I’m going to begin with the weaknesses of the Guardian mindset, because it is these weaknesses that have driven the development of its greatest strengths. In order to understand these weaknesses, it is first necessary to realize that the Guardian mindset is entirely arbitrary. Guardians take whatever intellectual ground they happen to be standing on at the time and decree it sacred, unquestionable, and absolutely supreme. But even a cursory glance at religious beliefs shows that ‘whatever they happen to be standing on at the time’ doesn’t mean much. Odds are extremely good that the Guardians have picked some really lousy intellectual territory to defend, and this gives them two very serious weaknesses.
Underivability
If every ounce of scientific knowledge and technological infrastructure
was suddenly and utterly annihilated, mankind could rebuild it. It would take an extremely long time,
thousands of generations in all likelihood, but it is actually darn near
inevitable that we would eventually rediscover all the natural laws we now
know. This is because science is a
convergent process. It doesn’t
matter where you start; you always head towards the same final
destination. But faith is not a convergent process (in as much as
it is a process). So if every ounce of
modern religious beliefs and rituals was suddenly and utterly annihilated, the
religions mankind subsequently invents would be radically and significantly different (and just as arbitrary). This is an extremely important point to
understand. If you fail to teach your science
to the next generation, it will be re-discovered. But if you fail to teach your religion to the
next generation, it dies.
Intellectual Emptiness
Because Guardians ‘choose’ their territory more or less at
random, solid epistemological endeavors will nearly always push away from the Guardians’ turf. And solid epistemological endeavors are,
well, solid. So when some annoying Seeker goes around
asking pointed questions, the Guardians are hard pressed to find good answers.
It is in response to these two weaknesses that the religions
have perfected several techniques critical to their survival. The first technique is a direct response to
the underivability of Guardians’ chosen dogma.
If you fail to teach your religion to the next generation, your religion
dies.
So the most successful religions in all the world are the ones that
hammer in, that really hammer in the
notion of passing on your religion to your children.
Compare the ratio of religious Americans to non-religious
Americans with the ratio of religious private schools to non-religious private
schools. I don’t think the sheer number
of religious private schools is a straightforward result of religious people
being more numerous. Religions,
especially many Christian sects, push very hard for their followers to have
many children and to teach them their religion from the moment they’re
born. Private schools, home-schooling, Sunday
schools, youth groups, bible camps, cartoons, books. You name it, they’ve got it. Religions have become very good at getting to
kids at an extremely young age and inundating them with indoctrination. And in areas where a particular religion
holds power, they have become very good at getting to kids that aren’t being
taught their religion and ostracizing the
shit out of them. This is why people push for prayer in public schools, or
for the removal of evolution from biology class, or religious speech on our
money and in our pledge. At some level,
these religious organizations understand that they absolutely need to push their religious beliefs
onto children. And not just their own
children, but as many children as they can manage. Because if they don’t, their religion will
die.
The other techniques I will highlight tonight are in direct
response to the Guardians’ second great weakness, the intellectual emptiness of
their turf. Because Guardians cannot
hope to defend their turf with solid, well-reasoned arguments, they tend to
resort to other methods. Their first
line of defense is typically censorship.
They don’t just teach children what the religious beliefs are, they also
teach those children not to ask too many
questions. They apply enormous amounts
of social pressure against anyone who speaks against their religion, calling
such criticism offensive or even labeling it hate speech. Some even go so far as to call for the deaths
of cartoonists who produce forbidden art.
They also go to great lengths to hide the skepticism of many of the
world’s most distinguished individuals, and especially the world’s
scientists. All this they do because
their beliefs just can’t face the criticism directly.
The Guardian’s second line of defense is the renouncement of
reason and empiricism. The very concept
of religious faith is designed specifically to pre-empt epistemological
endeavors. In fact, religions’ need to
pre-empt our intellectual capacities is so great that merely presenting text in a hard-to-read font
is enough to significantly decrease self-reported religiosity by priming the
reader towards analytic thinking. (The peer-reviewed publication is subscription only, but you can read a news article about it here. Check the fifth paragraph).
Guardians’ third line of defense involves the use of other
mental faculties to undermine reason (the most common being emotion and
intuition). They talk about how loving
Jesus is, how great it feels to embrace him, and how fulfilled they feel now
that they’ve found him. Many also use
fear – fear of hell, of divine punishment, of social disapproval, or outride
threats of violence – to pressure people into acquiescence. Another aspect of this is inherent to the
rampant notion that religion answers certain needs that science can never
approach (otherwise known as NOMA – Non Over-lapping MAgisteria); most commonly
the moral and (invented) spiritual needs.
When religions manage to convince the populace that science literally can’t address such needs, they secure
themselves a rather safe place in the world, a place where people won’t even
bother listening to a skeptic because they think he has nothing to offer.
There is undoubtedly much more I could say about the
strengths and weaknesses of the Guardian mindset. But what I have covered here is sufficient
for the points I intend to make next week.
To recap, the key aspects of the Guardian mindset we must consider are:
-Guardians’ turf is arbitrary and can’t be re-derived once
lost.
-Guardians’ turf is intellectually indefensible.
And in direct response to these weaknesses:
-Guardians have become very dedicated toward the task of
pushing their religion onto children.
-Guardians rely heavily on censorship (both laws and social
norms) to defend their turf.-Guardians rely heavily on faith, emotion, intuition, and NOMA to defend their turf.
EDIT: Case in point, the Texas Republican Party Platform includes their opposition to teaching critical thinking skills because they "...have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." (Page 13, Knolwedged-Based Education entry. Emphasis added. Notice how they want to teach kids what is known, instead of focusing on how to figure things out.)
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