Jake grew up in a passionately devoted religious community. He has been taught from a young age that an invisible, all-powerful God loves him. He was also taught that he will be blessed and protected as long as he accepts the scriptures as the unequivocal truth and adheres to the rules for life dictated in the holy book. Because Jake always sought guidance from the holy book, he felt happy, safe and comfortable following the rituals and routines prescribed in it. When he got married, he decided to settle in a religious community near the ocean, which shared his mistrust for secularism and science, where he did not need to defend his life's choices or the authority his religion has in his life. He thought that it would be a good place to raise a family, as the schools here did not teach anything that contradicted the holy book. During one particularly hot summer, the federal meteorological service issued a severe hurricane warning, stating that a storm of unprecedented magnitude was forming near the coastline where Jake has settled. The government issued an evacuation order for the whole coastal region, but Jake chose to put his trust in the protection promised by the scriptures, and stay home to pray through the storm with his family, as did many others in the community. Everyone who stayed in the town died.
b) This is a good example of a model case because:
- Jake chose to believe in an unsubstantiated story over facts
- Jake accepted ideas as the truth based on how they made him feel
- The holy book was a source of happiness as it simplified life for Jake into simple rules, and he was emotionally motivated to follow it
- Jake accepted his religious laws as the supreme authority for the way to live his life
- The beliefs of everyone involved were unquestioned and absolute
- The devotion to a set of beliefs was unequivocal
- The community focused on living a spiritual life
- The community built itself around the guidance of a book, and followed it devoid of critical thinking and detached from physical reality
- Jake's beliefs were acquired and reinforced through the communities he lived in
- The community's disregard for everything outside of it destroyed it
c)
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FAITH
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IRRATIONALITY
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Emotionally motivated
Prescription for living
Absolute authority
Unquestioned set of beliefs
Unsubstantiated belief
Passion
Spirituality
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Acceptance of stories as fact
Detachment from physical reality
Avoidance of critical thinking
Unequivocal belief
Foundation of bad decisions
Reinforced by consensus
Blatant disregard
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