What Lies Do You Believe?

Although many of us like to believe that we're riding along on the Freedom of Thought Trail, believing they're "freethinkers" (really, don't most of us?), objectively making our decisions based on the evidence we see. Unfortunately, there are people who think they can reason without God. Sorry, old son, things aren't always what they seem.

People like to believe they're thinking objectively, but are actually conditioned by propaganda as well as peer and societal pressures. This is very pronounced when it comes to the Bible and creation.

People will often think they know things, but are given a series of falsehoods. They may look rational and even scientific, but where do they come from? There are some things that have crept in to society and the church, and we're expected to accept them (peer and cultural pressures can be very strong). There are several things that are accepted as valid points to reason from, but are actually untrue propaganda; one propaganda technique is concentration and repetition, and the misotheists use that quite a bit.
Many of us feel we are clear about what we believe and why. Perhaps you think you have a cohesive, logical and well-thought-through worldview. But what if you are more the product of your culture, your society and your peers, than you realise?

Secular psychologist Philip Zimbardo certainly thinks that we can be easily influenced to think or behave in certain ways. In 1971, he ran the Stanford Prison Experiment, whereby he took healthy and apparently well-disposed male American college students, and randomly assigned them roles of prisoners and guards. Zimbardo’s experiment became so real, and the cruelty that those playing the guards were willing to inflict so extreme, that many suffered mental breakdowns. Zimbardo had to call the experiment off.1 It seems that a very intense role-play was enough to turn those nice college guys bad.

You might argue that the situation was in a closed environment, and that it would not take place out in the real world. However, in a more gradual and subtle way, new values and perceptions become ‘normalised’ in society. After we hear these ideas repeatedly, particularly when we are young, and everyone else seems to believe them, they become our beliefs, sometimes subconsciously. So what are the lies we’ve been sold?
Honestly, you can read the rest by clicking on "Brainwashed! — Life in a world of illusion and deceit".