We Humans Can't Handle the Truth

"What you represent to them...is freedom. But talking about it and being it...that's two different things. lt's real hard to be free...when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Don't tell anybody that they're not free, because they'll get busy...killing and maiming to prove to you that they are. They're going to talk to you and talk to you...about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's going to scare them. Well, it don't make them running scared. lt makes them dangerous."

-- Easy Rider (1969)

We human beings can't tolerate anyone messing with our illusions. Apparently, we need fairy tales, rationalizations, and the Boogey-Man to keep us from killing one another. However, whenever one human challenges the myths of another human, the challenged human, however pious on their holy days, becomes an enraged beast ready to destroy the human who spoke outside the parameters of their illusions. At this point, the furious human will use heaven and hell to stamp you out, ignore your insights, and even kill you if necessary.

In my early religious period, I spent time with a group who I thought was concerned with humanitarian ideals, but they turned out to be more interested in having "meetings," spying and gossiping on one another, and group control than helping the poor and lonely.

When I began to share my doubts about the group, they couldn't hear it. They wouldn't even listen to me and silenced me. They had always pleased themselves by saying their group wasn't a democracy and they showed how totalitarian groups like this can be. Someone even claimed I was literally the devil incarnate come to destroy them. They increased their spying and gossiping about me. They looked for ways to negate my opinions and disregard any doubts. They were really angry that someone dared not to happily conform to their myths and even their bourgeois practices. If they could have gotten away with it, these religious people would have stoned me to death.

I didn't stay where I wasn't wanted and free thought couldn't exist. So, I left and I've never looked back. I washed their dirt off my feet.

I continue to evolve as a human being, searching for truth, eliminating meta-narratives, and constantly questioning myself.

 

Of course, the macho among us would consider this a weakness, preferring blind conformity rather than chance a change of mind. Gosh, some fascist might even call you a "waffler" for allowing your mind to evolve.