Imagine no Religion...
By
Roberto Diego
Chapter 5.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 2. Modern Cultural Paradigms
Chapter 3. The Principle of Progressive Benignity
Chapter 4. Ritual as Allegory
Chapter 5. The Ritual Mask See Below
Chapter 6. How Does Altruism Feel?
Chapter 7. The Psychology of Collectivism
Chapter 8. The War against the Ego
Chapter 9. The Psychology of Moral Triangulation
Chapter 10. The Influence of the Enlightenment
Chapter 11. A Culture in Moral Crisis Link coming soon
Chapter 12. The Tyranny of Organized Religion – Cult as Culture Link coming soon
Chapter 13. The Separation of Church and State Link coming soon
Chapter 14. Is Religion the Foundation of Society? Link coming soon
Chapter 15. Rationalism Link coming soon
Chapter 16. Cynicism and Chauvinism Link coming soon
Chapter 17. Definition of Religion Link coming soon
Chapter 18. Curing Man Link coming soon
Chapter 19. Disenfranchising Unreason Link coming soon
The disenfranchisement of religious cultural leaders Link coming soon
The disenfranchisement of the Suffering Savior paradigm Link coming soon
The disenfranchisement of the good/evil paradigm Link coming soon
The disenfranchisement of the chorus (collectivism) Link coming soon
The enfranchisement of the ego Link coming soon
The establishment of reason Link coming soon
Prologue Link coming soon
Rationalism starts with the premise that God is the metaphysical primary principle of the universe, that God created the universe and controls all within it. This places man, fundamentally, into a status of universal second class citizen. Within this context, the universe becomes the guilt inducer and the vengeance dispenser. There is no escape once this premise is accepted and there is no hope of happiness. In a sense, religion destroys everything possible to man by placing the issue of man’s value outside of his control and into the hands of a mystical entity presumed to be real. Yet, even rationalism must descend to the real world in order to express its view of man. In practical terms, the ritual mask of hatred is the expression of metaphysical hatred toward man that is imposed by the culture upon the individual. It is, in effect, the means by which the philosophy of rationalism destroys individuality.
By understanding the psychological principles inherent in the Ritual Mask of religion, we can see how religion has established fear as a method of motivation and how it has enabled religion to impose itself upon man to his detriment. The Ritual Mask is a symbol for the anger of the gods toward the individual. The key to understanding the symbolism of this concept and its role in history is to understand that the ancient ritual mask, through the principle of progressive benignity, is today, within the context of religious morality, the expression of anger and hatred toward the individual whenever he strays from the collective and does or thinks what he wants.
As the above graph illustrates this principle; each person starts life on equal terms with all other men in society. When ritualized cruelty, validated by ancient cultural paradigms, begins to be imposed upon the individual he begins to develop a sense of the gargantuan power of the culture and its collective messages. Fear and negative self-thoughts are the result. The individual loses any possible hope of personal integrity and becomes smaller in reference to the culture. After all, he is only one person – and they are so many. In modern times, the ideas that man is small, evil, worthless, etc. are still communicated to man by means of the ritual repetition of religious themes in novels, stories and movies – not to mention in church.
Simply put, the ritual mask is the angry response of ridicule aimed at the individual by society, cultural authorities, peers and parents, all poised to attack any aspect of individual expression or assertiveness. The expectation in any individual of seeing hatred on the faces of others creates anxiety and social leveling and has the consequence of overloading the individual emotionally on subconscious and fundamental levels – if he values the opinions of those others. The expectation of being exposed to hatred is the cause of many of man’s psychological problems, avoidances, nightmares, phobias, addictions, paranoia, schizophrenia and physical (psychosomatic) sicknesses. The ritual mask and its expression of hatred, through the fear it creates, severs the relationship between man’s mind (his knowledge) and his choices. It sabotages man’s ability to choose because it invalidates all possible rational choices and creates serious moral conflicts.
The ritual mask of hatred is thought to be so compelling that, when it comes, it comes with righteousness, as a proponent of self-sacrifice, punitive, fearful and devastating. As a motivator of the individual, it is a destroyer of motivation putting the individual outside his natural feelings of goodness and assigning him to the hot flames of evil. This cultural gargantuan ritualizes the individual and keeps him in a state of unearned guilt. It emasculates men, demeans women and destroys reason in favor of daily rituals performed presumably for the benefit of all. It is everywhere affecting everything including how we deal with and react to each other. It ruins human relations and sabotages human cooperation. It even ruins man’s relationship with himself, destroys his joy in accomplishment and his desire to live.
The messages communicated to the individual by the ritual mask are the following:
· You will be attacked and have justice dispensed upon you
· You are always wrong
· You are unauthorized
· There is no standard to determine your good or evil so therefore you must be evil
· Others must be the standard of your goodness
· Others must know that you are deficient – the evil eye is watching you
· The interests of others are always good
· Your interests are always evil
· Others have authority, you do not
· Just being is bad
Through these messages, the ritual mask of hatred injects fear and subverts the possibility of a rational moral code. To feel right, the individual needs to know the value and import of his actions for his life. A rational standard measures this and helps him integrate his mind and body. The ritual mask of religion imposes a constant state of dis-ease upon the individual and distorts his ability to understand the import and value of his actions. It operates according to one standard, the standard that always evaluates man as evil. This, effectively, destroys the individual’s motivation to pursue knowledge about survival and most importantly destroys the connection between man’s thinking and his choices.
The fear of hatred creates a cognitive mistake in many people; it creates a misinterpretation of how men really are. To the person who lives in fear, men are vicious and always poised to be angry and critical. This misinterpretation creates a host of responses to people that are inappropriate to any given situation. If a person misperceives anger in others, he may inappropriately reflect that anger back to others.
The fear of the symbolic ritual mask, the expression of cultural hatred, is one of the major sources of social and political corruption in societies because it cynically disarms honest men, and it releases upon the world the savage and the parasite that would devastate innocent lives by (legally) stealing their product. Politicians and other parasites in our culture take advantage of the prostrate individual by developing altruistic programs based upon both guilt and envy. Guilt lets others exploit the individual while envy enables the individual to exploit others. Indeed, there are programs and laws for both envy and guilt in our society.
The true moment of redemption for any individual will come when he realizes that behind the mask of hatred is a mere man with his own twisted rationalism. Once the individual is able to put cultural leaders in their place as merely other men, he will discover the world of reason, and he will recognize there is nothing to fear and that men can be rational and respectful.
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