Intro:(click
here for the link to all the passages)
A cult thinkism is a statement that is part of an overall structure of cult thought that puts faith in the central tenets above critical thinking
as a rule and
characterizes opposition to that faith in all sorts of broad stroked solipsistic ways.
It is often designed intentionally or not,
as the shortest and intellectually shallowest route between cognition and acceptance of dogma and therefore you will find that
“evidence is useless,” “people that ask for evidence are evil,” “anything that disagrees with what we say is evil,” "anything with our stamp of approval on it is true by definition," “There are no shades of gray,” “Anything that is wrong with the system is your fault,” “Everyone secretly knows our core doctrines are true,” “Things you don’t know to be true first hand are more important than things you do know to be true,” “Some nearly omnipresent evil agent is at work behind the scenes trying to destroy your faith in our belief system,” ,
"Out-group rejects your nonsense not because you are an idiot, but because they hate good things",etc.
With intellectual crutches like these, who needs a good argument? What would you have this dude do?
Right...you're suddenly not a criminal. The lesson: Religion doesn't have the right to define objectivity for you.
"But my religious book said not to be objective...see, it's internally consistent!"
These next two verse aren’t necessarily “cult think” per se, but do fall under the category of the cheapest anti-intellectual responses you can quote mine from the Bible in a serious debate:
"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.” And let’s not forget,
“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Aka, anything an opponent says can be easily forced into this category…and not so easily gotten back on track if the theist has no interest in fighting fair.
While these verses could have legitimate
use as they amount to common sense in dealing with people without the background to appreciate what you say (God knows I'm up against this constantly), it's flakey grandstanding to actually tell someone this just to save face as though it really means anything to them... and I've seen it applied more often than not as a cop-out rather than a bit of wisdom. Anybody that goes to church is suddenly the most enlightened SOB on the planet just because they assume the HS is on their side of the argument. You have to believe that cults exist and that their collective thinking patterns have many similarities even if you are a fundamentalist Christian.
The problem is if I were writing a manual on “cult think,” I would be able to gratuitously quote the NT authors for that is the very same solipsistic picture they paint against the
“wisdom of the world.” Thus the argument is, “I know what
cult think is,” “I know
what the Bible says” and especially “I know what the Bible
doesn't advocate.
”
And in debate I know what
isn’t an argument and what asserting your conclusion is and what that means about a person that doesn't question the source that originally advocates it.
This one point alone refutes the Bible’s plausibility as being inspired by a loving god of rationality.
Does God really want an army of intellectual lemmings?
I mean…that’d be the only reason to make use of this cultic convention of constraining critical thought in the most babyish of ways.
Can maybe that army include a few competent adults that can think their own wittle thoughts all bwy themswelves without fear of coming to maybe a different conclusion?
[Cue apologetic defense that can’t possibly venture out of the mold of scripture coherently] I guess not.
And so we have yet another “backyard disproof” of Christianity where an omniscient God unwittingly stumbles into an area of our expertise.
Such verses have very limited explanatory power about the world (if any at all) and even Christians would probably not think they were true if the bible didn’t tell them otherwise, but the structure of the teachings does have great merit in the arena of controlling how people think.
If we took a poll and asked all the people in the world if in their opinion they thought a Scriptural list of cult think-isms was true…the results would likely come back fairly pathetic in favor of the Bible.
But that would just contribute to the conspiracy of Satan's mass deception of the world wouldn’t it?
There's an unsubstantiated thought killing cliche' blocking every exit from this hamster wheel, isn't there?
Christians even admit that Christianity started out as a Jewish cult though they don’t take the title seriously.
One would think they would grow out of its cultic vestiges.
I wonder why that hasn’t happened yet and why Christians still today mindlessly throw these verses at their opponents when all else fails?
Oh yeah!
They’re still in that ‘inerrant’ book the Bible:
Ben
Comments (2)
The intellectual dishonesty apparent in the cult mentality was exactly the kind of 'thinking' that helped lead me towards thinking for myself, and away from the church. Independent, honest critiques of knowledge, faith, and the good book led in entirely the opposite direction from more sitting in the pew and repenting.
@prbailey - Sometimes we have to repent of our intellectual sins. ;)