Religious lies. Why do so many knowingly accept them?

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Religious lies. Why do so many knowingly accept them?

People, I hope, are not foolish or gullible enough to really believe in the talking serpent and donkey of the bible, nor the 72 virgins of the Qur’an. I also hope their gullibility is not broad enough to have them swallow all the other supernatural ideas floated by religions. The ancients intelligently knew that nothing could be known of the supernatural.

http://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Modern priests, preachers and imams ignore the unknowability of the supernatural constantly while lying to us about the Gods.

I do not want to believe that we are as gullible as some people seem to be.

Why then do you think we knowingly pay and support priests, preachers and imams, perpetual liars in my view, to lie to us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcjpags7JT8

Regards
DL

 

[braces_for_impact]

Yes, people are that foolish and gullible.

 

[Bronzeage]

Why would you expect anyone to disbelieve something which fits into their belief system?

There was a time when perfectly intelligent and sensible people believed the Earth was the center of the universe, with the Sun and other planets rotating around us. Imagine what it would look like, if such a thing was a fact.

 

[rousseau]

'The Social Construction of Reality'

When we're born we have zero knowledge, just certain genetic tendencies. After that point we can only understand the reality we live in by the inputs we receive. If we spend the formative years of our life hearing about God, that will make up our belief system.

This is an underrated point. For people to be enlightened they by default need to be ignorant first, so until some social input raises them out of their ignorance, they're likely to be prone to superstition and poor critical thinking skills.

 

[bilby]

For the vast majority of people, education consists not of being taught how to think, but what to think.

People who reach adulthood with the ability to criticize their beliefs through reason are few; People who reach adulthood without a vast baggage of false beliefs are fewer still.

The impressive thing is that so many people today actually do manage to reject some of the falsehoods they have been taught as children. The default position is unquestioning acceptance, and it is unsurprising to find that it is commonplace.

 

[Angry Floof]

Religious lies. Why do so many knowingly accept them?

People, I hope, are not foolish or gullible enough to really believe in the talking serpent and donkey of the bible, nor the 72 virgins of the Qur’an. I also hope their gullibility is not broad enough to have them swallow all the other supernatural ideas floated by religions. The ancients intelligently knew that nothing could be known of the supernatural.

http://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Modern priests, preachers and imams ignore the unknowability of the supernatural constantly while lying to us about the Gods.

I do not want to believe that we are as gullible as some people seem to be.

Why then do you think we knowingly pay and support priests, preachers and imams, perpetual liars in my view, to lie to us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcjpags7JT8

Regards
DL

Conditioning.

 

[abaddon]

There was a time when perfectly intelligent and sensible people believed the Earth was the center of the universe, with the Sun and other planets rotating around us. Imagine what it would look like, if such a thing was a fact.

It would look like what it looks like, if you don't have sophisticated equipment to help get another viewpoint. From a local observer's viewpoint, the world looks flat and doesn't move. It's the sky that appears to move. So it was good science for its day. The church resisted change because the old observations happened to be consistent with some Bible passages.

Theistic science would make sense if there were good evidence for God. There just isn't. We know the genesis of spirits and gods, it's psychological.

I don't think the ancients were nutty or stupid to believe as they did. It's the moderns that are so atavistic that they make themselves look zany. That belief itself seems so important that the act of believing (having faith) becomes a sacred thing is unfortunate.

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Yes, people are that foolish and gullible.

I do not and think that they are ignoring reality for other reasons, like their tribal natures that crave fellowship at any mental cost.

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Why would you expect anyone to disbelieve something which fits into their belief system?

There was a time when perfectly intelligent and sensible people believed the Earth was the center of the universe, with the Sun and other planets rotating around us. Imagine what it would look like, if such a thing was a fact.

I do not see these issues as the same as the average person in ancient days could not be educated enough to absorb the reality that disproved what they could see.

I also cannot fathom how anyone could accept talking serpents and donkeys as a part of nature as they would never have seen any.

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

'The Social Construction of Reality'

When we're born we have zero knowledge, just certain genetic tendencies. After that point we can only understand the reality we live in by the inputs we receive. If we spend the formative years of our life hearing about God, that will make up our belief system.

This is an underrated point. For people to be enlightened they by default need to be ignorant first, so until some social input raises them out of their ignorance, they're likely to be prone to superstition and poor critical thinking skills.

No argument.

That is why I think religious indoctrination is child abuse.

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

For the vast majority of people, education consists not of being taught how to think, but what to think.

People who reach adulthood with the ability to criticize their beliefs through reason are few; People who reach adulthood without a vast baggage of false beliefs are fewer still.

The impressive thing is that so many people today actually do manage to reject some of the falsehoods they have been taught as children. The default position is unquestioning acceptance, and it is unsurprising to find that it is commonplace.

True.
There are way more sheeple than those who will move away from the heard/ideas to see what they actually looks like.

Regards
DL

 

[rousseau]

'The Social Construction of Reality'

When we're born we have zero knowledge, just certain genetic tendencies. After that point we can only understand the reality we live in by the inputs we receive. If we spend the formative years of our life hearing about God, that will make up our belief system.

This is an underrated point. For people to be enlightened they by default need to be ignorant first, so until some social input raises them out of their ignorance, they're likely to be prone to superstition and poor critical thinking skills.

No argument.

That is why I think religious indoctrination is child abuse.

Regards
DL

To me this point opens up a massive can of worms, namely why should the world 'ought' to be a certain way? If two parents experience reality a certain way whose right is it to dictate to them how they teach their child? Maybe in the grand-scheme scientific education is a good thing, but I dunno, maybe I'm too libertarian to force my utopian thinking on people who just feel like they're living their lives.

That said, I do think any education system should be heavily evidence based, and we know where that leads..

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Religious lies. Why do so many knowingly accept them?

People, I hope, are not foolish or gullible enough to really believe in the talking serpent and donkey of the bible, nor the 72 virgins of the Qur’an. I also hope their gullibility is not broad enough to have them swallow all the other supernatural ideas floated by religions. The ancients intelligently knew that nothing could be known of the supernatural.

http://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Modern priests, preachers and imams ignore the unknowability of the supernatural constantly while lying to us about the Gods.

I do not want to believe that we are as gullible as some people seem to be.

Why then do you think we knowingly pay and support priests, preachers and imams, perpetual liars in my view, to lie to us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcjpags7JT8

Regards
DL

Conditioning.

Indeed, and it is leaking into our schools so it looks like the governments are following the same agenda of dumbing us down.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVqMAlgAnlo&app=desktop[/YOUTUBE]

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

'The Social Construction of Reality'

When we're born we have zero knowledge, just certain genetic tendencies. After that point we can only understand the reality we live in by the inputs we receive. If we spend the formative years of our life hearing about God, that will make up our belief system.

This is an underrated point. For people to be enlightened they by default need to be ignorant first, so until some social input raises them out of their ignorance, they're likely to be prone to superstition and poor critical thinking skills.

No argument.

That is why I think religious indoctrination is child abuse.

Regards
DL

To me this point opens up a massive can of worms, namely why should the world 'ought' to be a certain way? If two parents experience reality a certain way whose right is it to dictate to them how they teach their child? Maybe in the grand-scheme scientific education is a good thing, but I dunno, maybe I'm too libertarian to force my utopian thinking on people who just feel like they're living their lives.

That said, I do think any education system should be heavily evidence based, and we know where that leads..

Yes. Intelligent students.

To just let people live their lives (my --- of lies).

There are probably secular non-believer writers who think the way these quotes advocate but they are not handy to me right now. They also show that there is a bit of wisdom that can be gleaned from scriptures. Not much but some.

Proverbs 3:12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

For ignorance and evil thinking to grow, all the intelligent and moral people need do is let people live their lives without correction, which has created homophobic and misogynous religions.

If you have any women or gays in your family, I hope you do some correcting against those who would denigrate and discriminate against them without a just cause.

Both Christianity and Islam, slave holding ideologies, have basically developed into intolerant, homophobic and misogynous religions. Both religions have grown themselves by the sword instead of good deeds and continue with their immoral ways in spite of secular law showing them the moral ways.

Jesus said we would know his people by their works and deeds. That means Jesus would not recognize Christians and Muslims as his people, and neither do I. Jesus would call Christianity and Islam abominations.

Gnostic Christians did in the past, and I am proudly continuing that tradition and honest irrefutable evaluation based on morality.

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/theft-values/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxoxPapPxXk

Humanity centered religions, good. Yes.

Supernaturally based religions, evil? Yes.

Do you agree?

Regards
DL

 

[braces_for_impact]

Yes, people are that foolish and gullible.

I do not and think that they are ignoring reality for other reasons, like their tribal natures that crave fellowship at any mental cost.

Regards
DL

I can tell you from personal experience that I used to believe many more things some time ago than I do not believe now. My epistemology changed, and that in turn changed everything for me. I believed in talking animals. I believed men had one less rib than women. I believed in witchcraft and the power of prayer and in God. In short, yes I was more gullible, because of the method I used to tell fact from fiction. Yes, my motivation for that may have been partly tribally based, but it was also what I was fervently taught to be true by virtually every adult in my life at the time. In childhood, you rely on those around you to answer questions, but also to teach you how to think, not just to answer those questions. No one taught me the latter, so I had to figure out what to believe on my own.

Have you been an non-believer in god all your life? Typically, I find it's those types of people that have the hardest time acknowledging that believers actually believe the things tumbling forth from their mouths. I also find this often happens with Muslims too, when they explain why they did some religiously motivated horrendous act, and then everyone scrambles to explain that act in the light of anything but what the author of those acts indicated were his or her motivations.

 

[ideologyhunter]

From the various true believers who have pushed or explained their religions to me, I think there are multiple sources of this phenomenon of accepting an orthodoxy:
1) Being raised in it -- I especially get this from those who went through Catholic school
2) Becoming part of a supportive group
3) Having the kind of mysteries that hurt your head explained and simplified -- at its worst, extreme intellectual laziness
4) The glow of perceived virtue
5) Inability to deal with death of family members or one's own death
6) An inclination to believe in the supernatural, in fate, in luck, in omens
7) The emotional pull of the more eloquent scripture (of whatever tradition, not just Biblical)
8) A need for an 'other', 'bad', 'lost', group at which to aim invective
9) Inability to imagine no beginning and no end to the universe (a specific from #3)
10) A need for purpose, order, identity
11) A need for ultimate justice, a happy ending, in a universe that seems either hostile or completely sterile
12) The Freudian idea that God is a replacement for a remote or antagonistic father
13) Specific from #11, a secret confidant to whom one may pray when life is unstable or painful -- with the hope of getting a break
I'm sure there's a ton more. The believers who really puzzle me are the clearly intelligent people who have highly developed critical thinking skills in some areas but who have an orthodox belief system in place. Read Wm. F Buckley's Nearer My God to Thee for an example (I think that's the title.) It's about his devout Catholicism, which was clearly, to him, the most important facet of life and identity. Just don't expect to find any exposition of why Catholicism is true.

 

[rousseau]

From the various true believers who have pushed or explained their religions to me, I think there are multiple sources of this phenomenon of accepting an orthodoxy:
1) Being raised in it -- I especially get this from those who went through Catholic school
2) Becoming part of a supportive group
3) Having the kind of mysteries that hurt your head explained and simplified -- at its worst, extreme intellectual laziness
4) The glow of perceived virtue
5) Inability to deal with death of family members or one's own death
6) An inclination to believe in the supernatural, in fate, in luck, in omens
7) The emotional pull of the more eloquent scripture (of whatever tradition, not just Biblical)
8) A need for an 'other', 'bad', 'lost', group at which to aim invective
9) Inability to imagine no beginning and no end to the universe (a specific from #3)
10) A need for purpose, order, identity
11) A need for ultimate justice, a happy ending, in a universe that seems either hostile or completely sterile
12) The Freudian idea that God is a replacement for a remote or antagonistic father
13) Specific from #11, a secret confidant to whom one may pray when life is unstable or painful -- with the hope of getting a break
I'm sure there's a ton more. The believers who really puzzle me are the clearly intelligent people who have highly developed critical thinking skills in some areas but who have an orthodox belief system in place. Read Wm. F Buckley's Nearer My God to Thee for an example (I think that's the title.) It's about his devout Catholicism, which was clearly, to him, the most important facet of life and identity. Just don't expect to find any exposition of why Catholicism is true.

Good post.

One thing I often notice that fits in with many of these points is that 'when things are going wrong, God is an answer'. Somehow many people's psychological makeup allows them to make statements like 'but it's ok because God', and this simple precept can endure for very long periods of time.

I don't know.. maybe to some extent self-delusion is an evolved mechanism that confers survival advantages. After all, evolution doesn't particularly care for one ontology or another.

 

[braces_for_impact]

From the various true believers who have pushed or explained their religions to me, I think there are multiple sources of this phenomenon of accepting an orthodoxy:
1) Being raised in it -- I especially get this from those who went through Catholic school
2) Becoming part of a supportive group
3) Having the kind of mysteries that hurt your head explained and simplified -- at its worst, extreme intellectual laziness
4) The glow of perceived virtue
5) Inability to deal with death of family members or one's own death
6) An inclination to believe in the supernatural, in fate, in luck, in omens
7) The emotional pull of the more eloquent scripture (of whatever tradition, not just Biblical)
8) A need for an 'other', 'bad', 'lost', group at which to aim invective
9) Inability to imagine no beginning and no end to the universe (a specific from #3)
10) A need for purpose, order, identity
11) A need for ultimate justice, a happy ending, in a universe that seems either hostile or completely sterile
12) The Freudian idea that God is a replacement for a remote or antagonistic father
13) Specific from #11, a secret confidant to whom one may pray when life is unstable or painful -- with the hope of getting a break
I'm sure there's a ton more. The believers who really puzzle me are the clearly intelligent people who have highly developed critical thinking skills in some areas but who have an orthodox belief system in place. Read Wm. F Buckley's Nearer My God to Thee for an example (I think that's the title.) It's about his devout Catholicism, which was clearly, to him, the most important facet of life and identity. Just don't expect to find any exposition of why Catholicism is true.

Good post.

One thing I often notice that fits in with many of these points is that 'when things are going wrong, God is an answer'. Somehow many people's psychological makeup allows them to make statements like 'but it's ok because God', and this simple precept can endure for very long periods of time.

I don't know.. maybe to some extent self-delusion is an evolved mechanism that confers survival advantages. After all, evolution doesn't particularly care for one ontology or another.

It makes sense in a way. I think that religious beliefs and conspiracy beliefs are very much alike in this way. Better to believe that [INSERT TROUBLE HERE] happened because there's a secret cabal or divine plan than an impersonal universe where awful shit happens to good people and no one cares.

 

[rousseau]

From the various true believers who have pushed or explained their religions to me, I think there are multiple sources of this phenomenon of accepting an orthodoxy:
1) Being raised in it -- I especially get this from those who went through Catholic school
2) Becoming part of a supportive group
3) Having the kind of mysteries that hurt your head explained and simplified -- at its worst, extreme intellectual laziness
4) The glow of perceived virtue
5) Inability to deal with death of family members or one's own death
6) An inclination to believe in the supernatural, in fate, in luck, in omens
7) The emotional pull of the more eloquent scripture (of whatever tradition, not just Biblical)
8) A need for an 'other', 'bad', 'lost', group at which to aim invective
9) Inability to imagine no beginning and no end to the universe (a specific from #3)
10) A need for purpose, order, identity
11) A need for ultimate justice, a happy ending, in a universe that seems either hostile or completely sterile
12) The Freudian idea that God is a replacement for a remote or antagonistic father
13) Specific from #11, a secret confidant to whom one may pray when life is unstable or painful -- with the hope of getting a break
I'm sure there's a ton more. The believers who really puzzle me are the clearly intelligent people who have highly developed critical thinking skills in some areas but who have an orthodox belief system in place. Read Wm. F Buckley's Nearer My God to Thee for an example (I think that's the title.) It's about his devout Catholicism, which was clearly, to him, the most important facet of life and identity. Just don't expect to find any exposition of why Catholicism is true.

Good post.

One thing I often notice that fits in with many of these points is that 'when things are going wrong, God is an answer'. Somehow many people's psychological makeup allows them to make statements like 'but it's ok because God', and this simple precept can endure for very long periods of time.

I don't know.. maybe to some extent self-delusion is an evolved mechanism that confers survival advantages. After all, evolution doesn't particularly care for one ontology or another.

It makes sense in a way. I think that religious beliefs and conspiracy beliefs are very much alike in this way. Better to believe that [INSERT TROUBLE HERE] happened because there's a secret cabal or divine plan than an impersonal universe where awful shit happens to good people and no one cares.

Yea maybe that's the crux of it. When push comes to shove people want to believe that there's something special about existence, and that it's not just random and meaningless, and this provides a sort of motivating factor that keeps people going.

Whatever gets people through the night, but I'd far rather live in the world that's random and meaningless, because it's at that point that you're free of dogma and can just spend your life exploring what interests you.

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Yes, people are that foolish and gullible.

I do not and think that they are ignoring reality for other reasons, like their tribal natures that crave fellowship at any mental cost.

Regards
DL

I can tell you from personal experience that I used to believe many more things some time ago than I do not believe now. My epistemology changed, and that in turn changed everything for me. I believed in talking animals. I believed men had one less rib than women. I believed in witchcraft and the power of prayer and in God. In short, yes I was more gullible, because of the method I used to tell fact from fiction. Yes, my motivation for that may have been partly tribally based, but it was also what I was fervently taught to be true by virtually every adult in my life at the time. In childhood, you rely on those around you to answer questions, but also to teach you how to think, not just to answer those questions. No one taught me the latter, so I had to figure out what to believe on my own.

Have you been an non-believer in god all your life? Typically, I find it's those types of people that have the hardest time acknowledging that believers actually believe the things tumbling forth from their mouths. I also find this often happens with Muslims too, when they explain why they did some religiously motivated horrendous act, and then everyone scrambles to explain that act in the light of anything but what the author of those acts indicated were his or her motivations.

Thanks for this.

I was brought up Catholic but I do not recall ever believing in what they taught.

Later, the immorality I saw in scriptures and God insured that I would never like that God let alone adore such a prick.

I did some arguing and discussing with those I knew but did not really get into my anti-Christianity and Islam stance till after my apotheosis and choosing to label myself a Gnostic Christian.

I saw a requirement within Gnostic Christianity to not only push my ideology but to also try to reduce the harm that the other ideologies and religions were doing. For evil to grow etc.

I can understand the draw that religions have for many but cannot fathom how a person with decent morals could ever stay in one of the mainstream homophobic and misogynous religions.

Regards
DL