Is anyone else offended by...

[fable]

[QUOTE=C Elegans]I think it is noteworthy that it's not the religious part that is the same in all cults, it's other mechanisms. A destructive christian cult has much more in common with a destructive vegan "cult" than it has in common with mainstream christianity.[/QUOTE]

Now you touch on a point I have repeatedly tried to make to various groups I've had to work with over the years. Don't focus on the label. Identify the set comprised of the group by its activities and what Levi-Strauss used to call its "mentalities." Seen from that perspective, many feminist groups can be classified among the religious cults, while numerous New Age "religious groups" are Disneyfied self-help organizations. And I say that (for those among us who are new to SYM) despite being, for nearly 28 years, a witch, and the leader at various times of covens around the US. So my remarks are not motivated by a rightwing cutural framework.

It's difficult despite this *not* to label Christianity as the main culprit in this door-to-door missionary zeal, though aware as I am about the various phases of Christianity over the centuries, I wouldn't label any of those groups who go happily converting as Christian. They may quote their holy books in favor of conversion, but nearly everything else they practice within their religion is culturally determined. That culture has next to nothing to do with the religion started by a bunch of rowdy lower class Jews and intellectual Greeks roughly 2000 years ago.

But Christianity isn't the cause of he problem. At its root, I think its fundamentally human nature, which demands that people change everything they can to conform to one's neighbors' ideas of what is right and proper. So groups of people espousing any ideology fit this framework, religious, political, etc. The idea that you can differ from me on some important issue and that I should be perfectly happy without trying to change your mind...well, it's hardly possible, is it?

[frdchkn]

Yeah, it's Fried Chicken. But I definetely love tandoori too

[Chimaera182]

[QUOTE=frdchkn]No kidding. Ever heard of the 'great' Mother Teresa? What do you think she did? She went to Calcutta, a city filled with poor, diseased, psychologically demoralized denizens and used this to her advantage, converting a number of them to Christianity as they lay in their deathbeds. Pssh. I might respect her work if she did it for the good of the people, and not for advancing her religion.[/QUOTE]
Well, that sounds a bit harsh. Not that I'm disagreeing, by the way; I tend to have a similar view of most people in her situation, including her; I just wouldn't say that because no matter how nice I would make it sound, it might still have sounded harsh and engendered quite a bit of animosity. People will go on about how she was so devoted and helped people and blah blah, and in my mind, everything (including selfless acts) is motivated by pure selfishness. If she hadn't "helped" those who needed her, they might have died and she would feel guilty because she could have helped but didn't, or she converted them to the "one, true religion" and now they will be saved, or they're all brownie points she earned in order to get into Heaven.

lol @ Aegis answering the door naked. I watched this movie where a pair of Mormons were going door-to-door, and they knocked on this guy's door. He answered and seemed so happy to see them, was glad to have a good talk about Mormonism. "Oh, honey, come and hear this," he said, and the Mormon pair were so happy... until the man's boyfriend came up behind him, butt naked, and put his hand on his lover's shoulder. The Mormons fled in a hurry.

[QUOTE=Magrus]Welcome to SYM.

I like the comment "I love feeling my way around in the darkness, much more fun". It's a bit of my philosophy, although there are a few ways to take that.

I highly doubt that will be happening in this country. It's Christian, no doubt about it, regardless of it's "religious freedom" crap that's spouted by everyone. I'm curious when Muslims, Jews and Christians will stop bickering and treat other as they should. It IS the same deity they all worship after all. The idiocy involved with arguing about who's the better worshipping astounds me sometimes. If I were a god, and my worshipper's were killing each other over who had the best way to worship me, I'd see to it all of them got a harsh, nasty lesson in manners. Then again, I think I'll be seeing quite a lot of that in my lifetime. [/QUOTE]
Oh, come on, Magrus, I can't believe you of all people could say such a thing! The United States is a free and beautiful country where we are all allowed to worship in our own way whatever religion we choose, so long as it has Jesus Christ in it. But yeah, the "feeling my way around in the darkness" just sounds a lot more satisfying to me. The only way you can truly learn is to experience things for yourself, feel things out for yourself. It's quite an apt analogy, if you ask me; having everything bright and out on display is like putting your best forward to attract others instead of letting them learn for themselves (it reminds me of a Penn & Teller BS episode on death, where they were pricing caskets, and the best and most expensive were in brightly-lit displays, while the cheaper ones got little light; and you know it's important to know what a casket looks like in the light, considering where it's going).

[QUOTE=fable]Now you touch on a point I have repeatedly tried to make to various groups I've had to work with over the years. Don't focus on the label. Identify the set comprised of the group by its activities and what Levi-Strauss used to call its "mentalities." Seen from that perspective, many feminist groups can be classified among the religious cults, while numerous New Age "religious groups" are Disneyfied self-help organizations. And I say that (for those among us who are new to SYM) despite being, for nearly 28 years, a witch, and the leader at various times of covens around the US. So my remarks are not motivated by a rightwing cutural framework.

It's difficult despite this *not* to label Christianity as the main culprit in this door-to-door missionary zeal, though aware as I am about the various phases of Christianity over the centuries, I wouldn't label any of those groups who go happily converting as Christian. They may quote their holy books in favor of conversion, but nearly everything else they practice within their religion is culturally determined. That culture has next to nothing to do with the religion started by a bunch of rowdy lower class Jews and intellectual Greeks roughly 2000 years ago.

But Christianity isn't the cause of he problem. At its root, I think its fundamentally human nature, which demands that people change everything they can to conform to one's neighbors' ideas of what is right and proper. So groups of people espousing any ideology fit this framework, religious, political, etc. The idea that you can differ from me on some important issue and that I should be perfectly happy without trying to change your mind...well, it's hardly possible, is it?[/QUOTE]
lol @ Disneyfied self-help organizations. It's true, though; I can't think of anything about New Age other than herbal teas and self-help ideas. Another Penn & Teller BS was about some New Age treatment you gain from firewalking, because firewalking will inspire you and give you confidence. It was a big smack of self-help, and it's easy to see why the New Age religion gets that "self-help" label. And look at Wiccans, too: a lot of people look at wiccans and compare them to witches; I watched Buffy, and I will admit my only knowledge of wiccans comes from that show, but I do at least know enough to know that what you get of wiccans on Buffy and what they're actually like are different things.

And to be fair, what religion isn't going to change over 2000 years? The religions 2000 years ago certainly don't exist anymore; if they do, they are definitely pale shadows of their former selves. Christianity can hardly hope to stay the same after so long. The world has changed immensely since the time of Christianity's founding, and religion isn't going to stay the same in that time. People change, ideas change, people's way of looking at ideas change; in my Critical Approaches to Literature class, we're talking about this very thing (not religion, but people's way of thinking about things). We learned about the Structuralist model, which posed the idea that man does not create language, language creates man (it was some big thing, and how every poem, every story, is a product of the times, and how the culture and society at the time and place where the author lived influences his/her writing). So Christianity changed with it.

Karl Marx (we're studying schools of thought, and Marxism is another one) called religion the opiate of the masses, an idea I've certainly taken to heart. But he also had that lovely idea about communism (not saying he originated it), and how a communist society was inevitable, and how perfect it would be. Look at the communist countries we wound up with. Why did communism turn into a huge crisis rather than become the paradise he envisioned? Like many things in this world, an idea is one thing, but when put into practice, you have to consider human nature, because humans can corrupt anything. So yes, I definitely agree that it's human nature to change to conform. I always have that secret laugh that I bet fable and a few others get from watching a group of non-conformists conform to non-conformity.

[fable]

Karl Marx (we're studying schools of thought, and Marxism is another one) called religion the opiate of the masses, an idea I've certainly taken to heart.

But it isn't. Marx misses the heart of the matter, IMO. Religion isn't the opiate of anything, as a student of history such as he was should have known. Rather, people in different cultures will find something, anything, they can convert into social opiates, because it is the nature of humanity to seek some shelter from harsh physical realities: whether in truth, falsehoods, or something in between.

So most of the citizens of the early Roman Empire didn't use religion to escape the quixotic tyrannies around them; they used bread and circuses. The Ancient Greeks used political control of their city states as the greatest toy in the universe.

Marx saw the way religion was used in sentimental family structures of 19th century German states, and generalized. He was also no doubt influenced by his emotions, being an estranged Jew, and current atheist, in a heavily Christian culture. Individually, religion can be many things: an opiate, certainly, but also a method of investigation and response based on non-empirical methods of inquiry. Or it can simply be an extremely important social mechanism. Or it can provide access to cultural rites in urban cultures that have long since abolished the more direct routes supplied by rural "primitive" ones.

[Chimaera182]

[QUOTE=fable]Karl Marx (we're studying schools of thought, and Marxism is another one) called religion the opiate of the masses, an idea I've certainly taken to heart.

But it isn't. Marx misses the heart of the matter, IMO. Religion isn't the opiate of anything, as a student of history such as he was should have known. Rather, people in different cultures will find something, anything, they can convert into social opiates, because it is the nature of humanity to seek some shelter from harsh physical realities: whether in truth, falsehoods, or something in between.

So most of the citizens of the early Roman Empire didn't use religion to escape the quixotic tyrannies around them; they used bread and circuses. The Ancient Greeks used political control of their city states as the greatest toy in the universe.

Marx saw the way religion was used in sentimental family structures of 19th century German states, and generalized. He was also no doubt influenced by his emotions, being an estranged Jew, and current atheist, in a heavily Christian culture. Individually, religion can be many things: an opiate, certainly, but also a method of investigation and response based on non-empirical methods of inquiry. Or it can simply be an extremely important social mechanism. Or it can provide access to cultural rites in urban cultures that have long since abolished the more direct routes supplied by rural "primitive" ones.[/QUOTE]
Yes, but doesn't your definition of social opiates include religion? Citizens of the early Roman Empire maybe didn't use religion to escape the 'quixotic tyrannies' around them... but Christianity sure does fall under that. The people who took Judaism and believed Christ was the savior had clung to this belief that, somehow, someday, they would be free of their Roman oppressors. Christianity offered this sort of hope that things won't always be this way, that things will change; Armageddon, when Jesus returns to wash away the evil of the world and the righteous are saved, smacks of this, IMO. It's the hope that some day, the oppressive Romans and their evil ways will be washed aside so that their slaves can return to lead normal lives.

I'll agree though on your assessment of what else religion can stand for: it most certainly is a "method of investigation and response based on non-empirical methods of inquiry;" this is how Christians came to the belief of how mankind came about. Religion does serve all these uses.

[fable]

[QUOTE=Chimaera182]Yes, but doesn't your definition of social opiates include religion?[/quote]

In so far as everything can be included, of course. But since my definition deals with specifically cultural processes rather than over-cultural items, discussing items becomes useless. Science can be an opiate, too, in some sub-cultures: I've heard very intelligent people academicians argue that the solution to all our problems resides in immediately putting all our money into sending our populations to the moon and Mars. Yet science isn't really an opiate, is it? The problem is the way science is viewed--or religion, or sports, or politics, or anything else.

The people who took Judaism and believed Christ was the savior had clung to this belief that, somehow, someday, they would be free of their Roman oppressors. Christianity offered this sort of hope that things won't always be this way, that things will change; Armageddon, when Jesus returns to wash away the evil of the world and the righteous are saved, smacks of this, IMO. It's the hope that some day, the oppressive Romans and their evil ways will be washed aside so that their slaves can return to lead normal lives.

There was no unified Christianity, but in so far as "Orthodox Christianity" that evolved by the 4th century ACE was concerned, they thought the world would end, and the righteous would be rewarded--in heaven. Not on earth.

I'll agree though on your assessment of what else religion can stand for: it most certainly is a "method of investigation and response based on non-empirical methods of inquiry;" this is how Christians came to the belief of how mankind came about.

I'm probably not being clear. I didn't mean that religions always provide (or should ever provide) non-scientific answers to scientific questions. That's the way of arrant fantasy. I meant that religion has its own sphere of concerns, just as science does, and the two should never, ever be confused.

[Chimaera182]

[QUOTE=fable]There was no unified Christianity, but in so far as "Orthodox Christianity" that evolved by the 4th century ACE was concerned, they thought the world would end, and the righteous would be rewarded--in heaven. Not on earth.

I'm probably not being clear. I didn't mean that religions always provide (or should ever provide) non-scientific answers to scientific questions. That's the way of arrant fantasy. I meant that religion has its own sphere of concerns, just as science does, and the two should never, ever be confused.[/QUOTE]
What's ACE? And no, they didn't have an "orthodox Christian" faith for a long while, but it still was a religion.

[fable]

[QUOTE=Chimaera182]What's ACE?[/quote]

After the Christian Era. BCE: Before the Christian Era. It's commonly in use these days among many academics, and provides a convenient way of referring to the same dates without acting as though the recognition of a Jewish prophet as a solar diety merged with an Oriental storm god was somehow the most important thing in the universe.

And no, they didn't have an "orthodox Christian" faith for a long while, but it still was a religion.

It was a religion in the sense that Hinduism is a religion: monotheist, polytheist, exclusionary, inclusionary, gonstic, common, everything and anything had a sect. So there was no single Christian religion, but a host of them; and many fought one another, tooth and nail. Which was a good thing, because it kept them from their other main preoccupation, which was coming out in force to destroy non-Christian houses of worship.

It wasn't until the 4th century ACE, with one particular Christian sect (the Orthodox) chosen as*the* faith of the Roman Empire, and that sect busily slaughtering its opponents or driving them out of "habital" lands, that the idea of an exclusionist Christianity with a specific theology and set of revealed holy knowledge came to exist.

[C Elegans]

Now you touch on a point I have repeatedly tried to make to various groups I've had to work with over the years. Don't focus on the label. Identify the set comprised of the group by its activities and what Levi-Strauss used to call its "mentalities." Seen from that perspective, many feminist groups can be classified among the religious cults, while numerous New Age "religious groups" are Disneyfied self-help organizations.

Yes, me too, but it's often a difficult point to make. Many people, also those who do not at all defend any cults, overfocus on religious content and miss the underlying social psychology mechanisms that are the core principles for how cults are formed and maintained. Long ago, I posted the international criteria for "destructive cults" here at SYM
http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/showt ... tive+cults
and by these criteria, we have feminist groups in Sweden that are destructive cults. In the Swedish translation of the international criteria, the world "religious" appeared at a couple of places, but that was removed some years ago exactly in order to allow defining of other cults as destructive.

During the summer, there was a "scandal" regarding a very politically powerful feminist organisation that was unfolded in media. This feminist organisation clearly fulfil the critera, among other things they have used isolation and scare tactics, and also threatned members who wanted to quit. I welcomed this scandal since it thankfully resulted in a decrease in popularity for feminism, but feminism is far too protected and politically correct in Sweden for anyone daring to publically label the organisation as a destructive cult.

At its root, I think its fundamentally human nature, which demands that people change everything they can to conform to one's neighbors' ideas of what is right and proper. So groups of people espousing any ideology fit this framework, religious, political, etc.
The idea that you can differ from me on some important issue and that I should be perfectly happy without trying to change your mind...well, it's hardly possible, is it?

It's certainly human nature, but I don't think the inability to accept different worldviews is the only aspect. Another fundamental aspect is instrumental explotation of others in order to gain power or money/resources, which equals power. Many cult leaders and creators don't believe themselves in the ideology they promote, they choose the ideology opportunistically, based on what has the best chance to succeed in a get-rich-and/or-powerful-quick-program.

But it isn't. Marx misses the heart of the matter, IMO. Religion isn't the opiate of anything, as a student of history such as he was should have known. Rather, people in different cultures will find something, anything, they can convert into social opiates, because it is the nature of humanity to seek some shelter from harsh physical realities: whether in truth, falsehoods, or something in between.

So most of the citizens of the early Roman Empire didn't use religion to escape the quixotic tyrannies around them; they used bread and circuses.

Yes, and in secular Sweden where only 6% of the population believe in a god, we are back to bread and circuses. Top 3 in the world for obesitas, and 37452 reality shows at each TV-channel save the stately TV.

[Dottie]

[QUOTE=C Elegans]
Yes, and in secular Sweden where only 6% of the population believe in a god, we are back to bread and circuses. Top 3 in the world for obesitas, and 37452 reality shows at each TV-channel save the stately TV.[/QUOTE]

Actually they have one too. In the educative and cultivating spirit of Swedish State Television it is set in a 17th century enviroment, where the participants will have to face povertry, hunger, hard work and a millitaristic despot.

[C Elegans]

@Dottie: Oh, thank you so much for enlightening me, I was just dying for that information I'm relieved to hear that the Swedish Television fulfils its' mission to educate the Swedish citizens.

So tell me, are the participants in this reality show also facing syphilis, lepra and smallpox in order to educate people about medical history? Maybe they could get an "extreme makeover" after the lepra.

[Dottie]

[QUOTE=C Elegans]@Dottie: Oh, thank you so much for enlightening me, I was just dying for that information I'm relieved to hear that the Swedish Television fulfils its' mission to educate the Swedish citizens.

So tell me, are the participants in this reality show also facing syphilis, lepra and smallpox in order to educate people about medical history? Maybe they could get an "extreme makeover" after the lepra.[/QUOTE]

Not that I know of, no. The project leader promise that history will be a substantial part of the show though. She really hope the viewers will get a clear picture of the 17th century. How to achive this without smallpox is probably a secret of the trade.

[fable]

It's certainly human nature, but I don't think the inability to accept different worldviews is the only aspect. Another fundamental aspect is instrumental explotation of others in order to gain power or money/resources, which equals power. Many cult leaders and creators don't believe themselves in the ideology they promote, they choose the ideology opportunistically, based on what has the best chance to succeed in a get-rich-and/or-powerful-quick-program.

Those aren't the ones who, per the original post, come around door to door and try to convert you. Those are the leaders. The peons in the field explicitly believe in everything they've been told, whether they represent a defined cult or an established religion, and they're the ones who pop up on your doorstep.

They used to be a terrible problem in the US, in airports, but during the Carter years, the president launched an initiative to get all kinds of solicitation removed from them. He said it was bad from our international image. What a shame the idea of an international image seems to have dropped out of the vocabulary and thoughts of the latest occupant of the White House.

[Chanak]

[quote="fable]They used to be a terrible problem in the US"]

This might be due to the fact that said international image is built using action in a spirit of diplomacy and goodwill. Whatever Carter's faults were, he had a solid grasp on the process of mediation, which made him an excellent diplomat.

A sidenote concerning Jimmy Carter worth mentioning: he had quite the evangelical christian background...contrast this with Dubyah. Compare these two administrations and the actions of the Presidents and you're left admiring Jimmy Carter a great deal.

@CE: I enjoyed looking over the dangerous cult criteria you had posted a few years ago. There is an evolutionary process involved in the development of cults...i.e., they become more dangerous and controlling over time in subtle increments. This seems to coincide with access to new membership and the resources they bring with them into the group. There also seems to me to be a defining moment in the life cycle of a cult that enables the leadership to seize control in a more overt manner, issuing demands and ultimatums to members, and dealing with each member according to their weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

The defining moment can be the threat of a schism, where key members - some might even be part of the leadership cadre - want out. Perhaps they sought refuge with old friends within the cult itself (whom they knew prior to joining the group), others who feel resentful at the growing power the leadership inner circle wields over the lives of people in the cult. It's likely that they themselves fell into disfavor with the ruling group, and as a result were excluded from the inner circle and isolated as pariahs.

Unfortunately, schisms only serve to strengthen a dangerous cult, affording the leadership ammunition to justify draconian measures of control, which naturally remain in place once instituted. Here's an example of the evolution of a dangerous cult:

A loose confederation of like-minded people, all disillusioned with society, decide to live communally on a parcel of land, owned by recent recruits to the group. At this point, the leadership isn't much of a definable entity at all, just elder members who have the respect of others. During their stay in one area, they are subject to attacks from the local media and the evangelical christian establishment, all of which serve to strengthen the group and justify the views and teachings of the founding members, a handful of very charismatic people. Of course, the charges and accusations leveled upon them are entirely false or a perverse twisting of actual events, which is precisely the sort of thing required to widen the isolation and alienation group members feel towards society. This is a critical point in the birth of this dangerous cult.

Under pressure from family and friends in the region, the members who own the land the cult is currently living on eventually decide to leave the group. They resent the growing power the de facto leader and his inner circle wield, and resent how the use of their own property is dictated to them as if it wasn't theirs. A legal battle ensues...one in which more accusations are hurled at the group via the local media. The land owners eventually succeed in having the cult evicted from their own land, but their family is essentially devastated and torn asunder from their time in the cult. They sell their land, leave the area, and aren't heard from again.

During the eviction period, the group secures a large tract of land through the credit of a member, a retiree who was a successful businessman prior to joining the group. However...this time, the leader and his inner circle create a legal entity, a corporation that the land belongs to, effectively purchasing it from the member who secured it iniitially. This corporation has as it's chief executive officer the de facto leader of the cult, who during these difficult times has been emerging as the true center of power in the group.

The schism begins not long after the group settles into the new property. Things are "different" than they were before. There is an increase in money flow, and the communal style of living begins to sour for some as the money they give to the cult is disbursed according to the desires of the leader, who is very obviously the leader at this point. Certain people begin to notice that those in favor with the leader seem to receive the most assistance and enjoy the highest living standards, while others live in primitive conditions with no electricty and scarcely any food. During group meetings, this individual challenges anyone who wishes to leave to do so immediately, and even offers them a "severance package" of a few hundred dollars to help them on their way. This is cheered widely whenever this challenge is issued, and has the curious effect of silencing any murmurs of discontent that might have been circulating at the time.

The schism is complete when a contigent of original group members leave suddenly, packing up their things and exiting the property in one concerted exodus. No one is permitted to speak to them since they are "returning to the world", and to do so might invite their poison to seep into your mind. A communal meeting is held immediately after their departure, where it is announced by the leader's "mouthpiece" that the group as everyone knew it has been disbanded. Whoever wishes to continue with the old group may do so, but certain individuals were leaving to form their own gathering utterly committed to following god. A document passed out by the leader's mouthpiece at this meeting serves as an invitation to join this group of people, who were named in the document as the founding members. These people constitute the leader of the old group and his inner circle. It also stipulated the following requirement to join: absolute obdience to the leader and his inner circle, since god had chosen them to lead. Everyone present at the meeting joined. A few people not in attendance who learned of this development quietly left afterwards, with no fanfare nor attention.

The evolution of a dangerous cult seems to happen in increments, all helped along by events which serve to galvanize the alienation of the group from society at large, and which lend credibility to the leadership cadre. It is a terrible thing to witness.