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Converting People to Realism |
How do we spread the word? How do we convert people to Realism? What kind of reaction should we expect when talking to people about reality? How do we get people to accept reality as their belief system? These are not simple questions. To people like me and many of you reading this, it's confusing to us that everyone isn't a Realist already. To us it's "Reality - Of course! Duh!" But to others it is a much more complex problem because they too think they believe in some form of reality, but it is often a narrative taught to them from early childhood that they have come to rely upon and accept as their world view.
Belief in fictional deities is one of the root axioms that they have built their awareness around and for which a lot of their personal world view relies upon. If they were, for example, to realize that God is fiction then it would change their entire world. Many of their friends will reject them. They might not have a place in their church community anymore. They would have to endure the stigma that other religions have put on Atheism as something that is evil, or a disease, a form of mental illness, something that must be cured. This is a very big step for most people who rely upon the comfort of their place in society and are not willing to put their social position at risk.
The first purpose of the human brain is to survive, not to process logic.
The human mind is not a computer. It is the result of an evolutionary process over billions of years. It's primary purpose is to help ensure the survival of the human species. We are the descendents of those who managed to adhere to that purpose. Those who survived and evolved and reproduced are our ancestors. Those who didn't are not. Thus our minds are biologically programmed for survival, to find food, to defend against enemies, to reproduce and ensure the survival of our children so they too can reproduce, to form societies for the mutual benefit of our mutual survival. Logic and reason are side effects of this neurological process. So the concept of reality might make instant sense to a computer, to a human it's often a difficult concept to grasp.
When you look at the brain as a biological organ rather than a computing device, a lot of human behavior is more understandable. We are a bag of chemicals, not a robot. Changing religions isn't like wiping a hard disk and installing something else. The mind is a living system and it requires more of a migration plan. You can't usually just rewrite everything a person believes in instantly unless they are in some crisis and already looking for an instant change. Change may take time, a lot of time. It might just be gradual over years. It might take centuries. But the process begins now and it is up to us to understand it as best we can so that we can put the world back on a reality based footing and avoid being the victim of some other religion's Extinctionist fantasy.
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