Category: Human Behavior and Cognitive Science

SIGNALS AND RELIGION

by Luke Weinhagen

Signals are like a drug. You get the dopamine hit from doing the signalling without having to expose yourself to the costs of doing the being.

Signals are passive. Being is active. Your actions are always the expression of your truth .Where your passive state does not match your active state, your passive state is a lie. It is the exposure of this lie that people are responding to.

It is the trappings of these belief systems that are, and should be, under attack first. The trapping are the passive decorations of belief, not the costly actions of belief. One can wear them and signal their belonging and righteousness. These are merely the demands the religion makes of its believers. Stripping this away is the first attack. There is no action here so there is no agency here. The response is all upset

Once the trapping are stripped away you can know what the religion actually demands of its adherents. You learn what actions one must take as a practitioner, not just one that signals belief, but puts that belief into action. Where the attack on religion meets the practitioner is where agency begins to be available. It is at this point where practitioner of and critics of can meet with cooperation, boycott or violence. Where we have the opportunity to strip away those actions that impose an external cost and use the good that remains to help guide men to transcendence.

Cooperation to remove the errors and lies and retain that which allows transcendence.

Boycott to deny the external costs of errors and lies and allow the practitioners able to do so to keep their faith with full internal accounting. (Bill’s “Ending Brother Wars”)

Violence to end the external costs of error and lies for practitioners unable to practice full accountability.

(my guess is that when we get to a point where natural law is implemented, we will see cooperation, boycott and violence line up with Christianity, Judaism and Islam)

In the exploration of religious belief, dogma and ideology I think Curt’s recent “No More Lies” post is one of his most important (even if you believe he got every single detail wrong) as it shows the effect of stripping away the trappings –

https://www.facebook.com/curt.doolittle/posts/10156800621732264