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> Humans have weird psychology, but the psychology around confessions is the weirdest of all. It's why it's been exploited by the Catholic religion (and others)
by psunavy03 3y ago
> Humans have weird psychology, but the psychology around confessions is the weirdest of all. It's why it's been exploited by the Catholic religion (and others). It causes strange (and not always unpleasant) emotions in those confessing, those hearing the confession, and even those confessing falsely.
The purpose of confession in the religious sense has nothing to do with the purpose of confession in the judicial sense. The judicial purpose is to convict you of a crime. The religious purpose is to examine your flaws with a trusted counselor (in this case a member of the clergy), and try to become a better person. I hope it's obvious why these are not the same.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago> The purpose of confession in the religious sense has nothing to do with the purpose of confession in the judicial sense. That's completely irrelevant, if both confessions work the same way. And they do. There's no switch in the human brain that says "this is a judicial confession, be the sharpest least emotional being you've ever been". You may hope that the confession in the judicial sense acts as evidence, but when this clearly fails to be the case, over and over, for decades and centuries, creating a truly unknown and uncountable number of false convictions... Well, then reasonable people don't whine "but they're supposed to be different!". If you can't see this, then I question your right to sit on a jury. You're simply unsafe for the rest of us to allow you to ever be involved in the process. It's very unfortunate that so many people who should rightfully be institutionalized for feeble-mindedness are allowed to do things like wander freely, vote, and use sharp tools.
- loup-vaillant 3y agoThe inquisition was effectively a judicial body. They were religious representatives and burned witches for questionable reasons, but their… questioning did force quite a few false confessions if I recall correctly. This has little to do with your Sunday Priest.
- psunavy03 3y agoSee above. What people did 400 years ago is not relevant to my point about how things are today.
- elevatedastalt 3y agoIt is. Because the point GP / OP are making isn't that we are doing inquisitions today, but rather that the human psychology behind confessions has long been wielded as a tool.
- loup-vaillant 3y agoOK, back on topic then: do you even dispute the main point, that today false confessions are being coerced out of suspects in Western precincts?
- buildsjets 3y agoHistorically, forced religious confession has been used to get the subject to confess to heracy, and then the subject is executed as punishment. All in hopes that the subject will become a better person, I assume.
- psunavy03 3y agoThis is 2024, not 1492.
- elevatedastalt 3y agoAnd? Human psychology hasn't changed.