Many Right-wing Authoritarian Christians fall for the Pascal's Wager where they practice Christianity out of fear of going to Hell. To them, the fear of Hell and the idea of a higher authority is what drives people to act morally. They don't have inner sense compassion or empathy hence why they have to rely on these external frameworks to guide them, the idea of Plato's "good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly" is something foreign to them. [1]
They have a wish list of how they would like things to work and other things they want. Evidence tends to go against that in terms of "is this really true inherently regardless of ideals and desirability?" Consequently, they tend to be opposed to science hence why many of them resort to climate change and evolution denialism. [2] If we look at history medical advances were viewed as witchcraft by the clergy who felt
threatened that their role in treating "humors" (illnesses/disease) with
prayer was being challenged. Galileo was imprisoned for challenging the
church's understanding of the universe. Throughout the history of our
species, religion has been an ever present roadblock to progress and
science. [3]
Their worldviews are fundamentally based on believing that
the universe operates on certain axiomatic truths, and what these beliefs are defines the type of Right-wing Authoritarian Christian. The beliefs of some conservatives
might be more vague and flexible in order to adapt to a changing world,
while others are far more rigid and specific. If a person has a socially conservative worldview, it means they
carry a lot of beliefs about the world and humanity that they accept as
completely true, and they perceive the world through these prejudices. Any
observation that appears to contradict their truths will not be used to
reevaluate their beliefs but analyzed in a way where their truths are
ultimately reaffirmed. Basically, denialism is prevalent because
conservatism doesn't use observations to form answers because it thinks it already knows all the answers. Socrates probably would've hated these people with his quote “Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers." This is why trying to convince them to advocate for minority rights (like feminism and LGBTQ+ activism) is fruitless. [4]
Right-wing ideology leads to conspiracy theories because it entails a
rather malignant combination of distrust of democratic institutions and
strong trust in magical thinking (literal interpretations of religious
dogma). Also, understanding science takes a certain level of cognitive
power and patience, and the right-wing authoritarian is severely lacking in both. [5] Authoritarians are generally bad at critical thinking. In particular,
they tend to exhibit compartmentalized thinking, which is the capacity
to believe in contradictory ideas. Instead of thinking for themselves,
they prefer to absorb their beliefs from their group.[6] They tend to believe in conspiracy
theories because they unconsciously feel that have no power or control
of the world, and it makes them feel powerful to be "in the know". [7]
The Right-wing Authoritarian Christian are extremely defensive of their religion (and seek to instill and force it to others) because the claims are DIRECTLY tied to: Their sense of self, their hope of see their dead friends/family, justice for those who have done wrong (in their view), their feeling of belonging in part of something larger than themselves, their standing and ability to fit in to the only social community they have, Their sense of meaning/motivation/goal/direction - their ability to imagine their life as being valuable... among others. So, when the words that come out of your mouth are "your religion is not the universally agreed truth that everyone seeks to align with", what's going into their ears is "You might be an alien to
yourself, you'll never see you dead loved ones again, those people who mistreated you
are going to get away with it, you're all alone, you have nobody to turn
to, your life has no value and you have nothing to wake up for in the
morning that's worth a damn". The things skeptics and atheists say HAVE to be wrong to them, because if they're right, EVERYTHING falls apart, all at the same time. [8] Christians also get offended when you reject their god because their god is a construct in their heads, a reflection of themselves and their wishes, so a rejection of their idea of god is a rejection of their inner self that they may not realize. [9]
This paper is not meant as an attack on people who believe or practice Christianity, those people can be respectable, nor do I intent to imply that empiricism should be the sole criteria for a belief. My intention was to attack the psychology of the right-wing authoritarian christian who seek to control the world via religion.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1kvj88y/comment/muacgw0/?utm_name=web3xcss
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1gtsvmp/comment/lxp6olw/?utm_name=web3xcss
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1it6h93/comment/mdm9qam/?utm_name=web3xcss
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1gtsvmp/comment/lxp8gp5/?utm_name=web3xcss
[5] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1dsjmyj/comment/lb35ea0/?utm_name=web3xcss
[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1dsjmyj/comment/lb3mm7e/?utm_name=web3xcss
[7] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1dsjmyj/comment/lb30pug/?utm_name=web3xcss
[8] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1dsjmyj/why_does_conservatism_lead_to_believing_in/
[9] https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/comments/12ikry9/comment/jfu6cts/?utm_name=web3xcss
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