Why are most religious people so easy to manipulate? (serious)

[starlinguk@lemmy.world]

The bubble. I have a friend who ended up in a 'bubble' church. They get all their news from the church. TV channels: church. Cinema: church.

They have a STEM degree. They're not stupid, and yet they are.

[mtk@lemmy.world]

Pretty simple. They are groomed from birth and often until death, to blindly trust the "leaders" of their community. At some point they develop critical thinking skills, but they are so deeply manipulated to trust the cult that they face an internal conflict: Break away from your core values, family, friends, community, comfort of purpose and greater value, etc. Or don't apply critical thinking to certain topics in your life.

Faced with what is essentially a social and moral death they ofteb choose the simpler option, just don't let logic into that part of their life.

Honestly, hard to balme them, I myself have faced similar issues in my life and sadly didn't always have to courage and strength to go with logic and instead kept with social norms that I know are wrong. To be fair, I think that 90% of people are blind to their own illogical (and often harmful) beliefs, but they easily identify it in others.

[zloubida@sh.itjust.works]

You may be doing a little generalization there. Evangelicals are not representative of religious people.

[prex@aussie.zone]

That sounds like the Bonhoeffer kind of stupid.

[madcaesar@lemmy.world]

It's the modern Scheister equivalent of "Trust me bro!"

Religion has a build in self defense mechanism as that it will prime people to expect people to call them fools for believing foolish things, so it actually serves to strengthen their faith. "See, pastor told me they'd come for my relationship with God!"

All of this relies heavily on getting into people when they are young and their brains are still developing.

People do not understand how deeply religion gets ingrained and how damaging it is.

You'll have adults that have left the faith, because they've seen the bullshit that it is that are still afraid of hell because they've been bombarded with this shit since they could talk.

[slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org]

If you believe in a magic man in the sky and a talking snake, it's probably pretty easy to convince them of other things too.

[vinesnfluff@pawb.social]

one of the most numerous and arguably the most influential religious group in modern times is not representative of religious people

Are you being serious right now?

Though I will happily agree that evangelicals are in fact the worst religious people.

[zloubida@sh.itjust.works]

3.5% of the world population is Evangelical, it's around 1% in my country. It's less than the number of atheists (7% globally, 63% in my country). So no, absolutely not representative. Your answer is very US-centered.

And in my country were atheism is very spread, I see a lot a manipulated people. Religious people aren't more easily manipulated than others, it's just that religious easily manipulated people are attracted by Evangelicalism.

[riprif@lemmy.world]

Religion has already filtered out a population segment more likely to defer to authority figures when faced with facts that contradict reality.

[therealkuni@lemmy.world]

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call Bonhoeffer stupid before. Personally I wish more pastors got involved in plots to assassinate genocidal fascists.

[nemo@slrpnk.net]

Because they're people; and people, in general, are easy to manipulate.

[unfortunateshort@lemmy.world]

Evangelical in the sense of protestant christians or in the sense of that crazy cult that's going on over in the Americas? Maybe it's just the news giving me the wrong idea, but I really don't recognise my religion just one ocean away.

I am a scepticist, but (or rather because) I grew up with a progressive church that allows and encourages critical thinking. Very tame stances overall, no overly aggressive rethoric, laughing and coloring you hair very much allowed. Then you cross the pond and hear fuming people talk about filthy infidels and holy wars like wth...

I think these people are not necessarily easy to manipulate, but indoctrinated to hell and back

[prex@aussie.zone]

I really wrote that poorly.
I was referring to his views on stupidity being a choice and a way of (not) thinking instead of an intrinsic attribute. That's how someone intelligent can have stupid thoughts.

[prex@aussie.zone]

Bonhoeffer was anything but stupid and the opposite of the 'blind faith' kind of Christian.

[prex@aussie.zone]

Was that plot even real or was it a kangaroo court sort of thing?

[norin@lemmy.world]

People in general are easily manipulated, and those who manipulate use the beliefs of the people they’re manipulating to do so.

Religion certainly is a something used for that, but it’s hardly the only one.

[mrcleanup@lemmy.world]

I think you have it backwards, it's no wonder people who are easy to manipulate get drawn into religion.

[therealkuni@lemmy.world]

I think it was real. His level of involvement is debatable, but his writings seem to indicate he at least knew about it.

[therealkuni@lemmy.world]

Gotcha. I agree.

[prex@aussie.zone]

Kind of lazy of me not to look it up myself...