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Cameras, microphones and God
#21
RE: Cameras, microphones and God
(July 12, 2015 at 10:51 am)Drich Wrote:
(July 11, 2015 at 4:40 am)robvalue Wrote: I just had a thought. Imagine this scenario.

You're living in a total fascist dictatorship. The leader has absolute power over everybody and there is never any way he can be replaced or removed from power. This is it, forever. He is so powerful that there is literally zero chance of any sort of uprising ever succeeding. But you know the dictator has everyone's best interests at heart. Everyone always says how much they love him!

Now imagine that there are cameras and microphones absolutely everywhere. There is no way to get away from them, or to disable them. You can't do or say anything without the dictator knowing about it. And if anyone does anything that breaks his rules, or speaks badly about him, that person will be marked for torture. Not tortured right away, but at some point in the future the dictator will send out guards to grab that person and move him to the torture chamber, where he will be artificially forced to live forever to endure endless suffering.

People who never break the rules however will be grabbed by the guards at some point and taken to live with the dictator, where they will have everything they ever want and will be happy forever.

You know all this to be true. Would you ever break the rules? Would you ever speak ill of the dictator?

Now consider this extra information. You've never actually seen the dictator. You've not heard from him, you know nothing about him directly except that he has supreme power which can never be defeated. You have his book, of course, which supposedly tells you everything you need to know about him and his rules. You've also never seen any of these cameras and microphones, because their technology is so advanced that they are undetectable. You have seen guards come and grab people, and after that you never see them again. But you don't know for sure where they've been taken, or why. The guards will never say.

You believe it all. You believe it because it is true. It must be true. It's what you've been told since you were born...

I now have more of an idea what it must be like to be religious, and why some people would do or say absolutely anything in order to avoid somehow admitting the fault of their God. I can understand it, and it's fucking terrifying.

...which is why we have been given this life to live apart from his known Glory. (So you can rebel and set yourself apart.) which is why Rhonda s argument is moot
"I read words, they don't compute, I am assimilated, we are Borg, resistance is futile"
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#22
RE: Cameras, microphones and God
I thought I'd bring back this thread, as I had an experience which gave me another insight into the mind of the theist. Or so it would seem.

I've been seeing a new therapist for several weeks now, and it's gone really well. Astoundingly well actually! I've learnt a lot about myself that I really didn't know. That in itself is remarkable to me. We seem to have really clicked, and she has been able to get me to analyse myself in different ways and see the problems in my thinking.

The thing is, I was convinced that my thinking regarding myself was sound, and that I have accepted my condition (chronic fatigue syndrome/ME) as much as I possibly could. In my second session, she basically told me that I haven't fully accepted my condition. She gave me reasoned evidence why, and pointed out errors in my thinking.

I didn't like it. I fought against it. I told her she was wrong. My mind was going mental trying to keep this new possibility out. I wasn't in a particular good way that day either, which didn't help. I left that session thinking that maybe she's not the right therapist for me, she was talking bollocks. I felt more low than usual, and was giving up hope that I could be helped.

Over the next few days, what she said started to sink in and I couldn't refute her logic. I realized my objections were emotional and automatic. I started analysing myself from scratch, without the presuppositions I had. I came to the same conclusion as her, I had not accepted my condition and my thinking was faulty. By the next time I saw her, I was actually happy (that is an extreme word for me to use about myself) and ever since then the therapy has gone incredibly well.

The point here is that I got a taste of what it's like for a mind to refuse to accept something, because it clashes with important preconceptions. It felt horrible, and it made me distort reality so that she was just dumb and what she said should be disregarded. She doesn't understand how things are. I know how things are. I think this may be what it's like when a religiously indoctrinated mind comes up against an atheist. My "indoctrination" here was mild, and self inflicted. Multiply that up into a lifetime of external indoctrination, and you've got one serious barrier to contend with.
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