phone. So intent was she on proselyting that she seemed unable to let any opportu- nity go by. (Festinger et al., 1964, p. 178) _ _ Chapter 4 SOCIAL PROOF To what can we attribute the believers' radical turnabout? Within a few hours, they had moved from clannish and taciturn hoarders of the Word to expansive and eager disseminators of it. What could have possessed them to choose such an ill- timed instant-when the failure of the flood was likely to cause nonbelievers to view the group and its dogma as laughable? The crucial event occurred sometime during "the night of the flood" when it became increasingly clear that the prophecy would not be fulfilled. Oddly, it was not their prior certainty that drove the members to propagate the faith, it was an encroaching sense of uncertainty. It was the dawning realization that if the space- ship and flood predictions were wrong, so might be the entire belief system on which they rested
through a realization of the fundamental oneness of all life, they brought more violence and hatred, more divisions between people as well as between different religions and even withing the same religion. They became ideologies, belief systems people could identify with and so use them to enhance their false sense of self. Through them, they could make themselves “right” and others “wrong” and thus define their identity through their enemies, the “others,” the “nonbelievers” or “wrong believers” who not infrequently they saw themselves justified in killing. Man made “God” in his own image. The eternal, the infinite, and unnameable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as “my god” or “our god.” And yet… and yet… in spite of all the insane deeds perpetrated in the name of religion, the Truth to which they point still shines at their core. It
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