Why the "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus" video is nothing but an example of cognitive dissonance & complete bullshit: - There's two main reasons for this new phenomenon in "Jesus Think" and both cause the uncomfortable, even "painful" sensations of "dissonance" in one's head as they become aware of or believe (consciously or subconsciously) two contradictory things. (SEE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance See also: "A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance" & "When Prophecy Fails" by Leon Festinger). The video "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus" (SEE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY addresses both problems for the believer.



1) People of (Christian) "faith" ... deep faith, those we call nut-jobs, crazies, Jesus zombies, etc. are people living in the 21st century with a 1st century mind and have no problem with that. Others, however, do have some problems with it to varying degrees and that is why we have "moderate Christians" , "liberal Christians" and everything else in between and around . These are people that realize the Bible and the religious beliefs built around it don't coincide with the modern world in which they live but are still desperate, to one degree or another, to keep believing its basic bullshit. They NEED a God, some kind of God, but can't justify having that God at the cost of accepting what they KNOW to be primitive-minded nonsense. Can't believe that zombies rose out of their graves and strolled around Jerusalem mingling with the living?... Know better than to believe that Jesus exorcised demons from a man and transferred them into a few thousand suicidal pigs?... Find it hard to swallow that Eve bit an apple and caused all mankind to be burdened from birth with the debt of sins they didn't commit ?..What's a desperate believer to do?!!

Reinterpret.... Dilute..... Bastardize.... Explain-Away... Reinvent.... Re-imagine .. do whatever it takes to bring that dissonance under control. Whatever lies you need to tell yourself, justifications you need to concoct, whatever creative picking & choosing need be done... just DO IT! (Yes, even if it all need be done subconsciously) This is why one can still believe in a "Holy book" that would have you stone a man to death for picking up sticks on the sabbath or stone ME to death for writing this to you.

Creating varying degrees of acceptance, from fundamentalist to liberal is like a multi-tiered sieve, a straining system... a bullshit filter. Every believer has a different point where dissonance is soothed just enough to allow them to keep on believing in THEIR "God".... THEIR "religion". But... that was then, this is now and the old ways are breaking down! The ever increasing pressure of dissonance caused by ever-increasing modernity and helped along, no doubt, by the "new atheism" has "upped the ante" and more drastic measures are in order.

Over the centuries God has gone from a being who walked around in Eden planting a garden and designing clothes for Adam & Eve in Genesis 2, actually the 1st written, to an increasingly transcendent being that lived in Heaven above the clouds in Genesis 1 written long after Genesis 2 to pump up monotheism, to one that (after we went into space and saw no "heaven") we moved even further out into the "Twilight Zone" ... somewhere "out there"... to one that keeps "movin' on up", so far that "He" is now "outside of space & time"! But now... now it's finally, time to completely remove "Him" from all traces of "His" creation (by man) altogether. History now shows, when it comes to God, prophets and psychics, the more vague the better. Believer's PROBLEM: "I realize that religion is bullshit, carries way too much baggage for me to defend.. I am starting to have doubts..... SOLUTION: Religion -*IS* - bullshit just like science and academic study is showing and all them god-damned new atheists are sayin'.... but that is OK because I don't need to believe any of that, that's all FALSE! That's all "people NOT God!!!! I'll just believe in Jesus! I'm not religious.... I have a personal relationship WITH Jesus! Hallelujah! Say Amen!



Problem #1 "solved".



2) There were no Christians prior to this generation. Every Christian living today.... ALL, found Jesus on their own, it was their OWN CHOICE to believe and their parents had nothing whatsoever to do with it. At least that's the way it would seem from my encounters with Christians on Twitter that refuse to admit that their parents had a LOT to do with it, if not EVERYTHING to do with it.

Statistically it is an almost GUARANTEE that of those that remain in faith it will be that of their parents and their grandparents. There are exceptions, converts etc., of course, but the former is true of the great majority. This is made blatantly obvious by a look at any World Religions Map http://tolearn.net/hum300/images/maps/world_religions.gif or, a U.S. Religion Map http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo200/religion/church_bodies.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/geo/courses/geo200/religion.html&h=643&w=886&sz=75&tbnid=S95I7OD9sOlSJM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=121&prev;=/search?q=us+religion+map&tbm=isch&tbo=u&zoom=1&q=us+religion+map&docid=XXGSVdciCEIRRM&sa=X&ei=k7MRT4WhOsLbtweW9YD7AQ&ved=0CCQQ9QEwAA&dur=940 and the very strong correlation between geography and religious "faith". Where, to whom and when you were born has EVERYTHING to do with it. "Location! Location! Location!" Religion is a virus of the mind. And it spreads from person to person exactly the same way as it's biological counterpart. (See: "The God Virus" http://www.amazon.com/God-Virus-religion-infects-culture/dp/0970950519 * "Virus Of The Mind" http://www.amazon.com/Virus-Mind-New-Science-Meme/dp/1401924697/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326560419&sr=1-1 ) These maps reflect "epidemiology"...... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology ...... NOT revelation.

Chances are great not ONE of these people of "faith" made any in-depth comparison of all world religions and only then made an educated choice between the many competing, cross-canceling "truth claims". For the greatest majority "faith" is a matter of chance NOT choice. MOST, "Christians" were born into a Christian family and from birth were loaded up with Christian memes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics ) and Christian anchoring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(NLP) ) AKA: Brainwashed! The problem arises when part of their mind recognizes the inarguable source or cause and effect of their "faith", in reality, their programming (not even going to get into here that one's "religiosity" or leanings toward belief have a genetic component) and the calamitous implications regarding their ILLUSION of "faith". How meaningful, really, is "faith" that has been installed in your mind? On some level they realize that the implications of this CLEARLY are that what they THINK is "faith" came to them in no more meaningful a way than that of which language they speak.What's a desperate believer to do?!!

From Twitter: "my parents R Catholic/Christians but tht not 2 do with me as adult n #Christ" ..... or.... "THEY.... (my parents)... had RELIGION, ... ** I **...... have a relationship with Jesus". In other words "What ** I ** have is totally different from what my parents had so how could I have possibly gotten THIS from my parents?!!! Why... your claim that I got my faith from my parents is ridiculous!!! Absurd!!!! I CHOSE MY faith of my own free will!"



Problem #2 "solved".





© 2012 The Bible Also Says... aka "BAS"







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