Posts: 67918
Threads: 140
Joined: June 28, 2011
Reputation:
161
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 8:37 am
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2025 at 8:38 am by The Grand Nudger.)
No one needs to question whether or not christianity has succeeded in disseminating it's propaganda.
Propaganda works on everyone you boring troll.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
Posts: 1997
Threads: 17
Joined: August 2, 2019
Reputation:
6
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 8:45 am
(May 13, 2025 at 9:28 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: When it lands upon people who haven't... reached the age of reason, yes, it is indeed manipulation.
The fact that you can't see it calls into question your psychological "insight", no matter what courses you claim to have completed.
Because you don't actually know how the brain works. You think children are blank slates with no autonomy that can be sculpted and programmed into whatever you want.
Posts: 1997
Threads: 17
Joined: August 2, 2019
Reputation:
6
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 8:53 am
(May 14, 2025 at 8:37 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Propaganda works on everyone you boring troll.
Everybody except you, right? You're the only one that can see past the fog and refuses to fall in line.
Posts: 23875
Threads: 26
Joined: February 2, 2010
Reputation:
105
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 8:54 am
(May 14, 2025 at 8:45 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: (May 13, 2025 at 9:28 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: When it lands upon people who haven't... reached the age of reason, yes, it is indeed manipulation.
The fact that you can't see it calls into question your psychological "insight", no matter what courses you claim to have completed.
Because you don't actually know how the brain works. You think children are blank slates with no autonomy that can be sculpted and programmed into whatever you want.
Only an idiot tells someone else how they think. I don't think children are "blank slates". I do know that children are hyperabsorptive learning sponges who aim to emulate and thus please their parents.
No more oxygen for you.
Posts: 1997
Threads: 17
Joined: August 2, 2019
Reputation:
6
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 9:05 am
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2025 at 9:11 am by John 6IX Breezy.)
(May 14, 2025 at 8:54 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I do know that children are hyperabsorptive learning sponges who aim to emulate and thus please their parents.
Right; they are just sponges. They just absorb. They don't have any brains that can think and process information, or peers to socialize and develop with, and they certainly don't have genes that help determine who they will be. They exist solely to emulate and please their parents.
Posts: 17611
Threads: 134
Joined: July 10, 2013
Reputation:
65
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 9:35 am
(May 14, 2025 at 9:05 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: (May 14, 2025 at 8:54 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I do know that children are hyperabsorptive learning sponges who aim to emulate and thus please their parents.
Right; they are just sponges. They just absorb. They don't have any brains that can think and process information, or peers to socialize and develop with, and they certainly don't have genes that help determine who they will be. They exist solely to emulate and please their parents.
Spoken like someone who doesn't have any kids.
I'm your huckleberry.
Posts: 882
Threads: 3
Joined: May 30, 2018
Reputation:
32
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 9:49 am
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2025 at 9:54 am by Alan V.)
(May 14, 2025 at 8:33 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: What people usually mean by propaganda is largely nonsense. It is based on false and antiquated beliefs about the mind, like brainwashing or mind control.
Do bad actors attempt to persuade the masses of an ideology by disseminating information unethically? Obviously, but attempting to and succeeding at are two different things. And of course, nobody here actually thinks propaganda has worked on them, they just think it's worked on everybody they disagree with.
If you are trying to argue that only experts can talk about what is or isn't propaganda, you are posting at the wrong forum.
Propagandists play numbers games. No method of persuasion is always successful, but they still get their numbers.
I have admitted several times, even redundantly and annoyingly, that I was misled by my early theistic training. I prefer "conditioning" to "brainwashing" or "indoctrination," since the methods are most often positive rewards for "right" answers and negative discouragement for "wrong" answers. That works great on kids, less great on teens.
However, propaganda also works by loaded terminology and thought-terminating cliches. Those control how people think, and they might correctly be called indoctrination.
Posts: 1997
Threads: 17
Joined: August 2, 2019
Reputation:
6
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 10:03 am
(This post was last modified: May 14, 2025 at 10:45 am by John 6IX Breezy.)
(May 14, 2025 at 9:49 am)Alan V Wrote: That works great on kids, less great on teens.
Yes, that's because it doesn't matter how much conditioning you think you've done as a parent towards your three-year-old, eventually they'll reach adolescence and begin treading their own path. I'm sure quite a few people here either left or adopted religious views around 12-14.
p.s. I think it's good you don't use words like indoctrination. But keep in mind that conditioning comes from the defunct school of behaviorism. It is still a real aspect of learning, but all the implications and inferences that it used to have are wrong.
Posts: 11977
Threads: 30
Joined: December 8, 2019
Reputation:
14
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 10:47 am
Johnny keeps digging reached the other side of the earth
"Change was inevitable"
Nemo sicut deus debet esse!
![[Image: Canada_Flag.jpg?v=1646203843]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=cdn.shopify.com%2Fs%2Ffiles%2F1%2F0630%2F5310%2F3332%2Fproducts%2FCanada_Flag.jpg%3Fv%3D1646203843)
“No matter what men think, abortion is a fact of life. Women have always had them; they always have and they always will. Are they going to have good ones or bad ones? Will the good ones be reserved for the rich, while the poor women go to quacks?”
–SHIRLEY CHISHOLM
Posts: 18170
Threads: 467
Joined: March 29, 2015
Reputation:
31
RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 14, 2025 at 11:15 am
(May 14, 2025 at 10:03 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: (May 14, 2025 at 9:49 am)Alan V Wrote: That works great on kids, less great on teens.
Yes, that's because it doesn't matter how much conditioning you think you've done as a parent towards your three-year-old, eventually they'll reach adolescence and begin treading their own path. I'm sure quite a few people here either left or adopted religious views around 12-14.
p.s. I think it's good you don't use words like indoctrination. But keep in mind that conditioning comes from the defunct school of behaviorism. It is still a real aspect of learning, but all the implications and inferences that it used to have are wrong.
Look at it this way: conspiracy theories are based on false data and one can show someone who was duped that he has wrong facts, but he will mostly not let his belief in that conspiracy. That is because he has also made a whole world in his head based on the false data that excites him. So if you show him that only a weather balloon crashed in Roswell, he won't believe you because he already has a whole fantasy world of aliens secretly visiting Earth and giving people messages and whatnot, which has turned into a hobby and a passion project.
Pretty much the same is with religion - people have been fed false data and now they have a whole imagination land in their heads that is part of their lives.
So the question is how does one deals with imagination?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
|
