2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: North Carolina May Declare Official State Religion Under New Bill * * UPDATED * * [View all]Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)Thanks for your thoughtful post.
I think you're correct there are many ready-made
sociopaths entering or in politics. But for those
who start out with at least some conscience,
the choices they start making, as power becomes
more and more satisfying to them, weakens their
connection to conscience. This heightens their
susceptibility to religion and cult-think.
If your conscience says 'do the right thing'
and you do the wrong thing anyway, it's a bit
uncomfortable. The next time, it's easier. Pretty
soon you're telling your conscience to shut the
fuck up and ignoring it altogether. This is the
seed of sociopathy (my opinion).
Conscience is a beautiful thing and I'm sure one
day there will be found a physiological basis and
site in the brain or something along those lines.
Some physiological proof that it's an evolved
feature of the human machine.
There will be some branches of the species in
which the conscience 'organ' will have devolved
into a tiny little purposeless clump of inactive
cells -- but there will still be a trace that it once
existed as a purposeful thing; and that this creature
without a developed conscience had apparently
branched off from the actual human race. I expect
the Cheney line, among others, has done this.