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?
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.
Stupid, sexy demons!
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.
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
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?
Oh, so that means people are smart and never believe lies??
Go away
You sound like someone who thinks Terry Goodkind is poignant.
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.
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.
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 you have it backwards, it’s no wonder people who are easy to manipulate get drawn into religion.
I think it’s because religions, cults, sports teams or whatever have community. Community comes with shared identities and beliefs. Nobody wants to be outcasted or shunned. So you follow along. Your friends are there, your family is there … they all believe the same thing.
Yes, and groupthinks incorporating spirituality and a doctrine that threatens damnation for violations of the rules (including questioning them, sometimes) have just proven very persistent and effective.
I’d add conspiracy communities to the list, including some prominent on Lemmy.
Most people are easy to manipulate, religious or not.
- Why do you think fake news are a thing? People are willing to believe whatever will suit their narrative without actually doing the (real/hard) work of cross-referencing and checking said news (edit: aka, without using their brains). More importantly without ever daring criticize their own beliefs—aka the ‘we’re right/we’re the good guys’ vs the ‘they’re the wrong/the bad guys’ type of discourses that seem to prevail in our (manipulative and manipulated) societies.
- What could explain those almost instantaneous gathering of large crowds based on anger or fear? Most people are willing to use anything as a pretext to let their anger/fear free to express itself and wreck havoc (back to point 1)
People being religious just tells us the type of things they’re more likely willing to believe in/act upon. But the gullibility is the same with or without religion (edit: and that is real major issue in everything that’s going wrong nowadays), to me at least.
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we live by faith, not by sight.
The whole concept of faith implies believing something without proof. Not a long stretch to see how people might believe in other, non religious, things without evidence.
And not just without proof, but to ignore proof if you see it!
Proverbs 3:5-6 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
And
Proverbs 28:26 26 Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe.
I think what proverbs is saying is less about evidence and moreso about following your heart and being arrogant.
John 20:25-28 ESV
So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
It’s the modern Scheister equivalent of “Trust me bro!”
Religion has a build in self defense mechanism as that it will prime people to expect people to call them fools for believing foolish things, so it actually serves to strengthen their faith. “See, pastor told me they’d come for my relationship with God!”
All of this relies heavily on getting into people when they are young and their brains are still developing.
People do not understand how deeply religion gets ingrained and how damaging it is.
You’ll have adults that have left the faith, because they’ve seen the bullshit that it is that are still afraid of hell because they’ve been bombarded with this shit since they could talk.
This does not only happen with religion. Also for example with some politicians, or nowadays ‘influencers’, etc.
It is the phenomenon that people do not like to think for themselves and decide for themselves.
Thinking and deciding and taking responsibility can be difficult. It may appear quite convenient when someone does it for you.
The bubble. I have a friend who ended up in a ‘bubble’ church. They get all their news from the church. TV channels: church. Cinema: church.
They have a STEM degree. They’re not stupid, and yet they are.
The same reason why people who believe in crystal-healing are easy to manipulate.
Because they have glaring gaps in their rational thinking ability
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.
