One of the lies for profit by the Churches seems to be the invention of hell to instill fear and loosen the purse strings and increase the indulgences people pay to save their souls, which were never condemned in the first place.
Another example of this for profit lying by Christianity would be Original Sin. This was something unknown to the Jews who have a different interpretation of their myths. To them, Eden was we were elevated, not where we fell.
Is creating false guilt for profit a good moral tenet and should a religion that does so be followed?
Or would God forbid such a sin and curse those religions to hell?
Creating false guilt is always good for those (0.001—1% of all humans) who create and manage it as a moral tenet, but who are “those” today? If “they” are really “religious” people, their “religion” is a political, governmental, financial, criminal one, a modern ideology for the other 99—99.99% and with idols (false gods) which are called e.g. “Political Correctness”, “Affirmative Action”, “Feminism”, “Genderism”, and other kinds of racism, sexism, communism, capitalism.
The current rhetoric trick is that each of those who create false guilt for profit says e.g.: “I am not religious.” But each of them is religious, although in a modern manner, thus in an ideological manner.
Personally, I think brow beating the human race for being insufficiently tolerant of sexual deviants in one thread while whining about manipulating people with false-guilt complexes in another is so hypocritical as to be beyond satire. But obviously if your only point is to bash Christianity and not to present a coherent point of view, this is largely irrelevant.
Put another way, I agree with Ariminius: at least in the English speaking world, manipulating society through false guilt is more a quality of the anti- and non- religious ideologues these days.
I did not do any thread on sexual deviance although I am sure I have mentioned such.
But I disagree.
There is no doubt that many others lie to us, be it governments or business, but no one has perfected the techniques of psychological bondage like religions.
Ier, Are the poor and suffering so utterly stupid??
I see no difference between the classes in that. If you think it is only wrong for one and not the other then you would be wrong.
I do not recall that in mine but then mine was what was termed dysfunctional.
Strange that your, I take it, functional family would use psychological bonding. One would think that normal family bonding would be enough. But I bow to your personal experience and offer my sympathy.
LOL psychological bondage and normal family bonds are the same. A normal family will protect a criminal member. A normal family will love and accept a rude pain in the ass. A normal family will die to protect a scum member. A normal family will love the useless.
If that is not psychological bondage superior to religion then,
I don’t know.
Some say religious bonding is deeper as it will make good people do evil.
You would have to describe the limit you see on family protecting a criminal. If no limit then you might be right as that would be good people doing something quite evil.
If a good and functional family will protect a murderer or rapist for instance, then I am glad I was reared in a dysfunctional family because I would not protect such.
I would not protect even my child . That is a society influence though. We are raised more by society than family so a deep social bond would be in us. We protect a society that is in some ways worse than a rapist or killer. Dysfunctional or genetic? As pack / herd creatures we defend our own even if wrong. You can say you would defend no one but, is it hope, faith , denial, ego or you just have no deep bonds to anyone or anything? Many would have the last.
Hard to say but I would hope it would be driven by what you did not suggest. Morals.
I do not agree with your last as the vast majority of us show our hivish or groupish instincts by being in religions where we have to ignore our common sense to believe i8n their supernatural dogmas.
I have the same hivish instinct but have just refused to ignore common sense and have found a tradition where I do not have to give it up to superstition and the supernatural.
Basic morals come from ancient religion, superstition and survival. Take a pack of ignorant humans, you are their leader and barely more knowledgable, how do you desperately control them in a dangerous time? An effective way is to scare them into submission in order to overall protect. This begins morals/ethics. Even though we are more knowledgeable now, we still must observe that in groups we are capable of becoming animalistic. Yelling fire or gun in a crowd, for instance, can and does cause massive stupidity, selfish behavior, survival panic.
Imagine removing beliefs quickly. Absolute proof there is no superior being that gave rules, social rules to follow.
A slow building massive mental social breakdown would occur. Do civil laws, ethics and morals carry enough weight to stop a worldwide shockwave?
We may not need gods and their rules for ourselves but, we may need them still for the masses. Imagine billions worldwide going off the deep end…