Default Position: Missionary?
Sorry to disappoint, but this post is not about sex. However, to allay any hard feelings (oooh, er, missus!), here's an illustration from the Wikipedia article about the so-called 'missionary position'.
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Still with me? Good. You can always read that Wikipedia article later.
So, if this post is not about sex, what is it about? Well, I've been thinking about how people present their ideas and opinions, what you might call their 'foot in the door' approaches. In particular, because the subject of how religion operates has always intrigued me, I've been thinking about the various tactics people use to promote their particular brand.
It's well known that in the secular world, sex sells everything,
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There's probably a lot of debate about the details, but sex sells because it appeals to a powerful basic instinct. But that's just not an option for the vast majority of religions. Indeed, many of them treat sex as an unfortunate necessity for the production of more members, and something which must be strictly controlled. Er... no, no, no! I meant 'for passing on the gift of life', of course.
However, sex has not been completely ignored as a recruitment strategy, at least not by fringe organisations. The classic example is the 'Flirty Fishing' employed by female members of the Children of God in the 70s and 80s (at the behest of the cult's leader, David Berg). It is no surprise that it was an effective strategy, until AIDS came along and forced cessation. But I seem to have forgetten that this post is not about sex!
There are several different 'normal' religious pitches, the first of which I'll call the tangential. It's employed by people who approach you directly, but in an indirect way. It goes something like this:
"Do you think there is enough love in the world?"
It's designed so that it doesn't matter what you answer, the point of it being to open a dialogue. Or rather, provide an opening for a dose of proselytizing. I don't know if they still use it, but it was a favourite ploy of Jehovah's Witnesses at one time.
Then there's the feel-good angle. Its supporters talk a lot about love and seem particularly fond of the word 'joy'. Their cousins, the happy-clappies, like to make it into a musical production.
The Da-doo-do-goods are up next, who tacitly assert that the good deeds of their particular type of non-atheist proves their beliefs - in an action-speaks-louder-than-words sort of way, although they are not short on words to assert it.
Fire and Brimstone preachers don't bother with any of that subterfuge. They smack you right between the eyes with what it all comes down to: Be afraid! Be very afraid!
And that is actually the default position, the fall-back position, of all the other approaches too. It's all they've got when the 'nice' approaches don't work. They might hide behind those weasel words, "I'll pray for you," but that's just shorthand for something like, "if you don't join my team, after you die, you're going to burn over and over again, in perpetual agony, forever (but I'll be okay because I'm doing my best to recruit you, because I believe!)"
I have a weird sort of respect for the fire and brimstone guys (it seems like it's usually guys rather than women), but only because they are upfront and honest about their message. I'm not talking about the one's whose ulterior motive is to extort money, they deserve no respect whatsoever (and more besides). I'm thinking of the guy who gets up on his soap-box in the High Street and lets passers-by have it with both barrels, metaphorically speaking.
So, here's the bottom line. If you can't use the powerful basic instinct of sex to manipulate people into doing what you want, and other approaches fail, then there's always good ol' fear to fall back on. It's been tried and tested, over several millenia, and has been shown to be consistantly effective. Up until now, at any rate.
In conclusion, it seems that sex has the edge on fear, when it comes to manipulating adults. But what about children? I wonder whether sex or fear would work most effectively on small children? Right, no contest. As if children don't have enough real things to be frightened of.
