Who ever controls information that public uses to make most important decisions can, partially, if not completely, control decisions made by the public. This was supposed to be the reason why the first Amendment was passed; however, we've allowed over 95% of national media to be consolidated into the hands of six corporations, controlled by a small fraction of 1% of the public rigging the economy in their own favor.
These six corporations use their control of the media to tell us which candidates we should consider for political office, by simply refusing to cover those gaining support at grassroots level, preventing them from getting name recognition and providing obsession coverage for numerous candidates that cater to their interests, and study how to manipulate the public making promises during campaigns, that they routinely break once in office.
They also routinely control the fiscal ideology avoiding mentioning many of the most fundamental principles of economics while pushing deceptive claims to convince people to buy overpriced crap they don't need, and depriving them of the information that exposes their fraud. One simple thing that they never mention is the fact that advertiser don't maximize profits by telling the truth; instead they rely on the most basic fundamental or propaganda, "a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth," or at least it seems to, especially if it's not challenged by opposing views.
This also applies to the insurance industry, which is fundamentally a system of pooled risk, and they never mention these basics of this. Everyone pitches in a small amount to the pool of money; a modest amount of this is used for administration costs which can't be completely eliminated; then the rest is used to pay out when people need it. We're told they increase efficiency by competing, yet the way they compete is spending an enormous amount of money from that pool on advertising; and they all also divert a lot of it to high CEO pay, massive profits for investors, lobbying against the interests of the public, partly to deprive them of the information they need to recognized how flawed this system is and how Single Payer with disclosure can work much better.
The list simple lies the establishment indoctrinate the public to believe that can be exposed with relatively small amount of research goes on much longer including convincing people to support wars based on lies, teachers are trying to betray children through their unions, an economic system that tell us that shipping subsidized cotton half way around the world to be processed by sweatshop labor before being shipped back through complicated distribution system is efficient, and much more. they also study the most effective propaganda tactics going back hundreds if not thousands of years, including Machiavelli Edward Bernays, and many more modern political research including some of the tactics virtually confessed to by Frank Luntz in his book "Words That Work" and the leaked E-mails from the DNC and Podesta.
In other words the government works with the consolidated corporate media to control the public by controlling the bullshit they use to make decisions!
And this isn't a new practice at all; although the tactics have evolved over the centuries governments have been controlling the masses by controlling the bullshit they use to make decisions since the ancient Romans, Egyptians, Assyrians, and other cultures, including many that collapsed as a result of fanatical ideologies leading to wars and building massive monuments that ignore the needs of the people.
Historically, the official version of truth has routinely been dictated to the masses mixed up with mythology about one god or another teaching blind obedience, and often intimidating harassing or beating and killing people that dare challenge the beliefs dictated to them from their leaders.
Frankly, most religious people admit that Egyptian, Greece-Roman, Mayan, Assyrian and many other so-called Pagan religions are all full of Bullshit, at least mostly, although there are many major unsolved mysteries surrounding these religions and some of their construction projects that probably wasn't possible with ancient technology. However they refuse to acknowledge incredibly obvious flaws about their own religion.
Furthermore, instead of teaching their own kids to develop critical thinking skills, many of the most coercive religions raise their kids in an abusive environment combined with an indoctrination process dictating an irrational beliefs system that they're not allowed to question. One of the biggest, most obvious flaws, is the assumption that their religion should be dictated by leaders without allowing it to be subject to critical review, with the possible exception of religious leaders that accept most of the flaws without question anyway.
Another major assumption that almost all religions make is that their God is a credible reliable source of morality, that is looking out for our best interests, assuming he exists at all. Epicurus raised major doubts about this thousands of years ago when he said:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
This relatively simple set of conclusions, which will stand up to scrutiny, although many religious people might make incredibly bad arguments refuting it, clearly indicates that God can't possibly be looking out for our best interests, and almost certainly has an undisclosed motive for inspiring religions, assuming he exists and that religious people didn't make him up, as most atheists consider likely.
The least God could do is let us know that many of the most fanatical religious wars or persecutions weren't what he meant at all, which wouldn't require an all-powerful God, which almost certainly doesn't exist!
One of the methods of indoctrination often used by religious leaders comes from something that sounds good but is often twisted before it's put in practice like when Jesus allegedly said "you will come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free" John 8:32 however when you read the prior verses and later ones it's clear that he's claiming that they'll be set free as long as they believe what they're told, and there are repeated verses saying that he agrees with past biblical teachings, many of which were outrageous, and came up with additional verses of his own that were clearly designed to indoctrinate the masses, not teach them to develop critical thinking skills.
God, or those claiming to speak for him, repeatedly teaches blind obedience throughout the Bible including in Exodus 14:4 where he allegedly says "I shall then make Pharaoh stubborn" then goes on to use this as an excuse to "win glory for myself at the expense of Pharaoh and his whole army." If you accept this hypothetical version then this is a clear case of entrapment and God is incredibly egotistical control freak!
Numerous other Bible verses raise major doubts about whether or not it's a reliable source of morality including Numbers 15:32-6 where they stone someone to death just for gathering sticks on the holy day, and Numbers 16:3,32-35, where a group of people questioned whether or not Moses and Aaron were taking to much power for themselves, and instead of negotiating a fair deal or explaining why this was justified God allegedly arranges for the "earth to swallow" some of these men and fire shot out and "consumed two hundred and fifty men" for questioning their leaders showing the rest of the followers that they should always blindly obey without developing critical thinking skills, assuming you accept this as the literal truth.
And in Deuteronomy 9:4-6 makes it clear that he's not rewarding the Israelis for good deeds but punishing others for bad deeds, although they're not specified, and indicating that their previous pact with their ancestors may be more important than teaching morality when he allegedly says, "Do not think to yourself, once Yahweh your God has driven them before you, 'Yahweh has brought me into possession of this country because I am upright,' when Yahweh is dispossessing these nations for you, because they do wrong. ...... for you are an obstinate people." Anyone with a minimal amount of rational thinking skills should recognize how seriously flawed many of these claims to be a higher moral authority are, but critical thinking skills are discouraged starting at a very early age before children even begin to develop them.
There are several verses, especially in the Proverbs attributed to Solomon, who's considered wise because he threatened to cut a child in half when two women were fighting over him. One of these verses is Proverbs 23:13-4 which says "Do not be chary of correcting a child, a stroke of the cane is not likely to be fatal. Give him a stroke of the cane, you will save his soul from Sheol." I'm very skeptical that it helps save his soul but whether this is true or not it causes an enormous amount of emotional pressure on small children intimidating them at an early age teaching them to blindly obey orders and believe what they're told based on emotional reasons instead of developing critical thinking skills.
It also teaches children that it's acceptable for bigger people to use violence against smaller people to get blind obedience, and children raised this was are much more likely to grow up violent. In the past several decades as they've banned the use of corporal punishment in most states in schools this has provided additional evidence showing this teaches violence. The nineteen remaining states that still allow it in schools, and presumably also use it more in homes as well, have murder rates that are, on average 22%-32% higher than the states no longer allowing it in schools for at least the past ten years with the biggest difference coming in 2018, which is the last year of complete records, as I pointed out in Research On Preventing Violence Absent From National Media. This is major factor in the indoctrination process that prevents kids from developing critical thinking skills and recognize the emotional appeals and lies from their government and religious leaders.
In some cases Jesus also reinforces the idea that followers should blindly obey him without checking facts, and showing that he's not as peaceful as the faithful portray him, including in Matthew 10:34-8 where he says "it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword" and he's clearly using divide and rule tactics when he goes on to say, "No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me."
This has led many atheists, and even moderate religious people to wonder if some of the most devout religious people are even familiar with their own Bible.
According to an article from the Christian Science Monitor, In US, atheists know religion better than believers. Is that bad? 09/28/2010 This was based on a study they didn't link to but could easily be found on the internet, U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey Executive Summary. 09/28/2010 This poll also included sample questions about general knowledge and found that Atheists/agnostics and Jews did best on both the religious and general knowledge questions. They also found that among religious people those with the most commitment did better on religious questions, but those with less religious commitment did better on general knowledge questions.
For what it's worth I got twenty-eight out of thirty-two right, and one of those was based on a correct guess; when filling it out, I actually got twenty-nine; but there's no way I would have known that Jonathan Edwards was part of the First Great Awakening if the article I read just before taking the survey didn't give away three answers, the other two that I would have gotten anyway.
Apparently only 57% of protestants were able to name or guess the four gospels when the two incorrect answers were, Matthew, James, Luke, John; and Jude, James, Timothy, Luke. according to the Monitor article Fuller Seminary President Richard Mouw was very concerned that people didn't know the name of these books; however, Wilhelmina Jenkins was less concerned saying, "If you asked people, ‘What’s the fundamental bottom line in Christianity?’ Most people would tell you, ‘Jesus said to love God and love your neighbor.’ I don’t think most people would have any trouble knowing that."
Ironically, even though I'm not sure how important it is to memorize the names of the first four books of the Bible, especially for non-Christians, I agree more with Mouw than I do with Jenkins, even though the limited quotes she provided are good morals. The most common moral cited in recent history, that I know of is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and according to the study between 50% and 60% of Americans knew it wasn't one of the ten commandments and only came into the Judo/Christian/Muslim religion when Jesus said it in the New Testament, although there were similar statements from earlier religious writings, including some Jewish ones. The bigger problem is these few rational morals that stand up to scrutiny are only a fraction of the verses in the Bible. When Jenkins cites this without reviewing the rest of the Bible, and all it's flaws it gives the impression that this is typical of the morals taught in the Bible, which it isn't the Bible is far more about control than it is about teaching rational morals.
I went into this more in The Biblical "God" Is A Brainwashing Cult Leader! where I explained additional methods that the Bible teaches to indoctrinate and control people for the benefit of their leaders, whether or not God actually exists. Even if he doesn't exist the majority of the public believe in him so they trust the leaders that claim to speak for him more than they trust sincere people giving them rational advise. If he does exist, however, then by declining to maintain an open line of communication, at a minimum, he's giving tactic approval to the lies told in his name; if he's also influencing some of these leaders, in mysterious ways then he's providing active support for these lies.
Contrary to what most religious people choose to believe, mysterious ways are not honest ways!
This should raise major doubts about God's agenda and what he's trying to accomplish, assuming he exists. If he is influencing religion the clear implication is that he's using the human race for his own objective which isn't in our best interests, which indicates that he doesn't deserve to be worshiped; and that we should only obey his alleged orders when they also happen to be in our own best interests!
But whether or not he exists governments throughout history have almost always been run based on his perceived commandments or other orders. People have been taught to blindly obey orders from religious leaders claiming to represent God even when it's primary based on bullshit!
The United States was supposed to change that with the separation of Church and State; however, even though there has been some improvement at times religion has always had a major impact on people thought processes and political decisions, and has been used to encourage them to continue trusting their leaders and even fighting wars based on lies.
On top of that there have been plenty of non-religious methods of indoctrination that the elite educated ruling class have studied to manipulate the masses. Some of this goes back centuries before the United States was established, including political ideology described by Niccolò Machiavelli about five hundred years ago and more modern propagandists including Edward Bernays, Frank Luntz and many more are constantly trying to study how to manipulate the masses, as I pointed out in Modern Day Machiavelli & Bernays Propaganda On Steroids!
However, even though many modern secular propagandists probably don't believe in God, they recognize that the majority of the public do and the most effective way of indoctrinating the public involves catering to their religious beliefs, and in some cases, when they recognize that it may not work they study different tactics for different groups of people, including secular people. some of the most common tactics are the same ones recommended by Machiavelli five hundred years ago; keeping the citizens poor, so they can control their resources; keep them emotional so they can lure them into wars based on lies; and controlling the education process so that the masses can't learn how to recognize how the economic and political system is being rigged against them.
These tactics, alone, don't always work, so they have a long series of additional tactics and are constantly studying new methods. Other tactics include encouraging celebrity worship, including an obsession with sports, while refusing to provide coverage of the best academics, on any given subject, to teach the public, instead they arrange for athletes and actors to make recommendations, which are routinely in their own financial best interests, not the best interests of their fans.
And one of the most common tactic, is of course, divide and rule constantly catering to people's prejudices. Many of these prejudices have their roots in religion, different cultures, or partly ignorance, poverty or desperation. When the wealthy rig the economy in their own favor and the poor can't retaliate against them they often fight among each other, which plays into the hands of the ruling class and they even encourage it with demagogues like Donald Trump, who pretends to be anti-establishment, and many other demagogues are trying to rant against him to convince the public they're actually on their side. However both Trump and traditional politicians routinely cater to the same wealthy members of the ruling class even though some of them routinely come up with propaganda to make them look like they're challenging the establishment.
Since large portions of common religious beliefs clearly don't hold up to basic scrutiny, except to those that have been indoctrinated to believe what they're told based on emotional appeal, many secular people seem to assume that God doesn't exist at all, even if politicians and propagandists pretend they do believe in him. And, of course, skeptics routinely claim that extraordinary claims, including a belief in God, require extraordinary evidence. The evidence clearly discredits basic beliefs about religion, since a benevolent God would have communicated all along instead of working in mysterious ways that often ignore basic science and lead to atrocious outcomes, including wars and religious conflict; however, there might be extraordinary evidence that points to a major unsolved mystery that could include an advanced intelligence that might not have an agenda that is in our best interests all the time.
As I pointed out in 107 Wonders of the Ancient World ancient civilizations moved massive megaliths hundreds of tons with ancient technology, including at least two, the Colossi of Memnon weighing 720 tons that were moved 420 miles to a slightly higher altitude, according to the secular explanation of history; however, experiments limited to the use of technology available failed to move megaliths bigger than ten tons more than a small distance, with experiments between ten and forty tons they cheated just to get them on a sledge, had enormous problems with broken ropes, sledges or other issues, and at best only moved the megaliths a few feet certainly no more than twenty for one that weighed twenty five tins, and they din't even try anything bigger than forty.
From a scientific point of view the appropriate way of handling this would be to admit that we have a major unsolved mystery at least, and that it may have a major impact on the development of our society. that's not what the establishment does; instead they come up with lots of hype to distract public from this major unsolved mystery, and they allow the History Channel to take the lead on trying to explain this with their Ancient Aliens theorists who make so many blunders that few rational people will believe them. However, mixed in with those blunders just might be a few small pieces of the truth.
This is enough to narrow things down; either there's something to this theory, although the version on the History Channel need an enormous amount of work; or the establishment is allowing this show to go on the air for the past decade, plus prior shows covering a similar theme to convince people that there is even when there isn't.
Either way there's an enormous amount of bullshit in the discussion of this topic and just about every other topic as well. If there is something to it, though then if we work out the details it might explain how the megaliths were moved and indicate what the motive is for the unknown advanced intelligence, whether it's Ancient Aliens or not; and it could explain how may mystics were able to influence various religions throughout the centuries, and many other major unsolved mysteries, including of course UFOs.
This could also explain the incredibly rapid development of technology since the end of Workld War II, especially when you consider Philip Corso's claims in his best selling book "The Day After Roswell" where he says that he shared technology retrieved from alien craft with corporations for decades after the Roswell crash and numerous other incidents where they allegedly retrieved additional technology. There's no guarantee that it's completely true but if it's partly true then it's almost certainly part of a bigger pattern of behavior with other people also sharing technology. This could also show how there could be some benefit to this in the future, assuming it's disclosed and shared fairly. there may already be some benefit to some people as a result of this technology; however, it's being controlled by a small fraction of the public, whether it comes from aliens or not, and those not controlling it are often used for research purposes, without receiving any benefits from it.
If there's something to this then it could be part of a massive research project that goes back thousands of years, possibly involving some degree of communication with the aliens and powerful people in the corporate and government establishment since World war II; the research could include medical research and research into climate change, among other things as I pointed out in Hurricane Apocalypse Coming With or Without Fringe Conspiracy Theory and Spectacular Heart Transplant for Sophia But at What Cost and several other related articles.
Tim Flannery, who isn't an Ancient Aliens Conspiracy Theorist, author of "The Weather Makers" 2007 may provide some evidence to show that some degree of Geoengineering is possible and may already be happening, although not necessarily intentionally. He sites numerous methods that man has used to influence the environment, including events that took place from September 11 to 14, when airplanes were grounded and the average global daytime temperatures spiked by 2° during that period without any difference in the night time temperatures. the only explanation that scientists could come up with was that the lack of contrails caused it since they supposedly reflected the sun back into space cooling the planet slightly. He recommended that we eliminate these contrails eventually but not until after we solve the problem of excessive use of carbon-dioxide.
This isn't to be confused with Chem-trails that many conspiracy theorists claim are being used as part of a Geoengineering project. The explanation that Flannery provides for contrails is relatively simple and seems credible; the explanation for Chem-trails is more complicated, assuming it's real at all, and comes from sources that have credibility problems, at least that I've seen. I don't have the background to either rule this in or out, and if I thought the establishment was being honest with us, I would recommend the views of the scientific skeptics; however, there's reason to believe they're not being honest so I consider this inconclusive at best. This is just two of many known method that might be used to impact the climate or the weather. The details aren't nearly as dramatic as science fiction or fantasy, so I wouldn't expect a vast weather control apparatus or a superhero that can magically control the weather; however, there's enough to indicate that some limited control of the environment is possible and finding out how much would require research.
There's no doubt that there's additional research going into Geoengineering for future attempts to reverse Climate Change; however, Climate Change itself is a form of Geoengineering although it's not officially intentional. But if there were Ancient Aliens or some other unknown advanced intelligence around for thousands of years, and if research into climate Change was their objective all along, there's a chance they might have wanted to study it while it was happening so they wouldn't have wanted to prevent it, and may have even created it intentionally.
This clearly wouldn't have been in the short term, or perhaps even long term, the best interest of the majority of the public; so they would have wanted to withhold accurate research about the subject so they can act against the best interests of the public. I know there are alleged prophecies that claim that the world will come to great calamity and almost be destroyed but then it will be restored. These prophecies are rarely ever presented in a credible manner; however, if there were an unknown advanced intelligence with a long term plan he could have influenced these prophecies to advance his agenda, although that doesn't guarantee that this is his plan.
One possibility is that it is; and that after they conduct their research into Climate Change and some degree of whether manipulation, although not nearly as extreme as many myths or conspiracy theories, they could be planning to repair the planet. If that's the case, then it could even involve rigging elections for candidates that make it worse when it suits their purposes, like George Bush and Donald Trump, along with all past presidents, although some have pretended to try to solve the problem; then when they really do want to begin to repair the planet they might rig the elections for someone that actually wants to solve the problem, perhaps trying to make it seem like it's not being rigged this time, and that this candidate, perhaps even Bernie Sanders, is actually overcoming attempts to rig elections by greedy corporations.
If this is the case, even though there's still an enormous amount of deception going on it would be appropriate to help that candidate, when he's doing the right thing, and push for much more disclosure and implementing solutions that he might not be focusing on.
However, there's at least one other possibility that we should consider. It may also be possible that the Ancient Aliens led people to believe this was the plan and that we would be able to live happily ever after, once they found away to explain this massive scam to the public, and they get over their outrage, to get their cooperation, even though they might have additional research for their own purposes which could be much more destructive than they led people to believe.
This is all the more reason we should be focusing on repairing the damage as soon as possible based on the science that we can be most certain of. It's also all the more reason why we need a much better effort to educate the vast majority of the public about this subject and every other scientific subject, although most people will only be able to study one or two subjects in depth, and this should include political science and propaganda being used to manipulate the public.
In order to have a functioning democracy to benefit all people, not just those controlling the government, multinational corporations including the media and other powerful institutions, then everyone needs access to accurate news and education from diverse points of views, sometimes even wrong ones so they can sort through the right ones.
There's no doubt that there's much better research and reporting than what's in the mainstream media; so there should be no doubt that we need a much more diverse media to get this good research to the public; otherwise they'll be able to control the masses by controlling the lies used to make decisions!
