Posted by Smurf [Smurf] on April 04, 1999 at 18:48:35 {th2VaRoznY1vMkeTU9QQ1U4ozdDO/w}:
In Reply to: Look out Milosivic posted by WW on April 03, 1999 at 19:21:07:
All religious belief systems are made up of discourses that are, more often than not, dialectically linked to each other as in light and darkness, peace and war, evil and goodness. The systems are built up trough centuries, to make us believe in and to accept dogmas, moral rules and authorities. When we are convinced that a certain religion and their authorities represents the good side and everybody which disagrees in any way therefore must belong the other dark and evil side, then it is easy to accept dogmas even if they conflict with common sense. Exactly the same sort of discourses and methods are used to make us accept political ideas, political authorities and political or military actions.
Religious organizations, especially JW's are often (e.g. on this board) accused for using "mind control" to ensure control of their society and believers. As JW's today are shunning people and calling them apostates or when the catholic church earlier banned or even executed people with "wrong" ideas are quite similar to how we used the word "communist" in our western countries. To express political or humanistic ideas in conflict with the current dogmas would put you in risk to be considered as a communist, evil and an enemy to the society. The effect, at least in my country, could be that you and also your relatives were prohibited to work in some companies or in some professions. Controlling the language and information flow in a society are also effective means to control ideas and opinion. Doubletalk comparable with the famous "War is Peace" are repeated on the TV news all the time these days. Our news is presented as commercials. Short, with a very clear message. It is also effective to point out an individual as the bad guy just to visualize the enemy, the bad guy. I am also very sure of, that if someone express critics against current NATO/US war actions in Kosovo, the response from "believers" of the current political dogmas, repeatedly presented on TV and in newspapers, would be very comparable with responses from religious people when their believes are questioned.
My point is that the same skeptic, critical and also scientific method used to expose religious errors and manipulations (which are often presented on this board) can be used to evaluate politic ideas and dogmas as well. If we take the time to make the research, study the news, the history and the records of our political and military organizations it can help us to find some truth and therefore a better understanding of the world we are living in. One, in my opinion, interesting article is "The Current Bombings: Behind the Rhetoric" by Noam Chomsky. This one and several others can be found on the site: http://www.zmag.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html
/Smurf