Re: Is God good ?
Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2014 12:27 pm
nr1 - Group thinking is not subconsciousness at play, it can be more accurately described as the use of social evidence for your decisions. When we are insecure standing by ourselves, we support our decisions by what other say or do. This is not subconscious, but something we do completely aware and conscious about the processes that take place. But the topic of this thread is about god, and I can't see the connection. You have not said anything to indicate or show how there is a connection between this and whether people see God as good or not. People are not insecure about whether to think God is good or not. Your references to Salomon Ash is not relevant, because he is a social psychologist experimented on peoples active actions in active interaction with a group. Someones perception of God is not such a thing.HexHammer wrote:Group think is subconciousness at play, in prehistoric times when we were but mere reptiles, we didn't have elaborate language, but mere sounds and gestures, to keep people in check a mere harsh look could (and still can) keep people in place, some will even voulenteerily abide the leader and take the leaders side, even if the leader is unreasonable and cruel, then some will blindly follow. This will explain the Vietnam horrors where normal law abiding citizen committed horrorfying warattrocities. Children are very open for subconcious suggestion, that's why they love their country where they grew up, love the culture, etc, but ofcause some don't care, others abhore it. Youre preature's daughter example may be explained by 2 things, she's not in a closed society but has other influence of atheists, and/or science that doesn't find proof of a god. Else growing up with religion day in day out, can be too much for some and they end up disliking all this religious stuff, or other interests pulls the attention away from the religion. I havn't said group think is the ONLY reason, it's also that people are very naive, and/or have a insatiable narcissistic side that needs "attention" from someone that can always be with them and love them (as they imagine their god does), or in the naive hope of giving them salvation from their sins or sickness, there are endless of mentally ill reasons.
nr2 - Your connection between reptiles, gestures to keep people at check etc. have nothing to do with this. The real explanation comes from how we as children learn from our parents by copying them. This is the reason why all of the people of the planet can walk, talk etc. because we are experts on copying each other. When we come in to a situation where we are unsure about the answer, we do like we have done from birth, look at people around us for the answer, conforming with the masses for a greater chance of success. If you are going to use animals in your arguments, a reference to how a horde of animals stick together to avoid a hungry lion - is more relevant. Any animal that don't conform with the groups pressure to stick together gets eaten by the lions. We increase our chances to success when we conform with the masses, that is simple statistics.
nr3 - You sound like "group think" what i cal social prove - is a purely negative thing, (refering to vietnam etc) but it is a major factor in our success as human beings. When we loose grip on what the heck is going on around us - our mind becomes very focused on getting references from around us to figure out what to do. And the only references available to a soldier in a ware situation like Vietnam, are psycho fellow soldiers.. so it all goes bad from there - but survival for the soldiers themselves becomes more likely, and that is the main topic in the brain of a soldier in a situation like Vietnam.
nr4 - You say children love their country, love their culture - because they are very open for subconscious suggestion. This is not correct. Love for your country, culture etc has nothing to do with subconscious suggestion. Besides children are not that open for subconscious suggestion - they need things to be very concrete.
nr5 - The daughter of the priest - simply became a teenager, and those are in rebellion to everything, hormones kick in... etc. My point is that we are influenced by millions of things, where religious group pressure is close to not present at all in the life of a teenager in America. I am very surprised that you can say something like that.
