March 18, 2021
Religion is a very powerful force. It has a way of getting its hooks into someone and never letting them go.
A huge part of what makes religion powerful is fear. Believers fear hell, they fear upsetting or disobeying God, and they fear “sin.” All of these things keep them entwined deep within a belief system, despite that belief system being relatively easy to disprove with some simple logic and research.
But is fear the only hook that religion has? Could it be there’s another powerful ingredient? Yes. That powerful ingredient is Truth.
You may say, “What!? Religion and Truth don’t mix!”
They do, and they do so very powerfully. I’ll explain.
Let’s say you have a rat infestation in your home so you lay out some poison. To the rat, is the poison a foul-smelling, terrible-tasting, noxious substance? Of course not. If it was, the rat would avoid it. Instead, the poison is hidden within something that’s attractive to the rat.
When you go fishing, do you just throw your hook into the water and wait for the fish to bite it? No. You bury the hook into something the fish would want to eat. You use bait.
Religion does the same thing. Its bait is Truth.
Many Deconverted Men, after they leave religion, declare that the entire Bible and everything taught in the Christian tradition is a giant lie. But it’s not quite that simple. There is some Truth contained within.
There are some locations mentioned in the Bible that never existed historically. On the other hand, the Bible also talks about numerous places that existed historically and still exist today. Examples would be Rome, Jerusalem, and Egypt.
Many people in the Bible are mere characters and myths. On the other hand, the Bible also talks about people who did exist historically. Examples would be Julius Caesar and Nebuchadnezzar.
The Bible also contains timeless wisdom that still applies today, and it can be argued that if everyone adopted these things, we’d be a lot better off. An obvious example would be the Golden Rule.
Christian ideology puts forth all this Truth to make it easier for people to accept the untrue ideas such as the Resurrection, Adam and Eve, and Noah’s Ark.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed there’s a formula for this phenomenon:
Bullshit + Truth = Compelling Idea
If you try to serve someone an idea made up of 100% bullshit, their intuition is likely to kick in and they’ll reject it. However, if you inject some Truth into the bullshit, then their logical brain will detect the Truth and they’re much more likely to swallow the entire idea, including the bullshit, making the assumption that since the bullshit is connected with Truth then the bullshit is also true.
According to math, removing bullshit negates the formula because Truth ≠ Compelling Idea. Truth = Truth.
Why is this? As I stated here, Truth is often very, very far from compelling. Most of the time, Truth is hard. It isn’t what we want it to be emotionally. Accepting Truth almost always means we need to make a change in the way we’re living, or admitting that we were wrong about something.
Since most grown adults can pick out pure bullshit, the best way to get people on board with it is to spice it up with some Truth to produce a Compelling Idea. People are often more willing to accept and follow a Compelling Idea rather than Truth that stands on its own or bullshit that stands on its own.
Unfortunately, the formula for Bullshit + Truth = Compelling Idea is far more widespread than religion. You can see this formula being used in marketing, politics, culture, and society, just to name a few.
This is why the skill of discernment is so important. You need to develop the skill of taking an ideology, a group with an agenda, or even your own political party and be able to pick out the Truth from the Bullshit.
Imagine you’re panning for gold. You scoop up a pile of dirt with your pan, shake it (deconstruct it) until all the dirt falls through the holes and you’re only left with the gold.
When you do this, I promise you’ll uncover some Bullshit because no one group, ideology, religion, social movement, country, or political party has all the correct answers.
It’s so important to take the time to do this because the closer you bring yourself into alignment with Truth and the more bullshit you strip away from your thinking and beliefs, the better off you’ll be.