Justifictions posing as The Reality

Religious Children Have Trouble Distinguishing Reality from Fiction

How crazy and sloppy is this piece of writing on a so called "study" framed in such vague and variable terms?


My comment:

Clearly the author has a definition of 'reality' that presumes to judge the choices of  others rather than understand them.

Social, cultural and familial conditioning is known about - in whatever one is born into. However, such conditioning does not 'stick' and is only selectively taken on - according a wide range of variables.

In the term 'religious' as used in this article, I would include any information or story that is required to be believed or at least shown outer allegiance in behaviour.

Scientism believes it is dealing with fact and therefore superior to and in righteous judgement over 'silly superstition'. The same thing happened to religion with religionism.

If one's primary motive is to forge a personal and collective identity - as a way to limit reality to terms of control - then regardless the form it takes - it is ignorant of the reality of a wholeness of being - for the masked persona is centre stage and the altar of a true desire lived and shared is thus hidden.

The mask depends on perpetual war to justify itself over and against others. The blind self-righteous assertion always generates a like response - because we hate to be forced against our will. But oppositional vengeance (hatred) is not our true will.

Stories can be used for and in support of wholeness, health and integration as well as for weaving self-justifictions. Stories are rich in cultural information that in a sense is part of a rich cultural inheritance from all that have gone before us. The appreciation of the information in story is many levelled, and what on surface is an adventure can hold depths of reflection of guidance and support for the embracing of what it is to live Human.

A disconnected, analytical mind is a fantasy that can serve purpose when kept in its place - but can become a means to become hostage to a false sense of power when given to a cold and loveless intent. There IS no ultimate 'disconnecting' of mind from the Gift of Awareness by which it knows itself existing. It's a trick of focusing in thought that is not true of you.

In a world of increasing disinformation, deceit and desperation to maintain the mask of identity and control, it is as if 'reality' is breaking down. But in truth it is idols or images/models of reality that no longer 'work' or can no longer be maintained - and so we are re-connecting with feelings the identity was invoked to protect against; including terror and rage, grief and despair. We HATE to feel our self-hatred as we fear to feel our terror and rage to escape our rage. In such intensity we go to great lengths to dissociate and 'protect' a fragment of our self from such intolerable state, covering our tracks as we set it up - or it would not work. Unconscious is thus defended to remain so - and the patterning of such defence is of multiple shifting oppositional tensions. The scientific mind tends to dissociate from feeling - as a mode of control over feeling. It took this mantle on from religious beliefs that asserted rigid ideas of perfection as the one truth as ways to 'overcome' what were felt to be sinful or evil feelings and thoughts.

Everyone and every era and culture works out or rather unfolds it own strategy of 'coping' with the human conditioning - which is difficult to uncover and heal because it is protected, defended and even worshipped as The Truth.

If we 'read' everyone and everything to see if it supports or agrees with us, only letting it in if it does, and otherwise subjecting it to judgements that operate as our personal defence against what we refuse to relate of communicate with - are we not having trouble in distinguishing reality from fantasy? And is that a sin or a confusion calling for a healing response?