Page 1 of 2 [ 21 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

MCalavera
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Dec 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,442

03 Mar 2011, 8:36 am

Are we all brainwashed to a certain extent? Or is it just a select "few" who adhere to religious/cultic views?

And if not brainwashed, but influenced, then what's the difference exactly?



woodss82
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Dec 2010
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 738
Location: Melbourne, Australia

03 Mar 2011, 8:57 am

I think so at some extent, but if people read and understand the bible it will be a persons choice of their conviction, whatever its about the mark of the beast which is a complex subject requires a whole thread to discuss about, I did not fully understand this until recently, or day of the week they worship.

We shouldn't be afraid of the mark of the beast, as long you follow with the instructions in the bibe your be safe, the answers about the mark of the beast is in Revelation, peoples beware of the mark of the beast it is not to be messed with, people who have obtained this mark will get the wrath of God and thrown in the lake of fire it is that simple.

What day they chose to worship, their personal relationship with Jesus Christ as their personal saviour. Or if they want to believe that Jesus has done for him / her when he died on the cross.



Natty_Boh
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Dec 2010
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posts: 756
Location: Baltimore County

03 Mar 2011, 10:53 am

We're all raised to a certain way of life and way of thinking, if that's what you mean. And people who make a conscious decision to change either of those often never lose the underlying mindset of the original one.


_________________
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done."


leejosepho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,011
Location: 200 miles south of Little Rock

03 Mar 2011, 11:01 am

MCalavera wrote:
Are we all brainwashed to a certain extent? Or is it just a select "few" who adhere to religious/cultic views?

So-called "brainwashing" is far from being the only reason people "adhere to religious/cultic views". Some of us get there by way of our own free-and-clear thinking ... and even if then or later mocked by others.

MCalavera wrote:
And if not brainwashed, but influenced, then what's the difference exactly?

Influenced by what? Mere words or actual experience?

My own life experience is what ultimately "influenced" me to believe and to learn to act as I now do.

As children, we each receive some initial indoctrination of one kind or another, then we later are either taken advantage of by someone with a personal agenda of some kind -- think "Jim Jones" there -- or else we are instead (or later) simply helped along in life by way of hearing, considering and learning from a combination of our own experience and the experience of others.

The challenge? Discerning the actual witness from the mere preacher.


_________________
I began looking for someone like me when I was five ...
My search ended at 59 ... right here on WrongPlanet.
==================================


Awesomelyglorious
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Dec 2005
Gender: Male
Posts: 13,157
Location: Omnipresent

03 Mar 2011, 12:37 pm

I think you have a real point. I was even discussing this with a friend last night before I saw your post. The issue is that we are trained to approach the world in certain ways, and these ways are not neutral. Sometimes this is an ok thing that won't matter for most circumstances. Other times this has a blinding and distracting effect, as we can have difficulty seeing legitimate dissent or entirely engaging positions we disagree with. I know that I have a small paranoia on the matter as well, and recently I have felt especially aware of my tendency to kind of jump the gun on my claims.



ruveyn
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Age: 87
Gender: Male
Posts: 31,502
Location: New Jersey

03 Mar 2011, 2:29 pm

Anyone who accepts as true something that not a logical tautology has been "brainwashed". Much of what we claim to "know" is second hand knowledge not directly experienced for verified by us first hand.

ruveyn



PJW
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

User avatar

Joined: 10 Feb 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 141

03 Mar 2011, 5:02 pm

Theism 'brainwashed' people to the point where atheism is now allowed to similarly "brainwash" people, especially considering its indoctrination of school children?

Interesting, that one.

You believe what you believe, it's that simple. People challenge your beliefs, they either strengthen or wither into a capitulative nothingness that leaves the challenged and destroyed floating in a vat of otherworldly non-cognisance until someone 'gives' them something in which to believe.

I forget. Which one of us was brainwashed, again?


_________________
Oh, God, cleanse me of sins I do not perceive, and forgive me those of others.

- Pascal Bruckner


ThesaurusRex
Butterfly
Butterfly

User avatar

Joined: 4 Mar 2011
Age: 41
Gender: Female
Posts: 9

05 Mar 2011, 4:28 am

I think everyone is influenced by their upbringing. It just doesn't always go the way our parents had hoped. :wink:



leejosepho
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 14 Sep 2009
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,011
Location: 200 miles south of Little Rock

05 Mar 2011, 7:02 am

ruveyn wrote:
Much of what we claim to "know" is second hand knowledge not directly experienced for verified by us first hand.

I think that is a very important point, yet we also need to discern mere experiences from actual experience ... and then even still remain slow in our drawings of conclusions ...

"And Yahushua said, 'For judgment I have come into this world, that those not seeing might see, and those seeing might become blind.' And those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, 'Are we blind, too?' Yahushua said to them, 'If you were blind, you would have no sin, but now you say, "We see," therefore your sin remains.'"
(John 9:39-41)


_________________
I began looking for someone like me when I was five ...
My search ended at 59 ... right here on WrongPlanet.
==================================


techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,195
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

05 Mar 2011, 7:31 am

There's a big difference.

For people to put the world around them into context they need a certain amount of a priori to start with - which for the most part is in fact given to them rather than of their own thoughts. From there they also hear things on the news or from authority figures that they literally can't humanly verify as they'd never have the time, money, nor energy to reinvent every wheel they heard about. So, they try to discern character, figure out who they can trust, tend to go with the word of those who make sense to them and, when that word doesn't add up they try to find out why.

As for brainwashing, that's a need that puts group over everything - over science, over interpersonal reality, it also includes the blacklisting of rational examination. People who aren't brainwashed do carry many claims they can't verify but they're trying to approximate reality as much as they can, for those who've been brainwashed that process has capsized, either via their own need for family or by their own need for blind obedience.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin


Philologos
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jan 2010
Age: 81
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,987

05 Mar 2011, 9:27 am

ruveyn wrote:
Anyone who accepts as true something that not a logical tautology has been "brainwashed". Much of what we claim to "know" is second hand knowledge not directly experienced or verified by us first hand.

ruveyn


As we see.



naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,154
Location: temperate zone

05 Mar 2011, 2:20 pm

Absolutely.

Everyone in the human race is brainwashed, except me, and anyone who agrees with me.

That just goes without saying!



Philologos
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jan 2010
Age: 81
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,987

05 Mar 2011, 2:46 pm

Not quite. Please amend to read:

...and anyone who agrees with me after careful examination and weighing of the available evidence.

I will not have people agreeing with me who have not thought it through.

Let THEM agree with Big Brother, if they like.



techstepgenr8tion
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2005
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 24,195
Location: 28th Path of Tzaddi

05 Mar 2011, 3:07 pm

Philologos: I think he's taking a stab at brainwashing people ;).

Seems like brow-beating and being able to come off like the bigger self-righteous a***hole of any conversation is quite a convincing and powerful tool toward controlling people (and no doubt he's joking but - somewhat right at the same time). Brow-beating and self-exaltation is strong stuff toward convincing people that your superior to them and that they should lift you up.


_________________
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” - James Baldwin


MCalavera
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Dec 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,442

05 Mar 2011, 9:27 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
There's a big difference.

For people to put the world around them into context they need a certain amount of a priori to start with - which for the most part is in fact given to them rather than of their own thoughts. From there they also hear things on the news or from authority figures that they literally can't humanly verify as they'd never have the time, money, nor energy to reinvent every wheel they heard about. So, they try to discern character, figure out who they can trust, tend to go with the word of those who make sense to them and, when that word doesn't add up they try to find out why.

As for brainwashing, that's a need that puts group over everything - over science, over interpersonal reality, it also includes the blacklisting of rational examination. People who aren't brainwashed do carry many claims they can't verify but they're trying to approximate reality as much as they can, for those who've been brainwashed that process has capsized, either via their own need for family or by their own need for blind obedience.


I think I'll have to agree with your point here. It makes a lot of sense.



Philologos
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jan 2010
Age: 81
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,987

05 Mar 2011, 11:09 pm

"the bigger self-righteous a***hole of any conversation is quite a convincing and powerful tool toward controlling people "

Dear me.

Language!

I will temporarily assume the colon implies you are describing me, not addressing?

I will further assume your smiling thingy is meant to be disarming, marking humor rather than a hard-hitting critique?

But I am known to misread these things.

But, really! Self-righteous?

I happen to be - izibongo zami, did I say this? - a lifelong teacher focussed on language, son of teachers focussed on language, grandson of two lawyers, great grandson of a preacher. I care about clarity of language and thought and have a lot of old fire horse syndrome correcting papers and classroom performance.

So I bring the stuff out. As others bring out their stuff.

Controlling people? Well, when I had the Professor nameplate on the door I could excercise some control over those actually enrolled in my courses. These days? My wife controls me. I give advice to her and Number 1 Son.

Anyone else feel resisting me is futile?

I see little sign I have controlled certain people into independent thought and checking their facts.