The Mind of the Bible Believer

Rating:
Summary: Half brilliant, half ludicrous
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but flawed
Review: 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."

Rating:
Summary: Read Carefully, Ye Who Enter Here
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Good Insight
Review: 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.