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I doubt it (where on earth did you get that graph?) whatever crap hits the fan in due course, it won't send me to Jesus. But I do get another uncomfortable Jolt at recognising that there is an Elephant in the Room:
"We don't WANT to make people's lives better. We want them to be desperate so they will turn to religion."
It'll come down to the Gospels in the end. And what is more, not the gospels as they are but as Matth would like them to be.
You know the sort of thing: Matth 12.48
Someone told Him, “Look, Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to You.” 48 But Jesus replied, “Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?” 49 Pointing to His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers.…
I point to this as the familiar method of the Cult - the family doesn't matter; the members of the cult are now your family. But the apologist would claim that it means that Jesus is embracing all the world.
Only if they join the club.
That's excellent, too. I never thought about that.
Psychologically, that's the first action in every cult that ever existed.
It's both essential and imperative that the cult leader cut off the members from immediate family and friends.
I don't know if I ever mentioned this (and I can because the statute of limitations has long expired), but I was hired to find a missing woman. I traced her to a religious cult in Virginia. Her parents contracted a de-programmer, a guy from Florida who was well-known, and we assembled a team and "extracted" her one night.
The same tactics and techniques the cult leader used to isolate her from family and friends were used by the de-programmer to isolate her from the cult and reintegrate her back into her family.
That's excellent, too. I never thought about that.
Psychologically, that's the first action in every cult that ever existed.
It's both essential and imperative that the cult leader cut off the members from immediate family and friends.
I don't know if I ever mentioned this (and I can because the statute of limitations has long expired), but I was hired to find a missing woman. I traced her to a religious cult in Virginia. Her parents contracted a de-programmer, a guy from Florida who was well-known, and we assembled a team and "extracted" her one night.
The same tactics and techniques the cult leader used to isolate her from family and friends were used by the de-programmer to isolate her from the cult and reintegrate her back into her family.
Indeed. And while Jehovah's Witnesses use this method very markedly, there is plenty of evidence of the same thinking in Christianity in the stricter forms. There are any number of examples (on the board and off it) of people who have trouble because they are questioning the Authority - of which the family has been co -opted as catspaw. There is the thinking that you are either In or Out.
That's excellent, too. I never thought about that.
Psychologically, that's the first action in every cult that ever existed.
It's both essential and imperative that the cult leader cut off the members from immediate family and friends.
I don't know if I ever mentioned this (and I can because the statute of limitations has long expired), but I was hired to find a missing woman. I traced her to a religious cult in Virginia. Her parents contracted a de-programmer, a guy from Florida who was well-known, and we assembled a team and "extracted" her one night.
The same tactics and techniques the cult leader used to isolate her from family and friends were used by the de-programmer to isolate her from the cult and reintegrate her back into her family.
thats a good point ... the best psychological tools can used for the most wicked intentions.
Its why i always focus on intention and not statement of belief about god.
Exactly, if religion were TRUE it would not require FAITH.
As Sam Harris would say : “It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.”
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