Sometimes a phrase in a book stops me in my tracks. Today, I read ' I'm not comfortable with belief ... It's too lazy.' That's not something I've ever thought about but it certainly suggests some implications.
Neuro-scientists have been doing a great deal of work in this area and have come up with the understanding that the default position of the human brain is to believe what it sees or hears. It takes a lot less energy to accept something than to disbelieve it and the brain will not expend any more effort than it has to.
Since the brain tends to accept ideas rather than reject them, those raised in cultures that promote religious indoctrination of children at a very early age—long before they are taught science, if taught science at all—are more susceptible to holding fundamentalist beliefs later in life. The Jesuits are famous for saying, Give me a child before he is seven ...'
And it's why we need to start teaching critical thinking at an early age, and why teaching STEM subjects is so vital. And why the teaching of the pseudo-science, Creation Theory is a travesty of education. You might as well have Tooth Fairy Science or the Science of the Santa Claus Tradition.
We're too polite and respectful today and it will eventually bury us. We should be calling out the Stone Age beliefs of major religions, including Islam and Christianity. It's appalling that our whole future is put at risk by madmen who base their teaching on 1st century writings, and it's disgraceful that, in one of the world's most advanced technologies, the United States, Creation Science is given equal weight to Evolution as an explanation of how the world is developing. And it is ridiculous that Australian tax-payer dollars help to support schools which promote teachings which are little changed from the dark ages.
And, sadly, scientists are marching today to protest cuts to their funding, while every tinpot pseudo 'church' is entitled to tax-free status.
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