(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.

Good thing abuse of sarcasm isn't against the rules.

(May 14, 2025 at 7:05 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 14, 2025 at 6:56 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I haven't just been propagandized, I've been indoctrinated..and officially so no less. 

And yet here you are.

It's not propaganda if you ever break free of it? I had the same indoctrination as GN. Plus I fell for Pentacostalism for the first quarter of my life and big L libertarianism for about 20 years. Was it not ever propaganda if I eventually figured out that it WAS propaganda?

(May 15, 2025 at 8:15 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 15, 2025 at 12:09 am)Paleophyte Wrote: Then what good are they? These words that you wrote that are apparently useless? Why do you write them at all? Sheer reflexive instinct?

What are words good for? Social coordination. Does that include persuasion? Yes, but not the cartoonish version of it that you think exists.

And how could you ever coordinate anything? Not one thought inside your pretty little head has or ever can be changed by another human, a ridiculous notion for a Christian and a "psychologist".

(May 14, 2025 at 7:49 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(May 14, 2025 at 4:34 pm)Belacqua Wrote: So if the kids have been raised to be indoctrinated, the indoctrination has been far from complete. They've been learning things from other sources as well.

Mine certainly was. I was raised as a Southern Baptist until I was eight. When we moved overseas to Iran, there were no Baptist churches, so my parents farmed out my sister and myself to church-going neighbors who attended any sort of vaguely Christian service, including Catholic Mass and Mormon services. So I got a look at some other denominations of Christianity.

I also had friends in my school who were Islamic and Sikh.

It didn't take long for me to figure out that while they be all correct, they could perhaps be all wrong -- including my own Baptist faith. That's when I started getting scared, and thinking a lot about it. I wasn't comfortable admitting my atheism, even to myself, until I was about fourteen, two years after we'd returned stateside.

Aside from what that scrub @John 6IX Breezy has asserted, through is slipshod English comprehension coupled with his dishonest representation of what is written. I don't believe that children are automatons who cannot think for themselves. My point, which that dolt was unable to pick up, was and is that influences imparted in one's formative years are much harder to change later.

Of course, he doesn't like nuance, so goes for misrepresentation instead.

My father was United Pentacostal, my mother Assembly of God, my step-mother Catholic, and my step-father Methodist. The mixed messages didn't exactly cement my faith.

(May 15, 2025 at 5:29 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I admit to not having followed this thread as closely as I probably should have. That being said, I'd like to ask John a serious question:

In your opinion, what causes people to believe in Jesus?

I ask this because I don't recall you having answered the question posed in this thread. You've used up a lot of space objecting to other peoples' answers, so I was wondering if you had one of your own.

Boru

@John 6IX Breezy

Im curious what your opinion on what causes people’s belief in jesus is also.

What say you John?

(May 15, 2025 at 9:05 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(May 15, 2025 at 8:15 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: What are words good for? Social coordination. Does that include persuasion? Yes, but not the cartoonish version of it that you think exists.

Let me see if I can summarize the fight so far. The vituperative tone here makes it all a bit obscure.

So, if I'm reading you right, here is the version which you call cartoonish: 

Parents tell their children what is true, and the children believe it. Then, if they're lucky, at a certain age the children begin to think for themselves and may reject the "indoctrination" given them by their parents.

Sounds cartoonish, but explains all of Europe for over a millenium. Well, once you add in some stiff societal pressures on top of it, but nobody's claiming that indoctrination has to be exclusively parental.

I think that the problem that John's having is that he can't seem to distinguish between propaganda and indoctrination, which are matters of persuasion and influence, and the much more absolute cases of "mind control" and "brain-washing". People are typically ignorant of those last other than through Hollywood wackiness. To suggest that propaganda and indoctrination don't exist is tantamount to claiming that no human can ever be persuaded or influenced by another.

(May 15, 2025 at 2:12 pm)h4ym4n Wrote: Im curious what your opinion on what causes people’s believe in jesus is also.

I answered back on page 4.

(May 15, 2025 at 2:12 pm)h4ym4n Wrote: @John 6IX Breezy

Im curious what your opinion on what causes people’s believe in jesus is also.

I'd love to know what he thinks causes people's lack of belief in Jesus. In most cases the social pressures are to believe rather than the converse and you can exclude parenting as a factor in many cases too. Yet here we are with declining church membership and rising rates of religious apathy.

(May 15, 2025 at 2:22 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 15, 2025 at 2:12 pm)h4ym4n Wrote: Im curious what your opinion on what causes people’s believe in jesus is also.

I answered back on page 4.

Ah, I missed it. Pretty generic, but definitely an answer. Thank you.

Boru

(May 15, 2025 at 2:26 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Ah, I missed it. Pretty generic, but definitely an answer. Thank you.

The initial comment was generic, but I then spent the next 100 pages defending it at a deeper level, even in our current debate over propaganda and persuasion. .