if one is suspicious or unaccepting of religious indoctrination

[leftofthedial]

does it make one less susceptible to political manipulation?

[Philostopher]

1. Interesting question.

I think a certain amount of 'bullshit detection' in general -- critical thinking, asking what the motivation of something might be if it doesn't pass the 'sniff test', that sort of thing -- does protect people from buying into pure manipulation. But there are atheist and agnostic Republicans. I think in their case, they believe that whole 'rugged individual' ploy the Republicans have used so effectively. 'Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.' Even though what that really means is 'your social safety net is my buddy's golden parachute, so give it up.'

I guess anybody can be convinced greed is an acceptable motivator, some non-religious people included. But I do think anybody who's atheist or agnostic because religion failed their tests of logic and reason probably is more inclined to be progressive. It certainly seems to be common here!

[leftofthedial]

2. if one IS accepting of religious dogma (cognitive dissonance)

is one MORE succeptible to political manipulation?

granted there are reasons other than being brainwashed for being a repuke.

[Philostopher]

3. I guess I wandered off the subject -- sorry!

I suspect people who are susceptible to religious dogma are, by extension, susceptible to just about any kind of dogma, as long as it's delivered with confidence.

[leftofthedial]

4. no, I think you were still on topic

and you raised some good issues.

I just changed the phrasing to ask a related question.

I think people who are prone to religion are also prone to other forms of manipulation, which is the bane of our culture/species.

I also think that people who are not prone to religion are resistant to many other forms of manipulation, which eventually frustrates those who have been manipulated and results in purges, inquisitions, witch hunts, etc.

While these are not the same (one could be true, but the other false), they are related.

I wonder what can be done about it?

[RaleighNCDUer]

20. Agree. The original question, not necessarily, but I think the

restated question is self evident.

[leftofthedial]

5. Rationality (as opposed to "religiosity")

definitely correlates to progressivism in my experience.

Although I also believe the RW neocon movement is led by amoral, non-religious men.

[fshrink]

6. Emphatic Yes.

And, technically, I think this happens because of the *need* to believe. I see it as a form of regression to a stage of utter dependence on adults. This can be clearly seen with god, the "father" and the nation, "the mother", the two eternal teats of national socialism. This regression is ambivalent, though, in the sense that it is both enjoyed and experienced as unpleasant because it refers to a conflict. That makes believers very touchy and insecure, looking desperately for confirmation. In addition, there is a bunch of more severe cases out there, where this need expresses an archaic form of defense, projection, which tends to split experiences and "objects" (i.e. mental representations of actual beings) into part-objects that can be "expelled" or "kept in" depending on their "bad" or "good" qualities.
Bottom line, this need to believe is a remnant, or a full regression to childhood. It is infantile.
With such a need to believe, anything which in last analysis can be reduced to a belief will have a qualitative advantage on anything which is rationally-based. Hence the success of propositions which appear as completely irrational: they are just that, and that's why they succeed. Which by the way completely ruins the suspicious, best thing since slice bread, theory of "re-framing". You can re-frame to death, it will not work as long as it remains rational. And if you cross-over, then you play for the other team. Mate.
This is not very optimistic from an activist perspective, but I'm afraid this is pretty accurate.
Remember: each time you speak with a believer, you are actually speaking with a very young and very angry child, regardless of the appearance, the sophistication of language or the adult demeanor.

[leftofthedial]

8. provocative points

I agree about the "Mate" scenario. There is no rational approach that works. I also agree that the believer is childlike and inevitably becomes angry when their belief is challenged.

Is there any clinical evidence or academic pursuit of the notion that the need to believe is "...a regression to childhood."

At the risk of opening a physiology-versus-analysis can of worms, It almost seems innate to the primate brain to me. Like we have a missing bit of wiring that creates a hole in our ability to parse reality, but also the creative capacity to "fill in the blanks" with whatever material is at hand. If this were true, then religion propagates itself by providing carefully evolved and adaptable raw "filler" material for each new generation. When its "truth" is challenged, as by science, it simply changes the prevailing interpretation. When the challenge reaches the point where no further stretching of interpretation is possible, funcamentalism rises and religion starts killing the challengers.

But why, then, would many of us not fall for the "filler"?

[fshrink]

10. Clinical research is pathetic!

And its future does not appear particularly bright either. Personally, the last researcher I respect is Roy Schafer. Statistics has invaded everything. As to the can of worms, it's not one really. Humans are all intelligent ( I know... it doesn't look like that)and endowed with tremendous abilities to abstract and to create new meaning from existing elements (e.g. Chomsky). The same abilities can generate delusions or brilliant theories. The very same ones! No, the problem is psychological in essence. I can see it clearly each time I am successful in therapy: my patients invariably develop in the process a critical sense, a tremendously more nuanced vision of their world and seek more refined, less infantile, "fillers".

[leftofthedial]

12. so a "critical sense" and ability to accept that reality is nuanced

is the difference between believers and rational people?

Is there a way to overcome religious programming on a sociological scale, do you suppose?

I truly fear for our survival in the face of rising fundamentalism.

[fshrink]

14. I don't see any... aside from education. However,

there are also destabilizing moments, where conceptions get jerked around and the more fragile structures crumble. That comes mostly from social unrest.
And the development of the features I described in successful therapy was describing what happens in general: more distance, more nuance, more calm, more self-reflection. And this appears as the *need to believe*, in general, diminishes.

[Hello_Kitty]

13. Excellent analysis. Thank you.

You very succinctly described what I observe in my interactions with many believers, but could not adequately describe in words. They are often like children. "La la la I'm not listening!" is basically the response I get when I try to reason with them or explain my position. Very frustrating. They are arrested in an early child stage of cognitive and emotional development in this area.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. OTOH, successful reframing could bring their believer over to

our side (in a regression to the political foundation of this board) and make them our believers. While we dems like to think we are the rationalists, you have to admit that there are plenty of supposedly progressive believers -- look at the hard-core Deaniacs.

If they so desperately have to believe in something, lets give them reason to believe in us.

Side note -- it's been long acknowledged that many of the most ardent Nazis were originally communists. They weren't convinced by argument; the Nazis touched their need to believe. Check out Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.

[progressoid]

7. That question inspired a little search

This is from a Nov 2001 article at http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/atheist4.htm

...A 'NO RELIGION' VOTING BLOCK?
Any plan to politicize and mobilize America's "No Religion" cohort must take into account the fact that this group has one of the highest percentage of "independent" political identity. Seventeen percent of this group lists Republican as a political affiliation, with 30% Democrats, and 43% independent. "Other/none" accounts for another 10%....



I would think that as the GOP continues the swing toward fundamentalism and away from fiscal responsibility that more people in the 'no religion' group would feel alienated and leave the GOP.

[leftofthedial]

9. I wonder what issues unite the "independents"

and the Democrats.

How does one begin to identify and mobilize this bloc?

[fshrink]

11. That's what 'politicat' was talking about somewhere below.

And I still think that most of these non-believers are also currently non-voters. As to the GOP voters, if this 2004 comedy did not deter them, I am at a loss of even imagining what could!

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

15. Does it make one less susceptible to tinfoil conspiracy beliefs?

Are people who profess religious faith more likely to hold farfetched political beliefs?

Acknowledging that what I consider tinfoil may be your rock-solid theory, are people of faith more likely to believe, for example, in LIHOP/MIHOP; that the DNC/DLC deliberately destroyed Dean's candidacy; or that Bev Harris can do no wrong?

Does one's ability to suspend disbelief in religious matters impact one's perception of political matters?

This is where I see the divide: not between Democrats and Republicans (and Libertarians, Greens, etc) but between those who question hard-to-believe scenarios and those who swallow them hook, line and sinker.

Flame away. :D

[leftofthedial]

16. I'm an atheist

and I firmly believe the available evidence points strongly to LIHOP/MIHOP.

One could just as easily (and more comparably) claim that those who are less religious are less likely to believe the conventional mythology created to explain complex or troubling events. For example, the prevailing mythology surrounding 9-11 is demonstrably false, yet people insist on swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

[American Tragedy]

17. Read classic sociological study "The Authoritarian Personality"

I would say yes.

However, to be fair, religious indoctrination should extend not only to traditional religions, but to other belief systems that claim a universal Truth, and fulfill a very similar role in society. This particularly applies in countries in which conventional religious worship has been condemned, but has been replaced with a government authorized ideology; for instance, Juche in North Korea.

[Az]

18. There are actualy studies suggesting skepticism is a neurological trait

Heard on NPR some time ago so no link.

Studies were done in believers and skeptics. They were shown a series of chaotic dots. Some of the dots had patterns and images in them. Most were simple chaos. It turned out the believers had a substantially higher false positive hit ratio than the skeptics. That is they saw patterns that were not present in the sample. Conversely the skeptics had a lower hit rate on discerning when there were real images (but by a much less significant difference).

The suggestion is that skeptical minds tend to be less likely to grab onto a false impression of a pattern but with a slight tendency to miss them when they are there. Meanwhile the believers tend to mistake chaos for patterns at a much higher rate.

[lapislzi]

19. It goes to the "questioning" mindset

I lived in South Africa during apartheid. It was interesting and surreal to observe their society from the perspective of an outsider. The religious indoctrination comes first, and it stifles the questioning mind early. There's one answer for everything: god said so.

I watched for 10 years as intelligent people engaged in cognitive dissonance of the most extreme sort. By extension, if the government (then the apartheid government) instituted a policy, then it was the right policy. Period. No questioning.

A favorite story I often tell illustrates the mindset of the white South African during this time. I took art classes with a well known artist who was also a pentecostal minister. He would begin every class with a prayer (in Afrikaans). He would present a project for the class to complete: a still life, a landscape, etc. He'd do a sample painting and sketch the composition on the blackboard. I saw it as an example to be used as inspiration, and go my own way with it. Not so the Afrikaner students. They wanted to produce a carbon copy of the teacher's example down to each brush stroke. I was viewed as a dangerous aberration; someone who didn't "submit" to the authority of the teacher/minister. Someone took a sledge hammer to these peoples' imagination early.

It's one of the reasons I left. If you think atheists are persecuted here, in South Africa you'd be shot, stuffed, and displayed in a museum of curiosities.

The church does good work on behalf of the state. It delivers a pliant population.

[leftofthedial]

22. your last sentence hits the nail on the head

that's why we have religion in the first place--to make the population easier to control.

Isn't the same scenario you describe from South Africa, the racist society, the same as that for Germany, Italy, and now perhaps the US fascist societies?

[BlueEyedSon]

23. Yes. nt