Forced to believe!

Dream

Dream

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This came up as a result of one of Alex's threads.

Forced to believe. I had thought that was still an impossibility, but maybe I just hadn't thought about it. It is horribly, disgustingly evil to deform a person's mind so they believe in a delusion to suit yourself. It is what happened in the colonial slave trade, perhaps. The slave may also enslave his family. Other instances are coming to mind that are unrelated to the slave trade in which abuse distorts and creates delusional thinking or enslavement. I personally know that family relationships can be wielded against the minds of children and spouses, and that this behavior may reproduce in those family members (at least in the children). I also personally know that family can reinforce your sense of reality by not bringing such forces to bear.

Surely at some point there must be a choice to succumb and at some point there can be a reversal of that choice? If it were a choice between liberty or death, which would you choose?
 
Yeah had this feeling I was gonna be asked for more... I re-watching Lost at the time so thought I'd give the quick answer.

I give you an example seeing I mentioned a TV series.. Yesterday, watching Weeds.. Nancy a single mother sends her child off to a sumercamp... It's a educational summer camp... Instead of being taught the lessons they are meant to be taught... The teacher removes all text books.. Lets see hmmm One of the subjects was critical thinking... Now in this, he assigns the children a "murder mystery" oooh innocent fun huh? We going to learn the essence of critical thinking while having fun, best way to learn.... Anywho... As the lesson goes on, we find the murder mystery is actually an abortion... And he then shows the children a shocking image and starts speaking of his concept of god.... This isn't teaching critical thinking... This is an agenda...

That is one method.....

Then you have another great method.. Even more visable... The children cricle the boy into a corner in the playground... And then begin to attack him and punch him saying such classics as "Except jesus!!!"

That is one method...

You then have the blackmailing and "punishing" kind of method... Where he then gets suspended from that summer camp and from education there at the facility until, he accepts jesus..... :rolleyes:

Did jesus do any of these shenanigans? Doubt it.... But to me... Even if jesus is the way the path and whatnot... I am the only one who can choose to accept him, or any other religion. Sorry kinda got stuck on jesus there... I would rather be wrong, but free... Than be wrong and forced, or even right and forced... You know? The punisher has his own mind, let him use it.
 
Alex

Then you have another great method.. Even more visable... The children cricle the boy into a corner in the playground... And then begin to attack him and punch him saying such classics as "Except jesus!!!"
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I'm not sure if you meant except or accept. Actually they are both flawed. What is the use of these kids attacking the one and saying no one is good except Jesus. It means they are also fallen creatures and really just a bunch of idiots calling another idiot an idiot. This only begins to make logical sense after three shots of scotch.

The real question is then not what to believe but how to become able "to know."
 
Indeed, he did misspell 'Accept', but I think he did it on purpose. If you think about it, the situation changes entirely depending upon whether the other boys mean 'Accept' or 'Except'. You could find yourself in either situation, I suppose. It wouldn't surprise me to find someone in this country had been in the 'Accept' scenario. Its the sort of thing that we'd rather forget but had better not to. Really, though: A UK native misspelling 'Accept'? I just don't believe it.
 
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-Jefferson
 
Forced to believe? I don't see how anyone can force their will on others, even with the threat of death or the death of loved ones.

Highly persuasive is another matter.

What comes to mind immediately is the tremendous pressure for Christians in some Muslim countries to recant their faith in favor on Islam, often on the threat of death, particularly the ones who started out as Muslim and later converted to Christianity.

Also, in such a country, someone who would want to convert has to wieght the impact has on their family, friends, and community. It would be pressure on the family to try to convince the person to recant, lest the community looks down at the family. Eventually, the family might end up ostracizing him.

I know some sects of Christianity have the same attitude (JW and LDS), that if you leave, don't bother writing home.
 
Dondi said:
I know some sects of Christianity have the same attitude (JW and LDS), that if you leave, don't bother writing home.
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I started seeing that in catholic, pentecostals, baptists, amish & most all of them. These are personal experiences that I could write a book on but it is already pretty well known. Not so much episcopal or christian science, unitarians & maybe a couple of others which I found to accent & show a tad bit more of a christ spirit- while all of the mainstream hebrew dogmas were built on that idea of force, divide & conquer. A lot of fear has been created by them.

some of the jewish have the same attitude toward their own families & I have known them & worked with them. That is just the way those religions are. There is plenty of evidence right here on this little forum. When I started to realize how much hate there really is, how much liberty was taken with only an ounce of random love, that is when I started seeing many different gods in each religion & rejected them all.

It is simply not possible that all the confusion, division & bickering is coming from one source that is supposed to be 'love'.
 
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Thomas Jefferson

I appreciate his quotes on liberty.
 
Dondi said:
Forced to believe? I don't see how anyone can force their will on others, even with the threat of death or the death of loved ones.

Highly persuasive is another matter.
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Right, I generally think the same thing but with exceptions. Actually, until just today I'd considered it impossible to make someone believe something. It is possible for a person to lose their identity in an enslaving environment, however, which might be the same thing. I've met people who fall into this category, where for a long period of time they have decided or become convinced that someone else is in control of them. I knew someone who grew up like that, and it screwed them up. Children, very vulnerable, are at the beginning stages of constructing their identities up through age 4. Sometimes people fail somehow to 'Be' individuals. We can fail to see ourselves as actuators of our own lives. When that happens, it is as if we see ourselves as fused with or dependent upon our environment or upon someone else. Mental enslavement works like that. Here's a quote that says a little bit about development of identity that suggests to me how fragile a person's identity really is:
In addition to the self images we can see through the kaleidoscope of our lives, there is also another self: the self who holds the tube up to the light and turns the end, allowing the pieces to fall and reassemble and form new patterns. This is the functional aspect of the real self that expresses, organizes, and observes the patterns of our lives... (pg 25)

In the course of the intricate process of separating psychologically from the mother, the child separates "good" images from "bad" images even as he separates his own image from that of the mother. In the process, he ends up splitting his own "bad" self-image from his "good" self-image and the image he holds of the "bad" mother from the image of the "good" mother. During times when the child feels good--warm, fed, comfortable, safe--a "good" self-image arises. When he feels bad--hungry, tired, uncomfortable, frightened--he develops a "bad" self-image. These images are held apart by splitting them into two distinct images. The real self, as we have indicated, is a master at holding various self-images together, and one of its first tasks, when the child is around age three, is to fuse and hold together the two parallel images of the self. (pg 33-34)
--- Search for the Real Self by James F. Masterson, M.D.
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Dream said:
Indeed, he did misspell 'Accept', but I think he did it on purpose. If you think about it, the situation changes entirely depending upon whether the other boys mean 'Accept' or 'Except'. You could find yourself in either situation, I suppose. It wouldn't surprise me to find someone in this country had been in the 'Accept' scenario. Its the sort of thing that we'd rather forget but had better not to. Really, though: A UK native misspelling 'Accept'? I just don't believe it.
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Dream you are excellent... ;)
 
No one is forced to believe anything. We all are subjected to social programming, but you can decide what to do as an adult. That doesn't mean it's going to be easy, or that the programming just magically goes away in the face of reason, but in the end people just believe whatever they want without a thought toward personal responsibility. No one can force anyone to play any game. Even if the choice is between life and death, it's still your choice.

Chris
 
Long story short -- society rates the individual based upon their actions. I'm speaking strictly about a person's inner will and beliefs -- not about responsibility. I believe we should be held responsible for what we are and do regardless of how we became it....however.... Just because society and nature hold you responsible for your actions, I don't see how that proves the will is entirely free. How is it impossible to force someone to believe something -- assuming they can be programmed? Is it a supernatural thing that prevents it?
 
nobody is forced to believe anything... mmm...

One day, FranBear is eating his porridge, yet daddy bear makes really bad porridge and FranBear is crying... Frans' brother, BabyBabyBear, hates it just as much as FranBear does, but crying, he eats, even though it tastes bad, this glue of oats and salt and cold water, to please DaddyBear.

FranBear cannot eat it. Not only does it taste bad, he really cannot swallow it. FranBear tries to swallow, gags, and spews. DaddyBear spoons the spew-porridge into FranBears mouth. FranBear still cannot eat it. DaddyBear gets mad. Very mad. He punches FranBear in the head, and again spoons the spew-porridge back in FranBears mouth, telling FranBear he must eat or DaddyBear will beat him some more.

FranBear really wanted to eat his porridge, really tried to swallow it, but no. Even bleeding, FranBear could not eat the porridge.

Eventually DaddyBear left FranBear alone- he realised FranBear could not be broken, and instead concentrated on BabyBabyBear, who could.

BabyBabyBear did not resist- could not, did not have the will to do so, to take the beatings, to take the discipline, to still tell DaddyBear he was a cave-dwelling scumbag and succumbed, grew up to be just like DaddyBear, forgetting the beatings, forgetting the education, forgetting himself, and his own worth, instead,

growing to accepting, upholding, supporting the other, the oppressor, who had cowed him with violence until his only objective was to be as close to DaddyBear, psychologically, intellectually, physically, as humanly possible, so he could later beat himself and control himself.

Poor babybear...
 
Forced to believe!

or even repentance.
Repentance involves both mind and heart.

For many centuries Jehovah God overlooked the sins of ignorance of the nations, but beginning with the conversion of Cornelius and in a special way in our day he is telling mankind that they should all everywhere repent.


Because he has set a day in which he purposes to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by Jesus Christ.


Particularly pertinent to our day are also the words of the apostle Peter:
Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.Acts 17:30, 31; 2 Pet. 3:9.

 
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