*The Cognitive Biases behind Religion & the Lollapalooza Effect**

Charlie Munger talks about how when someone is under the presence of 3+ multiple cognitive biases simultaneously, they can make irrational decisions.

“‘Three, four, five of these things work together and it turns human brains into mush’ Normal people will be highly likely to succumb to the multiple irrational tendencies acting in the same direction. In the Tupperware party, you have reciprocation, consistency and commitment tendency, and social proof. (The hostess gave the party and the tendency is to reciprocate; you say you like certain products during the party so purchasing would be consistent with views you've committed to; other people are buying, which is the social proof.) “ - (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Munger#Lollapalooza_effect)

Just looking on his list of cognitive biases (https://www.allencheng.com/25-cognitive-biases-charlie-munger/) I (as a former "on-fire" Christian) can see how Christianity exploits at least numbers 1-5, 9, 11, 14 - 20, 22 - 25, resulting in a super lollapalooza.

1 - Reward and Punishment Super-Response Tendency : "If you would persuade, appeal to interest and not to reason" - Ben Franklin. Christian: "If you believe, you'll get AMAZING rewards/pleasure in heaven! If you don't believe, you'll BURN IN HELL FOREVER". If you lead in prayer, share a Bible verse, give a testimony at church (at least my church), join the leadership team etc. . . You'd get tons of rewards (clapping, "you're so spiritual!", attractive/godly girls expressing admiration for you, social status). If you point out a contradiction in the Bible you’ll get shunned. The girls will be whispering in fear and disgust behind your back.

2 - Liking Tendency. We ignore the faults of people we admire. I mean we as Christians didn't just ADMIRE God, we WORSHIPPED him, said he was perfect, sang about how he was perfect, prayed and constantly reaffirmed about he was perfect, and if you were like me shouted about how he was perfect, posted on Facebook about how he was perfect . . . We therefore overlooked the war god YAWYEH's cruelties. (https://www.news24.com/MyNews24/The-14-Most-Abominable-Bible-Verses-20121224).

3 - Hating Tendency. We ignored the benefits/truths of things we hate. We ignored/disparaged arguments from Atheists and Gays. My dad has used the words pedophiles and atheists interchangeably. Shooting in vegas? Must’ve been a muslim or atheist. We character assassinated atheists with Psalm 14:1. We distorted all facts and arguments coming from people we hated, even if what they were saying was true.

4 - Doubt Avoiding Tendency - When confronted with doubts, we continually made ill-informed, quick decisions rather than using systematic research and thinking. We deliberately ignored talking about Bible contradictions during bible study, and constantly told ourselves that doubting and uncertainty was bad. Christianity avoids uncertainty on a massive level. Any process that that Christians don't have a systematic explanation for, Christians chalk up to God. "how did the big bang start? GOD did it". "How did I get a promotion at work? GOD BLESSED me!". "How did my cold go away? GOD took it away!". "How did I find my keys? GOD triggered my memory". “Who gave me the Ferrari? GOD gave me the Ferrari!”

5 - Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency - We got freaking baptized and posted photos of it all over Facebook! We're part of the cult now. We've done the hazing ritual. No way we're gonna' admit that we made a bad decision. We give away 10% of our money. We've confessed to masturbation in front of co-ed Bible study groups. We've gotten degrees (ok, actually I fortunately ended up deciding engineering over ministry) and careers for Christianity. No way we're just going to have an about-face on our identities. That would make the other cavemen in our hunter-gatherer tribe realize we’re incompetent.

9 Reciprocation Tendency - small group and churches gave us free food and fun activities. As good people (and as programmed by our genes for social-evolutionary advantage) we need to reciprocate and agree to come to Bible study next Tuesday. And the BIG ONE: Perfect Jesus (bias 1) gave HIS LIFE FOR YOU, you wretched sinner (Bias 3). You need to reciprocate back and commit your life to him.

10 Influence-From-Mere-Association Tendency. You won't see Christians advertising Xtianity's negative associations (priest child rape, the Crusades, when 199/200 people die on a plane crash), but you will see them associate Christianity with EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING POSITIVE. WorldVision. Steph Curry. When one baby survives out of 200 on a plane crash. Associate anything good in the world with God. Associate anything bad with liberals.

11- Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial. “Christianity can’t be false because that would make me sad”

12 - Excessive Self-Regard Tendency. 90% percent of drivers think they are an above-average driver. And 99% percent of Christians think Christianity has above-average moral system.

14 - Deprival-Superreaction Tendency - aka loss aversion + sunk cost fallacy. Similar to inconsistency avoidance (but less so about maintaining identity and more so about incorrectly weighting past actions in current decision making). Losing your Christian friends in your mind is more painful than gaining new non-Christian friends, so you stay in the church. The pain of eternal hell is a large loss, whereas having <80 years of a fun, true life is relatively small gain. You’ve already spent so much on being a Christian. Can’t leave now.

15 - Social-Proof Effect - all these smart 4.0 engineering students at your college are also in Bible study. They can’t all be stupid! Cf. Solomon Asch line experiment. In-group conformity is powerful. We make decisions not based on logical decision trees, but rather on if the decision is an accepted behavior of our tribe, because our evolutionary ancestors would starve if they got ousted by the tribe.

16 - Contrast-Misreaction Tendency - Humans think in relative contrast (% terms) rather than absolute numbers. We get bait and switched, slowly over time. The non-demoninational churches say nothing about hating gays. All love. All fun stuff and community service. Then you move up the ranks in church leadership and a few years later you realize that we all think gay people are sinful people. But it’s no biggie, because your belief in this and other Xtian beliefs has only slowly grown into realization over the months and years, and you never really noticed. You boil a frog in hot water by slowly raising the temperature.

17 - Stress-influence tendency - You don’t want to be pondering decision trees when a tiger jumps at you. Similarly when you’re going to sleep at night, praying without ceasing and working out your salvation with fear and trembling, as your heart rate is pounding in fear after you just masturbated as a 15 year old male, as the threat of hell threatens to burn you (which your brain interprets as death prevention of your gene propagation), you don’t have enough time/evolutionary incentive to question whether the threat of hell is real. JUST RUN AWAY FROM THE FIRE NOW.

18 - Availability Misweighting Tendency. We as Christians eagerly thought of and told others about the handful of prayers that were answered, but never the hundreds that were never answered and we forgot about (I prayed for hundreds, if not thousands of people to get saved, and the second one of my friends prayed the sinner’s (bias 1, 2,3, 4,5 9, 14,15, 17) prayer with me, I texted 30 of my contacts and told all my friends/ mentors at church that “Joe just got saved! God is good and faithful”, and then received a bunch of praise and status from my church (bias 1)

19 - Use-it-or-Lose-it tendency. Memory decays quickly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve). Christianity only survives through brute force repetition. Read the bible every day. Pray without ceasing. Memorize a bible verse a day. Have small group to reaffirm your beliefs on Monday, Bible study Tuesday, your school’s Christian Group Wednesday, Church Sunday. Pray with your parents at every meal, every time you go in the car, every day before work/school, every night before you go to bed. Pray with your best friend at the bus stop every morning. Pray a blessing over your teacher every time you walk through the doorway to your class. Carry your Bible with you all the time, more so than your textbooks. The only way such an abnormal belief can sustain itself is through constant brainwashing and repetition.

20 - Drug-Misinfluence Tendency - there are substances like alcohol that are addictive and make you feel deceptively happy. Similar deal with a bunch of neurotransmitters. The oxytocin when you hug everyone at small group. The serotonin high we get after worshipping on Sunday, seeing all of our community, having twenty different people say hey to you at church (wow, I’m high status now in my church). Seeking the ever-receding high from spiritual experiences and church retreats (http://wakethechurch.org/Articles/tabid/410/ID/10828/Hooked-on-a-Feeling-The-Addictive-Nature-of-the-Modern-Church-Format.aspx). The feeling that you are part of something momentous, historic, when you are in your rapidly growing megachurch.

22 - Authority-Misinfluence Tendency. Animals and other mammals form dominance hiearchies. We naturally, unquestioningly just follow a leader. Besides: Romans 13:1-5

23 - Twaddle Tendency / Dunning Kruger Effect - Humans (and honeybees) are confident even when they have no fucking clue what is going in. We claimed to have so much knowledge about how the universe works, all based on a series of books written 1900 - 3100 years ago. Our confidence exceeded our abilities. I remember walking up to a lady in a wheelchair and commanding her legs in the name of Jesus to walk. Not only this, but we were fractally twaddling. Twaddling about everything. God caused that hurricane, because of gay people. Yes not weather patterns. Gay people. I’m a fuckin’ meteorologist you heathens That girl on the bus looks distressed. I’m a fuckin’ mindreader you heathens: GOD IS CONVICTING HER OF HER SINS but there is a SATANIC ATTACK GOING ON RIGHT NOW THREATENING HER SALVATION. I need to evangelize to her now, before the devil takes her to a point of no return. (I remember in 10th grade this exact situation happening, and me feeling so guilty that I was afraid to intervene in the obvious spiritual warfare happening a few seats next to me on the bus. I remember in college my small group leader “using discerment” to discover personality traits about me and him being totally wrong. That Dunning-Kruger mentality of Christians thinking they are mind readers and and armchair psychologists started to stick out to me then.)

24 - Reason-Respective Tendency - hearing illogical reasons can be just as persuasive as logical reasons. "Pastor: Now Joshua 6:21 may look like it’s immoral. But it’s actually not, because of mysterious ways." "God gave me a Ferrari because I AM A FERRARI" (https://youtu.be/bIx3ElOc_K0?t=1m27s)

25 - Lollapalooza Tendency - When someone is manipulated via one cognitive bias, the rational part of their brain can often win out over the cognitive bias. But for the untrained mind, 3+ cognitive biases is just so emotionally/evolutionarily persuasive that irrational behavior ensues.