Wanting to be right so bad that you come to actually believe that you are right, is not the same thing as actually being right. If you can't tell the difference, you're hopelessly lost, and no one can help you anymore.
-StBtG
Beliefs are thoughts that the ego fell in love with.
-StBtG
***
This is an article about the two worlds we live in on this planet.
What two worlds?
Well, there is the consensual reality that we mostly tend to agree upon, with attendant facts and data that can be used to prove or disprove our theories.
And then there's Narrative World.
Narrative World is a world where the narrative rules over the facts. The love of the narrative is too intense for mere facts to be allowed in to interfere.
In Narrative World God is real. (In fact, only in Narrative World is God real)
God is so real in fact, that to even doubt in Him is considered wrongheaded, a 'sin.' To suggest that the facts do not support His existence, is to be ostracised and scorned. Facts and data have no power in Narrative World, you see. All that matters is the story. Facts are heresy; logic is a crime. Only the story is real.
Religious people are married to their story. They just fucking love it, more than they even love themselves, and that's an awful lot. You cannot even assail it without intense personal scorn being directed back at you. You can't suggest that they might be in error... what's wrong with you? Literally, they equate belief in their narrative with being 'good' as opposed to 'evil' and in their minds it's an eternal war between the two. No gray areas allowed. So if you're a skeptic, in their minds you are personally evil. Case closed. As are their minds.
Some narratives are childishly simple. 'Believe in God or else go to hell, period.' Fear is the ruling factor here. Of course egotism enters into it as well, the 'I'm right and you're wrong and I'm special and you're not and I'm going to heaven and you're going to hell' mentality. Schadenfreude abounds in Narrative World. All the petty emotions thrive there as well. After all, even God is petty and small and oh-so-humanly flawed, admitting personal jealousy and wrath openly, even gambling with people's lives on a whim. Indeed it would seem that 'Tis all a checkerboard of nights and days, where God with men for pieces plays...' And apparently, that's okay. No amount of overt examples of raw Biblical evil are enough for them to see their God in a bad light. He's always good, even when killing little innocent children. Somehow that must be good too. It's a mystery, and it's all God's plan for us and we're just not meant to understand it.
(One wonders how these people hold their shit in, since the functionality of even a simple sphincter muscle must surely be beyond them.)
(Oh right, it comes out their mouths, I forgot...)
However some narratives are ridiculously complicated. (For good reason!)
Thomas Aquinas (God's official liar and archetypal ass-smoke-blower-upper extraordinaire) for instance constructed huge and impressive edifices of logic upon the shifting sands of faith to 'inexorably' lead us to belief in God, and did so in such a seamless manner that later generations of christians are completely incapable of seeing that all those pretty words and logical-sounding sentences aren't ultimately based on hard fact as they sound like they must surely be, but are instead based upon what amounts to nothing more than childish wishful thinking. Their love of the narrative utterly clouds their perceptions of reality, and the more complex, more logical-sounding narrative in this case allows even relatively intelligent people to be caught like flies in amber.
We are human, fallible emotional animals at best. So at what point is the lure of the narrative so great that we are willing to forgive it for not meeting the test of facts and data?
At the point where it provides more meaning to our lives than just living them in consensual reality does. The fact that it's empty meaning based on wishes and dreams matters little if at all. The religious just don't know the difference. They do not want to know. They are (have been kept) far too ignorant of reality to glean any real deeper meanings out of it, and are far too lazy to learn to now, nor do they see any need to, so they crave the simple, children's fairy-tale version. It's like a nice, warm bottle of milk, lulling them to a comfortable sleep. Forever.
And they want everybody to join them in their slumber. In fact, they *insist.*
***
A part of the religious narrative is of course that all other narratives are false, including consensual reality's 'narrative.' This can become quite comical when religion's beloved narrative meets reality in a head-on collision. Heliocentrism comes to mind. Hell, all of the findings of modern science come to mind, for that matter. Religion has been dragged into the modern world kicking and screaming all the way, like the retarded child it is. It never agreed with science or even basic observations of the world, it always had it's own ass-backward ideas instead, and it has always, always been wrong. Pathetically wrong. And it's still trying with no better results. This is because, by nature, religion is viciously stupid. It ignores reality in favor of fantasy; what better definition of 'stupid' does one need? Today's religious people even go so far as to vilify learning and knowledge itself, to scorn them as effete and effeminate somehow. The 'real Christian man's' way is apparently to kill and fuck (and fuck over) one's way through life whilst blaming one's 'sinful nature' for one's flaws and still maintaining the belief that somehow they're still 'going to heaven' because after all, they do still believe in God and they do ask to be forgiven their many sins, which are then magically erased from their souls and from their consciences. Convenient. After a while, they even forget to ask. They assume forgiveness for whatever they might do, since hey, they're *christian* and that's how it works, that's what Jesus does. It's magic, no doubt. Magic, plus a heavily flawed system of pseudomorality that is ultimately coercion-based with heavy appeal to egotism, and therefore can produce no good thing in the world without an evil taint to it.
When one 'absolutely knows' that one is 'good' with no doubt left in one's mind, it frees one up to do considerable evil in the world. This is the boon of religion. Sure you're an evil fuck but you believe that you poop Ben and Jerry's, and that's all that matters. You get to sleep at night, guilt-free, no matter what heinousness you've comitted or contemplate comitting. You'll even eventually get to the point where you're *proud* of it.
That's because religion is Purina Ego Chow.
I am always amused at the christians who vehemently deny (irrationally) that Hitler was a christian. I mean, he certainly acted like one. He definitely *believed* in his own righteousness completely, and manipulated his people through their christian faith. He thought he was an instrument of God in fact. Pretty typical, actually. He just got more power than most do; it's not that many other christians alive today wouldn't do the same thing if they had the opportunity. So why then, can he not be a 'real christian?' Because nobody that evil could be? That's what they'd like to believe, but I know differently because I do not live in Narrative World. It's easier to be evil if you're also religious. Look around.
***
You see my droogies, being right, as in being correct more often than one is not correct, as it turns out requires living in consensual reality enough to observe it dispassionately and draw conclusions from it. However, merely believing that one is right (and good, and just, and holy, and so on...) is more than good enough for those who are lost in the psychosis of their religion. Sure, they're wrong about just about everything, but they're ignorant of that fact too, so it's okay. Ignorance is indeed bliss to them, and a nightmare to everyone else. Because, they vote like they see the world. Ass-backwards.
I find myself wishing that the religious folk come to an agreement to ignore *all* science. Got diabetes? Pray it away! Go ahead... surely you have enough *faith* for that to work. No? Aww, too bad, so sad.
Hey, I can dream... And at least, I don't mix up my dreams with reality. That would be religiously stupid of me.
