Alien Invasion

In Alien 1979, we were introduced to a creature that invades its host and connects itself so deeply to the host's internal organs that removal of the invader will kill the victim.

When religion is installed in the mind of a baby and left to grow for years, disentanglement seems close to psychological suicide. The human "self" is so entangled with the invader that survival without the resident alien seems impossible. In fact, the invader has become the "self".

The alien egg is planted soon after birth. The victim is raised in a deeply religious household that is itself part of a religious culture. Inside the bubble, the fantasy is daily reality. This is particularly insidious for women, who may find themselves mothers in their early teens, saddled with caring for (and infecting) families of their own long before they develop brains that are capable of "pushing back" against bubble-think. Religion tends to be "hard wired" into generations of women, who form the cultural back bone of religious culture, even if it seems that men play the dominant role in such cultures. Religion is built in to the rituals of daily life from morning to night, day to day, month to month and birth to death.

The idea of God is inherently an insult to reason, but inside the bubble this tension is twisted into a never-ending state of emergency in the real world. The believer puts aside the question of how an all-powerful, just and loving God could create such an awful world. The "solution" to this paradox would seem simple outside the bubble: there is simply no God, at least not in the literal sense. But inside the bubble, the "solution" is in terms of "us and them", personal sinfulness, the threat of ostracism and eternal damnation. The concept of a loving God is turned into an ever-present threat, especially for those who would think for themselves or ask impertinent questions. The occasional beating or witch burning ensures that all this is real, physical and terrifying on a daily basis.

Inside the bubble, the natural human desire to be loved and accepted is made conditional. As soon as the toddler starts to talk, she is taught not to ask questions. She quickly learns how to find the carrots and fear the sticks.

If, by some circumstance, she is ripped out of the bubble and dropped into the world at large, she carries with her so much trauma that it is virtually impossible to even form the right questions or realize that she has taken the bubble with her. She wears a kind of space suit that isolates her from the way people think in the world outside.

• For her, God must exist and, for her, He does. He has a voice inside her head and holds a filter before her eyes that makes Him seem to be present in every moment. Challenging God as an "idea" makes no sense to her - it would be like doubting her own existence.
• In fact, her self image is irrevocably distorted. Her religion has taught her that she is an immortal soul. It is impossible for her to challenge what she means by some of the first words she learned: "I" and "me".
• Her education has taught her that the universe itself is governed by ethical principles. Therefore, all the terrible things in the world "should not", in some sense, be happening. They are unfair, unjust. Doubting God doesn't fix this, and without God (she has been taught) the world would be even more terrible and beyond salvation (whatever that means).
• She has long been taught that everything that happens is part of the drama with God pulling the strings. Her own sinfulness (part of her DNA) is part of the reason things are so horrible. Things don't "just happen". They happen for a reason - part of a cosmic drama with a beginning, an end, good guys and bad guys. She is part of the drama, constantly challenged to ask, What can I do? Why is this happening?
• She has been inoculated at a young age to regard other religions as false, evil and dangerous. Outside the bubble she is suddenly surrounded with people who have other beliefs. It is literally impossible for her to ask why she is suddenly alone among people who share few if any of her core beliefs. She is too terrified and isolated to challenge her world view as an idea. To her, it's just real. While she may be deeply troubled by her beliefs, she is unable to ask, Is my own religion false, evil and dangerous?

Learning to survive in a Godless world is to be forced to learn a new language at a late age. You can learn to speak like a native, but with a heavy accent. In the new language, words like "God" and "justice" and even "should" don't mean the same to you as they do to everyone else. For you, God is not an idea. He is somebody real that you left back home. Somebody who is still out to get you. "Hell" is not a four-letter word. It is a place waiting for you.

A central idea of this blog is that our "inner voice" is essentially a "virtual machine" - a proxy for the culture at large. Our "minds" belong to that culture, speak for that culture in the language of that culture. Therefore, when we debate with the true believer, we debate with her culture - she speaks for it. In some sense, in that conversation, she is the religion you are attempting to "un-install".

The metaphor of a language learned too late in life applies when we encounter people crippled by a life-long exposure to deep religious culture. You need to speak about things that have shared meaning - real things in the practical world. It is unkind and perhaps dangerous to attempt to "rescue" such a person from what you regard as a world of myth and illusion. We are all trapped in such a world. For all of us, the way our world view fits reality can be uncomfortable at some times and utterly wrong at others.  Do we really have an alternative that can replace the appeal of religion on every level?  It's not just about "ideas" but the need to completely re-invent the self and learn to talk all over again from scratch. Religions use the metaphor of "rebirth" as a door in to the faith. It applies equally to the door out.

I was raised in a "Christian" culture (hence the title for the blog) but was always expected to "make up my own mind" - in other words, I was also raised a skeptic. It was easy for me to treat religious ideas as theories to be accepted or set aside based on evidence, consistency or simple usefulness. There was never a time when a single version of Christianity dominated my world. I must accept that I have no idea what it would be like to be raised in a bubble. I can clearly see the damage that does, but, lacking any "cure" for the psychic disease, I can't go around bursting bubbles.