<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Why do people even *have* the capacity to be infected by a "religious</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">mind virus?</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Do the projected environmental conditions affect the rate or depth of</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">the "infection"?</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Keith</span><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Capacity to deal with or even understand the idea of abstractions comes with the big brain. The capacity may be a normal curve. Somewhere down below the average person this ability gradually vanishes.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">To my mind, this ability is a large part of IQ. </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Those down the list have so much trouble with abstractions that to understand, they must objectify the ideas. So God becomes an old man or woman or snake or cat .................Heaven is a real place with gold streets. Martyrs get virgins as rewards. And so on. Not dead but differently alive. </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Along with all of this comes the inability to deal with contradictions between religions, between religions and secular thought. You have to admit that theology is a very difficult subject for most people. So they just reject all but one and hold onto it with all mental claws. Everyone else is, therefore, totally wrong and have to be forced to 'see the light'. Some, of course, don't force. Muslims do. Christians of several centuries ago do. I don't know of another religion that does.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">All religions that I know of are highly authoritarian, and so the average Joe or Aziz is rewarded for just accepting what the bishops and imams say. Heresy can be fatal. I don't have to tell you how bloody-minded the Christian church has been historically. </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">Real morons, those below 70 IQ, do very little what we call thinking. The 9-11 attackers were probably near average.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">A Freudian interpretation: being 'attacked' by heretical thoughts from one's unconscious requires putting up ego defenses. The conscious mind feels danger but is hardly aware of the source, though it gets hints of it. These may make the person angry with himself for having such an important conflict to deal with, and so projects it outward, not being able to admit the problem. Then the anger turns to aggression against those who are different - who, in fact, represent the heretical ideas coming from the unconscious. So here is where all the anger comes from and where it goes and who it attacks. I do not find this a totally complete and plausible interpretation, but it has its points. The person is attacking his own unacceptable unconscious ideas. He is not, then, the total believer he thinks he is. Quite the opposite. He has to do something very powerful to prove to himself that he is what he thinks he is. Martyrs are generally quite conflicted people. Viz St Augustine. </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">I am not sure what is meant by the second question above. Do you mean, like growing up in a religion?</span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">bill w</div><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 6:26 PM, Keith Henson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:hkeithhenson@gmail.com" target="_blank">hkeithhenson@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 2:46 PM, John Clark <<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at Dan TheBookMan <<a href="mailto:danust2012@gmail.com">danust2012@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
>> ><br>
>> It seems clear to me that the 02001 attacks were caused by the US's<br>
>> interventions in the Middle East.<br>
><br>
><br>
> In 2001 the USA had no soldiers in the Middle East and yet the 19 suicidal<br>
> hijackers hated the USA more than they loved life. Why? Because they were<br>
> Muslim dimwits who believed their particular variation of the invisible man<br>
> in the sky theory was the only path to truth and justice, thus the fact that<br>
> the USA was far richer and more powerful than they were could only be<br>
> explained if they made a pact with the devil. Or to put it another way, the<br>
> 911 attack happened because 19 people were infected by a religious mind<br>
> virus that made them both stupid and evil.<br>
<br>
</span>You don't take it far enough back, nor go into the evolutionary origins.<br>
<br>
Why do people even *have* the capacity to be infected by a "religious<br>
mind virus?<br>
<br>
Do the projected environmental conditions affect the rate or depth of<br>
the "infection"?<br>
<br>
Keith<br>
<br>
<br>
> John K Clark<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">><br>
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