I’m starting to see why some people can be Christian while others can’t. I think a lot of it comes down to brain power. Brain power is something separate from intelligence, brain power is more about how you can organize your mind to get what you want out of it, intelligence is just how fast and expansive it works.

I search old emails a lot and I remember my aunt who is a Christian therapist telling me in 2005 to play cognitive tricks where basically in the circumstances that weren’t totally bad I marked the things that weren’t total crap as God working. Something similar is going on in that popular praise and worship song “Waymaker” where they tell you to put your brain in sleep mode and pretend God is working even when you can’t see it or feel it. My problem with playing mental gymnastics is I am aware I’m playing them as I’m playing them so like a magic trick that I’m aware of the slight of hand going on so I don’t get the desired effect.

People with a lot of brain power can tell their brains to do whatever they want and their brains obloge. It’s almost like they have really good software controlling their microprocessor. For example an iPhone will shut down their processor’s high powered cores to save battery life. For a person this might mean checking their brain at the door when they walk into a church. The ability to believe in the supernatural at one moment and then be perfectly sane at another is more of an accomplishment than you think. I could only believe in magic when I’m psychotic or close to psychotic.

I think brain power is important in all kinds of other areas but religion is just the one I think about the most. When you don’t have much in this life you think about religion more because it’s shoved down your throat and you don’t have anything else going on.