Bill Maher basically pointed this out in Religulous wherein he is speaking to a man who was convinced that when he will die he will go to a better place:
I love how you can almost see the fatal-feedback-loops playing in that poor fat bastard's brain as he tries to rationalize a reason why he shouldn't at the end there. I swear for a split second you can almost see him thinking "maybe I should...?"
It is what it is, Christians: You have a lot of very convenient explanations all included in your holy book saying why murder is bad and why it's only OK if god does it and all this other double-standard serving shit, but while you're saluting the doubleflag you've run up this double-standard, the rest of us realize how batshit insane and how utterly stupid it is to sit there and say "well if someone on high demands my death I should just totally go along with it." If god WERE real [and no evidence exists to say he does. Also the claim itself is not evidence] it would be necessary to resist him because he is the very definition of a bloodthirsty ego-maniacal tyrant. It's funny how people seem to abhor the idea of a bloodthirsty ego-maniacal human tyrant but the idea of a bloodthirsty ego-maniacal godly tyrant is just fine. Again, double standards. The morality of man has evolved beyond the morality of god yet you venerate him...why?
I don't need an answer, of course, I know of the reason. The reason why is because like any other cultist, you are brainwashed but the unconscious and subconscious parts of your mind are not, and never will be. There is always the voice of reason, and its voice is very soft, but it is always there, never silenced, no matter how deluded you may be about your faith. See, the human mind is a fascinating thing indeed.
We're going to use an example; when you make a purchase of something as compared to the belief of whether or not god exists.
All logic points to a resounding “no,” but an interesting social phenomena is this: Dedication, fanboyism, faith, things of that nature, are an inbuilt human process. Whenever money is spent on a good, especially a luxury item, man has a way of increasing the illusionary worth of that item. Ditto when TIME is spent on an activity.
Imagine buying tickets to see your local team play football, and they lose. It's not even a good game, to be honest. People around the country were disappointed. However, those tickets cost a lot of money, and having spent all that money and time for so little in return makes a person feel stupid. We grope for other things, then, to make the tickets and time worth-while. Yes, it was cold, but your wife was there, so you bonded! The beer was too expensive as well, but they sold your favorite brand! You had an experience! It was fun! Yes, those tickets were worth it in the end.
We'll even do this with soft drinks. Even if brain probes reveal a man likes Pepsi more than Coke, going back and telling the man what he was drinking can actually alter his memory so that he remembers liking the Coke more. It's amazing.
Religions are exactly the same way. You are TELLING yourself that you believe it, to the point your entire conscious being is fully convinced of this as if it is fact. I mean, you've spent so much time thinking it was truth, of COURSE you're not gonna want to admit otherwise despite all the mounting evidence piling up against you, because if you DID it'd mean having to shelve your pride and ego IMMENSELY to say you were wrong for however man seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, DECADES you believed it. It'd mean that those measurements of time basically exist as a towering monolith looming over you, reminding you of all the time you wasted on this belief. You, as individuals of faith, in order to admit you're wrong, have to work against three very large, very powerful facets of being. You have to work against ego [encoded into us by biology through genetics], against your own conscious mind's tendency to work at its hardest to convince itself of its own truth, and against the inexorable juggernaut of time and mortality itself because the more time you put into your belief, the more of it was basically going to waste.
And that last one ESPECIALLY is the most vehement example. The greatest weight on the human mind is the passing of time, of the realization of limitation. See, there's a reason you hear about plenty of people breaking faith and becoming agnostic or atheistic in their teens or 20s, but the longer their faith goes on, the less likely they are to break from it; because the burdens are lighter. The burden of ego, the burden of time, the burden of over-riding the self-convincing...or, rather, self-deluding.
In closing; deep down there's probably no real, actual believer, somewhere at your cores there's some disbelief and realization that nothing of what you believe stacks up with reality but then, you'll probably continue to self-delude yourselves by convincing yourselves its satan or some demon or some silly shit trying to pry away your TOTALLY-INVALUABLE-AND-NOT-LIKE-THE-OTHER-TENS-OF-BILLIONS-THAT-HAVE-EXISTED soul.
Which is why the feeble arguments you toss up are so casually dismissed with little more than a snort and a smirk; my attempt to hide my laugh of pity.
I love how you can almost see the fatal-feedback-loops playing in that poor fat bastard's brain as he tries to rationalize a reason why he shouldn't at the end there. I swear for a split second you can almost see him thinking "maybe I should...?"
It is what it is, Christians: You have a lot of very convenient explanations all included in your holy book saying why murder is bad and why it's only OK if god does it and all this other double-standard serving shit, but while you're saluting the doubleflag you've run up this double-standard, the rest of us realize how batshit insane and how utterly stupid it is to sit there and say "well if someone on high demands my death I should just totally go along with it." If god WERE real [and no evidence exists to say he does. Also the claim itself is not evidence] it would be necessary to resist him because he is the very definition of a bloodthirsty ego-maniacal tyrant. It's funny how people seem to abhor the idea of a bloodthirsty ego-maniacal human tyrant but the idea of a bloodthirsty ego-maniacal godly tyrant is just fine. Again, double standards. The morality of man has evolved beyond the morality of god yet you venerate him...why?
I don't need an answer, of course, I know of the reason. The reason why is because like any other cultist, you are brainwashed but the unconscious and subconscious parts of your mind are not, and never will be. There is always the voice of reason, and its voice is very soft, but it is always there, never silenced, no matter how deluded you may be about your faith. See, the human mind is a fascinating thing indeed.
We're going to use an example; when you make a purchase of something as compared to the belief of whether or not god exists.
All logic points to a resounding “no,” but an interesting social phenomena is this: Dedication, fanboyism, faith, things of that nature, are an inbuilt human process. Whenever money is spent on a good, especially a luxury item, man has a way of increasing the illusionary worth of that item. Ditto when TIME is spent on an activity.
Imagine buying tickets to see your local team play football, and they lose. It's not even a good game, to be honest. People around the country were disappointed. However, those tickets cost a lot of money, and having spent all that money and time for so little in return makes a person feel stupid. We grope for other things, then, to make the tickets and time worth-while. Yes, it was cold, but your wife was there, so you bonded! The beer was too expensive as well, but they sold your favorite brand! You had an experience! It was fun! Yes, those tickets were worth it in the end.
We'll even do this with soft drinks. Even if brain probes reveal a man likes Pepsi more than Coke, going back and telling the man what he was drinking can actually alter his memory so that he remembers liking the Coke more. It's amazing.
Religions are exactly the same way. You are TELLING yourself that you believe it, to the point your entire conscious being is fully convinced of this as if it is fact. I mean, you've spent so much time thinking it was truth, of COURSE you're not gonna want to admit otherwise despite all the mounting evidence piling up against you, because if you DID it'd mean having to shelve your pride and ego IMMENSELY to say you were wrong for however man seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, DECADES you believed it. It'd mean that those measurements of time basically exist as a towering monolith looming over you, reminding you of all the time you wasted on this belief. You, as individuals of faith, in order to admit you're wrong, have to work against three very large, very powerful facets of being. You have to work against ego [encoded into us by biology through genetics], against your own conscious mind's tendency to work at its hardest to convince itself of its own truth, and against the inexorable juggernaut of time and mortality itself because the more time you put into your belief, the more of it was basically going to waste.
And that last one ESPECIALLY is the most vehement example. The greatest weight on the human mind is the passing of time, of the realization of limitation. See, there's a reason you hear about plenty of people breaking faith and becoming agnostic or atheistic in their teens or 20s, but the longer their faith goes on, the less likely they are to break from it; because the burdens are lighter. The burden of ego, the burden of time, the burden of over-riding the self-convincing...or, rather, self-deluding.
In closing; deep down there's probably no real, actual believer, somewhere at your cores there's some disbelief and realization that nothing of what you believe stacks up with reality but then, you'll probably continue to self-delude yourselves by convincing yourselves its satan or some demon or some silly shit trying to pry away your TOTALLY-INVALUABLE-AND-NOT-LIKE-THE-OTHER-TENS-OF-BILLIONS-THAT-HAVE-EXISTED soul.
Which is why the feeble arguments you toss up are so casually dismissed with little more than a snort and a smirk; my attempt to hide my laugh of pity.
