Okay, lots of stuff has its weird side, you must admit. But everything else- no God, only Godism? It makes sense. A lot of religion is nothing but sheer exploitation and an elaborate setup since time started.

Look at it this way: humanity begins and garners awareness on this planet called Earth, surrounded entirely by the unknown and strange things they've never seen before. Dominance is established primarily by strength- physical strength. Someone, one day, realizes there's another way to do this. If everyone is milling about, confused, they always desire some sort of reassurance- a leader. Thus is born the first Priest. 'Be loyal to me and the God I serve, and you shall know prosperity'. They will believe him, because as humans they seek reassurance, and this is where it comes. And with belief comes power, as established by many of the things Dakkhan has put forth. In this case, it is power in the hands of the founder, the exploiter, the Priest- strength by proxy.

Relaxation music cured my insanity. Cosby bepop made me crazy again. I am now going to print a t-shirt with those two slogans on the front and back, respectively.

By work I just mean the general process of doing magick. Chant for a few hours in a giant pentagram of fire to reach War Gnosis, then tell me it's not work. :) Still, performance is probably a better word than work... maybe this is why so many musicians are into esoteric ideas.

And yes, I suppose you could interchange proves and deceives in this context, because that's what this kind of magick is about. Deceiving your conscious mind to program your subconscious mind. It's really only important to believe it at the time you perform it, because once you can overcome the Ego and defeat the Psychic Censor, your will has already been passed on into the subconscious mind. Now you can just laugh it off and wonder why it is you ever believed such weird crap. Then you go look for sammiches.

A good point, but that guy is definitely not the one to advocate that line of thinking. He probably wasn't the first one to realize this anyway. I think there are better ways to make this point than a guy who contradicts himself on everything else he rants about, such as racism and racial issues.

This may be true as far as the potential of cult institutions goes, but what suggests it was the the basis for the founding of early mysticism and theism?

Suppose humans are inherently curious by nature. In anthropology, some Darwinians consider this largely a sign of how advanced learning capability and creativity, coupled with opposable thumbs and the bi-pedal frame, are the key mechanisms of their survival. Speculation along this line of thought is that early mythos (animism and shamanism) resulted for a means to explain the universe and its lack of compliance with primitive understanding. This would be beneficial because from it comes a sense of closure and comfort, easing the unsteadiness that might arise as a byproduct of the sentient mind wresting with a natural world (possibly more complex than itself) and function properly, thereby increasing 'fitness'.

Condensed: Yes, religion can be manipulated, but it seems to me (based on my limited knowledge) like quite a stretch to say it was established for the purpose of manipulation. Such a theory would also undermine how many cult institutions have gone through periods without central leadership and strong direction, which would be like a colony of ants without their queen if religion/CIs served only that purpose.

@Dakkhan: Aha! I -think- that what you are calling magick some psychologists refer to as the placebo and nocebo effects. Unless there is something more I am missing yet.

As for 'work', I was evaluating the word in the context of "does it work or not?". I think we understand each other now though.

So very true, and I will go even further to say that with every person that believes in a God, that God's power will become stronger. "God" is really the faith of those that believe in him. When more and more people invest their minds into an idea it will even begin to shape -itself-, seemingly thinking and acting on it's own accord... but this is an illusion. It is an egregore of thousands of people who, through listening to sermons or whatnot, begin to act in a way that is fitting to please their Lord and Savior, therefore unknowingly creating the will of their God. Like a work project that seems to take on a mind of it's own in a business. This, technically, could be considered Magick. And brainwashing.

In Lusternia, though, Gods are much more present and real even if they employ the same tactics. Just ask Fain, the biggest badass of them all.

@Vhaas - Perhaps, though that would depend on the Psychologist. Magick takes on many different forms, too... so it's hard to explain it in any one concise way.... but one kind of magick that does fit the bill is Voodoo - it only works on those that believe in it.

Bloody firefox crashed somehow in the middle of posting, so I'll try and be quick about it.

Darwinists have a point. It can increase fitness- religion can be used as a means of unity amongst sentients, increasing the survival of the group as a whole. Religions founded with this idea likely survive longer than the ones founded for sheer, total power. Granted, the system of successors could very well be found in the more manipulative religions. Curiously enough, it reminds me a bit of middle-age aristocracy in Europe, which is something most common folk held a great dislike for (and were, also, mostly religious- and corrupt, too).

The thing is, you can look at religion and history in general and see why most people get so awkward around the esoteric and occult. History is set against this. Religion hates being undermined, which is why you have so many religious wars and schisms. What undermines this sort of thing? The many things that Dakkhan mentions. Thus, religion brings down its (extremely great, if you look at history) power upon the blasphemy, attempting to wipe it from existence. So, because so few people can openly or actively practice it due to a long-bred tradition of skepticism and sometimes outright hatred, it becomes the 'esoteric'. And, again, since religion is so widespread in daily life, many, many people are unwittingly raised to regard all of it as pure nonsense.

A few bits and pieces of it manage to survive in the dark corners of existence, which is why it is still around today. The internet helps facilitate the spread of it, too, since the internet is essentially the dark corners of existence spread across the entire world. Very rarely are you literally burned at the stake for practicing the occult on the internets! Thus, the numbers of practitioners rise, more people become skeptical of old viewpoints, traditions, establishments, the works, and so history progresses itself as normal.

Edit: I suppose I've harped on extensively about religion, haven't I? But as Dakkhan says, the Will of God may not actually be from God itself at all.

I duly believe this is appropriate here.

Please be adviced that there is more statistical, circumstantial and literal evidence to support this theory than any of the ones stated above.

It's completely appropriate... remind me to plant a tree and rob a trade ship today.

...Fnord!



I had heard of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, but I had never seen that letter. Now I have. I am entertained.

EDIT: Grammar.

And when you're done reading that, enjoy TimeCube: The RPG. (No, I didn't create it, I wish I could claim credit for this one.)

Unless I'm misreading, this actually sounds rather similar to Nietzsche's argument in On the Genealogy of Morals.

I really hate it when people call "religion in general" , when what they really mean is "religion in Europe" (and really , only a subset of religion in Europe)

"Please be adviced that there is more statistical, circumstantial and literal evidence to support this theory than any of the ones stated above."

I'm pretty certain that that isn't true at all.

Aiee, don't encourage them!

There is no denying that the decreasing number of pirates is statistically significant when compared to global warming.

Or how well the increase in American philosophy publications correlates with the downturn in the global economy?

You mean the massive increase in the number of pirates?

Yes, well, this is of course a direct effect of more people adhering to the worship of FSM, this created the recent increase. Sadly global warming is something that the FSM will nog change quite so suddenly, because humans are fickle and will forget to worship him again if he does not remind them. In time though, it will go down and when this happens, Somalian pirates too will start wearing the true pirate regalia.