We are about 2000 years from the creation of the religion called "christianity" and about another 4000 years from Judiasm.
Although, in our midst, we've create a new religion, one that is based around "factual" and "proven" evidence.
Sound familiar?
Let's explore our new religion, Science, and how it holds up against any of our previous ones.
Our New Religion - Science
Don't we love incredibly powerful beliefs based around fear?
The answer is yes. It has always been yes. Although using the term 'love' makes me a hypocrite in my writing (so I'll refer to it as a pole in polarity from now on).
We are mesmerized by the sublime. Anything out of the ordinary. That's the way our brains work.
Think about it, 1000s of years ago, if someone really did know where a food source was, we likely would align beliefs in order to get a piece of the pie (or dead animal in that case).
Today we often think of ourselves as much more holy than our ancestors, wiser in all ways, and of course intellectually prone to not getting tied up in fantastical doctrines like the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny (tell that to the people who so often share those memes claiming to give them good luck on Facebook).
The problem is in our strong willed beliefs - we've created another religion.
This one based on proof... As was every religion prior to the 21st century religion of Science.
Science is the ultimate way for us as humans to win an argument without using a belief structure, and in doing so, we quite literally end up using a belief structure.
Let's cover a few facts:
- Most scientific studies can't be replicated (1)
- Most scientists can't replicate their peer's studies (2)
- The Placebo effect works better than almost every single medication (3)
- Bias, of any sort, plays into the results of an experiment... Even double-blind placebo (4)
To me, that looks like the making of another religion. One based not on cohesive high vibrating non-polarity based evidence, but instead, on the bias, beliefs, and fear that needs to instill people to line behind someone else.
The worse part is, with most studies unable to be replicated by the so called "experts", we have an onslot of people allowing them to voice their thinking, their reasoning, and dish them the conclusions failed to be replicated.
It is with that understanding we need to understand what so many of the greats have talked about when it comes to belief in dogma, and belief in oneself.
The Ponderings of The Magnificent
Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy
Lesson 1: Think for oneself. If it looks like shit and it smells like shit... It's probably shit (even if the wise old man tells you its candy).
On the dogmas of religion as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarrelling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.
Thomas Jefferson
Lesson 2: Don't let others be the placeholder for your mind. Quarreling, fighting, burning, and torturing, is what our scientific based medical system has become. We are dying fast, living with more stress, and denouncing the medical establishments cred of "Do No Harm."
Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.
Buckminster Fuller
The obvious is only obvious in a certain reality tunnel. School (especially medical) seems to give you "obvious" solutions to complex problems. The problem is in believing the conclusion as told to you.
An Age Old Belief System - Everything is Known
Physics holds the greatest example of this.
Everything is the universe is well-know and documented.
Often physicists like to display the esoteric as a great hoax, something to be laughed at because of the idocracy.
Although, in my opinion, it is even more hilarious that physicists who mostly learned from the skewed perception of their schooling and their favorite physicist's equations then believe that nothing else can fit into the frame of mind of their current Belief system.
Knowledge, alike anything else, is a Belief system, because to know something is only to believe that the thing you know is true based on the connections that you've made.
It is inside of this paradigm, wherein everything is false until proven true that we run into a problem.
False Until Proven True
Similar to our current courts holding people guilty until proven innocent, we have created a thought paradigm not of openness to new information and experience but instead a form of denial.
Everything seems to be false until proven true.
"Is there a study for that bro?" Is the essence of many conversations. The problem is, as I stated above, studies are often wrong and not able to be replicated . They are based on bias and who funds what can be researched.
If you want to have fun, look into what hasn't been published and highlighted as not working... Most studies.
Most studies actually show the absence of evidence towards something than they do the evidence of absense.
They aren't showing something works, they are providing evidence for why it didn't work in a study. Yet the ones that make it out into the public have skewed copywriters working their marketing magic to make, even a failed study, highlight the emphasis of the drug or trial working for the purpose of monetary advantage.
Which paints the pictures for our current fake news reality tunnels and an idea.
What Is Truth? The True Truth
There is no objective truth.
If you've ever read any Dilbert, the creator Scott Adams, is a pretty brillant man. His most recent book is called Win Bigly detailing the rise and winning of Donal Trump during the last election.
Although, what Scott does best is highlight the ways in which Donald truly believes things about this world, different from others. His reality is a picture painted by someone else than what we typically see.
The same thing can be seen by doing a simple exercise.
Pull up three tabs. Cnn.com | Foxnews.com | Msnbc.com
What do you see? The same news story reported under different lenses. Each with it's own skew and ideas enhanced by the bias of the company and writer.
Truth is a fictional word. It implies that something is completely true. The truest truth.
Yet, the truest truth isn't something that we can figure out. Heck, if a molecule somewhere in the world moves slight, than what we thought was our truth dramatically changes.
That is why, looking at what occurs within our reality, we need our own lense to view things.
Not the skew of science or the skew of media, but a way to detach from the dogma and become unaffected by it. This allows you to build your mental model, without falling into the current paradigms and faulty structures that make up our world.
Understanding Neutrality and Higher Level Cognitive Processes
When it comes down to it, there are only a few ways to really become yourself.
Instead of becoming a conglemerate of media headlines and supposed truths, practicing neutrality and focusing on the higher level processes can drastically change your life.
For instance, is are private prisons bad or good?
Now this is where there becomes a response in one direction or another. Some people feel a visceral reaction, an emotional attachment in the yes or no. Others simply hold a certain set of beliefs that influence they decision, but don't pull on the fabric of who they are.
Yet, there is another way of looking at this all together.
Through the lens of neutrality.
Now, the may possibly be the hardest thing to do. To take a beleif or an event and honestly view it as thought it is well... It.
Prisons are prisons. They aren't good or bad they just are. This seperates your emotional belief system from your thinking.
From here you gain power over what you are able to do. You can honestly weigh ideologies, look at how they serve, play with mental models, and become both sides of the argument.
It is at this point that we reach these higher levels of thinking.
The person who can quite honestly put on the mask of those he despises (although, he likely wouldn't despise many people) has the power to be himself.
But how can one do that?
Exercises For Seperating Yourself From Dogma
1. Practice Neutrality
The first and easiest exercise to start right now is to practice neutrality.
By viewing almost all events as neutral we become better able to assess situations and grasp information.
Unlike the emotional vices that a majority of our beliefs are tied into, neutrality doesn't activate the emotional trigger switch which creates a negative or positive reaction.
By learning how to see everything as neutral, eventually you become able to further that into an even higher vibratory potential of loving all things that exist.
It definitely can sound strange at first, but over time it becomes a beautiful site to understand and love everything that happens.
2. Do Your Own Research
I talk about this a lot. I also wrote an article about it here (How To Learn Anything). That is what I am going to say about doing your own research.
3. Practice Counterculture Thought Processes
Most popular information and knowledge becomes "truth" because of prevelance.
That occurs in science as well as every other area.
Start to actively believe the opposite. This doesn't mean the opposite is write but it is a way to break away from the grips of the masses.
4. Find A Conspiracy Theory To Believe In
Okay we've talked a lot about not tieing beliefs to information and creating dogma in this article.
The problem is, we need to find out information on our own to understand the reason for dogma being created in a first place.
In a world where most are too lazy to sit down and do the hard research, the easiest thing anyone could do is just allow what someone else tells you to be truth. The government does this, doctors do this, and so does just about everyone else.
By finding a conspiracy theory and doing your own research, you become able to connect the dots, learn to question most information, and then break away from dogma.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://heightenedliving.com/dogma-of-science-our-new-religion/