Envision getting out of your car and going to an ATM to take out money for the weekend. You are excited about meeting up with your friends and having the weekend off. You may be going out to a club with your friends, or possibly to the casino for a little fun gambling. If you are older, you might be going to one of your favorite restaurants. You feel extremely happy and excited and looking forward to having some fun. As you go to the ATM, you are by yourself and there is still a little bit of light out as you walk up to withdraw some money. You have been to this bank many times before and feel comfortable because you know the neighborhood well. You put in your card, pin number, and type in the amount of cash you are looking to withdraw. The machine dispenses your money, your card comes out. You turn around to go to your car and there are 2 heavy set masked men staring you in the face, both holding guns to your head. They yell at you in deep,loud and scary voices demanding money. Your life flashes right before your eyes and your heart sinks to your feet. After giving up all of your money, they turn around and get into a car that you cannot remember and drive away.
At this moment you can’t even feel relieved that they are gone because even though your eyes saw them get into the car and leave, you are so terrified that you don’t want to move. You are shocked, adrenaline has hit your body and your heart triples in beats. You have been robbed at gunpoint and you are just starting to allow your brain to function again. As you begin to reconstruct the terrifying moment, the incident seems to have taken place over 5 minutes but in reality took just 20 seconds. As the days go by after this event you feel more vulnerable than you have ever felt in your life. Nothing like this has happened to you before. You have nightmares about the event and have trouble walking outside at night alone. You become paranoid and begin to look around everywhere you go, expecting someone to rob you again. This event, although it has only happened once in your life, seems like it can happen again at any moment.
You start feeling as if you need to be protected from this happening again. Your mind begins to submit to your fear and you find yourself needing something that will make you feel that you are in total control of your life as your brain is chaotically reliving this moment and expecting it to happen again at anytime. You decide to arm yourself with a gun so that you can feel protected. Although you have never handled a weapon or shot one in your life, you go purchase a gun. Your confidence is lifted when you speak to the gun owner at the local gun store. After some gun lessons and classes, you get your permit to carry the weapon. You have become comfortable with this gun and its power. You have never been a gun owner before and have never thought you would ever need one. As a matter of fact, you have always been terrified of guns, but you feel you need one to protect yourself. After all of the trips to the gun range, you cannot imagine how your life was without this gun. You feel a sense of power, protection, and even urge friends and family that they need to own a gun because they might find themselves in a similar situation. You cannot even remember a time when you didn't own a gun and cannot believe that there are still people that walk around without one to protect themselves.
Now imagine growing up and being around guns your whole life, Your father owned guns and taught you how to shoot when you were very young. He taught you how to shoot BB guns and as you became older, you began to shoot real guns. It was a part of your life as a child and now as an adult you own many guns. You can handle them, shoot them, take them apart and clean them. The handling and use of a gun is like driving a car. You have now taught your children to shoot and how to respect guns. Although no one in your family or yourself has ever been shot, you know that as long as you respect the weapon and teach your kids to respect them, nothing bad will happen. If something bad happens, at least the gun will protect you.
Picture yourself at work one day and getting a call that there has been an accidental shooting at your house and one of your kids has been hurt. Your heart sinks as you rush to the hospital with anxiety. Self doubt begins to take over as you think about how this could happen. You taught the kids how to handle and respect guns but this unfortunate accident still happened. Arriving at the hospital, you learn your child is deceased. Your world comes crashing down on you. All your life, the very thing you have learned to respect and thought was for your protection, is now responsible for the loss of one of your children. You are now effected personally from this weapon and want nothing to do with any weapons. You have a new insight into the very weapon you have been handling and using your whole life. Now the sight of a gun makes you cringe and you don’t even remember how you spent your whole life around them. Your view and insight changes altogether and now you want to spend your life discouraging people from owning and using guns.
This can be said for religion. The first example of someone who never was comfortable with guns is the same as someone who grew up in a way doubting and questioning God and religion. His rational thinking ended as soon as a tragic event occurred to him that made him feel vulnerable. He succumbed to that vulnerable state and sought protection. This happens to many people when something like this happens to them, they begin to need protection or comfort and search a spiritual answer for why it happened and how they survived. They also need to feel comfortable that it can never happen again, so they continue to practice these spiritual rituals that they think is keeping them protected from danger. Their rational thinking ceases and throws out all facts about the subject that made them so skeptical to begin with.
On the opposite spectrum, you have someone who could grow up religious their whole life. They were taught to respect and fear God, to pray and keep God in their life and they feel this is a normal way of life. They teach their kids about God, however, something tragic happens and now this thing they thought was going to protect them has now caused harm and pain in their life. They begin to tap into the rational part of their brain knowing that if there was a God and he cared, he would not have allowed this to happen. These kinds of scenarios happen all of the time. Religion gives people a sense of protection and self guidance that they feel they cannot have without a supernatural power. They don’t feel that anything positive can happen in their life without this higher power. Without their God, they feel they are powerless and will not be able to live a good life. This is the core of all major religions. All major religions teach that good things can only come from God any failure to accept that is considered a misguided way of thinking.
Believers have accepted that this higher power has complete control of their lives and the only way they are able to function and deal with life is to have a belief in some form or another of a God. The fact that very intelligent human beings can fall victim to this self-deceit shows that even the brightest individuals can be weak minded and fall victim to religion. Many people have not had an enlightenment from God yet because they fall into the category of someone who has been taught to believe and have not had something happen to them personally or been curious enough to look at the evidence. It could be they have had some tragic event that has led them to feel they need something to protect and guide them through. Whatever the case, tragedies occur everyday in the world with different results. Some survive and some don't. It is always those that do who seek out an answer to why they did not perish. In that journey, mos end up turning toward God for the solution to their problem. However, for everyone who credits God for saving their life, there is another person who God decided not to spare.
Tragic events causing strong feelings of vulnerability leave most closing the doors of reason and logic and opening doors to myths and magic to help explain and satisfy their need for answers
At this moment you can’t even feel relieved that they are gone because even though your eyes saw them get into the car and leave, you are so terrified that you don’t want to move. You are shocked, adrenaline has hit your body and your heart triples in beats. You have been robbed at gunpoint and you are just starting to allow your brain to function again. As you begin to reconstruct the terrifying moment, the incident seems to have taken place over 5 minutes but in reality took just 20 seconds. As the days go by after this event you feel more vulnerable than you have ever felt in your life. Nothing like this has happened to you before. You have nightmares about the event and have trouble walking outside at night alone. You become paranoid and begin to look around everywhere you go, expecting someone to rob you again. This event, although it has only happened once in your life, seems like it can happen again at any moment.
You start feeling as if you need to be protected from this happening again. Your mind begins to submit to your fear and you find yourself needing something that will make you feel that you are in total control of your life as your brain is chaotically reliving this moment and expecting it to happen again at anytime. You decide to arm yourself with a gun so that you can feel protected. Although you have never handled a weapon or shot one in your life, you go purchase a gun. Your confidence is lifted when you speak to the gun owner at the local gun store. After some gun lessons and classes, you get your permit to carry the weapon. You have become comfortable with this gun and its power. You have never been a gun owner before and have never thought you would ever need one. As a matter of fact, you have always been terrified of guns, but you feel you need one to protect yourself. After all of the trips to the gun range, you cannot imagine how your life was without this gun. You feel a sense of power, protection, and even urge friends and family that they need to own a gun because they might find themselves in a similar situation. You cannot even remember a time when you didn't own a gun and cannot believe that there are still people that walk around without one to protect themselves.
Now imagine growing up and being around guns your whole life, Your father owned guns and taught you how to shoot when you were very young. He taught you how to shoot BB guns and as you became older, you began to shoot real guns. It was a part of your life as a child and now as an adult you own many guns. You can handle them, shoot them, take them apart and clean them. The handling and use of a gun is like driving a car. You have now taught your children to shoot and how to respect guns. Although no one in your family or yourself has ever been shot, you know that as long as you respect the weapon and teach your kids to respect them, nothing bad will happen. If something bad happens, at least the gun will protect you.
Picture yourself at work one day and getting a call that there has been an accidental shooting at your house and one of your kids has been hurt. Your heart sinks as you rush to the hospital with anxiety. Self doubt begins to take over as you think about how this could happen. You taught the kids how to handle and respect guns but this unfortunate accident still happened. Arriving at the hospital, you learn your child is deceased. Your world comes crashing down on you. All your life, the very thing you have learned to respect and thought was for your protection, is now responsible for the loss of one of your children. You are now effected personally from this weapon and want nothing to do with any weapons. You have a new insight into the very weapon you have been handling and using your whole life. Now the sight of a gun makes you cringe and you don’t even remember how you spent your whole life around them. Your view and insight changes altogether and now you want to spend your life discouraging people from owning and using guns.
This can be said for religion. The first example of someone who never was comfortable with guns is the same as someone who grew up in a way doubting and questioning God and religion. His rational thinking ended as soon as a tragic event occurred to him that made him feel vulnerable. He succumbed to that vulnerable state and sought protection. This happens to many people when something like this happens to them, they begin to need protection or comfort and search a spiritual answer for why it happened and how they survived. They also need to feel comfortable that it can never happen again, so they continue to practice these spiritual rituals that they think is keeping them protected from danger. Their rational thinking ceases and throws out all facts about the subject that made them so skeptical to begin with.
On the opposite spectrum, you have someone who could grow up religious their whole life. They were taught to respect and fear God, to pray and keep God in their life and they feel this is a normal way of life. They teach their kids about God, however, something tragic happens and now this thing they thought was going to protect them has now caused harm and pain in their life. They begin to tap into the rational part of their brain knowing that if there was a God and he cared, he would not have allowed this to happen. These kinds of scenarios happen all of the time. Religion gives people a sense of protection and self guidance that they feel they cannot have without a supernatural power. They don’t feel that anything positive can happen in their life without this higher power. Without their God, they feel they are powerless and will not be able to live a good life. This is the core of all major religions. All major religions teach that good things can only come from God any failure to accept that is considered a misguided way of thinking.
Believers have accepted that this higher power has complete control of their lives and the only way they are able to function and deal with life is to have a belief in some form or another of a God. The fact that very intelligent human beings can fall victim to this self-deceit shows that even the brightest individuals can be weak minded and fall victim to religion. Many people have not had an enlightenment from God yet because they fall into the category of someone who has been taught to believe and have not had something happen to them personally or been curious enough to look at the evidence. It could be they have had some tragic event that has led them to feel they need something to protect and guide them through. Whatever the case, tragedies occur everyday in the world with different results. Some survive and some don't. It is always those that do who seek out an answer to why they did not perish. In that journey, mos end up turning toward God for the solution to their problem. However, for everyone who credits God for saving their life, there is another person who God decided not to spare.
Tragic events causing strong feelings of vulnerability leave most closing the doors of reason and logic and opening doors to myths and magic to help explain and satisfy their need for answers