The rationalist soon confronts a firewall of difficulty when raising the faults of religion with a friend or relative. No amount of logic or reason suffices to dampen the flame-rigged certainty of Life after Death. The brain of the believer is rushed with a self-preserving surge of adrenalin. The mildest discussion is deemed a direct assault to every determinative held dear, and must be defended or better still avoided. Every embattled brain cell bristles goose-bumps.
There is an overarching taboo around criticising religious faith. Sam Harris, New York 2005 Society for Ethical Culture lecture
The brave lone wolf of Truth — entrapped by the entangled banks of a firmly Creationist family — realises how even the mildest investigation drives home a Darwinian wedge of heartache and distress. Mormons are repeatedly cautioned against a satanic, wayward glance at perceived anti-Mormon websites. The investigator who leaves The God Delusion on the coffee table for family members to find is likely to face its flying return. The investigator who borrows from the library On the Origin of Species is likely to be relegated for the night to the coal-bunker. Are we then to blame the investigator, or the quest for truth, the religious addict, or is the perpetrator, that old rogue Religion?
Of course, dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination using methods that took centuries to mature (either by evolution or design). Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion preface
Millions of families are thus mutilated by the monster Religion that will castrate your every whim from cradle to grave if allowed the control it craves.
The investigator is elevated saint-like to a pantheon of silent heroes — either continue to cause distress or discontinue the detective casework which, for all the investigator knows at the outset, may lead back to the familiar.
The mourn in russet mantle clad approacheth when, harrowed with fear and wonder, the reader in the gross and scope of opinion confronts the strange eruption of evidence to our state: whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suppress the trail and inconvenience of outrageous facts or face the evolutionary trouble, that ‘undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns’.
The more you begin to investigate what we think we understand, where we came from, what we think we’re doing, the more you begin to see we’ve been lied to — we’ve been lied to by every institution. What makes you thing for one minute that the religious institution is the only one that’s never been touched? The religious institutions of this world are at the bottom of the dirt. The religious institutions in this world are put there by the same people who gave you your government, your corrupt education, who set up your international banking cartels. Because our masters don’t give a damn about you or your family; all they care about is what they’ve always cared about — and that is controlling the whole damned world. We have been misled away from the true and divine presence in the universe that men have called God. I don’t know what God is, but I know what He isn’t — and unless and until you are prepared to look at the whole truth, wherever it may go, wherever it may lead to — if you want to look the other way, if you want to play favourites, then somewhere along the line you’re going to find out you’re messing with divine justice. The more you educate yourself, the more you understand where things come from, the more obvious things become and you begin to see lies everywhere. You have to know the truth and seek the truth and the truth will set you free. Jordan Maxwell, televised interview
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