Self-Deception and the Problem with Religious Belief Formation

[Guest guest]

, " Violet "

<violet.tubb wrote:

>

> Dear Jagbir and All,

>

> The answer to Mohd's question was excellent. It was very

> enlightening to read what a 'Muslim' is, as opposed to a 'non-

> Muslim'. According to what he said, i must be a Muslim then too

> (smile) as well, of course, as a Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and

> etc! There really is light at the end of this tunnel - giving real

> hope for spiritual unity.

>

> i found it interesting what he said about Christians in general

> believing that " faith alone " is needed. That is actually the stance

> of Christian Fundamentalists (whose voice drowns out more moderate

> voices). However, Non-Fundamentalist Christians generally believe

> that both 'faith and works' are needed. So this person that gave

> the great answer to Mohd, might actually be interested in that fact.

>

> regards to all,

>

> violet

>

>

 

Dear Violet and all,

 

i have appended a relevant article pertaining to your explanation of

Christian requirement of just faith as oppossed to Muslim insistence

that both faith and exerting effort are necessary for salvation.

 

--

 

January 08, 2006

Self-Deception and the Problem with Religious Belief Formation

posted by Neil Van Leeuwen

 

A quote: " He who eats the bread and drinks the cup with an

unbelieving heart eats and drinks judgment upon himself. " This line

is from the communion liturgy of the Church I grew up in—the

Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The

word " judgment " in the quote is a way of saying damnation to Hell.

The word " unbelieving " refers to disbelief in the core metaphysical

doctrines of the Church. The effect of regular repetition of lines

like this in the service is to strike fear in the person who may be

questioning such doctrines. Fear in turn squelches inquiry and

creative thought. I was only eight years old when I first heard that

line and understood what it meant.

 

The point of this blog is not to criticize religious beliefs. I think

many are wrong, many right, and many we just can't know about. My

focus is rather on the character of the belief formation process

inherent in much religious practice. The phrase " belief formation

process " will refer broadly to the way that beliefs in a human mind

come about, are maintained, or are extinguished (or not). We all have

beliefs, which have to get there somehow.

 

I choose this focus because I suspect my experience with the Grand

Rapids CRC is representative of what goes on in a much broader

spectrum of religions. This topic is also timely for Philosophy Talk,

since we're approximately halfway between our show on the existence

of God and our upcoming show on the intelligent design argument. I

also think that although particular religious beliefs have been much

discussed and criticized, there still needs to be clearer discussion

and criticism of the mental pathways by which such beliefs

characteristically arise and are maintained. My view is that the a-

rational nature of the religious belief formation process is

pernicious and ultimately more destructive than any individual

religious belief, or system of beliefs, taken by itself. That process

critically involves self-deception.

 

There is, to start, a beautiful thing about being human. We're

equipped with senses, capacities for reasoning and logical

comparison, and an imaginative faculty for generating new ideas. The

beautiful thing is that just by our getting up in the morning and

walking around the capacities we have compel us to the generation of

new knowledge and more subtle beliefs. The data that come to our

senses because of our daily actions spark our reasoning capacities to

call out for explanation; our imagination answers with the generation

of ideas that, if all goes well, provide answers. This is how

detailed knowledge of nature—individual plants and animals, and

systems of them—has come about in so many diverse human societies.

The particular answers and beliefs will come and go—if one belief

doesn't work, another takes its place—but the beautiful thing is the

process and the nature we have that allows us to participate in it.

Let's call this the healthy belief formation process; it's driven by

curiosity.

 

The process of religious belief formation stands in stark contrast.

Let's return to the quote I started with. There's no doubt that the

repetition of such threatening lines has played a role in the

formation of many religious beliefs. But how? Those lines provide no

evidence of their claims. Why should they bring about belief?

 

The first thing to note is the vilification of unbelievers. Those

with an unbelieving heart will be judged, for, presumably, they've

done something (morally?) wrong. The vilification of unbelievers

threatens exclusion from the group to anyone on the fence. And then

there's the fear of Hell that's engendered. The net effect of the

vilification and fear is that a desire to believe comes about in the

mind. " . . . eats and drinks judgment upon himself. " I certainly had

such a desire in my youth.

 

Once there is a desire to believe the metaphysical doctrines of the

religion, the mind is ripe for self-deception. Self-deception has

essentially two components. First, a person forms a belief in

violation of his usual standards of evidence and judgment—what

philosophers call epistemic norms. Second, a desire with content

related to the content of the belief causes the deviation from the

healthy belief formation process. Because vilification, fear, and

desire bring about the religious credence—while that credence is at

odds with usual standards of judgment—the process by which religious

beliefs come about is one of self-deception. (For a similar view, see

this piece by Georges Rey.)

 

A religious advocate might respond that I've gotten it all wrong,

that it's direct encounter with the spirit of God that brings about

religious belief. But then why is religious practice so full of

methods that have the precise effect of establishing credence by a-

rational means? The singing, the chanting, the repetition of lines

that vilify unbelief, the stress on believing only on faith? Surely

the existence of such methods is no coincidence. And even if some

have been touched by something divine, surely there are many who

formed their religious beliefs in response to the constant pressures

of liturgy. And that's the religious belief formation process I'm

talking about.

 

What exactly is wrong with this process? First, it's at odds with the

healthy belief formation process. It stagnates and undermines the

healthy process just when it could be most beneficial to reflecting

on our core beliefs and values. Fear, not curiosity, is the driving

force. By representing as evil disbelief in any of a long and

specific list of doctrines, the factors involved in the religious

belief formation process cause us to disengage with the normal and

healthy creative process of belief generation and revision. Persons

attending a religious ceremony are made to fear the prospect that

something else might strike them as true. The mind loses its

flexibility. Consider some examples. How else could the belief that

the earth is at the center of the universe persist for so long in the

face of Galileo's new evidence? How else could members of a church

that canonized a woman, Joan of Arc, for her leadership hold the

belief that women are categorically unfit to lead congregations? Why

do evangelicals who have seen pictures of the changed color of the

peppered moth believe natural selection has never occurred? How else

should we explain the belief at high levels in the Catholic Church

that it's wrong to teach about and distribute sexual protection in a

South Africa crippled by AIDS? Responsiveness to reality is needed

here. But that's precisely what the religious belief formation

process lacks. The beautiful thing about the human mind is undermined.

 

Why else do I think the religious belief formation process itself is

worse than any particular belief? As I've been stressing, I think the

healthy belief formation process is central to our humanity; it's a

tragedy for that to be undermined. But as importantly, human actions

take on a vicious and inflexible character when they are driven by

beliefs that are unresponsive to reality. The problem with Crusaders

and Jihadists is not primarily that they think their enemies are

evil; it's that their beliefs are unresponsive to being moved by the

simple humanity of their victims. One belief can explain a skirmish,

but it takes a degenerate, self-deceptive belief formation process to

explain the systematic maintenance of a set of beliefs underlying a

Crusade. Other examples are abundant: the Inquisition, the longtime

inability of the Catholic Church to respond appropriately to child

molestation by its clergy (how could we fire someone ordained by

God?), and the malicious condemnations of Jerry Falwell (and those

who listen to and act on them), to name a few. All these cases

involve false beliefs that would have been changed by a simple bit of

responsiveness to reality if they hadn't been insulated by the

religious belief formation process. Dogmatically held beliefs give

rise to destructive behaviors. The further danger is that acceptance

of such a degenerate belief formation process can spread and lead to

wider corruption of our cognitive economy.

 

So what of the intelligent design argument, the argument that posits

an intelligent creator to explain the ordered complexity of life in

the natural world? It's fine; these criticisms don't touch it. I

don't think it ultimately works; nor does it fall in the domain of

science. But I wish all religious thinking had such a rational

character. The reasoning involved in that argument is an instance of

the healthy belief formation process in action. We'd all be better

off if religious people thought so rationally all the time.

 

What, finally, of faith? I know of two ways in which the word " faith "

is used—one pernicious, one laudable. At its worst, " faith " is used

rhetorically to bring about a-rational, unreflective credence in what

the " wise " men of the Church would have you believe. I think I've

said enough already to indicate what I think is wrong with this kind

of " faith. " But the word is also used in another sense. Faith in this

sense is the action-guiding confidence that good will come about if

we pursue goodness uncompromisingly. Having this kind of faith is

consistent with uncertainty about what the good, in terms of outcome,

will ultimately be. And, despite what religious leaders may suggest,

having this faith is also consistent with active questioning of

religious dogma. In short, faith in this sense is not opposed to

intellectual curiosity.

 

http://theblog.philosophytalk.org/meaning_of_life/index.html

 

--------------------------

 

However, both Christians and Muslims (and Jews and followers of most

Eastern religions) are missing a vital requirement of God-realization

i.e., personal, direct experience.

 

" Transcendental reality demands another means of knowing, and this is

direct experience, anubhava, not sense perception, not even

experience through an idea or mental picture, but direct experience.

It is the self-luminousness of reality as consciousness, its

immediate self-evidence as awareness, which enables it to be directly

known. " [1]

 

Without question, direct experience best rids followers and

fundamentalists of self-deception and the problem with religious

belief formation. Sahaja Yoga, starting with the initial (and

subsequently daily) experience of the Cool Breeze, is nothing less

that that. It is the transcendental [2] experience of eschatology

unfolding, and tens of thousands bear daily witness. Period!

 

regards to all,

 

jagbir

 

 

[1] A.M. Halliday, Freedom through Self-Realisation

[2] Main Entry: tran·scen·dent

1 a: exceeding usual limits : surpassing

b: extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience

c: in Kantian philosophy : being beyond the limits of all possible

experience and knowledge

2: being beyond comprehension

 

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

[Guest guest]

Dear Jagbir and All,

 

Neil Van Leeuwen reveals the application of fear by religious leaders to ensure

that people follow their dogmas by blind faith. A blind faith means you do not

have the real facts, but you are still expected to 'believe blindly'. A true

faith is built on real knowledge, and this is the knowledge of one's Spirit,

which is one's Higher Self. That is why Self-realisation is so important! The

scriptures describe most eloquently, the difference between blind faith and

faith based upon inner knowledge or gnosis; one is based in fear, the other is

based on perfect love:

 

" There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear

involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. " (1 John

4:18)

 

Christian religious leaders, have expected their followers to believe blindly

that children are " born in sin " . However, i see no Words of Christ, saying the

same, because Christ never said it! It is an evil man-made dogma. On the

contrary, Christ said the opposite, when his disciples asked him who was the

greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Here is the story, and Christ's Words, which

should clarify the issue that children are not born in sin:

 

" At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, " Who then is the greatest in

he kingdom of heaven? " And He called a child to Himself and set him before them,

and said, " Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like

children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles

himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever

receives one such child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes one of these

little ones to stumble, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung

around his neck, and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea. " (Matthew 18:

1-6)

 

Telling the children that they are 'born in sin', and trying to remake them over

into a 'religious pattern' is to make them stumble. What can we do about that?

All we can do is what we are doing, that is, tell the Truth of the Spirit, which

is way beyond and above the truth of any individual religion.

 

In regards to the biblical passage of: " Train up a child in the way he should

go, [and] even when he is old he will not depart from it. " (Proverbs 22:6) -

this is to train a child to Realise their Self (Self-realisation); not to

condition them into a blind faith, which takes them away from their

Self-realisation.

 

Blind faith is also happening in the SYSSR (Sahaja Yoga Subtle System Religion),

as witnessed by an element of fear that is associated with it - fear that if a

person does not do 'this' or 'that', then they are not a Sahaja Yogi. The same

happened with Christians and Muslims. What has happened is that the fear has

crept in, which is not a natural fear (coming from the deep recesses within) but

it is an illusory fear, based upon the artificial dogma of the religious

leaders. These leaders cannot help inculcating fear into others, when they

operate from a fear-based mentality themselves. Shri Mataji said that if Her

Message is not given from inside of the organisation, then it will be given from

outside of the organisation. This means that there are Sahaja Yogis who will

(and are) giving Her Message from outside the organisation. Yet, the greatest

fear of Sahaja Yogis is that they will be asked to leave the organisation! But

the organisation is not the same as the Sahaja Yoga Within, which is your " Union

with the Divine " . That is the real Sahaja Yoga, which you can take with you,

wherever you go, which is not based on any 'organised thing'. No organisation

can separate a person from the Divine. The scriptures express, most elegantly:

 

" For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor

principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height,

nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the

love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. " (Romans 8:38-39)

 

Since millennia, religious leaders who initially must have just been good

administrators, thought they could organize, i.e. - " systemize the Truth " . They

made a religious belief formation (ORGANISATION) out of the Truth, rather than

just using their administrative abilities to get the Truth out that the

incarnation or prophet had given. i remember Shri Mataji saying at Sydney

Airport in the mid 1990's that She hoped that Sahaja Yogis would not just form

another religion out of the Truth that She had given. But that is just what has

happened. The " Sahaja Yoga Subtle System Religion " (SYSSR) which is what we call

it, has been organised out of Her teachings of Sahaja Yoga, but this SYSSR

excludes Her Divine Message of the Last Judgment and Resurrection, and fails to

even give Her Spiritual Identity of Incarnation of the Adi Shakti/Holy Spirit,

to the world! But here are Mother's Own Words, which make the situation very

clear, with regard to any such organised thing:

 

" We cannot organize God. He has to organize us. So, any sort of an organized

thing can not work it out. (Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi - Formal Talk, " The

Significance of Brighton " - Brighton, England, 15 November, 1979)

 

" Today, Sahaja Yoga has reached the state of Mahayoga, which is en-masse

evolution manifested through it. It is this day's Yuga Dharma. It is the way the

Last Judgment is taking place. Announce it to all the seekers of truth, to all

the nations of the world, so that nobody misses the blessings of the Divine to

achieve their meaning, their absolute, their spirit. " (Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi)

 

i have appended more Truths that Shri Mataji gave on the topic of

'Self-Deception and the Problem with Religious Belief Formation'.

 

Please enjoy!

 

regards to all,

 

violet

 

 

 

" You cannot force on the organization of God anything. He is on his own, His

organization is on his own. Only thing you can do is to enter into His Kingdom

and become a part and parcel of that blissful domain. You would never like to

change it either. It is so wonderful. It is so protective, it's so loving, is so

gentle, so kind, so compassionate, that you would hate to change that

organization, but we do! We try to organize God! " (Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi -

Formal Talk: " All is so beautifully made " , Hampstead, England, 22 July, 1982)

 

" This is a very big blessing in India [where they] respect the Mother as the

Shakti and that the whole thing is done by the movement of the Shakti, by the

thinking of the Shakti, by the co-ordination and the understanding and planning

of the Shakti only. [it] is not done by God Almighty. He is just a spectator.

She does it. Once that concept can be fit into your heads properly then you will

see so many conditionings will drop off because religion was organized and in an

organized religion you can put whatever you like the way you want to put it. And

it was such a big mistake. By that people develop a lot of ego, a lot of things

against women and also the first sin they call original sin and all that is

because of a woman. They really ill-treated women and they have no respect for

them. So, the women have changed their role and instead of becoming mothers and

goddesses they have tried to become something like actresses....

 

Without the power there is no sense in anything. And this is the power of Love.

And this is the power of Truth. Once you get that power you should humble down

and know that this power is within us, which has given us all this knowledge,

which has given us all this knowledge to raise the Kundalini. All this is

because of [the] energy within us, the Shakti within us. Without that we are

nothing. And that, too, is the Mother who has done it. I do not know how much to

press this point, but it's important....

 

It is only the Mother who does this job. So, there's no question of asking such

a question, but that's what it is that we should first know that the feminine

quality of a woman as a Mother is very powerful. We should enter into it and try

to develop it so that spiritually you communicate, spiritually you can imbibe

these qualities for your own children. The mothers who do not have that, cannot

develop good children with proper emotions, with proper value systems of

morality. It is very important that every mother be very proud that they are

mothers and for girls who are going to be mothers, that they're very proud that

they are going to represent the Shakti. So now, what is the part of the men?

[it] is to take full advantage of that power by understanding, by complimenting,

by looking after. I'm not just talking about your wives. I'm talking about your

sisters, your daughters, your mothers and the whole society where women are to

be respected and they have to be respectable. Women should try to be respectable

to try to know that they are the powers and that they are the ones who will be

used by this Divine Power as channels more than men. But if they are useless

then, of course, they wouldn't bother about them. They would like to bother then

about men much more than what you are. So it is important to understand what is

your role in Sahaja Yoga. This is your role in Sahaja Yog and I'm sure you can

work it out. You can manage this part....So much can be said about

MahaLakshmi.... " . (Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi - Mahalakshmi Puja Talk - Kohlapur,

India, India Tour 1990, 12 or 21 December, 1990 - India Tour tape 2 Side A)

 

" In the Bible, Paul created most of the confusion about Christianity. He started

the nonsense of confessions and making people feel guilty, treating women as

nothing. He had no right to do this because he did not know Christ. He was an

epileptic who wanted a platform to give him powers so he organized Christianity.

Christ never said you should organize Christianity, nor that you should confess

or feel guilty. All the time He had been talking of forgiveness. In a very short

time, Christ gave us the truth, but when it is interpreted, it goes wrong. "

(Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi - Mahalakshmi Puja Synopsis, Brisbane, Australia, 20

February, 1992)

 

" I bow to all the seekers of truth. When asked to understand that truth is what

it is - we cannot conceive it, we cannot organize it, we cannot order it. Only

as a scientific personality, we should have an open mind to see what it is. As

we go to any university or college, we try to find out what is there - in the

same way, when we have to find out about the Truth, we have to be very

open-minded. But when we talk of Love, we must know that Love and Truth are the

same thing. There is no difference at all between God's Love and the Truth

Itself. This difference exists [only] when we are not one with God. For example,

if you love someone even on a mundane level, if you love someone physically,

also you can say in a carnal way, you know a lot about that person. You just

know it. But when you know the Truth, then you become the Love. And the Love I'm

telling you about is the Love that is all-pervading, which acts, coordinates and

is the truth. But for this, we have to realise that we have not been at the

level which we call as the Absolute. We are living in a relative world. And

relativity, when we start seeing things; it cannot be [the] Truth! Truth cannot

be relative; it has to be Absolute! And in our evolutionary process, when we

have become human beings, whatever we know, as for example, if you know that I

am wearing a sari, which is the truth for you - [it] is the truth for everyone.

Everyone sees the same thing, so it relates to your central nervous system; that

you must know it on your central nervous system. It cannot be any imagination.

It cannot be any mental projection, and it cannot be anything that cannot be

proved. So we have to prove Christ - His existence. We have to prove God on our

central nervous system. We have to prove that whatever Christ has said, is the

truth. Unless and until we prove that, no amount of talking is going to convince

the progeny.

 

Now the time is come for us to prove that. And that truth, whatever you call it

- scientific or divine, whatever is the truth, has to be expressed on our

central nervous system. That means we must feel it. We must see it. It should

happen. Mohammed Sahib has said (they have all said the same thing, only

depending on the times as they were) that at the time of resurrection, when the

humanity will rise, their hands will speak. They talked of resurrection most of

the time, but somehow they never talked of it [but] only as the Doomsday. And

this is the reason why, whatever was important in every religion, was not given

the proper importance. That's why today, the situation is such that we find all

of them, all in different compartments. But they're not! They were all born on

one Tree of Life at different times.... the same energy of Love [was there]

which nourished them, and they flowered. People [who say].... 'this is mine',

'this is mine', put themselves into dogmas; into ideas [which] finish them

completely. (Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi - Public Program - Houston, Texas??, USA -

1 May, 1986)

 

" We cannot organize God. He has to organize us. So, any sort of an organized

thing can not work it out. " (Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi - Formal Talk, " The

Significance of Brighton " - Brighton, England, 15 November, 1979)

 

 

, " jagbir

singh " <adishakti_org wrote:

>

> , " Violet "

> <violet.tubb@> wrote:

> >

> > Dear Jagbir and All,

> >

> > The answer to Mohd's question was excellent. It was very

> > enlightening to read what a 'Muslim' is, as opposed to a 'non-

> > Muslim'. According to what he said, i must be a Muslim then too

> > (smile) as well, of course, as a Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and

> > etc! There really is light at the end of this tunnel - giving real

> > hope for spiritual unity.

> >

> > i found it interesting what he said about Christians in general

> > believing that " faith alone " is needed. That is actually the

stance

> > of Christian Fundamentalists (whose voice drowns out more moderate

> > voices). However, Non-Fundamentalist Christians generally believe

> > that both 'faith and works' are needed. So this person that gave

> > the great answer to Mohd, might actually be interested in that

fact.

> >

> > regards to all,

> >

> > violet

> >

> >

>

> Dear Violet and all,

>

> i have appended a relevant article pertaining to your explanation of

> Christian requirement of just faith as oppossed to Muslim insistence

> that both faith and exerting effort are necessary for salvation.

>

> --

>

> January 08, 2006

> Self-Deception and the Problem with Religious Belief Formation

> posted by Neil Van Leeuwen

>

> A quote: " He who eats the bread and drinks the cup with an

> unbelieving heart eats and drinks judgment upon himself. " This line

> is from the communion liturgy of the Church I grew up in—the

> Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The

> word " judgment " in the quote is a way of saying damnation to Hell.

> The word " unbelieving " refers to disbelief in the core metaphysical

> doctrines of the Church. The effect of regular repetition of lines

> like this in the service is to strike fear in the person who may be

> questioning such doctrines. Fear in turn squelches inquiry and

> creative thought. I was only eight years old when I first heard that

> line and understood what it meant.

>

> The point of this blog is not to criticize religious beliefs. I

think

> many are wrong, many right, and many we just can't know about. My

> focus is rather on the character of the belief formation process

> inherent in much religious practice. The phrase " belief formation

> process " will refer broadly to the way that beliefs in a human mind

> come about, are maintained, or are extinguished (or not). We all

have

> beliefs, which have to get there somehow.

>

> I choose this focus because I suspect my experience with the Grand

> Rapids CRC is representative of what goes on in a much broader

> spectrum of religions. This topic is also timely for Philosophy

Talk,

> since we're approximately halfway between our show on the existence

> of God and our upcoming show on the intelligent design argument. I

> also think that although particular religious beliefs have been much

> discussed and criticized, there still needs to be clearer discussion

> and criticism of the mental pathways by which such beliefs

> characteristically arise and are maintained. My view is that the a-

> rational nature of the religious belief formation process is

> pernicious and ultimately more destructive than any individual

> religious belief, or system of beliefs, taken by itself. That

process

> critically involves self-deception.

>

> There is, to start, a beautiful thing about being human. We're

> equipped with senses, capacities for reasoning and logical

> comparison, and an imaginative faculty for generating new ideas. The

> beautiful thing is that just by our getting up in the morning and

> walking around the capacities we have compel us to the generation of

> new knowledge and more subtle beliefs. The data that come to our

> senses because of our daily actions spark our reasoning capacities

to

> call out for explanation; our imagination answers with the

generation

> of ideas that, if all goes well, provide answers. This is how

> detailed knowledge of nature—individual plants and animals, and

> systems of them—has come about in so many diverse human societies.

> The particular answers and beliefs will come and go—if one belief

> doesn't work, another takes its place—but the beautiful thing is the

> process and the nature we have that allows us to participate in it.

> Let's call this the healthy belief formation process; it's driven by

> curiosity.

>

> The process of religious belief formation stands in stark contrast.

> Let's return to the quote I started with. There's no doubt that the

> repetition of such threatening lines has played a role in the

> formation of many religious beliefs. But how? Those lines provide no

> evidence of their claims. Why should they bring about belief?

>

> The first thing to note is the vilification of unbelievers. Those

> with an unbelieving heart will be judged, for, presumably, they've

> done something (morally?) wrong. The vilification of unbelievers

> threatens exclusion from the group to anyone on the fence. And then

> there's the fear of Hell that's engendered. The net effect of the

> vilification and fear is that a desire to believe comes about in the

> mind. " . . . eats and drinks judgment upon himself. " I certainly

had

> such a desire in my youth.

>

> Once there is a desire to believe the metaphysical doctrines of the

> religion, the mind is ripe for self-deception. Self-deception has

> essentially two components. First, a person forms a belief in

> violation of his usual standards of evidence and judgment—what

> philosophers call epistemic norms. Second, a desire with content

> related to the content of the belief causes the deviation from the

> healthy belief formation process. Because vilification, fear, and

> desire bring about the religious credence—while that credence is at

> odds with usual standards of judgment—the process by which religious

> beliefs come about is one of self-deception. (For a similar view,

see

> this piece by Georges Rey.)

>

> A religious advocate might respond that I've gotten it all wrong,

> that it's direct encounter with the spirit of God that brings about

> religious belief. But then why is religious practice so full of

> methods that have the precise effect of establishing credence by a-

> rational means? The singing, the chanting, the repetition of lines

> that vilify unbelief, the stress on believing only on faith? Surely

> the existence of such methods is no coincidence. And even if some

> have been touched by something divine, surely there are many who

> formed their religious beliefs in response to the constant pressures

> of liturgy. And that's the religious belief formation process I'm

> talking about.

>

> What exactly is wrong with this process? First, it's at odds with

the

> healthy belief formation process. It stagnates and undermines the

> healthy process just when it could be most beneficial to reflecting

> on our core beliefs and values. Fear, not curiosity, is the driving

> force. By representing as evil disbelief in any of a long and

> specific list of doctrines, the factors involved in the religious

> belief formation process cause us to disengage with the normal and

> healthy creative process of belief generation and revision. Persons

> attending a religious ceremony are made to fear the prospect that

> something else might strike them as true. The mind loses its

> flexibility. Consider some examples. How else could the belief that

> the earth is at the center of the universe persist for so long in

the

> face of Galileo's new evidence? How else could members of a church

> that canonized a woman, Joan of Arc, for her leadership hold the

> belief that women are categorically unfit to lead congregations? Why

> do evangelicals who have seen pictures of the changed color of the

> peppered moth believe natural selection has never occurred? How else

> should we explain the belief at high levels in the Catholic Church

> that it's wrong to teach about and distribute sexual protection in a

> South Africa crippled by AIDS? Responsiveness to reality is needed

> here. But that's precisely what the religious belief formation

> process lacks. The beautiful thing about the human mind is

undermined.

>

> Why else do I think the religious belief formation process itself is

> worse than any particular belief? As I've been stressing, I think

the

> healthy belief formation process is central to our humanity; it's a

> tragedy for that to be undermined. But as importantly, human actions

> take on a vicious and inflexible character when they are driven by

> beliefs that are unresponsive to reality. The problem with Crusaders

> and Jihadists is not primarily that they think their enemies are

> evil; it's that their beliefs are unresponsive to being moved by the

> simple humanity of their victims. One belief can explain a skirmish,

> but it takes a degenerate, self-deceptive belief formation process

to

> explain the systematic maintenance of a set of beliefs underlying a

> Crusade. Other examples are abundant: the Inquisition, the longtime

> inability of the Catholic Church to respond appropriately to child

> molestation by its clergy (how could we fire someone ordained by

> God?), and the malicious condemnations of Jerry Falwell (and those

> who listen to and act on them), to name a few. All these cases

> involve false beliefs that would have been changed by a simple bit

of

> responsiveness to reality if they hadn't been insulated by the

> religious belief formation process. Dogmatically held beliefs give

> rise to destructive behaviors. The further danger is that acceptance

> of such a degenerate belief formation process can spread and lead to

> wider corruption of our cognitive economy.

>

> So what of the intelligent design argument, the argument that posits

> an intelligent creator to explain the ordered complexity of life in

> the natural world? It's fine; these criticisms don't touch it. I

> don't think it ultimately works; nor does it fall in the domain of

> science. But I wish all religious thinking had such a rational

> character. The reasoning involved in that argument is an instance of

> the healthy belief formation process in action. We'd all be better

> off if religious people thought so rationally all the time.

>

> What, finally, of faith? I know of two ways in which the word

" faith "

> is used—one pernicious, one laudable. At its worst, " faith " is used

> rhetorically to bring about a-rational, unreflective credence in

what

> the " wise " men of the Church would have you believe. I think I've

> said enough already to indicate what I think is wrong with this kind

> of " faith. " But the word is also used in another sense. Faith in

this

> sense is the action-guiding confidence that good will come about if

> we pursue goodness uncompromisingly. Having this kind of faith is

> consistent with uncertainty about what the good, in terms of

outcome,

> will ultimately be. And, despite what religious leaders may suggest,

> having this faith is also consistent with active questioning of

> religious dogma. In short, faith in this sense is not opposed to

> intellectual curiosity.

>

> http://theblog.philosophytalk.org/meaning_of_life/index.html

>

> --------------------------

>

> However, both Christians and Muslims (and Jews and followers of most

> Eastern religions) are missing a vital requirement of God-

realization

> i.e., personal, direct experience.

>

> " Transcendental reality demands another means of knowing, and this

is

> direct experience, anubhava, not sense perception, not even

> experience through an idea or mental picture, but direct experience.

> It is the self-luminousness of reality as consciousness, its

> immediate self-evidence as awareness, which enables it to be

directly

> known. " [1]

>

> Without question, direct experience best rids followers and

> fundamentalists of self-deception and the problem with religious

> belief formation. Sahaja Yoga, starting with the initial (and

> subsequently daily) experience of the Cool Breeze, is nothing less

> that that. It is the transcendental [2] experience of eschatology

> unfolding, and tens of thousands bear daily witness. Period!

>

> regards to all,

>

> jagbir

>

>

> [1] A.M. Halliday, Freedom through Self-Realisation

> [2] Main Entry: tran·scen·dent

> 1 a: exceeding usual limits : surpassing

> b: extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience

> c: in Kantian philosophy : being beyond the limits of all possible

> experience and knowledge

> 2: being beyond comprehension

>

> Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

>