Are normal people stupid and need to be directed if not controlled?

it would depend on what you are trying to achieve

>>17841632 (OP)
Yes. But sadly there is no group above "normal" so the direction really ought to come from the Holy Spirit.

>>17841641
Lol, lmao even
Christians are the biggest followers on earth, even the Muslims don't cower quite so pathetically. That's why historically Christian masses have been used to commit various atrocities and consolidate power for the wealthy elite.

>>17841632 (OP)
>>there is no group above "normal"
>so you follow elites! muh atrocities!
That would be a group above "normal". Which I'm saying isn't there.
Also, I'm an Eastern Christian so whatever atrocities you're thinking of probably have very little to do with me. Don't blame me for medieval Western plebs waging wars on anything that moves.

>>17841677 meant for >>17841655

>>17841677
>Medieval western plebs
Christians are inherently susceptible to domination by other humans, and to manipulation through holy doctrine. From the first crusades all the way to the modern day. And the fact that you rebuke this of yourself by claiming to be from.Eastern Europe is just hilarious.

>"I-I'm not a mindless peasant, im from eastern Europe"

>>17841710
Why am I not surprised that the only example you could conjure up is Western and furthermore ended up being precisely anti-Eastern?
If you want to believe Christians are susceptible to domination, go ahead. I see some truth in that, but also a lot of bs. If you're fine with the ratio, we're good.

>>17841632 (OP)

The people are like mud meant to be formed into something greater

them being smart or stupid is irrelevant because they will hold the opinion of their master even if its nonsensical like progressives being in favor of immigration from reactionary third world nations or conservatives being in favor of corporations that erode traditional values for profit

>>17841632 (OP)
shut the fuck up Plato

>>17841719
I'm not "anti-Eastern", I feel sorry for the people who live there. It makes sense you would ask the question "Do humans need to be controlled" when Eastern Europeans have historically been peasant slaves and dumb serf farmers. Why do you think Orthodox Christianity even exists? They wanted to keep western enlightenment far away from their mindless drones. That's why most people there didn't even learn how to read until after WW1.

>>17841771
I'm sorry I suppose I phrased it weirdly, meant the example ended up being anti-Eastern in the sense that the last crusade ultimately targeted us.
>Eastern Europeans
There is definitely something to be said about the Slavic tendency to over-centralization, grand narratives and grand leaders. But this is only tangentially related to Christianity since EO promotes smaller localized communities and we are even suffering a schism right now due to people trying not to be sheep.
>Why do you think Orthodox Christianity even exists? They wanted to keep western enlightenment far away from their mindless drones.
The schism happened about 600 years before enlightenment. Which was an anti-religious force to begin with, I'm glad Orthodoxy didn't suffer it.
>That's why most people there didn't even learn how to read until after WW1.
That would be due to poverty. It's not like pagan or Muslim parts of contemporary Russia learned to read any quicker.

>>17841783
>The last crusade ultimately targeted us
Yes, to force Christianity onto the peoples there, and here you are defending Christianity to me right now. That's what I mean by "follower mentality".

>The schism happened 600 years before the enlightenment
Fair, that was stupid of me- but the spirit of what I'm trying to say stays the same. How you interact with God and what spiritual beliefs you have are completely beholden to other human beings. Always has been, there is no holy spirit you can talk to. And unless you can read ancient Greek, the Bibles you read are all biased as well.

>>17841832
>>The last crusade ultimately targeted us
>Yes, to force Christianity onto the peoples there
We were already Christian before the first crusade. The last one ended up targeting orthodox christians.

>How you interact with God and what spiritual beliefs you have are completely beholden to other human beings
Which is usual for religions that make it past the animist-totemist stage. The only religions I can think of that have a more direct participation in the subject of their worship than Christianity does were mystery cults that used psychedelics to "open up" to demons. Besides that we're doing pretty well because the Spirit is something any commoner can acquire with proper repentance and askesis.
As for the top-down aspect, it is true that I accept sacraments from human hands that I just trust are divinely ordained, but like I said - if your religion is a family cult in primordial Zanzibar maybe there is no priestly group, but anything more advanced than that has either shamans or priests or teachers or oracles or some kind of structure.

So if your main concern is being controlled, Christianity might be suspect due to their concept of "obedience", but that is a tool of spiritual growth which ends where a man's spirituality ends. Besides inflation of this concept, there is nothing inherent about Christianity that makes it more concerning in terms of creating elites than any other religion, quite the contrary.

>>17841632 (OP)
No. They need to be properly helped and augmented with all the black project tech glowies keep to themselves. Every issue we have today could be solved sensibly. Unfortunately the entire system is built around suffering and death as a sort of cult if you were not aware by now.

>>17841632 (OP)
My opinion is that liberalism (not the modern term, the original 18th century concept of liberalism) will fail sometime this century. The fact of the matter is that if you give the average person extreme wealth and extreme liberty he will become a slave to his base desires (gluttony, lust, attention, entertainment).

If you give the average person a special credit card that can be used to purchase any food item for free he will become obese. If you give the average person a device that can access near infinite amounts of pornography he will become a coomer/gooner, if you give the average person an infinite amount of content he will consume until only short form content can satisfy his desires.

A lot of people, especially leftists, like to use the sentences "why do you care about what X person does, it's their life", "if it's not hurting anyone why does it matter", "victimless crime" etc... The problem with these arguments is that we live in a society, and I have a stake in that society, if you're not a productive and moral member of said society you're actively harming me.

>>17841632 (OP)
TRY THE WINE

>>17842554
I'M PLEASED YOU APPRECIATE GOOD WINE