how can people join cults and believe them?

[j-flex]

you know i see all this cults, like scientology and what not, and the stories are fukin stupid, how can people really believe that crap?, if you saw south park you know what i mean.

come on, believe in evil aliens that are around the earth but are invisible and thats why we feel sad, shieet.

i think you have to be very dumb without any street smart to actually fall for that shiet.

any thoughts?

 

[Falcon]

Stories are powerful.

 

[KontrollerX]

Human beings tend to need a sense of certainty to be comfortable with life as well weave a web of meaning where there may be none.

Religions give comfort as they provide the answers to tough questions like why are we here, what is our purpose, where are we going, is there an after life, will I see my deceased loved ones again, will I be forgiven for the horrible things I've done etc.

Why people choose different religions is likely the same reason people like different food, drinks and clothing styles.

The people that grow up in whatever religion don't have a choice and usually fall prey to parental and clergy indoctrination which explains their belief in whatever as they grow up.

I think there are two requirements from keeping anyone from falling into becoming a religious zealot of any stripe and that is...

1. Being taught critical thinking skills from birth on up, being educated on all the various religions as well as their claims never coming true.

2. Sense of belonging in one's community. In todays world we are so disconnected from other humans we get emotionally cut off and become depressed and it gets worse if a bunch of your loved one's die and you have no one else to talk to other than a mental health professional. If this sense of belonging problem could be solved by the atheists coming up with some kind of alternative support group and friends network to help support people in trying emotional times religions would be cut off at the neck because this is how they deceptively get a lot of converts in 3rd world nations or even in the wealthy western world as a preacher sees someone emotionally vulnerable and starts telling them about Jesus or whatever and the preacher and the church members help the person through their pain acting like they really care about this person but its all about getting a new convert who can supply money to keep the religious scam going.

Atheists would be different from this I think because if they could form an emotional support network everything would be much more honest and out in the open. You won't have any beliefs pushed on you at all. At best you would get support from people and a healthy exchange of ideas if you wanted to spar about religion vs. atheism.

The Christians, Muslims and all other religions will help you out for a hidden price of conversion and not tell hurting people about alternatives to their belief systems which put the message in people's minds hey this Christian helped me Christianity must be good and then they get a convert who is making an extremely emotion based decision with no critical thinking having been applied.

 

[j-flex]

Human beings tend to need a sense of certainty to be comfortable with life as well weave a web of meaning where there may be none.

Religions give comfort as they provide the answers to tough questions like why are we here, what is our purpose, where are we going, is there an after life, will I see my deceased loved ones again, will I be forgiven for the horrible things I've done etc.

Why people choose different religions is likely the same reason people like different food, drinks and clothing styles.

The people that grow up in whatever religion don't have a choice and usually fall prey to parental and clergy indoctrination which explains their belief in whatever as they grow up.

I think there are two requirements from keeping anyone from falling into becoming a religious zealot of any stripe and that is...

1. Being taught critical thinking skills from birth on up, being educated on all the various religions as well as their claims never coming true.

2. Sense of belonging in one's community. In todays world we are so disconnected from other humans we get emotionally cut off and become depressed and it gets worse if a bunch of your loved one's die and you have no one else to talk to other than a mental health professional. If this sense of belonging problem could be solved by the atheists coming up with some kind of alternative support group and friends network to help support people in trying emotional times religions would be cut off at the neck because this is how they deceptively get a lot of converts in 3rd world nations or even in the wealthy western world as a preacher sees someone emotionally vulnerable and starts telling them about Jesus or whatever and the preacher and the church members help the person through their pain acting like they really care about this person but its all about getting a new convert who can supply money to keep the religious scam going.

Atheists would be different from this I think because if they could form an emotional support network everything would be much more honest and out in the open. You won't have any beliefs pushed on you at all. At best you would get support from people and a healthy exchange of ideas if you wanted to spar about religion vs. atheism.

The Christians, Muslims and all other religions will help you out for a hidden price of conversion and not tell hurting people about alternatives to their belief systems which put the message in people's minds hey this Christian helped me Christianity must be good and then they get a convert who is making an extremely emotion based decision with no critical thinking having been applied.

i said cults, not religions!.

 

[backbreaker]

ask christians... they can tell you.


Read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.. provides alot of insight on what you are asking. Richard Dawkins is the man

and I'm going to steal your thread for a second.. and probably get this post locked, but I have to vent and this is the perfect place.

Christians have to e some of the must gulliable people on the planet.

Your avg Christian has some of the worst character traits ever

1) Gulliable.
2) not very intelligent
3) Go out of their way to let you know that they believe in Faries, Make Believe and Jewish Family Scandles that were stolen from the egyptian religion and others thousands of years before, and a religion that has not one iodta of originality to it.


Now some are intelligent.. some people don't take the bible literarly. I ran into a guy, well rather overheard a guy yesterday at starbucks say he won't let his children watch Harry Potter because it's even in the lord's eye.. No.. I can just turn to Judges chapter 19 and read to my son how an innocent woman gets gangraped to death, for no other reason than being the concubine of a man passing though a city.

Some won't let their daughters talk to little boys, but will read to them from the book of Ruth on how this woman got a guy good and full, and waited until he was sleep, snunk in bed with him, and put it on him to the the point where he wanted to marry her. and it's "one of the greatest love stories ever told". Bull ****. that's a booty call if there ever was one. He even told her to get out before anyone notices she was there.

I'm done.. dont' get me started on the bible

 

[Luke Skywalker]

I'm sure you can find answers on youtube and wikipedia if you operate their search engines on the topic of cults. I'm sure you'll have a wealth of information. I may look into this topic myself.

I'm going to post a link on UFO files that talks about them UFO cults.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=gGGGDHuGNAI this is part 1, you can fish the other parts yourself.

If you know a specific cult name it would help better your search since there are lots of listings under 'cult'.

 

[KontrollerX]

Cults and religions are the same thing.

Religion is simply the politically correct term used once the cult acquires a significant amount of wealth and influence.

 

[ChrizZ]

you know i see all this cults, like scientology and what not, and the stories are fukin stupid, how can people really believe that crap?, if you saw south park you know what i mean.

come on, believe in evil aliens that are around the earth but are invisible and thats why we feel sad, shieet.

i think you have to be very dumb without any street smart to actually fall for that shiet.

any thoughts?

D - E - S - P - E - R - A - T - I - O - N

It's the same in the pick up community.

The mystery method and the likes are the Scientology of pick up.

Just think about this sh!t logically.

You pay 3000$ to see some dude talking to women and to push you into sets.

 

[Capt.Jack Sparrow]

Hey, we are a type of a cult. hahaha

 

[j-flex]

How is believing in evil invisible aliens any more stupid than believing that a man who was the incarnation of god and could perform miracles was born to a virgin woman?

What I can't understand is how anyone can be anything other than agnostic, when there's simply no proof for any of it at all.

i know!!

i am agnostic too.

but cults are harder to believe.

 

[Effington]

While I don't know the gritty details of scientology, I was told that they are extremely aggressive salespeople. Just like a good high-pressure sales pitch, they have an answer for every response imaginable to make sure you're sold. I've been involved in high-pressure sales such as timeshares or "life insurance" savings plans, and they're very good. I probably would have fallen for them if I didn't ask outside opinions.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I know a lot of lawyers who are devout Christians; all of them whom I know interpret the Bible literally, or try to do so very closely. I have also had the good fortune to meet several Washington DC attorneys who work for the Christian advocacy groups. They make Constitutional arguments before the Supreme Court on a regular basis, and most of them are probably smarter than any of us here. I have a 140ish IQ, yet many people I have met in the legal world make me feel a 'lil slow in the noggin. The DC advocate lawyers are no exception; I am only guessing, but I'd bet many of them have 160-180 IQs, and everyone I met I think would be happy to admit that they believe in the Bible literally. There are some intelligent Christians out there.

 

[backbreaker]

How is believing in evil invisible aliens any more stupid than believing that a man who was the incarnation of god and could perform miracles was born to a virgin woman?

What I can't understand is how anyone can be anything other than agnostic, when there's simply no proof for any of it at all.

you are confusing an athiest with an agnostic.

In my own opinion, an agnostic is an athiest without balls. but the real defination of an agnostic verbatium is one that believes that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial.

Saying.. I don't know, but I'm open minded.

Athiest is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles - except inn the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand


COULD there be? even the most stunch athiests will agree ANTYHIHNG is possible. To quote richard dawkins... on a scale of 1 to 7 with 1 being a firm believer and 7 being a firm non believer, the top it out really a 6... I mean ANYTHING is possible. it's possible that anartica really has santa claus and that somewhere in siberia they bred pink unicorns and that OJ Simpson really DIDNT' kill his wife. But we believe it's highly unlikely.

unlike thiests, we are in fact, open minded enough to acknowlege there is a small posibility that we could be wrong.

 

[backbreaker]

I know a lot of lawyers who are devout Christians; all of them whom I know interpret the Bible literally, or try to do so very closely. I have also had the good fortune to meet several Washington DC attorneys who work for the Christian advocacy groups. They make Constitutional arguments before the Supreme Court on a regular basis, and most of them are probably smarter than any of us here. I have a 140ish IQ, yet many people I have met in the legal world make me feel a 'lil slow in the noggin. The DC advocate lawyers are no exception; I am only guessing, but I'd bet many of them have 160-180 IQs, and everyone I met I think would be happy to admit that they believe in the Bible literally. There are some intelligent Christians out there.

yes there very well are. and not just christans, of all religions.

It's not like when you hit a certain IQ level religion just falls by the wasteside, that's a horrible, illogical notion.

My personal attorney is what I call a "stone cold" christan. everytime I call him he's goinig to, or coming from church. and he's a damn, damn good attorney.

you would be suprised to know how many of the world's greatest and brightest minds are complete sceptics of religion.

Being an athiest of today is like being a homosexual of yesterday year and like being african american 150 years ago.. it just was not only fashionnable, it was downright "dirty".

 

[KontrollerX]

Sam Harris in his book End of Faith examines why it is people can be of extremely high intelligence and education and still believe in religion inspite of all that.

Anyone interested in his take buy the book End of Faith.

The guy really is brilliant.

Maybe not Richard Dawkins brilliant but up there.

 

[backbreaker]

i have it, i haven't cracked it open yet. I've become the bookworm since I left this site.. right now i'm reading the story of civilization, once I'm done that's in my reading queue.

 

[azanon]

I know a lot of lawyers who are devout Christians; all of them whom I know interpret the Bible literally, or try to do so very closely. I have also had the good fortune to meet several Washington DC attorneys who work for the Christian advocacy groups. They make Constitutional arguments before the Supreme Court on a regular basis, and most of them are probably smarter than any of us here. I have a 140ish IQ, yet many people I have met in the legal world make me feel a 'lil slow in the noggin. The DC advocate lawyers are no exception; I am only guessing, but I'd bet many of them have 160-180 IQs, and everyone I met I think would be happy to admit that they believe in the Bible literally. There are some intelligent Christians out there.

And that's why this one issue more than any other confuses me to no end (I score 140-150 myself). It boggles the mind how anyone can actually believe that book is true, let alone the more intelligent of us.

There are compelling reasons to explain why religion survives that don't mandate at all for any of it to be true:

1. Fear; Fear of burning in hell forever.
2. Tradition/Culture
3. Very advanced social manipulation by a select few (such as the type described in Machiavelli's The Prince.
4. It provides a structure, and a clear goal/objective in life. People aren't very good at coming up with their own purpose for their existence so they latch onto one.
5. Promised rewards of eternal life and dancing around in streets of Gold.
6. Promises of a rewarding (aka blessed) life here.

Any one of these singularly are enough to potentially manipulate someone with the brain power of a Bible Belt or DC attorney. I should have the easiest of times convincing fellow DJers just how powerful properly executed manipulation can be.

 

[azanon]

you are confusing an athiest with an agnostic.

In my own opinion, an agnostic is an athiest without balls. but the real defination of an agnostic verbatium is one that believes that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial.

Saying.. I don't know, but I'm open minded.

Athiest is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles - except inn the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand

I want to clarify this a bit, and offer what I believe is currently the most commonly accepted classification for this sort of thing (though there's some disagreement).

The term being tossed around more now is weak atheism vs. strong atheism. Weak atheism is synonymous with Agnostic, representing the position that basically says we cannot know if there is a God. Reserving judgment on this point, in other words. Grouping agnostics as "weak atheists" is giving them credit, so-to-speak, for the fact that they are not theists.

In contrast, a strong atheist is one who not only doesn't believe in God personally, but also makes the claim that they believe that there are no Gods or supernatural beings (without irrefutable proof for this belief).

So one could say strong atheists actually engage in beliefs much the same as Christians do. So personally I think the most logical/rational minded people are weak atheists/agnostic. The weak atheist basically is the most humble position too because they're the only ones that admit they don't have it figured out!

 

[backbreaker]

you are wrong. I like you, but you are still wrong.

Richard Dawkins, in "the god dulusion" even states that while he is 99.99% sure there is no god, he can't unequivlity say there is no god, because he has no scientific proof that makes it an exact fact.

Weak atheism is synonymous with Agnostic, representing the position that basically says we cannot know if there is a God

weak athiesm is an oxymoron, because if they are a "weak athiest", meaning that they are not really sure, then they aren't athiest by defination, they are agonostic. so I guess it's kinda the chicken and egg arguement all over again.

So one could say strong atheists actually engage in beliefs much the same as Christians do.

and they would be wrong. Dawkins chapter entitled "the religious non believer" explains this in more detail

 

[azanon]

you are wrong. I like you, but you are still wrong.

Richard Dawkins, in "the god dulusion" even states that while he is 99.99% sure there is no god, he can't unequivlity say there is no god, because he has no scientific proof that makes it an exact fact.

Judging by your last post and this one, you seem to think that Richard Dawkins is the spokesman for atheists/Agnostics. On this point, you are wrong. I'm far less interested in one man's opinion as I am an entire community of people. If you're interested in the latter, get to Googling.

On this point, some people would say they are 100.0% sure there are no Gods. Using Dawkins scale, some would rate themselves as a 7. I'll add that if Dawkins actually says he's 99.9% sure no Gods exists, he's an Agnostic/Weak Atheist.

weak athiesm is an oxymoron, because if they are a "weak athiest", meaning that they are not really sure, then they aren't athiest by defination, they are agonostic. so I guess it's kinda the chicken and egg arguement all over again.

It's not an oxymoron. Are agnostics theists? (I'm assuming you would concede, no). Then they are, by default, a-theists. You're either a theist or you're not.

On a more practical note, I don't personally advise alienating the agnostics. There are few enough of us as it is grouping the both.

and they would be wrong. Dawkins chapter entitled "the religious non believer" explains this in more detail

I haven't read the book, but I'm guessing you just misunderstood him.