Breathing anything in, without examining it, without thinking about it, without being conscious of what it is and what it does, is a mistake. While I agree with you (obviously :-) about religion- there are other things that people breath in that are just as dangerous- and frequently people take up all these things together, without ever realizing just what they have absorbed. I'd argue that nationalism (mindless nationalism) is absorbed in the same way religion is, and manifests in similar ways. Strong partisan affiliation- the kind people take up as if they were answering a call to war- that's the same mindless, reflexive type of thing.
Eric Hoffer put this all together many years ago (and before him numerous other skeptics, like Voltaire, said pretty much the same thing). True believers in anything, who surrender their critical thinking skills, or who never had them in the first place, are antithetical to the development of a more humane more reasonable human society. So it is, and so it will be- the only question facing humanity, is whether the true believers control it (in which case democracy, and the human species are doomed) or will more educated, more humane minds prevail? |
