My Review of a Religious Website
When analyzing a website, whether it is rhetorical or not, I feel the most important thing to look at is the composition of the site regardless of what the content is. The way the page is laid out, what colors are used, and how the information is organized, is all very important. This concept is part of the intensification group of Rank’s Model.
The site: God’s Truth About The Occult is divided into chapters. Each chapter addresses different topics and tells what the Bible says about these topics, repeating things in a way that gets across the point that God wants you to be living your life in a certain way, according to what he believes, and what he intended. Some of the topics, included on the site are: Satan, Satanism, black magic, fortune telling, astrology, and reincarnation, among many others. After you click on the link for each chapter, you are then led to another page, where you can either click on links to look at separate sections of that chapter that you may be interested in, or you can read through the whole thing. There are six chapters total, all of them being very lengthy, and there is an additional section that includes frequently asked questions. All of the type on the site is in a larger, bold font, and the chapter links on the main page are in large blocks of bright colors. The site is very easy to navigate.
After looking at the layout of the website, it is important to know who actually created the site, and for what purpose. Background information is always important so I tried to find some things out about the website and it’s creators. The site is run by ELAM, which stands for Eternal Life Agape Ministries. I tried to do some research on the organization, but there really isn’t much information on ELAM. They basically seem to live their lives according to the Bible. One thing they include on the site is an article that is titled: “Jesus Christ The Only Savior.” They seem to preach the information in this article.
Another aspect of Rank’s Model of Persuasion (within the downplay section) is Omission. This deals with biased evidence and the exclusion of relevant information.
As I started to explore the chapters that are included on the website, I noticed a bias on ELAM’s part. Everything they talk about is supposedly coming from the Bible. However, very few of the statements they make are quoted from the Bible. They don’t even tell you what the verse is, or what testament. I’m not even entirely sure what kind of “Bible” they are preaching from. ELAM states that the Bible says: “The secret of a truly successful life is to have an obedient knowledge of God’s Word in a living relationship with God. It is only God who is capable of giving consolation to the insecure soul.” I went to Catholic School for four years, and I also taught Sunday school for three years, and I don’t ever remember hearing a passage in the bible that talks about God being the only hope for someone who is insecure about something. I am interpreting, that ELAM truly believes that God is the only power that can bring inner peace and comfort to someone. They rule out the option of finding inner peace within oneself, on your own, without the help of religion. People value the ideas of peace and comfort, so that tactic would be considered association, which is part of the Intensify section of Rank’s Model.
Also included in chapter one is a list of names that Satan is referred to as in the Bible. ELAM also says that this list is for one’s own knowledge so they can be aware of “Satan’s strategy.” ELAM actually believes that Satan is plotting against us as we speak, and we need to be aware of what he may be doing, or what name he might be going by so we can protect ourselves. How true is this really? That answer is different for everyone, because you base your answer on your religious beliefs, but for some people this would be a half-truth.
When I read the title of chapter five, I knew I would find some opinionated and biased statements from ELAM. The title of the chapter is “Occult and Sexual Relationships.” ELAM describes a scenario in which a woman has a child out of wedlock, and chooses to raise the child as a single parent. The outcome is that the child will go under a curse for the next 10 generations, or 400 years. For the rest of this child’s life, they will be controlled and followed by evil demon spirits, who will inflict pain, trouble and despair on them. What these demons actually are, are things we know of in a different sense. Some examples are lust, masochism, nudity, nakedness, pornography and rejection. In this day and age, things like lust, nudity, and nakedness are all things we can see just by going to a movie on a Saturday night. Does this mean we are all being controlled by demons? Unfortunately I can’t find an answer to this question on ELAM’s site.
Something I found preposterous was the belief that the bible says martial arts is much more than just a self defense mechanism. According to ELAM, people who practice martial arts are commonly possessed by spirits presently titled as: hatred, pride, depression, resentment, fear, rage, and suicide. What martial arts were initially intended for was an art of war. The beliefs that martial arts masters practice are not accepted by the Bible or by God according to ELAM.
Another part of the downplay section in Rank’s Model is confusion: when the speaker or creator in this case confuses the audience by over complicating things whether it be by using a technical language, faulty logic, or something else along those lines.
I think ELAM’s site is one big mess of confusion, and in some parts of the site the aspect of confusion is coupled with the third aspect of downplay: diversion. There are many parts of the website that refer to things that are stated in the Bible. However in most cases the quote is given, but there isn’t much of an explanation of the quote. It’s basically like, “Here’s this quote, and this is what it means.” Twenty people could read the same poem and have twenty different interpretations on what the poem is about. ELAM doesn’t invite the troubled person to think about the quote and decide what it means to them. ELAM changes the subject and says “Do this because we’re telling you this is what the quote means.” I think the whole technique is based on shifting one’s attention to other issues (diversion), and in a sense confusion because ELAM is using faulty logic, and using quotes.
ELAM also switched our attention to a bogus issue when they tell us to “Never keep any books about witchcraft and occult on your bookshelf. Burn and destroy them, do not pass on to others. God wants us to stay away from consulting mediums, sorcerers, witches, and fortune tellers.” I don’t really understand what harm someone is doing by reading a book about witchcraft or the Occult, if they are reading it to expand their knowledge of religions in the world today, this shouldn’t be a problem. ELAM is making the Christian religion sound bad, and they are making God sound bad when they make these statements. Should all Christians be narrow minded and uneducated? Is that what the Bible really states? These examples are also examples of omission because the examples are very biased.
One more example of omission is that the whole point of ELAM’s website is that Jesus Christ is the only savior. There are no questions to be asked. Based on what is said on this website, you cannot take different beliefs from different religions and make them your own. If you pick Christianity (which you should according to ELAM), that’s your religion, and you better follow it. ELAM tells us we should say to the Lord: “I want You to control and empower every area of my life, including all my emotions; including my sexual powers; that from now on that I might be used according to your will. I also now give to You my affections, emotions and desires, and request that they might be motivated and controlled by Your Holy Spirit.” By saying that, we give up every aspect our lives. We are no longer in control, and we shouldn’t be, because look at what kind of evil lurks behind closed doors!
In conclusion, I think Hugh Rank’s Model of Persuasion was an excellent tool to apply to the website that I chose for this thought paper. WWW.farsinet.com/truth/ is a very biased site. Qualities of omission, diversion and repetition were very evident and I enjoyed looking at the site and applying these things, because I had a lot more knowledge on the topics than I did before. The site sure didn’t win me over, and I’m definitely not a supporter of ELAM, but I’m glad I got to see their site and take into account the information they were trying to provide me with.
