Anosognosia and Religious Certainty

Anosognosia is a neurological deficit in self-awareness, a condition in which a person with a disability is unaware or in denial of its existence. This disability we are addressing today is belief—regarded as personal achievement or a high mental destination, where “I believe” has become the pinnacle of religious thought. But what is belief other than a set of imaginations that have been carefully honed to pacify existence? There’s no substance to it at all.

Scientific beliefs are corroborated, falsified, tested and reviewed, then applied to produce a result or technology (we have satellites in orbit with these ideas) that actually produces something.

Religious beliefs are simply compared imaginations with other hopefuls for the mere sake of believing. And today, religious belief of any kind (even strictly opposing views) are respected for the simple fact they believe something, or anything at all. Certainly any belief is more worthy than unbelief—at least they have a chance, right?

Yet, belief is nothing more than a set of ideas that may sound really neat (or morbid) but is simply wishful thinking—assigning it some strange importance that will outwit nature does not make it real. But, we’re sticking to it against all reason, turning the mere idea into defensive pride, renaming it faith (which is the arrival at what?) all the while these fascinations do nothing to transcend humanity from this long monotheistic stall.

“Anosognosia is a lack of ability to perceive the realities of one’s own situation. It’s a person’s inability to accept that they have a condition that matches up with their symptoms“ (1) These religious beliefs occur despite significant lack of evidence or the predicted outcomes.

“Go to, thy faith hath dug you a hole”.

Advertisement

The Splendor of Belief—

Faith leads to this. I cannot sum it up any better than to direct you to the secret comments between believers about faith—do not deny! HERE

The comments are particularly good. Gods chosen are judge and jury. Of course they have relinquished there own moral autonomy and know longer no better.

“Backyard in the lowering sun”

Trust In You, Ye Prisoners of Doubt

The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves—Joseph Campbell

For many years I felt like I was just supposed to trust those that said they knew what they were talking about. I was a prisoner of doubt—accepting another’s belief over my own ability. What’s really crazy about that—it was never even my own belief, but the beliefs that others believe others believed. I trusted people to be truthful. That is a sin worthy of cursing.

 “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man—Jeremiah 17:5

From whom do we get the stories? Yep! God is a no show.

What’s even crazier about that is what we decided to believe was all written about a desert nomad thousands of years ago (a myth) It really is something to put so much credence in the very old tale, while we ignore our own present abilities to serve the genes of a goat herder.

I now have no religious beliefs and the vast majority of the people in the world don’t have their own either. I don’t believe in god, but they don’t believe their own story either—but that of another. Who but a few animists, spiritualists, and atheists actually listen to themselves and tune into the world around them right here, right now?

Hope puts believers at enmity with the inevitables of life and the placebo is hope that someone else will change it for them”.

The way to insure a life of faith is to sacrifice your integrity for hope. So, it boils down to faith without evidence is the most exciting story, then spending the rest of your life defending that hope with an argument.

Critiquing Faith—Understanding the Blowback

Three very important things to remember when scrutinizing faith.

First of all it confronts the validity of hope which triggers an adrenergic response. It can certainly be startling when faced with the fact no god is coming to the rescue. “Wait, I’m on my own here?” No worries mate, you’ve been living life on your own the whole time (with a little help from your friends) Nothing is going to change only you don’t have to wait around talking to yourself to see if a prayer was answered. You’ve done ok so far, but holding that much power can be frightening at first. But, you’ll get used to controlling you own path.

Second, criticizing a belief is a trigger warning to resist temptations to even consider alternatives—for god (friends and family) is measuring your devotion at that very moment. Considering better-than-belief alternatives you might fall into sin, or regress to your old self and return to your own vomit (Proverbs 26:11) All those things “god” did for you won’t come undone. Relax. No need for knee-jerking. Its called moving on—maturing through faith.

Thirdly, you directly insult imagination. Humans have terrific imaginations—religion is a great way to kill time when your brainpower exceeds opportunity, activity, or motivation. But don’t be fooled—just a nudge in the right direction and bang! You can express this runaway imagination through achievement.

Our imaginations make up a huge portion of who we are, or think we can become. A personal affront to imagination is a direct insult worthy of stoning and death. It even has a name—blasphemy.

Blasphemy—a: the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God 

b: the act of claiming the attributes of a deity for man to imagine that he was divine could only be viewed as blasphemy.

“Suggesting you have the ability to chart your own path puts those in power in an awkward position to justify their own arrogance”. This is a most heinous sin. It’s treason, really.

And fourth but not least, reducing self-deprecation as a worthless sinner isn’t putting you in dangerous territory, but it may release how good you can really be without having to put your own foot on your own neck in the name of belief.

A good thing to remember—arguing with faith is debating reason against physiology. Through repetition the neurons are hardwired and the inability to connect the dots and to embrace contradiction is now a physical phenomenon.

Knots and Logs—Ancient Wisdom vs Faith

By careful observation, recording and tracking different data, celestial movements and time—by reckoning and counting knots on a rope, we can now see what was once a painstakingly risky process is now common knowledge and routine—by science.

And what was was true by faith is no longer true in reality. While Dead Reckoning is subject to cumulative errors (the farther you’re off, the faster you get farther off) we are now at the point of religious reckoning to an aimless wander on the high seas.

And by the same careful observations, we can see quite plainly that the promises of religion have no observable results, but still measured by long spells of hope. Religions multi-thousand year attempt at dead reckoning has taken the human mindset in an unending search for dry land, filled with empty promises and unsigned prayer slips.

Literally dropping a log in the water, measuring the horizon, and counting the knots allowed men to circumnavigate the globe and home again. With religion…we’re still waiting….

“Greater signs than these will follow them that believe“. Evidences please…even one? Dead reckoning for Jesus has formed an ocean of ambiguous text and excuses. For what never was, never will be. What is and what should never be —Robert Plant (1969)

The Bible in the Barrel

Fall, 1988—While surveying nearly 800 miles north of the 49th parallel in Canada’s wilderness, time swallowed an abandoned homestead. Vacant sounds that once teemed the soil and timbers—like a still-shot from a ghost town, a lonely and staggered cabin held on from memories of a past love and dead dreams. No sounds of children nor echoes of ranch-work, only a flutter of birds escaping the hollowed rafters broke the silent still as we approached. The crew, focused and shuffling lodes across the the clearing slowly woke the silent void of near twenty years.

Behind the try, a rusted steel barrel leaned un-statuesque, gently yearning for the earth to bring her home. I loosened the ring and pounded off the rusting lid to look inside.

My survey crew was a pretty rough bunch at the time. José, our resident Latino catholic thought it was left by god—for us”. He said, (in his Mexican accent) “no matter where you go jefe, no matter how far, Dios lo ve todo, mal jefe!” “It’s probably still there because they ran out of matches”, I fired back! Either way (or maybe another) we were in the possession of the holy bible for the night. We made camp and the crew passed a bottle. Chuck had mothering duties for the day, so he got a fire and some food on the grate as darkness fettered us in a cloudy, moonless night. It was cavern black looking beyond the fire—we faded to sleep.

Hoards of black crows broke the morning silence at dawn. We all stumbled around to get our bearings, stoked the fire and coffee’d up for what was supposed to be a long day, but, curiosity piqued us into a more human task, and by chance, or maybe drawn-in by an unsettled past, we started our day with a quick look around the homestead. Chuck, still half unzipped in his sleeping bag, shouted, “hey boss-man, look at this”. He was thumbing through the Bible looking for a good passage to quote me—he liked disingenuous humor at my expense, but this didn’t seem too funny by the look on his face. Flattening the creases he unfolded a paper in his hand and started to slowly read, like a translator.

“This cabin and 40 acres is claimed by me, William Granger. I came here in the summer of 1964 and built this cabin with the tools I could carry. In ’65 I returned with my wife Carol, our son Eli and daughter Caroline. Abandoning my loves and home is cowardly hard to do, but all that is left for me is to save my own life from one last unknown tragedy. My boy disappeared in ’66. We never found him. He would be 14 today, if this is September 14, the day of my departure”.

“We all came here with a trust in god. I and my colleagues convinced my wife of the lords providence—by faith we would thrive. This book you are holding is the last thing on earth I would impart to a decent man. Its only task now is holding this note in hopes it can at least do that until somebody finds it, should I fail to return. While many of the words are poetic and wishful, the promise of healing and signs that follow them that believe with the lords bounties are false premises only an untested fool would believe. You all survive down below because of people. Nothing more. My horse was killed by wolves while he was on the line. Then my hogs. My wife and daughter I love are in deep graves just east of the clearing. I moved them out after the spring thaw to their permanent rest. Look east between the two tallest cedars if they’re still standing. Two small rock piles mark the spots. I leave them here and plan to return as soon as I can. W. Granger, 1970″.

Humanity took over our crew. We looked around for the day, found some odds and ends, toys and tools and tack, but nothing of importance—That, lies between the cedars that stand guard. We cleaned up the grave sites and packed our gear for a short move. Another 20 years it will all be forgotten. I took it Mr. Granger got sidetracked, lost, or died in his failure to return—I guess the road home has forks in it too—I’ll see if I can locate this Mr Granger.