.Some groups teach detachment from daily struggles. Members are taught to be detached from their struggles and the daily struggles of others. In order to accomplish this, the group must teach separation of conscience from consciousness – not the consciousness of awareness but the next step of consciousness which includes action, especially direct action.
These groups must also emphasize followers focus on a care-free, pain-free pleasurable future while ignoring the harshness of present realities and ignoring how the past continues to contribute to those present realities.
The result is group members who are passionate about the religion* but dispassionate about the problems and suffering of themselves and others and leads members to plausible deniability about the group's contribution to current reality.
In the early 1800's, psychological theorist Alfred Adler suggested we all have the innate ability to feel for others. He said contributing to the common/universal good is an imperative that differentiates the healthy from the unhealthy and the functional from the dysfunctional; but, this ability must be nurtured.
Long before Adler, this was understood by the Ancients who said: “Cultivate [nurture] the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. The development of our capacity for moral reasoning is critical for our good health.”
In reality, every decision is constantly made over and over again. Do I stick with the same decision or change the decision? Most decisions are about deciding between the Higher Self and the Lower Self which means the decision is always about letting conscience be the guide or letting ego do so.
Perhaps the only reason a person decides to nurture ego way more than conscience and then let that decision ride and guide is that there is no decision to make because, to that person, conscience does not exist.
Thus, in other words, many people, rather than making a clear choice between the higher-self and lower-self, are instead making choices between different levels of ego manifestation - which is the lower self and which is not conscience - thus conscience has nothing to do with the choices many people make.
In other words, most choices, rather than being between good and evil are really between one evil and another evil, either one,not necessarily the lesser.
*Religion includes the religion that is formed around country and national ideas, i.e., America is a religion. Its member's behavior is the same as religious members, and for the same reasons.
