The Religious Trap

Where there is doubt, there is freedom!

- Latin proverb


This blog essay will explain one of the fundamental reasons why religions have survived thousands of years of human “advancement” and are still “successful” for the most part to this very day.

In order to address this issue, one must come to the realization that all religions are nothing more than an embodiment of a group of moral standards and cultural guidelines that basically offer more insight into the psyche of the people rather than the alleged nature of their god they believe to exist.

To put it easily, religion serves the purpose of representing the strong controlling force, similar to our maternal and paternal figures we rely on and take comfort with during childhood.

This controlling force is normally not manifested through physical actions such as violence or abuse. But more importantly, the religious controlling force uses the emotions and thought process of the believers, the developed “spiritual” conscience, and fear of God’s potential punishment toward them. This manifestation and carrying out of this control is what I coin as the Religious Trap.

The religious trap works as a defense mechanism to keep the religion alive and well. Just as the self-defense mechanism of a rose bush are the thorns, which protect them from harm and threats. The self defense mechanisms of a religion are the very minds of the believers and their fear of the perceived consequences of “going against god”. Self defense mechanisms are only developed as a response to a known weakness and fallibility. Therefore it can be logically deduced that religion as a whole must have a known weakness and is fallible.


The defense mechanism / religious trap works as follows:

For example, It has been proven that evolution, whether micro or macro/mega, does indeed occur and accounts for the abundance of life on planet earth without the help of an omnipotent creator. Because the evidence and proof of evolution occurring and still occurring is in direct conflict with the fundamentals of most religions, the defense mechanism/religious trap is automatically activated in the mind of the religious follower. The result is that, the believer of a god will be forced to assume that the scientific evidence has to have been misinterpreted or is flat out wrong, because, “it just cannot be” that man and the animals were not instantaneously created by God as described in Genesis, even if the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to the scientific realm and evolution.

By having this simple defense mechanism, religions have managed to stick around for thousands of years, because if something goes against the religion, the followers will bear the burden in defending it and if not, their conscience will make them feel bad about potentially betraying their faith. (Even if all that they would be doing is accepting the truth!) This is a powerful defense!

It can be deduced that the believers of a “god” have been conditioned into emotional and intellectual dependency on their religion and “god”. They are afraid to think for themselves because first they would humbly have to acknowledge and admit they are fallible and more importantly, that religion and the concept of a God is indeed fallible. The religious trap thus trains them to fear and in some cases despise the freedom of thought. They, in a way, become free of the “burden of freedom”.

“They escape from this freedom in order to stay at peace with their religion but at the same time, unknowingly, they are running from the anxiety associated with decision-making. The rational atheist on the other hand has learned to live with this “anxiety” of free thought and makes the most of it. Rational atheism rests upon the notion that the more one knows about science and accurate depictions of reality, the better their decision-making skills become. This is a self-reinforcing cycle that explains the affinity of the rational atheist with science and knowledge”. (Frank Zindler 1989)

The religionist escapes from the burden of decision making by believing in a God simply because if a religionist makes a decision which turns out to have grave consequences, it is still of no concern to the religionist because ultimately, the consequences, however grave they are, were obviously simply part of God’s plan all along, and remember, God allegedly “knows best”. (How can personal responsibility be divvied out for decisions made if ultimately a god is in control?)

The religious trap, however, does not only protect itself from scientific discovery. It also has the duty of protecting itself from other religions. This can be very apparent when religions do not want their young members or “newer”, “weaker” members around other religions for fear that the young naïve believer may potentially get “sucked” into the other faith. This religious trap works so efficiently that every religion actually has its members come to believe that they are the one “true” religion!

When someone says a statement such as “my religion is the true way to get right with God”, they are really saying, “my religion has the best defense mechanism of them all, and it has brainwashed me to the extent that if I contemplate betraying it, my conscious will really make me feel bad.”

When one objectively approaches religion from a scientific view, it appears to have analogous attributes to any other successful living organism.

a) Diet (what it feeds on): Religion feeds and nourishes itself with the minds of followers.

b) The Body: The body of this entity consists of billions of believers all working together for a common goal and carrying out of the growth and reproduction of the religion.

c) Defense: The religious trap will be activated and it dismisses anything that goes against the faith as “wrong” or “betraying God” even if it is the truth.

d) Reproductive Mechanism: The population of religionists increase by either “inheritance”,
where children and other family members automatically inherit the religious, faith based view of life from their parents or guardians, or by “outside exchange”, where a person comes in contact with a persuasive individual of another faith.

These two mechanisms of religious reproduction are strikingly similar to mechanisms of biological reproduction. Those mechanisms being asexual reproduction (where offspring are basically the exact result/copy of their parent) and sexual reproduction (where offspring are the result of an exchange and combination of genetics from two separate individuals).

When one looks at it like this, religion appears to be a perfect living thing. It has a good steady diet, solid regenerative internal structure, two modes of replication and above all, a near perfect defense mechanism. Religion itself would be the perfect entity, if only it was based on real principles.

The religious trap also naturally serves the purpose of protecting the very existence of god. Most religions end up instilling in their believers that God does indeed exist but cannot be contested by teaching, “God is not testable by human definition” or that “science and logic can not be applied to God.” I find it funny that I could also accomplish the same task by stating that an “Invisible Pink Unicorn” does indeed exist, but this Unicorn refuses to let anyone detect her. I then dare anyone to try and prove me wrong! The end result is that it is impossible to prove me wrong that there is not an Invisible Pink Unicorn.

When it is stated that “one cannot apply scientific rigor and logic to God”, it is implying that there is indeed a “god” but he doesn’t have to get involved with proving himself to those who want proof of his existence. The rational atheist also finds this convenient cop-out based on “unfalsifiability” humorous because it is impossible to distinguish between a god who refuses to get himself involved, and the alternative of, “a god who does not exist!” The religionist might as well be worshipping an undetectable three-eyed goblin and then make the same weak claim that, “because of the attributes of the goblin, his existence cannot be tested and can not be subjected to science.”

The rational atheist finds it humorous that this “God” appears to be involved in a long game of hide and seek with its own supposed creation! What kind of “god” would chose to not make it blatantly obvious that he or she exists? My viewpoint is that it is either one with a severely twisted morality (which may very well seem plausible when one analyzes this God’s track record of behavior involving apples, floods, plagues, fire, brimstone, first born sons and pillars of salt) or one who does not exist in the first place. The Religious Trap overrides a person’s ability to think objectively and critically about the logic and evidence supporting the non -existence of gods and a supernatural realm.

The religious trap also instills in its believers a subconscious “vow” that they will not change their mind about their religion or the very existence of Gods, Goddesses, angels, devils, demons, witches, burning bushes, worldwide flooding and an afterlife no matter what the evidence might show! It is as if the religious trap makes the believer predisposed to “counting their chickens before they hatch”! Real science and rational thought is the exact opposite of this! With science, the evidence dictates what to believe, even if this evidence is totally contradictory to what we felt more comfortable believing! If the evidence conclusively points to the non -existence of gods, devils, goblins, boogiemen, angels, demons, hobbits, talking snakes and Easter bunnies, then that is what you get!

The religious trap tends to also make believers of a God adopt a superficial “live and let live” attitude toward other religions and rational atheists. It is characterized by a feeling of “I don’t care what you believe, if it works for you, it is fine.” The problem with this viewpoint is that most likely, the person saying this only gives the appearance of tolerating the opposing view and shows a facade of “live and let live”, but all the while still holding steadfast to a belief that their “god” is the “true” God and eventually others will have to answer to him. The other problem with the false “live and let live” view is that it implies that one can live life believing whatever they chose to and it is perfectly valid as long as it is “valid to them”, independent of evidence and the true reality!

This viewpoint sadly implies to the religionist that the concept of objective reality is “not important”. So for that matter, I should be able to go through life wanting to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 3, and because I believe it to be true, it is indeed true?

I firmly believe that the Religious Trap basically can lead to a type of psychosis, which should seriously be studied by modern psychology! It is amazing how the Religious Trap can destroy a person’s common sense to such an extreme that they will readily chose to believe the unbelievable. The religious trap has the power to take a normal human being and instill a yearning for the fanciful so deep within them, that even when faced with a mountain of evidence that clearly destroys the fantasy, the religionist will only tighten his or her grip on the fantasy! In a situation where it is exposed that “gods” and miracles are not the answer, the religionist may accept that “god” did not factor in to that particular situation, but yet still believe that a God does exist somewhere in reality!

The religious trap makes the religionist believe that for some reason, even if right before them there is concrete evidence against their belief in a God, that evidence is still somehow “insufficient” to overpower the history of humans believing in a God! And for cases where things are exposed to not be the work of a God or the supernatural, the Religious Trap also has already instilled an overdose of wishful thinking and hope that it is still possible for a God and the supernatural to exist somewhere in reality, just not in that particular case that was exposed as false, a hoax or my own delusion!