Maybe about 40% of the population is just fucking incapable of seeing through deception unless it's painfully obvious, and often not even then. About 30% more will be taken in by gross manipulation at least some of the time if it's done well. Of the remaining 30% maybe 20% won't necessarily be taken in by gross manipulation but will fall for fine manipulation. Of the 10% of the population that can see through fine manipulation at least some of the time most of them are still taken in by multiple layers of deception. Human lie detectors are in very short supply.
Given the above then aside from your personal ethics what's standing in the way of your success?
Thinking is calorically expensive, so it's a viable strategy to offload it onto trusted people within the community.
The resulting con artist strategy you're proposing evolved in opposition to that. Punishment by the social group and an overall decline in the level of trust are the usual countermeasures.
Carter Martinez
Religion.
Alexander Ortiz
Are people born impervious to manipulation or tricked down a dark road to wisdom?
Cameron Hernandez
wasnt meant to answer that religion was stopping me, only implying that MANY people worship godly characters based on what exactly? is religion a scam?
Angel Hall
That presumes that you are exposed and that enough people accept that they were conned.
Unless you're starting a religion for money that's less a Jow Forums thing. The fact that it could be a Jow Forums thing should tell you something though.
For me it was probably more the latter than the former but others might suspect the former.
Gabriel Adams
>Is religion a scam? I think it is. The easiest argument to support that would be to point out that religions keep their members spiritually hostage by threatning them with consequences in the after-life. Just like one might keep one physically hostage with the threat of a bullet or emotionally hostage by mental abuse and blackmail. Religion is quite frankly black mailing people.
If religion is the word of god directly spoken trough the mouth of its prophets then the writings of these prophets should be taken very serious. But they're not. Unless you're very extreme. God clearly demands for blood when someone committed a sin. But representatives of religion won't be this harsh in their conviction of their said truth. Religion itself is already defying god's will. Or you're an extremist but more often than not extremists have their own agenda and merely use religion as an excuse.
Brody Bell
Yes, but as society has grown more complex, so too have information sources that out you and the robustness of a legal system that can hunt you down (can, not will).
Religion's a group cohesion strategy. Its most common tropes (e.g. original sin undone through salvation, an imminent apocalypse caused by sinners) and behaviors (e.g. weekly prayer, tithing) evolved because they gave an advantage in an uncertain world of small hunter-gatherer bands.
You might think this sounds similar to our need for fat and sugar, which hasn't yet evolved away (and gave us an obesity crisis).
You then might wonder whether all those people answering personal surveys with "No Religion" are wrong and just don't realize it.
Grayson Carter
But then if you're not willing to accept what is claimed to be a direct medium from god as the whole truth even when that is what is claimed. Then what more is there to say but that it is a scam? Imo religion either has it 100% correct or 100% wrong. As it is usually claimed that these are the messages directly from god.
Isaiah Clark
Lumping Religion together is like saying the problem is thinking stuff is bad.
Truth is most based red pilled people are Christian.
Kayden Jackson
Cause NWO and the prophecy of one is a biblical concept.
Chase Mitchell
"Scam" implies the scheme has a net negative benefit for the rubes being duped. That's not always the case with religion.
We have a word to cover both scams and beneficial scams, the much more humble "lie".
David Harris
The thing is though, believing in the idea that there will be or is a NWO only reaffirms it to happen like a selfulfilling prophecy(?). Christianity is pretty corrupt if you look at its organisation. I wouldn't trust the bible. Plus isn't there a vetted interest of NWO conspirers to actually say that there will be one? Just look at the many claims for an NWO, they're very short from hiding it. Why not incorporate it into a bible? That is if you manipulated/wrote the bible. So instead of a warning which is how it is perceived by many christians. It might just be subliminal messaging or social engineering.
Xavier Gray
>Maybe about 40% of the population is just fucking incapable of seeing through deception unless it's painfully obvious
47.3% of the population has an IQ of 99 or less.
Carter Cook
Ok fair point. But hasn't religion have a negative impact? It would be far outside the lines of what we can discuss to say if society would have developed better with or without it. But it is the cause for wide scale corruption. Not even to mention the amount of pedophelia. Any moral that religion does teach, could have been taught in a different way.
What keeps religion alive over the ages is the intensity of a genuine spiritual connection to something extraterrestrial. It is especially gratifying to those who are lost in a world they see as a beautiful work of art tainted with countless forms of evil and death. Money is irrelevant to those who are truly wealthy in spirit.
Of course, there are billions of ways to manipulate the lost and desperate. Evil has no qualms masquerading as that which seeks to destroy it. As a Christian, I see an uncountable number of scams set up in the name of Christ that are truly sickening. Televangelists, "seed-based" faith, supposed "authorities" twisting the Bible into their own agenda for frivolous luxury items that are empty, hollow things.
If one feels that they are a "spiritual hostage", they are better off uninvolved. Many who feel that way are raised with their beliefs from birth and the community they were borne out of. They do not understand them and receive no answers to satisfy their concerns. Naturally, they reject them. Anyone who is following a religion solely to avoid being punished is badly misguided. The intent is to heal and purify corruption, derision, restlessness. Being that it's Good Friday, recall that Christ did not tell the thief on the cross next to him that he was hellbound for the life that he lived. Instead, Christ took him up with Him, redeeming a man who was clearly very lost in life until seconds before his death.
I firmly believe that the more you engage evil, the more you may thrive down here, the more you may reach the upper echelons of control and society, the more it will always come back for you. No honor.
Adrian Russell
That's like asking whether weapons have a negative impact.
Well, they're a big factor in us even being here, much less reigning at the top of the food chain. And in the age of civilization, for every million people killed by weapons, another million may well have defended themselves against unjust aggressors.
But, like religion, you need to put a lot of deep thought into why they exist before you demand removing them outright. Otherwise they will just evolve back into existence.
Anthony Ross
Yes but I can point to another section of the bible where Jesus clearly points out that you are hellbound if you sin.
"But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Revelation 21:8
Hudson Miller
But it comes down to this >believe in me and be redeemed >don't believe in me and burn in hell Atleast that's what I take from it all.
Christian Bell
>Atleast that's what I take from it all.
It always kills me when someone recycles some totally boilerplate cliche and adds "But that's just what I think" or "in my opinion".
Christ grants salvation to all those who accept Him to be their Savior from evil. That's what the thief did on the cross.
There is not a single man who is free of sin whether he knows Christ or not, yet there is nothing too evil to outweigh the mercy Christ offers. It is a personal relationship that one is free to walk away from at any point.
This Earth may as well be the bridge between Heaven and Hell. You don't have to travel far to see the sights and signs of the infinitely hellish things that haunt the world and those that revel in it shamelessly. To me, the overwhelming sense of evil that lurks throughout all this land makes me prize that which serves as a sanctuary away from it. The relationship that any one individual has with Christ is at-well. When I was younger, I went out of the way to shun my own. In these times, I was exposed to evils I wish I had never seen. In hatred of evil, I realized the beauty of redemption. No thing on Earth could pull me away from it - money, harems, land, dominion over countries and seas... Those sanctuaries are very precious. Be it a church that goes out of the way to separate itself from the ways of the world or being out in a stretch of untouched nature and simply admiring the beauty of it all..
I don't know if you suffer intensely or at all, if you get what I mean or think its retarded, and/or if you are content wherever you may be now. Regardless, I wish you well and would be happy to continue discussing this with you. I gotta step out, but I'll be back a little later on.
Joseph Anderson
>Christ grants salvation It is more like an ultimatum. I don't think it is retarded. Yes I suffer, I think everyone does. Saved or not. But what all religions have in common is this reward/punishment structure. Reward the faithfull with promises of peace and punish the unfaithfull with promises of punishment. Now you can say that once you accept Christ as a savior there is peace right there and then. But there are other ways of achieving that peace. I've hopped a lot of religions in my life and they're all quite the same. And they're all respectively right. Cause whether it be Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Toa or Sikhism (to name a few major players) there's always an experience that goes beyond you.
I have to go myself. Thank you for this little exchange.
David Wilson
Perhaps, but perfect information is a myth.
Aiden Evans
The idea that you are punished for not following Christ is irrelevant. Whether or not you decide to accept Christ, life is filled to the brim with punishment and suffering and ends with death.
Sure, the idea of eternal damnation was especially played up and many within the church over the ages have invoked the element of fear and manipulation to their gain - much in the same way that televangelists do now. In Christ is truly a sense of freedom. Freedom from the chains of evil and of demons. Freedom from the darwinian man-eats-man ways of the world and its shallow pursuits. Personally, I do not seek out Christ out of some obligation that I'll be damned. That very notion had me shun it all for years (do what we say, or burn). It took me some time to realize how all-encompassing Christ's mercy is. Zero obligation, zero intimidation tactics in play. I've been blessed with a peace of mind and have been able to come a long way from all the hellish things thoughts and surroundings I knew. I have a conviction to fight against the evil that eats away at man and his habitat. No plaything can distract me the evil at play around me. Like zombie hands coming out of the ground, it grips so many and tries to pull them down into the Earth. As a roe freed from the hand of the hunter, I strive to be a soldier for Christ's cause as it is the true antidote to this evil.
I can't speak on behalf of the many other religions, nor would I want to. Who would I be to tell Thai buddhists that their way of life is wrong? They've honored the ways of their ancestors and their way of life and are quite fervent in doing so. They have a sense of spiritual refuge.
I don't know if you might check back in here or not, but I will say that Christ works in mysterious ways and He may very well show you that sense of love and mercy that makes so many Christians firmer in their beliefs by the day. I say that as a man who used to be among the most blasphemous, disrespectful, and hedonistic of us
