Fundamentalism is a system of beliefs and memes which reinforce each other and dismiss all contradictory thoughts and doubts. It traps and enslaves people of all religions, in different ways. It causes a person to become intolerant of facts that challenge one’s personal belief system, and it makes them distrustful of all other points of view. Wherever it appears in large numbers it inevitably causes intolerance, injustice and oppression. Religious fundamentalism is the main problem today in Iran, Israel and rural America, to name just three places.

Their heavily insulated world view puts them at war with the objective world; at war with anyone different; and ultimately at war with their own true nature. It is a terrible, painful – yet seductively self-assuring – way to exist in the material world.

There is no educating these people. No way to reason with them. I realized that on the morning after election night when they celebrated voting for a common despot who is predictably and demonstrably making their lives worse every day. I don’t have the patience to deal with their ignorance anymore. The idea that we should sympathize with them or try to “understand” them is insulting. Most of us have been suffering over these morons for too long and it’s done exactly no good.

But although some evangelicals see Trump as deeply flawed, he is a means to an end: achieving a fundamentalist, neo-Nazi police state ruled by white people. Or Armageddon.

In any case, billionaires are more than happy to let evangelicals continue to vote against their own economic interests. They both do the devil’s work together, but in different ways.

One reason the Trumpanzees believe all of Donny’s lies is because it takes more mental effort to reject an idea as ‘false’ than to accept something as True. In other words, it’s easier to believe than to not believe. Several recent cognitive studies have shown that this is essentially how the brain works.

Greater brain activity requires more cognitive resources, of which there is only a limited supply in most people. The mental process of ‘believing’ is simply less work for the brain, and therefore the favored option. The default state of the human mind is to accept what we are told, because critical thinking takes effort. Belief, on the other hand, comes quite easily.

This is the exact opposite of how I think, I must say. My default position on any subject is to doubt everything until I am personally able to research it enough in order to feel comfortable about reaching an opinion.

Thus, my cynicism regarding religion, science and government – or anything created by the mind of man, frankly. We are a violent, primitive, backward people. When you think about it, none of our lame concepts about ANYTHING are worth a shit.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that we shouldn’t trust any of those things.

Does it?

[edited repost from 2020…]