Yes, good point.
The randomness and impersonality of Nature cry out for an explanation. In primitive times, people thought lightning was sent from angry Gods.
So people tend to project their needs/fears onto the canvass of impersonal Nature.
One could even make an argument that all of our mainstream religions have some similar weird aspects to them.
So no question, us humans still have Paleolithic minds...
As far as the "thinking mind is Ego/delusion" that is truly one of the worst tactics/ideas in the Cosmos.
Any group that is trying to supress your Critical Mind is very dangerous.
But some people just try to crush the Autonomous Mind as they seem to be afraid of it. Some folks i know, who are not into cults or anything, are not into Critical Thinking at all, and find it very uncomfortable. For instance, they want to believe in "Astrology", and if one shows them how Astrology probably works, they get very upset.
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skepdic.com]
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skepdic.com]
They might even say, "Coz, you are too critical, you have to learn to BELIEVE, and go with the flow, etc".
But in that case, the effects are fairly mild.
But then you get the ruthless cultists, who CONSCIOUSLY set out to disable your thinking mind. They do this as this is your ONLY defense against them.
It is as if you are hiking through the bush, and a psychopath (think Deliverance) comes up to you and pulls a knife on you. But, he gets a surprise. You pull out your knife as well, and show you can defend yourself rather nicely. So the robber smiles, puts his knife away, puts on a Saphron robe, and tells you, "knives are about your Ego, and Fear of life. Release your knife, let it go, give it to me".
So you give the Guru your knife, and then he pulls out 2 knives, and takes whatever he wants, your money, your body, your very life.
Whenever i meet these Jokers these days in life, they are in for a very rude awakening. If they try to make an assault on my Critical Mind, what they will find is something similar to anyone who has tried to wrestle a professional wrestler. (Not WWF!).
They will be mentally flat on their back, and pinned to the ground, unable to move, in about 3 seconds.
Like Victor Frankl said in "Mans Search For Meaning", the LAST freedom we have is our freedom to think, and to assign meaning to events.
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logotherapy.univie.ac.at]
Once you have Self-Reliance in your own Mind and Critical Faculties, and are confident enough to think and reason for yourself, then you can experience true freedom and sanity, and be relatively unaffected by the childish tricks of 99% of the cultists. (yet we all have our blindspots we need to watch out for..)
I call Critical Thinking, PsychoSocial Self-Defense.
Coz
Quote
Leopardgirl
I think everyone has their own ways of trying to cope with total insanity that is around us. So they develope bizarre ideas to create some semblance of order for themselves. Otherwise, maybe they'd go insane. It seems perfectly natural to me that this would happen. We're existing in chaos and we need something to hang on to.
I agree that we could all use more critical thinking.
It pisses me off to no end that I fell for that whole "the thinking mind is ego/delusion" crap. What a line.