What is the idea of God for the masses?

[onions]

Throughout all my life I hated being like all and doing something usual. I detested masses and everything standart. But now, thinking out almost all worthwhile subjects about Creation, I find out that masses' views are the most interesting ones. Masses are only thing that bothers me for this period of time. And now I think about their God. And my question is why people are afraid of freedom and at the same time long for it. I know that it is a pretty old question asked by thousands minds. But I would like to know your opinions.

So questions are:

1. Why people are afraid of freedom though long for it at the same time?

2. What people's God is? (masses' God , to be more exact).

[IrishCanadian]

Good questions ... I'll be thinking about it ... don't know if i can answere that just now.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I think that an answer to number 1, is that the majority of people only want a limited amount of freedom. They want to be free to do what they're told to do the way they want to do it. Actually doing what they want to do is going a little far for 'the masses' (I'm not altogether happy with that term - it implies a certain class or intellectual divide, which is not really the case IMHO). I'll have more to say on this subject I'm sure but I need a little time to mull things over.

On point 2, I don't really know. I think it varies from person to person. I'm not even sure exactly what you're asking. Do you mean, how do the 'masses' view God? Or are you asking what has replaced God in the popular conciousness?

[Whifflingpin]

"1. Why people are afraid of freedom though long for it at the same time?"

This question is similar to the question "Why do women provoke men to rape them?" It blames the victim for the evil that is perpetrated, in order to justify the real wrongdoer. People who long for freedom are not afraid of it, they are afraid of the forces that will be unleashed upon them if they attempt to exercise freedom.

The advocates of those forces always blather about "responsible freedom" or "freedom to do anything that will not harm other people" but they are lying. They have power, and they mean to keep it, and will restrict arbitrarily any expression of freedom that they want to, merely to demonstrate that they have the power to do so, and that it is futile to resist.

I will give two trivial examples. In a state of freedom, it would be natural for people to leap about and dance as an expression of joy. This, could not by any stretch of the imagination be considered harmful to anyone, but would you try it in the office, or the supermarket? No - not because you are afraid of joy, or dancing, but because you know that the powers around you would arbitrarily curtail your right of expression. You would be sacked, or thrown out, or even injected with tranquilizing drugs - for no reason except that the free expression of joy might show that there are aspects of humans over which the controllers have no control.

Similarly, the freedom of any individual to be naked is arbitrarily denied. Those who would be happy to exercise such a freedom are deterred, not by shame but by the knowledge of the pains that the powers would inflict on them. Why? No-one could in any way be harmed by the nakedness of a person. But nakedness shows that all the trappings of society and civilisations are optional, and could be changed. Those with power cannot tolerate such an expression of freedom.

So why do the freedom loving people not rise up and get rid of the power people? Simply, they do not know how to do so. All such attempts in the past have only replaced one power with another. In order to overcome the powerful, the would-be-free would need. it has always appeared, to combine in some way. Any such combination entails giving up freedom. Any such combination, if successful, has had to maintain itself against a resurgence of its predecessors, and has evolved, if left long enough, into a copy of its predecessors.

.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Similarly, the freedom of any individual to be naked is arbitrarily denied. Those who would be happy to exercise such a freedom are deterred, not by shame but by the knowledge of the pains that the powers would inflict on them. Why? No-one could in any way be harmed by the nakedness of a person. But nakedness shows that all the trappings of society and civilisations are optional, and could be changed. Those with power cannot tolerate such an expression of freedom.

You mean like THIS? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3420685.stm)

[Doctor Boogaloo]

Xamonas: I checked the link you provided. Now, I might be wrong, but I firmly believe that the naked hiker is, in fact, Baldrick. (What this has to do with the topic at hand is anyone's guess. But I felt the need to share.)

[Evergreenleaf]

I think that people are afraid of freedom and long for it at the same time because they want to be able to do what they want, but they are afraid of what other people will do to them if they are also free.

It might be that people are afraid of what they themselves would do if they were free.