"We" would probably begin with a little reverse-engineering: we'd take apart the mechanism and see how it works. This would lead us to the lever-like functioning of reasons and the key role of reason's fulcrum. We'd come to realize that our reasoning practices hinge on a norm that requires us to accommodate ourselves to good reasons.

Then we'd ask: How can we disable this norm?

We might start by creating a loophole in the requirement. Specifically, we could grant that yielding to better reasons is often a good thing, but deny that it's always a good thing. Certain beliefs, we might argue, are too important to be hostage to rational fortune.

Then we'd carve out an exemption and insist that convictions X, Y, and Z belong to a special, protected class. We might call these convictions "articles of faith."

Then, we could spread the good news that this exemption exists.

We'd probably appeal, first, to those who resent rational constraint and explain that on certain subjects, it's okay to believe and assert things without evidence. From there, we could extend the exemption to claims that fly in the face of evidence -- things made unlikely by, or directly contradicted by, facts.

Claims about miracles and virgin birth, for example.

Of course, we might need to traverse this path gradually, giving people time to acclimate to each expansion of the rationality exemption. We could hasten the decline of rational standards by making some articles of faith mandatory: not just permissible, but required. In fact, we could make them nonnegotiable -- the mental equivalent of the immovable object.

The beauty of this approach is that, once such articles of faith are installed, efforts to dislodge them further degrade reason's fulcrum. The lever is obstructed, and something's got to give. A glance at history confirms that we're on to something here: reasoning practices are highly vulnerable to such stresses.

Next, we could sell people on the idea that credulity is virtue. 

We could promise fantastic rewards for those who believe and threaten terrifying punishments for those who doubt. We could invent a being capable of delivering such rewards and punishments and make people fear him. Why can't you see this being? Because he's invisible. Why does he need you to believe in him? Never mind: just take our word for it. Why can't we see others experiencing their rewards and punishments? Because all that happens in the afterlife.

If all of this seems patently ridiculous, so much the better -- by which I mean, so much the worse for rationality norms. As the Red Queen told Alice in Wonderland: believing impossible things takes practice. 

A saboteur of rational accountability norms must take this to heart. To wreak real havoc, you've got to think big. Go big or go home. Tepid irrationality is for chumps. Real saboteurs wield patently unreasonable claims. When called on it, they double down on the delusion: that's the way to do real damage to rationality norms. 

We can also stigmatize those who take epistemic standards seriously. If they're outspoken, we can demonize them. We can label them, say, infidels, heretics, heathens, apostates, or blasphemers. We can teach believers to shun and hate them. We can instruct believers to kill nonbelievers (as sacred texts sometimes do). 

Only a few believers need to follow through: the rest of the nonbelievers usually get the message and stop enforcing rationality norms. A little intimidation goes a long way.

We could also harness identity-protective cognition. The idea, again, is that people will usually bend rationality norms in order to protect their identity. The thing to do, then, is get people hooked on one or another ideological identity -- preferably before they're old enough to understand the consequences.

We could saddle children with the identities of their parents. Install an ideological identity early enough, and identity-protective thinking will often be with that person for life. From then on, challenges to identity-defining beliefs will feel offensive and somehow unfair. This is sure to damage reason's fulcrum. 

We can also harness humanity's tribal instincts. We can build communities around arbitrary doctrinal differences and have the members of these communities validate each other's defiance of rationality norms. Us-versus-them stories can be counted on to stir deep emotions and skew rational judgment.

We can exploit humanity's "mattering instinct"-- our need to feel that our lives matter.

To do this, just sell a group on the idea that they're God's chosen people. Or better yet, that God has some mysterious mission for them. Faced with temptation like that, rational resolution often crumbles. Mattering myths are highly seductive -- and useful for subverting rationality norms.

We could exploit the evolved  brain's penchant for kin sympathy. Those who share the tenets of the faith, for example, could be called "brother" or "sister." We could exploit our natural deference to authority. Authority figures in the community could be called "father" or "mother superior." The sky being at the center of the big myth could be referred to as "lord" or "king."

We could confer status on the most aggesssibe champions of the faith, calling them "reverend," "holy father," "guru," or "ayatollah." We could give these champions a platform and an audience -- a "pulpit," say, and a "flock." They could use this platform to publicly violate rationality norms and celebrate the defiant disregard of such norms. 

Stories glorifying the sort of blind faith that Abraham had for God would be especially useful. (The founding parable of the so-called Abrahamic religions involves a father, Abraham, willing to sacrifice his son to prove his devotion to God.) See Abraham's breathtaking willingness to sacrifice not only his reason but also his son? The clear implication is that that's the sort of faith to aspire to.

We could develop a concept of the "sacred" or "holy" that paints certain things as too precious to question. We could label entire lines of inquiry profane. Or sacrilegious. We could promote contempt for intellectual virtues and deride rationality norms as "scientism run amok." 

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

Lalit
Unless you can let go of all that Karma, how will you rise up?

I'm also guided by Gurinder. But I hear something different. We have our duty, but we can't do any of it without Him. Impossible.

And so it becomes His duty, if we do ours.

These karmic impressions. If you really take responsibility for them, then you know they color your thinking.

You are doing your version of what you think Gurinder has asked.

So it is presumptuous to think your understanding is better than anyone else's.

It's the best you can come up with today. And that's all you have to go on. Just like the rest of us.

You are no different.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Lalit
You wrote
"The world can have the Mother Teresa's - who probably must now at best be living a life in one of those numerous heaven we are told about - for all the noble and charitable work she did."

Perhaps, but perhaps she was living in Christ with Sat Purush before she came back here, under His direction and went back to Him when she had finished His work. Maybe she wasn't creating any new karma at all. If so, she isn't in any of the heavens you refer to. She is merged with the Lord, as she was when she was here.

Do not denigrate acts of kindness. Whom do you think they come from?

[Spence Tepper]

If Sant Mat or Gurinder is anyone's excuse for denigrating acts of kindness in the world then they denigrate Gurinder himself, to his face in every corner of this world.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Lalit
You write
"Santmat is the most selfish path and anything to achieve the objective of merging with the one."

I don't think so. If you are compelled to be selfish, you get meditation assigned to you. Decades of it. Until you give up in frustration.

If, however, you are compelled to be kind, He's already with your and you live in Him and He lives in you. Then meditation is just visiting Him in His place.

Bhakti is the fastest way, but it isn't for everyone.

Compelled, as in, not your doing, not your credit Just being part of the whole, part of this, part of Him.

Then there isn't room for selfish. There sn't a place for it. It can't squeeze through the doorway! ;)

[Dungeness]

@ Lalit : [ And you have to clear your account and we become karma-less in a minuscule manner through our meditation and in a large measure through his grace. ]

Hm, in my case, "minuscule" becomes vanishingly small the longer I'm
attempting to follow the path. I suspect liberation comes when the "our"
croaks its last feeble whisper of independence and disappears for good.

I mean where does the slightest effort to meditate come from? Some
small impulse on our part? If so, who put it there? How can I be sure
it comes back? How do I divvy up credit? The mind boggles at this
impossible calculus.

It's better to unburden myself of the illusion of my/our. And let go of
the notion that there's any effort of mine other than love to incinerate
karma. The inner master does it all I'm told. I'm just the whining, self-
important kid that dances to the jukebox oldies being played and not
very well at that.

Huzur Maharaji said after a fashion once: He provides a living, the food,
the appetite, the digestion so we can say with satisfaction "Yep, I ate!".

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Dungeness
I was going to quote some of what you wrote and say "Yes!" but then all of it is great so I'll just to say "Yes!" to it all.

[An ex poster returns]

Perhaps, but perhaps she was living in Christ with Sat Purush before she came back here, under His direction and went back to Him when she had finished His work. Maybe she wasn't creating any new karma at all. If so, she isn't in any of the heavens you refer to. She is merged with the Lord, as she was when she was here.

Do not denigrate acts of kindness. Whom do you think they come from?
Posted by: Spence Tepper | September 26, 2021 at 01:01 PM

She certainly wasn't and didn't go back to the lap of Satpurush.

Am suprised you speculate - coming from someone who claims to be with the radiant form of Maharaji..... Oops that claim was called off in the past.

If only you knew the unfortunate fate of Mahatma Gandhi you wouldn't have been speculating on such lines.

[An ex poster returns]

Lalit
Unless you can let go of all that Karma, how will you rise up?

Posted by: Spence Tepper | September 26, 2021 at 01:01 PM

You rise up inspite of your karmas. You don't just need a refresher course but a full fledged course on santmat.

To quote the Great Master - the four lives that saints talk about need not be on the earth plane. They can be in the higher regions too.

[An ex poster returns]

You write
"Santmat is the most selfish path and anything to achieve the objective of merging with the one."

I don't think so. If you are compelled to be selfish, you get meditation assigned to you. Decades of it. Until you give up in frustration.

If, however, you are compelled to be kind, He's already with your and you live in Him and He lives in you. Then meditation is just visiting Him in His place.

Bhakti is the fastest way, but it isn't for everyone.

Compelled, as in, not your doing, not your credit Just being part of the whole, part of this, part of Him.

Then there isn't room for selfish. There sn't a place for it. It can't squeeze through the doorway! ;)

Posted by: Spence Tepper | September 26, 2021 at 01:16 PM

How many people do you need to tell you that you are wrong!!!!!!

The path is indeed selfish. One is on it only for himself/herself. Benefits accruing from it are also only for oneself. These can't be shared and even if they can, the benefactors don't part with it. (Selfish, selfish selfish)

And wrt progress and amount of meditation - well progress is dependent on one's karmic load.

Nothing to do with being kind or otherwise.

[An ex poster returns]

@dungeness @spence

Go tell GSD that I don't meditate for he doesnt want me to or because he doesnt provide you that inner impulse

Try it.....

You need to do your bit. Honour the commitment. Start with small steps. Grace will surely come your way. Your efforts will be rewarded. No effort no reward

[Dungeness]

@ ex-poster : [ Go tell GSD that I don't meditate for he doesnt want me to or because he doesnt provide you that inner impulse ... You need to do your bit. ]

Naturally. But, in the midst of doing your bit, you need to recognize
and thank the Doer with every breath. That's the ultimate discipline
and effort. You become immersed in the One. There's no room for
two on the inside.