[airspirit]

I categorize most religious experiences as mass hypnosis.

Before you cry foul, let me explain: I was raised in a protestant household that was active in their church. I was steeped in it all my life. The more people were gathered, the more the "spirit" was felt ... or, at least, the more earnestly it is sought. The weepy prayer sessions and whatnot were more emotionally charged because of the people involved than any religious experience: in fact, I believe it was the emotional aspect of the ceremonies that invoke the religious feelings. I digress ....

Once I entered college I was introduced through a friend to a group of people. If there are any LDS people here you might as well just stop reading because I will severely offend you.

STOP HERE! YOU WILL NOT BE WARNED AGAIN!

Okay, with that said, I was introduced to the Mormon religion. As I began reading and studying on it I was bewildered by the absolute insanity of their claims, principles, and beliefs. Their tool to recruit new members is primarily fourfold:

1) Put out the image of a wholesome group. All in all, their lifestyle is attractive and stable. You don't see many of the problems that are found in other areas of society ... by design, but I'm jumping ahead again.

2) Surround you with people that repeat "the church is true" over and over and over ad infinitum.

3) Tell you that in order to know if their claims are true you must basically believe they are true.

4) Increase your investment in their group so it is hard to leave.

The third doesn't make sense, does it? In order to know something is true, you have to believe it is true ... and the more you believe it is true in your mind, the more it IS true ... at least to you. They basically set you on a course to brainwash yourself, and surround you with people that make the job easier. They try to involve you in church activities at every possible turn so you never have a chance to see reason. After enough time, you actually come to believe that you believe, and it's all downhill from there.

I mean, come on: I'm a pretty level-headed and rational person. It is hard to believe looking back that I actually believed that God is a deified man who lives on a glass ball called Kolob somewhere in the universe, he knocked up Mary so his spirit son (our spirit brother, along with the devil) could bleed for us (his death was an unfortunate happenstance) under an olive tree, and that we have to perform cribbed masonic rites in a stuffy building while wearing magic underwear or we won't be able to hang out with our wives in the afterlife where we will rule as gods while our wives punch out billions of spirit children for our own personal domain. Hey, but one of these days we'll get a chance to get molested by God through a veil and we'll have to know the secret password about having massive loins in order to get into Heaven ... assuming that some philandering con-man named Joseph Smith concurs with God's decision. Pay Lay Ale, eh?

Sounds pretty insane, huh? Well, once you convince yourself hard and long enough that something is true, it's hard to go back and question it. The more time you spend in a church or faith, the less likely you are going to question your beliefs. Really, if all the people around you believe it, and you've believed it so long, how can it be wrong? The desperate looks on their faces, that is because of a bad breakfast, not because they are doubting the same way you are, right? Right?

Even after my wife and I had conclusively proven that the Mormon church was a complete scam she still wanted to keep going. Why? Why continue to pay money to con-men and liars? Why continue to hang out with the deluded? Simply, she had so much of her life invested in that church that she didn't want to leave. She was afraid she would lose friends and such. SHE WAS WILLING TO PRETEND TO BELIEVE A LIE RATHER THAN STAND UP FOR HER BELIEFS. She had been told (and said) that "the church is true" so much that she never bothered to question it. The funny thing was that as we were demanding to be taken from the records of that church I talked to a few different people that still went there and found that they all knew it was a crock as well. They just kept going out of habit and convenience ... it was more a social club than a church. Anyone that had doubts was shunned and attacked. Anyone who spoke out against anyone in authority was attacked and the magical blessings and such that you were "endowed" with (I considered myself well endowed before joining this group, and I never noticed any difference afterwards, hehe) may be revoked. Boo fsckin hoo.

Once we escaped, I began to compare what happened there with other churches and other beliefs only to find that while the Mormon church was probably the worst in the mass hypnosis department, every other group I encountered was the same. There was always a few people that believed either because of mental disease ("God whispers to me and tells me to eat nachos") or because they desperately wanted to (I'm going to die soon and I want to think something is waiting for me), and the rest are there feeding off of the fervor of the few previously mentioned and convincing themselves that if those people believe, they have to be right ... right? Every last religion out there is based upon peer pressure on a massive scale and wishful thinking. Something sounds so nice, and the end payoff sounds so wonderful, and everything fits together so well with my world view that it HAS to be true regardless of anything that may prove it wrong.

The point of mental disconnect for these people is that wanting something to be true and believing something to be true does not make it true. Our argumentative nature pushes us to fight for what we believe even in the face of logic and facts. Think about it: if a 40 year old catholic was shown video evidence (go with me here, guys) that Jesus was really a pimp who drank too much wine and the disciples were his enforces who wandered the countryside beating money out of people do you think that he would believe it? It would prove that his whole life, his beliefs, and all the money he forked over to his church were based on a lie, and he would BLOCK OUT THE TRUTH to continue believing what he feels to be convenient.

If you could prove that it wasn't an angel on the mount with Mohammed, and that it was really a drunken shepherd who shared some hashish with him and told him a really easy way to score chicks and money, do you think anyone would listen?

If you could prove that Buddha was really just a nobleman who was looking for a way to make his subjects happy about being poor, do you think anyone would listen?

The problem is that every religious group on earth thinks that they have the one and only way to heaven/nirvana/whatever and that every other group is wrong. Well, I'm unwilling to believe that any "loving and caring God" would dump us on a rock knowing that 70-90% of us were going to hell or some such nonsense. It doesn't make sense, does it? And even if this God was just a wee bit sadistic, why the hell would he have done it in the first place? If I was God, I'd be surrounded with big-titted angels who did stuff a bit more wild than play a damn harp, if you know what I mean ... but again, that is just speculation.

Belief != Truth.

Having a religious debate is like beating your head against a brick wall. Even though nobody can prove their religion correct (oh, you know it is fact because of faith? that makes all the frickin' difference in the world!), and even though evidence can be laid out contradicting EVERY RELIGION ON EARTH, nobody will budge, and the reason for that is simply that religion is the largest case of mass hypnosis and delusion on earth, barring what the little green men do to us with anal probes.