do religions brainwash?

[blugiant]

imagine blakks peeps ar still defendinn religions dat were used to teach blakk peeps to bow to addar peeps god. grannies ann mothers tekkinn dem yuths to oyinbo church fe teach dem morals ann oyinbo dogmas.

soo wat oonnoo tink do religions brainwash people?

[Diplomat]

Of course not. Also, brainwashing implies something that is often done through coercion and generally speaking, nobody is forced to believe anything. Even more interesting to me though are your comments "religions dat were used to teach blakk peeps to bow to addar peeps god". Would you still have a problem with "religion" if black peeps were left to worship whomever and whatever they worshipped before the missionaries arrived?

[blugiant]

Of course not. Also, brainwashing implies something that is often done through coercion and generally speaking, nobody is forced to believe anything. Even more interesting to me though are your comments "religions dat were used to teach blakk peeps to bow to addar peeps god". Would you still have a problem with "religion" if black peeps were left to worship whomever and whatever they worshipped before the missionaries arrived?

so yuh nuh tink saying prayers repeatedly in oyinbo church iss bout brainwashing?

da best typa brainwashing iss not coercive cah moas peeps will rebel iff dem feel dem being force fe do da religion ting. da best typa brainwashing iss doinnn itt inn a way moas peeps doan realized dem ar being brainwashed

mi awlway memba da afrikkan woo sed oyinbo gave us dem bible ann teef wii land

no mii wood natt objekk cah missionaries chatt bout spreading gospel wild pushinn oyinbo god

histaree show furst dem send missionaires den dem militareee

[Diplomat]

so yuh nuh tink saying prayers repeatedly in oyinbo church iss bout brainwashing?

da best typa brainwashing iss not coercive cah moas peeps will rebel iff dem feel dem being force fe do da religion ting. da best typa brainwashing iss doinnn itt inn a way moas peeps doan realized dem ar being brainwashed

So "moas peeps" are just passive participants without the capacity to think for themselves and make their own decisions regarding religion?

mi awlway memba da afrikkan woo sed oyinbo gave us dem bible ann teef wii land

No reason we couldn't have BOTH the Bible and the land.

no mii wood natt objekk cah missionaries chatt bout spreading gospel wild pushinn oyinbo god

histaree show furst dem send missionaires den dem militareee

So, as long as Black folks were worshipping spirits, ancestors, and whatever else, that would have been cool? The problem you are having is that the missionaries came and changed some of that?

[franksterr]

Of course not.

Yes....Christianity uses a process closely related to brainwashing in order to gain and keep converts.....especially westernized Christianity.

Also, brainwashing implies something that is often done through coercion and generally speaking, nobody is forced to believe anything.

Coercion can be accomplish physically or emotionally...
African slaves were forced to accept Christianity in the following Manner

The next step is to take a bullwhip and beat the remaining nigger males to the point of death, in front of the female and the infant. Don’t kill him, butPUT THE FEAR OF GOD IN HIM, for he can be useful for future breeding

Up to very recently children were often punish for skipping church
Today they scare you when young with tales of hell fire

Even more interesting to me though are your comments "religions dat were used to teach blakk peeps to bow to addar peeps god". Would you still have a problem with "religion" if black peeps were left to worship whomever and whatever they worshipped before the missionaries arrived?

Jesus never forced anyone to called him or worship him as God.
So it follows no one should be forced to accept him as God.
Yes....It would have been better if Africans were left to their own Cultural God/s and come to Christianity through the examples of how Christians live their Lives.

[blugiant]

Letter from King Leopold II of Belgium to Colonial Missionaries, 1883
The letter which follows is Courtesy of Dr. Vera Nobles and Dr. Chiedozie Okoro.

“Reverends, Fathers and Dear Compatriots: The task that is given to fulfill is very delicate and requires much tact. You will go certainly to evangelize, but your evangelization must inspire above all Belgium interests. Your principal objective in our mission in the Congo is never to teach the niggers to know God, this they know already. They speak and submit to a Mungu, one Nzambi, one Nzakomba, and what else I don’t know. They know that to kill, to sleep with someone else’s wife, to lie and to insult is bad. Have courage to admit it; you are not going to teach them what they know already. Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world. For these things, you have to keep watch on disinteresting our savages from the richness that is plenty [in their underground. To avoid that, they get interested in it, and make you murderous] competition and dream one day to overthrow you.

Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like “Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven” and, “It’s very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.” You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives courage to affront us. I make reference to their Mystic System and their war fetish-warfare protection-which they pretend not to want to abandon, and you must do everything in your power to make it disappear.

Your action will be directed essentially to the younger ones, for they won’t revolt when the recommendation of the priest is contradictory to their parent’s teachings. The children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul. You must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read and not to reason. There, dear patriots, are some of the principles that you must apply. You will find many other books, which will be given to you at the end of this conference. Evangelize the niggers so that they stay forever in submission to the white colonialists, so they never revolt against the restraints they are undergoing. Recite every day-“Happy are those who are weeping because the kingdom of God is for them.”

Convert always the blacks by using the whip. Keep their women in nine months of submission to work freely for us. Force them to pay you in sign of recognition-goats, chicken or eggs-every time you visit their villages. And make sure that niggers never become rich. Sing every day that it’s impossible for the rich to enter heaven. Make them pay tax each week at Sunday mass. Use the money supposed for the poor, to build flourishing business centres. Institute a confessional system, which allows you to be good detectives denouncing any black that has a different consciousness contrary to that of the decision-maker. Teach the niggers to forget their heroes and to adore only ours. Never present a chair to a black that comes to visit you. Don’t give him more than one cigarette. Never invite him for dinner even if he gives you a chicken every time you arrive at his house.

“The above speech which shows the real intention of the Christian missionary journey in Africa was exposed to the world by Mr. Moukouani Muikwani Bukoko, born in the Congo in 1915, and who in 1935 while working in the Congo, bought a second hand Bible from a Belgian priest who forgot the speech in the Bible. — Dr. Chiedozie Okoro

We should note:
1] that all missionaries carried out, and still carry out, that mandate. We are only lucky to have found King Leopold’s articulation of the aim of all Christian imperialist missionaries to Africa.

2] Even the African converts who today manage the older churches in Africa (the priests, bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals etc of the Roman and Protestant sects), and especially also those who evangelize Born-Again Christianity, still serve the same mandate. Which is why they demonize African gods and Anglicize African names, and drop the names of African deities which form part of African names; and still attack and demolish the African shrines that have managed to survive, e.g. Okija.

3] Those Africans who voluntarily converted to Christianity before the colonial conquest such as Affonso I of the BaKongo in the 15th century probably did not discern the purpose of the brand of Christianity that was supplied to them. Which was probably why they fell easy prey to the missionaries and the white traders and pirates who followed them.

But their Japanese counterparts probably did discern the game, even without access to some version of Leopold’s letter. But even if the Japanese Shoguns did not intuit what Leopold makes explicit, they clearly realized the danger of Japanese converts to Christianity forming a fifth column within Japanese society and state, a fifth column loyal to their co-religionists in Europe. To rid Japan of that danger, in the late 16th century, the Shoguns began their expulsion of Portuguese and Spanish missionaries on the grounds that they were forcing Japanese to become Christian, teaching their disciples to wreck temples, taking and trading slaves, etc. Then, in 1596, it became clear to the Japanese authorities that Christianization had been a prelude to Spanish conquest of other lands; and it quickly dawned on them that a fifth column loyal to Rome and controlled by the priests of a foreign religion was a clear and present danger to the sovereignty of a newly unified Japan. Soon after, the persecution and suppression of Japanese Christians began. Early in the 17th century, sensing the danger from a creed that taught obedience to foreign priests rather than the Japanese authorities, all missionaries were ordered to leave and all Japanese were ordered to register at the Buddhist temples. When Japanese Christians took part in a rebellion, foreign priests were executed, the Spanish were expelled and Japanese Christians were forbidden to travel abroad. After another rebellion, largely by Christians, was put down, the Japanese Christians were suppressed and their descendants were put under close state surveillance for centuries thereafter. In the 1640s all Japanese suspected of being Christians were ruthlessly exterminated. Thus did Japan, by 1650, save itself from the first European attempt to mentally subvert, conquer and colonize it.

4] The African captives who were taken abroad and enslaved, and the Africans at home after the European conquest, having already been forcibly deprived of their autonomy, were in no political position to resist Christianization. Thus the Christianity still practised in all of the African American diaspora, just as that in the African homeland since the start of the 20th century, continues to carry out the Leopoldian mandate.
Hence, for example, whereas the White Born-Agains of the USA, when in the US Navy ships in WWII, sang:

“Praise the Lord,
And pass the ammunition,” the attitude of African Born-Again converts today is best summed up as :
“Praise the Lord,
And lie down for the manna.”

Thanks to a century or more of this Leopold-mandated missionary mind control, African Christians are not an activist, self-helping, economically engaged, politically resolute, let alone militant bunch. Hence their putting up with all manner of mistreatment and exploitation by their misrulers, white and black. The most they are disposed to do to their misrulers is to admonish them to “Fear God!”—as one protester’s miserable placard read in last week’s Lagos demonstration against the latest of the murderous fuel price hikes by the OBJ Misgovernment. The idea of an uprising to tame their misrulers is alien to the religiously opiated frame of mind of the Nigerians.

5] The lesson in the contrast between an Africa that the Christian missionaries brainwashed and subverted, and a Japan where this brainwashing and subversion was forcibly prevented, is stark and clear. What then must Africans of today begin to do to save themselves from brainwashing by their White World enemies here on earth?—That is the question.

[blugiant]

Are You Worshipping the Right God? The Anti-Christianity Post
1 Posted by NWSO - March 4, 2013 - Uncategorized

[dc]I[/dc] recently read an article that said that the Black community is the most religious racial group in America. That’s not so hard to believe considering how much the church is a part of the African-American lifestyle—especially in the South. Now whether or not everyone who goes to church acts like a saint in his/her everyday life is a whole other topic.

But as I thought on the statistic and how I’ve come across so many people of color who are diehard Bible thumpers or just merely devoutly aligned with their faith, I thought back to something I learned in college. During one of my African Literature classes, I remember reading two important books: The first being Things Fall Apart by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe (1958), and the second being The Poor Christ of Bomba by Cameroon author Mongo Beti (1956).

While I may not recall the stories as vividly as I when I first read them, I do know that both novels detailed the European colonization of African villages during the Middle Passage. A big part of that story—especially in The Poor Christ of Bomba—was the introduction of Christianity to these “savages” and how religion played a major role in assimilating them to European ideologies and the institution of slavery.

Prior to this, the indigenous people of African had their own set of beliefs that guided them through their way of life. That was until colonization ripped through the continent and a new belief system was forced upon the people of Africa. Those who refused to be “saved” likely died for their steadfast belief in the heathen ways of their ancestors. In the minds of many colonists and missionaries, they were merely “helping” these poor souls to see the light that was Christianity.

The funny thing is, though, that’s it’s been well documented that during slavery times people of color were not even deemed as human beings and more like beasts of burden, but yet in still slave masters felt so inclined to “save the souls” of their property. I never recalled any stories of colonists trying to baptize cattle. So maybe somewhere deep down inside they did recognize a man, woman or child like their own standing before them, but just didn’t want to admit it. But I digress…

I’m sure some will argue me on this point, but my belief is that Christianity was used during slavery as a brainwashing tool to strip African slaves of their history and break them down mentally. They were already ripped from their homes, and literally dragged half way around the world to a foreign land where members of different clans, countries and dialects were culled together to do manual labor. Their birth names were stripped from them, their families were torn apart, and ultimately their varying belief systems that went back for generations were erased from their lives. In their place were European surnames, splintered allegiances to relative strangers that happened to look like them, and a brand new God.

This is what leads me to the question of whether or not Black people are worshipping the right God? Before crucifying me in the comments section, first hear me out. If my ancestors—whoever they may be as the average person of color can only trace his/her lineage back a few generations before history gets lost in the Atlantic—had their own set of beliefs that contradicted the teachings of Christianity, who is to say that what we as a people believe today is our true religion? If not for slavery, many of us wouldn’t even know let alone believe in the story of Jesus Christ dying on a cross for our sins. So if our great great great great great great… grandparents believed in the teachings of Yoruba or any other African religion before the Middle Passage, who is to say that wasn’t what we should be believing now?

African-Americans might be the most religious racial group, but is it possible that our faith is based on a lie? A robbery of truth? Could it be that the reason why we as a people are so religious is because that’s all we had left to cling to after everything that connected us to our true roots was taken away? And that even when slavery was legally ended that in this new world of opportunity, the only sense of community our fractured people had was to believe in the teachings of master just because everything else had been erased.

I’m of the school of thought that two arguments you will never win are those about politics and religion. The reason being because they are at the root of people’s belief systems and when you question someone on that you question who they are. It’s no easy pill for anyone to swallow when you ask them to rethink what they and they mama-n-’em have known to be the only possible truth for as far back as they can remember. But in the case of African-Americans as well as many Caribbean-Americans and Latinos, there was a time before when the image of God wasn’t a man with blonde hair and blue eyes. Their Higher Power embodied elements that reflected their own features and differed from what we now know today.

I don’t say/write any of this to throw stones at anyone’s belief system because it’s our God-given right as human beings to believe in whatever we want. We all have a choice to comply with or convert from the teachings of our parents, but I just wanted to point out that your parent’s parent’s parents may not have had the same luxury. So the Good Book you turn to and quote Scriptures from may not be the same one your ancestors relied on, but if it helps get you through the tough times the more power to you. Because it’s better to believe in something—even a lie—than to live a faithless life, right?

Just something to think about.

So, what do you think: Are African-Americans worshipping the right God? Are you surprised that people of color are the most religious racial group in America? Do you believe that that’s because of slavery’s impact? If you were able to find out your ancestor’s religion would you consider converting? What do you think would happen to your soul if you converted from your current religion to another?

http://nwso.net/2013/03/04/worshipping-the-right-god/

[Tropicana]

imagine blakks peeps ar still defendinn religions dat were used to teach blakk peeps to bow to addar peeps god. grannies ann mothers tekkinn dem yuths to oyinbo church fe teach dem morals ann oyinbo dogmas.

soo wat oonnoo tink do religions brainwash people?

Within the Jamaican context, this is a myth, a lie and a total fabrication straight from the pits of hell to discredit the Lord. MANY have been decived by it. In fact, the plantation owners were against the work that the missionaries and minsters were doing. They were upset that they were educating the "slaves" and teaching them about their value as human beings in the eyes of god. As a result, many faced death threats.

Here is one example:

Missionary Triumph over Slavery: William Kibb, and Jamaican Emancipation

ARTICLE BY MICHAEL HAYKIN SEPTEMBER 2006
William Knibb (1803-1845) is rightly remembered as one of the great heroes of Baptist history for the key role that he played in the emancipation of the slaves in the British Empire in the 1820s and 1830s. In fact, so powerful was his championship of this cause that some called him "King Knibb"! Unlike many of the earlier abolitionists who fought for the end of the slave trade, Knibb had first-hand knowledge of slavery, having been a missionary pastor in Jamaica. But like many other remarkable figures of our Baptist heritage, there is little currently in print about his story. This slim book by Peter Masters--which draws principally on the classic biography of Knibb by John Howard Hinton (1791-1873)--is therefore very welcome.
In a very brief compass--45 pages in total, of which 19 are occupied by lovely illustrations--Masters relates Knibb's story.[i] His ministry in Jamaica was strewn with challenges, especially the fierce resistance put up by the slave-owners on the island to his preaching and that of his two key co-workers, the Baptist ministers Thomas Burchell (1799-1846) and James Phillippo (1798-1879).[ii] Knibb and his friends experienced imprisonment and severe indignities, and saw eleven of the island's Baptist churches torched and destroyed.[iii] Knibb returned to England in 1832 to make known the plight of the slaves and defend himself and his friends against charges leveled against them by slave-owners on the island. He was determined not to "rest, day or night" till he had seen slavery "destroyed, root and branch."[iv]
What is amazing about God's use of Knibb in this great endeavour is that the Baptist leader initially doubted his calling to preach. On one occasion, writing to his brother Thomas Knibb, who preceded him to Jamaica as a missionary but died but fifteen months after his arrival, William wrote:
I do not feel I could be ordained... Preaching does not seem my element... Search me, O my God! ...O may I never be a cumberer of the ground.[v]
Yet within a few months of writing this, Knibb was on his way to Jamaica where he became an effective preacher. And during his time in England from 1832 to 1834, Knibb's impassioned oratory made an enormous contribution to the ending of slavery. As Masters notes, "Knibb's public addresses had a power altogether overwhelming."[vi] On one occasion, when cautioned about the political waves he was making--not all English Baptists were convinced that slavery was as heinous as Knibb knew--Knibb declared, "Whatever the consequences, I will speak... At the risk of my connexion with the [Baptist Missionary] Society, and of all that I hold dear, I will avow this."[vii]
Masters rightly emphasizes that Knibb was driven by his love for the slaves in Jamaica and his desire for not only their temporal betterment, but also their eternal welfare. Masters writes:
William Knibb, above all, was an evangelist. A true lover of lost souls, he was a child of that wonderful and long season of church history, when Calvinists were activists and soul-winners, and when young men proved themselves for the Gospel ministry by street preaching and ragged-school evangelism. Knibb learned his missionary zeal in that golden age, believing that a missionary should never stand still. To such labourers the Lord came down in sovereign mercy and touched their lips to preach an irresistible call of mercy.[viii]
Proof of Knibb's evangelistic passion was his translation of the Scriptures into Jamaican Creole.[ix] In fact, Knibb dreamed of freed Jamaicans taking the gospel back to Africa. As he prayed in a letter of 1839, "O my Heavenly Father...save poor, benighted...Africa." He went on: "My affection for Africa may seem extravagant. I cannot help it. I dream of it every night, nor can I think of anything else."[x]
Knibb died on November 15, 1845, after contracting yellow fever. As Masters notes, his life well illustrates the folly of the modern argument that "Christian missionaries of the past were tools of colonial oppression."[xi] It also gives the lie to the unexamined belief that Calvinism is incompatible with missionary passion. O for more William Knibbs!

- See more at: http://www.reformation21.org/shelf-l....nI17wtKk.dpuf

http://www.reformation21.org/shelf-life/missionary-triumph-over-slavery-william-kibb-and-jamaican-emancipation.php

[franksterr]

Within the Jamaican context, this is a myth, a lie and a total fabrication straight from the pits of hell to discredit the Lord. MANY have been decived by it. In fact, the plantation owners were against the work that the missionaries and minsters were doing. They were upset that they were educating the "slaves" and teaching them about their value as human beings in the eyes of god. As a result, many faced death threats.

Here is one example:


Unlike many of the earlier abolitionists who fought for the end of the slave trade, Knibb had first-hand knowledge of slavery, having been a missionary pastor in Jamaica.


Knibb's impassioned oratory made an enormous contribution to the ending of slavery. As Masters notes, "Knibb's public addresses had a power altogether overwhelming."[vi] On one occasion, when cautioned about the political waves he was making--not all English Baptists were convinced that slavery was as heinous as Knibb knew--Knibb declared, "Whatever the consequences, I will speak... At the risk of my connexion with the [Baptist Missionary] Society, and of all that I hold dear, I will avow this."[vii]





http://www.reformation21.org/shelf-l...ancipation.php

Knibb was a part of the Abolitionist movement and his type of preaching ran contrary to the baptist society. As a whole baptist missionaries were not abolitionist which caused a schism and fomented the Sam Sharpe rebellion also known as the Baptist war.
Abolitionist Movement in Jamaica was started by George Liele (as far as I can remember) a freed American slave preacher. Before George Liele all or most establish forms of Christianity in Jamaica supported slavery and used the religion to promote the institution of slavery.