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I was always told growing up that god has a plan and everything that happens has a reason
for it. “All things work together for good for them who love god, for them who are the
called according to his purpose.” I would hear stories like, oh god made me go through
that horrible experience so I could be of support to others, or god had me go through
that trying time so I could have the experience later when I really needed it. How about god
not give anyone hardships and then it wouldn't be needed at all? This is of course confirmation
bias because they'd hate to think that what they went through was not done for a reason.
Christians are obsessed with reason and purpose, there has to be an intelligent cause behind
why anything happened. While there is always a cause there is not always a reason. This
is a long held form of animism that still lingers in our advanced population. Instead
of being able to see that, no you went through something horrible and it was random chance
that it happened, they have to assume that some great or malevolent force caused it,
maybe god an angel a demon or maybe even a witch! I bet its that *** next door who
wont give me the time of day that cursed me, thats why all this stuff is happening to me.
See, the victim card is hardly a new thing in human evolution. Miracles and anything
else that they can't understand are brushed off as supernatural instead of looking into
the data or doing research to find out if it was from god, or a natural process. They
are also very unaware of the science research that is out their or even the concept of confirmation
bias and how the placebo effect plays into their very beliefs. This need for an intelligent
force is also behind almost any conspiracy theory because it is really easy to see conspiracy
in incompetence. Jean Piaget was a Swiss child psychologist
who categorized several stages of cognitive development. One of the stages is pre-operational
thinking that occurs between the ages 2 and 7. The are capable of many types of thinking
but they incapable of logically reasoning, or simultaneously considering many characteristics
of an object. The are also unable to reverse their train of thought. Once they are thinking
about something a certain way there is no changing it. They tend to be overwhelmed by
what they see, so when children see Santa in a book, mall or TV, Santa becomes real
to them. It doesn't occur to them to think about how Santa might get to every child's
house in one night or why these toys are the same ones they saw in the store last week.
Sound familiar? Fundies are stuck in the pre-operational thinking scheme when it comes to god. They
literally can't think rationally or reverse their direction of thinking for fear of going
to hell. They are trapped in an infantile limbo all their life because if they question
or begin to think for themselves they may face gods eternal wrath and punishment.
Children in this age range are also limited by egocentrism, with the inability to see
how others see the world, and that what is important to them must be important to everyone
else, which is why many Christians assume that everyone has the same beliefs and ideas
that they do, also call solipsism, and they just choose to do evil and not believe in
god. Black and white mentality is strong at this
age, it is called pre-conventional morality where consequences determine morality, and
behavior that is rewarded is right and that which is punished is wrong. God says he will
punish you if you do this, therefore it is bad.
This need for a reason and a purpose makes them assume that we humans would have no purpose
if not given by god. A youtuber I watched last year who's name escapes me used a very
good argument about our purpose. If a volcano shoots out a rock, and that rock for millennia
sat there, it has no purpose. The vulcano did not spew it out on purpose, there was
a cause. Now if you pick it up and find that it is good for opening coconuts you have now
given it a purpose. God did not make that rock for you to find using natural causes
so that you could open coconuts. You found it and gave it purpose. The same is true for
us in general. We have minds therefore we can give ourselves purpose. Just because were
weren't made doesn't mean that we don't have purpose to ourselves and the people around
us. The same is true about what appears to be
god putting you through a trying time so that you can learn from it. A Christian cant seem
to reverse their train of thought and look at it from the other point of view of, something
bad happened, I learned from it, and then the same thing happened and I was able to
avoid it our use my experience to help others. That would be giving themselves too much credit
because they are worthless people. They can't be called an animal or a monkey but they can
be called a sinner and a retard because god is so great that they shouldn't even try to
think. They are just too stupid compared to his ancient book of Hebrew folklore which
the majority of them have never fully read.