Thoughts on symbols, celebrities, politics and religion

[ShotoManhattan]

There is a common theme I see among right wing Christians in America and something I see with symbols. I was on the website, The Vigiliant Citizen, which discusses that celebrities and elitist wealthy people use symbols and paganism to advance agendas. The examples go from politics to religion and famous people are essentially enslaved to doing hazing rituals and weird shit to get ahead in the world. Those who don't do it don't go far. Several celebrities have broken down and the Weinstein scandal was the tip of the iceberg. There are now stories of people being accused of sexual harassment and it goes for both sides of the political aisle. They tend to use the eye symbol. I think it's abusing paganism for their own ends.

 

It reminds me of the time I was at a Fundamentalist Catholic College with a weird cult feel to it.

 

Do you generally believe in this or dismiss it as right-wing conspiracy? After reading some of it, I feel reluctant to watch TV or a movie without seeing the actor and thinking what they had to do to get the role.

[older]

Well, as far as physical symbols go, I think that's out there in the conspiracy theory domain. But, as with all human endeavors, there are people who are decent and people who aren't. I worked in cinema for a time on the technical side and know that some actors get roles on merit, some for marketing reasons, some because of who they know, and many other reasons. And some producers are decent people and some are bullies or general scum. It's a competitive business just like most others and I don't see that as any different from any other arena.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I read a book back in the 80s by an attorney (Constance Cumbey) that was allegedly exposing the conspiracy of the "New Age Movement" through various symbols, all of which she purported to link to The Devil™. I listened to tapes of her speaking for hours on all her thoughts about the world banks and something she called Luciferean initiations that these groups perform to bring in demonic power, blah blah blah. Since believers are often very superstitious and primed by their churches to believe in demons, this was considered big stuff.

 

Historically, there have been secret societies that use secret handshakes, secret symbols, rites, and so on to give an aura of mystery to their groups. Masons, Odd Fellows, and various lodges. Even frats and sororities have secret ceremonies, symbols, and use other languages to make members feel like they are part of more than a place to live while in college. It really doesn't matter what the group is about, symbols are used to make them feel special and powerful, similar to how a cross on the wall often makes a Christian feel at home.

 

The primary problem with all of Cumbey's stories is that she assumes Christianity and all the superstition and spirits the Bible mentions are factual instead of myth. Based on that flaw, she creates a world of demonic influence through symbols and fosters a feeling of fear of just about everything to make believers feel they are special agents of light in a world of increasing darkness. I read books like "This Present Darkness" which was a Christian drama about angels and demons fighting over the souls of humans, and took it rather literally when I was a believer. All of the fears and invisible warfare I believed in disappeared with a sigh a relief when I realized that Christianity wasn't true, and that I had been suckered by believing in the first place. Some folks on these forums with mental illness have a genuine struggle with letting go of the fears, always wondering if they've been tricked by the devil into leaving the faith. That is a sad situation when the fears can occlude facts, but it is an extension of the fears and hopes that lead people to believe in the first place, and there are many millions of believers today all suckered into a faith they consider the ultimate expression of love and truth.

 

As far as celebrities, they have beliefs as wide as the rest of the population. Beyonce and her group used to pray to the Christian god prior to going out and singing Bootylicious, so god to them was more of a good-luck ritual and a nod to the entrenched Christianity in the black community. It is still true that inside contacts in high positions can be had through membership in the Masons or the Skull and Bones group (essentially knowing someone on the inside to help you get a job), but the vast majority of celebrities got to where they are through other means. Some celebrities are witches (but not in the Christian sense), some are Taoist, many are atheist, some are believers. I am part of the jazz community in Portland, and most seem to be left-leaning atheists, but there are some Catholics, some Baha'i, and even a few Trump supporting fundamentalists.

 

So is there an over-arching conspiracy? No. But people believe lots of things, and some have agendas they want to push (particularly Scientology among certain rich folks), some use symbols to make them feel special or like they have something magical (which leads to increased confidence that is often helpful in various pursuits), some belong to groups that make them feel like part of the "in crowd".

[ShotoManhattan]

Fuego, that's the best explanation to my question, thanks!

[Joshpantera]

On 3/7/2018 at 10:40 PM, ShotoManhattan said:

There is a common theme I see among right wing Christians in America and something I see with symbols. I was on the website, The Vigiliant Citizen, which discusses that celebrities and elitist wealthy people use symbols and paganism to advance agendas. The examples go from politics to religion and famous people are essentially enslaved to doing hazing rituals and weird shit to get ahead in the world. Those who don't do it don't go far. Several celebrities have broken down and the Weinstein scandal was the tip of the iceberg. There are now stories of people being accused of sexual harassment and it goes for both sides of the political aisle. They tend to use the eye symbol. I think it's abusing paganism for their own ends.

 

It reminds me of the time I was at a Fundamentalist Catholic College with a weird cult feel to it.

 

Do you generally believe in this or dismiss it as right-wing conspiracy? After reading some of it, I feel reluctant to watch TV or a movie without seeing the actor and thinking what they had to do to get the role.

 

I'm glad that you brought this up because it's relevant. 

 

Like many others I grew up with the ridiculous christian conspiracies about the NWO and everything else. So it was my initial reaction to reject it all as complete nonsense along with god and christianity. However, over the years I began to realize that yes these mythic symbols are actually being used by Hollywood and in world government through politicians and so on. But obviously the devil is just as make believe as god is (we have substantial evidence on how the myth of the devil evolved over the years).

 

So where does that leave us? 

 

It leaves us with a situation where on one hand we have credulous christians believing in fairy tales, and on the other hand those who like to rebel against traditional fairy tale's by embracing the dark side of the same said fairy tales. Much nonsense takes place at the Bohemian Grove, for instance. By world leaders. It's actually quite ridiculous, and embarrassing when you get right down to it. (around 59:00 is the relevant footage)

 

 

As long as these celebrities and politicians keep goofing around like this, in fraternal ways, christians will keep pointing at this nonsense as evidence of the devil and devil worship. To be honest I wish they'd just stop giving christian conspiracy theorist's fuel for the fire. I'd rather see an atheistic elite who rejects mythological symbolism altogether and doesn't feel the need to slip in ancient mythological symbolism into half time shows, for shits and giggles, etc. 

 

But this goofing around clearly doesn't justify the christian conspiracies about a literal devil, literally running the world...

 

 

 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I remember seeing footage from the Bohemian Grove. I thought the play was worse than what I'd seen performed in junior high. I think the world leaders are more likely off in other parts of the grove doing their dealings. The play is like the pageantry that is used by the secret societies to give a sense of woo to their gathering. It is all just humans doing what humans do, but feeling special about their clique and holding on to traditions that were silly to begin with, and now just look absurd. 

[Joshpantera]

9 hours ago, Fuego said:

I remember seeing footage from the Bohemian Grove. I thought the play was worse than what I'd seen performed in junior high. I think the world leaders are more likely off in other parts of the grove doing their dealings. The play is like the pageantry that is used by the secret societies to give a sense of woo to their gathering. It is all just humans doing what humans do, but feeling special about their clique and holding on to traditions that were silly to begin with, and now just look absurd. 

 

Yes indeed. 

 

The whole "cremation of care" thing is pretty much a play where they burn up their cares and inhibitions, and then proceed to move on to all variety of shenanigans, apparently. And traditional to the late 1800's and an initial rebellion against a largely christian society. It's like, ok guys, you can drop the act. You wanna rebel against christianity, go atheist at camp. Drop all of the bullshit. And proceed with no woo....

[ChelseaGuy]

I know this is a year old but I want to add my own take.

 

Outside of religious context, there is a some truth about the "dark side" being embraced in higher society like celebrities and politicians and I do hear about all the dirty sex abuse stuff and other "dark" parts. I'm sure most people heard of or remember the late 1990s White House Lewinsky scandal. I do believe there is something that is going on.

 

Also is Hollywood and "high position" types in general politically and socially lean way more left than the rest of America on average. I don't identify as conservative or liberal personally, I only believe in facts and my personal experiences.

[LogicalFallacy]

1 hour ago, ChelseaGuy said:

I know this is a year old but I want to add my own take.

 

Outside of religious context, there is a some truth about the "dark side" being embraced in higher society like celebrities and politicians and I do hear about all the dirty sex abuse stuff and other "dark" parts. I'm sure most people heard of or remember the late 1990s White House Lewinsky scandal. I do believe there is something that is going on.

 

Not sure what you are getting at here. A sitting president was unfaithful to his wife, and indeed abused his position of power. I haven't read about this for some time, but he may have even assaulted her. What part about this is anything other than a person of power abusing that power for personal gain? Happens all the time. But there is nothing dark sidey about it. To claim that someone is embracing the 'dark side' or 'evil' etc you have to believe these things are real entities in themselves as opposed to humans doing things the majority of us disagree with.

 

1 hour ago, ChelseaGuy said:

Also is Hollywood and "high position" types in general politically and socially lean way more left than the rest of America on average. I don't identify as conservative or liberal personally, I only believe in facts and my personal experiences.

 

Hollywood does lean left, I agree, also there is a correspondence to the higher educated a person is the less religious they are and the more left they lean. However considering 40% of Americans don't accept evolution I don't think it takes much in America to lean "way more left" than average. In New Zealand you'd just be normal.

 

To get some facts you'd need data. Got any for the claims you make here?

 

As far as personal experience goes, when it comes to determining facts I near completely dismiss personal experience. Everyone has their own personal experience to back up whatever position they want to take. If it cannot be verified against real data it's useless for establishing as fact. That's why I reject the gospels, Christian's telling me god heals, and someone's claim of alien abduction.  

[webmdave]

1 hour ago, LogicalFallacy said:

there is a correspondence to the higher educated a person is the less religious they are and the more left they lean.

 

I'm curious. Do you happen to have any documentation directly supporting your statement above? 

[wellnamed]

I wouldn't entirely dismiss "personal experience". In a very real sense data actually is the plural of anecdote. Ultimately empiricism is all about experiences, yours mine and everyone else's. Clearly more data is better than less because you cannot assess the representativeness of an single data point, and methods for gathering data also matter, e.g. one case in a scientific study is probably more reliable than one anecdote sloppily remembered. And also how credible I'd find someone's claims of experience would depend on whatever prior probability I might assign to those experiences being real (i.e. I'm more likely to trust you when you tell me about your weird experience with a bank teller than your weird experience with Bigfoot :P). So there's lots of caveats and I'm being nitty but IMHO it's worth being nitty about experience

[wellnamed]

19 minutes ago, webmdave said:

I'm curious. Do you happen to have any documentation directly supporting your statement above?

 

On ideology, cf. Gallup. AFAIK this association has been pretty stable for a long time, so I'd expect to find similar results from other surveys, I just grabbed this one quickly. Here's a slighly older Pew survey with similar results. Of course it's worth noting that it's not as if the highly educated are overwhelmingly liberal, they are just more liberal than the less educated on average. (And I should probably clarify that I wouldn't read "more educated" here to mean "smarter" or "less educated" to mean "dumber", or anything like that. :P)

 

 

On religiosity, the strength of the association depends on how you measure religiosity, from what I've seen, but it's generally the case that being more educated is correlated with being less religious, although again it's not overwhelming. See for example Pew

 

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

2 hours ago, webmdave said:

 

I'm curious. Do you happen to have any documentation directly supporting your statement above? 

 

It appears WN has done my job for me.

 

I was apprehensive about telling Chelsa guy to back up claims, then making one myself. But I also knew I could back it up as I'd come across it during deconversion. It's also been a talking point in several debates between Christians and Atheists.

 

1 hour ago, wellnamed said:

Of course it's worth noting that it's not as if the highly educated are overwhelmingly liberal, they are just more liberal than the less educated on average.

 

Which was my point. I should actually rephrase the bit Dave highlighted as its poorly worded. Very poorly so apologies for that. The point I wanted to make was that higher educated people tended to lean left, instead I ended up saying that it's like scale and by implication if you have a Phd you'll be a raving commie as a result. This of course is not what I mean. Apologies for any confusion there.

[webmdave]

@wellnamed : I appreciate your effort here, but I was already aware of these and other surveys. My question was actually directed @LogicalFallacy, as he is the person who made the statement. I was curious how he would answer my query. 

 

Thanks @LogicalFallacy for the clarification. 

 

 

 

 

[wellnamed]

You can't possibly expect me to pass up opportunities to post links to Pew Research. That's my #2 hobby. 

[LogicalFallacy]

11 minutes ago, webmdave said:

I was curious how he would answer my query. 

 

It would have been very similar in that I would have posted the Gallop and Pew polls. I've seen them before. I also know of other research if my memory serves me correctly. Obviously my explanatory wording would have been different.

 

Although, if we want to be really pedantic, I have to rescind my claim altogether because I know of no research to actually back up the claim as I wrote it, only to back up what I meant. As WN said in another post, writing is easy, communicating clearly less so.  

 

I'm curious as to your thoughts, both if I had not been able to back up the claim, and now that it's been shown to have research behind it rather than just assertion? Or was the point to ensure that a person telling another to back up their claims is held accountable for the same?

[webmdave]

6 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

I'm curious as to your thoughts, both if I had not been able to back up the claim, and now that it's been shown to have research behind it rather than just assertion? Or was the point to ensure that a person telling another to back up their claims is held accountable for the same?

 

10 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

I have to rescind my claim altogether because I know of no research to actually back up the claim as I wrote it

 

You are perceptive or I am transparent... Or both. 

 

I believed your claim "as written" was unsupportable. That and I wanted to explore the aspect regarding backing up claims. Anyway, it just piqued my interest and resulting query. No biggie, just my curiosity. 

[LogicalFallacy]

Well, you were right on the face of it  

 

I appreciate that. We should all have to support claims made, and be willing to reconsider or correct when they are shown to be in error.

[reverendturmoil]

8 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Hollywood does lean left, I agree, also there is a correspondence to the higher educated a person is the less religious they are and the more left they lean

There may not be any documented proof of that but from an experience standpoint I'm going to agree.   

[thetruthsetmefree]

Are you referring to so-called Illuminati?  

 

If so, are you referring to the A-ok sign and Trump's repetitious and distinctive use of the A-ok sign in public?

 

 

[Joshpantera]

Spooky!