The herd being herded (#1064)

I have lived long enough to be able to understand how a perceived acceptable behavior gets hung on us as a way of to conform. We are steered into a method of thinking and reacting, herded if you will. Now some of societies morays are important and necessary for us to maintain civil order, however I am talking about thoughts that are allowed as acceptable and thoughts that are not. Fear has always been a big motivator of how we behave and for much of that, like just stated, that is good. What I am referring to is the contraction of possibilities for our imaginations. The one obvious area is religion. Granted we all should find some connection to our souls and have a foundation of values and principles we apply to our lives on a constant basis. But not some ordered program of genuflections that are supposedly ordained from our fears. It seems that we as a species, regardless of culture, prefer to be in conformity with even the near unbelievable in order to maintain some semblance of security. What we trade away in life for a set of hoped for outcomes beyond life is astonishing. There is no reason for our lives being born into this existence except suppositions that pass as reasons. Instead of facing the reality that life has given us no clues as to our existence, we instead search for the most handy opinion to help us escape our reality. I know this much about the human species; we care enough about our offspring to nurture, provide for and improve their stock as best we can. We also are a curious learned lot despite our medieval fears of what makes up the unknown. From these two instincts we have within us, we should be able to overcome the childhood fear of our boogeymen and treat the unknown with the respect it deserves without the security blanket of some ideological/theological salve used to assuage the fear that can and should be defeated through the normal boldness of courage.