This is a term that I made up to describe the sheer robotic nature of many fundamentalists. It is the quality of extreme stubbornness to admit that they hold an incorrect position after it has been proven, especially through their own holy book, that defines these people.Â
A really good example is when a Christian believer claims that Jesus came to bring peace, was sinless or that his sacrifice negated the 600 + Mosaic laws that are found in the Old Testament. Both of these claims go against scriptural evidence. The character of Jesus, himself, is the one who disproves these common misconceptions about him. Think that Jesus was on a mission of world peace and hated war? Wrong! In Matthew 10:34 he clearly outlines his evil plan, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Think that Jesus was sinless? Wrong! His actions and words prove this incorrect. Think that the Old Testament laws are barbaric, outdated, immoral and don't apply to the modern Christian? Wrong! Jesus clearly states in Matthew 5: 17 "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."
Another characteristic that defines this special breed of believer is what they say. They use the same exact phrases over and over. Just like the robot in Lost in Space who constantly blurted out "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!" these believers have very little originality and therefore use the same standard responses over and over. Some good example are "God Loves You." or "I didn't come from no monkey!" or "Animals have no morals." All are fallacious. The biblical character of Yahweh is evil. He admits this in Isaiah 45: 6-7 "That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create EVIL: I the LORD do all these things." A being that creates evil is evil, plain and simple. Add this direct admission to this bloodthirsty tyrant's other actions, such as how he treated the pre-flood inhabitants and his own son (he begged to be let out of the crucifixion -- Daddy refused), and it becomes clear that the only being he cares for is himself. Evolution states they we and chimpanzees have descended from a common ancestor 6 million years ago. We came from that ancient species -- which was not a monkey, but a primate. Our relation to monkeys is far more ancient. But since creationists are usually completely ignorant about what evolutionists actually believe, this is no surprise. The last really depresses me. Animals do have morals. They have morality because morality in the form of brains and emotional systems have evolved from our simple beginnings 3.5 billions years ago. They carry immense survival value. Emotions and brains both help us make decisions that not only benefit ourselves but the other members of any of the species in question. This quote from a very enlightening article that appeared in Time Magazine July 03, 2005 titled Honor Among Beasts by Michael D. Lemonick shows their position, in light of scientific evidence, to be nothing short of ridiculous:
"Anyone who has owned dogs
or spent much time watching them is familiar with the posture: hind end up,
chest down on the ground, forelegs stretched forward, an eager expression on the
face. It's obviously a friendly, playful gesture, and for most dog lovers,
that's all you need to know. Ethologists--animal-behavior experts--go a step
further. They call this move the "play bow" and know it's used not just by dogs
but also by wolves and coyotes to signal an interest in the romping,
pretend-fighting sort of games that canines of all kinds seem to love.
But Marc Bekoff, an ethologist at the University of Colorado, always suspected
there was something more going on. True, the posture happens most often at the
beginning of a bout of canine play. But it also happens in the middle, and not
randomly. And the more closely Bekoff observed dog behavior, the more he began
to recognize other ritualized motions and postures--some of them so fleeting
that he couldn't really keep track. So he began making videotapes, then playing
them back one frame at a time. "The more details I saw, the more interesting it
got," he recalls. "It wasn't just dogs playing; it was also dogs exchanging an
incredible amount of information as they played."
In short, Bekoff was able to show--after at least a decade of painstaking
observation and analysis--that canine play is actually a complex social
interaction in which the participants constantly signal their intentions and
check to make sure their behavior is correctly interpreted. Dogs that
cheat--promising a playful bite but delivering a harsh one, for example--tend to
be ostracized.
That understanding is nothing short of revolutionary. Only a decade or so ago,
scientists were arguing vigorously over whether animals had emotions: just
because a dog looks sad or a chimp appears to be embarrassed doesn't mean it
really is, the skeptics said. That argument is pretty much over. The idea of
animal emotion is now accepted as part of mainstream biology. And thanks to
Bekoff and other researchers, ethologists are also starting to accept the once
radical idea that some animals--primarily the social ones such as dogs, chimps,
hyenas, monkeys, dolphins, birds and even rats--possess not just raw emotions
but also subtler and more sophisticated mental states, including envy, empathy,
altruism and a sense of fairness. 'They have the ingredients we use for
morality,' says Frans de Waal, a professor of primate behavior at Emory
University in Atlanta, referring to the monkeys and chimps he studies."
We all get stuck in programmed behavior. How many Atheists still say silly things like "Bless You" when someone sneezes just because it was programmed in when they were children? A rational person, realizing that such a response is illogical, will drop it in favor of something more appropriate like "gesundheit" or "salud," both of which mean "good health." Believers seldom do this kind of mental revision. They just keep on saying exactly what they've been taught no matter how many times their positions are embarrassingly disproved! Help them break free from their metallic prison. We can all benefit from having more Freethinkers amongst us!