Aren't people stupid?

[Taiga]

http://www.utdallas.edu/~jholmes/subcomandanteMarcos.jpg
SUP-BUDDHA (http://www.utdallas.edu/~jholmes/subcomandanteMarcos.jpg)

I wonder why people are always trying to deify somebody?
The whole history is the story of deifying pharaohs, kings and emperors. Even in "atheistic" USSR there was a kind of state religion with Lenin and Stalin as God-Father and God-Son (or something like this). Hitler was a kind of Savior for Aryans. Some people try to find similarities between Che and Jesus. Now Subcomandante Marcos is a Buddha.
What an imbecility.... Why not just respect humans? Why deify them?

[RedStarOverChina]

The masses needs something to fulfill their spiritual void...It can be an political ideology OR a religion and it can also be a combination of both to fulfill it.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2005, 12:53 AM
The masses needs something to fulfill their spiritual void...It can be an political ideology OR a religion and it can also be a combination of both to fulfill it.
Is it what the masses "need"?

Or is it just the endless parade of con-men who are responsible?

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[RedStarOverChina]

If the masses do not have the demand for that kind of things the con-men wouldnt be able to pull it off, now, would they?

We know when people are disillusioned in things they tend to become religious or join cults (not that theres much difference between the two options). They have to have something to take their minds off of the materialistic world.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2005, 01:30 AM
If the masses do not have the demand for that kind of things the con-men wouldnt be able to pull it off, now, would they?

We know when people are disillusioned in things they tend to become religious or join cults (not that theres much difference between the two options). They have to have something to take their minds off of the materialistic world.
Not necessarily.

Look at all the people who buy SUVs for the "image" (I read once that less than 2% of all SUV owners ever use their vehicle to tow anything or drive it on unpaved roads or trails).

People can often be convinced that they "need" what the con-man is selling...without regard to objective utility.

Being gullible is not the same thing as having a "spiritual need".

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[Ele'ill]

The masses needs something to fulfill their spiritual void...It can be an political ideology OR a religion and it can also be a combination of both to fulfill it.

Or a return to the natural world. Which would be the correct route to take in my opinion.

[RedStarOverChina]

Look at all the people who buy SUVs for the "image" (I read once that less than 2% of all SUV owners ever use their vehicle to tow anything or drive it on unpaved roads or trails).

for me, the moral of this story is that people to a degree are controlled by their sub conscious(as many psychiatrists claim). Many capitalists in their advertisement try to exploit people's sub conscious. The existence of this sub conscious supports my claim that people have "spiritual needs". It would be overly simplistic to say that the imperfect human completely rely on intellect to function.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by RedStarOverChina
Many capitalists in their advertisement try to exploit people's sub-conscious.

I don't see anything "sub-conscious" about the appeal of SUVs...or religion.

They say (or imply strongly) that you as an SUV owner will be a "different person" than you are without one. Other people will "respect" you as a "master of the road" and even a "dominator of difficult terrain". Their commercials don't show SUV drivers in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway or parked along side thousands of similar vehicles in some massive mall parking lot. Instead, they show a good-looking guy driving over rocks that appear almost as large as the SUV itself. He's "in charge" in his SUV.

The same is true with religion when it seeks converts from those not raised in their particular brand of hokum. The appeal is to "sign up" with the "cosmological winner"..."the real God" that can actually make a "difference" in your life.

"Get (the real) God on your side" and you can be a winner "in life".

These appeals are perfectly "coherent" and seemingly even "rational" -- no "sub-conscious" is required. What makes them irrational in our eyes is that they are based on false statements about reality.

SUVs will not climb over huge rocks without turning over...nor does owning one enhance your status. There are no gods that will "back you up" or "change your life".

I'm not convinced that there even "is" such a thing as a "sub-conscious"...but if there is, it's certainly not needed to explain the appeal of SUVs or superstition.

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[MKS]

I think what motivates most people to religion or spirituality is fear.

I studied for 2 years in a Catholic Seminary, most of the people I encountered (including myself) followed religion out of a constant yearning for what we percived as; truth, compassion and hope (these things were personified in the Christian faith). Many of these young men were very bright people, almost all had graduated from College (Notre Dame, Harvard, Yale etc.) none of them could be labeled as stupid. But with all thier intelligence they never could conquer their fear, they could never allow logic to dissolve the antiquated dogmas and beliefes they held.

People do need something to believe in; be it Religion, polictal theory, or materialism.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by MKS
But with all their intelligence they never could conquer their fear, they could never allow logic to dissolve the antiquated dogmas and beliefs they held.

What were they afraid of?

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[MKS]

What were they afraid of?

They were afraid of death, of the finality of the end of life. After years of studying under some of the brightest theologians in the US I concluded all religous beliefs are based on the fear of the "unkown". Faith, gives people hope and comfort.

[RedStarOverChina]

Thats the Freudian view. Has to do with "sub-conscious" as well. I think its a complicated issue that has many causes. Fear of death; fear of the unknown, the need to feel people (or god) care about u; so on and so forth. Its a combination of many things.

[synthesis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2005, 08:22 PM
Thats the Freudian view. Has to do with "sub-conscious" as well. I think its a complicated issue that has many causes. Fear of death; fear of the unknown, the need to feel people (or god) care about u; so on and so forth. Its a combination of many things.
I agree. To attempt to reduce the source of religion to a single cause is simplistic.

[MKS]

I agree. To attempt to reduce the source of religion to a single cause is simplistic

There is only one basic cause, sure there might be other layers to it, but the foundation for all reigious belief is fear. Fear stemming from weakness. Religoin preys on human weakness and fear. If religion offered no promise of eternity, no one would be religious.

Thats what I learned from seminary, and one of the big reasons why I turned away from all that BS.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by MKS
I think what motivates most people to religion or spirituality is fear.


They were afraid of death, of the finality of the end of life. After years of studying under some of the brightest theologians in the US, I concluded all religious beliefs are based on the fear of the "unknown". Faith gives people hope and comfort.


There is only one basic cause, sure there might be other layers to it, but the foundation for all religious belief is fear. Fear stemming from weakness. Religion preys on human weakness and fear. If religion offered no promise of eternity, no one would be religious.

While many and perhaps even most religions have some sort of afterlife on tap (at least for the faithful or especially pious), I have to question this motive as the "source" of religion's endurance.

For example, it's well known that young people are often "risk-takers"...the saying is that "they act as if they were immortal".

And it's not the "most pious" who act in such a fashion, but rather the least pious.

Another example: if the "fear of death" were really uppermost in people's minds, why would people take "physical risks" at all? Or at least any physical risks outside of the bounds of compelling necessity?

Why would anyone ever volunteer to be a soldier...or even get into a fist-fight?

In my observation, sensible people are not, in normal circumstances, motivated by the fear of death at all. The possibility of one's own death in the immediate future is not something one normally pays any attention to...or at least very little attention to.

It's different when one gets old, of course. The looming inevitability of one's own demise is undeniable. But even then, fear plays a very small role; a common reaction among the old is "I've lived a full life...and I'm weary unto death." Death is our final friend...come to put an end to the painful disabilities of old age.

To be sure, religious propaganda plays the "fear of death" card early and often. They would very much like it if people went around with their eternal fate uppermost in their minds -- the way people functioned, to some extent, in the Middle Ages.

It makes their product "easier to sell". It's "good marketing".

But it doesn't really explain why there's a market in the first place.

Religion began, I think, as an effort to explain and control natural phenomena...it was the first product of our attempt to think critically about the material world and how to change it.

Inventing a pantheon and the appropriate rituals to entreat/compel it to act for our earthly benefit was the beginning of science.

The reason that religion has declined in importance over the last three centuries is that we have real explanations now that actually allow us to control what happens in the material world...though, so far, only to a limited extent.

But those limits continue to expand!

In the face of successful performance by science, religious rituals must perforce retreat...science works better.

Why then does religion still exist?

1. Our science is still primitive...there is still a lot of material reality we cannot control, and religion can step in and claim to control it through "right beliefs" and "correct rituals". Their claims are obviously false...but "better than nothing".

2. Religious beliefs continue to be reproduced by the parental indoctrination of children -- who have no critical intelligence to defend themselves.

3. Religious beliefs are universally seen by ruling classes as useful in pacifying what might otherwise be a restive or even rebellious subservient class or classes. Even in countries that have nominal "separation of church and state", the government will do its best to "play up" religion as a "positive factor" in life.

4. And one cannot leave out the earthly ambitions of the clergy themselves...they are running an enormous con and they gain real material benefits from maintaining and expanding it. At the very least, they want their own educational system in order to reinforce parental indoctrination. And if all goes well, they'd like to promote themselves into the role of ruling class...or as close as they can get to that.

5. What's in it for the sucker? The one who believes the con and does what the clergy tells it to do? I think it gives him/her a sense of living in an "orderly universe" -- where virtue is rewarded and vice is punished. Imagining themselves to have a "real" understanding of "reality", they can act without "guilt" or "doubt" -- without uncertainty.

And humans hate uncertainty.

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[RedStarOverChina]

Religion began, I think, as an effort to explain and control natural phenomena...it was the first product of our attempt to think critically about the material world and how to change it.

I agree. This is one of the first conclusions I draw about religion when I was young. Thats what I meant by "fear of the unknown". They need answers to quench their curiocity.

However I believe other reasons for the creation of religion exists as well. For example, people want to feel someone cares about them. Thats why they have goddesses of love and other patron Gods.

I am still somewhat convinced that people's fear of death, their fear for an ULTIMATE END contributes to the creation of religion.



Inventing a pantheon and the appropriate rituals to entreat/compel it to act for our earthly benefit was the beginning of science.

Yea. For example it was recorded that early on in Chinese history, medical practice and witchcraft were the samething for a long period of time.

[Taiga]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2005, 03:59 AM

However I believe other reasons for the creation of religion exists as well. For example, people want to feel someone cares about them. Thats why they have goddesses of love and other patron Gods.


Or the Father of country. Like Stalin.
"Thank you, comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood!!!"