Question by The Invisible Hand/Illuminati: What religion exploits the emotion of fear to keep followers in line?
Almost every religion in the world uses some form of fear factor to make people act “morally”. Example the fear of hell, the fear of karma, and many more.
From your perspective what religion exploits the emotion of fear the most to keep followers in line?
Best answer:
Answer by The Happy Atheist
The Abrahamic ones.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Republicans
Christianity hands down.
OK, I’m sure you’ll just see this as adversarial banter, but honestly, I would say atheism. No other religious perspective shames doubters so severely. It’s really quite harsh.
Most religious people are understanding of the concept of “losing faith.” But atheists scorn you and laugh at you and make fun of you, even if you never were a part of their numbers originally. In other words, atheists not only use fear to keep you in, but use fear to recruit, more so, in my experience, than others.
Edit: Oh, here we go with the scorn. Let’s see how many thumbs down I can accumulate.
Which one DOESN’T ? (Satanism is a good bet)
Ignorance!
I’d say christians in terms of fear of an eternal punishment in the afterlife.
But muslims win hands down in terms of the fear that if you don’t follow their god they will kill you.
edit: @phi ratio, not adversarial, just dumb. You are comparing the shame of believing in fairy tales to the fear of eternal torture. Eternity! Do you understand how ridiculous the comparison is?
All religions of salvation prey on the fear of death and the nothingness that follows it.
all the ones with a hell
I’d have to agree – any of the Abrahamic ones.
All religions are one. The one that causes the most fear… The one practised by those in power who use their own fears and inflict them upon others and stress them out as they think they will forever be in power and will always have pawns to fight their battles.
They all do. It’s the only way to keep them believing. Which is one of the many reasons why the entire concept is bull.
Christianity sells guilt and fear to the sheeple to get them to empty their wallets.
Christianity
Islam
etc…
Almost every single one, like you said, all the really peaceful and free religions are kept underground and have been destroyed by main religions (especially the ones above).
For example Paganism has been forced underground by christians accusing followers of witchcraft and burning them at the stake, now that doesnt sound too P.C does it?
I don’t know a religion that doesn’t. OK; maybe eastern ones don’t. They know better.
Probably the christian based ones. The Muslims are based also off of christianity. Same God but one follows Christ and the other Mohamed. Mohamed of course just changed the christian views to his own and came up with his own religion. That way he could be in charge and control his followers for his own benefit. Karma is just the law of cause and effect. If you do bad, you have to pay a price. Once you have paid off the karmic dept, it is over and not eternal. This of course goes hand in hand with reincarnation. The karmic dept follows you to the next lifetime. Beretta, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
Atheism is second only to other religions. It denies all the evidence and refused the challenge of just asking the question, “If you are real, give me a sign. I want to know.” If you challenge an atheist to do this they will refuse. You tell them to do it when they are alone with no others to hear.
The first one is the one that Christ said was the worst.. It was the claim that one could be a do good-er and be rewarded with everlasting life and even other rewards. If we remember those that attacked the World Trade Centers believed they would be rewarded with 72 virgins? Where they got that idea, I am not sure. But they think to give their life to try and force others into their religion is rewarded by their God. Another is the idea that there is a forth person with deity. They pray to her for answers or anything while she was blessed being the Mother of Christ, she was not God and was noted to be at the pourinig out of the Holy Spirit in the upper room. Mary is not God but the physical Mother of Christ. John declares that Christ made all things and nothing exists that was not made my Him.That is found in the first chapter of the Gospel of John.
Some are an atheist because they have the foolish idea they are classified as a primate. Professor Walking stated that he now believes in a Created Universe. The atheist that once supported the ACLU in trying to remove God from schools by the use of Darwinism stopped being their witness. He did this because a young female student had questions that he could not answer. When they were done investigating he became a Creationist. All one needs to do is have the math and chemistry and training in probability and Darwinism becomes a pipe dream from beginning to end.
I understand the big push against the religion of Christianity.. It seems they will do anything and say it is right? They deny what their Master told them and live and vote for all kinds of hell. They are little children that have not committed to the one they say they follow.
I know.as I claim Jesus as the Son of God, the Spirit. I did not vote death and always will vote for life for all. Earl