Kim Jong-Il = God

[Shroom Man 777]

Kim Jong Il has a horse. Everyone shut up.

Oh, and this reminds me of that part in the Simpsons where Mr. Burns wanted everyone to worship him, their New God.

Also, it has the Movementarians feeding their members this malnourishing gruel for food, but Homer ended up eating so much of the crap that his brain was inadequately malnourished.

We know the North Koreans have a famine and they probably ate all their dogs and pets. And people in ancient times were malnourished, too. Does malnutrition make people more susceptible to religious nuttery? Sure, fundies today are all fat, but their religion began in a time when everyone was flee bitten and starving. North Koreans are flea bitten and starving too.

[Dark Flame]

The way I understand it, people living under hardships look for any way out, any light at the end of the tunnel. They may be blind to what it truly is, but they see a way out, and they go for it.

[Superman]

I know everything is relative, but the North Koreans have a pretty low standard when it comes to their god. Can you really get any lower than a flat-top sporting oompa-loompa with a big beer gut?

I don't know ... how about an illiterate hippie? That's who Christians worship.

Touche,' sir. Touche'...

[Superman]

The way I understand it, people living under hardships look for any way out, any light at the end of the tunnel. They may be blind to what it truly is, but they see a way out, and they go for it.

The entire nation could be very well be in a collective sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Kim Jong Il has a horse. Everyone shut up.

Oh, and this reminds me of that part in the Simpsons where Mr. Burns wanted everyone to worship him, their New God.

Also, it has the Movementarians feeding their members this malnourishing gruel for food, but Homer ended up eating so much of the crap that his brain was inadequately malnourished.

We know the North Koreans have a famine and they probably ate all their dogs and pets. And people in ancient times were malnourished, too. Does malnutrition make people more susceptible to religious nuttery? Sure, fundies today are all fat, but their religion began in a time when everyone was flee bitten and starving. North Koreans are flea bitten and starving too.

Someone needs to give you a research grant, sir.

[Phil Skayhan]

Also, it has the Movementarians feeding their members this malnourishing gruel for food, but Homer ended up eating so much of the crap that his brain was inadequately malnourished.

We know the North Koreans have a famine and they probably ate all their dogs and pets. And people in ancient times were malnourished, too. Does malnutrition make people more susceptible to religious nuttery? Sure, fundies today are all fat, but their religion began in a time when everyone was flee bitten and starving. North Koreans are flea bitten and starving too.

If I'm not mistaken, don't (or didn't) many religions include fasting as part of their worship; eg Catholics before Sunday mass , Jews before Yom Kippur(?), ect?

It might be interesting to note the frequency of fasting between the religions and the "unswerving" faith of its adherents.

[Ace Pace]

Jews fast on Yom Kippur, not before. Jews also fast on several other days, the most important being, if I recall correctly, Tisha Be'av and after Rosh HaShana(jewish new year).

This has been your daily nitpicking by SDNs resident JewInformative.

[Junghalli]

We know the North Koreans have a famine and they probably ate all their dogs and pets. And people in ancient times were malnourished, too. Does malnutrition make people more susceptible to religious nuttery? Sure, fundies today are all fat, but their religion began in a time when everyone was flee bitten and starving. North Koreans are flea bitten and starving too.

I'd say primitive people are more likely to be religious because they have no control over the environment they depend on for survival, and if you can't control your environment a belief system that offers you a way to petition and appease the people who do (religion) is very appealing. You can't do anything about a drought or a storm, but religion tells you that there's a person (god) who makes the weather that you may be able to appeal to, so maybe you're not so completely helpless after all.

Of course, if there's some incredibly powerful being out there who decides what happens to you this naturally leads to Stockholm Syndrome mentality. You obviously can't do anything against such a being, and it has complete power over you, you better be real nice to it and do everything it wants you to.

Maybe I'm nuts but I'd say maybe the biggest way in which modernity attacks religion isn't that it promotes rational thinking so much as that it gives people a sense of control over their environment that renders religion less attractive. Technology has taught us that human effort is more reliable and effective than prayer, and that most problems can be solved by sufficient applications of human effort, without any help from a diety. When ancient man had an infected wound he was pretty much helpless, and begging some more powerful invisible person to save him was the only hope he had. When I have an infected wound I go to the doctor.

[Superman]

Maybe I'm nuts but I'd say maybe the biggest way in which modernity attacks religion isn't that it promotes rational thinking so much as that it gives people a sense of control over their environment that renders religion less attractive. Technology has taught us that human effort is more reliable and effective than prayer, and that most problems can be solved by sufficient applications of human effort, without any help from a diety. When ancient man had an infected wound he was pretty much helpless, and begging some more powerful invisible person to save him was the only hope he had. When I have an infected wound I go to the doctor.

People stave off their anxieties by performing rituals ("rituals" as in repetitive behaviors); and religion is a great example. The world is a chaotic and scary place; rituals allow people to feel as if they have a sense of control. Ask anyone who has lived with something like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; if they don't wash their hands one hundred times per day, tap on their desk a certain number of times, or count the number of holes in a wall repeatedly, worrisome and intrusive thoughts will literally torture them.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

Some modern Christian writers explicitly mention the increased control of technological society over the environment as being one of the factors behind decline of religion in the developed world. Of course they lament it, saying that the control is an illusion, and that supplication by primitive peoples towards the supernatural is the correct way to secure a good life; the Christian's job is merely to supplant the natives' false gods with the Christian's true God.