The Three Main Causes of Blindness The Mind Blind Mode When Blindness is in the Mind Not the Eyes

The Mind Blind Mode: When Blindness is in the Mind Not the Eyes

What is the mind blind mode, and what causes it?  It’s when blindness is in the mind, not the eyes.  So, the eyes are useless if the mind is blind.   Find out so it doesn’t happen to you.

The Three Main Causes of Blindness

When we hear the term blindness, we usually think of the eyes.  But the eyes are just one tool of perception.  We experience everything within our minds.  People who are blind still visualize and see things in the mind’s eye.  People who are deaf can describe the effects of sound vibration.

Similarly, when we dream, we visualize with the mind.  The mind sees the eyes as just one of the senses that provide input.  So, what are the three main causes of blindness?

1) Diseases of the Eye
2) Sectarian Religious Beliefs
3) Harmful Political Views

Only one of the significant causes involves the eyes.  Medical science successfully treats the eye diseases, such as macular degeneration, cataracts, and diabetic retinopathy.  However, these physical ailments aren’t responsible for most cases of blindness.  The mind’s inability to consider and accept ideas and facts is the worst type of blindness.  It’s known as perceptual blindness or “the mind blind mode.” It’s more common than you think.

This condition is more common than we want to acknowledge.  When blindness is in the mind, not the eyes, we deny facts because that’s the way we set the automatic filter of our worldview.

The Eyes are Useless if the Mind is Blind

Politics is a tool of religion.  It is what religion uses to formalize its beliefs and values into the cultural narrative.  Religion and politics create the most devastating blindness of the mind and are hard to overcome.   These two sources cause irreparable impairment of perception, logical reasoning, and rational judgment.  How does this happen?  Why do people choose this type of perceptual blindness?

“Religion has the capacity to silence critical thinking and create blindness in entire groups of people.  It can infect the minds of followers so completely as to allow the most egregious sexual acts against children and others to go unchallenged for centuries.” — Darrel Ray

Not all religions or political opinions cause perceptual blindness, only those that promote harmful values.  What are these destructive values?  They are belief systems that sell hate and spawn genocide, wars, and discrimination of races, ethnicity, and gender.  All the while proclaiming they are agents of love.  You’d be surprised to find that most people who have religious beliefs ignore these contradictory messages.

What belief systems do you think fall into the harmful category?  The Abrahamic religions are the dominant religions of the world, sponsoring sectarianism and discrimination.  What are the Abrahamic religions?  They are the Semitic religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

These paradigms (1) cherry-pick doctrines to fit their needs.  It shows up as religious prejudice and discriminatory practices aimed at race, ethnicity, or gender.  This programming justifies torture, murder, and genocide.  It’s the belief that their beliefs give them the right to harm others who are not a part of their group.

“The eyes are useless if the mind is blind,” ― Mark Venturini

The Abrahamic religions use propaganda, mind control, and fear tactics to promote and install their values.  All extremist political groups use the same techniques to sell unsubstantiated claims and conspiracy theories.  And it is not just the extremist who are affected by the mind blind mode of thinking.  Moderates and fringe believers are pulled into this groupthink manipulation, supporting the agendas of those on the far right.

“Religion is like drugs, it destroys the thinking mind.” — George Carlin

“Religion becomes a matter of belief, and belief acts as a limitation on the mind; and the mind then is never free.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Making belief superior to facts is like putting on a blindfold.  When blindness is in the mind, not the eyes, they can program us to believe anything.

“To describe religions as mind, viruses is sometimes interpreted as contemptuous or even hostile.  It is both.  I am often asked why I am so hostile to organized religion.” — Richard Dawkins

“Fanaticism is the greatest threat today. Literally, the 21st century threatened by fanatics, and we have fanatics in every religion, unfortunately, and what can we do against them?  Words, nothing else. I’m against violence, but only words?”  — Elie Wiesel

These systems are harmful to all of society.  Their goal is to promote ideologies that support justification for violence and discrimination.  They tell you what is wrong and right, and this propaganda captivates some people.  The beliefs become your identity, and you will protect them with violence if necessary.  Of the three main causes of blindness, these two are the most dangerous.

Why The Mind Blind Mode Is Hard to Cure

This indoctrination often starts early in childhood.  It also targets the vulnerable in society.  When you are in need, you are susceptible to groupthink manipulation tactics.  The effects of this type of systematic indoctrination depend upon how integrated you’ve become into the propositions they are selling.

Without a doubt, this describes the characteristics of the Abrahamic Religions (2).  The Western organized religions of Semitic origin, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  These religions are the re-branding of mythologies of the ancient Egyptian, Persian, and Babylonian empires.  They are mythology presented as fact.

Even if you aren’t a follower of one of these religions, they still affect people because of their colossal social reach.  They infect our society through their political acolytes.  They prove the eyes are useless if the mind is blind.  The level of influence depends on how much social integration they have in your life.  There are specific tools of doctrine for integrating people into these paradigms.

1)  Acknowledge specific beliefs concerning a God
2)  Accept boundaries for acceptable and unacceptable behavior and values
3)  Follow all rules for maintaining good standing to get afterlife rewards

Sadly, the people in charge of many governments place the dogma and values of these religious traditions above fair and equitable treatment of people and the environment.  They create a slippery slope leading to fanaticism that results in violence.

When Blindness is in the Mind Not the Eyes

The struggle of humankind to free itself from controlling these religious maladies isn’t new.  But it is causing a widening gap in the world’s culture.  Modern civilization has one foot stepping forward into the enlightened future with science and facts, while the other is firmly rooted in mythology and superstition.

There is a medicine for this mental disease; logic, reason, and scientific facts are the antidote.  But it’s a hard pill to swallow.  This disease is in control of many cultures.  There’s just too much money and power at stake.  The mind blind mode creates the most powerful boundaries against anything threatening its sacred ground.

In every era, some people awaken.  If there is room in the culture, they can free themselves from these spiritual prejudices.  But this struggle is not without consequences.  Persecution continues in today’s modern world.  If you do not align with their mythology, then being ostracized is the least of your problems.

Their religion and its leaders empower a range of atrocities in the name of their deity.  Through politics and sometimes violence, they can maintain control and dominance in the culture.  They do these things with a clear conscience because their beliefs justify their means.  Yes, the eyes are useless if the mind is blind.  When blindness is in the mind, not our eyes, our conscience is also blindfolded.

Politics is the tool of religion because politics is often just a tool for promoting religious ideology.  So, we must take responsibility for our minds and learn how to disengage from the rhetoric.  Instead of following the dogma, they conduct independent research, learning to discern the facts from fiction.  The problem is that religious and political ideology propaganda undermines critical thinking.

Actions You Can Take

The growth of awareness results in the illumination of conscience.  The issues mentioned above have always been there.  We can take off the blindfold.  Unfortunately, just being aware of the problems doesn’t eliminate them.  You have work to do, both internally and externally.

It is hard to do if you live in a culture where religion and not reason rule society.  It also depends on how you handle the level of indoctrination.  You’ll likely need help and support to deal with it.

Internal Issues

The internal issues relate specifically to our paradigm or our worldview.  Our worldview contains the filters through which we perceive reality.  It acts as a blueprint for our thoughts, beliefs, and values.

There are two choices or options to deal with these side effects of increased awareness.  If you program your mind with religious prejudice and bias, it will affect all aspects of your thinking.  Remember, the mind blind mode kills all facts and truths that threaten to expose them.

First Option for Internal Issues

The first option is trying to ignore the three main causes of blindness.  That’s right.  Try to ignore the evidence.  Pretend that your belief in an imaginary friend is harmless.   Involve yourself in more groupthink manipulation tactics.  Try to drown out the facts and your conscience.

Trying to ignore the issues doesn’t stop them.  You’ll still see and know about them.  You can try to drown them out with entertainment or slip deeper into conspiracy theory mania.  But trying to suppress the realizations provided by greater conscience will only add to the pain of cognitive dissonance.  And it is harmful to you and everyone on the planet.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced when simultaneously holding differing points of view or facts that don’t fit your paradigm.  If you are experiencing this kind of distress, it’s time to take a break.  Then, when you’ve regained emotional equilibrium, engage in your independent research.  Remember to be gentle with yourself.  Trust your intuition.  The discomfort is trying to tell you something is wrong.  Don’t run from the conflict.    Face it with logical reasoning.

The Second Option for Internal Issues

The second option, do something about your increased awareness and growth of conscience; if you do something about it, congratulations!  We need more people like you.

How can you learn about the internal aspect of our paradigm?  The Enneagram of Personality Profile is our recommendation.  It uses a questionnaire to identify your default personality and instincts.  Learning about this default setting will help you understand how and why you choose some things over others.   It will teach you first-hand that you are not your personality, and you can go beyond these default settings.  It’s one of the best tools to begin serious inner work.

We also recommend that you use a tool we call comparative analysis.  It’s a scientific process for investigating and comparing your belief system’s elements.

Now, for the external choices.

External Choices

The First Option for External Issues

So, just like the internal options, the first choice is to ignore what you see going on.  We simply shift the focus from internal to external.  You can pretend that the social injustice and inequities you see are someone else’s responsibility and then try to deal with the guilt.  Having vision and a conscience in a world filled with hate and selfishness is hard.  If you go this route, you’ll likely experience the effects of Cognitive Dissonance above.

The Second Option for External Issues

Our second choice is to accept the responsibility of our line of sight.  If you choose this option, you can learn to be a voice of change and a champion of kindness!  The world needs more people willing to take positive steps to help people and the environment.

In Conclusion

The conflict between science and reason on one side and religion is an ongoing battle.  It proves that the eyes are useless if the mind is blind.  Perceptual impairment is when blindness is in the mind, not the eyes.

Resist the religious influences in the cultural narrative.  It’s a battle raging for eons, but we can overcome “the mind blind mode” with persistence.  People use a variety of tactics to ignore the facts that contradict their beliefs.  Don’t let this happen to you.

References

(1) Paradigm

(2) Abrahamic Religions