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POW in Vietnam who were Christians were harder to brainwash

dystopian said:
Underseer said:
No, the study I saw had nothing to do with coercion. They simply subjected people to pain and measured who could handle it the longest before crying "Uncle!"
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I'm going to have to call bullshit on any study that purports to show that. What kind of sample size were they working with? How diverse was the sample set? Should the fact that I, as a lifelong atheist have repeatedly amazed doctors with my apparently freakish ability to withstand pain, suggest that perhaps it just depends on the person and not whatever faith they have or do not have? I really seriously doubt they had a large enough number of test subjects to conclude there is a trend among Christians to endure more pain as compared to atheists (even ignoring the fact that I'm sure there's ethics rules that prevent them from subjecting subjects to truly high amounts of pain, and if it's just minor electric shocks they're subjecting people too I don't think that makes for an experiment one can draw any real conclusions from).
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How can you tell all of that? I can't even find mention of it on Google, so I certainly didn't provide you with a link for a proper citation.
 
Bronzeage said:
Whether this is true or not, it's not difficult to imagine such a thing, even if it is difficult for an atheist to imagine a situation where a devout person would have an advantage.
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No, no. I mean, we evolved to tend towards religious groupings for some reason. I would not be surprised to find that therre's an advantage to it somewhere.

I just doubt that formal research will seriously determine that Christainity has a monopoly on this advantage. Some of the ultra-patriots i went to Boot with could probably get the same benefit from reciting the Sailor's Creed or the Pledge of Allegiance during torture as from the Lord's Prayer.
 
In the opening scene of the movie Lawrence of Arabia, three British officers are playing a strange game. The first two strike a match and hold it between their fingers until it burns down. The first two are forced to drop the match because of the pain. Lawrence holds his match until it burns out. They ask him, "What's the trick?" He responds, "The trick is not minding that it hurts."

Pain and the perception of pain is probably the most subjective of human sensations. We have all kind of rationalizations for pain, whether to endure it, or buckle under the pressure. On one hand we get "No pain, no gain," which is good for a weight lifter, and on the other, a chronic pain sufferer, who carries a morphine IV on his belt.

In any case, the OP is something about "brainwashing". As I said in an earlier post, brainwashing(whatever that really means) is like hypnotherapy. It only works when the recipient wants it to work. This makes it fairly simple for anyone, Christian, Zoroastrian, Reformed Canibal, PYL, to resist.
 
Suppose we say that Christians are harder to "brainwash".

Does that in any way make their claims true?
 
Tom Sawyer said:
untermensche said:
Suppose we say that Christians are harder to "brainwash".

Does that in any way make their claims true?
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Yes. It makes the claim that they are harder to brainwash true. :)
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If true, it is easily explained by having to first overcome their prior religious brainwashing before twisting their mind to what you want them to accept as true.
 
Does anyone else find it strange we are discussing what someone may have said and debating why they said it and if it could be true?

Given a total lack of information and only a vague idea of what was actually said, what are we talking about?
 
Underseer said:
How can you tell all of that? I can't even find mention of it on Google, so I certainly didn't provide you with a link for a proper citation.
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That's the point; what's more plausible; that *christians* are actually better at withstanding pain than *atheists* even though there is no credible reason why that should be the case? Or that the study is either misrepresented by whatever media brought it to your attention; just shows that some people are better at withstanding pain than others with no distinction between being christian or not; or is just flawed to begin with?

I expressed doubts about the validity of any study that purports to make the claim that christians are better at withstanding pain; not having an actual study to cite just makes me even more skeptical.
 
POW in Vietnam who were Christians were harder to brainwash
/QUOTE
Brainwash into what ? Becoming comies,Buddhists,mindless assassins or what?

Me thinks that's BS anyhow,,after all they were easy to brainwash into Christianity..
 
bronzeage said:
Does anyone else find it strange we are discussing what someone may have said and debating why they said it and if it could be true?
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I didn't realize I needed a reason or anyone's permission to shoot the shit with my pals.
 
Sarpedon said:
bronzeage said:
Does anyone else find it strange we are discussing what someone may have said and debating why they said it and if it could be true?
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I didn't realize I needed a reason or anyone's permission to shoot the shit with my pals.
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No more reason than I need, to ask, "What the fuck are you talking about?"
 
If we turn the clocks back a bit to 1950s Red China and look at their techniques we find that Christians were just as easily "Brainwahsed" as other groups.

I've done a lot of reading about brainwashing and coercion and it appears the key is trust and doubt. Your species likes to work towards a common goal and to be liked. Now if you want to brainwash somebody they be willing to trust you and want to cooperate. Then you can use the trick such as love bombing, sensory deprivation, chanting, etc., to great effect.
 
Nice Squirrel said:
If we turn the clocks back a bit to 1950s Red China and look at their techniques we find that Christians were just as easily "Brainwahsed" as other groups.

I've done a lot of reading about brainwashing and coercion and it appears the key is trust and doubt. Your species likes to work towards a common goal and to be liked. Now if you want to brainwash somebody they be willing to trust you and want to cooperate. Then you can use the trick such as love bombing, sensory deprivation, chanting, etc., to great effect.
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I was waiting for an Atheist to say they were already brainwashed.
 
While you were waiting, did you think to read the first page of this thread?
 
Nice Squirrel said:
If we turn the clocks back a bit to 1950s Red China and look at their techniques we find that Christians were just as easily "Brainwahsed" as other groups.

I've done a lot of reading about brainwashing and coercion and it appears the key is trust and doubt. Your species likes to work towards a common goal and to be liked. Now if you want to brainwash somebody they be willing to trust you and want to cooperate. Then you can use the trick such as love bombing, sensory deprivation, chanting, etc., to great effect.
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Can you give a definition of brainwashing? Are you comparing the Stockholm Syndrome with brainwashing?
 
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