It seems like the same collective delusion that’s been induced by the Roman Emperor when he discovered you could get people to pay their taxes the same way dupes are duped into religion because of their fear and greed. Fear of death leads them to believe in an ancient myth that a God can spare you from death, when we are little different from any other life form. We are born, we live, reproduce and die, becoming fuel for future life.
Believing you get more than one shot at that, is just greedy.
This life is plenty.
Expecting more is just plain greedy.
It also feeds our ego to identify with the group we were born into.
Unfortunately it also feeds our group think which is where the delusion lies.
The Emperor has no clothes!

I recall Nietzsche saying something like this. Christianity seems specificslly designed to prevent slave revolts.

What is Christianity but another form of nihilism? Let this life pass you by for a better life after you die? Absolution means your sins don't matter? What if life is really what matters? I think stoics are the best in this regard. Stoicism is one of the better post-Mormon philosophies.

Some believe Jesus Christ was invented by the Romans to make people passive. Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Your reward is in heaven. Christ literally called his followers sheep. Well an authoritarian government loves sheep.

If that were true, in atheistic societies the poor would kill the rich.

Do you see that happening?

Maybe the world adopted Christian values, especially after Kant made them politically palatable. Globalization has cross-polinated ideas. In return, meditation is big in the West.

There are atheistic religions. They are still religions. I'm more worried about America, where religions have pathologized into cults. Poor cultists would kill the rich under the right circumstances.

Ah, word games to the rescue. Now all we need is an Einstein quote.

The Pithy Award is a Doug Fir

Einstein said that.

Bradley, replace my word "atheistic" with "areligious."

There are many "areligious" societies around the world. Scandinavia falls under that rubric, so too Japan and even China. Are the poor killing the rich in those places more than in religious states?

I trust this will earn me the Less Pithy Award.

Oh! You win the pithy award. Beautifully done.

Someone pithed in my pith helmet.

You gotta do something about that lisp.

You do too, Bess.

It’s happens during a communist revolution.

Oh, but is a top-down revolution for political power really about religion?

Stalin was going to be a priest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2021 01:08AM by Beth.

No, in communist revolutions the poor do not rise up against the rich. A small minority of people--usually from the upper or upper-middle class--gain military power and impose their dictatorship on the nation.

The people comprising that nation, almost always religious, remain conservative because they are poor and cannot survive instability. It takes the "vanguard of the proletariat" or China's de facto "vanguard of the agriculturalist" years or decades to stamp out popular religions. Meanwhile the poor rarely gain better political or economic outcomes from the revolution.

The point is that revolutions in the name of the poor are rarely if ever fought for the poor.

True but not pithy

Good luck with that lisp, Bess!

Beth Wrote:
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> True but not pithy

It's pretty pithy for this protracted prolonged persistent particle of particular persuasion (iow: RfM thread going long).

Napoleon said something similar. Religion is another control mechanism. Education is another. Entertainment as well. It’s all about programming people to think a certain way. I mean what do the rich try and control and manipulate. The churches, schools and entertainment.

I think you mean Marx. Napoleon was careful not to criticize religion and was moderately religious himself.

It was Marx who said religion was the opium of the people, the thought-control device that stopped them from rising up and demanding greater distributional equity.

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/napoleon_bonaparte_136563

‘Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.’ Napoleon

Gee, someone said it so it must be true!

And here I was, thinking that religion is what keeps the smart from murdering the stupid. Oh well.

Thanks to you and to Rubicon. I wasn't aware he'd said that.

Hmmm. Napoleon... Great general and organizer... But have you ever wondered why he isn't particularly celebrated in France...?

There were other sides to him which were not so "useful" ;-)

Soft Machine Wrote:
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> There were other sides to him which were not so
> "useful" ;-)

"Some things that are true are not very useful." (BKP)

Rubicon Wrote:
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> Napoleon said something similar. Religion is
> another control mechanism. Education is another.
> Entertainment as well. It’s all about
> programming people to think a certain way. I mean
> what do the rich try and control and manipulate.
> The churches, schools and entertainment.


Chocolate

I remember being taught in history classes that in Europe and Easter Canada (Quebec) in 1600's to 1800's, the poor were not taught to read to keep them from gaining power. They could not even have a Bible. They had to have it read to them by priests and nuns. It was the wealthy, and particularly English speaking wealthy people, who owned businesses, ran the government, and were CEO's of large corporations. It wasn't until the late 1960's and 70's were the French Canadians began to feel empowered to get educated and start taking over power in government and corporations.

Yes, religion is also used to get laid.


There are probably other uses that haven’t made headlines yet, but take your time . . .

Indeed. When I was in high school my buddy and I would dress like missionaries to attract the girls! And boy howdy did they come a running....I don't recall if it was toward us or away from us, but they were sure running!

I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that rich people use religious doctrines to keep the poor from gaining any of their material posessions. "It's mine and you can't have it!" is the cry as the wealthy use religious verses (among other things) to keep themselves from getting taxed or from having to give back to the state in other ways.

Imagine if you will, a six-foot thick round concrete column that's 10 feet tall . . .

Now tip it over so that it's lying on the ground . . .

Now imagine a wooden plank, the kind pirates use when they make someone 'walk the plank' . . .

Imagine the plank is seven feet wide and 80 feet long, and in your imagination, place it on the round column in teeter-totter fashion, so that there's 40 feet of the plank on either side of the teeter-totter's fulcrum, the concrete column . . .

Now imagine that a plutocrat* is seated at one far end of the plank, in a thick, expensive, richly padded mahogany chair, surrounded by stacks of gold bullion and sacks of gold coins.  Make the stacks and sacks BIG . . .

At the other end of the plank, begin placing roughly-garbed peasants, (people, not the bird!), with disheveled hair and dirt-smeared hands and faces.  The idea is to add sufficient numbers of these peasants so that the tetter-totter is balanced; the plutocrat and his riches at one end and however many peasants it took to create an equilibrium at the other end . . .

Now add a caption, which is the plutocrat announcing, "Hey, be careful!!  Don't move or we'll lose our precious political and economic stabilities!"

Get it?  The plutocrat wants their current situation to remain static.


This is not my idea/creation.  It's my attempt to describe a cartoon from the 1960s, drawn by a self-declared Mexican Marxist, Eduardo Del Rio Garcia, under his pen-name, Riuz.





*A plutocrat is a member of a plutocracy or plutarchy, which is a society that is ruled or controlled by people of great wealth or income.  The first known use of the term in English dates from 1631.  Unlike most political systems, plutocracy is not rooted in any established political philosophy...it's simply an economic condition, which, as is usually the case, has its admirers and detractors.

Is there a Cliff Notes version?

There's a Cliff Claven version, but I'd have to send it via the United States Post Office . . .

Go ahead and post your address!

Okay, okay. I'll give it a try.

Imagine a big teeter-totter. On one side there's a really fat rich guy while balancing on the other are a whole bunch of skinny poor guys. The rich guy says, "Don't move or we'll lose our social stability!"

. . . mumble mumble. . . paid by the word. . . mumble.

Dude. Mr Moneybags running holding his top hat on his head.

Is that the Monopoly guy’s name? Or Sir top ‘em hat?

I refuse to do my own research



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2021 09:38PM by Beth.

Would the cartoon meet your needs?

I like pictures, Bess.

Well, unless the cartoon was a victim of the bonfire of the vanities, it’s probably somewhere.

Maybe on microfiche.

In a library.

Give a man a fiche, he'll eat for a day. . .

SMDH

:-)

Lot's Wife Wrote:
--------------------------
> Give a man a fiche,
> he'll eat for a day. . .


Teach a man to fiche and he'll have a job in a dead-end technological niche...

Or as the French would pronounce it, nichè

Wrong facing accent, mon frere

ETA: accent ague sounds like a virus.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2021 10:11PM by Beth.

Hey, I had a 50/50 shot at ramming it through, since I was making it all up as I went along. Besides, it's not going to be on the final ... right?

No. You had a zero chance at getting it right because ain’t no accent on that French word.

Have fun with cachet

      Who doesn't like a sure thing!

Awesome

And in French, it's pronounced "neesh" and it's pretty. None of this "nitch" nonsense.

Is it true that the French call EOD a Beesh?

Vous et la beesh, dans un beeshiclete, sur le beeshumbrela!




Edited to acknowledge a debt to Eddie Izzard



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2021 03:01PM by elderolddog.

That reads like a Zodiak cypher. Where you you in 1969?

At BYU, making fun of Bob Welti.

You?

In the heavens, singing tunes later made famous in Saturday's Warrior.

Are you an alto?

I have a thing for altos...

Well, to be honest, it's more, I have a thing...

elderolddog Wrote:
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> Well, to be honest, it's more, I have a thing...

Is it a pickle in your prophet, er pocket?

elderolddog Wrote:
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> Well, to be honest, it's more, I have a thing...

You sound a bit defensive.

Well, heck, you know what the best defense is?

I know you do!!

If I were a golf coach, I'd be the Offensive Coordinator.

But if you used a deodorant, you wouldn’t be . . .

That's ironic, coming from a man who's still on his first stick of Old Spice.

That’s only because I made my barrel of Hai Karate last so long!

A fact I think I can be proud of!

Now you're just trying to make us think you need to shave.

I just thank my plucky stars...

Yeah, I think we don't want to know anything more about your shaving habits.

Money is a social construct.

Yet another social construct that causes us lots of problems, however you look at it.

I personally blame Karl Marx.

Time is a human construct, but we all agree upon it, just like money.

Yes, but is it God?

Particularly!

Elder Berry Wrote:
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> Yes, but is it God?


Is time God?

Is that a Zen thing?

schrodingerscat Wrote:
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> Elder Berry Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yes, but is it God?
>
>
> Is time God?

No money. It has trusting God on it.

> Is that a Zen thing?

What is the sound of one hand giving money to another?

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> schrodingerscat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Elder Berry Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Yes, but is it God?
> >
> >
> > Is time God?
> No money. It has trusting God on it.

I don’t think anybody believes printing ‘In God We Trust’ on money makes it God. I think politicians started printing that on our currency in America in reaction to the godless pinko commies who were our enemies during the Cold War. While the rest of the world became more secular, America went the opposite direction and became far more religious. Now most Americans (90%) believe in God or higher power. Only 10% do not believe in any higher power or spiritual force. (According to the latest 2018 Pew Study on American belief in God.)

What can be named is not the Tao.

schrodingerscat Wrote:
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> Only 10% do not believe in
> any higher power or spiritual force.

God's tithing Americans.

If 90% of people agree on something, it must be true.

Your claim, not mine.
I’m just pointing out the data reported by Pew.
I don’t believe in ‘God’ but I do believe in ‘god’ in the impersonal sense cosmologists and string theorists describe. So that would put me in the group that believes in a higher power.
I accept science and, like most scientists, I also believe in god or a higher power.

Irony is not a "claim."

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the same way dupes are duped into religion because
> of their fear and greed.

Big assumption. There are innumerable reasons why people join/attend religious groups. What evidence is there that any of the reasons are fear or greed or even that fear or greed play any role?

And if someone is "duped" how does that correlate with being fearful or greedy as reasons to join?

I also disagree with labelling people "dupes" if they attend or join a group that seeks to convert by deception. The dupers are guilty of ill intent. The dupees, not so much.


> Fear of death leads them
> to believe in an ancient myth that a God can spare
> you from death

Another major assumption. People believe in God for many and varied reasons.


> It also feeds our ego to identify with the group
> we were born into.

I don't get this POV either. It's natural human instinct to "identify with the group we were born into" or where we settle at least. I don't see this as a negative trait.

Being literal about it, I was born in England but my parents came to Canada when I was a toddler. However, they associated here with other ex-pats as they called themselves (other folks from the British Isles) and were proud of their own heritage and homesick for their roots, not to mention family "back home". I soaked up the Englishness of it all and it took me a long time, into my teens, to accept that I was Canadian, not English, despite being born there, because due to all the extended family being there and all my parents' UK pals it was familiar to me in many ways and Canada was just the place I was brought to. Somewhere along the line I realized I'm totally *not* English/British as I don't fit in there either. Seeking to identify and belong is as natural as breathing. I don't see it as a negative trait at all. I guess it started out as survival and now is more cultural but it's a thing and there's nothing malignant about it.


> The Emperor has no clothes!

This is definitely the conclusion I soon reached about Mormonism. In fact, it is the exact phrase I used to my convert friend in SM one day. It made us laugh. But really, there's nothing the least bit funny about it is there.

I don't know about "keeping the poor from killing the rich". Maybe not everybody is pining for or jealous of someone else's riches. The killing idea is too simplistic, imho.