A Psychological Expose' of Creationism's Secret Genesis By Peter Michaelson

[Demeter]

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_peter_mi_070405_a_psychological_expo.htm


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April 6, 2007

A Psychological Expose' of Creationism's Secret Genesis

By Peter Michaelson


A Newsweek poll reports this week that 48 percent of the American public rejects the scientific theory of evolution. That’s nearly half the voting public that can’t tell fact from fiction or reality from ideology. In order to save democracy, we’ve got to help these people to evolve....
Creationism, which identifies humanity as a master species in God’s image, is also a coping strategy for a poor sense of self. The doctrine contends that human beings are special creations of God who have miraculously bypassed the evolutionary process that shapes all life forms. People embrace this belief as truth because doing so is emotionally satisfying: This belief elevates them in their own eyes. It’s really not about God at all. In a process that is mostly unconscious, these individuals are desperate to feel recognized and validated by something bigger and better than them. God just happens to do the trick. This desperation for recognition arises out of their underdeveloped sense of self. Even their great hunger for salvation is a craving for rescue from such an impoverished experience of self.

Like eugenics, creationism is also self-defeating. Because it is used to cover up psychological issues, it’s a blockage in the path of its adherents’ self-development. If they refuse to believe in the possibility of evolution, they reject knowledge of who and what they are. This obviously limits their potential for growth. They sacrifice their well-being for an ideology: Their self-imposed stagnation becomes their evidence for the falsity of human evolution.

People with a poor sense of self often compensate by convincing themselves that they are superior. This is the mechanism of narcissists, who also have an exceedingly weak sense of self. The doctrine of eugenics, too, was a statement of superiority, induced by self-doubt and self-loathing. Creationists are also eager for some means by which to feel superior. They can feel superior by believing they’re specially chosen by God. They can also convince themselves they are morally superior by condemning the beliefs and actions of humanists, secularists, and liberals. Their “superiority” extends, of course, to all creatures as well as the laws of nature.... Creationists are not usually aware of their unconscious compulsion to doubt and belittle themselves and of the consequences of doing so. Many of them are rural people who experience much of life on the basis of who is superior and who is inferior (a basis for racism, patriarchy, the Rapture, and authoritarianism). They also experience life through judgment of what is good, bad, permissible, and forbidden (a feature of fundamentalism). They believe (resentfully so) that “elitist” liberals consider themselves to be superior. These liberals, so the thinking goes, regard them as inferior. In a tit-for-tat exchange, creationists retaliate by seeing liberals as morally inferior.


As more people are enlisted into their belief system, the safer they feel. But the world is changing rapidly. Reality has no use for doctrine or ideology. Science and sophisticated knowledge, along with intelligent and articulate people, are pressing in from all sides. Creationists know at some instinctive level that time is running out. Hence, the more desperate they are—and the more irrational—as they cling to the old.

Authors Website: www.PeterMichaelson.com

Authors Bio: Peter Michaelson is a psychotherapist and author in Pasadena, CA. He is author of Democracy's Little Self-Help Book, and can be reached at www.PeterMichaelson.com

[existentialist]

1. conservative mythos

I posted this essay two months ago in another forum, but I think it fits here. I think that the more threatened people are the more psychological solace they find from simplistic mythos, including creationism.



"Conservatives"


"If there is no need for change, then there is a need to stay the same."
John F. Kennedy


What is a conservative if not a person who, at all times, but particularly when confronted with the unsettling, values certainty? This is entirely understandable. Who among us does not, in the face of chaos, yearn for the comfort and security from which, if we were lucky, we first absorbed our views of the world? If we were fortunate enough to experience a modicum of stability in our formative years then it is not an ungenerous sentiment for us to hope for the same for our progeny, for our children and grandchildren.


Unfortunately, if the relative stability in which we were nurtured was rooted in times and circumstances that change quickly, and may be entirely passed and gone, and if we still cling to those passing moments as if they were cherished reality itself then we become not true conservatives, but reactionaries, and reactionaries whose "realities" are illusions. What is more, the very effort to obtain stability in an ever changing world often actually accelerates the rate of change, making the superficial "conservative" into the true conservative's worst nightmare.


If this analysis is approximately correct, then it is a mistake of the first magnitude if we, in our efforts to persuade our sadly mistaken fellow citizens, rely on reason alone, as opposed to reason allied with and supported by a compassionate understanding of the true conservative's dilemma. Things are, and rightly seem incredibly threatening to a conservative at this time. How can it not? The arch conservatives have been in power for years--long enough for the flaws and contradiction in their policies to have begun to hit home, and to approach undeniability.


Those who would continue to maintain present policies in Iraq, who would maintain present energy and environmental policies to in the face of increasing environmental degradation--most notably but not exclusively global warming, and those who continue to argue that our present economy, to the extent that it is based upon an unsustainable and increasing trend to rely on ever increasing debt of ever increasingly doubtful collectibility are rapidly losing all credibility. The list goes on. One can easily list at least half a dozen additional crucial issues on which the neoconservative policies adopted or supported by the present Executive Branch and its Administration pursue an agenda that ignores reality, and accelerates the deterioration of the conditions experienced as "reality." Things must seem threatening indeed when reality can no longer be ignored.


Given the above discussion, the extent to which the retreat to supposedly conservative values and thoughts, or paradigm, if you will, undermines our actual ability to deal with the challenges that confront us appears greatly under appreciated in the present day discussion of these issues.


The "conservative" contribution to our present cultural breakdown and the policies enacted and put in place by a "conservative" Administration and Congress in the face of reality has created circumstances under which the continued "conservative" efforts to blame their own failings on those of others is fast approaching a breaking point.


We must understand this. We must even empathize with these feelings as there are certainly threatening facts, people, movements, and phenomena with which any possible sane and coherent political ideology must cope. Therefore, instead of presenting even more threatening facts before conservatives, a truly persuasive rhetoric must present possibilities of solutions. I would say that such efforts should present absolute solutions, except that most of us know that simple, pat solutions are generally false hopes, and are in fact, the standard rhetorical offerings of the very "conservatives" whom we seek to persuade of the error of their ways.

[papau]

2. If it is Easter the nuts and their hate articles come out - I buy evolution - but this Holy Week

DU posting is getting tiresome. But the responses to "A Psychological Expose' of Creationism's Secret Genesis By Peter Michaelson" http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_peter_mi_070405_a_psychological_expo.htm were of interest - and indeed are the type of discussion I though we could have on DU when we started the Religious forum, before the atheist takeover of that forum occurred:

From the 3 dozen responses to the article:

Guided evolution because survival of the fit does not explain complicated humans is one response, where the poster notes "You lump creationists as a bunch of emotionally needing beings. Maybe they're just using common sense. You don't believe in God do you?"

another says "You show your ignorance by lumping large amounts of different people into groups such as Liberals and Christian Right, etc. It's like voting for a person just because they are Democratic or Republican, instead of what the person really stands for.What do you have against Christians? It seems to me that you are actually the one with fear. To use your own psycobabble you bad mouth Christians because of your own insecurities.

another: "As Galileo said," the Bible is not about how the heavens go, but how to go to heaven."

An atheist showed support "If children were educated at very early ages in science and critical thinking (rather than immersion in religion), they would have higher self esteem and a deep appreciation of nature and biology."

Responded to with "The bottom line, the crux of the whole matter, is that you can't believe in God ,a creator. The very thought is an anathema to you. The words of the Bible upset you, because they present the truth to you." as his conclusion.

Another: "No sign of a creator? You must be as blind as a bat. Look around you, look at nature, look at the solar system, the laws of gravity, the wonder of reproduction. All by random chance?
Come on.... you can't be serious."

another: "In essence God created cell(s)."

another: "I am both a scientist and a believer in God. I find no conflict in this. I believe God created the blueprints on how things should grow. Kinda like DNA in a human being."

another: "How did the cells come to be, why do electrons do what they do (ask any respectable physicist, they can't tell you), what caused the big bang - a singularity, what singularity...and why. These are questions some people fail to explore deeply"

another: "A good point. Where in nature do you see codes? Rocks and crystals form into patterns based on physical properties - but how can you explain complex codes such as DNA without thinking it through. Do I think humans sprang up out of the ground - NO. I believe in evolution. Where we differ is that I look at the universe as perfectly controlled chaos, a design set forth to bring life to fruition, and I wonder where life may evolve in the future. I just don't let my love of science, and the wonder of creation to take my sights off the fact that there is more to reality than what we can touch, or "see". I have so much more to say, but this is far too big a subject to discuss over the internet. We all have to find our own way."


Another: "Why didn't one species have cells that mutated to form other ways of reproduction? It's by design!"

From an atheist: "If complex things can't come into being by evolution, then where did God come from? Either it is a rule that complex things need a creator, or it isn't. You can't break the rule just once, that's irrational."

another: "I believe God always existed.... a thought that can fry your brain if you dwell on it. I can't prove it. I just take it on faith.... a gut belief if you will. Random processes can create a complex result. With the result not necessarily (and highly improbable) being an intelligent life form."

another: "You might be interested in reading Deepak Chopra's Life after death, the burden of proof. I'm not saying it holds all the answers by any means - but it lays out rational ideas that may be interesting to you, even if you don't subscribe to them. The idea of spirit and soul is not as cut and dry as you are portraying - that you fall into the nutty category, or the scientific category."

another:"Isn't irrational to think the universe sprang up on it's own from nothing - how can a void even exist?" You should at least entertain the thought that there may be more to this life than the physical, and that the "rules" that apply here - like time - don't exist outside of this dimension."

another: "I concur that the conceptual divide will probably never be integrated. I don't see a perfect world with clockwork precision, I see a hodgepodge of related organisms living in a complex web of life on a small planet in a huge universe (free will)."

from an atheist: "I definitely don't want or need Gods of any type... Islamic, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Pagan, Zeus/Oden, Wicken or any other. I find comfort in humanity, and its relation to nature."

Another atheist: "These Christian types are a sick lot and they are screwing up everyone else too! I think Bertrand Russell said that the reason the world is so messed up is because the idiots are so sure they are right and the intelligent people are so full of doubt, or something like that."

another: "Religious texts ought to be used to find meaningful answers/lessons in one's own life, and not to explain the world (life) to others. It is equally silly, however, to declare the non-existence of god(s) to be the truth either. This is unprovable as well, and qualifies as the same dogmatism that emanates from the religiously inclined."

another: "Yes, of course there are psychological forces behind belief in creationism, but beneath even that there is the existential problem of "what is 'this?" -- the drive for 'meaning' and making sense of our being...Even neuroscientists can't answer the question of subjective consciousness. Some say "When the brain become complex enough awareness is turned on itself and that's perceived as consciousness" -- but that's no more of an answer than "God did it". And to say "God did it" is just another deflection -- that's no answer unless you can explain what "God" is -- so all the priests strike out too. The difficulty is not in the answers, but in the questions. One might as well ask "What color is a pound?" or "What would middle C sound like if there was no time?". Or, of course, "If a tree fall in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" and "What is my original face before I was born?". There are no logical answers to these questions because they are not logical questions. Of course evolution explains much of the origin of species, including humans, and along with cosmology and physics offers some explanations of how life itself can develop from basic matter (and that the explanations are not complete should surprise no one: we don't know everything about any subject). Science, however, was never developed to answer existential questions -- or questions of WHY there is a reality, or a subjective existence. Philosophy (including theology) tries sometimes, but it can't -- it relies on the same limited brain we use for simple questions such as "What exactly is gravitational force" or "Will it rain in London on April 8, 2020?".

Sorry, people, but there are some questions which can't be answered, and aren't even rationally valid as questions even if they sound like they should be. If you take away everything until there is nothing left, then what do you have left if you then take nothing away?"

[Demeter]

4. Reality, Perhaps?

But then, Reality is the realm of Science, isn't it. Can't have that, it would offend you.

[undergroundpanther]

3. conservatism

and many other ISMS rely on narcissism and a weak self to survive.
It's sad really. People so often do not see beliefs are more often than not cages, safe little cages that make sure their wings are clipped .They are terrified of freedom of thought, action etc. because they fear freedom they also are hypocrites when it comes to ethical responsibility and differences in a community .Deep in denial about the way the whole world is an interrelated system in change.

[Igel]

5. I like irony.

"People with a poor sense of self often compensate by convincing themselves that they are superior."

"...we’ve got to help these people to evolve...."

"If they refuse to believe in the possibility of evolution, they reject knowledge of who and what they are. This obviously limits their potential for growth." ('unlike us'?)

Now, I've known some insanely stupid creationists. And some pretentious supporters of evolution. Seems like a silly argument, by and large. You can do great fluid dynamics or do innovative work in topology without evolution.

On the other hand, there is a perverse point to be made: Those that don't believe in evolution are having more offspring than those that do believe in evolution. If their kids maintain the family perspective ...

[yurbud]

6. yep. like barely literate skinheads who are certain they are the master race.