from: http://fobes.net/r00rumorslitemain.html


....."I think I finally grasp that to a very high degree belief is biological.

In very basic and important ways the brain is an organ for belief. It turns ideas and experiences — and it's own interaction with itself — into feelings of realness that can hardly be denied. I think this is what Kant meant when he talked about the illusion of realism as the forming the most basic human response to the world.*


This is easy to grasp. Survival depends on making fast, firm decisions about what's really happening — or what we think is really happening. This allows us to take action. There's no time for uncertainty in life-and-death situations. And let's not forget that life itself is a life-and-death situation. For some people getting positioned for eternal life is just as dire and pressing as running from a lion. This goes back to Becker and "The Denial of Death."


PSYCHOLOGICAL


The brain is built to make belief — but in what? This is where myth, religion, culture and tradition — as transmitters of knowledge — come into the picture. They provide the software for belief. They provide the ideas and experiences the brain uses to generate specific beliefs and behaviors.


In general, the person who takes in Christian ideas and stories will become Christian. What it means to be a Christian — or a devout member of any belief system — is to see things with Christian eyes, think with a Christian brain and feel with a Christian heart. If we really absorb the precepts, we reprogram ourselves. Isn't that the very idea!


The biological brain is the hardware; the ideas, rules and stories are the software. This allows the system to operate in a certain way: Meaning and importance is assigned. Perception is altered. Conclusions and judgments follow. This all seems to be about "the truth" out there in the real world, but to an amazing degree, it's simply a matter of the brain interacting with itself using ideas and information to reach conclusions. And it all feels overwhelming real. As real as true can be.


DIVERSITY


Now we come to the incredible diversity of absolute belief. See the irony? The point of each and every religion is to believe. But each religion says: "You absolutely better not believe what the other guy says." There's nothing in this world that does a better job of promoting certainty — or showing up its weaknesses — than religion. Religion falls on its own sword without any help from philosophers or psychologists … if one will only look at the big picture.


I think we'll have a better understanding of belief if we stop looking at it as right or wrong and start looking at is as biological and psychological.


TWO MORE SIDE ISSUES


I realize there are exceptions to everything I am saying; I am speaking in generalities because I don't know of a better way to cover a huge subject in a brief message.


1. EDUCATION


On the one hand, the more education you get the more likely you are to escape the overwhelming biological belief-making power of the brain. This is not hard to understand. By taking in more ideas you simply have more views and more ways of making sense. Education gives you a broader vista and more choices in regards the ideas you use to form beliefs. It lifts you to a larger view. Education is like upgrading your software.


Some people have the ability to let new knowledge override the certainty-producing biological imperative. Socrates, David Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Emerson, William James and Joseph Cambell to name a few.


2. Damage

Psychological damage, on the other hand, inclines people toward more absolute belief and sinks them in certainty. Damage creates fear, uncertainty and wrecks self-esteem; certainty and absolute belief empower people, and it helps them manage fear.

It also erases uncertainty and boosts self-esteem. For the psychologically damaged person, absolute belief is a powerful form of therapy. It's almost a survival issue for such people. And so in regards absolute belief, damage is the opposite of education. It brings us down into a well of certainty.

I don't mean to come across like I know the truth about this. I am just sharing some recent thoughts on the subject."