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

[peaseblossom03.livejournal.com]

(psst...it's a hoax/satire)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Sadly, no. Hard to believe that people would genuinely be this crazy, I know, but there is way too much extended ranting for it to be a hoax.

Proliferation

[exileinparadise.livejournal.com]

I have lost track of how many of these sorts of things I have seen in my life. Each one makes me vaguely nauseous. The simple answer is yes... otherwise normally intelligent people who should know better DO believe all sorts of religious claptrap... the sillier the better it seems.

Being raised Native American, I have a large amount of disrespect for Christianity, and have encountered this sort of nonsense over and over again.

It will never stop... all you can do is choose not to be around such pollution, and to steer friends and family towards safer harbors if possible. Sadly, most of my family is irretrievably lost to Christianity, so I have to tread lightly when they are around. For that, I suggest the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy... "don't ask me about religion, and I won't tell you you're an idiot" :)

The worst is when some well meaning but brainwashed GodZombie™ takes it upon themselves to try to convert you. Relocation to Antarctica might be preferable.

Luckily, I am well armed for these encounters, and one of the simplest disarming tactics is to ask why Lot was spared the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Read that chapter carefully, and you will find that Lot offered to throw his daughters to a mob if they would just stop banging on his door. There's a virtuous guy... a true role-model and pillar (pun intentional) of the community worth saving according to God's own direction.

Another fun one is to ask them what Noah did when he got off the Ark... any other other than "get drunk and pass out naked" is wrong. Then invite them to get out their Bible's and prove it to themselves... of course that little episode cost one of Noah's sons his life.

All you can do is arm yourself... and the best defense can be a good offense. Knowing the Bible (or at least parts of it) better than the sods who screech its praises can be a real sanity saver.

Always distrust religious people, they are only trying to sell something.

Faith and religion are two seperate things... faith is about beliefs. Religion is about control... look up the root meaning of the word religion itself. IIRC, the latin root is religare (to control/regulate).
Nothing about faith there.

Science can never disprove faith.
Faith can never be scientifically proven.
These realities can only be accomodated, never solved.

Keep in mind that Christians are also people who have willing perpetrated crimes such as the Crusades, Witch Hunts, the Inquisition, the burning of all black cats(!), and more... or at least are people willing to be PART of the group that did these things.

These people can be militant and dangerous, and dangerous cults like Christianity should be handled warily. Avoidance can be the best policy.
They are not willing to die for their beliefs, but will have no problem if YOU die for their beliefs.

Thanks for the link... yet another on the stay far away from these idiots list.

I like the word Evolutionism... thats pretty funny.

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.