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?
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.
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.
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 Their metaphors and the societies they were created in are so outdated that in order to live by the texts, which have to be followed since they are the only cornerstone everything is built upon, you need specialists that are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.
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.
I think you have it backwards, it’s no wonder people who are easy to manipulate get drawn into religion.
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.
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).
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.
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.
That sounds like the Bonhoeffer kind of stupid.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call Bonhoeffer stupid before. Personally I wish more pastors got involved in plots to assassinate genocidal fascists.
I really wrote that poorly.
I was referring to his views on stupidity being a choice and a way of (not) thinking instead of an intrinsic attribute. That’s how someone intelligent can have stupid thoughts.Bonhoeffer was anything but stupid and the opposite of the ‘blind faith’ kind of Christian.
Gotcha. I agree.
Was that plot even real or was it a kangaroo court sort of thing?
I think it was real. His level of involvement is debatable, but his writings seem to indicate he at least knew about it.
Kind of lazy of me not to look it up myself…
🤣 No such thing as lazy, that’s just a word we use to shame people into doing stuff they don’t feel like doing.
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.
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.
Because they have been taught, from childhood, to just believe whatever the guy up front tells them to.
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.
