The Inconsistencies of Belief

My mother, a few years ago, decided that both she and I are autistic. We are both keen on logic and order in our lives and anyone that knows us will be frustrated with our persistence with certain, irrelevant and unimportant elements of life. Herein lies an issue, though; her autistic tendencies bolt at the concept of religion, whereas my unrelenting opinions plough on through everything spiritual and spooky (that’s right, I’m cracking out the alliteration).

Anyway, the nature of today’s long-awaited blog is the inconsistencies that the general public are willing to leave in their beliefs. It really rubs me up the wrong way as I have grown up expecting people to think logically and to draw similar conclusions to mine.

I have had the ghost and soul debate with many people (if you’ve still not read it, get on this one) and what consistently baffles me is the arrogance that people have regarding souls. The most commonly held beliefs I’ve had the displeasure of hearing are that, firstly, souls equal ghosts and, secondly, souls are held by the majority of mammals but most other life forms are, for some strange reason, devoid of this special accolade.

Others push this ridiculous claim further and hail the human species as the only creature on this Eden-like oversized asteroid to be blessed with the gifts of a soul. Both of these mindsets are, well wrong, and in need of addressing.

The question I usually pose is ‘where did souls come from?’ Strangely, this question rarely receives such a confident response and, if it does, it is irrevocably linked to God which, as we all know, is plainly farce and lies. The first scenario almost suggests the soul as a natural thing, as it is present in many mammals (notably, the cuddly ones kept as pets and the larger ones are seemingly more likely to have been gifted this ghostly inner-being than the less attractive aye-ayes and more enigmatic platypuses), and is recurring throughout the world.

Yet severe inconsistencies are suddenly made hideously obvious as large chunks of the animal kingdom are doomed to rot in the ground, whereas others have the good fortune to be able to reside in heaven or to simply hang around on this barely notable and very average rock for all eternity at a ghost. Or something.

The reason for leaving out other beings seems not to be one that can be discussed logically at great length as one might suggest a certain level of evolution (if you dare believe in such an atrocity that is so plainly faulted and constantly disproved by ignorant church-goers) might ‘earn’ a soul, yet everything on Earth is as evolved as necessary to survive at this very moment. When pointing out this fact, the inconsistent might widen their net to include all animals under their bracket of ‘souled’, yet an example of a coral polyp as an animal usually puts a stop to this bold claim.

The second claim of humans being special is a more widely held one, and is far more traditional. It has two major flaws. On the one hand it tells us that humans were put here by another being after being imparted with souls, we have since thrived and kept these souls. This option does, somehow, overlook the blindly obvious link we have to apes, the countless sources that tell us that humans have evolved from apes and ‘lower’ life forms over millions of years. The facts are ignored by the fearful as they cling onto their belief that we are special and that salvation will, one day, come.

The other option is that we did (which we certainly did) evolve from said beings and this was followed by a mystical entity pootling on over to planet Earth, shoving a sprits down every human’s throat, then lying in wait for any new humans to be made, then springing on all of those and continuing this peculiar act to this day. This would not only be a ridiculous thing for any ‘higher being’ to do, but also would beg the question; why us? We have evolved intelligence, yes, but we are by no means the masters of this planet, we are a mere spec in the history of the universe, life has existed before us and will supersede us far into the future.

The biggest issue I take with it all is the assumption that my life must be scary because I don’t believe in ‘anything else’. Why would my life be sullied by the knowledge that life on Earth is a miracle in itself, the chances of life evolving to the stage where it can shape the atmosphere of the planet, thus allowing higher life forms to develop and take hold, slowly and systematically (not randomly, like the gods decide to do things) colonising a planet that I now live on are unbelievably tiny. This wonderful rock is home to some of the most amazing things that I have ever seen. The sheer diversity of life that has cropped up on this mediocre planet in a mediocre position in a mediocre galaxy baffles me. Evolution is the most beautiful systems in nature and it is irrefutably perfect. The faults that belong to the farcical tales of creation lead only to failure in practise.

I am utterly in besotted with this planet, and the arrogance that it, and its contents and spoils, belong to us is a terrifyingly large hurdle in the face of convincing the ignorant that this is all we have, and our continual irresponsible behaviour will, inevitably, lead us to doom and could, potentially, wipe out life as we know it, as the effects of our brief spell on Earth will, no doubt, be felt long after we have all gone. Leaving the astounding haven we dwell in scarred indefinitely by man’s keenness to accept that life was created around and for man.

 

Well that quickly got out of hand.

'Man is an immortal spiritual being'

Today I was walking into town to buy some fudge when a large figure loomed into view. His chunky hands grasped a clipboard as he made eye contact and approached. The last encounter I had with one of these people culminated in the charity worker overflowing with happiness and spontaneously hugging me, so I thought I'd spare a moment. My assumption that he was a charity worker turned out to me wrong.

'I'm doing a survey', he bugun, before asking me 4 questions; my least favourite characteristic about myself, my ideal job, my most desired state of life and the most important of the previous three. My suspicions begun to rise as these questions were rather probing and personal. He then asked me if I had an interest in the human mind and self-improvement, my fascination of mentality and the human brain got the better of me as I offered an interested 'yes'.

Now I was trapped, he invited me to take a look at a book, upon my agreement he invited me to then follow him. This, as a student not looking to spend pointless money, was not going to be anything I was interested in, but I had to follow now. He lead me up two flights of stairs to a small room, already with a women who'd trapped a couple of other unsuspecting fools. I now had no idea what was going to happen to me, my overactive mind rolled out the possibility of this being a ruse to mug or kidnap me, but alas, the reality was rather more mundane...

He sat me down infront of a machine that looked like a lie detector, but this contraption was, unfortunately, never address or used during my stay. I was handed a piece of card - the blurb of the infamous book - obviously, I was not trusted to hold the precious book itself. This book was entitled 'Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health', a fairly standard name for a piece of mental health literature - other than the blatently made up word of 'Dianectics', of course.

http://www.bridgepub.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/gcui_product_feature//sites/all/themes/gold_master/product_images/en/dianetics-modern-science-of-mental-health-hardcover.jpg

After a few minutes of discussing the subconscious and its effect on human activity he brought up the elephant in the room. This spiel was all leading up to the crux of the matter; the man I was speaking to was a Scientologist. He broke this to me by asking 'what do you know about Scientology?', I couldn't help my allow a wry smile cross my face at the mention of the 'religion'.

My pitiful knowledge of the topic extended as far as Tom Cruise and other Hollywood celebrities partaking in it, I could not tell him more as I knew no more. So he filled the gaps.

Scientology was developed by a man called L. Ron Hubbard, graduate of George Washington University (they must be proud) and, supposedly, applies science to the idea of religion and spirituality. My friend, whose name was Paul, told me that there is large amounts of scientific data telling him that spirituality and scientology addresses the facts of life and is the correct path. I quickly asserted my certainty of copious amounts of data pointing to the lack of spirituality and poppycock that is Scientology. Here is a picture of the great man. I'm not sure I'd like a religion masterminded by someone who looks like a Bond villain.

http://snarkfood.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/l-ron-hubbard-3.jpg

I have spend the past hour or so looking into this further on their website - http://www.scientology.org/- and I have learnt a little more on the subject. So I now feel far more entitled to attack the rambling of the madman that these people idolise.

I avoided using wikipedia, as people can write their opinions and present them as fact, so I have only referred to the scientology website itself. So I can only assume that every thing I've read there is exactly as these people believe.

First of all, they address the concept of who you are, they have decided to name this 'Thetan' and try to validify this by using a greek letter to represent this; Theta - 'which has long served as a symbol for thought or spirit'. In this section I was told that I could not possibly be my body as 'if you have your appendix removed, does your personality change? Are you any less you? Of course not'. The body is seen as merely a case in which Thetan moves about and resides in. The imagination of an impossible entity that is inherently you, rather than the physical, touchable and very real reality of the human form, is utterly laughable - but this idea is held by most religions, so this seems to be more an attack on spirituality - I'll address Scientology itself now.

The next video I was instructed to watch told me of the '8 Dynamics' - 8 parts of life that one should aim to survive and pass through on the path to enlightenment. I was informed towards the end of the video that Scientoloy has 'workable technology for you to increase your survival across all Dynamics.' How fortunate that they might have developed the perfect technology to aid you in your quest to address every part of live.

http://www.whatisscientology.org/html/Part02/Chp04/img/pg0152_1.jpg

Next, the website described the 'Emotional Tone Scale'; a generic booklet - that Paul tried to flog to me for £3 - that outlines all the different types of people in the world, the way they react to situations and the possibility to predict how they will behave in the future. It, apparently, takes 'the mystery out of human behaviour'. So, it seems, Scientologists fail to recognise the complex web of the human mind - the impossibly convoluted thoughts and actions of humans thanks to every person they've met, experience they've had, or thought they've conceptualised. It generalises its followers, as well as non-believers, and claims to predict the actions that anyone will take.

Another video I watched had the 'lie-detector' I mentioned previously. This exciting machine turns out to be an 'E-Meter'. I presume it works exactly as a lie-detector does, monitoring electrical impulses, sweat glands, temperature, etc. But in this instance, it is used by an 'Auditor' to help you find your memories and blunder your way from spiritual blindness to spiritual enlightenment. The auditor, I was told, does not give any information, all he is required to do is listen and use this machine, but he does needs 'years of training' in order to complete this very complex and important task of sitting and not repsonding.

http://anonymousradioshow.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/scientology_e_meter_blue.jpg

One other video presented to me told me that without love for every single other human on the planet 'there is only sorrow, hatred and despair'. How very mellodramatic, but I have a particualr hatred for certain individuals in this world, and I've managed to escape a world made up of solely sorrow hatred and despair. I must be some kind of superhero or meta-being. How can a mere mortal be happy when he dislikes something that is purely abhorrent? Who knows? Not me, that's for sure.

The overall feeling I get from this belief is that one cannot live one's life alone. It's necessary for us to have Scientology to be constantly probing into our actions and telling us how to react to other people and how to act as a result of other people. I found it deeply patronising to think that these people believe that I need to subscribe to their gibberish in order to act properly around others and to sustain relationships properly.

This has been another fairly lengthy and potentially boring blog. I hope it's been interesting enough for you, and hopefully I'll find something a little more whimsical to talk about soon.