Just imagine you woke up tomorrow and discovered
that there was irrefutable proof that the
Holocaust was actually done by America and
Hitler was the good guy but was just the scape
goat. First thing you would do mentally is
reject it. You know America would never do
that, America was the good guy in WWII, it
was a righteous war against the genocidal
nazis. However if the evidence was too powerful,
and you felt you had to accept it, that would
involve changing everything about your world
view.
Psychology has discovered that our memories
are not video playback but are constantly
being rewritten and reinterpreted as new information
is processed. If something as huge as Hitler
being a good guy and America being the villain
was to come to light, the level of memories
that would have to be altered and be reinterpreted
would be insane. So much so that that many
could not cope with it and either kill themselves
or completely deny it in the face of evidence
as Turkey does about the Armenian genocide,
and Japan does about the Chinese sex camps
as their belief that their nation can do no
wrong is so strong they will never admit it.
I'm sure many of the German citizens underwent
sort of psychological mindfuck when they found
out that their great and beloved leader had
slaughtered millions of people in the concentration
camps. I remember the day Obama was elected.
Everyone was kind of in a daze. I couldn't
get my head wrapped around the fact that finally
no more Bush, and the this was the kind of
country that would elect a black man president.
I was elated but intensely overwhelmed at
the all the new information that came in as
the entire reality seemed to shift. I remember
seeing my boss who looked like he had just
lost his best friend that day, as his candidate
hadn't won and the evil socialists were now
in power.
Now imagine that you woke up tomorrow and
discovered that there was irrefutable proof
that your loving merciful, all-powerful, all-knowing
god who you thought of as a caring father
and a best friend, didn't exist. This was
a deity all of you memories were tied to and
you based your entire life around. Could you
really go through the mental stress involved
that would allow your mind to survive this
paradigm shift? Every single one of your memories
would have to be rewritten, all of those time
you thought you experienced miracles from
god would have to be rewritten as statistical
probablities. Every memory you had where god
held you and helped you get through a rough
patch would have to be rewritten as you getting
yourself through it. And every memory of a
good and loving a just god would have to be
rewritten as an evil blood thirsty vengeful
god once you actually read the bible without
bias and started reading what it actually
said. You social life and even marriage would
be ruined. Sudden paradigm shifts are literally
like a harsh hallucinogenic trip, the brain
starts running light years a second as it
tries to fit all of the new information in
place, much of the time not very successfully
as the new information begins harshly altering
everything you know about life. The brain
doesn't like this so it has many defense mechanisms
from it including the ones discussed in this
series such as rationalization. I have a feeling
a factor involved in the evolution of these
mechanisms was a way to prevent suicide when
the truth became to horrendous or overwhelming.
People like my mother who found religion in
their teen years or later have to go through
this kind of paradigm shift as they have to
analyze all of their actions words and deeds
as well as their views of their past memories
how they see the world. They now have a whole
new plethora of things that they have to study
and new mental construct they have to create
for themselves to be good according to that
religion. This kind of sudden change creates
the illusion that your holy book, in my mom's
case the bible, had mysteries that were unknowable
which she would never fully understand but
should study it for the rest of her life to
become more like god. It is also emotionally
and mentally overwhelming as your mind begins
to change. I however never had the paradigm
shift as an adult, I was raised in it. I knew
the bible like the back of my hand and all
the rationalizations one could use to defend
it. I walked, talked, ate and slept Jesus,
to the point that my Jesus like compassion
led my to become cripplingly depressed at
the thought of all the suffering people around
the world and the ones burning in hell for
all of eternity at the word of my all-loving
god. It was my fear of hell that kept me Christian,
my paradigm shift happened long before I became
an atheist, it just required the knowledge
and research for all the pieces falling into
place to allow myself gladly accept that god
wasn't there. It is said that persons over
50 have a ridiculously low chance of changing
their beliefs. This is because unlike young
people, with few memories, older people have
mounds of memories and mental constructs that
if the reality of the world was to ever force
itself through all of their psychological
defenses the numbers of memories they have
that would have to be changed would take the
rest of their life to reprocess. It would
be like learning have to walk all over again
as an elderly adult. The overwhelming vastness
of it all would probably make the majority
of them commit suicide as they have not had
the time or mental power to create new mental
constructs needed to processes and deal with
the reality change. When they claim that they
can't imagine how we can be happy without
a belief in god, they are showing that they
really couldn't be happy if they didn't believe
in a god. Another advantage that younger people
have over older is that we are in an environment
of constant change. Most of the older generation
now spent most of their childhood with little
and slow change in technology and then remained
as oblivious to it as possible unless they
were the type considered nerd in high school.
Change was a bad thing to them, it meant upheaval
and social disharmony. Our generation and
earlier are used to and have been raised to
readily accept change especially in technology
and discovery. Any major change, such as the
discovery of Ardi or homo florensis or the
fact that homo florensis is now classified
as a descendant of homo habilis is quite overwhelming
but thrilling as the pieces fall into place.
We gen xers and earlier will be much better
prepared for new technology than they ever
were, even as we get older. This is also why
gen xers and younger are good at learning
and understanding the impact of greenhouse
gas emissions and why older people see it
as balderdash. At this point in time I don't
plan on ever deconverting my mom and definitely
not my grandma as there is no way they could
deal with it emotionally. What I would consider
a triumph is if I could convince my mom that
hell didn't exist as I don't know how shes
mentally dealing with it, I think she may
think it is just a phase, and if I could make
her believe that gays aren't evil and trying
to convert us all to their agenda. Even better
is if I could get her to reject the old testament
as barbarism, and creationism as unscientific
but I doubt it. So remember, if you are talking
to a religious person, there are serious emotional
and psychological protection mechanism to
protect them from the harshness of a paradigm
shift, hopefully we can come up with some
mental constructs to help the transition for
believers to be a little less painful.
