Apologetics Free Course 14, Lesson 4
Analyzing/Countering Propaganda
All contrived propaganda is war — a battle to control and manipulate minds. One comes under its attack whether or not one wants to participate. This means that every person living in the modern society must necessarily take precautionary steps if he has to win his share of the imposed battle.
A mere awareness about the existence or circulation of propaganda is not enough preparation to come out as a winner in this war of wits. Rather, for achieving an unambiguous victory one should be in a position to analyze propaganda. One a person analyzes it, he knows what is what and can escape from falling into the verbal/emotional trap.
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Apologetics Free Course 14, Lesson 2
Combinations Of Their Techniques
The simple techniques mentioned in the previous chapter can be combined with each other and also with some other methods to result in things highly harmful for the recipient. It would be good to look at some of them.
Propaganda Combined With Mind
Manipulation (Seduction) Techniques
Our mind is the ultimate source of all our behavior. Here we will not go into an analysis of soul, spirit, the old sin nature, etc. Nor will we try to examine their precise nature. Rather, we will use the word "Mind" to represent the center of human thinking.
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Apologetics Free Course 14, Lesson 2
An Introduction To Their Techniques
Practically hundreds of methods are used to propagate ideas and control minds, but ultimately all of them can be classified roughly into a few overlapping categories. "Roughly" because it is difficult in humanities to classify subjects in a water-tight manner, and "overlapping" because in real-life setup more than one category tends to be used at the same time, producing some form or other of overlap. Here are these techniques:
1. Fear Of Bad Name (Insecurity, Fear): Everyone is afraid of getting a bad name, and this feeling is reflected in the oriental saying that "Even the worst evil is better than a bad name".
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Apologetics Free Course 14, Lesson 1
Propaganda As A Tool Against
Rational Thinking And The Christian Faith
Different societies repeatedly go through periods of hatred towards Christianity. Propaganda plays a two-fold role during such periods. First, clever propaganda hastens the onset of such attitude against the Christian faith. Such change of attitudes then adds to the spread of propaganda. In this way a vicious circle of anti-Biblical feelings and teachings is set up.
Mere wishful thinking will never help the situation. The vicious circle can be broken only if a significant number of persons in such a generation understand the role and methods of propaganda.
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Pilgrim’s Progress: The Pilgrim’s Progress is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It was published in 1678, and is regarded as the most influential Christian book outside of the Bible. It has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print in spite of three and a half centuries of its existence.
The book talks of Christian, an inquirer of spiritual truth, who finally found peace at the cross of Christ. From there he walks a difficult and challenging path to reach heaven, his destination. He meets many types of people, various temptations, and many choices some of which lead him astray on an occasion. Once he reaches his destination, his wife and children trace the same path.
The Pilgrim’s progress is an absorbing allegory, and one cannot put it down once one starts to read it. The English is antiquated, but numerous simplified and modern editions are available. Download a copy by clicking on the picture.
Aesop’s Fables: Aesop was one of the greatest moral story-tellers, using animals as his main characters. He lived from around 620 to 564 BC, and it seems that he was born as a slave who was a contemporary of Croesus and Solon in ancient Greece. Gifted in the art of storytelling, he took fables to a new height in the Greek society and became very popular. As has happened to ancient writings, the original documents have not survived. However, many did write down individual stories or collections which were then gathered by Demetrius of Phalerum (ca. 350-ca. 280 BC) into ten volumes. Even this collection was lost. Such collection and losses continued for generations and each new collection introduced its own revisions of the original stories. Today there are an endless number of collections, often with the addition of stories picked up from other writers and nations.
Aesop’s Fables have given moral instruction to countless people worldwide, and that is why the book is alive even today in numerous editions and numerous languages. Christians would find it a useful book to give to their children.
Download the fully illustrated ebook by clicking on the picture. You will get a 6.5 MB zip filed. Unzip it and click on the index file to browse the book.
Aesop: A 2000 Year Old Depiction, Creative Commons
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