The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth by solomon schimmel

Author:solomon schimmel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2008-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

I turn now to further discussion of reasons for the tenacity of unreasonable beliefs and of psychological mechanisms that support such beliefs.

CHAPTER SIX

Acquiring and Protecting Unreasonable Beliefs

I HAVE EXAMINED some of the manifestations and features of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim fundamentalism, especially in the sense of belief in the divine revelation of a sacred scripture and its absolute and ultimate authority, not only for the believer, but for all mankind. In the course of doing this we have seen the lengths to which fundamentalists go to convince themselves or others of the truth of their beliefs, and some of the ways they protect their beliefs, and themselves, from empirical and logical challenges. To me and to many others, their beliefs are very implausible or irrational, and to guard their beliefs, they invoke far-fetched and inconsistent arguments and proofs. I would now like to expand upon my earlier discussions and present more systematically some explanations for why fundamentalists cling so tenaciously to their apparently unreasonable beliefs, and the way their minds work as they defend them.

Fundamentalist Jews, Christians, and Muslims share more than they would probably want to admit in terms of their motives for belief and their belief-protection strategies. However, there are differences between the three groups of Abrahamic fundamentalists, in terms of their specific beliefs and their motives for and defenses of them. Each group needed to be understood in its particularity when trying to explain its religiocognitive map and religious behaviors, which is why I devoted separate chapters to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

However, just as there are similarities between the three religions with respect to their views about the relationships between faith, revelation, and reason, so, too, there are commonalities with respect to motives for beliefs and defenses of them. In fact, as we shall see, there are similarities between the structure and defenses of belief systems of Abrahamic fundamentalists and the structure and defense of belief systems of nonliterate, animist tribes studied by anthropologists. There are similarities as well in the structure and defenses of secular ideologies such as orthodox communism and orthodox Freudianism. Marx, Freud, and Mao, and their works, were treated by some ‘‘believers’’ with a reverence and were ascribed an authority that was akin to fundamentalist religiosity, and in some instances with a passionate fanaticism as well. Contradictions within their works were reconciled, and there was always an explanation available within the conceptual scheme of these secular ‘‘faiths’’ to explain any apparent logical or empirical challenge to their assertions or predictions. I will, however, not be examining these secular ideologies, because the focus of this book is on the Abrahamic religions.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.