By Gary DeVaney

The Ideological Believer: I don't want to read your empty scribbles. I will dismiss and ignore anything you critically say about my ideology, my Bible or my God.

Believers constantly practice and declare: "I believe". Every time you say "I believe", you freeze your mind and you also incapacitate your process of thinking. To believe is the greatest adversary to thinking.

When you claim to believe, you admit that you do not know. So, please don't impose your "beliefs" - your "I don't knows" on me.

As long as you are believing, you are not learning.

Belief assumes commitment.

Your highest form of thought is your capacity to question. As long as you claim to believe something, you are incapable of questioning your declared belief.

Belief causes mental paralysis - a state of hypnosis. You can not question your declared belief and then prove to still believe what you have questioned.

To others, your integrity is gone if you question your belief.

Belief suggests a serious disconnect between the believer's worldview and existing reality.

Each of your non-thinking "beliefs" is a separate state of hypnosis. Ergo, you are in a mind-set state of hypnosis cemented by each of your declared beliefs.

To declare a belief is to trigger another ego-supported mindset. While believing, your ego cannot question what you believe. To thinkers, your mental process may appear to stagnate and your ego may appear to become stubborn.

Ideological believer's egos often become hostile when their ego-attached beliefs are questioned.

These believer’s attitudes and behaviors have confused Bible critics over the years. Bible critics were fooled into thinking that what they wrote to believers was being read and made a difference. It answers a lot of questions concerning the critic's frustration. Believers completely ignore the critic's stuff. Believers tend to only preach, condemn and threaten the critics with Eternal-Damnation.

I recently heard former President Bill Clinton speak on Ideology as opposed to Philosophy in debate. This is what I now perceive:

Religion is ideology. Reflect on the redundant behavior and the dogmatic mentality of bees and ants. Religion is a hive mentality. When Christians preach their redundant dogma, the hive mentality is exposed. The pressure is for you to become part of the hive. Perceive a school of fish, a flock of sheep, a hive of bees or ants. They all require you to join in, conform to, serve and protect our hive. "Be like us - or else"!

Reverend Alan: This is how Star Trek came up with the Borg: "You will be assimilated, resistance is futile."

Ideology is a format of mind-set believing.

Ideology focuses on ideals instead of the issues or topics being rationally debated.

Ideology promotes traditional beliefs and a narrow way of life.

Ideology presents dogmatic, authoritative attitudes and mind-set values.

Ideology illustrates and promotes unrealistic, metaphysical and supernatural ideals.

Ideology shuns facts, evidence, logic, reason and reality.

Ideology argues, by threat, for authoritative control.

Ideology promotes: "Shut up and have blind faith".

Ideology avoids and shuns rational topics, facts and perspectives that conflict with the ideology.

Ideology tells you to conform and how to live your life - or else.

Ideology is indifferent to reality, evidence, facts and discounts logic and reason.

Science: If something does not work then thinkers think and work out something else.

Ideology, by faith, claims it works - and then threatens any disobedience to the claim.

With ideology - everything is offensive assertion and attack.

All evidence, inconsistent with the ideology, is already decided to be irrelevant.

Ideology is entirely ambiguous and unsuitable in the solving of problems or in giving accurate solutions.

Ideology is blind to evidence.

Ideologists, in debate, focus on arguing for control and obedience.

Mind-set believers follow and conform to inflexible ideology, and thus, follow their lives.

Philosophy is a format of freethinking.

Philosophy promotes reality-based perspectives - while evidence and facts are focused on.

Philosophy debates to figure out what works in reality and what makes people’s current lives free and better.

Philosophy encourages you to be who you personally are.

Philosophical thinkers tend to lead their lives.

A philosopher thinks and looks logically and realistically at the facts.

This country has been served well by philosophical differences. They counter each other enough that rational solutions and progress emerge in time.

The problem with ideological / philosophical debates:

Mindset ideology opposes freethinking philosophy.

A freethinking philosophy resists conforming to a non-thinking, inflexible ideology.

Stone-age ideology keeps modern people living with stagnant, stone-age values.

Do Christians qualify to be ideological or philosophical?

Does Islam qualify to be ideological or philosophical?

Do Atheists qualify to be ideological or philosophical?

Is Christianity more philosophical or ideological than Islam?

If you mistake mindset ideology for freethinking philosophy, you will find that the facts do not matter and debate is not important to the idealist.

Philosophers, in debate, focus on the topic.

Now we philosophers can better understand and accept the reasons why we tended to get frustrated with ideological believers over the years. We concentrated on and took issue with the words they wrote or spoke. We assumed that they also read our posts or heard us and would respond to what we wrote or said. But, most ideological believers never read or heard a word we sent them.

They used our contact just to "preach to the sinner".

Ideologists don't respond to specific issues in debate. They try to take control and change the topic. They will NOT debate the topics that philosophers take issue with.

When a philosopher recognizes a believing ideologist, we have to understand and accept that debate to any depth is unlikely. We favor the format of a mutual dialog. They favor a monolog - usually in the form of dogmatic preaching.

C. Dennis McKinsey: I especially like your last point Gary. Too many are indeed preaching and not listening to us or reading our posts. We definitely need to recognize them early so time is not wasted.

Richard Dawkins wrote: Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

Questions? Corrections? Comments?

gary@gdevaney.com