Unspoken Fear: The Trojan Horse
The title may be overly generous inasmuch as it implies that the group I will discuss is uniform in its understanding of its fear, and therefore uniform in its reluctance to give it voice. That is probably not the case. I suspect many, if not most, are unaware of their fear, at least in precise and intelligible terms and are therefore not speaking since they are not knowing.
One can make an overly simplistic case that all fear is irrational, or that it is rational only in immanently threatening situations. My purpose is not to judge the ultimate rationale (that is, the envisioned end which is used to justify the adoption of the affective state) but to examine the antecedents, the co-determinants, and their consequences.
In this case I am referring to what are broadly classed as “materialists”, in the cosmological sense, not the consumer sense. Materialists may generally be described as those for whom there is no evidence of non-material (non-corporeal) agency. If they do not see it under the microscope, it either is not there or they need a more powerful microscope.
While materialists have their conspicuous spokespersons (Richard Dawkins, Susan Blackmore, et al), the majority are simply distributed through the human population’s general demographics. But as different as their daily lives may be, they share at least one commonality; wittingly or not, they have morphed science into scientism, rejecting the often ill-informed magic of other established religions by simply creating their own. Relatively few, in my experience and opinion, either understand science or understand what they have made of it. And, not understanding science, they take what is presented to them as representational of science on faith. Science is not a belief system, despite the often miserable way it is taught in K-12.
Those familiar with my previous work know that much of my focus has been on the inter-dynamism of quantum mechanics and the phenomenology of consciousness, “pre” and “post” death. It is on this area that I wish focus an examination of fear. And, I state clearly that this is an examination of fear, not an exhaustive examination of innumerable studies – which the reader can do at leisure.
Although the field of neuroscience (fundamentally materialist in its orientation) has been for many years evolving out of behavioral psychology, ethology, evolutionary biology, and pharmaceutical psychiatry, it has publicly emerged only relatively recently, especially in seeming response to the earlier emergence of documentary studies of what have come to be known as Near Death Experiences. Just as Raymond Moody’s book, Life After Life opened the door to a plethora of other such books, dealing with ever larger varieties of reported and claimed non-corporeal experiences, so too was the door opened, albeit somewhat belatedly, to materialist counter assertions.
Draped in the academic regalia of science, the materialist counter assertions seem to presume that all analyses evidential to favorable interpretations of non-corporeal experiences are robed in the cloth of religion. This is absolutely not the case. As I have stated elsewhere, the common dichotomy poses a choice between:
A. There is an “afterlife”; there is a god.
B. There is no “afterlife”; there is no god.
The assumed linkage within each proposition is itself flawed, as shown by the paradigm in its more complete form:
C. There is an “afterlife”; there is no god.
D. There is no “afterlife”; there is a god.
One can only speculate on the individual motivations and fears of the proponents of any of the four propositions. However, it is historically undeniable that the advent of the Life After Life and related literature was quickly hijacked by religious authors apparently desperate to prove that which they claim should be taken on faith – thus ironically diminishing the province of faith in favor of the province of knowledge.
The saying, “Nature abhors a vacuum” comes to mind here as it is increasingly clear that the epicenter of what is being called the conflict of faith and science is the American conscience. An exhaustive reading of the non-corporeal literature exposes a genre in which, while there is still a strong core of rational, phenomenological literature this literature reaches the general public in amounts that are ever diminishing in comparison to the industry of “Christian” literature that is contrived. fictional, and in some cases evidential of serious psychiatric and/or psychological problems in the authors. The industry has matured in recent years, giving rise to what I have labeled the Trojan Horse literary form. Masquerading as innocent and factual “Gee, look what happened to me” reports, these books find their way into unsuspecting homes and, upon being opened, release the consciousness penetration team of an anthropomorphized god of some sort, divinely ordered moral injunctions, biblical fantasies and mish-mash, and religious characters who want to be your friends.
The American social landscape (it is difficult if not impossible to term it a culture) is roiled with social policy debate, and often with spurious forms of authority for stated positions. Within the positions in these cyclical debates we can frequently find a phenomenon known as Cognitive Dissonance, the holding of two or more conflicting views. “Right to Life” advocates, sometimes willing to harm abortion providers in defense of a fertilized egg, usually do not blink at imposing capital punishment on a wholly formed person. Materialists, cloaking themselves as advocates of open minded science, dogmatically dismiss contrary evidence as “unscientific”. And, the recent history of American politics has repeatedly demonstrated how a certain political party has hijacked evangelical religious movements into positions which advocate “freedom” while at the same time seeking to impose laws intruding between a woman and her doctor, between a sexually active person and his or her pharmacist, and between loving adults who happen to be the same sex. Evangelical moralists claim to cherish honesty while at the same time engaging in dishonest Trojan Horse tactics through every available medium and across the broad subject matter domain of American life. The end seems to justify the means, any means.
The scientific community, still trying to recover from the 12 evangelical years of Reagan/Bush and the 8 more extreme years of G.W. Bush (described as the most anti-science administration in U. S. history and recognized for its proud, in-your-face ignorance) has allowed itself to be pushed into its own form of anti-science – the knee jerk materialist world view.
Images of self appointed charismatic politico-religious leaders leading mobs of torch and pitch fork bearing peasants to the voting booths are compelling.
Academics are right to be concerned about, for example, the Texas attempt to insert convoluted, skewed, and self-contradictory nonsense into textbooks. Originally called Creationism, the realization that this title gave away the game resulted in it being re-labeled as Intelligent Design; still a pig, but wearing lipstick. But, although there are many in the U.S. who clearly advocate an imposition of theocracy, wholesale retreat into the extremes of dogmatic materialism is not the answer.
Indeed, the materialist camp is not without its own problems. In recent years there have been numerous attempts to explain reports of non-corporeal phenomena. These have included psychological, physiological, bio-electrical, psycho-pharmaceutical, and “dying brain” theories. The studies often appear in popular literature as well as in psychology texts, presented as in a “see, I told you so” style as if having to do a study that would have such an obvious outcome was an imposition the time of real scientists.
What the media reports, and even the text books do not portray is the full context behind and within the study. Some “landmark” scientific studies have never been successfully replicated (e.g. Persinger’s electro-stimulation of the Sylvan fissure of the right temporal lobe). This fails a fundamental principle of science. Some highly quoted studies (Blackmore’s work in the ’90’s) have failed to disclose the true results, even omitting mention of the fact that almost half of the control groups behaved in ways appropriate to and expected of the test groups. Again, this fails not only methodology, but scientific ethics.
In short, each and every point of contradiction or criticism of non-corporeal phenomena has either fallen short, grossly misrepresented the findings, or both. One study currently underway in hospital operating theaters is so absolutely flawed methodologically that it would fail acceptance into a high school science fair. That is so common across the board that it is hard to escape the conclusion that, just like the Trojan Horses of the evangelicals, these are being done knowingly.
The largely rightful fears of theology-creep are, for many, quite similar to the frog in a pot of heating water. Perhaps something is sensed, but it is not yet alarming. The dogmatic materialists, however, risk making themselves irrelevant by their entrenched stance which ultimately says, “If you do not think as me, you are an uneducated, superstitious fool”. While it is true that the common response to that, “I know what I know”, is epistemologically weak, it should also be true that the materialists could benefit from viewing the full, four part paradigm is set forth above. Perhaps a glimpse at what they do not know might return them to a path to know, away from the current path to believe in their own infallibility.