"... unfortunately, I believe that many people are completely unaware that they are being manipulated with such ease."

Unless you are arguing diminished capacity, there are no victims among the adults in the church congregation.

Belief is a lie we create for ourselves as a balm or pacifier to cope with the fear of not knowing.

Not knowing is simply part of the human experience. Fear is simply an emotion that let's you know that you've once again discovered the border between what you know and don't know. Fear asks you to learn by acquiring knowledge or return to a previous state of knowledge.

Belief is a placebo for real knowledge, a poor substitute.

Belief keeps us from developing the strength and awareness to accept the human condition of not knowing; it prevents us from developing the skills to overcome or simply deal with the fear of the unknown. It prevents us from acquiring real knowledge and experience.

When you lazily mimic another person or group's belief to address a similar fear of the unknown, you run the risk of contracting a belief that has come under the control of a non-believer. Religions are the best example of this occurrence.

Religions form when one or more non-believers create a political power structure around a group's shared belief (common fear). Since a shared belief is indicative of a passive child state, the non-believer simply assumes the role of parent. Doing so, though, requires fashioning a narrative that establishes the non-believer as a worthy parent of the group's magical belief and convincing two or more of the group to accept you as parent of the belief and to spread their belief in you to the others.

Once begun, the propagation of some beliefs based on common fears (pain and death) can spread across generations until they are successfully questioned or challenged by a mind that becomes aware through the course of healthy skepticism and moves from passive mimicry to active awareness.

If you don't know whether you've mindlessly mimicked another person or groups belief, there's an easy test - question the belief rigorously. If you feel afraid to question a "truth" and questioning others who share this "truth" produces fear, anger and even hate or violence, you are dealing with a belief, not real knowledge.

The first thing that believers lose is their curiosity and capacity for skepticism about their newly acquired "truth" because somewhere inside them they know that if this "truth" is exposed as a lie they will have to face the fear that they've been using the belief to avoid.

The longer you use a belief to avoid a fear the bigger and more powerful the fear seems to you. It becomes easier to harm yourself in the service of the belief than to face your fear of the unknown.

Believers want to believe.

@10

So, you are asserting that woman who willingly join the church and/or marry its male members are of diminished capacity and in need of an appointed guardian to make decisions for them.

You and Mars Hill appear to share a common belief about the inferiority of women's capacity to think and choose for themselves.

Beliefs make strange bedfellows, huh?

I hope Driscoll ends up in prison for tax problems related the RSI debacle.

@22 - You sound unfamiliar with MH. You may be aware of the Churches position on Women as pastors, but in reality the Church is much harder on Men than on Women - always has been. And when I say harder I mean in a bad oppressive, you must be a bad-ass-perfect-christian, so your wife is never unhappy, sort of way. Cause if not, well then you're pathetic and need to be taken out behind the woodshed.

Haters wanna sell me their Storyville coffee,
When I'm trying to chill on QA Hill,
I don't want that coffee,
Even you give it to me free,
Cos I don't drink hater coffee see.
Thats just me.
You know I love the haters too,
I just won't drink what they brew.