Thursday, February 25, 2016

Meta-Cognition For The Win

While scrolling through my Facebook news feed, I stumbled upon this post.


My first question here is, why would God not accept someone who is generally a good person and does many good deeds? Second, why is Satan telling these people to be good? Damn that Satan and his humanist ideals.

All joking aside, I think attitudes like these from people of faith speak to a much larger problem. Two problems, actually. Firstly, I think these attitudes diminish the feelings of self-worth that people experience by doing good things for themselves and for others. "Your greatness is not your own, all that is good which comes from you actually comes from God working through you." I find this ironic especially when Christians (and other people of faith) claim that atheists/humanists have nothing to live for. We are living for the here and now and the near future, and we experience the beauty of the earth, the universe, and new ideas. We know who we are and we find worth within ourselves. Conversely, many people of faith are living for death and the fear of what happens should they stray from the "godly path." And as this scripture asserts, they find worth within their god.

Pardon the French here. 

On the flip side, this attitude brings with it the idea that people of faith are not inherently responsible for their actions, good or bad--and the bad ones can be attributed to the devil. I have heard time and time again people blaming the devil for everything from drug addictions to temptations of "sexual immorality." The thing is, when you start to acknowledge that your actions are your responsibility, and that you have power over them, it's easier to change them if need be. When you actually take the time to think about your thoughts (a process called meta-cognition), it becomes easier to change the way you think, behave, and go about things. But when you have a thought/impulse and attribute it to the devil, you are absolving yourself of any responsibility possibly before you have even acted on it. 





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