Persistence of the 'Big Lie'

Real-world consequences of the normalization of faith-based worldviews

Early indoctrination into a ‘traditional,’ faith-based worldview has been the norm for the majority of children born into this country since its inception, despite the overwhelming comparative success of evidence-based worldviews that have emerged as alternatives. The implanting of belief-as-reality into the brain and constant reinforcement by family, church and society while the brain is young alter the trajectory of the brain’s development and diminish its potential to appropriately, rationally evaluate incoming information in the future. In particular, a faith-based worldview trains the brain that cognitive dissonance is a sensation to be avoided at all costs, especially if it arises in response to evidence that logically conflicts with tenets of the faith. This increases the chance of survival of the worldview but at the cost of critical thinking skills. Confined to a faith-based worldview, the brain learns to limit logic when evaluating information and use emotional response in its place to gauge reality. Imagination is recruited as well to help fill in the gaps between belief and reality. Any remaining doubts are finally assuaged essentially by peer pressure from others with similar beliefs at church or more broadly from society at large--there is comfort in numbers. The combined effect of these processes is the desired result of religions in the form of a brain determined to maintain belief in the face of contrary or inadequate evidence. The reality of something as analyzed by a faith-based worldview is thus determined not on evidence but on how it makes someone feel, how easily it can conform to one’s core beliefs, and on whether or not it is accepted by others in one’s sphere. Once a brain has learned to bypass the critical analysis of nonrational ideas associated to the particular faith, i.e. creation from nothing, miracles, virgin birth, resurrection, moral absolutes based on the whims of a stone age tribal deity, it becomes much easier to apply this maladaptive ‘skill’ to other arenas of incoming information. If, today, one made a random selection of anyone who continues to endorse the ‘big lie,’ deny climate change, refuse the Covid vaccine or accept the Q-anon conspiracy, the likelihood is extremely high that they were also indoctrinated as a child into a faith-based worldview and have had decades of practice avoiding critical analysis of incoming data. Even for those that may not have been indoctrinated directly, the faith-based worldview is so normalized in our society that there is no backlash for individuals or groups when proposing ideas for which evidence has obviously been ignored. There is of course a caveat that not everyone indoctrinated into a faith-based worldview maintains that view throughout their life, and for those that do, there is a spectrum of influence it will have on their thinking and behavior. There is a reality, though, in this country and throughout the majority of the world, of a millennia-long cycle of potentially maladaptive thought processing being instilled into the brains of every successive generation of children before they are able to choose for themselves. Close to home, there are real-world, negative consequences that can be seen today in the US resulting from the normalization in our society of the concept that believing something is as legitimate a way to know something as is having evidence.