socialy retarded

Cognitive dissonance

Posted on 29. Dec, 2006 by Derrick in Philosophy, Politics, War, and Religion.

I want to start out this blog with some foreshadowing. For my first 8 scholastic years I went to a Baptist school and have had intensive bible thumping. So if you read this, please don’t respond with “you don’t understand the Christian religion”.

Too many people think that without God/Ala//Buddha, there are no values. These believes aggravate me. I would argue that basing morality on a deity makes the moral acts self-serving. People who do these acts are only trying to stay in the good graces of a god, rather than to serve your fellow man. My disagreement with religion is that, religious people believe morality has its genesis in religion, whereas I believe it begins in culture and is then assimilated into the religion. It’s my belief that certain moral truths reveal themselves to man over time simply through trial and error. Let me give you an example of what I mean. In the Old Testament, it was said to be appropriate to execute someone for cursing their parents. For that culture, such an act was perfectly reasonable. Over time, the cruelty of the act became evident and now I don’t think even the most fundamentalist Christian would say that’s an appropriate act, despite the fact that it says right there in the Bible that it is.

The cognitive dissonance that occurs when one accepts some forms of religion is what eventually led to my de-conversion from Christianity. I could find reason to reject other gods but mine. But, when I turned that same reasoning upon my own belief system it was shattered. Stephen F. Roberts wrote “We are all Atheists; some of us just believe in fewer gods than others. When you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours”

I have a hard time being partial to religions apparent damnation of non-believers. like agnostics are some sub-human culture that without the Bibles ten commandments, the Buddhist 8-fold path, or the Muslims 5 pillars of Islam, agnostics are sniveling rebellious Neanderthals. I trust that each one of those by-laws of religion is a superior way to live life, but the idea that religion has some measure of superior morals bothers me. Whether one is religious or agnostic requires the same amount of faith as neither belief can be proven. What I don’t understand is, religious fundamentalists (Christian mostly) look upon me with utter disgust. Like I go home and make pagan rituals on chickens all the while cutting myself with a razor.

Case in point, children have no concept of god. They don’t ask about fairies. They look up and see clouds and airplanes, birds and bugs. They don’t question their purpose in life. They know their purpose: to live, love and be happy.

To be precise, Children are BORN agnostic, and are TAUGHT religion. What child, by instinct, bends their knees at night and prays “Lord their soul to keep”? These are behaviors that are taught. Children don’t have the interpretation capacity to contemplate the unknown. Oftentimes this shortfall is filled by religious teachings. Fundamentally, children are sweet, innocent, and loving. They are taught to be self centered, egotistical, and loathing.

For example. A Palestinian homicide bomber admitted that he had no responsibility for the deaths of others. He attributed everything to Allah. In other words, he said that if 30 people had died, according to this fundamentalist, all of the deaths would have been the will of Allah. He accepted NO responsibility. It was NOT “he” who killed, but that Allah himself kills.

And this is the trouble that I see with religion. Given all the relevant data, a competent physicist could predict how many people would die in a sudden homicide bombing. The Palestinian didn’t attribute anything to natural law. He saw Allah’s hand in everything. The question is? Was he born with this notion? I don’t think so. Even he admitted that all these fundamentals had been planted in his head by others. Apparently, this is something that others have a hard time accepting when it comes to their particular brand of fundamentalism. “Oh yes,” Christians all agree, “Those Muslims are fanatics!” All the while they’re driving around their SUV’s with bumper stickers proclaiming, “Let Go and Let God!”

And finally to my main point. The major highlights of the 10 Commandments can be hit without any reference to a deity, can’t they? A person doesn’t need to believe in or even acknowledge a deity to be taught that killing another person for fun is wrong, Isn’t that true? I think I can make a compelling case for not cheating on your spouse without threatening a person with eternal damnation of hellfire and brimstone.

You see, the problem isn’t morality or ethics. The problem is that some people think that morality and ethics cannot be taught or even exist without reference to a deity. I wonder how many who profess such outrage at the removal of the 10 Commandments from the classroom would be equally outraged if the 8-Fold path or the Koran were to be inserted into the curriculum.

In illustration; I can say that it is wrong for the nation of Muslim men to suppress their women. Even if they thought its acceptable, there is a flaw in their rational thought. They fail to apply their maxim to themselves. That is to say, they fail to consider how they would feel if they were the ones subjugated. What clouds them from reaching this rational conclusion is that whatever their deity says is reasonable, is in fact ok, rationality be damned. Cognitive dissonance needs to be applied.

Again, the Bible says you can be executed for cursing your parents. This is ordained by God in Exodus. I don’t think that even the most Christian fanatic would claim this to be a moral act. Why? Because the maxim doesn’t hold up to morality thought out rationally. It’s a false promise.

An example Immanuel Kant gave of a false promise in which you imagine yourself borrowing money with no intention of paying it back. Kant argues that this is ethically wrong, and in particular it violates the lender’s right to repayment. It is his reasoning for his conclusion that deserves careful study. Since his argument makes no appeal to the word of God, it attempts to show how we can discover what is right without needing to interpret a (potentially wrong and controversial) holy text. Since it will attempt to establish that someone else has a right to be respected, it aims to show that ethical egoism is false.

“The most direct and infallible way, however, to answer the question as to whether a lying promise accords with duty is to ask myself whether I would really be content if my maxim (of extricating myself from difficulty by means of a false promise) were to hold as a universal law for myself as well as others, and could I really say to myself that everyone may promise falsely when he finds himself in a difficulty from which he can find no other way to extricate himself. Then I immediately become aware that I can indeed will the lie but can not at all will a universal law to lie. For by such a law there would really be no promises at all, since in vain would my willing future actions be professed to other people who would not believe what I professed, or if they over-hastily did believe, then they would pay me back in like coin. Therefore, my maxim would necessarily destroy itself just as soon as it was made a universal law.”

Kant believed that the average person is good at telling whether an action is wrong. When we want to know whether it would be right to do what we are tempted to do, we ask, what if everyone did that?

Kant’s basic premise was that everyone is governed by certain rules. These rules are discovered by rational beings because rational beings have the capacity to discover them. These rules are no more dependent upon a deity than the law of gravity. Rules, by their very nature are general, in the sense that they apply to certain other situations as well as whatever specific situation in which they were discovered. For example, if I steal something from a store because I feel like it, I am following a rule, applicable in all situations similar to my present one. My rule is, whenever I feel like stealing, it is ok to do so. If I find, on reflection, that I do not accept this rule, then I must admit that feeling like stealing is no good reason to do so. When we look for reasons to do something, we are always in effect setting precedents for doing the same sort of thing in the same sort of circumstances.

With that said, a moral person is concerned about whether something is right for right’s sake, and not simply because it appeases a deity. A moral person thinks about a rule he would be following if he were to perform a certain action and then he asks himself whether he is really willing to accept the precedent that he would be setting by following that rule. Then the moral person will realize that this precedent is universal, in the sense that it should apply to all people. So, if the moral person believes that giving a false promise is morally wrong, he will apply this not only to himself but expect it from others. This is called consistency, or the golden rule.

Cognitive dissonance. In other words, look outside of your personal box and ask “would I want that said, done, or contemplated about me”. There is no need for religion to regulate my moral compass when I have rational thought.

-D

Tags: cognitive dissonance, religion