I was raised an Evangelical and was a pastor for many years so I understand a little about how this indoctrination works. In order to understand we will compare our minds to a computer and how a computer works. They are very similar. This article is not to bash the intentions of organized religion but an attempt in the spirit of Martin Luther to question how it works to see if it's a healthy spirituality.
The thing that shocked me out of my trance was I realized I was living a fear based life. I had to do a lot of introspection and honest examination of my motives and what beliefs were the main drivers in my life. Jesus said you will know things by their fruit. As I examined the fruit of my life I realized I had a very confused moral compass.
The main driver in my thinking was not the love of god but the fear he would torture me for not submitting to a system of arbitrary beliefs. I spoke about the love of god but inside it was my belief and fear that god would torture me for guessing wrong that drove me the most.
I never realized my confused moral compass caused me to do the opposite of my intentions. I preached about a god of infinite unconditional love then I would place conditions on it and I didn't even notice I was doing it. Instead of truly loving people all I did was go around judging people and hoping they had the correct set of arbitrary beliefs to avoid being tortured forever.
I was so fearful of being tortured by my creator that I didn't realize how I sounded to the world around me. I would tell everyone god is love but in the back of my mind I feared god would torture these people if they didn't subscribe to my same beliefs. The concept that a god who is the very definition of love will torture you for not believing correctly is a contradiction in and of itself. Fear of torture would not allow me to reconcile this in my own mind.
So how does this fear based mind control work? I pointed this out in a former article I wrote called The Merger of Science and Religion
Religions historically have been used as a mechanism to control the masses. When you think about our minds in terms of how computers operate it's easy to see the manipulation tactic. With hacking the basic idea is to fool a person into thinking you're some kind of authority. Then access is granted to whatever you want on the hard drive. With religion they use what I call the god file. The ultimate authority that cannot be questioned. Any idea presented under the god file is by nature not questioned. This causes any computer to be prone to viruses.
Then what they do is lock you in with fear of questioning by telling you that you will be punished in the afterlife if you question. Questioning and critical thinking is our antivirus. That's why religious people often act with a seemingly confused moral compass. The religious mind refuses to question dogma. They seek to hold up ideas no matter how far fetched they are. In comparison the scientific mind or the mind that has a healthy antivirus seeks to deconstruct ideas so the errors will be discarded and truth enthroned.
As a hacker you look for back doors to enter computer networks. Religion is a back door to control someones thinking. The back door is where you program your victim to not question certain concepts. Believing the bible is infallible is a major back door for hackers to get in a use fear based mind control. Then the hackers lock you into the belief system by getting you to think god will torture you if you think any other way. It's time to take your mind back from the manipulators if you find yourself in the position I describe.
So what is the key to unlocking yourself? Overcoming fear by fearlessly and logically questioning core beliefs. Eliminate contradictions and start loving unconditionally instead of judging as religious indoctrination will get you to do. The remedy for judging is to seek to understand whatever it is you are tempted to judge.
I would love to discuss it further in the comment section below. Let's get humanity to the next level outside the realm of religious control and indoctrination.
