Sneaky Advertising

I recently bought a book on Amazon, and found an interesting bookmark-looking think inside the front cover. It appeared to be a short intelligence test with seven brain teasers. I started reading through them, skipping the ones I couldn’t figure out, until I got to number 6. This question was twice as long as any of the others, and seemed to be a different kind of question. That’s when I realized this was no intelligence test. It was a stealthy piece of religious propaganda!

I flipped the card over to see the answers, and was not surprised to see that the answer to number 6 took up the majority of the space on the page. It talked about God, Jesus, and Judgment Day, and said the Christian faith was the only path to heaven.

The idea of mixing logic and religious information is completely perverse and inappropriate to me. One is a matter of reason, the other of faith. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. Nonetheless, I can’t say I’m all that surprised. If nothing else, the Christian proselytizing machine is powerful indeed, and they’re never short of new and innovative ideas to spread their message.