From the last thread, because I am way behind (my Internet service sucks basketballs through a hose):

re: #123 Aucun pays pour les vieux ennemis

He probably thinks of himself as a stupid Conservative, so the Democrat wasn’t even an option to him.

At this point, the Republican Party (or more accurately, their most ardent supporters) fit the Bite Model of Mind Control by Stephen Hassan (goes to Apologetics Index with the description of the elements of a cult)

The GOP has been going that way ever since the John Birch Society and other such groups aligned themselves with the GOP under Goldwater’s campaign for President (but conservatism as a whole stretches back even further, such as the Know Nothings).

Destructive mind control can be understood in terms of four basic components, which form the acronym BITE:

Behavior Control
Information Control
Thought Control
Emotional Control

It is important to understand that destructive mind control can be determined when the overall effect of these four components promotes dependency and obedience to some leader or cause.

It is not necessary for every single item on the list to be present. Mind controlled cult members can live in their own apartments, have nine-to-five jobs, be married with children, and still be unable to think for themselves and act independently. - Source: Mind Control - The BITE Model, Steve Hassan, Freedom of Mind

(more, with links to Mr. Hassan’s Website and a descriptive video by Mr. Hassan)

Note cults can be very normal-seeming: Jim Jones got his start with Oral Roberts, and when the People’s Temple was growing by leaps and bounds, even Rosalind Carter attended the opening of one of his churches.

re: #109 ObserverArt

I don’t believe a lot of people actually really read the bible. Sure, they are Christians, but they let the pastors lead their thinking.

I think that is especially true of Evangelicals.

Their actual knowledge of the bible is taught to them in bible schools and then fed to them by their pastors/preachers. There is very little self teaching and wanting to understand for one’s own knowledge.

As has been noted in many surveys and investigations, atheists are the most familiar with the Bible in the USA (partly for self-defence).

It has been said that the best way to create an atheist is to get a Christian to read the Bible (all of it).

Adding to my comment, just to my west in La Grange, Wyo. is Frontier School of the Bible.

It is in a town of 300 people, nearly 100 miles from Scottsbluff, Nebr. or Cheyenne, Wyo. The nearest city is Bridgeport (my county seat, population 1,100), about fifty miles away. It serves as “secondary education” for children who are brought up in sectarian education such as religious homeschooling or Evangelical private schools (and considering the placement of the school, to keep them as far from the secular world as possible for a few more years).

Take a moment to read the curriculum of this non-accredited college. They teach only the Bible, and how to think about it, in preparation for missionary or church work.

You can imagine how they want you to think about it. The school ain’t cheap, either. (They are about to start classes now.)

None of their faculty will talk to my wife or me when we are in La Grange (we are of the Devil as atheists). It doesn’t matter how nice we are.

Across the street from them is a restaurant owned by a very devout Mennonite family: When we are in that restaurant, faculty from the college will leave as soon as we walk in. People who see our unique car for the area from that school will not come in the business when my wife and I are there; as such, we’ve lately taken to parking on a different block.

Students who work in the restaurant will not serve us (though the owners do, and are quite nice to us).

By the way, this is also the real-world example of “well, if a business won’t serve you” (like a cake shop) you can just take your business elsewhere. That restaurant is the only one for fifty miles around. If the owners threw us out, there is no other place.