[Paleopsych] dying for beliefs

[Michael Christopher]

>>Why is considered such a virtue to "die for your 
beliefs?"<<

--It's not so much the beliefs, it's that compromising
them is felt as an intolerable shame, often because of
some other hidden shame which would be triggered by
the political loss of face. A surprising number of
Jihaadists and Christian fundamentalists went through
a "bad boy" phase in their youth, drinking and
engaging in sexual behavior condemned by their
religion. By blaming their own "sin" on the evil
Western imperialists or on Hollywood "liberal elites",
they are able to feel pure, and in the case of Islamic
Jihaadists, must die rather than back down in order to
maintain that feeling. Compromise with the enemy is
felt as a kind of rape, and it wouldn't be too
shocking to me if the most violent and uncompromising
"holy warriors" were not sexually abused as children,
re-enacting the psychological defenses they used to
seal off identification with the abuser. Hard to
prove, but it wouldn't shock me if that were the case.

Michael




		
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