by Groff Schroeder
Human bodies respond to threats trough the involuntary "stress response," a cascade of biochemical events that ready the body for "fight or flight" type activities. The release of adrenaline and other hormones increases muscle tone, pulse, respiration, and blood pressure in anticipation of physical exertion, and induces "tunnel vision" and hyper-vigilance that improve the ability to focus.
Fear and the stress response turns the body into the physiological equivalent of a tightly wound spring, ready for quick pursuit of survival through personal self defense - or fleet footed retreat. Fighting directly addresses threats, but is inefficient and involves significant risk. Running away can help escape a threat, but does nothing to combat the source of the threat or prepare for its return. In addition, fear, the stress response, and the process of responding to threats often interfere with the brain's ability to effectively think, act, and plan, which usually induces even more fear, stress, and difficulty in making decisions. Even worse, clinical studies show that long term exposure to fear and the stress response are detrimental to the health of both body and mind alike.
Our voluntary response to fear and stress can rely upon faith or reason. Faith in the supernatural apparently activates the same addiction related pleasure centers of the brain activated by drugs, gambling, and sex, so intense religious experiences such as surrendering control over one's life, health, and future to the supernatural can be quite an effective at reducing fear. Similarly, whether the faithful evade danger through random chance, a supernatural force that somehow rearranges matter, space, and time to protect them, or through some other mechanism, it appears that successfully evading danger usually reinforces the extremely pleasant - albeit potentially dangerous - belief that one enjoys the personal protection of some supernatural force or being. No matter how gratifying, and whether protective or not, faith in the supernatural provides little or no information or experience useful in understanding, escaping, or combating existing or future threats, resulting in the need for continuing supplication (and subsequent reinforcement). Although responding to fear and threats with reason may sometimes appear more difficult, it also appears much more useful, practical, and effective.
Understanding that darkness poses no direct threat to anyone because it is the absence of photons can reduce or permanently eliminate fear of the dark. Understanding that human beings are large enough to summarily squash virtually any insect "like a bug" can reduce or eliminate the fear of insects. And understanding basic statistics can quantify the risk presented by many threats. Working to understand threats overcomes the physiological effects of fear and the stress response through distraction (as faith does), but responding to a threat with reason also identifies information and evolves plans potentially useful in resolving not only the existing threat, but also a wide range of other threat situations. Similarly, learning to start a fire, squash a bug, or recognize and avoid serious threats in the first place provides personal "tools" that can directly decrease not only the fear caused by threats, but the threats themselves.
Routine, early, organized retreat from danger, careful assessment of the threat(s) from afar, thorough consideration of the overall situation, and the development of various potential responses provides numerous, significant, and demonstrable advantages over reliance upon the supernatural in virtually all conceivable threat scenarios. In any event, recognizing that fear thwarts the ability to respond to threats offers an opportunity to overcome not only fear, but the threats that generate it.
Updated on May 13, 2020 to include an inadvertant omission (see unedited version below). Originally published May 6, 2020 in the Freethinkers of Colorado Springs Freethought Views advertorial column in the Colorado Springs Independent with the quotation below.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. "
Frank Herbert, Dune
by Groff Schroeder
Human bodies respond to threats trough the involuntary "stress response," a cascade of biochemical events that ready the body for "fight or flight" type activities. The release of adrenaline and other hormones increases muscle tone, pulse, respiration, and blood pressure in anticipation of physical exertion, and induces "tunnel vision" and hyper-vigilance that improve the ability to focus.
Fear and the stress response turns the body into the physiological equivalent of a tightly wound spring, ready for quick pursuit of survival through personal self defense - or fleet footed retreat. Fighting directly addresses threats, but is inefficient and involves significant risk. Running away can help escape a threat, but does nothing to combat the source of the threat or prepare for its return. In addition, fear, the stress response, and the process of responding to threats often interfere with the brain's ability to effectively think, act, and plan, which usually induces even more fear, stress, and difficulty in making decisions. Even worse, clinical studies show that long term exposure to fear and the stress response are detrimental to the health of both body and mind alike.
Our voluntary response to fear and stress can rely upon faith or reason. Faith in the supernatural apparently activates the same addiction related pleasure centers of the brain activated by drugs, gambling, and sex, so intense religious experiences such as surrendering control over one's life, health, and future to the supernatural can be quite an effective at reducing fear. Similarly, whether the faithful evade danger through random chance, a supernatural force that somehow rearranges matter, space, and time to protect them, or through some other mechanism, it appears that successfully evading danger usually reinforces the extremely pleasant - albeit potentially dangerous - belief that one enjoys the personal protection of some supernatural force or being. No matter how gratifying, and whether protective or not, faith in the supernatural provides little or no information or experience useful in understanding, escaping, or combating existing or future threats, resulting in the need for continuing supplication (and subsequent reinforcement). Although responding to fear and threats with reason may sometimes appear more difficult, it also appears much more useful, practical, and effective.
Understanding that darkness poses no direct threat to anyone because it is the absence of photons can reduce or permanently eliminate fear of the dark. Understanding that human beings are large enough to summarily squash virtually any insect "like a bug" can reduce or eliminate the fear of insects. And understanding basic statistics can quantify the risk presented by many threats. Working to understand threats overcomes the physiological effects of fear and the stress response through distraction (as faith does), but responding to a threat with reason also identifies information and evolves plans potentially useful in resolving not only the existing threat, but also a wide range of other threat situations. Similarly, learning to start a fire, squash a bug, or recognize and avoid serious threats in the first place provides personal "tools" that can directly decrease not only the fear caused by threats, but the threats themselves. Routine, early, organized retreat from danger, careful assessment of the threat(s) from afar, thorough consideration of the overall situation, and the development of various potential responses provides numerous, significant, and demonstrable advantages over reliance upon the supernatural in virtually all conceivable threat scenarios.
Published May 6, 2020 in the Freethinkers of Colorado Springs Freethought Views advertorial column in the Colorado Springs Independent with the quotation below.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. "
Frank Herbert, Dune