[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

No doubt the exorcism aspect is extremely dumb and fringey, no matter what the camp is about. My point about the indoctrination backbone is that it is arguable that the reason d'etre for these camps is indoctrination. Same with Sunday school, religious charter schools etc.

Certainly. But again, I consider it an exception rather than the implication that it's rampantly common.

We're probably just splitting hairs though.

Originally Posted by Sliver

Man, religion is just so ridiculous.

I think part of the awfulness is the fact that it doesn't value truth and reality. It doesn't value growing our understanding of anything. It reverse engineers so many things (every thing?) to make it implausibly fit an ancient narrative instead of learning and moving in the direction truth takes you.

As somebody raised areligious, I also cannot wrap my head around how religious people can't see themselves as indoctrinated. Is there a parallel in my life to help me relate to WTF is going on in the brains of religious people on that topic? Like, it's just so weird that they'll look at you dead in the eye and talk about a specific god and entire belief structure that just so happens to be the same one they were brought up with in their homes and in specific institutions whose sole purpose is to make them believe preposterous things. Then they'll hear about Scientology, Moonies, Mormons, whatever and will be all, cAn YoU bElIeVe ThE BS tHoSe GuYs BeLiEvE?!

Well there are certainly many religious people who disagree with blind faith. They agree that challenging the beliefs/interpretation is a healthy aspect of religion and not heresy.

Unlike theism which has God as an almighty creature, there's transitions towards something like deism where "God" is basically just natural law. This was an attempt to bridge the concept of an entity that could not be understood by humans as the science/reason that could be understood long term.

But without religion, there's some people who crave it and latch onto crazy stuff. Like the girls who sacrificed their friend to Slenderman.

Humans also need and want to latch onto a form of BS. That's what fantasy media is, gossip/rumors, conspiracy theories, cheering for the Edmonton Oilers (sports fandom), collectors items, brand loyalty... Not everything has to be purely about logic and there's just as much stupid lunacy we can easily lap up without the banner of religion.

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

Your sister is smart. Assuming her daughter is the groom's she was already had out of wedlock, so she doesn't have to worry about the baptism counting anyway. A free $10k for an open bar in exchange for helping Mum and Dad out with some brownie points for their old-timer's cult is a sweet sweet deal.

Agreed. The parents paid her to be happy and the sister didn't have to commit to anything. That's not selling out, that's being diplomatic.