Customer Reviews

The Mind of the Bible-Believer

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book makes a very positive contribution to any dialogue about how the bible itself influences the human nature of dedicated biblicists. Cohen, who, in presenting a psychological thesis, of course, uses psychological terminology, states clearly what he finds useful in Freud and Jung's work and where he differs from them and other contemporary schools of psychological thought.

Whether the New Testament was "constructed" as a mind control device, or just turned out that way because of the vested interests and intent of the authors and assemblers, Cohen, in fact, leads one through its labyrinthine inconsistencies, without installing a nose ring to do it. I found his review of psychological theory robust, and one does not have to accept his particular model for operation of the subconscious mind in order to benefit from his analysis based on that model.

Cohen's inferences and conclusions, like those of any author, must be weighed in your own hopper. Don't be put off or on by mention of psychobabble. A useful term when it was coined, psychobabble becomes almost meaningless as a designation unless you really know what specifically is being referred to. Psychological terminology is not inherently psychobable; it becomes so in the hands of incautious users. Thus, the term psychobabble has become little more than an expletive.

Whatever you ultimately decide about Cohen's various answers to the questions he raises, you will benefit from having considered them and the evidence he presents. By all means be alert for holes in the arguments and variations of interpretation of some of the patterns, but the book serves its purpose: to have us think "out of the traditional rut" about how mindless fundamentalists get that way and are kept that way. And please note, I use the term mindless very deliberately, because that above all is the characteristic I have observed, an observation that matches much of what Cohen brings out. Being mindless or functioning in a limited, mind-controlled way thwarts the very thoughts we must pursue to mature in life. Cohen is right about that. No one's infantile ranting should dissuade any interested reader from examining and profiting from the book.

This book offers an insightful analysis of the mind-control devices inherent in a literal approach to the Bible. As someone who once subscribed to that mindset, I found Cohen's book to be very helpful in understanding my experience and the reactions of my close friends who still subscribe to it. I don't really buy Cohen's assertion that the writers of the Bible designed it to be potent as a mind-control weapon intentionally (possibly, but I imagine that it evolved on its own following the laws of nature -- that which was potent enough to attract followers survived while that which was not was lost), but it was helpful to me to explore what is attractive and what is ultimately flawed about that approach to life. As someone who is already familiar with the Bible, I found his in-depth analysis of Bible verses and their effect on people's lives to be a little slow, but I suppose it would be very helpful for someone who has not been exposed to christian fundamentalism before. I found his explanation that the belief system creates the very problems it promises to solve to be a delightful paradox that rings true. I recommend this book and suggest that anyone who wants to know what's up with Christian fundamentalism flip to the end where he describes the devices Christianity uses one by one.

I had been an exchristian for a couple of months before readingthis. Even so, while reading it I felt like something bad was behind me - I had to turn around in my chair and look to reassure myself that there wasn't. I was shocked to find the imaginary boogeymen of Christianity rooted so deeply in my own mind.

We all know that there are Christian cults out there that practise mind control and brainwashing. This book exposes the fact that this is the norm for NT christianity, not the exception. The new testament is mind-control propaganda, propaganda that held all the minds of Europe in its grip for a millennium and a half.

It exposes the newspeak of christianity. The doublethink, the blackwhite, the slippery concepts and words. It explains why, as a christian, it's possible to read a passage of scripture over and over and still feel like you don't that makes it so difficult for a christian to reason about their faith. The dreadful fear at the bottom of christianity.

It exposes the poverty of Christian "love", and "joy". It demonstrates the equivocal definitions of 'truth' and 'freedom' that make a lie of "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make in faith, and how it is that faith is the opposite of sin. And in so doing, suddenly makes sense of every bible verse, every book, and every sermon on the topic that I have ever read or heard.

Get this, and get George Orwell's "1984" if you don't already have it. But if you are a recent exchristian, don't read it late at night like I did.

Cohen's book was so powerful, I had to read it more than once. Cohen uses his skills as a psychologist to critically examine the Scriptures, as well as the behaviors exhibited by Fundamentalist adherents. Finally, because of this book, I realized that I had indeed been emotionally damaged because of Fundamentalist Christianity. Everyone should read this book!

I have read cohen's book twice, once twenty years ago when it first came out and once again recently (2005). The first time I read it, I recall that the accumulated force of the author's observations caused me to weep. Because I was an evangelical throughout much of my teens, the book's observations about the mind-games that fundamentalists play with themselves hit very close to home. I reread the book recently because I wanted to see if the book read as well as I remembered it to have. What I discovered is that the book is as well written and thoughtful as I remembered. A portion of the book that I find especially interesting (but that I did not remember from the first time I had read it) is the section in which the author reflects on Kafka's novel "The Trial" in relation to some of the Kafkaesque psychological aspects of being a religious literalist. This section comes toward the end of the book, and is sort of the climactic observation of the entire study. Perhaps I missed being impacted by this part of the book because I was young at the time of my first reading of it, and hadn't yet read Kafka.

Excellent Reading for those ready to move forward from the mind control devices of Christianity. Don't believe the false reviews written by fundies in disguise, this book touches aspects which really get you thinking, and leave you with that "ah ha!" feeling.

I found this book to be very enlightening. I read it a few months after having left the Christian faith, and it really hit home, especially the method by which fundamentalism is engrained subtlely into a person's mind.

The main problem I have with the book is his chapters on Jungian psychobabble. Granted, I am no psychology buff and there may be something to what he says, but the inclination I had was to skip forward a few chapters (and had I done so, I don't think I would have missed much).

First, a couple nitpicks:

In the chapter on "logocide" Cohen ascribing manipulative purposes to obviously figurative language-life, death-is over the top.
The outright conspiracy theory toward the end is silly-since no one gained politically or financially form Christianity until it had been aroound for 200 years or so(Constantine). The canonical books are simply, as Cohen himself allows at one point, simply what got saluted when run up the flagpole(as opposed to Gnostic and other non-canonical stuff) due to their psychological effects.
Those nitpicks out of the way, this book is far above the usual psychologies of religion based in wish-fulfillment, father projection, search for meaning, etc. Cohen demonstrates that the New Testament makes use of several tactics which work together synergistically, while no particular single one of these could take root in a modern person by itself.

Edmund Cohen's The Mind of the Bible-Believer is both highly insightful and at the same time, as another reviewer (beakus) pointed out, highly ridiculous. Cohen's analysis of the fundamentalist church's techniques for converting and trapping gullible believers sheds a great deal of light on my own experience in an Assembly of God church as a teen. The techniques he describes are real, although whether they are devised intentionally by the church or not is debatable (I believe that in most cases they are not).

Cohen goes overboard when he discusses these so-called mind control techniques as they are implemented in the Bible. In several cases, for example, he takes a simple inconsistency in Biblical teaching (such as Christ's command to love one another versus his expectation that the believer abandon--"hate"--his family to follow Him) and claims that it is a purposeful "device" created by Jesus to frustrate the believer and force him/her to expend ever-increasing amounts of mental energy on fulfilling these impossible demands. Such claims are at times just as absurd as the religion he criticizes.

Cohen fails to sufficiently back his claims that the fanaticism of Christian fundamentalists is the result of a "conspiracy" implemented by Jesus and his disciples to further their
underhanded political schemes. This leads to another important issue which Cohen might have addressed: If the fanaticism of fundamentalists is primarily the result of sneaky mechanisms in the Bible, would such an explanation apply to fanatics of other religions? Do Jews or Muslims, for example, who could be considered fanatics follow their religion to such an extreme because of mind-control techniques intentionally placed in their religious books, or are these cases of free choices made by the followers of each religion?

The book has many great insights, but the overall logic of the work fails in the end. I would still recommend this book to all interested in the psychology of Christian fundamentalism--with the possible caveat that a personal experience in a fundamentalist church would help the reader both to grasp Cohen's points and to refute his absurdities.

Freethought literature too often has a "cranky" feel to it, and this book is no exception. So long as Cohen sticks to his field, psychology of the fundamentalist, he is brilliant. When he ventures into Biblical history and criticism, he becomes ridiculous. The idea that the Bible was assembled as a mind control device is preposterous, particularly given what we know about how the Bible really came into being. If you really want to read a good book about how the New Testament came to be, from a freethought perspective, read Howard Teeple's "How Christianity Really Began."