I see many theists refer to a search for truth, understanding, and wisdom, yet then show hostility and aggression when asked for clarification. To my understanding of psychology they are suffering cognitive dissonance and can't reconcile what they want to believe from how it's also irrational and conflicting from actual knowledge.
Agreed.
I mentioned earlier that I have been trying to get a better idea for a few years of just what such people are doing and why. Also, why they are so reluctant to explain these things. The little bit of feedback I've gotten suggests that they are involved with a psychological technique that relieves some kind of cognitive dissonance. Perhaps it is a destressing tactic for some, and an escape from reality. There's quite a bit of discussion of other worlds and a higher awareness, which I now understand as wanting to escape mundane existence regularly for whatever reason, a kind of, "Jesus, take me away from all of this!" It's the same sentiment we hear in some hymns:
Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away;
To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away (I'll fly away).
I'll fly away, Oh Glory
I'll fly away; (in the morning)
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,
I'll fly away (I'll fly away).
When the shadows of this life have gone,
I'll fly away;
Like a bird from prison bars has flown,
I'll fly away (I'll fly away)
This gets framed in the language of insight and higher truth, of wisdom and spiritual truth, but as we've seen, there's really none of that there. I have concluded that for most, it's a kind of coping mechanism, a way of managing unpleasant feelings about the here and now, of making the mundane feel sacred. It's related to what I call the bus stop mentality of so many, who seem to be living life as if they were at a bus stop waiting to be taken away to someplace better. These are the people who say that life is hopeless and meaningless without that belief, and describe that as being focused on the spiritual realm, not this material world. Of course, Christianity creates that separation. That's the goal - redirect your attention from the world around you to this imagined realm, which is described as a higher realm made of a finer substance than base matter, hence the elevation of the spiritual over the material even though this other realm is nowhere to be found. One is exhorted to not be attached to this world, even to see his own flesh as a defective cage for his spiritual self, the soul.
It's not just the religious. I know people that are very new agey, who are also continually writing or speaking in magical terms. This is from the Facebook feed of one, a neighbor, regarding the recent holiday: "
Mars enters Taurus on July 4th, moving from masculine Fire to feminine Earth. Our force comes not so much from self-orientation, now, as from our alignment with Nature."
And this was in response to overturning Roe: "
We live in a time of the narrowing of minds and hardening of hearts and for some that means a return to the old mistakes of trying to restrict, inhibit and diminish the womb, which otherwise has always represented the great feminine force of life. Ancient ideas considered that the womb held, not simply the seed of life, but also the mystery of life."
You can feel the need for magic there - of astrological houses and ancient wisdom about life forces and the mystery of life. I ask myself what need she meets with this, some need she has but I don't. Isn't life magical enough? Here are the books she wanted her Facebook friends to see on her shelf:
I should mention that she is an acupuncturist. Her website promotes acupuncture, and also "
Akashic soul readings" - more magic. Of course, that makes me, a retired physician, the bad guy pushing drugs, "treating symptoms rather than illness," but we don't go there.
You're right about the hostility directed back at those trying to understand them, which is somewhat alien to academic culture, where people are happy to explain their thinking and look to make clear, meaningful comments about it. Why, I wonder. I understand that there are different degrees of linguistic ability, and that many people have difficulty expressing themselves coherently, including university professors, but they don't get angry about being asked what they are thinking.
And that emotionality is interesting, too. It always comes from this other world. I would never get angry at her for offering Akashic soul readings the way she would angrily judge traditional medicine. The RF posters who engage in what I call soft thinking since it lacks the rigor of empiricism, are also visibly disdainful of skeptics. I really don't understand that. My response to them isn't emotional or angry. Why would it be? So, there's something else I can't understand or identify with, but I suspect that it arises from unfamiliarity with what I called academic culture, where such behavior is rebuked as inappropriate, where debate is constructive and friendly rather than experienced as a verbal fight.