The Cornered Cultist Psychosis

Though I don't know if there is a connection or similarity between the 2, the recent mental breakdown of Jason Russell, the creator of the Kony 2012 video, reminds me of what will almost certainly happen on a large, or VERY large and violent scale when or if greater scientific knowledge of the absolute proof kind is introduced to the Earth human public. Those who are too strongly vested in mere flimsy-flaky BELIEFS will react negatively to undisputed facts. Never mind logic and reason, the crap hitting the fan will be best defined when the various types of "faithful" won't even be able to blind faith their way out of the new givens. It's the most unfortunate price that will most unfortunately have to be paid for too many being at least essentially OWNED by mere BS. We have to tear down to rebuild.

And such psychosis won't (or wouldn't?) be limited to those who are religious by the traditional definition, but to a substantial portion of those who live and breathe the existing political world.

It would also probably create a whole new religious dilemma as well. If aliens were publicly introduced, you'd have various beliefs spring up around them.

1: They're from another world and they're good, so we should accept their help.
2. They're from another world and they're bad and want to hurt us or don't care about us.
3: They're spiritual beings and they follow God.
4. They're spiritual beings and they're demons who serve Satan.

However, I don't think it would cause such chaos and panic as predicted. I think most people would just accept their existence, and I think alot of people would even give up their views and convince themselves to jump on the "I always believed" bandwagon in order to look wise and fit in.

reply to post by trollz


I tend to believe the beings would be smart enough to present themselves in the proper way. If they're truly benevolent enough, they would make it beyond crystal clear that they are not "gods" to be worshipped.

Originally posted by Lightworth
reply to post by trollz

 

I tend to believe the beings would be smart enough to present themselves in the proper way. If they're truly benevolent enough, they would make it beyond crystal clear that they are not "gods" to be worshipped.

Unless they want us to believe they're gods. Isn't that what happened in the ancient aliens theory? Besides, no matter how they present themselves, people will still believe all kinds of things.

reply to post by trollz


Good thing I've never claimed to be in possesion of a crystal ball, nor have been cynical enough to outright assert what the majority of humanity will choose concerning sense versus nonsense.

reply to post by Lightworth

what will almost certainly happen on a large, or VERY large and violent scale when or if greater scientific knowledge of the absolute proof kind is introduced to the Earth human public

What do you mean, will almost certainly happen?

According to your avatar, you've been an ATS member since 2007. How many times have you watched religious obsessives, woo merchants, pseudoscience buffs and crank economic and racial theorists go ballistic when their fantasies are subjected to rational analysis here? The cooler and more courteous the analysis, the angrier and more hysterical the denunciatory response. Watching these people make raving idiots of themselves – and politely urging them on – is one of the keenest pleasures Above Top Secret affords its more sophisticated members.

On a more serious note, the syndrome you describe is already well advanced in modern society. The urgent project of universal education, which all properly constituted states regard as compulsory in order to produce citizens who can cope with the demands of modern life, is failing; around the world, the march of science is leaving the average citizen behind. The result of this has been a great rise in the popularity of antiscientific modes of thought and widespread resentment of scientific 'authority', which many people (especially ATS members) seem to perceive as coercive in the same way legally constituted authority is coercive – which, of course, it is not.

Many who reject scientific truth regard scientific authority as illegitimate. They do not realize that science only has authority over the realm of knowledge; as far as that realm is concerned, the authority of science is simply the authority of truth, and it is absolute. But science has no actual coercive power; it cannot even make people face facts.

To see how some segments of the ATS public respond to claims of scientific authority, visit this doomed thread.