brainwashing - be sure to get them while they are young

[miriam_e]

My niece alerted me to a sick site directed towards kids, intending to teach them that christianity is love, while simulataneously teaching them to fear and despise others.
http://objective.jesussave.us/kidz.html
Don't you just love the comment about atheists (entitled "Spiritual Safety Tip"):

Atheists such as crotchety old Mr Gruff think they've got it all figured out... but then why are they always so sad?
If you find an Atheist in your neighborhood, TELL A PARENT OR PASTOR RIGHT AWAY!

You may be moved to try and witness to these poor lost souls yourself, however AVOID TALKING TO THEM!

Atheists are often very grumpy and bitter and will lash out at children or they may even try to trick you into neglecting God's Word.

Very advanced witnessing techniques are needed for these grouches. Let the adults handle them.

And then there are the "Creation Science Fun Facts":

Q: Pepper says: 'Hey Professor! Haven't dinos been extinct for millions of years?'
A: Wrong, little buddy - Dinosaurs still walk on the land and swim in the seas! And the Earth is only 10,000 years old! Incredible but TRUE!
Q: I saw in a secular movie that T-Rex was a vicious killing machine. Is this true?
A: No, Secular movies lie! T-Rex was a herbivore, its sharp teeth were used to shred plants. The Ark's passengers were safe from harm!
Q: Professor, what are fossils and where did they come from?
A: Fossils are the remains of the wicked men and animals that perished 4,000 years ago in the Flood!
Q: I was wondering, professor... Were my ancestors on Noah's Ark?
A: Yes, indeed! All of our ancestors were on the Ark... except those of our fishy friends!
Q: Did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons?
A: No, Adam and Eve were the first parents and so they never had them! Also Adam was missing one rib!
Q: Where did Cain get his wife?
A: All humans are descendants of Adam and Eve, who had many sons and daughters... so Cain married one of his sisters!
Q: Were Neanderthals the "monkey men" Evolutionists keep talking about?
A: No! Neanderthals were humans with abnormal bone growth due to very advanced age and Flood-cloud-related rickets!
Q: My friend Bomby the bombadier beetle can shoot boiling-hot toxic chemicals out of his butt. Why?
A: God gave your friend that ability for defense against evil and as a testament against the false doctrine of Evolutionism!

Wow. Do people really believe these fairy tales? We have so much growing up to do it sometimes makes me rein in my normally almost unbridled optimism.

One link I'll have to look at later is a link to a page on Game Theory for christians. When you hover the mouse over the link it pops up the ominous tip "Advanced, Cold-War-proven apologetics."

Comments

Re: Proliferation

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Thankfully religions seem to be on the decrease -- probably as a result of each generation becoming smarter (the Flynn effect).

I used to spend a lot of time learning the bible's inconsistencies and general wackiness, but it never gets anywhere. Faith is believing in something regardless of facts. There is no argument against that.

The whole episode about Lot is one of the weirdest in the bible. Satan and god making a bet on how much torture this guy can stand before he loses his faith in the torturer??? There are so many insane examples like that in the bible, like the exhortation that it is your duty to commit mass murder upon unbelievers, that it really is not worth arguing from a biblical angle. What I do is conduct myself as morally as possible and be as polite as possible to religious zealots and point out a few simple problems with all religions:

• all religions think they are the one true way with only someone's say-so as "proof"
• given the choice between stuff written by superstitious people thousands of years ago and the direct hand of any god all around me I'd be more likely to accept the natural world... and all we need to do is look at the book of life to see that every intelligent species is created with a proportion of members that are gay
• there is a simple, easy disproof of the soul. http://home.pacific.net.au/~miriam/soulless.html (http://home.pacific.net.au/~miriam/soulless.html) Without the soul there is no reason for any religion.
• the incredibly simple (but unsuccessful against religion) argument of the absurdity of a creator of the universe: Did the universe start, or has it always existed? Religious people say "No, it has to have started at some point, the world is too complex to just be." OK, so then by that logic any creator, presumably even more complex than the universe has to have started at some point, which of course is a silly loop (was created by that, which was created by that, which was created by that... ad infinitum). But they don't see that or the logical inconsistency when they answer that god has always been. Of course that means that there is no reason why the universe can not have always been... but you'll never get them to see that.

In the end faith is a meme -- a mind virus -- that protects itself by preventing the holder from questioning itself. The biggest danger is that believing something without facts, simply believing what others tell them to, makes religious people incredibly dangerous. 90% of the time they will be nice and fuzzy, but all they need is to be told by their leaders to do evil and most of them will do it. History has shown that time and time again.

Unfortunately I don't think it is possible to shift the faith meme once it gets a grip on someone's mind. The only hope is in the increasing intelligence of each generation.

Unknowability

[exileinparadise.livejournal.com]

The which came first, the creator or the created argument has always been fun. Religious people love to get into that one... and my personal position is that its unknowable.

How did the universe form?
I dunno, I wasn't there (or maybe I was, I just can't remember anymore?)

Brazen Jesusphiles have actually asked me if I believe in "God", and my various answers have been in the theme of "No, I don't believe in your God>" purposefully leaving the question of what I actually believe in wide open.

Strangely, they never dig deeper... just go straight to conversion process.
If I am in hurry, I just wave a copy of THE NECRONOMICON at them and say that I will be happy to let them read from their book, if I can then read from mine.

H.P. Lovecraft is great for driving religious folks batty. Lovecraft didn't write the Necronomicon, but he's what started it... woo!

And you are right... religion is an informational virus that most folks are genetically predisposed to be susceptible too... millenia of religious weeding out has only left people that are vulnerable to the virus.

Why are there no pure black cats? Christians killed them.
Every black cat you find will have a small white spot on it somewhere... a truly all black cat is a very rare thing.

Of course, they also get upset if you expose them to that knowledge ;)

This is why I would like Humanity to colonize space sooner rather than later... so that those of us tired of being mired here in the mud of Jesusland can have an out.