Is Religion A Form Of Mind Control?

Kung Fu

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You could just as easily say Marxism, Capitalism or just science were forms of mind control, and truly I have met people who genuinely believe politics or progress will "save the world".
That's exactly what I'm saying. You can say parenting methods is a form of mind control, schools are a form of mind control, and etc. You can say it about anything and therefore is pretty meaningless when you hear people say "religion" is a form of mind control.
 

Mr.Grieves

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You could just as easily say Marxism, Capitalism or just science were forms of mind control, and truly I have met people who genuinely believe politics or progress will "save the world".
Marxism and Capitalism are ideologies that can indeed indoctrinate people; just look at the desperately poor Americans who are die-hard supporters of less taxes for the rich. If that's not evidence of capitalist brain-washing, I don't know what is... people literally railing and voting against their own self-interest, often in the insane delusion that they too will be rich one day, and are protecting the vast wealth they don't yet have.
The thing is, people don't typically read their kids to sleep with Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged', or send their kids to 'The Communist Manifesto' camp in the summer. While people can get caught up in ideologies like Marxism and Capitalism, there's typically at least some level of conscious decision there. Religion is a little different, as it's taught and practiced rather differently. You wouldn't be ok with a woman looking after your kids telling them they're all going to be poor, homeless parasites if they don't start financially exploiting their peers, nor telling them they have to all share their lunches with each-other and demanding the rich kids mom pay for everyone else's school supplies... but many are perfectly ok with a woman looking after their kids telling those kids they'll burn in hell for all eternity if they don't stop, say, pulling Nancy's hair.

Science isn't an ideology. While science can certainly be used to discover and utilize methods of mind-control, to suggest science itself is mind-control is nonsensical. Science is just a functional process of discovery.
 

Mr.Grieves

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It doesn't have to be an ideology to be considered mind control.
But science doesn't offer so much as a suggestion on how to live your life, let alone attempt to control or impose rules upon your mind. Science gives no fucks about you or your mind, except when you or your mind are the lines of inquiry being explored.
 

Red Sky at Morning

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But science doesn't offer so much as a suggestion on how to live your life, let alone attempt to control or impose rules upon your mind. Science gives no fucks about you or your mind, except when you or your mind are the lines of inquiry being explored.
Evolutionary psychology anyone? Genetic determinism?


#scientificnihilism ^^

By embracing some of the further reaching implications of this view, the question of free will or indeed meaningful personhood is wiped away by a scientific game of slight of hand. To say that scientific materialism doesn't "tell you what to do" may be right - instead it appears to say that you have no choice.

Now that is a bad religion.
 
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Mr.Grieves

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Evolutionary psychology anyone? Genetic determinism?
Genetic determinism is an ideological belief. Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical practice, attempting to link human behaviors to the evolutionary process. Neither speaks for or is representative of science. Referencing and utilizing science doesn't make something a science. If that were true, Scientology would be a science. It isn't.

By embracing some of the further reaching implications of this view, the question of free will or indeed meaningful personhood is wiped away by a scientific game of slight of hand.
The views of Sam Harris or those who think like him aren't a science.
Science is a methodology for discerning truth, nothing more and nothing less. The world is full of people saying 'Science says this, therefor *insert an ideological position/opinion here*', but you can't blame the 'therefor' on the science.

"If I can't put it in a test tube or measure it, I won't believe it"... @Mr.Grieves , you may have never met people like this, but I sure have ;-)
I can't say for certain that I'm not one of them. I too struggle to believe in things completely unquantifiable and unobservable, especially with the suggestion these things become quantifiable and observable as soon as and only when I decide to believe in them.
 

Red Sky at Morning

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Genetic determinism is an ideological belief. Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical practice, attempting to link human behaviors to the evolutionary process. Neither speaks for or is representative of science. Referencing and utilizing science doesn't make something a science. If that were true, Scientology would be a science. It isn't.


The views of Sam Harris or those who think like him aren't a science.
Science is a methodology for discerning truth, nothing more and nothing less. The world is full of people saying 'Science says this, therefor *insert an ideological position/opinion here*', but you can't blame the 'therefor' on the science.


I can't say for certain that I'm not one of them. I too struggle to believe in things completely unquantifiable and unobservable, especially with the suggestion these things become quantifiable and observable as soon as and only when I decide to believe in them.
Perhaps I am recting to an incident where I was studying Clinical Pathology in my final year at uni - I got healed of a big cold-sore on my lip after a friend prayed over it at the university chapel (first and only one I have had in 25 years!) - only to attend a lecture where the Prof told us that "as real scientists we were to take a reductionist view of the universe and give up any childhood notions of God."

I sat in that hall and traced my tongue over my (now normal) lips that had been tingling like a new nettle sting and feeling thick and heavy. Now it was back to its original state just 10 minutes later (I have never had something like that happen to me personally before or after).

I said a quiet prayer of thanks to the God he didn't believe in and carried on writing my notes with a smile that didn't fit with his belligerent tone.
 
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Mr.Grieves

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Perhaps I am recting to an incident where I was studying Clinical Pathology in my final year at uni - I got healed of a big cold-sore on my lip after a friend prayed over it at the university chapel (first and only one I have had in 25 years!) - only to attend a lecture where the Prof told us that as real scientists we were to take a reductionist view of the universe and give up any childhood notions of God.

I sat in that hall and traced my tongue over my lips over the area that had been tingling like a new nettle sting and feeling thick and heavy. Now it was back to normal just 10 minutes later. I have never had something like that happen to me personally before or after. I said a quiet prayer of thanks to the God he didn't believe in and carried on writing my notes with a smile that didn't fit with his belligerent tone.
Mm.
That's a neat story and all, but... your cold-sore..?
Is a cold-sore on the lip really something to bother God about...? And of all the desperate prayers God could be answering, he went with your cold-sore...?
It's not at all possible that the annoying old scab of your cold-sore just fell off?
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to trivialize your religious experience... answered prayers vs. unanswered prayers has always just been an odd subject to my mind, rather 'coin-toss'ish really.
 

Red Sky at Morning

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Mm.
That's a neat story and all, but... your cold-sore..?
Is a cold-sore on the lip really something to bother God about...? And of all the desperate prayers God could be answering, he went with your cold-sore...?
It's not at all possible that the annoying old scab of your cold-sore just fell off?
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to trivialize your religious experience... answered prayers vs. unanswered prayers has always just been an odd subject to my mind.
I had gone 20 years without catching them off my mum then got one as she insisted on kissing me goodbye as I left for the term. I had woke that morning and the whole thing had come up overnight. Big, hanging on my top lip and feeling like it had its own pulse!

I was headed to a prayer meeting that morning at the chapel and after I had asked one of my friends to pray for me. All I can say is that on the way up to the Biology department the normal course of events turned around and I was sitting there healed whilst being told it was impossible.

Perhaps it happened so that I would escape getting sucked into that empty man's perspective, who knows. Anyway, ever since, I have been fascinated by miracles and seen others in the lives of friends and family.

The ideas are expanded further in another thread I put up on the topic (I know you have seen this one but just in case anyone else is interested).

https://vigilantcitizenforums.com/threads/the-case-for-miracles.3437/

P.s. "sorry, I'm not trying to trivialize your religious experience" - as it happens it was a very physical experience for which there were only spiritual explanations.
 

mecca

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God has been used as an excuse and a justification for authoritarianism, religion can be an authoritarian structure itself... but those people are using religion as a tool to serve their ego, they don't believe in God because of love, they just want control.
 
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Awoken2

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I just find it bewildering that intelligent.people can even be told that their world will be coming to an end and it's all down to God's will.

I think you have been duped because when these "events" do happen it was by the will of a group of MEN....who think they are Gods so act accordingly.
 

Awoken2

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have you considered that these new wars are foisted upon us by the architects of control,
Yes, I think every major war has.



and that the masses are fed the propaganda that these wars are necessary for our liberty and safety?
Again yes, it's called problem, reaction, solution.


the NWO is getting around the religious concept of non-violence by making it a safety and security issue.
I don't think the concept of non violence can be claimed by religion with any credibility, not when there are videos on YouTube of the Pope slapping a baby. Who are they trying to kid here?

My ex partner used to work at a care home for the elderly ran by nuns, it was called Nazareth House. When you see the brutality those nuns used to "care" for them poor.old folk it puts things in perspective.
 

The Zone

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God has been used as an excuse and a justification for authoritarianism, religion can be an authoritarian structure itself... but those people are using religion as a tool to serve their ego, they don't believe in God because of love, they just want control.
I see it a little differently in that man corrupts religion as it is intended and claims God for lust and power. Just because or nation in the past has claimed God, does not mean they were truly on His side. Most truly religious people as it is intended are devoid of ego. Most people in the modern world have some form of free will which is why the PTB's are seeking ways to control via science.
 

mecca

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I see it a little differently in that man corrupts religion as it is intended and claims God for lust and power. Just because or nation in the past has claimed God, does not mean they were truly on His side.
Yeah that's basically what I said. ISIS claims to be religious but they are literally murdering people for political gain and power... people can use religion as a tool for authoritarianism.
Most people in the modern world have some form of free will which is why the PTB's are seeking ways to control via science.
What does science have to do with religion or free will? Science is just a way to study the world, it's not the opposite of religion, religion and science exist on two separate planes. Plenty of scientists have a belief in God. Just because science focuses on studying the physical world, doesn't mean that you can't believe in a spiritual world.
 

Awoken2

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ISIS claims to be religious but they are literally murdering people for political gain and power.
Hold on didn't the CIA create ISIS to fight proxy wars in the Middle East to destabslize the region to forward The Greater Israel Project?....So that's the USA doing exactly the same thing but conning the world into thinking otherwise right?.... It's just a hustle, surely you must see that by now?
 

mecca

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Hold on didn't the CIA create ISIS to fight proxy wars in the Middle East to destabslize the region to forward The Greater Israel Project?....So that's the USA doing exactly the same thing but conning the world into thinking otherwise right?.... It's just a hustle, surely you must see that by now?
Yeah I know... but I was talking about ISIS in the context of religion and how religion can be manipulated and used in an authoritarian way to exert control instead of being about love and peace like it's supposed to be.
 

Mr.Grieves

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Perhaps it happened so that I would escape getting sucked into that empty man's perspective, who knows.
Wowsers.


Most truly religious people as it is intended are devoid of ego.
I haven't noticed this. I find egotism is often very prominent among the strongly religious; superiority complexes seem rampant, and not just over secularists or those of other faiths, but among their own faith as well; the most strongly religious often claiming a superior understanding of their religion, a more direct connection to their God, or access to miracles and powers others don't have, and by inference are unworthy of.
 

JoChris

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I just find it bewildering that intelligent.people can even be told that their world will be coming to an end and it's all down to God's will.

I think you have been duped because when these "events" do happen it was by the will of a group of MEN....who think they are Gods so act accordingly.
Doesn't it take just as much faith to believe that:
* the universe came out of nothing as a believer having faith in a Higher /s who created everything?
* who you met/ an event that changed your life path completely was purely by chance, as a believer who trusts their God/ gods planned it all?
* that firings of brainwaves from an organ that merely evolved over millions++ years can be trusted to discern fact from fiction, compared to belief in a Creator/s?

Everybody believes in something. Atheists call their God "chance". Scientism-ists call their God "evolution".
 
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