FROM A SITE VISITOR: Why do you say that truth cannot be spoken? (I do not disagree--just do not understand.) thank you Patty
F.: The discussion of phony evidence cited by the ignorant who believe that truth can be spoken continues today with a look at the claim by people that they “hear god speak to them.”
D. HEARING GOD (GODS) SPEAK
In marketing, two techniques used by marketers who want to sell you something are “added value” and “integrated marketing communication.” Added value is used to try to convince potential buyers that what is being offered has added value as a result of special input and as a result of special benefits.
The integrated marketing communication technique uses a variety of communication methods to convince listeners that they are hearing the truth about what is being offered while emphasizing added value as well.
McDonald’s uses the added value method by inviting customers to “super-size” their cokes and fries at a "special" price. As they try to encourage customers to spend more, they used multiple methods of communication including the spoken word and visualizations and charts outlining supposed “nutritional values.”
The earliest written examples of the use of added value and integrated marketing communication in order to convince people to buy into a message being sold are in religious literature. Never has anything been more effectively marketed than religious dogma and spiritual teachings.
Marketers in ancient cultures and temples and churches and mosques have used added value and integrated marketing communication to convince trillions of people throughout history—and over six billion people currently—that “unconditional love” and “unending punishment in hell” can co-exist;
that both killing a virgin and being born of a virgin can be good things; that an all-loving god can still kill everyone on the planet except for the members of one family; that people should be willing to do battle and die for their god; and that persons should give the best part of a calf or sheep to their priest or (nowadays) that they should give money to "god’s representatives" on earth who are "the speakers of truth."
Medicine men and priests and preachers and imams have all used the added value marketing tool to encourage people to believe their claims, the promised added value including access to power that can bring blessings to the faithful now; eternal continuity of the body and mind and personality later; eternal bliss now and/or later; and the avoidance of eternal punishment forever.
When such leaders would have the masses believe that they are speaking the truth, they use the added value technique as they claim that “they heard god speak and god put in their mouths the words they are now also speaking” or that “god spoke to them and told them to pass on a message to the masses.”
That is “added value as a result of special input,” namely, input from god. Whatever they tell you after claiming that god spoke to them is supposed to carry double weight: not only are they claiming to tell you the truth which they “know for a fact” but there is added value assigned to their words because they heard god speak those words to them.
Those same religious or spiritual leaders (usually males who are like the supposed male god of Abraham that six billion worship) also use the integrated marketing communication technique when claiming that what they are saying is the absolute truth.
The message that they are sharing—so they claim—has validity because of the variety of communication methods used by their god: talking via a burning bush; etching his words into stone tablets on a mountaintop; the offering of signs, such as rainbows or eclipses; or via “words recorded in ‘holy’ scriptures as his servants recorded the messages they claimed to have received from him.”
The Advaita teachings are an antidote for ignorance and learned ignorance and even the schizophrenia and psychosis that results when learned ignorance begins to control all of the thoughts and words and deeds of individuals. Psychosis? Schizophrenia? Yes.
In IT’S ALL BULLSHIT Dr. Jeffrey A. Schaler offers professional insight into the connection between religion and mental disorders:
“Schizophrenia is said to be characterized by hallucinations, i.e., self-reported imaginings. Belief in God is a socially acceptable self-reported imagining. All self-reported imaginings labeled psychosis are essentially religious. To label religious claims as psychotic is no more derogatory than to label psychotic claims as religious.
“Hearing voices in one's head is normal. We generally call it our conscience. [Other times, it is just our self-will, our ego, granting itself what it wants in the guise of God.] Psychosis is the belief that the voices in one's head belong to another person. The denial of voices-as-self is an attempt to deny the truth. It is a way of saying ‘this is not me.’ Pretending that the self is split or dissociated is a way of avoiding responsibility.”
And when self-appointed and so-called “religious and spiritual leaders” employ marketing techniques to persuade programmed and conditioned listeners that their leaders’ words are expressions of truth, then the result will be a planet full of fools. Among those surrendering to the call to practice unquestioned faith, mental disorders and personality disorders are the abnormal norm.
And all of that programming and conditioning would be totally ineffective, Patty, if only persons knew that the truth can be understood but cannot spoken. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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