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Credulous people fishing


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The religious sirens

To come back to religion, if the preacher is cunning and knows how to use, in a natural way or because he has acquired this training, all the artifices of communication, he manages to create a climate of confidence and of adhesion out of proportion with the bottom of his speech. In that way evangelists are as effective to sell Bible and Jesus as a car dealer to sell the latest design.

Since centuries, religions have had time to get broken in to the techniques of charming:

From attraction to commitment: love connection and God encounter

I find, and it is only a personal opinion, there is a great similarity between love connection and the "discovery of a religion" for an adult. It is the case, for example, of the evangelical "born-again" (Christians having lived a "second birth" after a "direct contact" with Jesus), of the "God’s fools", of the fans of Jean-Paul 2 and of all those saying they have encounter God...

Characteristics of love connection
"God encounter"
It is necessary to be in a certain state of mind like, for example, at the end of a waiting or of a personal search, in a particular context that places man in a potential state to fall in love. One often says that the love at first sight is preceded by a "twilight state", of a feeling of vacuum that places the person in a situation of availability. It is a similar inner state that predisposes to recognize the positive values in religion or in the preacher’s speech.
Unconscious selection of some partner's characteristics that are considered as formidable, exceptional, impressive (in the literal meaning: who impress, who mark) and who will trigger the love at first sight. About the discourse of religion, one retains in priority what replies to expectations: the promise of salvation, a sense to the life, a rigid frame that takes charge of one’s by removing the worry of thinking...
The love at first sight is a true hypnosis. The lover is fascinated, affected, upset. The beloved one is idealized. It is the Stendhal’s "crystallization" process in love attributing every quality to the least acts or words of the beloved one: "I call "crystallization" that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events." (Stendhal / 1783-1842 / Of love, 1822) It is the phase of discovery of the religion where everything is seen through rose-coloured glasses, where everything squares to the expectations of the believer. When one said to him he is beaming, he answers it is normal: "I am illuminated by God".
The love at first sight is followed by a stage of implication and of intense communication where the beloved one is discovered; it is the idyll. In this stage, the lover selects by the beloved one only what interests him and strengthens him in his amazement. He seeks all signs able to reassure him on the fact to be loved. The new believer commits himself intensely in his religion. Happy, captivated, he becomes an enthusiastic follower desirous that the others share his faith.
The lover is beside himself onto "another planet", in the figurative sense. He forgets his banal and egoistic worries and acquires a new sensitivity to the things of life. World is organized around the single and irreplaceable beloved one. The new believer is literally born a second time, he becomes a "born-again". He gives without counting all his energy to his new religion.
To describe the state of ecstasy in which he is, the lover has to use a poetic, symbolic, mythical language however the ordinary language appears to him inappropriate. It is the lyric enthusiasm that inspires all these professions of faith overflowing the shelves of bookstores.
The will to please (to be loved in return) led, owing to the trust in the beloved one, to adopt his point of view (empathy) and to re-examine the image the lover has of himself and consequently to change. He is George W Bush saved of alcoholism, she is the sinner of Gospel pulled out of the gutter, they are the women "in love with Jesus" which cut themselves off from world in convents.

Those who say they have met God, do they not quite simply fall in love with a chimera?
A love at first sight that illuminates more than it lights!



From these some considerations, it is absolutely not the question of deducing that one has to be wary in communication with the other ones, but rather the necessity to show a minimum of vigilance and to know how to identify the risky situations.


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