WARNING: “Jesus Brain” can substantially reduce your processing capacity

Religionists don’t process data like we do. Oh, I know what you’re thinking:
“Duh, Hump! Tell us something we don’t know,” or “Yeah, ‘cuz their religionists.” But it’s not that simple. In fact, it came to me as a revelation last week.

This will be the last time I mention the EE-BP rapture thing for as long as I can avoid it. Frankly I’m bored to death with it even though I have condemned myself to having to deal with it daily to some degree or another. But it has taught me a lot about how some Christians think (or don’t think) and lead me to the realization that their brains aren’t wired like ours.

I received many thousands of email from atheists and believers alike. But one constant question kept coming up from believers. So often does this query arise that I have a form letter in my draft file that requires me only to insert the respondent’s name and hit send. The question is this:

“You say you are an atheist. If that’s so, how can you charge for and offer a service for something you don’t even believe will happen? Does this mean you’ll give a refund if the rapture doesn’t happen?”

Now, whenever this question pops up on my screen I reflexively rub my eyes, scratch my neck and shake my head in complete befuddlement.. No doubt the inquiry makes perfect sense to the afflicted, albeit I can’t begin to comprehend how they get this confused.
It’s tantamount to asking:
“You’re betting horse A will lose; I’m betting he’ll win. If you don’t believe horse A will win why are you betting against him...and will you pay me if he loses?”

Say what???

It seems there is a short circuit in their analytical skills. Simple reasoning powers elude them. What is obvious to you and I, the thinking, becomes a brain teaser to these folks. Whether this defect is the cause of why they are drawn to religiosity, or whether religiosity causes this defect in them I can only guess.

What makes this particularly disconcerting is that this peculiar disability is likely running rampant among the religious right, people in position of responsibility; people who make laws, elect representatives, determine what is taught in their schools. It is the prevalence of this peculiar non-think that sheds new light on things that previously were a mystery to me. For instance:

· How can so many of the religious right even remotely perceive Sarah Palin to be qualified to run the planet’s most powerful nation?
· Why do some legislators think its fine if Jesus’ name is invoked during a pre-session prayer, but don't see the hypocrisy of their outrage at the mention of a pagan god or Allah ?
· How can grown men speculate on the shape of a banana and arrive at the conclusion that God designed it to fit man’s hand?
· How can the anti-Christian writings of Jefferson, Paine, Adams, Madison and other Founding Fathers be construed to imply this was meant to be a “Christian Nation”?

Well, I no longer have to ponder these and many other questions that were baffling to me. The answer is now clear. Their brains do not process reality or even the simplest concept as do thinking people’s brains. Reason is passed through the filter of religio-think; bathed in a plasma of confusion; treated with a does of reality disconnect; coated with doctrinal babble and finally extruded through the cells of an atrophied brain.

The end product is all too often gross stupidity.