Being right feels good. When actions match our beliefs, we feel good and say with some excitement “I knew it all along!” or “I told you so!” When we think we are correct, we tend to value that position more than others. Likewise, an intense feeling of goodness can invoke a strong belief in its […]
Who we are is formed early on in our lives; some say even by the age of 3 or 4 and certainly a substantial part of our being is established by age 12. Many of the psychological susceptibilities previously described are formed from events that take place when we are young. There is another reason […]
The subliminal influences that religions use on their faithful are as dangerous as any weapon of steel, if not more. When one is attacked with a weapon that he can see, he can defend against it. But the innocent are most often unaware of the manipulation of their minds and the theft of their spirits. […]
All people are believers. Some rational beliefs are necessary and good. But the willing acceptance of pure fiction should be avoided. Both types of beliefs come from the same place, but education, social support, and critical thinking separate can make one person less prone to accept the unbelievable. When we look back on our history, […]
Section 1 walked through 50,000 years of religious history, stopping to explore various religious views from around the world. We saw many common threads during this journey, but the most pronounced was that religious thought is a most universal human trait. Humans are a race of believers. Every culture and every people, no matter how […]
So has modern man lost his desire for religion? The evidence does and doesn’t support this notion. While many a preacher would like to convince his audience that the world should return to some “Godlier time” lost in the past, the truth is that the number of people professing to be religious is about as […]
Mankind raced into the twentieth century like a child dashing into a circus tent. Looking at everything, imagining wonderful things, full of dreams and hopes. The natural sciences continued to amaze as better instruments revealed more and more about the universe. The inquisitive were measuring and experimenting with everything—mechanics, medicine, electricity, radio, psychology, and even […]
Around the globe, British, French, and Spanish explored new lands, met new peoples, and saw new cultures—often godless and quite happy places. Prosperous and moral people without any knowledge of a god who made the world in seven days, destroyed it in a flood, or would damn one to hell for not believing. Priests were […]
