People don’t see why faith and confidence in God are dangerous and how it becomes the mind trap of faith and fear.  Faith is a process built on fallacy and circular logic.  The circular logic of theology is the linchpin that keeps people in the faith trap.  Learn how to get out of this prison and set your mind free.

Why is faith in God a problem?  About half of the world’s population believes in an imaginary friend.  On the surface, this seems like a harmless concept.  Faith is a place of comfort for many.

Faith and Confidence in God

Believing that an imaginary entity is real is built on a dangerous fallacy.  It assumes God is the explanation for the unknown, an error of logic known as the argument of ignorance.  Herein lies the mystery of the mind trap of faith and fear.

Using God as a linchpin of Western theology builds a hierarchy of doctrine.

1) Monotheism is the assertion there is one true God (mine, not yours). Only my God can have these attributes and powers.

2) Eternal existence, the assertion that God has existed before time and space and was unlimited by time and space, and operates outside of our three-dimensional sphere of understanding (height, width, and time).

3) Self-Existent—completely self-sustaining and inexhaustible.

4) Omnipotent, all-powerful, and completely sovereign.

5) Exemplified as dispensing goodness (blessing and mercy), and with equal measure punishment and evil.

6) Omnipresent–unlimited by time and space, everywhere simultaneously—unlimited by time and space, is everywhere simultaneously.

7) Omniscient—cognizant of all things at the same time, including the thoughts and intents of all people.

8) The receptacle of absolute moral and ethical purity.  He could neither sin nor tolerate sin.  He is Holy and righteous in the ultimate sense, even though he allows evil to occur.

9) Immutable—completely unchangeable in nature and purpose.   Always the same and therefore dependable and reliable in the ultimate sense.

10) An invisible God, a being without any corporal form(s) or manifestation(s).

These attributes are documented in their Holy texts, although the validity of this working document is in question.

1) The Septuagint for textual accuracy, “Little is certainly known about it, for information is frequently based on ancient traditions of doubtful authenticity, and scholars are divided in their judgments both concerning its origin and its usefulness in textual criticism.

2) International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1996) states that we have no Masoretic texts that are older than 10 CE.   Asserts that the later Greek translations “restored” the proper meaning to the Hebrew text, thereby ignoring the validity of Qumran texts.   It is a book consisting of 66 separate writings which were edited and revised over 1,500 years by thousands of editors.

These attributes culminate in the ten commandments:

1) I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.  (Jealousy)

2) You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.  (Unbelief )

3) Remember to keep holy the LORD’S Day.  (Selfishness)

4) Honor your father and your mother.  (Heirachal Authority)

5) You shall not kill.   (Moral Boundary With Some Exceptions)

6) You shall not commit adultery.   ( Moral Boundary With Some Exceptions)

7) You shall not steal.   ( Moral Boundary With Some Exceptions)

8) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  (Moral Boundary With Caveats Excluding Spiritual Leaders)

9) You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.   (Moral Boundary With Caveats Excluding Spiritual Leaders)

10) You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.   Moral Boundary With Caveats Excluding Spiritual Leaders)

Faith is a Process of Indoctrination

The underlying message of the above tenants is that you must obey or suffer the consequences.  Unbelief is treated as a crime that is worthy of capital punishment.   This is the mind trap of faith and fear.

The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity use circular logic (1) to justify mythology and superstition.  Look at each premise of their arguments.  You will be hard-pressed to find any hypothesis with a factual basis.

It starts with some unproven assumption, unquestioning faith, and confidence in God.  First, you must agree that their version of an imaginary friend is real.  Faith is a process that is part of the package buying into the idea of their sacred texts, even though they are contradictory and illogical.

Here’s an example, God inspires their holy book, and you believe in God, don’t you?  So, if you believe in God, you must agree he inspired this book.  If you don’t believe in God, you will go to hell for eternity.  So, you believe in God.  And this is how the circular logic of theology uses fear to build acceptance of the false argument.

“You don’t want atheism shoved down your throat?  OK.  We will stop knocking on doors spreading our ‘Truth’ and having tax-exempt organizations dedicated to atheism that have influential political action committees.  We will also stop printing ‘In atheism, we trust’ on all US currency and saying, ‘One nation, under atheism” in the pledge of allegiance.  We will also stop insisting that everyone who disagrees with us will be sentenced to eternal damnation… Wait…” — David G. McAfee

If they can get you to believe and have faith that these assumptions are valid, they can program you to think and do almost anything.  Pick any assertion made by Western organized religion, and you likely find a circular logic error.

Here’s an example, the Bible is true because the preacher said it was true, and the preacher says it’s true because it says so in the Bible.   It’s circular logic, and you cannot prove the premises are true.  The circular logic of theology is the core strategy of the belief system and why faith is a trap.  It also tells why faith is important to this paradigm.

Another good example is how someone tries to prove the existence of a god.   Let’s use  Odin as an example.  So, Odin promised to kill all the Ice Giants.  Since there aren’t any Ice Giants, Odin must also be real.  Again, here is circular reasoning with premises you cannot prove true.   You’ve fallen into the faith trap if you believe it is true.  Here again, we see a circular reference is used to make this ploy plausible.

The Abrahamic religions are not new or original.  They are exact copies of the mystery religions of the Medditraian region circa 1 BCE.  When the Roman army conquered this region, they kept the cults as easy cash flow sources.  They combined Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian mythology and superstitions for the new Universal Religion of Catholicism.

They adopted everything from these systems, including their inconsistencies and logical and scientific contradictions.  They saw the effectiveness of self-hypnosis and group hypnosis and used these to build the world’s largest financial empire culminating in the City-State of the Vatican in Rome.

The above attributes show us how deductive reasoning can become a circle of illogical conclusions.  Faith is a place where you believe in something without proof or logical conclusions.  Once you establish the fallacy of its existence, everything else can be added.

If there were evidence of the existence of God, then you wouldn’t need faith, which is the essence of the mind trap of faith and belief. (2) Faith is a process you use to confuse belief with confidence.  We have confidence the sun will rise in the East tomorrow.  This is based on the historical evidence of sunrises.

Those who believe in God also think they’re too smart to fall for the tactics of a con artist.   Isn’t it interesting how they don’t see the irony in their reasoning built on circular logic?   Let’s see how faith and belief get them there and how to get out.

“I don’t need faith.  I have experience.” —  Joseph Campbell

Faith and belief provide answers to the unknown.  So, faith is a place of comfort.  It is a dead end that relies on fear to keep the belief intact.  If you lose your faith you lose the comfort of afterlife rewards.

“It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.” — Sam Harris

“There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom.” — Robert Green Ingersoll

Religion teaches people to confuse faith with confidence.  We have confidence that the sun will rise tomorrow; because of the evidence of previous sunrises.  All the belief in the world will not make the sun come up in the west tomorrow morning.

So, how do otherwise intelligent people fall into this trap?  It starts with the misuse of a deductive argument.   Here’s how it works.

Understanding The Mind Trap of Faith and Fear

A trap prevents you from moving; it is designed to catch and keep prey.   It’s a device that allows entry but prevents you from leaving.  In the culture, a trap is a ploy that uses psychological manipulation tactics to pressure you into deciding in their favor.

A trap is also a situation in which someone hides and waits.  Someone wants to deceive you.  This way, they can steal from you.  They make Traps to capture prey who are unaware.  And the best mind trap keeps you paying to stay in it; that’s the faith trap.

Nothing is more confining than the boundaries we place in the mind.  We can only perceive what our worldview allows, and the mind becomes a trap when we confuse fiction with facts.  Belief masquerades along with faith as a place of comfort, but it is nothing more than a ploy to keep people paying customers.

When you mistake the analogies and stories of mythology for factual events and people, you create artificial boundaries that override common sense and logic.   It’s why the mind trap of faith and fear is so important to organized religion.   Learning why faith is a trap is the first step to spiritual freedom.

“Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle.” — Richard Dawkins

Then once you create these boundaries based on mythology, the mind will defend them with violence if necessary.  Mythology is the most dangerous when it morphs into a region.  We see how Western organized religions substitute mythology and superstition for evidence and facts.  These tools make faith perform as knowledge even though it is not.

“This is the thing I’ve never understood: If someone is going to hell for being gay or being a Jew or a Muslim or having an abortion, then what are you worried about?  You don’t need to try and convert these people or try and save them.  If you really believe in your religion, these people are already doomed, so stop worrying about them.” — Lewis Black

Your comfort zone can often be your danger zone.  It feels comfortable and provides “easy” answers to complex questions, but it’s a trap because they use circular logic based on inaccurate or faulty premises.

“Belief in things we can not prove require faith.   So faith masquerades as a place of comfort, not a place of truth.  Faith requires the rejection of the facts that disprove it.  Belief and faith are the products of brainwashing.  It’s why faith is a trap.  To maintain faith requires constant brainwashing and self-hypnosis.

Sometimes the brainwashing is voluntary and self-inflicted, and sometimes it comes through forced indoctrination.  Both belief and faith are tactics of mind control.  They are counterfeits that keep you wanting more.  And neither belief nor faith provides doorways to spiritual truth.” — Guru Tua

Faith is a Place of Comfort A Circular Logic Error

A deductive argument is only valid only when you can prove all the argument’s premises are true.  The correct form is: “A is true because B is true, and B is true because A is true.” But, when the premises are false, the argument is invalid.

A Circular logic error can be challenging to spot because it mimics the correct form for an argument using deductive logic.  It is complicated when the argument involves a long chain of premises built upon one another.   It’s what organized religion does with faith and belief.   It’s hard to spot and overcome once you buy into it.

Circular reasoning uses a faulty argument to make its point.   That’s because it can only be valid when all the premises are true.  The field of religion is ripe with this kind of looping argument.   It’s why it is the most common form of logical fallacy.  A circular reference is your clue to question the content of the premises.

How to Find Spiritual Truth

If you seek the truth, you won’t need belief or faith because you will rely on evidence.   That is why faith is a trap—faith substitutes belief for facts.  You can’t find your spiritual truth following the stories of others.  You won’t find it in any sacred book.  Seeking the truth requires an inward journey.   You’ll be able to find it using ancient spiritual technologies for exploring consciousness and expanding awareness.  Faith is a place where you must learn to deny the facts in order to maintain your delusions.

Several seated and moving meditation systems can open access to pure consciousness and break down perception barriers.  Using these tools is the essence of spiritual exploration.  You learn these processes, follow your heart and intuition, and develop your path.  You decide on what you need.  You choose how much, when to do it, and where.

Sometimes we can find these tools for opening perceptions in Eastern religious ideologies, but be careful when investigating all religions.  You must have the discretion and foresight not to get caught up in the mental traps of religion.  Remember, faith is a trap, and belief is a trap.  Look for teachers and systems that provide you with tools for expanding awareness.

Instead of wasting your time with harmful doctrines and dogma, try something that will help you grow and develop.  Use tools that will improve your mind, body, and spirit.  Seek the facts, test, and challenge your core beliefs frequently.

In Conclusion

A circular reference is a clue to the faith trap.  A lot of people fall into the snare of faith and belief.   Once they are in, it takes some work to get them out.  Once you buy into the mythology, the circular logic error can be hard to break.  You need to do good independent research and have the courage to search out the facts.

Learning why faith is a trap can be a disturbing development for many people.  Some reject the idea altogether.  Their faith is their identity; it’s why faith is important; it’s the common link to many important relationships.  So, finding out it is a counterfeit is hard to swallow.

If you are a follower of one of the Abrahamic religions, comparative analysis or comparative religious study is one of the best ways to approach this task.  The Enneagram is another tool that can help you identify the default programming of your personality and instinct, which may make you susceptible to self-hypnosis and group hypnosis manipulation techniques.

People don’t see why faith is a trap.  Faith and belief require circular logic to work.  A circular reference is a false argument built on false premises.  The circular logic of theology is a faith trap.  Learn how to get out of this prison and set your mind free.

References

(1) Circular Reasoning, Wikipedia

(2) Belief traps: Tackling the inertia of harmful beliefs