judicious admixture of cocaine and ketamine had me talking to the Great Spirit. Ketamine by itself however, dumps me in a terrifying locked room with the Lloigor. YMMV.
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I’m not religious, but I’d argue that theology is a far more complex set of beliefs than just accepting imaginary things, and it’s not all bad stuff. 
Plus, I’d also argue that the ruling ideology that shapes all our lives is built equally on things we can’t “prove” like capitalism being the best means of organizing our collective economic life. People believe that, even when the facts starkly contradict that.
I guess I’d argue that one of the things that makes us human is our ability to abstract, and that has both good and bad consequences for us. Our ability for abstractions both draw us together and help us build community, but can also create barriers between people. But abstractions are a major part of what makes us human. Personally, (to steal again, this time from Malcolm X), I’m interested in working alongside anyone who wants to improve the miserable conditions we find in the world. If someone is moved to improve the world because of a belief in a god I don’t believe in, then I’m okay with that, as long as they respect me and my world view. Plenty of religious people do that. Others do not. I’m not sure equating them all as the same bad actors gets us anywhere.
But I think that assumes that all Christians have similar interpretations of scripture now or across time. I’m arguing it’s a modern phenomenon.
Right. I just think it’s more modern phenomenon in this incarnation. There have been plenty of re-writing and re-interpreting of scripture over the centuries to support one kind of ideology or another.
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Sadly, it’s not surprising at this point. She said they were opening up churches on Sunday and she was going to attend. I had to write a heartfelt text message to her on Wednesday pleading with her to stay away since she is over 65, has had respiratory and heart issues, and has been on medication that compromises her immune system and then use her grandchildren as emotional blackmail by saying they didn’t need to lose their grandmother after having lost my sister/their mom so recently.
Fortunately, she responded that the church is telling anyone 65+ to stay at home.
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because theistic belief itself is a conspiracy theory. not much difference between the theory of “god” and the theory of “the illuminati.”
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Thank god (ha)… I’m glad the church did SOME of the right thing (they really shouldn’t reopen at all - my sister’s mega-church has been streaming their services).
But I think many of us have had similar experiences dealing with our conservative family members lately. I think many of us hope to chip away at their mindset to move them to a better place, with mixed results.
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Well, you start by inhaling the fumes of a bush that’s on fire…
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Including the guy who wrote those books. (Writing RapturePorn is popular in that bunch.)
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But even here, there are secular parallels… the popularity of post-apocalyptic films and shows (Mad Max, Walking Dead).
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I think you are reading more in to what I am saying. Neither all that religion entails is bad, some is quite good, nor are all religious people automatically conspiracy nuts. And you are right it is an important human trait to believe in things they cannot prove. It starts getting dicey when you are asked to believe in things that have no evidence at all or even contradictory evidence. People who believe in pure capitalism being the answer to everything can be just as nutty as people who disavow medicine in favor of prayer. And in fact capitalism worship breeds (communist) conspiracy theories as well.
I am REALLY sorry to anyone who thinks I said all Christians (I did say not anything about Christians specifically btw) are by definition conspiracy believers. They are not. Some churches may indeed actively fight this sort of thing. What I mean is, if you specifically believe in an god you have taken a step away from evidence. There are people who I deeply respect who are religious, and I confidently say it does not make you a bad person.
I DON’T agree this is a modern thing. I think the existence of the internet and the ease of contact and cross pollination of ideas makes it in to a problem that it has not been so prominent in the past.
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I tried that, it just made me cough.
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Yours is the first reply and it’s what I thought of when I saw the post title, but applied to Mormons. Believers of such stuff are suckers for cons - you can sell them anything. Don’t argue with them, merely impoverish them.
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I did read an article describing hard core conservative Christian faith as being like spinal fluid. Rather sealed off from the outside, but once some bad ideas get through that barrier, there are no intrinsic defenses so that bad idea can just run rampant.
I also think in general that hard core conservative Christianity appeals to people’s desire to feel that they’re right. Conspiracy theories, with their supposedly exclusive knowledge that puts people who know it into a special club, has a lot of similarities.
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I haven’t spent any time looking at the genre, but there seems to be a smug assumption that all the “good people” are fine. I’m guessing that there are many moments when character lament that they were sinners?
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Christians never metaphor they didn’t believe
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IMHO this if an excellent point and often overlooked in these sorts of discussions. “Faith” is not intrinsically delusional.
James Burke, in the very first episode of the unbelievably awesome series “Connections”, talked about the east-coast blackout from several decades ago to illustrate how much of what we do, every day, runs on blind faith and belief that things will continue as they are, because that’s what they’ve always done, and even stepping into an elevator is about belief that things are going to work as expected and things will be ok. In most cases, that proof isn’t “objective” in the sense that you didn’t personally verify the state of the elevator’s moving bits before riding in it, but instead take it on faith that engineers and inspectors have done their thing instead.
That’s not significantly different than the process of deciding that theology is a worthwhile endeavour, when those you trust and respect tell you that “This is the way”. Finding out that the origin story for the theology is false doesn’t change the situation much more than if the elevator inspectors had all conspired to fake their inspections and no one actually did any inspecting - people will still get in elevators until “the truth” becomes evident through failure or whistleblowing, and since that can’t really happen in theology…
ETA:
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Are we going Up or Down, then, or is there no reliable way to tell? 
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Sure. Especially in today’s age of social media, critical thinking is crucial. It’s not something often taught at an early age. Authoritarian tendencies grow out of that.
Other kinds as well, but certainly communism is their big bad boogey man. Then again, the lived experience of authoritarian communism was vice versa. Authoritarianism seems to be the root of the problem in a mass mediated society.
Just my attempt to inject some nuance into this conversation that seemed to be verging towards the broad brush. I’m not trying to say that you’re necessarily doing that, I just though you had some points I could focus on to get my point across. I hope you don’t feel I attacked you, cause I’m not attempting to do that.
I think the mass mediated age has particular issues that we need to explore that are unique, including re-interpretations of scripture through a mass mediated lens. I don’t think if you brought modern scripture back 500 years ago or whatever, that they’d necessarily recognize it. How people understand such things, I’d argue are specific and contextual.
I can see that… but also feeds into their sense of belief in authority, especially masculine authority (in many cases, white).
Right… Everyone wants to feel special. See this book, which kind of ties all this together…
The religious version? Yeah, of course. It’s about leading people to Christ…
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Here I thought it was deceitful people latching onto any in/out group designation they could find to reinforce their message. Religion is an easy one since people identify their group and there is a history of inter-group rivalry.
It’s an age old grifter trick. Always start off by convincing the mark that you’re just like them because you’re in the same group and you’re against that other group.
This is also why racists are so susceptible to the same tricks.
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IMHO, conspiracy theories appeal to many people with a religious ideology for one simple reason which has been touched on by others in this thread. That is, the conspiracy theories and the religious beliefs offer a way to explain the un-explainable and the frightening elements of life. Children raised within religion are taught very early on to accept dogma (and the inherent contradictions) without question. The inherent contradictions are a big part of what makes religious belief appealing. It divides the world into us and them, the believers and the non-believers, and creates an exclusive club with special perks for the members. Logical contradictions are an inherent part of the belief systems.
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I always thought it was just an overactive pattern-recognition in the brain. The same way the brains sees disparate events and links them to a deity’s influence, it also sees disparate events and connects them via a secret agenda.
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