When peopleās confidence in their beliefs is shaken, they becomeĀ strongerĀ advocates for those beliefs…Ā
Creating God in Our Image
When peopleās confidence in their beliefs is shaken, they become stronger advocates for those beliefs. The book When Prophecy Fails, an American cult leader, Dorothy Martin, convinced her followers that flying saucers would rescue them from an apocalyptic flood. Many believed her, giving up their livelihoods, possessions and loved ones in anticipation of their alien saviors. When the prophecy failed and nothing came to pass, the group decided that their dedication had spared the Earth from the apocalypse. Far from shattering their faith, the absent UFOs had turned them into zealous evangelists.
Without altering their belief system, people will go to great lengths to reduce the internal conflict caused by their cognitive dissonance. They will hunker down and attempt to still this conflict by trying to convince others that their views are correct. This is re-writing the brains neural processes.
Dopamine levels:
- Low levels of Dopamine make concentration and focus very difficult. Low levels also are associated with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
- Mild elevations in Dopamine are associated with addictions like nicotine or cocaine, producing feelings of excited euphoria.
- Moderately high Dopamine levels make the individual on-guard, suspicious, and prone to misinterpret experiences in our environment. Known as āidea of referenceā in psychiatry, they begin thinking unrelated experiences are suddenly directly related to themselves. Paranoia ensues. The mind races in an attempt to incorporate all these experiences into their lives. With the increase of Dopamine, the individual may become extremely religious, paranoid, or feel to be a very important person. Increased Dopamine also increases the perception of senses, as though turning up the volume in all the senses ā hearing, vision, taste, smell, and touch.
- As Dopamine levels increase, the noises suddenly become auditory hallucinations. Inner thoughts are now being heard outside the body. These voices begin talking. Some take the form such as derogatory (put downs), religious topics, command (telling you to do something), or sexual content. Hallucinations (experiencing something that is not truly there in reality) will soon develop in all the senses.
- High levels of Dopamine in the brain often cause the loss of contact with reality. The individual begins to have bizarre ideas. Paranoia, experiences delusions (false beliefs)Ā or may think they have super powers (exaggerated self-importance) and can experience propheticĀ visions of the future. High levels of Dopamine are found in Schizophrenia, drug intoxication, and other psychotic conditions where the ability to distinguish the inner world from the real world is impaired.
āPeople may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want. The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about Godās beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.ā
-Nicholas Epley.
University of Chicago.
Learn more. “Athene’s Theory of Everything “
Them Darned False Prophets!
Religious Prophets.
Family Radio’s Harold Camping, famous for his failed May 21, 2011 prediction, has been rushed to the hospital following a stroke. The Oakland Tribune wrote:
ALAMEDA — Harold Camping, the Doomsday radio preacher who sparked international media attention by predicting the end of the world last month, has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke at his Alameda home Thursday night.
The 89-year-old radio evangelist and president of the Oakland nonprofit Family Radio was taken by ambulance from his house Thursday night, a neighbor said, but his well-known, gravelly voice that led many believers to donate millions of dollars to his cause may never be the same.
Well, if we could have only got lucky enough for old Herbie to have been silenced when the first date he set failed to come to fruition!Ā But as we know, the old goat was not the first heretic when it came to religious charlatans. From some recent headlines we learn of other profit$ of doom.
Taiwanese ‘prophet’ may be sued over doomsday rumors.
Nantou County police, in central Taiwan, Thursday (May 12) moved to question ‘Teacher Wang’ who recently made a doomsday forecast on charges of spreading rumours that incited people to panic.
Teacher Wang, whose real name is Wang Chao-hung and a resident of Nantou County, foretold that a magnitude 14 quake and massive tsunami would devastate Taiwan on May 11, at 10:42:37am.
To prepare for the looming disaster, some of Wang’s followers rented vacant lots in Puli Township of the county and filled them with nearly 200 containers that were converted into shelters. They stockpiled daily necessities for emergency use.
The doomsday gossip, which was circulated online, has caused some people to panic. But it proved the doomsday prophecy was groundless, and nothing happened on May 11.
The police said that Wang may be detained for a maximum of three days or fined NT$30,000(US$1,000) for violating the Social Order Maintaining Act by spreading groundless doomsday rumours.
There are others.
Ex-doomsday followers fight for money back.
One of two civil claims brought against religious group Agape Ministries may be settled out of court. That plaintiff and another former church member, Martin Penney, are suing pastor Rocco Leo and two of his associates, Joe Venziano and Mari-Antionette Veneziano.
They want their money back, claiming they handed over more than $400,000 and $1 million respectively to the church based on lies about a doomsday scenario.
Jack Van Impe.
I know less than nothing about this character but he does call into account some of the glum doomsayers and false prophets: Jack Van Impe on false prophets. (Right click and open in new tab, watch for one minute or so.)
Jack call this time of the end a “Happy Time” not a time of destruction and judgment that the Armstrong brand of prophets and apostles declare. So what is with this doom and coming gloom? Well it has always been with mankind since the times they could write on bone or bamboo. It persists to this day using electronic media in the form of TV or DVD and of course, the Internet.
All this bad news is now put forth by only religious nuts either. Secular sources put forth their dribble as to dooms day. It’s a magnet and is amazing how susceptible people are to believing this doom and gloom crap.
Secular Prophetic Scum.
“The Population Bomb”
Paul R. Ehrlich, author of the above title, 1968. Ehrlich argued that birthrates were out of control and would cause a worldwide crisis. He came to this conclusion not through Divine Revelation but through Divine Equation, the liberal scripture of pseudo-science. Ehrlich ‘calculated’ using the equation I = P x A x T. This means that Human Impact (I) on environment equals the product of Population, Affluence and Technology. The conclusion was that in the decades of the 1970’s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death. Did it happen? Was he called on it? Read more HERE. Ehrlich later stated he was kind of right. Read the link I gave. You’ll learn something of value as to understanding his thought process.
Kenneth Watt, ecologist, said there wouldn’t be any crude oil left by 2000.
Harrison Brown, at the National Academy of Sciences, said the world would be out of lead, zinc, copper, tin, gold and silver by this time.
Michael Oppenheimer, author of “Dead Heat” in the mid 90’s, predicted global warming in 20 years. Opphenheimer predicted that “1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots . . . [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers.” Despite the fact that “data from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center shows that precipitation-rain and snow-has increased slightly over the century,” Oppenheimer has further said: “On the whole I would stand by these predictions-not predictions, scenarios-as having at least in a general way actually come true.” Just like Harold Camping and Herbert Armstrong!
But Wait, There’s More!
Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at England’s climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, said in 2000 that because of global warming, within just a few years “Children just arenāt going to know what snow is and flurries will be a very rare and exciting event.”
In the 70’s you could read in TIME or LIFE magazine that there would be no United States by the year 2000.
In the endgame there is nothing scientific about these predictions of failure for the human race. These “authorities” just make it up as they go along on their path of deceit and destruction.
To the current Armstrong member, you can ignore this current blog entry. Honesty and objective thinking is lost on you.
To those who have left the gulag of Armstrong-ism, let me ask you “why do you embrace the religion of scientific and/or political whores that puke forth heresies that entice you further down the road of another pseudo slavery?
Just who is it that you follow so blindly?