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It seems a considerable portion of people are guided and justify their behavior on the almost exclusive basis of some posited external authority. That posited external authority can be some secular political ideology, some theism with attending god, extant laws; one’s immediate employer, or superior officer, a mate, or even as an adult some parent. True believer fanatics do so exclusively, the least likely expression heard from them is “I think,” as an originating agent, but (fill in the blank) “said so.” These “externalized authority” people appear to avoid at almost all costs ever risking themselves as the authorizing and responsible agent, at most they perceive themselves as just loyal advocates of that authority. That to me suggests that these are people who’re emotionally dependent, that their sense of self is mostly dependent on someone else (the posited external authority) and that as a result they tend to be relatively inflexible and dogmatic, making it much easier to condemn whole masses of other people to either a living or posited after-death Hell, since of course in their minds all they’re doing is just loyally passing on the condemnation of that external authority. We’ve seen that here from several posters, usually identified with some theism or another, but not always. It does not appear to be malicious nature of the cited external authority, so much as the projected nature or inclination of the person “speaking for” that authority. This, if follows, is strongly denied by the person involved.
I am not at all sure of the antecedent factors that result in such a person, I suppose both developmental experiences and cultural mores apply. Nor does this externalization tendency not apply to almost everyone, most of us from time to time quite rightly ascribe our decisions and actions to the influence of some external governing agency, such as law. The difference may be a matter of degree more than “either/or,” but there are a few people who seem rather completely governed by their posited external authorities. It can be most comforting, after all; one’s individual risk of condemnation or criticism or blame is reduced if one is only the bearer of messages, not the writer.
No sweeping conclusions here, just musing on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
Provocative thought. It would be interesting to explore the psychological reasons or the personal experiences that would propel one to adopt exclusively an external authority. It seems to me that Christopher Hitchens was one who systematically rejected any such explicit neglecting of responsibility for oneself, so perhaps some of his writing (paradoxically - an external authority) has prompted you to this observation Dennis?
Obviously there’s some deep lacking (lacuna) within the agent that would impel them to always avert to some external authority in citing reasons for their actions or in actually deciding on any particular course of action whatsoever. In general we all access external sources to guide or otherwise structure our thought processes in decision-making, but to always revert to an external source, and even worse to always revert to the same external source, is usually a sign of some grave psychological mis-firings?
These “Externalizing” people are extraordinarily difficult to deal with on complex and ambiguous issues, because they evince a degree of certainty and confidence that people who accept themselves as judges, do not as easily do. After all, to allude to one of our members here, if you’re speaking for god, how can you be wrong, or even in doubt about the proper answers? When confronted with some obviously gross or inconsistent prescriptions from their god, “it is not for us to know” translates to “don’t ask me.” “Why as god forsaken me?” might translate to “shit, now I’m on my own.” This is just conjectural, but maybe these kinds of folks have been raised in a highly authoritarian, as different from authoritative, environment in which the conditioning denigrates the individual in favor of some claimed external authority, and which disqualifies the person as an individual from having any merit. Collectivist cultures do that more so than individualistic cultures.
Perhaps a useful approach might be to seek to somehow force the person to offer their own opinions, absent just parroting that outside authority, but they’re very resistant to allowing that to happen.
Can Zen, I do not think this is a case of individual pathology, as much as a common consequence of developmental experiences. They’re not “Crazy,” which suggests a fairly rare and unique condition. I’ve no glib answers here, just trying to describe what seems a fairly common human trait, which in some is far more extreme than others.
Do you not see this in people across the board Dennis.
I have to say I agree with you that it is more noticeable in those who follow closely any strong ideology, but I often notice this apathy in people I work with who I know for sure are both believers and non-believers and have different degrees of political awareness and activism.
It seems to me a clear majority of folk are quite happy to just “take your word for it” or I get the question “have you read it, what is it saying” and then followed by “so what do you think we should do then”.
I get it all the time concerning really important decisions that my union members should be considering for themselves. Also from my Seniors and Manager when it comes to risk assessments.
Maybe if they are not making any decisions for themselves they feel absolved of any blame that may ensue at a later date.
Do you not see this in people across the board Dennis.
I have to say I agree with you that it is more noticeable in those who follow closely any strong ideology, but I often notice this apathy in people I work with who I know for sure are both believers and non-believers and have different degrees of political awareness and activism.
It seems to me a clear majority of folk are quite happy to just “take your word for it” or I get the question “have you read it, what is it saying” and then followed by “so what do you think we should do then”.
I get it all the time concerning really important decisions that my union members should be considering for themselves. Also from my Seniors and Manager when it comes to risk assessments.
Maybe if they are not making any decisions for themselves they feel absolved of any blame that may ensue at a later date.
As I posted, a matter of degree, with some characteristically much more than others. Not so much apathy, maybe, as it is avoidance of personal risk?
They’re not “Crazy,” which suggests a fairly rare and unique condition.
Crazy suggests a rare and unique condition, or because they’re not, that suggests a rare and unique condition?
The former works for me, but not the latter. This is not a rare or unique condition, unfortunately, particularly in the US, it would seem.
I was not clear, can see how that was ambiguous. This is a common disposition, but not at all sure that it is somehow more true in the U.S. than elsewhere, actually suspect not. More collectivist cultures seem much more likely to result in this disposition.
I was musing on the behavior of people like BM, and I’ve met others, who seemed to have defined themselves as basically loyal dependents of some more dominating and controlling real or posited authority. To them “responsibility” seems to mean “doing as I’m told,” but if the authority is some god or maybe a distant charismatic political leader (Hitler came to mind), then all sorts of aggressive behavior becomes quite easy to express and masses of people condemned. When challenged, these folks become quickly aggressive and display less restraint than do people who “own” their own behavior.
They’re not “Crazy,” which suggests a fairly rare and unique condition.
Crazy suggests a rare and unique condition, or because they’re not, that suggests a rare and unique condition?
The former works for me, but not the latter. This is not a rare or unique condition, unfortunately, particularly in the US, it would seem.
I was not clear, can see how that was ambiguous. This is a common disposition, but not at all sure that it is somehow more true in the U.S. than elsewhere, actually suspect not. More collectivist cultures seem much more likely to result in this disposition.
Far right conservatives in the US are very collectivist, and they’re also very much into the “We’re bein’ oppressed!” [by disagreement/“defiance” of our authority figures] schtick.
Dennis Campbell - 18 December 2011 02:38 PM
I was musing on the behavior of people like BM, and I’ve met others, who seemed to have defined themselves as basically loyal dependents of some more dominating and controlling real or posited authority. To them “responsibility” seems to mean “doing as I’m told,” but if the authority is some god or maybe a distant charismatic political leader (Hitler came to mind), then all sorts of aggressive behavior becomes quite easy to express and masses of people condemned. When challenged, these folks become quickly aggressive and display less restraint than do people who “own” their own behavior.
Yup ... it’s very common in right wing religion, which is the dominant character of the US right now, though the resistance that naturally develops when it’s too successful/popular is surging right now. Most of the rest of the world sees us as extremely conservative and semi-theocratic.
Far right conservatives in the US are very collectivist, and they’re also very much into the “We’re bein’ oppressed!” [by disagreement/“defiance” of our authority figures] schtick.
Yup. Nothing is more ironic than watching them try to trample the rights of others under a call to defend their ‘rights’.
As posted elsewhere in this section, the person who refers his or her authority always to some external source does so in part because:
1. They avoid personal risk by never acting on their own judgment, or by at least deny that they do so. “I was only following orders.”
2. There is an implication of certainty is all their pronouncements, rarely if ever any acknowledgement of doubts or unclear answers.
3. An ability to easily classify dissenting others as wrong
4. And an ability to readily condemn dissenting others to whatever fate, often lethal, their externalized god, they say, so ordains.
5. Though not true of all externalizers, it appears a frequent trait that they claim some special relationship to that external authority, one not shared by others, which of course gives them added authority.
6. A worldview in which the social or human world is divided into “we” and “they,” with of course their “we” being the recipients of good, while the “they” is conveniently heir to all sorts of nasty events.
7. Anything they do not understand, or which requires some earned efforts they have not done, is readily consigned to a “that isn’t important” category
8. Anything not explicitly addressed by any claimed written proclamations from their external authority is either ignored or denied as being relevant
9. They extend and apply any and all proclamations by their external authority to anything posed by anyone else, no matter how removed in content. That becomes increasingly problematic if and when those proclamations are in writing and date from 2,000 ago, but that seems not at all a hindrance.
Thanks, by the way, to BM, as he has served as a most useful example, along with a few others who’ve posted here.
You do realize, however, that if God exists and everything I have told you about God is true, then you have just wasted a whole lot of time formulating a list of self-serving and erroneous gibberish?
Furthermore, what “internal” authority do you possess that makes your thoughts and behaviors courageous and true?
You make a whole lot of assumptions above why and how I claim certitude in the existence of God and knowledge of God. But there is one thing painfully missing from your whole psychological attempt to understand me—a sincere and honest person relating his experiences.
Your list of assumptions (and that is all they are, sir) suit the purpose of continuing your confidence in atheism and psychology as truths that cannot be challenged.
You have replaced God with atheism, and the spirit of God with the intellect, thus giving yourself external realities to adhere to and to draw knowledge from.
And so I tell you, with the same degree of authority that you promote your assumptions above, you have bet on the wrong horse, walked down the road most traveled, and entered through the wide door. In a word, you have lived a lie.
That is why your post above is sentence after sentence of erroneous and weak ideas. You have nothing else to offer.
You do realize, however, that if God exists and everything I have told you about God is true, then you have just wasted a whole lot of time formulating a list of self-serving and erroneous gibberish?
Furthermore, what “internal” authority do you possess that makes your thoughts and behaviors courageous and true?
You make a whole lot of assumptions above why and how I claim certitude in the existence of God and knowledge of God. But there is one thing painfully missing from your whole psychological attempt to understand me—a sincere and honest person relating his experiences.
Your list of assumptions (and that is all they are, sir) suit the purpose of continuing your confidence in atheism and psychology as truths that cannot be challenged.
You have replaced God with atheism, and the spirit of God with the intellect, thus giving yourself external realities to adhere to and to draw knowledge from.
And so I tell you, with the same degree of authority that you promote your assumptions above, you have bet on the wrong horse, walked down the road most traveled, and entered through the wide door. In a word, you have lived a lie.
That is why your post above is sentence after sentence of erroneous and weak ideas. You have nothing else to offer.
I don’t think that Dennis was particularly “wasting time” on personally attacking you and your version of god, Mario. He was making a general statement that applies to all people who rely exclusively on an external authority whether that figure is Kim-Il Jung or Allah or Stalin or even some brilliant thinkers like Hegel or Plato or Gandhi. You happen to fit this model of externalizers, although since you have admitted that you are not a christian and that you do not defend the old testament, the god that you claim “lives within you” is substantially an external source of your own fabrication. So where other externalizers follow the text of their authority figure without deviation, you are a confusion of deviations leaving your external source almost entirely internalized. In that sense you are such an extreme externalizer that you have come full circle and now believe that there is no distinction to be made between god and yourself. You’ve created a loop of delusion! (It’s a fascinating psychological pathology.)
So when Jesus said to his friends that he sent out into the world, “Do not worry about what you will say, because it is not you who will be speaking, but the spirit of God in you”, he was telling his friends to become delusional?
After the many times I’ve recommended Doris Lessings book Prisons We Choose to Live Inside this may seem completely repetitive (as well as suggesting an external authority), but this is very much a basic theme of the book. And the external authority could be an ideology, an ideal, a person, even something worthwhile and morally true, anything that has become an idol. I suspect that much of it has to do with the way that a person constructs and maintains a personal identity (Dennis, any thoughts as a psychologist?). Perhaps this is an elevation into the realm of the mind of basic biological instincts of hierarchy with the alpha male replaced by the idol. In some circles this might be referred to as a form of demonic possession. The levels of religious belief given by al Ghazali in Niche for Lights (a book that you might find interesting, Dennis, for it’s faculty psychology theorizing) are based on what sort of things a person idolizes, ranging from hedonistic pleasure through money, glory, power, and on to the most elevated spiritual or philosophical ideals. These are all classified as veils of light and darkness.
So when Jesus said to his friends that he sent out into the world, “Do not worry about what you will say, because it is not you who will be speaking, but the spirit of God in you”, he was telling his friends to become delusional?
Well really Mario the statement “he was telling his friends to become delusional” is just nonsense, better to say, “he was making his friends delusional” and now that makes sense.
Oddly enough, I can sense that you have a strong attachment to this directive from Jesus, and obviously his words have made you delusional as well. So you speak with certainty and without shame or care because “it is not you who will be speaking, but the spirit of god in you.” Now your attitude makes perfect sense to me; you are one of the friends that Jesus deluded with his directive. With one sweeping sentence Jesus has destroyed the person that you once were and created a “talking head” (slave) for his own delusional purposes. Don’t you see Mario that Jesus is the asshole who used language to make himself into a divine being by deluding enough people to believe his rhetoric. He basically tricked you into carrying out his own need to become immortalized. He scammed you with words - that trickly little bastard!
TheBrotherMario - 26 December 2011 09:42 PM
Let’s see—Doris Lessing…Jesus of Nazareth?
Oh, Doris…yes, give me the teachings of Doris.
How about “Doris of Kermanshah” does that work for you?
TheBrotherMario - 26 December 2011 09:37 PM
I, on the other hand, have never become hurt by any comment from anyone here, for I know I do not speak in my own name. Seems like a healthy ego response to me.
Thanks for confirming my suspicions. You are so see-through that you might be becoming invisible!
I merely point to a source of information which is worth contemplation. Since you are so much into disrespecting anything that somebody other than yourself or your religious authority figures say, you have no capacity to learn, only to parrot.
So you call the Lord of Lords and the Lamb of God an asshole, huh? Okay.
And you see 2000 years of Christianity, and so much more, as the results of delusional men and women following a delusion ancient man? Okay.
And you read Islamic and contemporary writers with interest and respect, while you toss aside the Bible as delusional gibberish? Okay.
And you do all these things because you have at your disposal, and you follow, an innate personal detector of what is true? Okay.
And you know that the spirit of the living God does not exist and, therefore, is not revealing Himself to us progressively and ever more clearly because God is your friend and he is not a God that would influence you in any real way? Okay.
And you read my posts and call me a liar because I have told you that you are mistaken and following your opinions about God and not the living God himself? Okay.
So you call the Lord of Lords and the Lamb of God an asshole, huh? Okay.
Where is the link to anything that supports this?
TheBrotherMario - 27 December 2011 05:14 AM
And you see 2000 years of Christianity, and so much more, as the results of delusional men and women following a delusion ancient man? Okay.
Where is the link to anything that supports this?
TheBrotherMario - 27 December 2011 05:14 AM
And you read Islamic and contemporary writers with interest and respect, while you toss aside the Bible as delusional gibberish? Okay.
Where is the link to anything supporting the second half of this?
TheBrotherMario - 27 December 2011 05:14 AM
And you do all these things because you have at your disposal, and you follow, an innate personal detector of what is true? Okay.
Just like Socrates, except that mine only functions sporadically. But it’s getting better.
TheBrotherMario - 27 December 2011 05:14 AM
And you know that the spirit of the living God does not exist and, therefore, is not revealing Himself to us progressively and ever more clearly because God is your friend and he is not a God that would influence you in any real way? Okay.
Where is the link supporting the first part of this? BTW, you are jumbling your thoughts in this comment, guess you got a bit hot under the collar, did I slap you upside the head hard enough? Friends care for each other and help each other out and have true love and respect for each other and forgive each others transgressions.
TheBrotherMario - 27 December 2011 05:14 AM
And you read my posts and call me a liar because I have told you that you are mistaken and following your opinions about God and not the living God himself? Okay.
I suspect that you lie about some things, given the sort of ego you’ve presented it would be only natural. Telling me that I’m mistaken, however, isn’t a lie it’s only your opinion and you’re perfectly free to express that, just as I’m perfectly free to ignore it. Keep up the ego-trip though, it seems to be working for you. After all, you’re the only person here who has a thread especially dedicated to himself.
Burt, the first two I attributed to you can zen’s post above. Sorry about the mishap. You are sometimes a tag-team, however.
And I do believe you have pissed on the Bible many times.
The rest I remember from our past skirmishes.
I even remember when you first attempted to equate your ideas of meditation with my claim of revelation. I told you then to go light a candle, burn some incense, and chant your way to knowledge of God. And that was years ago in a long-lost deleted post.
Burt, the first two I attributed to you can zen’s post above. Sorry about the mishap. You are sometimes a tag-team, however.
Not really, can zen and I have some agreements and some disagreements. You’re confusion indicates a lack of care in thought.
TheBrotherMario - 27 December 2011 02:53 PM
And I do believe you have pissed on the Bible many times.
Show me anywhere that I’ve done this? You may have beliefs that equate any interpretation of biblical stories that differs from yours as disrespect of the bible, but that’s not my problem.
TheBrotherMario - 27 December 2011 02:53 PM
The rest I remember from our past skirmishes.
Given your confusion of my posts with others, this is a weak straw to build with.
TheBrotherMario - 27 December 2011 02:53 PM
I even remember when you first attempted to equate your ideas of meditation with my claim of revelation. I told you then to go light a candle, burn some incense, and chant your way to knowledge of God. And that was years ago in a long-lost deleted post.
You got that one wrong by interpreting what I was saying within your own limited system of beliefs. That’s not an exercise that I would be successful with, I have problems with spending that much zafu time, but others might well find it a productive path. Whatever gets you through the night.
Burt, you jumping on me for a “lack of care of thought” is laughable.
If I have shown one thing, I have shown diligent thinking.
Your attack is, once again, you holding on with your brain tips to anything you can to refute my claims to know and understand the living God.
The more I read you the more I feel I realize I am debating with an insignificant intellect that has found a home and a purpose as the “resident mystic” on Project Reason, and nothing more.
And you are no more of a mystic than I was not one.
And your pride cannot handle it.
You read to find truth, yet you only judge these truths according to your opinions.
This means you are doing the opposite of what truth demands, for truth demands we look at things objectively and distrust our personal biases.
So I see the falseness in you, That you do not see the truth in me is understandable, and the way it should be, in your present condition of self-centeredness.
You are one of the fools of the world who has internalized all authority.
That is why when you read, way back, my personal experiences of God, which God chose to include the external world in giving, you immediately looked inside my mind for explanations of them.
However, no psychological explanation can provide an answer to (1) someone having a friend arrive at their door with a Bible because a light emanating from a picture told them to do this; or (2) someone receiving a foretaste of heaven an hour before reading a chapter in a book on it; or (3) someone experiencing a baptism of tears and crying for 90 minutes without feeling a moment’s sorrow.
These three experiences (and there have been many more besides), that you have self-servingly dismissed as personal and psychological, reveal (you know, Mr.“mystic”, as in revelation) (1) the existence of a living God with a personality, who “plays among the sons of men”; (2) the power of an omnipotent God, who “the universe cannot hold”; and (3) the love of a personal God, who “hears the cry of the poor”.
Being a “resident mystic” on Project Reason is a lot like being a resident French chef on The Biggest Loser. It is an attempt to make French pastries that will not add to obesity.
