[ExI] What is religion? What is god was The Meaning of

[William Flynn Wallace]

https://psysci.com/2012/11/10/credulous-personality-disorder/

OK, so I searched for it and here it is:  if we can't explain it, we call
it a personality disorder.  I am sure you are familiar with the nominal
fallacy.

This is a category of the diagnoses that is unfamiliar to most people or
people who have forgotten their psych 101.  Not neurotic, not psychotic,
just crippled in some way.  Nixon was said to have a paranoid personality
disorder.

Wikipedia says:  gullibility is more of a naivete' and maybe lack of
intelligence, whereas credulousness is a lack of using firm facts to
support your belief.

You're welcome.

bill w



On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 10:29 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

>  Scientology    keith
>
> This has always amazed me.  A science fiction writer tells his peers that
> he is going to start a religion and he does!!  And people believe it
> anyway.  I don't know if anyone has studied credulousness but I am going to
> find out.
>
> bill w
>
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 11:18 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 8:53 PM,  John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 11:24 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> More fundamental than the particular local set of myths is why people
>> >> have myths at all.
>> >
>> > ?Because their mommy and daddy told them those myths were real. Genes
>> that
>> > make children believe what adults tell them will do better than genes
>> that
>> > tell them to ignore adults because adults do have a lot of wisdom to
>> impart
>> > on their children.
>>
>> This kind of harmless meme spread down the generations has been seen
>> in many animals including crows.
>>
>> > And most adults don't have hallucinations but some do
>> > and they will tell their children about them and they will believe what
>> > they hear, and as adults they will go on to tell their children about it
>> > and they will believe it too. And so it goes.
>> >
>> > Scientology may be a bit different as many became converts as adults,
>> but I
>> > don't think Scientology will ever become a major religion that way
>> because
>> > there aren't a
>> > sufficient number adults that retain enough juvenile characteristics to
>> > seek a father figure. If a religion wants to get big it has to snag
>> people
>> > when their young, very young, preferably learning to talk young
>> > and before their critical thinking skills are developed.
>>
>> That may be true among some old line religions.  But I know of several
>> cases where the children called bullshit on the parents at young ages.
>> My take on how scientology works is in a 14 year old paper here:
>> http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/cults.html
>>
>> Sex, Drugs, and Cults. An evolutionary psychology perspective on why
>> and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people, and what might be
>> done to mitigate the effects
>>
>> As for this cult, it's down by around 90% from when they tangled with
>> the internet back in 1995.  My contribution was a lot less than the
>> South Park, trapped in the Closet episode, but I think I helped bring
>> them down.  Back in 1995 the media was terrified of them.  Now . . .
>>
>> http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a44458/ruthless-scientology-excerpt/
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>
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