(February 11, 2016 at 10:48 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: The horror of it all!Horror indeed! It would be more sanitary to go down on some crack whore and give her full cunnilingus then to kiss saliva soaked cross that was kissed whole afternoon by hundreds of people and yet people do it without question. That's because they get hypnotized. It does not take a psychiatrist to hypnotize a group. Many preachers do a credible job every Sunday. If you watch any televangelist or visit a local church service you can hear number of times he repeats himself – says the same thing twice or more in the same cadence. Repetition in cadence is a very effective hypnotic technique. Even if you are a non-believer, notice the physical effect this technique has on you when you simply listen without thinking too much. You might notice yourself going into a relaxed, altered state. Once put into an altered state of consciousness, people can receive all kinds of messages about giving money to the church, feeling guilty about sex, hating those who oppose the president of the United States or voting for anti-abortion candidates.
Also with the help of music and the aroma of incense to create receptive states in its parishioners.
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"
