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Increasingly, or so it seems to me, news stories appear that shock us into questioning anew how it is that humans can willingly allow themselves to be motivated into committing suicide while murdering others, subject their own children to brutal rapes by others, and countless other horrible atrocities.
It is my opinion that whenever individuals begin to devalue their own rationality in favor of more comforting supernatural imaginings, they soon become vulnerable to the irrational opinions of others. Of course, some of these irrational opinions professed by well-meaning individuals or groups are relatively harmless but do require individuals to believe that the individual or group has been chosen by a supernatural being to communicate its directives to others and inform them what the rewards and punishments will be for obedient and disobedient behavior. Other opinions are not so harmless.
Charlatans out to line their pockets, prophets predicting damnation to anyone that refuses to coerce their children into “relationships” with anyone the prophet chooses, and fanatical wannabe dictators who claim daily contacts with a Great Spirit that commands acts of terror around the world as retribution against all the infidels.
Many people, of course, believe they could never be deceived by such lunatics and express outrage that others are. Many of these “lunatic pronouncements” are given some legitimacy when established mainstream religious groups periodically recognize as factual unfathomable appearances of apparitions from the supernatural world bringing directives from the Great Spirit.
Once individuals trade their anchor of rationality for the slippery slope of promised hope, they find it difficult to maintain balance and sometimes fall victim to charlatans and prophets who, by this time, can convince their wobbly targets of almost anything.
Read Settled Science to learn how scientists think the natural and supernatural worlds came to be and how man adapted to both.
Last update : 11-07-2008 22:32
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