From: "bramble" 

On 28 mar, 22:48, "CE"  wrote:
> On Mar 28, 5:10 pm, "bramble"
 wrote:
>
> > Do you think my arguments are stupid?
>
> Well, yes, quite frankly I do think they are stupid. I wouldn't have
> worded it that way myself but since you asked I may as well make it as
> plain as possible to you.
>
> In countries many countries, Roman Catholicism is not a state
> religion, is not promoted by society and is not a way to ingratiate
> oneself to the power elites. And yet, even in those countries, there
> are people who believe in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the faith
> as handed down by the Roman Catholic church.

Well, you have a very short memory.  Not so far ago, all those nations were
Roman Catholic officially.  It was late in the XIX Century that started to
change in some places in Europe.  In France it changed at the starting the
XIX Century.
There have been some occasional frictions and troubles between some
european kings  and the Catholic hierarchy, but this does not change a iota
that Christianity was a State Religion in for many centuries in Europe.

There are people that believe this or that, and are their parents who
transfer the basic dogma to their children.  So, in general, is not the
preachers, or the priest who do the taming of the children into believing,
but the parents.
The priest and preachers are only making the effort to make this people
more fundamentalist that they really are.  If were not for them, faith
would slowly erode into nothingness.

> To suggest that these
> people have been brainwashed and tamed into believing a doctrine is
> just plain silly. The Catholic church is not depriving these people of
> protein and sleep, forcing them to attend services and so forth. They
> come to the church of their own free will and it may surprise you to
> learn that some of these people are quite intelligent.
  Of course.  They go to church on their own free will; that is they
behave automatically like drones.  Also there are also big crowds that go
to football matches each sunday.  They have been tamed into that by unknown
factors to them.  So in some countries they do not go to football.
So it seem that all these criticisms you are posting are worth nothing.

> You cite the example of muslim extremists as if this were the norm
> among the followers of Islam and indeed of all faiths. It is not. Even
> a cursory look at people of faith should be enough for you to realize
> that most people of faith do not go out and kill themselves and others
> at the drop of a hat.

Of course is not the norm.  Most of the Muslims don't even go the Mosque on
Fridays.  This reality does not contradict my assertion.  If you have a
very big crowd of Muslims, or Christians, or Evangelicals, or other, it
does not mean that all have the same degree of domestication.  There is
always a core of people that is fundamentalist, then there is a bigger
fraction are less strict, another fraction is very light with the dogma,
and another fraction does not dare to say, I dont believe that shit, but it
is not far from the point saying such a thing.
So, there show different degrees of conditioned behaviour.

> > In another post I was talking about that great churches, spread over
> > several nations, were political constructions.
>
> Actually, no, the great churches are not political constructions. They
> were not invented for political purposes. Several great religions have
> led people to develop institutional frameworks for the perpetuation of
> the faith. That, however, is not the same as a political construct
> since a form of organization does not necessarily imply a political or
> business orientation. Politicians and other leaders may attempt with
> various degrees of success to cloak themselves with religion or use
> religious institutions for political purposes. That has happened. This
> does not make the church a political construct any more than the use
> of a business organizations by political policy makers to acheive
> economic ends would make the business organizations themselves
> political constructs.

In US, you can see that the most fanatical Christians are federated with
the Republican Party and earning returns from the colaboration in electoral
campaigns.  In Spain I have seen also the Center Right Party helping the
Catholics when they win the elections.  So you can not deny that in many
places  politics and religion are married more or less.

I say that "religions are political parties" because they behave
like political parties.   They earn taxes from their people.  Priest are
always askign for money to their people.  The difference with the state is
that they do not have actually a system to grab this money by force, or
with the help of the law enforcement officials, like in the past.
Another paralelism is the ideology is tranfered from parents to sons in the
family.  They also have some help from the party, in case of need, but also
they are watched by fellow members of the party (church) that can denounce
them, etc.  If they don't behave as expected they can be ostracized  and
shunned.  Nobody would talk to them back, or return a greeting, etc.  If th
church (party) has the power, they could pression his employer to kick him
off, and so on.

Summing up.  Most people are social and have fear of alienating their
parents, relatives and neighbours.  We owe a lot to the people around us,
so is understandable that we fear to make them enemies.  So if they believe
in Krisna, you have to believe in Kishna; if they believe in Jesus, you
have to believe in Jesus; if they behave like fanaticals, you have to feign
you are also a fanatical.  If your people believe in the doctrine of
Mohammed, you will be also an Islamic believer.  It is that simple. You
only are trying to see if you can make other people to believe otherwise.
But you know perfectly that I am telling the truth. Bramble




>
> > > Under the proposed sociological model, it
> > > would be just as valid to claim atheists and agnostics are merely
> > > following the dictates of a capitalistic elite in a secular society -
> > > and not really the freethinkers they feel themselves to be.
> > Atheist and agnostics are most times people that had been pissed off
> > badly by the pastors of his own church, so they had the need to desert
> > and flee his church.  So after a time of being pissed off,  "they
> > start to look for reasons" and  "they look for
arguments" to oppose
> > their fucking church leaders.
>
> Atheists and agnostics deserve more credit than that. You're making it
> seem as though these people were angry, started off with an agenda,
> and eventually grasped at whatever rationalizations they could to
> bolster their own prejudices against the religious establishments.
>
> While I have no doubt that there are some very bitter and
> intellectually shallow atheists out there - and why wouldn't there be
> when there are people like that in just about every other group? - I
> would hope that most atheists and agnostics arrived at their
> convictions by honestly examining the evidence and thinking things
> over carefully.
>
>
>
> > On the other hand, you can imagine also, that there is not any baby
> > that is born plainly Evangelical, or Baptist, Mormon, Presbiterian,
> > Catholic, Islamic, Hinduist, Shintoist, Leninist or Marxist.
> > No any baby is born with a religious affiliation, is he?
> >  It is the same with the language.  Not any baby is born with a
> > predisposition to speak Chinese,  English, or Japanese.  Do you agree
> > at least with this?  They have to learn to speak that way with the
> > help of his parents.
>
> Of course babies learn from their parents. They also learn with the
> help of teachers, friends, books and other educational material.
> That's the way it should be. Once they become adults or hit the age of
> reason, they can then make their own choices in life. For many people,
> this means abandonning the faith of their parents for another or to
> become atheists or agnostics. For other people, it means leaving
> behind their country, their language and their customs and making a
> new home and acquiring a new cultural identity.
>
> People are free to make their own choices. That is one of the few
> truly great things about being human: the ability to choose. With that
> freedom, many people - indeed, most people - choose to believe. They
> find themselves a place or group of people that reflects their own
> convictions and make themselves at home there.
>
> In your case, you seem to have found yourself a home among people who
> want to look down on those who have religious beliefs and accuse us of
> being mindless, brainwashed drones.
>
> What I find amusing - albeit somewhat pathetic at the same time - is
> that you do not seem to realize that the very processes you claim can
> lead someone to being brainwashed into a faith may in fact be at work
> in you. If constant exposure to a sanctionned point of view by the
> power elites can brainwash someone into believing in religion, then it
> stands to reason that the same kind of exposure could effectively
> convince these same people of something else. Since we live in a
> society that is capitalistic and secular and very keen on
> technological and scientific advances, it seems to me the case could
> very well be made - using your own reasoning - to show that many
> atheists may be so simply because they have similarly been brainwashed
> by the power elites.
>
> Now, I think that's unlikely to be the case. As I said, I give people,
> including atheists and agnostics, more credit than that.

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