I’m watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it’s mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
A lot of churches are cults. The Jehovah’s Witnesses put their religion before their own kids and shun them. They’ll pass on a blood transfusion for their religion. So yeah, mind control is a real thing.
In a word: gullible. Full stop.
For the abrahamitic religions, I’d say that the problem is the age of their texts. Their metaphors and the societies they were created in are so outdated that in order to live by the texts, which have to be followed since they are the only cornerstone everything is built upon, you need specialists that are authority figures like priests who you have to trust as a laiman in order to learn what the texts meaning is. Because not everyone can devote themselves to theology.
Imo, because they expect God/Source/whatever to be a cosmic vending machine, without doing any internal work on themselves, or external work to make manifest the world they envision, with a large Side-Order of blame, shame, and guilt, scattered, smothered, and covered with greed, vengeance, and distraction (addictions included).
Their entire worldview depends on blindly believing things that don’t make sense and are unverifiable
They are trained from a very young age to accept anything an authority tells them.
This is how I look at it mostly. I also think, and statistics show as well, that religious folks are less intelligent on average… partly because they are taught a bunch of nonsense.
I think maybe you have it backwards people who are easily swayed/trusting of authority/gullible are going to be naturally drawn toward religion. Skeptics/those who don’t take things at face value are going to be naturally skeptical of it.
Religion doesn’t make you stupid but it’s very attractive to the sort
The flip side of that is manipulators are going to gravitate toward religion as a easy way to get what they want from the suckers.
People with a highly metaphysical worldview are easier to deceive and manipulate because their normal logic barriers have already been broken down - ie, if you already believe that the earth and everything on it was created by an omnipotent superbeing in six days, it’s not much of a further leap to believe that demons are making you horny.
aka: you gotta be dumb to be religious in the first place
Religion isn’t the only arena that has charlatans, manipulators and con artists.
No, but it’s certainly a big draw. People looking to the collection plate to buy absolution, buy better health, a better life, whatever…that already believe in magic are far more easily manipulated. Religion has always been attractive to charlatans, grifters, and even warmongers and hatreds. You an far more easily get people to hand you power and money with religion.
Stupid, sexy demons!
There is also a selection bias at play here. I suspect that people who are more susceptible to manipulation are more likely to be religious.
Religion also includes a pretty horrific indoctrination program in children, ensuring that most of them remain uneducated and pliable enough to be manipulated for the rest of their lives by the church.
Literally, because they’re trained, usually from the age of children, to believe things without evidence. Their beliefs are based ENTIRELY on the conviction of other brainwashed
idiotsreligious people, which can be very convincing as a small child who’s otherwise completely and utterly dependant on the understanding of the adults around them.This is from someone who grew up in a religion and thankfully realized other peoples’ conviction is absolutely NOT a valid basis for understanding truth.
Organized religion is a means to control people. Always has been. How can anybody be surprised to learn after thousands of years they have actually perfected the craft of controlling people?
Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I think you have it backwards, it’s no wonder people who are easy to manipulate get drawn into religion.
If you believe in a magic man in the sky and a talking snake, it’s probably pretty easy to convince them of other things too.
Religion has already filtered out a population segment more likely to defer to authority figures when faced with facts that contradict reality.
South Park sang it best.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm3mDatFpNE
Joseph Smith was called a prophet (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) He started the Mormon religion (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb). (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) Joseph Smith was called a prophet-
(Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) Many people believed Joseph (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) And that night he-ee saw an angel (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
(Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
Joseph Smith was called a prophet (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
(Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
He found the stones and golden plates (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) Even though nobody else ever saw them (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
(Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
(Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
And that’s how the Book of Mormon was written (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) (Dumb dadumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) (Dumb dadumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) (Dahumb dahumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) (Dumb dumb dumb dumb duuumb, duuumb.)
Martin went home to his wife (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) And showed her pages from the Book of Mormon (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
Lucy Harris smart smart smart (Smart smart smart smart smart)
Martin Harris dumb dadumb-
Lucy Harris smart smart smart Martin Harris dumb. So Martin went on back to Smith Said the pages had gone away Smith got mad and told Martin He needed to go pray (Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
(Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb)
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.
People are stupid. They can be made to believe any lie because either they want to believe it’s true or because they are afraid it’s true.
-Terry Goodkind, “Wizard’s First Rule”
Hate to break it to you, it’s not just religious people.
This the book with the extended author self-gratifying torture sex scene in the middle that has almost nothing to do with the story?
The author who went on about people being stupid when the entire plot hinges on the fact that the main character was forced to memorize a book for like, no reason, at the beginning?
The world with a tribe of “uneducated savages” who are saved by white man ingenuity, because, despite living in an area with heavy rainfall, they never thought of making roofs that don’t leak?
The obvious self-insert main character who escapes being forced to breed with said savages by convincing them his jizz is poison?
I misread the original quote as being from Terry Pratchett and as I was reading your comment I was like “No way in hell, what is this guy talking about?”.
Good heavens, no. Terry Pratchett is more than capable of nuance, subtext, and a love for his characters that goes beyond propping up his own fantasy.
Oh, so that means people are smart and never believe lies??
Go away
You sound like someone who thinks Terry Goodkind is poignant.
Pretty simple. They are groomed from birth and often until death, to blindly trust the “leaders” of their community. At some point they develop critical thinking skills, but they are so deeply manipulated to trust the cult that they face an internal conflict: Break away from your core values, family, friends, community, comfort of purpose and greater value, etc. Or don’t apply critical thinking to certain topics in your life.
Faced with what is essentially a social and moral death they ofteb choose the simpler option, just don’t let logic into that part of their life.
Honestly, hard to balme them, I myself have faced similar issues in my life and sadly didn’t always have to courage and strength to go with logic and instead kept with social norms that I know are wrong. To be fair, I think that 90% of people are blind to their own illogical (and often harmful) beliefs, but they easily identify it in others.
when you believe one outlandish thing, it’s easy to be convinced of others. On top of that one of the main tools religions have is fear. Make people believe in some horrible fate, then convince them the only way to avoid that fate is through doing exactly as you say.
