- Topic
Do not dispute things here! This topic is a place for everyone to put ideas for what a cult is. We have cult groups that always cry foul and argue that the criteria used to prove them to be a cult is not accurate. This is a chance for everyone to put their criteria for what they believe are characteristics of a cult. The other thing cult member love to do is try to make everything look like a cult. Don't use this post as a springboard for that either. Stick with the topic and lets see if we can come to a better understanding.
renita.payno wrote:
To say 'destructive cult' implies there are other kinds. IMO, a cult can't be a cult without being destructive. The military isn't a cult because it isn't destructive. Families are separated for a long time which causes stress and sometimes ends in divorce, cheating, suicide, etc. But the military doesn't encourage members to be secluded from their friends and family because they don't agree with war, guns, etc. IMO, cults encourage members to stay away from people who don't agree with their beliefs. This is deliberately* destructive. The former is a result of the job requirements. You signed up to go across the world and risk your life for the 'greater cause.' I mean.. are there any cults that say out right 'you will be sent away and denied contact with friends and family for extensives periods of time. Are you sure you want to join this cult?'
Actually the apostle stated don't mix with non believers, Also even in the ot Jehovah set apart the israelites from other gentiles also. So this is a biblical trait. Deliberate destructive has to carefully used.
The millitary is as destructive as any cult and no matter how much we deny it we DO draft people or deceive people into joining and our society forces people into conditions and all sorts of things so I would argue millitaries are just as bad as cults.
Just as bad doesn't make it the same thing. People aren't blind to what happens in the military and 'why'. As for the OT, trust me when I say I find it extremely heretic. The more I read the OT the more I felt that Jehovah was a hipocrit. I totally believe that a vast majority of religions are cults. The goal of the military isn't to suck the life out of you. But the goal of the military might lead to sucking out your life, your ability to make decisions for yourself, your 'you-ness'. I guess what I'm trying to express, by my lonesome, is the difference between a cult and a group with cult like traits are the intents.
the goal of WMSCOG isn't to suck the life out either really just to make money
I think it's one of the goals. Knowing some members would do anything for Mother brings joy to these people.
You can't really just up and quit the millitary and even if you leave unless you have a less than honourable or dishonerable discharge you are on inactive reserve for a long time after
I don't think Pastor is gonna come knock on my door to draw me back to preach more
Aha, simon. Alas I have stumped you. I am not a reservist because I have no FCP. So, I am of no use to the military. I bet I could put on a show and get back into preaching.
[removed for double post]
Not sure what FCP has to do with IRL.
so far as going back into preaching I meant being drafted not choosing to go back (heaven knows why either of us would)
Oh, yea we wouldn't be drafted. But in order for me, a parent, to serve I have to have a FCP. Without one, I can't serve. Active or otherwise.
can't they just give you an FCP and draft you back in?
Um.. no. They can't force me to accept someone to watch my baby. Do you know what an FCP is?
The original question was, "what is a cult"? And to answer this question I would like to break the rule of answering a question with a question, or series of questions. Groups with ill intent have a tendency to regress people to a "child-like" state, and in doing so the effect of obedience to authority is hardly questioned, for it feels natural.
Let's suppose that we were going to start a group such as the OP inquires about. Would we:
- wait to have people knocking on our door, or would we actively go recruit people to join?
- If we went actively recruiting, would the word "recruiting" be right for this activity? Would it be better to call it something else?
- If we left the term as "recruiting", what would be the intermediate-to-long-term affect on people who join and take part in "recruiting" as opposed to another more politically correct term? Would our attrition rate be higher than if we called it "witnessing", for example?
- What is our doctrine, rigid or malleable?
- in other words, is there just one path to salvation? one secret? what is the psychological research as it pertains to scarcity? does it matter?
- as it pertains to our doctrine, will our communication method contain a strong intellectual argument or is it better to work emotions in order to illicit action on the part of the people we want to join us?
- in other words, if we were to gain a commitment through baptism, would an intellectual argument or emotional argument trigger action better?
- "The evidence is clear that we have a great understanding to eternal salvation" vs. "without baptism…you know, if you got hit by a train or car tomorrow, you would end up burning in hell for all eternity"(if they don't get baptised now). Which one elicits an emotional response and which one is more effective? Is there a phobia embedded? Will our recruits think differently at the train station or crosswalk because of this choice of wording? If our doctrine provides protection against this potential harm, and we agree that telling people they could die tomorrow is a phobia, have we now embedded a paradoxical phobia? Would this be genius on our part, or what?
- why do sales techniques like "available to the first 10 callers" work? would this technique be useful in pervasive ways in our recruiting? Do people want, or even need – from a macro perspective of the survivability of our species – to be part of an elite group? to have access to something special that will (at least in our minds) facilitate the survivability of our physical and spiritual manifestations?
- What is the emotional response in general when faced with harm? Harm from a physical realm or even the harm from a spiritual realm? Is it automatically to preserve life? Can we turn death into life via our recruitment? What is the effect that this has on us as well as the recruit? Will we come to see what we are doing as very normal and no longer question simply because, in our minds, death has become life and we are the catalyst? Will we automatically, and without even knowing it, come to think of ourselves in a high regard because of our deeds?
- Will we adopt the attitude of multi-level-marketing organizations that tell their followers to avoid the "dream busters" (family and friends that are not as zealous about selling consumer products or life insurance, for example) by communicating to our followers that the environment we place ourselves in has an affect on us.
- If we did this, would it be more effective or less effective to stress that loss of salvation, the resulting hellfire, and in the case of the paradoxical phobia subject us to physical harm as well? If we did this, would this be a use of phobia to manipulate the psychology of the human species for our gain?
- Furthermore, if we agree to "group-up", so-to-speak, would this in and of itself be bad? What if we completely discouraged independent research? Would that help to control our members? If we came out and said "don't do research", would that be stupid? What if we stressed the phobias addressed above and altered that to include "doubt" about the doctrine? What is the history of micro and macro groups that all have identical thinking? What if our members never even consider these questions; wouldn't that be great for us to have a blank check and no audit department?
- What if we somehow cleverly taught not to question, and what if our doctrine was based upon the Bible and Christ's teachings? If Christ taught that doubt is not bad, that he socialized with tax collectors (think about the history at the time: tax collectors were traitors! Jews working for the Romans!), and that he regularly challenged conventional thinking and also authority…how would we go about "distracting" our members from these virtues so emphasized by Christ himself? Would a constant stressing of something on which our souls are eternally dependent upon do the trick and keep our members from thinking outside of our box? Would our followers ever consider this to be dependency? If not, how great would that be?
- What was Orwell talking about with "Ignorance is Strength" and "War is Peace"? What is the psychological effect of manufacturing word changes? Apple is fruit. Lemon is fruit. Apple is Lemon. Apples are not lemons, but if we can create the first step through emotions such as fear or euphoria and develop that pattern through psychological technique unknown to the recruit, what stops us from using that technique ad infinitum – especially with no audit department?
The fact of the matter is, the more normal human beings are, the more likely they are to "join" groups with ill-intent, not less likely! This runs counter-intuitive to conventional thinking, but if one really thinks about it then it does ring true. The more normal we are the more our basic behavior patterns can be predicted; this is not good nor is it bad, it just is. Similarly, the knowledge of how people behave psychologically as a social unit can be used for good or bad.
Comments, suggestions?
Simon wrote:
sounds like every religious institution or corporation or union or political party ever
True, which is why I'm now opposed to organized religion. Every single church/religion/spiritual group I've ever been involved in have all had some level of corruption. Every single person who has tried to lead me to God has had some strange and shady characteristics about them. Nothing is perfect, and most things/people are not Godly.
Liberty wrote:
Simon wrote:
sounds like every religious institution or corporation or union or political party ever
True, which is why I'm now opposed to organized religion. Every single church/religion/spiritual group I've ever been involved in have all had some level of corruption. Every single person who has tried to lead me to God has had some strange and shady characteristics about them. Nothing is perfect, and most things/people are not Godly.
We humans have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Maybe give Jesus a try; Matthew 7:12. Pretty simple and easy. He also stood up to authority and gave us critical thought. In a world where today is not much different than 2000 years ago, in which man looked to build himself a stairway of deeds to earn his way into heaven, Jesus also bore the burden of all sins thereby allowing these fallible humans to enter the kingdom of God by faith, not deed. What more are we looking for?
@Liberty. I'm being critical because if insiders are considering leaving the last thing they need to hear is a confirmation that they are indeed falling away into a vast chasm of emptiness; members of groups with ill-intent have been conditioned to find what they are looking for without a thorough analysis of the entire issue.Many bible based groups have members that believe that life outside the church is a license to sin. The fact of the matter is, because of Jesus' sacrifice, we "had a license" the whole time. The illusion implanted by destructive groups binds them further by – surprise! – only telling part of the story.
Questioninginla wrote:
Liberty wrote:
Simon wrote:
sounds like every religious institution or corporation or union or political party ever
True, which is why I'm now opposed to organized religion. Every single church/religion/spiritual group I've ever been involved in have all had some level of corruption. Every single person who has tried to lead me to God has had some strange and shady characteristics about them. Nothing is perfect, and most things/people are not Godly.
We humans have a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Maybe give Jesus a try; Matthew 7:12. Pretty simple and easy. He also stood up to authority and gave us critical thought. In a world where today is not much different than 2000 years ago, in which man looked to build himself a stairway of deeds to earn his way into heaven, Jesus also bore the burden of all sins thereby allowing these fallible humans to enter the kingdom of God by faith, not deed. What more are we looking for?
@Liberty. I'm being critical because if insiders are considering leaving the last thing they need to hear is a confirmation that they are indeed falling away into a vast chasm of emptiness; members of groups with ill-intent have been conditioned to find what they are looking for without a thorough analysis of the entire issue.Many bible based groups have members that believe that life outside the church is a license to sin. The fact of the matter is, because of Jesus' sacrifice, we "had a license" the whole time. The illusion implanted by destructive groups binds them further by – surprise! – only telling part of the story.
I have to be honest about my experience. I'm not going to sugar coat anything. I have had too many bad experiences with too many "church" people, and I don't believe that it was just a coicidence. I think God is trying to tell me that it isn't the path for me. At least right now. I am done with church and religion.
I leaned on Jesus my whole life, and where did it get me? Stuck in some stupid cult that tried to take my life away. Nothing against Jesus, but I've come to discover (for myself) that organized religion is not "the way."
Fair enough.
Be advised that controlling organisms do not end with religious forms.
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