Episode 5
The Intersection of Faith and Manipulation
Tracking Wisdom
Episode 5
The Intersection of Faith and Manipulation
Recorded - 03/21/22
DESCRIPTION
The exploration of weaponized religion in this episode provides a salient critique of the ways in which religious beliefs can be co-opted for nefarious purposes. The speakers engage in a thoughtful examination of the historical context of such manipulation, referencing events like the Crusades to illustrate how faith can be weaponized to justify acts of violence and oppression. They emphasize that these exploits often arise from a cynical interpretation of religious teachings, wherein leaders distort fundamental principles to serve their agendas, thus perpetuating a cycle of hatred and conflict.
Within this framework, the speakers delve into the psychological dimensions of why individuals may embrace these distorted narratives. They discuss the tendency for people to retreat into emotionally charged responses rather than engage in the difficult work of self-reflection and accountability. The conversation highlights how contemporary culture, exacerbated by social media, fosters a climate of fear and divisiveness, making it all too easy for individuals to project their insecurities onto others. This dynamic not only stifles meaningful discourse but also undermines the potential for genuine understanding and compassion among individuals.
In conclusion, the episode serves as an urgent reminder of the importance of critically engaging with one's beliefs and the narratives that circulate within society. The speakers advocate for a shift towards introspection and dialogue, where individuals confront their own biases and judgments rather than seeking scapegoats. By fostering a culture of empathy and understanding, the speakers posit that society can reclaim the transformative power of faith, steering away from the weaponization of religion towards a more harmonious coexistence.
Takeaways:
- The concept of weaponized religion encompasses the manipulation of faith for personal power and agenda.
- Individuals often succumb to emotionally charged narratives, neglecting rational introspection in their beliefs.
- Hateful and aggressive expressions of faith can arise from misguided leaders exploiting followers' fears.
- The misunderstanding of terms like 'jihad' highlights the need for deeper engagement with religious teachings.
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Keywords: weaponized religion, manipulation of narrative, religious extremism, emotional vs intellectual responses, proselytizing beliefs, fear-based religion, hateful religion, manipulation of faith, the Crusades, jihad interpretation, social media impact on religion, religious proselytizing, personal responsibility in religion, understanding religious teachings, emotional triggers in faith, spirituality and manipulation, religious leaders and power, the role of fear in religion, spiritual vs mundane motivations, faith and personal agendas
Transcript
Views, interpretations and opinions expressed are not advice nor official positions presented on behalf of any organization or institution.
Speaker A:They are for informational and entertainment purposes only.
Speaker A:Welcome back.
Speaker A:Today we dive deeper into the concept of weaponized religion, its initiation and propagation, and some characteristics that make us susceptible to the manipulation of narrative.
Speaker A:Now join Ryan and Peter for another episode of the Tracking Wisdom podcast.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So as far as weaponized religion goes, I think you said we were a little divergent on what our concepts were.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So tell me again about what, what you were thinking when you mentioned it.
Speaker B:So I had two thoughts in my head.
Speaker B:One is thinking like the Crusades or whatever, of church sanctioned use of the faith structure.
Speaker B:And then the second is people who tend to, well, like, you know, the Bible thumper kind of thing.
Speaker B:The person who is passionate about their belief and has been taught that this is the right way and it is out of their desire to spread the message and to save people from their ignorance that they go out and they use inflammatory language that.
Speaker B:That is very aggressive.
Speaker B:Aggressive, sure.
Speaker B:Or, you know, like.
Speaker B:And that's where we were talking about, like, the homosexuality thing.
Speaker B:Like, it is a sin and it's in the Bible and God this and, and very factual presentation of.
Speaker B:Of the information.
Speaker B:That's kind of what I was thinking of with.
Speaker B:Welcome.
Speaker A:All right, so, so, but in that case, you're talking about someone who is, I guess, honestly trying to proselytize.
Speaker A:So they're saying, you know, you need to know this because it's good for you.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:I want to save your soul.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Kind of thing.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:And so I was thinking, I guess more along the lines of the Crusades, which were.
Speaker A:I mean, basically it's a, A mundane power grab based on supposedly theological rationale.
Speaker A:Right, That's.
Speaker A:And so that's really what I'm thinking about as, as weaponized religion.
Speaker A:And I gave the examples, and I'm talking about the really pernicious, like, literally killer religions.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Or, or maybe, you know, at least violent as opposed to just the really annoying verbal proselytizer.
Speaker A:But I guess there's also, there's, there's the middle ground of.
Speaker A:I guess I'm not, I'm, I'm not really just focusing on the lethal weaponization, but hateful.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's really what we're talking about, hateful religion.
Speaker A:And, you know, where does it come from?
Speaker A:Why does it perpetuate?
Speaker A:And I think it comes from, you know, the real, the really cynical, abusive practice or position of a bad leader who says, I can manipulate this faith to give myself power to address my personal agenda, right?
Speaker A:To attack these enemies or change these institutions that I don't like.
Speaker A:And it's manipulation of fear that's intentional, right?
Speaker A:I mean, is it purely mundane interest?
Speaker A:I suppose there's a possibility of some genuine spiritual concern, right?
Speaker A:That all the world's going to hell.
Speaker A:Things are, you know, people are not following the faith.
Speaker A:We need some.
Speaker A:A really radical approach to get the world back on track.
Speaker A:So I suppose there can be an honest, spiritual, if vastly misguided motivation to do it as far as motivation goes.
Speaker A:But the actual practice is manipulation of fear and perversion of the teachings, right?
Speaker A:To say, oh, this means that you should go kill someone.
Speaker A:So the whole idea of jihad as being, you know, the holy war against the infidels.
Speaker A:Now, my understanding of Islam is meager, but my understanding is that jihad refers not to external conflict, but to internal conflict and struggle with, know, struggle with your inner demons.
Speaker A:Your jihad is your, your struggle with having your drives and wanting to be a good person, wanting to follow the teachings, but failing.
Speaker A:And so you have to go back again.
Speaker A:And, you know, you have these ideals that, yes, I believe in these things and that's the way I want to behave, but I don't because I yell at my kids and, and so I have to work against myself, you know, you know, and, and struggle to follow my ideals.
Speaker A:That's jihad.
Speaker A:That's the struggle.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker A:But of course, as we know it in the media from terrorism, jihad has been portrayed as the war against the non Islam unbelievers, non Muslim unbelievers, which is a horrible interpretation of it and incredibly inappropriate given that original meaning.
Speaker A:So, so that's, you know, from a leader's willingness to pervert a teaching to their own agenda, you know, and then propagation or follow, like, why would people buy into these things, right?
Speaker A:And it's basically, it's easier to scapegoat, it's easier to blame someone who is other than to engage in the actual work of figuring out why do you feel so bad, right?
Speaker A:And take responsibility for your feelings, which is again, a core issue that we've.
Speaker A:We're talking about, which is you have a responsibility for your suffering, right?
Speaker A:It's your work to do.
Speaker A:No matter what circumstance you are in, no matter how bad your circumstance is, you can work to reduce the suffering that you experience from that circumstance, you know, and, and it doesn't mean the circumstance is your fault and doesn't mean that you should be Pollyanna, you should always be happy and smiling, even if you're, you know, have this horrible disease, whatever, but you do have a role and you can do work to.
Speaker A:To manage and to mitigate the way you experience your circumstances.
Speaker A:But unfortunately, and clearly we've seen many, many times and continue to see people, people who are willing to act out on the fact that it's easier intellectually, certainly, if nothing else, to blame someone else.
Speaker A:And obviously it's spiritually easier to believe someone who tells you it's someone else's fault than to say that you have some work to do.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:In these other interactions.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, it's the same behavior.
Speaker A:The issue is the willingness.
Speaker A:The willingness to be intellectually lazy.
Speaker A:Intellectually and emotionally lazy and to take action on that willingness to be hateful, which causes everything from, you know, suicide bombing to hate crimes and, you know, blaming people for Covid.
Speaker B:I think that those behaviors have existed within the religious sphere for probably quite some time and has had, at least from what I can tell, experientially, seem to rear itself, at least more so in recent decade, maybe in more cultural interactions.
Speaker B:Certainly social media has been an impact just by virtue of the way the form and infrastructure works, I think because it's impersonal.
Speaker B:The comment about, you know, it's easier lends itself to what I was trying to say earlier, I think, which is that, yes, it's easier, and I guess I was trying to present it in a more rationalized way, meaning I understand why it's logistically challenging to try and do that work and that we're presented in our culture currently.
Speaker B:We have so much.
Speaker B:So much connection, but at the same time, so much impersonability and anonymity.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That it's.
Speaker B:There's so many things to look into.
Speaker B:You know, it's not like it.
Speaker B:Maybe it used to be, where you're getting information and insight from a smaller group on a smaller amount of things so that you could invest more of your time kind of delving into specific things.
Speaker B:And now it's like everything's out there and everything needs to be investigated.
Speaker B:But I have no time and energy to be able to invest that.
Speaker B:Like, what do I focus on?
Speaker B:I guess, you know, so I can see how that's a challenge for people.
Speaker B:It's always easier to point a finger than to look inside.
Speaker B:And that's just part of the human condition, I think.
Speaker B:And humans have.
Speaker B:So it goes potentially back to fear.
Speaker B:I mean, I guess that's what I would say, is that we all have the ability to be good or bad.
Speaker B:If you were to put value statements on them.
Speaker B:And it is through fear that we engage with the things that would be considered bad or hateful or hurtful.
Speaker B:And so I guess I'm not sure where I'm going with that.
Speaker B:But like, I think there's more to discuss and we don't have to do it at this moment, but more to discuss around the why.
Speaker B:The why not from the leadership perspective, because I think that's fairly clear.
Speaker B:But why is it that we as the general population are so inclined to relinquish our own personal thought for somebody for somebody else?
Speaker A:Well, so I think that people who do it don't think it's for someone else.
Speaker A:So there's two things.
Speaker A:So I mean someone for someone else in terms of being manipulated.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But also, and it has to do with emotionality, like, oh, I'm really angry and this makes me feel better to vent my anger kind of thing rather than working through your role in your anger and work and understanding what the conflict is and trying to, trying to resolve a conflict saying my anger is because someone is doing this to me.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I would say it's that self interest that doesn't want to do the either introspection or just plain research.
Speaker A:Oh, and you're mentioning social media and kind of bumper sticker communication of no in depth communication happening and people just yelling at each other in little bits and bites so that there's no actual communion of interaction.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And, and no learning and no learning from each other.
Speaker A:So you know, again, contrary to what, what we want to do is we want to take the time to say why do I disagree with you?
Speaker A:Why do you disagree with me?
Speaker A:What are you not understanding about what I'm saying or what are you just disagreeing with?
Speaker A:Oh, you believe this and I don't believe that.
Speaker A:Oh, okay.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, but there's no interest in doing that because there's a personal agenda to I just need to feel better right now or I just want to hear something that affirms my belief.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, even if it's a angry echo chamber, it's like, well, that just shows I'm right and we want to be right.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So you know, rather than, well, I don't want to just believe I'm right, I want to know.
Speaker A:I want to know what's right and I want to do what's right.
Speaker A:But some people, the lazy approach is no, I just want to be right.
Speaker A:And so I'm going to look for someone who agrees with me and then I'll do Whatever they say, because they're.
Speaker A:They're letting me be.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And as soon as we are emotionally triggered, it's very hard for us to then stop and say, I want to think about this intellectually.
Speaker B:So I think that maybe some of what we see is that because you are so emotionally charged, and that's the intent, it's presented in a way intentionally so as to emotionally drive you, not intellectually drive you, and then it's incumbent upon us, the listener, to say, I need to think about this intellectually before I react on it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And I think there are two components to that, and one is just the physiology of it.
Speaker A:Knowing that the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems exist in opposition and that if you are emotionally triggered, your rational function is actually suppressed.
Speaker A:And people not knowing that, and so they're susceptible to being triggered and then thinking that their decision process when they're triggered is perfectly valid when it's not.
Speaker A:And then the other thing is an intentional preference for the emotional over the intellectual, which is to say, I don't think it's an active choice and that's people's fault.
Speaker A:But I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with an intellectual process.
Speaker A:They are just.
Speaker A:I, for whatever variety of reasons, they value the emotional over the intellectual.
Speaker A:The personality typing, MBTI approach, which I think is used as an excuse, I mean, for people who subscribe to mbti, Some people who score F on MBTI use it as an excuse to say, well, feeling is more important to me, so I don't need to engage in the thinking process.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker A:When really all it does is identifies a tendency in you and identifies what you're comfortable with.
Speaker A:Doesn't identify what you're capable of doing or.
Speaker A:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker A:And so that's what I was thinking of the people who choose.
Speaker A:And that's, I think, where it's a valid use of the word of peace.
Speaker A:People choosing emotionality because they chose to understand it that way, that it was affirming their right to be emotional and not to be intellectually responsible.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:For how they behave.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's extreme on both fronts and the way is probably something in the middle.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So actually I wanted to kind of address that because I.
Speaker A:I keep on using the word intellectual and.
Speaker A:And I realized that that word can really put some people off and that it can sound elitist.
Speaker A:And, you know, I don't want to say that you and I are intellectuals and we're better than other people.
Speaker A:It's just that's the way we process the world.
Speaker A:And we want to share with our listeners this way of doing things.
Speaker A:And it's not the only way of doing things.
Speaker A:And it doesn't mean that if you don't process this things this way, we don't want to hear from you.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Or, or we minimize the value of what you have to say.
Speaker A:We want to understand your perspective.
Speaker A:This is our perspective.
Speaker A:So it's only an issue when this is my perspective.
Speaker A:It's the only valid perspective.
Speaker A:I'm emotional.
Speaker A:That's the only thing that matters.
Speaker A:You're rationalizing things and thinking things through and being all intellectual doesn't have value.
Speaker A:And that's where the danger is.
Speaker A:Likewise, if I say, well, you haven't thought this out, so your teachings don't have value to me because they're not intellectual.
Speaker A:No, it's very important for me to learn what you have to say from your different way of processing the world, adding that to the way I process my experience.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening to the Tracking Wisdom podcast.
Speaker A:Join us next time as we continue the discussion.
Speaker A:Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and visit www.eth-studio.com for more information and content.
