An interesting story from USA Today yesterday!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2001-11-05-ncguest1.htm
Randy
Net Soup
http://www.freeminds.org
Apocalyptic Clut Methods expl. bin Laden
by Dogpatch 2 Replies latest jw friends
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Dogpatch
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Dogpatch
A Clut is a new type of cult :-))
Hassan observes that many of the techniques that he encountered with the Moonies are evident in bin Laden's camps: "social isolation, controlling their sleep, showing them non-stop videos of Muslims dying, being buddied up, so that they're never alone. ... Destructive mind control strips away their ability to think for themselves."
The cult framework goes a little way to explaining the dissonance between who these hijackers were and what they eventually did on behalf of al-Qa'eda.
My sense of this was confirmed by John R. Hall, the co-author of Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe and Japan.
"There are two kinds of apocalyptic sects," he told me. "One kind engages in a withdrawal from society at large to another world, which they establish as a utopian heaven on earth." Most American cults fall into this category, Hall says, although they resort to violence if they feel threatened.
"The other kind of apocalyptic group," he says, "is the warring sect. It seeks to bring on the final battle of Armageddon by launching a holy war against the existing social order. Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda is definitely of the latter type; indeed, it is a classic case."
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GinnyTosken
Thanks for sharing, Dogpatch!
This sure sounded familiar:
"I had been taught that the world was facing Armageddon and that God had chosen me, and that Satan would work through the people I loved to try to talk me out of it. I was indoctrinated into distrusting my own thought processes and into believing that killing people was for their own good."
Of course, as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I didn't have to sully my hands with killing. I believed that Jehovah would be the one who would kill people for their own good.
Ginny