Contradictions and Compartments in Paradoxical Self-Awareness

(This post was inspired by a post of friendlyatheist.com. Thanks!)

It is a frequent misconception that some people have paradoxical beliefs and others don't. These others often are atheists and are talking about their superior selves. I want to shed some light on how in my opinion the paradoxical mind really works.

A paradox is a state of mind where one can believe one thing while at the same time believing a contradictory thing. As with everything related to the human brain, it is a product of evolution.

For example: Red frog is bad. But red strawberrys are fine.

The color red has paradoxical meaning. That is no problem, unless you try to apply reason. What does red mean? It obviously means good and bad at the same time, therefore a reasonable person must conclude that red is not the cause of good nor evil.

The paradoxical state of mind is at its evolutionary roots context-driven. It requires no effort to differ. Red strawberrys are a good kind of red, red frogs a bad one.

The effort we have to make to get rid of our inner contradictions is a reasoning one. As reason (in the example provided and in evolutionary theory) is beneficial but not essential for survival, it is much more important to recognize that the red frog is poisonous than to realize that it can not possibly have anything to do directly with the color red.

Applied to religious thinking, one can believe in science and religion at the same time. But one cannot uphold a defensible reality-based view of the world unifying the vastly contradictory statements of the two. To put it differently, you can believe in religion and science, but they can not both be true. Or: You can believe in both, but not in a world were all creeds of both apply.

An atheist has the same capacity of falling into the trap of just believing something, or of having contradictory beliefs, even without realizing it, than any other human being. Atheism is not a philosophical school you subscribe to that makes you impervious to ill-guided, unscientific thinking, paradoxical beliefs, quacks and magicians, nor psych tricks of marketing and sales gurus nor optical illusions for that matter. It is merely a framework that allows you to make best use of the tools of science and reason to become as unconflicted and self- and world-aware as possible.