Everybody has it. It's called skepticism. It seems to work perfectly well when it comes to removing the speck from our neighbor's eye but somehow fails to aid us in removing the beam from our own.
Here are a few simple tests: Does the idea cause the individual to imagine that there exists outside of himself something more important than himself? Does the idea require devotion to any sort of imaginary entity? Is that devotion mediated by gangs of self-appointed practitioners of priest craft? Is unquestioning faith required or expected?
It is not generally a single idea by itself that causes the problem. Rather it is a fatal combination of ideas into a "meme complex" that takes advantage of the evolutionarily successful tendency for humans to ally themselves in groups -- families, tribes, civilizations, nations, etc. for the purpose of collectively preserving themselves in competition with other groups so organized.
Ask yourself what it is that holds the members of a group together? Being in a group was probably the only means of survival through most of hominid evolution. Unfortunately the mechanisms by which men form allegiances to the group can be used against them. That is not to say that even ideas that are utterly false cannot lead to the formation of groups wherein some individuals benefit. But if you examine such groups closely it will be apparent that the good is present in the dynamic of the group simply because it is a collection of humans and totally irrespective of the false idea that binds them together.
I'll wager that if you laid out any religion or false idealogy (Marxism, Nazism, etc.) you could easily separate what is human and therefore real from what is imaginary and therefore not real. Throw out the imaginary, trade faith for trust and live this life as if it is your last.
And other objects.
Not last; Only!
Yikes!! The American Revolution/Constitution meme has me in its clutches.
Here is the difficulty I'm having with your approach; Your 'test' is itself nothing more than an idea, which under your premise is itself based on chemical and physical processes. How do we know that the information stored in your brain, serving as your instruction set has any more validity than the information stored in someonee else's brain? After all, if the information stored in people's brains all has the same physical and chemical basis, then all have equal validity, based as they are entirely on physical forces. There is no way to distinguish between "good" and "bad" pulses of depolarization racing down axons and neurotransmitters splashing across synapses, since all are physical realities.
To illustrate, your implication that there is something 'wrong' with any idea that requires devotion to any sort of imaginary entity, or something 'abnormal' about devotion mediated by gangs of self-appointed practitioners of priest craft is the result of the same evolutionary process of chemical and physical forces as the opposite of your idea.
It is not generally a single idea by itself that causes the problem.
How can there be a 'problem' with an idea or a group of ideas, since all ideas have a purely physical, evolutionary basis? Saying that there is a 'problem' implies that there is some purpose that is being thwarted. There is no 'purpose' that directs evolution.
Rather it is a fatal combination of ideas into a "meme complex" that takes advantage of the evolutionarily successful tendency for humans to ally themselves in groups -- families, tribes, civilizations, nations, etc. for the purpose of collectively preserving themselves in competition with other groups so organized.
Since taking advantage of the evolutionarily successful tendency for human to ally themselves in groups is itself a product of evolution, what's 'wrong' with it? How can there be any value judgment about any evolutionary events?
If being in a group was probably the only means of survival through most of hominid evolution, then what is 'unfortunate' about the mechanisms by which men form allegiances to the group being used against them? How can there be anything 'unfortunate' about an evolutionary process? An evolutionary process just 'is'. What I am getting at is that your concept of dysfunction, or mental virus, is unintelligable in an evolutionary framework. You have no basis to condemn any mental virus, seeing as how all mental viruses, and indeed, even their mental opposites are the result of evolution.
I'll wager that if you laid out any religion or false idealogy (Marxism, Nazism, etc.) you could easily separate what is human and therefore real from what is imaginary and therefore not real. Throw out the imaginary, trade faith for trust and live this life as if it is your last.
The only possible conclusion I can draw from what you are saying is that if certain people's cognitive equipment were working 'properly', working the way it ought to work, they wouldn't be under the spell of certain illusions, or mental viruses. Yet this is unintelligable, given the premise that that all sensory and cognitive faculties have a purely natural, non-purposeful origin and our respective thoughts are just the result of physical and chemical forces. If that is true, then our brains can only be physically obligated because they operate completely by physical force, and therefore it is irrational to suppose at the same time that they reveal some truth with respect to something other than themselves, that is, electrochemical reactions in the brain.
Cordially,