Most sexual abuse of children is by non-pedophiles.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/202009/performative-rage-over-pedophilia-doesnt-protect-kids?fbclid=IwAR1KFwB9gusMBJ-lby9Fs2wjdPJ_-u5WXbq4FCHeAfJAyBT4cKTyerLK-M4

"Most children who experience sexual abuse are abused by people they know. Over 90% of sexual assaults against children, are committed by relatives, siblings, parents, teachers, pastors, ministers, or neighbors."

Prevention of sexual abuse of children shouldn't be a political tool, raised only to score points against our opponents. It shouldn't be based on myths and conspiracies. And outcry against child sexual abuse shouldn't be merely another way to morally grandstand, or to signal virtue and purity, while ignoring the deeper, more complex issues at play. If we want to protect children, as I do, we must deal with facts, not panic."

This is why I am here, to speak out against that kind of sexual abuse, especially the sexual abuse committed by Mormon 'Priesthood Holders' who think their pretend 'authority' entitles them to power over vulnerable, inherently less powerful children. Seeing this dynamic far too many times in the Mormon church is what led to me leaving, to protect my own children from that abusive dynamic which is alive and well in the Doomsday CULT we inherited, unfortunately. Little did any of us know that we were singing the praises of a child rapist and a cukcold bull the whole time. Little did we know that our Bishops and Stake Presidents would rather "Protect the Good Name of the Church" than protect children from being raped.
Now I feel an obligation to speak out against the Mormon church, which to me seems almost as abusive of a system as the Fundamentalists, whose leader is spending the rest of his life in prison on child rape charges.

What about those pedophiles who operate out of the non-existent basements of pizza parlors and eat children ?

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What about those pedophiles who operate out of the
> non-existent basements of pizza parlors and eat
> children ?

That's the whole point of the Psych Today article, those kinds of conspiracies, obviously draw attention away from the 90% of crimes against children committed by people in positions of trust and authority over them, which is why they're so harmful. They draw resources and attention away from the REAL problem, putting bad people in pretend positions of artificial "power" and fake authority over vulnerable kids, which is perfectly normal in Mormon churches.

ARE the conspiracists actually trying to protect kids?

Or IS this just the glue to a mass movement forming a bludgeon?



(It is typical of the academic to not think dirty enough.)

Dr. No Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ARE the conspiracists actually trying to protect
> kids?
>
> Or IS this just the glue to a mass movement
> forming a bludgeon?
>
>
>
> (It is typical of the academic to not think dirty
> enough.)

No. Conspiracy theories are not true. Think Pizza Gate.
That's the point.
People will believe ANYTHING if they go deep enough down an internet rabbit hole.
Earth is flat, yep.
Moon landing was fake, yep.
The country is controlled by a cannibalistic pedophile ring? Yep
9-11 was fake, yep
Holocaust was fake, yep
Obams was a Muslim illegal Alien, yep.
Nothing is too absurd for people in a GD CULT to believe.
I mean we once believed God and Jesus spoke to a 14yo kid who turned out to be a sexual predator and a fraud.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2020 05:45PM by schrodingerscat.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No. Conspiracy theories are not true. Think Pizza
> Gate.
> That's the point.
> People will believe ANYTHING if they go deep
> enough down an internet rabbit hole.
> Earth is flat, yep.
> Moon landing was fake, yep.
> The country is controlled by a cannibalistic
> pedophile ring? Yep
> 9-11 was fake, yep
> Holocaust was fake, yep
> Obams was a Muslim illegal Alien, yep.
> Nothing is too absurd for people in a GD CULT to
> believe.
> I mean we once believed God and Jesus spoke to a
> 14yo kid who turned out to be a sexual predator
> and a fraud.
=================================

Exactly.

So why does that happen? How is it even possible?
We, who learned how to fly
We, who sent spacecraft to the moon
We, who cured diseases of legend
We, who once dreamt of spanning a mighty river and so it was
We, composers of odes and sonnets
We, who were once able to supersede a biologically evolved instinct and through reason create something called democracy

It's clear the vulnerability to conspiracy theory is being exploited, but why does it exist in the first place?
What evolutionary advantage did it (perhaps once) provide?

That's the question.

And I think, perversely, it has a commonality with religion. Or rather, the part of the brain where religion lives.


It's like being this mighty Death Star, but there is this one discrete point of vulnerability . . .

> And I think, perversely, it has a commonality with
> religion. Or rather, the part of the brain where
> religion lives.

I think this is probably correct. Conspiracy theories don't confer a survival advantage per se, but religious/ideological systems that help political organizations cohere do. In those terms the accuracy of the mythology isn't as important as its social function.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> religious/ideological systems that help
> political organizations cohere do. In those terms
> the accuracy of the mythology isn't as important
> as its social function.
===============================

And those able to socially cohere, collaborated and survived to reproduce.
The trait was selected for.
This what you write makes sense.


And now suddenly the multitude gods of ancient Egypt, of Akkad, of Assyria come to mind

You can look at post-Agricultural Revolution history as an effort to legitimize ever larger polities and governments. The bigger the group, the more difficult cohesion is to maintain. So the tribal religion requires ever greater indoctrination, more extensive official ritual, a more robust hierarchy, and more police power as reinforcement.

Thus a minor Jewish deity becomes the God of Rome, then Europe, then a third of the globe. His only rivals are Islam and the new atheistic political religions, of which conspiracy theories are frequently a collateral manifestation.

So, yeah.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You can look at post-Agricultural Revolution
> history as an effort to legitimize ever larger
> polities and governments. The bigger the group,
> the more difficult cohesion is to maintain. So
> the tribal religion requires ever greater
> indoctrination, more extensive official ritual, a
> more robust hierarchy, and more police power as
> reinforcement.
>
> Thus a minor Jewish deity becomes the God of Rome,
> then Europe, then a third of the globe. His only
> rivals are Islam and the new atheistic political
> religions, of which conspiracy theories are
> frequently a collateral manifestation.
>
> So, yeah.

We thought the Cold War ended when the wall came down in the 80's and the USSR failed and split up.
But that just left a bunch of VERY well educated engineers sitting around suddenly unemployed.The Mob filled the void left behind and this army of formerly state employees were put to work on Hacker farms, for hire. The US can't keep up with Russian Bot Farm/Wikileaks, so it just rolls over and plays dead and hopes for the best.
Kinda like a submissive puppy pissing itself.
The Cold War was over 4yrs ago when Putin's puppet got installed.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You can look at post-Agricultural Revolution
> history as an effort to legitimize ever larger
> polities and governments. The bigger the group,
> the more difficult cohesion is to maintain. So
> the tribal religion requires ever greater
> indoctrination, more extensive official ritual, a
> more robust hierarchy, and more police power as
> reinforcement.
===============================

Expansive (delicious) stuff. Global perspective, timescale: aeons.

So perhaps this is why folks go bonkers when you take away their statues. It's not just a statue.
That statue is holding a lot of cohesion-mind-social stuff together. And it's why those statues are targets.
(Though it's improbable that participants are consciously aware of the hows-and-whys)

> Thus a minor Jewish deity becomes the God of Rome,
> then Europe, then a third of the globe. His only
> rivals are Islam and the new atheistic political
> religions, of which conspiracy theories are
> frequently a collateral manifestation.
===============================
And back to jolly old Nietzsche, forecasting the consequences of birthing the atheistic -- a period we seem still to be in.
The consequences we are still experiencing. (But thankfully the fallout hasn't yet ruined pizza ;-))

It's like the Big-Bang theory, waking up one day with a start and suddenly realizing: it isn't something that happened long ago.
It's happening now. We are still in it. We are it.

Yes.

Political scientists and historians have long known that states require legitimizing ideologies. No government can enforce the law or the moral code against everyone all the time. A state religion (or some substitute) enhances the people's loyalty and fear and thereby strengthens the polity. The result is to magnify the authorities' power far in excess of what they can achieve with spears, muskets, or aircraft carriers alone.

That's all standard stuff. Where Nietzsche proved prescient was in recognizing the sociological nature of the legitimization process. He wrote time and again that people are sheep looking for a shepherd and that if deprived of one such leader they will run off and look for another. That is a psychological and sociological restatement of the political logic above. Nietzsche saw the need for a legitimizing religion to sustain the modern polity as the same instinct that bound prehistoric tribes and clans together.

But he went much farther. When he said "God is dead," what he meant was that European Christianity--not the religion but the glue that held society together--had lost its legitimizing power and left countries and peoples adrift. Then he observed that the condition of the sheep and the new ideologies being developed in Germany and Russia were most likely to produce new Gods, meaning socially powerful forms of political and cultural thought.

Nietzsche was also profoundly worried about the character of young new Gods. He hoped for an atheistic humanistic ideology that emphasized culture and inclusion; he was deeply alarmed by the buds of nationalism and xenophobia that he saw all around him. That the Nazis would assume his mantle and transform him into a patron state of totalitarianism is an irony worthy of Kentish.

It is easy to imagine how he would feel about the mad rush of Westerners today away from the constitutional republics that have long protected individual liberty and into the arms of demagogues and tyrannies. For the contemporary world looks much like what he feared most. What I think he missed, or at least did not directly address, is the degree to which the sheep mentality is affected by economic and other social conditions. If everything is stable and offers the prospect of rising living standards, people don't need religion as much; but if things go sufficiently wrong, the bleating of the sheep grows much louder.

Through their own actions, pedophiles are defined by the sexual assaults they commit against children, not by whether or not anyone can prove or disprove that the person that committed the crime, either was or was not turned-on by the child or by their own actions.

The article claims that less than 40% of those who commit acts of sexual assault against children are pedophiles. I believe that 100% of those who commit sexual assaults against children are pedophiles.

If you rob a bank, then you're a bank robber. If you never rob a bank, then you're not a bank robber. If you ever sexually molest a child, then you're a pedophile. If you never sexually molest a child, then you're not a pedophile. The article appears to split hairs in attempts to minimize the crime. It's like saying that if you identify as a non-child molestor (despite having committed the crime), then you're not a pedophile.

Steven Hassan, as most of us know, is an expert. He has a good handle on why this crap is going on.

https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Trump-Leading-Explains-President/dp/1982127341/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Cult+of+Trump&qid=1600143172&sr=8-1

Their actual goal is to make it safe for Americans to kill "liberals". Bless their hearts.