Help: jumped on for seeking scientific proof of spiritual healing

[Homeless Nutter]

Uck... well... yes, I take your point.

But if you say that indoctrination may produce this benefit, to be fair you have to weigh up the potential damage caused by indoctrination. Which I would argue is a lot, and more significant than the perceived gain of this study, so overall it's bad. And that's before even looking at the morality of indoctrination.

That's if this study is even a good one, it may be, I don't know. I'd have to look into it further.

Well - I'm sure there are conflicting studies regarding such ideologically charged subject. And religious organizations will usually jump at every opportunity to "prove" their value to society and demand access to young, naive minds.

We may perceive religious - or any other - indoctrination as potentially dangerous and limiting, but there is a lot to be said for obedience and dependence, especially when you want to control societies, or "farm" people.

Religion is basically human husbandry. Priest classes have been shaping humankind for millenia, by imposing belief systems on very young humans, then exterminating, or banishing those, that wouldn't conform. The rest would be "allowed" to breed - with mediation and guidance from religious authorities. Come next generation - rinse and repeat.

Just like we bred dogs and other animals to be useful and submissive - trained them in whatever we wanted them to be good at, picked the best ones, bred them, disposed of the rest. Over thousands and thousands of generations we created animals that are easy to train, obedient and predictable, comparing to their wild counter-parts.

I'm not saying it's ethical to treat humans as animals, but I can see why some humans would want that.