Religion, Logic, and Abused Children. An American crisis

Programming your Computer versus Brainwashing your child. The computer and the brain are only as good as the input into them. Neither of them have an innate ability to reason logically, without data input.

This article refers to the perils and pitfalls of 'brainwashing' our children before the age of reasoning sets in.

When controversial, conflicting, and confusing data is imprinted on the child's mind before the age of reasoning, damage to the psyche can be anything from mild to extreme. This extreme is portrayed by the destructive fanaticism of the terror group {ISIS} that is being played out in the middle east today and its obvious destructive damages on the global society as we know it.

This psychosis is a product of the data that was implanted on the brains of those once innocent minds when they were children.

These conflicts cause emotional turmoil, psychological scars, a life time of torment and extreme sociopath or psychopathic behavior in the most vulnerable children.

These results should be lessons learned on how to create a bigot, hater, schizophrenic, sociopath, psychopath, or simply one that only 'schleps' through life without purpose.

These are some of the direct results caused by the 'adult' child tormentors that do so in the name of religion, sanctioned by governments, and approved by their perceived God of wrath.

And, yet, society protects the very right to do so by edict (the blanket policy of 'freedom of religion"). This in itself is a true oxymoron. Along with "freedom" comes responsibility that is never addressed when that responsibility is exploited and abused.

A continuing bastion of extremism willingly introduced into our society from generation to generation, based on an ancient concept of the "fear of repercussions from an invisible 'god', for not doing so" is reprehensible and inexcusable.

This is the very concept of insanity - doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome each generation. Hatred and intolerance can only beget more hatred and intolerance.

How we got where we are today, can be learned by seeing the impact of religious brainwashing through this historical acceptance of superstition, fear, and unfounded guilt.

Its appeasement is being played out in an effort to please the gods of wrath that children are taught to fear. It is inherent in every named religion on this planet.

When we purchase a computer it is like a blank slate. It is just a machine that can store knowledge. It has no intrinsic good, no intrinsic evil. It cannot think on its own. It has no emotional capabilities and cannot rationalize in the abstract. That is to say, it cannot make a decision based on common sense. It can correlate facts and remember those facts (store them in its "memory banks"). It can access them and recall them in the exact form that they were stored in their memories, without any emotional influences that could alter those facts to influence their recall in a distorted manner to suit a particular purpose.

When a child is born its mind/brain is like a blank slate. It, too, can store data. It has no intrinsic good, no intrinsic evil. It cannot think on its own. It does however, possess some things a computer does not. It learns early in its life (from its programmers) that certain "emotions" or "behaviors" will display, or elicit, reactions that are either positive or negative,derived from the input of those programmers of its "memory banks". It also learns other things that a computer is unable to assimilate; such as, fear, guilt, peer pressure, and consequences of non-conformity with their programmers input. These human brain programmers are more diverse than that of a computer's mechanical brain. The data that is input in a human child's brain is influenced by family, school, T.V., peer pressure, religious leaders, etc.., anything that touches or affects the child in any way.

The computer has no capacity for emotion, no love, hatred, meanness, guilt, fear, or need to please its user/ programmer (s).

Once the child learns fear, guilt, love, hate, honesty, dishonesty and selfishness it rapidly acquires the abstract use of these emotions; how to avoid them, how to display them, and ultimately, how to exploit them, to get what they need or desire, from manipulating them in any form to attain that desired result. Usually something selfish and self serving.

Now, compound this with years of repeated inaccurate and illogical input by the personal beliefs of their parents, conflicting input from peers with a different slant on their own learned input with subtle differences. Add their teachers' versions of the truth, and religious fairy tale versions of historical facts, coupled with threats of some unknown punishment of untoward consequences by a perceived invisible "creator" that will admonish or punish us for our most basic thoughts and doubts about the voracity of that fairy tale. And we become primed for extreme conflicts within the mind.

A child that has been taught that it is OK to think and question beliefs of others, and rationalize their thoughts based on reason and logic, instead of fear and guilt, can indeed grow into adult hood and lead a happy and productive life.

A child whose mind is filled with terrifying, frightening, threatening, rigid, conflicting beliefs is more apt to develop mental and emotional problems later on in life.

Everything put into a child's memory banks has a double meaning attached to it.

This "double entendre" leads to ambiguity of meaning that lends itself to more than one interpretation - with at least one of them being more risque than the others)

Examples: help others, but take for yourself first; do not hurt another person, unless you can benefit by it, or it is simply a "pay back".

Once the child learns the nuances of how and when to manipulate the emotions that control others, they can learn how to use that knowledge to become a wealthy business tycoon, religious leader, lawyer or politician. The choices are endless. The rewards are boundless. They can gain great wealth and power to exploit any venue for their own pleasure.

What we program into our computer is reflective of who we are as a person. Therefore, what was programmed into our brain is a reflection of our surroundings during our formative years. The differences being that the human mind does have some innate qualities that the machine does not. These are basic instincts of survival, the instinct for nourishment, safety, and for sexual needs. Along with these basics comes the hunger associated, not only for (food) but with possessing material things; and the fear associated with the survival instinct (better known as flight or fight instinct); and intimacy and love (associated with the sexual needs); and lastly the instinct to protect and nurture our partner and offspring.

All the other stuff is innocuous at best and learned from those who are teaching the child. What we are taught is directly influenced by the experiences of our own teachers, therefore, their shortcomings, disappointments, pain, cynicism, and hatred that they previously learned through their own experiences, are passed on to the child they are teaching. But sadly, not necessarily logical in nature. The deeper their pain, disappointments, and loss, the more importance they put on its imparting to us, the child. And so it becomes the child's reality as well.

A computer receives the input and makes no judgment on that input as to right or wrong, good or evil. A child is taught what the parents/teachers perceive as wrongs or rights without being taught the art of differentiating between them through logical reasoning.

When the age of reasoning sets into a child's mind and they become totally aware of their "self", it is, or can be, overwhelming to realize that they are completely alone with their own thoughts. If not taught to rationalize the input, and place the information in its proper perspective, deep conflicts can be borne and become too great for an individual to control and they will become unable to put that information in its proper perspective at all. So when a traumatic situation arises, the reaction to what ever seems a threat, can go in many directions. Often just lashing out in anger without the basic understanding that sometimes bad things just happen, and becoming complacent with feelings of helplessness and defeat leading to great stress and anxiety. But most frightening of all, simply ignoring logic and embracing the fairy tale stories they were taught as fact by their religious benefactors. This way they can refuse to take any responsibility for the problems surrounding them, and simply rely on their enigmatic God to deal with their problems for them.

Self actualization is another trait found only in thinking, sentient beings capable of using common sense to look at the problem, understanding its origin, considering the outcome based on how it is dealt with. Facing the consequences of each possible response, to resolve the problem, and in choosing the solution with the most positive, or beneficial, outcome, is a learned behavior based on what the child has been taught about logic or common sense. Self awareness, does not in itself, equate with logic or good old common horse sense without first teaching the concept of abstract thinking to the child.

by d.william