Conscious Religion - part 1
Published: Sat, 04/15/23
choice in our beliefs but the Jesuits had other ideas. “Give me the boy until he is 7 and I will give you the man.’ And the same applies to girls of course. Most of what we really believe is absorbed before we are 7 years old and never really questioned later in life.
Asch’s experiments in the 1950s and 60s demonstrated that the majority of people will just go along with what everyone else is saying they believe and prefer not to stand out by questioning the status quo. (See below for link) Of course there may be times when discretion is the best option for all kinds of reasons. The problem is that not questioning the status quo becomes an unconscious habit and utter nonsense goes publicly unchallenged.
We might like to think that that our beliefs have been freely chosen. However, early conditioning and an unconscious fear of standing out in the crown governs most of what is believed most of the time.
Unconscious religion cannot even be identified as ‘religion’ or asa chosen belief system. A fully accepted belief is just ‘what is’, or ‘normal’ reality. The very act of recognising that it is possible to choose our belief is a profound stage of enlightenment.
This is a difficult subject to write about. If the reader does not accept that belief is a personal and conscious choice then what I am writing makes no sense. The questioning of widely accepted beliefs may even be considered offensive. Indeed if you want to be acceptable in ‘polite society’, be employed in a well paid job, or just not be considered a weirdo/conspiracy believing/crackpot then never questioning the status quo is probably good policy. If that is your position then you probably never started reading this piece anyway. If somehow you did slip the net then please stop reading now, I don’t want to ruin your day. I am very aware that disturbing unconscious belief does make people very uncomfortable and quite often angry.
The Covid experience clarified the nature of belief for me. Indeed I found the ‘pandemic’ to be quite amusing at times. It was interesting to see how relatively easily and quickly a new belief system could be established on the majority of the population. A belief in an invisible and mysterious virus which had to be placated by practicing rituals of ‘social distance’, ‘hand washing with sanitiser’ and only meeting in ‘groups of six’. The virus was placated by wearing the symbol of a covering over your nose and mouth. It really didn’t matter what the ‘mask’ was made of, a proper medical grade surgical mask, or any old bit of cloth, just so long as Covid Believer made the symbolic act of covering the face in public. Then came the great sacrament of having your jab, twice, followed by boosters. The more ill the jab made you, the more protected against the virus you were. Publicly declining to participate in the cult of covid and
refusing to wear the symbol , ignoring the rituals, and declining the sacrament sometimes caused quite a negative reaction. Not that it caused me too many problems. I have a very high degree of freedom in my life. Work situations did put a lot of pressure on some people. In my case I just told my clients that I was not taking Covid seriously and if they wanted my services as a handyman then forget about masks, distancing, or jabs. I might have lost a couple of jobs, but privately most people were actually fine with it.
The fun part of Covid was realising what it feels like to not believe what is obviously patent nonsense. In a secular society traditional belief and practice has become a conscious choice. All my life I have had people telling me that it is crazy to believe in ‘sky fairies/the old man with a long beard/invisible friend’ etc and sharing tasteless jokes about Easter day being ‘zombie day’ in reference to the resurrection etc.
Then, along comes a belief in the ‘Covid 19 virus’ as the basis for a whole new religion and I was able to say. ‘Sorry, don’t believe in your imaginary invisible bug and I certainly don’t want to participate in your ridiculous rituals, wear your symbol on my face, and I am certainly not taking the sacrament of several injections. I had never before realised how much fun being a heretic, blasphemer, and unbeliever could be. One of the great experiences of my life was participating in the protest marches in London starting in April 2021. Hundreds of thousands of people, all marching together with one clear message. ‘We reject the Cult of Covid and all it stands for, we are free people.’ Strangely the media never reported on those gatherings, but I can assure you that they did happen.
Religion is used by those who have a will to power to control the world. Resistance starts with a conscious choice of what to believe and what to reject. However, to neutralise any weapon you have to understand how it works and religion is a two edged sword. Unconscious religion directed by the rich and powerful is the most effective tool of oppression and control that exists. Conscious religion is the path to true freedom, realising full human potential, and revealing who and what we really are. It is a simple choice.
regards
Graham
PS Link to explanation of the Asch experiments https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html
PPS Stavcamp 2023 will explore the themes of self-reliance, self-defence, and self-sovereignty including the essential question of what to believe? http://stavcamp.org/
Graham Butcher
21 Beaver Road
Beverley East Yorkshire HU17 0QN
UNITED KINGDOM
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