Why are most religious people so easy to manipulate? (serious)
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
Because they have been taught, from childhood, to just believe whatever the guy up front tells them to.
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Kind of lazy of me not to look it up myself...
No such thing as lazy, that’s just a word we use to shame people into doing stuff they don’t feel like doing. -
I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
It's why religions make such a BIG DEAL about "faith".
Faith is simply a commitment to believe things that otherwise contradict obvious reality (but which invariably work to some "leader's" advantage).
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
Watch documentaries on chimpanzees, watch what they do individually and as tribes and then you'll understand. We are not far removed from those great apes, and it shows.
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
wrote last edited by [email protected]I think maybe you have it backwards people who are easily swayed/trusting of authority/gullible are going to be naturally drawn toward religion. Skeptics/those who don’t take things at face value are going to be naturally skeptical of it.
Religion doesn’t make you stupid but it’s very attractive to the sort
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Survival of the fittest has failed humanity many cenuries ago.
Survival of the fittest is who is best at sexing not who is best at thinking
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Why are most
religiouspeople so easy to manipulate?Targeted Propaganda creates an online echo-chamber where everyone thinks that they're correct for obvious -to them- reasons (Selective reporting, lying by omission, no one reads the retraction etc.). Add to that the addictive and isolating nature of smart technology, the sense of community they find in their personal traits/hobbies/beliefs/interests and the fact that the rich are actively trying to destroy the middle and working class. That's how you get someone from group X, who believes they are wholly correct and smart enough to not be manipulated by media, asking why group Y is so easy to manipulate. It's not about characteristics of faith, or anything like that. It's the people at the top, telling you it's other members of your class dragging you down. Through the global media monopolies that they control. We're all part of it.
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People are stupid. They can be made to believe any lie because either they want to believe it's true or because they are afraid it's true.
-Terry Goodkind, "Wizard's First Rule"
Hate to break it to you, it's not just religious people.
wrote last edited by [email protected]This the book with the extended author self-gratifying torture sex scene in the middle that has almost nothing to do with the story?
The author who went on about people being stupid when the entire plot hinges on the fact that the main character was forced to memorize a book for like, no reason, at the beginning?
The world with a tribe of "uneducated savages" who are saved by white man ingenuity, because, despite living in an area with heavy rainfall, they never thought of making roofs that don't leak?
The obvious self-insert main character who escapes being forced to breed with said savages by convincing them his jizz is poison?
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This the book with the extended author self-gratifying torture sex scene in the middle that has almost nothing to do with the story?
The author who went on about people being stupid when the entire plot hinges on the fact that the main character was forced to memorize a book for like, no reason, at the beginning?
The world with a tribe of "uneducated savages" who are saved by white man ingenuity, because, despite living in an area with heavy rainfall, they never thought of making roofs that don't leak?
The obvious self-insert main character who escapes being forced to breed with said savages by convincing them his jizz is poison?
Oh, so that means people are smart and never believe lies??
Go away
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Oh, so that means people are smart and never believe lies??
Go away
You sound like someone who thinks Terry Goodkind is poignant.
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
Another related question: Why are people seemingly more inclined to become more religious as they age?
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There is also a selection bias at play here. I suspect that people who are more susceptible to manipulation are more likely to be religious.
Religion also includes a pretty horrific indoctrination program in children, ensuring that most of them remain uneducated and pliable enough to be manipulated for the rest of their lives by the church.
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Another related question: Why are people seemingly more inclined to become more religious as they age?
wrote last edited by [email protected]I know people actually become slightly less conservative as they age, on average, but society in most Western places has moved socially left over time, so they seem conservative now. I'm guessing some of that is also true of religiousness.
Having to stare down your mortality and insignificance might be part of it. Young people tend to just avoid big picture questions because it's easy to pretend they can. Now, of course there's atheist answers to those big picture questions, but as far as I know committed atheists are always outnumbered by agnostics.
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I think it's because religions, cults, sports teams or whatever have community. Community comes with shared identities and beliefs. Nobody wants to be outcasted or shunned. So you follow along. Your friends are there, your family is there ... they all believe the same thing.
Yes, and groupthinks incorporating spirituality and a doctrine that threatens damnation for violations of the rules (including questioning them, sometimes) have just proven very persistent and effective.
I'd add conspiracy communities to the list, including some prominent on Lemmy.
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This the book with the extended author self-gratifying torture sex scene in the middle that has almost nothing to do with the story?
The author who went on about people being stupid when the entire plot hinges on the fact that the main character was forced to memorize a book for like, no reason, at the beginning?
The world with a tribe of "uneducated savages" who are saved by white man ingenuity, because, despite living in an area with heavy rainfall, they never thought of making roofs that don't leak?
The obvious self-insert main character who escapes being forced to breed with said savages by convincing them his jizz is poison?
I misread the original quote as being from Terry Pratchett and as I was reading your comment I was like "No way in hell, what is this guy talking about?".
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I think maybe you have it backwards people who are easily swayed/trusting of authority/gullible are going to be naturally drawn toward religion. Skeptics/those who don’t take things at face value are going to be naturally skeptical of it.
Religion doesn’t make you stupid but it’s very attractive to the sort
The flip side of that is manipulators are going to gravitate toward religion as a easy way to get what they want from the suckers.
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
I have the opposite perception - that people become in fact more conservative and buying into conspiracy theories more readily as they age.
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
Their entire worldview depends on blindly believing things that don't make sense and are unverifiable
They are trained from a very young age to accept anything an authority tells them.
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
wrote last edited by [email protected]I mean they believe there's a man in the sky that they don't see who controls everything. Then that big man speaks through the pastor and this pastor interprets this book for them to hear. Everything good or bad is part of some divine plan. Then the whole thing is wrapped around the idea of wholehearted faith.
All throughout history, religious leaders plant themselves as a way to control people and power over them. See Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas.
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I'm watching Apocalypse in the Tropics documentary on Netflix about evangelicals and politics in Brazil and it's mind boggling. Why do the religious people just blindly do whatever the pastors tell them?
wrote last edited by [email protected]I don't know about across the pond, but to me that always seemed to be a loud minority of charismatic leaders gathering big flocks. Which the rest of The Church tries to distance itself from.
I think this isn't specifically tied to religion. It's just it's noticeable when it is. People are manipulated by governments and the media all of the time. It even happens in largely secular states as well.
You say evangelicals, but there's also the likes of Mormons, Seventh day Adventists (not really a big cult now as it used to be), Jehovah's Witnesses. There are Sunni extremists and Shia extremists in Islamic countries. China had weird cults as well such as the Falun Gong. But that also had an atheistic movement in the cultural revolution. Nazi Germany's movement was borderline pagan in nature.
