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Never really thought of this. It's always cool to see a new perspective that's kind of eye opening, or organizes thoughts you've had into words.

Aerihk 5 Aug 1
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Really great quote, although I'm sure there must be other things than religion to make good people do bad things....any thoughts on that?

Carin Level 8 Aug 1, 2018

Oh yeah, I'm definitely aware of other things, brainwashing in general, unfortunately on the receiving end of them. Religion seems to be the most prominent and recognized form of this kind of brainwashing.

Ignorance, social fervor, peer pressure

I was thinking too much money--it's addictive & people become ruthless. Then I realized any addiction can turn a wonderful human being into a lying, thieving a-hole.

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I believe that Steven Weinberg is exactly correct. This is because religion is brainwashing and therefore involves bad things.

I don't think brainwashing automatically includes bad things, it's more about the method than the contents. I see brainwashing as just teaching people to believe something without question or using critical thinking skills.

I'm an antinatalist, and a while ago someone posted in the fb group what seems almost satire (but unfortunately wouldn't be surprising if they were serious). It was saying there's no cure for antinatalism, the best prevention is teaching natalism from a young age. Pretty much any ideology etc. will be most likely to be ingrained if taught from a young age. You could do the same with antinatalism. But the difference is adults become antinatalist through rational thought, whereas natalism has to be ingrained in children before they can think for themselves.

The same goes for religion. Many people become atheist/agnostic later in life through reason, but very few who were raised that way will become religious. Religion is generally something you're raised with to believe before you can consider other options, and sometimes it sticks and sometimes it doesn't.

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