How EGOCENTRISM Is A Necessary Facet Of Religious Fundamentalism.

Egocentrism.

It's a way of thinking that most humans would naturally outgrow; 
if they grow up around other naturally maturing humans. 

However, ...

Egocentrism is a major mechanism
that some religions use
in order to stunt the emotional maturation of members. 

Infants are easier to control than adults.

Emotionally regressed people 
are less scary, more exploitable.
 And thus,
more rewarding for church leaders.

It's also an essential element of their worldview.

Thus, such churches go out of their way to cultivate this. 

They realize that especially mature and wise adults do not mentally see their "God".

This is why some bible writers have specifically said that their god does not reveal himself to the wise and the learned. 

This is how they shame knowledge and maturity;
 as they call upon everyone to regress back to a helplessly dependent child-state. 

Thus,
the infantile nature of egocentrism remains a core facet of religious fundamentalism. 

One way that manifests is to think like this:
"X experience for me
must surely be X experience for everyone.
Therefore, everyone is lying when they speak as if it's not". 

Two common examples of that for Christian and Islamic Fundamentalists:

1. "I was miserable. I felt lost, before I found (this conceptualization of) God.
Therefore, everyone feels miserable and lost, until they find (this conceptualization of) God". 

2."I know instinctively that my (specific conceptualization of) "God" exists.
He has revealed himself to me.
Therefore, everyone knows he exists.
He has revealed himself to everyone."

From there, they IMAGINE that everyone (even the early Stoics) made a willful choice to "reject the true God";
out of a spirit of rebellion and a selfish desire to embrace "the things of this world".

THAT is how they "just-ify (root word "just"; as in "justice") the belief that their "God" is merely "letting people send their SELF to Hell"; because those people "chose that fate.
How?
 By rejecting:
the God everyone secretly knows exists,
and
the criteria everyone secretly "knows" we will all be judged by.

It's a very dark fantasy.

It's also a fantastically unfair judgement.

 It's a false and unjust premise for
a deeply antisocial "US vs THEM" paradigm.

This is known in academic circles as "othering".

Essentially, it's racism; based on something other than ethnicity. 

Religious fundamentalist churches
(Protestant, Catholic, and independent churches) have created a fictional evil "THEM", as the "bad people". 

Islamic groups do the same thing; but with somewhat different language. 

Christians have called their imaginary enemies  
"The World".

They accuse that fictional enemy of imaginary evils.

They also accuse that fictional nemesis of actually-real evils.

Those evils do happen.
But it's all being committed by humans from all walks of life; including people in every  fundamentalist's own church. 

They imagine (very wrongly) that their own church (the "body" of true believers") are not equally as involved and guilty.

They also imagine (very wrongly) that their "Holy Texts" have flawlessly abstained from those evils. 

In reality, their religion/faith's texts and culture have been substantial drivers of suffering, death, and other tragedies in our world. 

And yet, they're unwilling to seriously and honestly consider any evidence (facts, logic, and ethics) which run contrary to their narrative.

Why?
Because they've been tricked into taking an emotional oath of loyalty.

They've mistake that oath for an oath to an actually-existing "God";
 a Super-Father 
whom does NOT want them to grow up. 

Such religions use that narrative as a way for the believer to justify regarding the value of "worldly" lives (all non-Christian lives) as forfeit.

People immersed into any such religious culture
mistake that for reality.



The linchpin
holding all the circus cars of that carnival train together 
is actually not "faith". 

It's egocentrism. 

And it's being used to prop up proven-fictional narratives;

narratives which runs directly counter to everything scientists know about how the human mind works, how morality has evolved, how humans evolved,  and the real history of human religions (including the real history of their own beliefs). 

Their religious narratives are rooted in scientific illiteracy.
And yet, followers do not realize it's rooted in scientific illiteracy.
 
And they'll never realize that, 
until they start to outgrow the egocentrism. 
 
It's what their churches have demanded, rationalized, and incentivized; 
in order to hold it all together. 


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