Re: Missionaries (was: "Mormon Asshole?" re: GAK)

Most ppl believe what they are told to believe. Otherwise why would 
there be so many ppl willing to take whatever the Govt servers them.
Afterall...The madia would not lie...;)
> attila <attila@primenet.com> sez:
> > why would any rational individual espouse ANY cause he thought was
> > wrong!

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At 12:44 AM -0700 10/9/96, Dale Thorn wrote:

>Why is it that 95-plus percent of all people stay with their parents'
>religion (more-or-less) when they grow up, instead of abandoning it, or
>finding one on their own?  Simple.  The uncountable zillions of "bytes"
>of information that go into your brain before you become more-or-less
>conscious, so controls your mind by the time you are conscious, that
>very few people can overcome this programming to any significant extent.

This is of course not true. Lots of statistics show that nowhere near "95%"
of people stick with the religion they were raised in. In America, at
least. Large numbers become nonbelievers, others become Vegans, Pagans,
Buddhists, Bahaiists, Baalists, etc. This is well-documented and has been
discussed for several decades. I don't know what the current correlation
is, but I'd guess it's less than 50%.

As the old joke goes, what's the surest way to make your kid a nonbeliever?
Send him to a religious school.

Nothing to do with Cypherpunks, but complete errors like this "95%" figure
ought to be corrected, if anybody is still reading this thread.

--Tim May, Acolyte of Baal the Unmerciful






--
[This Bible excerpt awaiting review under the U.S. Communications Decency
Act of 1996]
And then Lot said, "I have some mighty fine young virgin daughters. Why
don't you boys just come on in and fuck them right here in my house - I'll
just watch!"....Later, up in the mountains, the younger daughter said:
"Dad's getting old. I say we should fuck him before he's too old to fuck."
So the two daughters got him drunk and screwed him all that night. Sure
enough, Dad got them pregnant, and had an incestuous bastard son....Onan
really hated the idea of doing his brother's wife and getting her pregnant
while his brother got all the credit, so he pulled out before he
came....Remember, it's not a good idea to have sex with your sister, your
brother, your parents, your pet dog, or the farm animals, unless of course
God tells you to. [excerpts from the Old Testament, Modern Vernacular
Translation, TCM, 1996]

craigw@dg.ce.com.au wrote:
> Most ppl believe what they are told to believe. Otherwise why would
> there be so many ppl willing to take whatever the Govt servers them.
> Afterall...The madia would not lie...;)

One example of a topic that most people (including very intelligent, 
"technical" people) steer clear of:

Why is it that 95-plus percent of all people stay with their parents' 
religion (more-or-less) when they grow up, instead of abandoning it, or 
finding one on their own?  Simple.  The uncountable zillions of "bytes" 
of information that go into your brain before you become more-or-less 
conscious, so controls your mind by the time you are conscious, that 
very few people can overcome this programming to any significant extent.

On Wed, 9 Oct 1996, Dale Thorn wrote:

> craigw@dg.ce.com.au wrote:
> > Most ppl believe what they are told to believe. Otherwise why would
> > there be so many ppl willing to take whatever the Govt servers them.
> > Afterall...The madia would not lie...;)
> 
> One example of a topic that most people (including very intelligent, 
> "technical" people) steer clear of:
> 
> Why is it that 95-plus percent of all people stay with their parents' 
> religion (more-or-less) when they grow up, instead of abandoning it, or 
> finding one on their own?  Simple.  The uncountable zillions of "bytes" 
> of information that go into your brain before you become more-or-less 
> conscious, so controls your mind by the time you are conscious, that 
> very few people can overcome this programming to any significant extent.
> 

Don't forget inheritance (my dad's a Southern Baptist minister ;)

 --Deviant
Live long and prosper.
                -- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7

Timothy C. May wrote:
> At 12:44 AM -0700 10/9/96, Dale Thorn wrote:
> >Why is it that 95-plus percent of all people stay with their parents'
> >religion (more-or-less) when they grow up, instead of abandoning it,
> >or finding one on their own?  Simple.  The uncountable zillions of
> >"bytes" of information that go into your brain before you become
> >more-or-less conscious, so controls your mind by the time you are
> >conscious, that very few people can overcome this programming to any
> >significant extent.

> This is of course not true. Lots of statistics show that nowhere near
> "95%" of people stick with the religion they were raised in. In
> America, at least.

I don't know what part of America you're talking about. San Francisco?
Most of America is still to the right of you on a map, and close to 95
percent do exactly as I say.  Maybe you got your statistics from the
same media outlet that was working the OJ case.  There, they said that
"x-percent of white people think he's guilty" (usually 70 percent or
thereabouts), while I, Dale Thorn, found it to be just about 100 percent
anywhere in the country (except maybe the Bay Area, where they still
believe that a rotten little piece of crap called the Altair was the
first personal computer).

> Large numbers become nonbelievers, others become
> Vegans, Pagans, Buddhists, Bahaiists, Baalists, etc. This is
> well-documented and has been discussed for several decades.

A lot of B.S. has been discussed for several decades.

> I don't know what the current correlation is, but I'd guess it's less
> than 50%. As the old joke goes, what's the surest way to make your kid
> a nonbeliever? Send him to a religious school.
> Nothing to do with Cypherpunks, but complete errors like this "95%"
> figure ought to be corrected, if anybody is still reading this thread.

These last numbers - "less than 50%", "complete errors like 95%" are 
splendid proofs of what I said in the first paragraph above, that most 
people (like yourself) are totally controlled by their programming.  
Unless, of course, you simply wave it all away with a magic wand.

BTW, if you understood my argument, it wasn't so much about specifics of 
religion et al (which could be easily misinterpreted), it was about how 
people act entirely on their past programming, mitigated to some extent 
by incidental circumstances.  If you're inclined to give too much weight 
to the incidental circumstances, remember the first thing they tell you 
when you join the CIA: there aren't any coincidences (of any real 
significance, anyway).