LC: The powerlessness of prayer:
Prayer doesn’t help heart patients, survey finds

LC, Australian Skeptics

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BARNABY DRAKE: What a terrible burden to thrust upon humanity!

Have you noticed how the Church shackles its subjects to Sin.

Where Jesus came to save the world and liberate the sinner, the Church firmly draws him back into the fold and shackles him again. Bound not just to his own sins, but also to those of his father and his father before him, back to the time of the first people, Adam and Eve, so that we are now held responsible for all that weight of sin back to that Original Fall from Grace.

What a terrible burden to thrust upon humanity!

But in the eyes of the Church, it is not through God that salvation can be delivered, but through the Church itself. We have been distanced from our Creator and a barrier erected, a barrier of dogma and ritual, enshrining the perpetual position of the priesthood and clergy.

Without their supplication and intervention, people remain tarnished.

They have been given no personal key to their own salvation, and without the cleansing of ritual, access to eternity is denied them. But with this denial of access, also is created the power of the edifice and it’s administrators. The secrets of acquiring this perpetual life are firmly entrenched within these latter-day myths. Mary Mediatrix is an extreme example of this invention.

We are told that we were originally created perfect, yet in this perfection was the seed of our own destruction. The greatest gift that was then bestowed on us was also our greatest enemy — namely, free will. But free will cannot exist without choice, and in using that choice there is the implication of temptation. Without Sin, it cannot exist! Did not the same hand that created the original man, also create the apple tree — and the Serpent?

If perfection is what is desired, why did He not make a heaven full of angels and be done with it? Why go through all this trouble, and then pretend to suffer when we put our feet on the wrong path. If he loved us, then why did he feed us a stone when what we needed was bread?

Are we not ascribing to God the faults of Man, in that there is within all us a wish to succeed and a contrary force that impels us to fail? The desire to create and the compulsion to destroy. The need for a conscience? The plaything of devils and angels.

Despite the now almost universal acceptance of our origins in evolution, and the recognition of the Garden of Eden as a myth, yet still the doctrines associated with that myth are retained. The Fall and the subsequent unworthiness that clings to us from that time — that original sin of Adam. A fiction that is seized on by the self-appointed ministers and has been polished into a doctrine that keeps the believers shackled by their fears. This is reflected in the retention of infant baptism, that ceremonial washing away of Original Sin associated with the Fall from Grace. The event is now denied, but the ceremony is kept.

It is this prime doctrine that maintains the power of the priesthood and the Church. ‘Without us, there can be no salvation.’

Heresy is anything that diminishes this power.

My place amongst all the interesting people downstairs is assured!

Barnaby Drake

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BARNABY DRAKE: Part of the human psyche seems to demand that we create delusions for ourselves. Illogical superstitions, wishful thinking, daydreams, imagination.

‘Inform the emirs, the leading citizens and the mass of ordinary people that Heaven has granted to me all the Earth, from sunrise to sunset.’ Ghengis Khan.

There are many amongst us who believe that they, and they alone, have the exclusive ear of God, or they have been instructed by God to carry out His will.

They are the representative of this deity, and as such, their word and beliefs are final and that gives them the right to impose these beliefs on others at will. In this, their actions do not need to be explained and they have an absolute belief in their own superiority over the rest of the human race.

There are degrees of this belief, and it is not restricted to religious leaders or politicians, nor even to individuals, but commonly affects people in all walks of life. It is a delusion, and quite often a fatal one.

Henry James once stated: ‘If human beings are limited to acting only on those beliefs that can be logically and scientifically demonstrated, they could not survive, simply because this degree of certainty is restricted only to mathematics and the hard sciences — which, by themselves, are not remotely sufficient to guide us through the world as it exists. Hence, human beings must have a large set of beliefs that cannot be demonstrated logically and scientifically — beliefs that are therefore irrational as judged by the hard sciences.’

There are two main factors which dictate our judgements and actions, possibly both related.

Works of the devil

Part of the human psyche seems to demand that we create delusions for ourselves. Illogical superstitions, wishful thinking, daydreams, imagination. Don’t we all possess them to some degree? But when we allow these delusions to slip into our life and we let them impinge on reality, then this becomes dangerous ground. There is the inbuilt tendency to project these illusions onto others, and then judge them by the results. Little consideration is given to whether the object of these projections either desires or shares them, or is capable of living up to the projection placed upon him.

If they fail to meet up with these expectations of the projector, then this can be a major cause of dissent. An instance of this is where a father, often due to his own failure to perform, projects onto his son his desire for him to become a super sportsman, or to follow his line of thought and business, and will almost take a revenge on him by punishments and deprivations if he fails to live up to this expectation. Without consultation with the object, a path is chosen for him, and woe betide him if he fails to meet these criteria. The classic film Dead Poets Society, starring Robin Williams was a superb example of this.

The other factor is judgements from within preconceived ideas, where anything that does not fit in with these preconceptions is wrong or evil. It is a closing of the mind to anything that does not fit, and any challenge is seen as an attack on the very basis of what is held dear or sacred. Judgement first, look for supporting evidence after. This is the far more dangerous of the two, because it is based upon a pre-programming of the human mind. Ideas are introduced, usually during the formative stages, and these tend to stay with the person and dominate most future actions. It is for this reason that those who wish to exercise power over the affairs of man, try to seize control of the educational systems that influence the minds of the young. Political, sectarian and religious groups all recognise this. Ideology, religion and patriotism form a major part of education in most countries of the world, if not all. It depends on the strength of this ideology and the ability to impart it that largely controls the life and attitudes of the citizens ever afterwards.

Democracy tends to have a weakness here, in that it is not authoritarian and allows for dissent and recognises alternative views, whereas in strongly religious dominated communities, there is no such freedom. Children are taught the Absolute view of God and State and intolerance is bred from an early age. So strongly can these views be implanted, that logic, facts and alternative ideas are dismissed as being ‘works of the devil’, and in extreme cases, anything is preferable to having to submit to an idea that does not fit in with these preconceptions. At all costs, these ideas must be suppressed, and if it means the death of the protagonist or even themselves, then so be it.
There is little or no defence against this form of intolerance, and is the food on which extremists feed and the basis for terrorism. From the leaders point of view, individuals and sects who believe sincerely that they are carrying out the Divine will, are the ‘useful idiots’ and the tools of these dictators.

It is possible for two opposing sides to sit at the same table and both sincerely believe they are facing the ‘axis of evil’.

Counteracting this form of indoctrination can only be done by a similar form of repetitive propaganda, basically pushing the alternative view of the group that wishes for influence, hence in totalitarian states, the regimes find it important to control or ban the media. This further entrenches their own ideology and defends against alien counter influence.

However, all this would fall apart if there was a conscious opposition to imbibing these ideas in the first place. In youth, there is not the accumulation of knowledge or experience to counter deceptive ideas and the powerful spin that is thrust on them, and appeals to immature values can be very effective. There seems to be an innate desire on the part of the masses to identify with a leader, and a show of strength is one of the qualities that is admired and successful. Ruthlessness can often be mistaken for this virtue. Possibly a throwback to primitive instincts based upon the survival of the herd.

In individuals this form of mass control can be the encouragement for megalomania, delusions of grandeur, irrational behaviour, and even madness. In their time, people ardently cheered Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, the Mogul Emperors and many other brutal and totalitarian dictators. Only in hindsight, and only after their empires had crumbled, and generally by their victims, were they adjudged to have been ‘bad’ for the human race.

These were the people who had the ability to foster their own personal delusions on to the populace at large, and it cannot be denied, those groups that accepted them, were generally delighted by the prospect of power and of their own superiority.

Nationalism, a product of this, is exemplified by perpetually honouring dead heroes and martyrs and the insistence of issues of patriotism such as swearing allegiance to the flag and supporting nationally held ideals and values, however thin. The opposite, of course, is to be unpatriotic, radical, dissenters, anarchists and all manner of other politically incorrect names and labels that are designed to isolate or marginalise them.

It is quite possible, and one must always be aware, that when one is attempting to push one’s own values or beliefs over those of another individual, or even a child, we are possibly acting on one of our own preconceptions or delusions. It takes a strong man to recognise the value of another man’s opinion and his right to hold it, especially if it disagrees with one’s own.

Unfortunately, most of us are human.

Barnaby Drake