On Using the Justification Irrational Beliefs
Partial transciption of a presentation on effectively communicating messages to the American electorate given by Saint Karl the Most High and Holy to Operatives of the Yellow Elephant Greenback Brigade. Date not given.
A recent poll found that a full 85-90% of the American public believes in the existence of god. Over 60% of those believe there is a god watching over them that is going to reward them with eternal life when they die. Rational thought would tell us that this proposition is totally unprovable and ludicrous on its face, yet these people believe it and cling to it with a ferocity that could be described as maniacal. From the poorest classes all the way up to the moneyed elites, people with these beliefs are everywhere. They buy into the economic system that exploits the least powerful for the gain of the few on the premise that they will someday be able to stand on the backs of the poor too. They run the country and control the nation's purse strings. These people are primed to swallow lies, big lies, huge lies, more lies, and can be motivated easily by appealing to their emotions and bigotry in service of justifying these ideas.
The truth or actuality (actual reality), is so unappealing to this 60% that
they would much rather believe in a comforting lie and profess it true in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Truth is we all die. Truth is no one punishes the most evil among us after they die. Truth is the poor will not find comfort after they are dead. But these ideas are a call for justice in this life and they would force the lazy and ignorant masses to actually work to find a reason for being. Why would they do that? Americans only want what is easy. Don't make me think. Don't make me consider. Don't make me look at it. These people believe that by conforming to a certain brand of groupthink and surrendering their personal responsibility to an authority figure that floats somewhere up in the sky, they are made special, more special that others, more deserving to live than others. Its a pathetic and sad form of wish fulfillment which is actually a detriment to making this world a better place, but it is also a very powerful meme that can be manipulated and tapped for the purposes of winning elections.
Armed with these lies the target demographic will search for anything that can be used to justify these beliefs, no matter how flimsy or intellectually dishonest (see C.S. Lewis for a prime example of circular reasoning and intellectual dishonesty). To do otherwise would shatter their worldview. Either the ideas fit into the context of their beliefs or they fall by the wayside. The lengths they will go to validate their ideas are not all that surprising if you view religion historically. Torture, murder, slavery, these are the historical tools of religion, yet they profess that they worship love! It's really the height of farce. And it is a testament the power of the human mind to filter out that which doesn't justify strongly held irrational beliefs.
The demographic has been defined and fully taken advantage of by the modern christian televangelist movement. From mailers to the poorest neighborhoods promising Jesus will make folks rich if they just make an offering and believe hard enough, to faith healers that bilk funds from the suffering and sick, to the Foreign Intelligence operatives that use the movement as cover to help forment the global and hemispheric dominance of our economic system, to the denial of evolution and man made climate change, or even personal responsibility for their own obesity, the evidence is everywhere, the demographic is loyal, doesn't question, believes in the power and infallibility of an authority figure, and most of all, they want to be lead. Lead us, they will scream, not caring whether it is to the slaughterhouse or over a cliff, so long as it pleases the strong leader. There's a kind of latent homoerotic sadomasochistic flavor to the whole thing that begs to be taken advantage of. And the thing is they keep coming back for more.
Many of the current techniques are not new. All it takes is an authority figure, a strong abusive father type, even a typical name calling bully, and a loud, loud megaphone. Now repeat the message. Repeat again. Have someone else repeat it. Now write it down. It's almost true. Wait for the truthful arguments against it to surface. The response to sink the truth doesn't even need to be valid, just well disseminated, the target demographic will be searching for anything to back up the beliefs, remember these people have already wrapped up the meaning of their lives into the fabric of irrational beliefs. What is one more? Especially if it also makes them special by doing nothing except conforming to the group.
Let's look at torture for instance. The classic values expoused by the main religious text of the nation are supposedly about love and helping the poor or sick. In reality, christians love suffering, they worship suffering, but they don't even realize it. In fact they think it is love. God is love, but if you don't say the right magic words he's going to torture you with fire for all eternity after you die. There is a serious disconnect with reality and rationality, and this is what should be exploited. Torture is fine if its not done to a christian, because god is going to torture those other people after they die anyway. Torture is redemptive in their meta-narrative. To use the power of the human mind to decieve itself in justifying irrational beliefs, you must attach your message to those beliefs. And your message should be made to validate that worldview in order to be successfully recieved. The 30% that follow without question and vote, can't vote for a democrat in good conscience, don't even mention a third party. You see democrats make god angry, because they question the infallible leader and advocate homosexuality. But they must vote for the republican who steals money and wants to torture and kill people. It's what god wants. The best thing about it is that these people will die for us. Actually, they already do.
This October we've got a big surpr***[for purposes of National Security the rest of the presentation is has been removed and categorized as Classified]
End of availible transcript.
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