In Rebecca D. Costa’s new book The Watchman’s Rattle – Thinking our Way Out of Extinction” she says in speaking of insight: “Insight holds the key to breaking a cognitive threshold that has been responsible for the collapse of every advanced civilization. It is a proven method for unraveling otherwise unscalable levels of complexity.”
What Rebecca is talking about are those pure flashes of insight that can save us from disaster. It was a flash of insight that taught firefighters to set back fires to burn the fuel beforehand so the flames had nothing to eat on their way to civilization. Caught between a wall of flame inching forward and a wall too tall to climb one man had an idea to torch the grasses behind them so they would have a place to retreat when the flames marched forward. His maneuver only saved a couple of lives that day, but now it’s standard practice in firefighting and has saved countless lives.
How do we get past the rigid ideological beliefs that have frozen our thinking? How do we open our minds to new ideas when we have been led to believe there is no other way, and if anyone claims there is another way, believers are taught that its dangerous and destructive? It’s the cognitive threshold Costa talks about in her book – that place where new thinking stops and the loop of beliefs repeats itself over and over again. She talks about the belief meme. A meme is any idea that has been repeated so many times it’s accepted as fact. When people accept beliefs based on what they consider pure faith, without fact checking or critical inquiry, entire societies are divided where one group claims superiority and non-followers are subjected to discrimination and isolation.
The political upheaval occurring around the globe today makes it apparent that an awakening is going on. Young people in particular are questioning why they must be subjected to the whims of governments that want to oppress and suppress them. In the U.S. the rights of young students to vote are being legislated away by new laws created by Republican law-makers because young people tend to vote more Democratic. Republicans are also trying to make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote because they too normally vote Democratic. So rather than ask themselves why do these demographics of people tend to vote Democratic and is there something we can do to help change their minds – Republicans are creating laws to keep these people away from voting booths. There is no questioning; just the loop of ideological thinking that repeats over and over in their minds that says their beliefs will save the world and anything different will condemn it. With rigid ideologies, there is no room for flashes of insight – only the repetition of the same maneuvers over and over again hoping for a different result – the definition of insanity according to Einstein.
The best of both worlds, in my humble opinion, is where someone clings to their faith in a loving eternal God, while simultaneously loving their fellow humans unconditionally; where they don’t need rigid ideology to do the right thing and allow others who are not like them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, unhindered by laws that would render them second class citizens.
Flashes of insight as they pertain to helping societies move forward require that we honor all humans. Our legal system is set up to punish those who would harm us or violate us in any way, it’s not our job to punish people because they are born gay or black, or worship a different god, or no god at all. If a person’s beliefs or their sexual orientation offends us, but does nothing to harm us in any way, why should we care? What is it inside of us that feels threatened by things we don’t understand?
The downfall of every society that crumbled came about because of rigid ideological differences. Should we not take a queue from them and work toward common ground before it’s too late? Currently the ideological divide in the U.S. has been defined by many as the worst it’s been in decades. The radical-religious-right has drawn a line which they swear not to cross, even if it brings down our current financial system, which will ripple across the globe and affect markets world-wide. It’s almost as if they are so anxious for their belief of Armageddon to be played out, they are doing all they can to bring about a self-fulfilling prophesy of utter destruction.
Life is too short for us to be bound by rigid thinking. People of all stripes are too precious to suppress and oppress with laws that hurt them but help no one. When I had my flash of insight that I could leave the religion that was choosing to push an agenda which hurt gay and lesbian members, it was one of the most liberating moments of my life. Knowing that I would not lose contact with my belief in and connection to a higher power – and that I could act according to my own conscience and not be subject to the rigid and unyielding ideas of the hierarchy (who claimed to have more authority in religious matter than me) indeed set me free.
If a flash of insight changes me and I choose to move back into a religious fold – I’m open to it. But based on the current discriminatory policies being practiced by most Christian churches today, I pray I will never move backward into that realm. Until those who are giving Christianity a bad name by pushing a rigid, and unyielding code of "moral family values" which harm the most vulnerable among us, I will remain a vocal advocate for change.
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