When a human mind claims complete and perfect understanding of something beyond the human mind, that particular human mind has abandoned reason. All further logic is corrupted, and conclusions deriving from that logic must be assumed to be compromised.
The idea of God is a powerful circuit in the human mind. To engage this circuit is to apply the concept of infinity to the finite; it is to channel the force of a bolt of lightning. The impossible becomes possible. The human being becomes a conduit for a higher power. It makes us capable of extreme behavior, for better or worse. One thing we know for sure: the merest fleeting contact with the divine changes a person. God is too infinite to be contained by a human mind.
Orthodoxy has reduced God to a catechism, a list of facts compiled by closed-minded politicians. By telling the faithful exactly what to believe, they have forfeited discovery. To paraphrase Paul of Tarsus, they cling to the milk-bottle and refuse the steak dinner.
A perfect example of this logical short-circuiting is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in its orthodox form. The nature of a person who is one and three simultaneously and eternally, equal and yet proceeding one from the other, is an idea which transcends human reason. No orthodox theologian will attempt to explain this in any significant detail, but when pressed will always answer that the mysteries of God are beyond our understanding.
That which is beyond understanding cannot be completely and accurately described. Therefore, anything they say about the “mysteries” cannot be the absolute and complete truth, but only a fragment of that truth. The orthodoxy cannot admit this limitation because it implies the existence of other, equally significant fragments – other traditions, other metaphoric sets, other interpretations, other holy scriptures. The orthodoxy cannot tolerate independence from its own system.
Interestingly, the idea of a transcendental unity including all of humanity or all of nature is a common one across human cultural history, as is the idea of human union with the divine. If this idea is not more prevalent in popular culture, it is at least in part due to the continuous efforts of the orthodoxy to restrict and monopolize transcendental union, turning the sacrament of the Eucharist into something administered by an ordained priest (in the case of Catholic practice) and regulated by imposition of guilt and fear (in the case of Evangelical/Fundamentalist Protestant practice). Thus, the same idea is simultaneously predicated as divine nature and repudiated as paganism or heresy. Self-contradictory concepts can only coexist by ignoring the discrepancy or by adding a dimension. By refusing to accept the existence of higher dimensions (to extend the metaphor), the only remaining course of action is to fabricate a smokescreen.
The orthodox response to this challenge is the idea of divine revelation. They claim that true knowledge of the Divine is impossible to a human mind (which is true), then add the claim that the same knowledge can be delivered, in complete perfection, to the same human mind by divine intervention: a revelation. The latter is a half-truth: the flash of inspiration is a real phenomenon and a common human experience. Inspiration in the usual sense can manifest powerfully, as it does in those individuals who have with their life’s work changed the course of humanity. More commonly, inspiration is limited in scope, elusive and often unclear. The lie is the idea that revelation is communicable and universally applicable across time and space, eternal, unchanging, and absolute – and the sole property of the elite leadership. If divine revelation is only given to a few, and given perfectly to those few, then unquestioning obedience is a natural requirement for everyone else. And in orthodox religious tradition, it is indeed required.
Once a human mind accepts the premise that the only genuine and true knowledge is delivered through self-proclaimed oracles of the Divine, and that this revealed knowledge is of a higher order than any personal conclusions based on reason applied to direct observation, the mind thus affected is rendered inert, converted to another instance of the meme-set. Original thought becomes the most terrifying thing in the world, because it could lead to perdition. To the extent that dogma diverges from directly observable fact, the believer becomes increasingly unable to deal with ideas that threaten the supremacy of the dogma. Over time, the believer’s confidence in social norms, secular law, even science is eroded and the believer grows ever more isolated within a shrinking community that believes itself to be in possession of absolute truth and which is in opposition to every other element of the greater cultural context, which is understood to be corrupt, false, and perilous.
When this kind of surrender and the corresponding possession happen on a massive scale, we get phenomena like the megachurch “prosperity gospel” movement, which has become a multibillion-dollar industry by applying multilevel marketing practices to orthodox religion. We get the QAnon movement in which millions of Americans implicitly trust known sources of disinformation in matters of their own health and even survival, rejecting scientific fact and directly observable reality and paying for the mistake with their lives. We get – incredibly – “Flat Earthers” whose mental gymnastics are less impressive than shockingly horrific, like online videos of skateboard accidents. We get the cult of ignorance – a mass movement of remote-controlled former individuals, minds all short-circuiting in the same pattern.
The solution is to cultivate a skeptical and critical attitude, questioning above all the proposition that absolute, perfect Truth can be expressed in human terms. Here are a few attitudes to practice for a mind resistant to control:
-Question everything, especially cultural “givens” – these usually benefit the power holders.
-When analyzing cultural/political/philosophical controversies, zoom out to a global perspective for a while and look at how the ideas proposed by each side of the discussion have played out over space and time. How are those ideas working out for people?
-When a group claims special access to hidden knowledge, follow the money. Who stands to profit from this idea?
-Learn about how various popular movements have been used for mass indoctrination. Study the history of power and its abuse. Ask yourself if any of the established ideologies in your culture could fit the profile of a cult.
-Remember that any theory that cannot (or refuses to) stand up to questioning is not worth considering. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
-Always consider what you are being asked to contribute, and where your energy is going.
-Beware of those who would motivate you by fear.
As communications technology continues to advance, it is becoming ever harder to distinguish false from legitimate information. There is a lot of bad “knowledge” to be found on the worldwide web. The ordinary falsehoods are fairly easy to discover by simply observing due diligence when searching and verifying. Deliberate, organized falsehood is often more subtle, as it uses authority for cover. So the big red flag for disinformation is their perennial tell: the promise of access to secret or exclusive information – but only if you refuse to question some authority. No one who has your best interest at heart will place conditions on what purports to be a gift, demand your allegiance, or motivate you by fear, shame, or hatred of others.
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.”
– Bob Marley
*For the purposes of this argument, I will use the term “orthodoxy” to mean that current of thought in an establishment in general, and Christianity in particular, that values doctrine above all, claiming sole possession of absolute truth, which is portrayed as unchanging, monolithic, and perfectly revealed – to themselves alone.