Well a lot of ppl say that all religions start as cults. Also, there's the thought of what we'd say to someone we met today who claimed he saw visions of God and could walk on water etc. - he'd be viewed as delusional and promptly taken in for a psych eval, or else he'd become David Koresh, ey? :-)
Posts by Cady
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65Sect or cult?
by Cady inso i finally decided to get my a** to the library and read some real research on cults.
the book i'm starting with is "psychodynamic perspectives on religion, sect and cult.
in the introduction they mention margaret thaler singer's definition of a destructive cult as an organization in which:a leader claims divinity or special relationship with god.
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65
Sect or cult?
by Cady inso i finally decided to get my a** to the library and read some real research on cults.
the book i'm starting with is "psychodynamic perspectives on religion, sect and cult.
in the introduction they mention margaret thaler singer's definition of a destructive cult as an organization in which:a leader claims divinity or special relationship with god.
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Cady
Awesome points all...esp AuldSoul, what you said about the 3 mill jws who would prob cease to exist if the gb ordered a mass suicide. That hit home b/c I think it's very true. And G., I hadn't though of the WTBTS as a "leader" but you're right, it's the godhead. And LadyLee, your points about financial exploitation are well taken.
I tend to argue very strongly against that for which I believe, at least in this matter, b/c I'm always concerned that my personal anger is clouding my judgement. I see that at times in class. We were reading Skinner's "Walden Two" and I kept seeing mind control and the rest of the class was on a totally different bent. I've begun to realize more and more that I'm going to have to do my grad school work on cults (well, "new religious movements" is the pc term) and so I know I'm going to have to eradicate that personal hatred or I won't make it. Even though I totally believe jws are a destructive cult, my personal belief doesn't quite equate to respected research.
Halperin closes the intro with a quote from Yeats that's amazing:
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
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65
Sect or cult?
by Cady inso i finally decided to get my a** to the library and read some real research on cults.
the book i'm starting with is "psychodynamic perspectives on religion, sect and cult.
in the introduction they mention margaret thaler singer's definition of a destructive cult as an organization in which:a leader claims divinity or special relationship with god.
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Cady
So I finally decided to get my a** to the library and read some real research on cults. The book I'm starting with is "Psychodynamic Perspectives on Religion, Sect and Cult."
In the introduction they mention Margaret Thaler Singer's definition of a destructive cult as an organization in which:
- A leader claims divinity or special relationship with God. (The GB consist of members of the 144,000 - at least that was the case when I left - which obviously this would apply to.)
- A leader who is the sole judge of a member's actions or faith. (This is iffy - the JC ends up being that way, but I'm still not sure of this one...)
- Totalitarian governance. (Totalitarian: centralized and dictatorial: relating to or operating a centralized government system in which a single party without opposition rules over political, economic, social, and cultural life. Yep, fits.)
- Totalistic control over member's daily lives.
- Exclusivity and isolation.
- Development of deep emotional dependence.
- Prohibition of critical analysis and independent thinking.
- Utilization of methods of ego destruction and mind control (such as everything that brings pleasure is wrong lol, ey?)
- Exploitation of a member's finances (hmm...I don't know - I may get yelled at for this one, but I don't think the jws are as intensive in this area as some more "mainstream" religions.)
- Underemployment and exploitative working conditions.
I didn't comment on all of them b/c I don't think there's even a question on some.
What I'm wondering about is this: the jws fit very well into the above criteria. But later, when defining the distinction between a cult and a sect, Halperin says: "The cult differs from the sect in its totalistic preoccupation with its leader. Within a sect the theology of the parent groups retains its ability to restrain any excesses on the part of sect leader. Within sects, the leader is usually not granted infallibility over every aspect of the member's lives and authority is delimited by dogma. While the sect leader may live in a grandiose manner, the individuals' privations and loss of autonomy are less complete. Moreover, within the sect, the leader as well as the individual member are bound by the group's ideology. Within a cult, responsibilities descend and privileges ascend leading to the creation of a a closed system based on the 'installation of guilt for doubt and coercion for faith' (RT Barnhouse, personal communication, 1980)" (p. xxi).
The way in which jws never quite fit the pure def of a "cult" is that there isn't one idealized or deified leader. And the gb are expected to be the best example of a jw - they're not (theoretically) above the law themselves. Ideas?
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39
Do you find it difficult to tell your JW parents you love them?
by misspeaches indoes anyone find it difficult to express their emotions to their jw parents?
my father has never been a jw and i feel comfortable enough to tell him how much i love him without hesitation.
when it comes to my jw mum i feel like it is forced and then i feel resentful and then i feel guilty all at once.
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Cady
Yes. I suck at it. Even when my dad tries to open the lines of communication at times (I just faded, not officially df'd or da'd) I shut them down. It physically hurts to hear him be nice to me, esp after everything that happened when I was a kid. I can't love them, it hurts too much.
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62
typically ridiculous.
by RichieRich inlast saturday, me and a friend from the hall decided to go to nc state fair together.
i have been told that the state fair is not a big deal in other areas of the country, but here in these parts, it means alot to us, expecially since we live in/near the capital city.
about the friend: he's a year younger than me, and we go to the same school.
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Cady
LMAO!! You totally rock - congrats!
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Washington Post 78 yr old JW Katrina victim kicked out on the Streets
by JT in<a href= http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/ar2005101301957.html> 78yr old jw katrina victm kicked out on the streets</a>.
this was in the metro section on friday here in dc, so after i read this article i could not beleive that out of all the congos here in dc md va no one made arrangements to help this old 78 yr old jw out as the article says she had dwindling options, why there are over 20,000 jw here in washington dc area .
the article is interesting in that she got booted out of 2 jw homes and no one else picked up the slack.
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Cady
I think someone else posted this story earlier and I think the consensus was that there's got to be more to it. e.g., One family I met in the Astrodome I linked up with a family who'd offered their home in Dallas. The man drove all the way from Dallas to Houston (about 3 hours), arriving at 11 p.m., picked up the family and drove them back. I got an email the next morning saying the woman evacuee had started violently throwing up and the host family had taken her to the hospital. Later that day I got another e-mail: they were taking her back to a shelter. How evil! How dare they! Where is the love?
Except for the fact that the woman evacuee has diabetes, which means she checks her blood twice a day. And the host family has an 18-month old baby in the house. The problem? The woman evacuee is also HIV positive.
Cady
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43
The Dangers and Morality of Science
by Big Dog inwith all the discussion here about the dangers of religion, its morality issues, and so on i thought it would be interesting to have a discussion (especially given the large population of science oriented folks on this board) where we discuss the same issues with respect to science.
now this is not meant to be some i want to go back to the dark ages thread, but more so that recognition that there are moral, ethical, and hell survival issues with science that need to be addressed.. michael crichton as most know is both a famous author and an extremely bright individual who attended harvard medical school, in his novel jurrassic park he raised some issues with science and its dangers: .
"jurassic park was intended to warn the general public concerning the inherent dangers of biotechnology first of all, but also science in general.
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Cady
on a lighter note, have you ever seen any of these scientists protesting?
LMAO!!
Do you feel many scientists are amoral or even immoral in their pursuit of discovery?
No, not at all. I see corruption as being the result of the desire for financial gain or an improvement in social status/promenance. If you want money, there are a hell of a lot easier ways to get it than to go through years and years and years of incredibly hard work for the pittance you make as a grad student. Once you become a scientist there is, of course, the natural desire to be recognized for your work. However, there are strict ethical and professional standards w/in the scientific community. Basically, you're surrounded by a lot of very smart ppl who have their eyes open. I think most scientists care a lot about ppl and their profession and protect it; the few renegades are going to be relatively shunned.
...As science advances you pick up what others have done and run with it, but do enough questions get asked like where is this going, what are the possible outcomes of this knowledge? Can humans be trusted with such knowledge? If there is no God, no built in conscience of divine origin, or rules handed down from above, who decides what is moral and what isn't? What measuring stick do we use? Do ends justify means?
I work for a lab whose purpose is to include values in the development of technology. Our lab is partnered w/major tech companies around the world.
People are always ranting on this board about how dangerous reglion is, well, what about the products of science? When did religion ever give its followers the ability to vaporize 100,000 people in the blink of an eye? Science/knowledge/scientists whatever label you want to use have opened up wonderful benefits to mankind in the last century, but they/it also gave us for the first time the true ability to eradicate ourselves as a species, and put that power in the hands a very small group of people. Does the good really out weigh the bad?
Humans have always created tools. A sharp rock can be used to cut meat or to kill a rival. The problems are not the result of the tool but how the individual behind it is motivated. As far the question of the mind and heart, and the turning of such towards hatred, religion has done a great job in that area. For that reason, I see religion as a much greater threat than science and the tools it creates.
Cady
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5
I can't decide what graduate program
by Soledad ini recently decided that i want to get my master's degree.
but i can't decide between the 2 programs that i am most interested in:.
social work or secondary education?.
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Cady
I've done social work for a few years now and emotionally it's very tough. The burnout rate is really high and I know I wouldn't last much more than a few years; hence, I decided to get my degree in Psych to do research instead. Still fits my overall goals in life, etc., but w/a dose of reality (or my version thereof). The other thing is social services are notoriously unstable, as the funding is directly tied to whichever party is in power. Education is too, to a point, but they can't just close schools down - education's a right (at least here), social services are not.
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Term paper...
by Quentin inmy daughter attends texas wesleyan in ft. worth.
she is working toward a degree in criminal justice and crime scene investigation.
as part of her degree plan she has to take so many hours of sociology and physiology.
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Cady
Well one thing to consider is the level of the course she's taking and what are considered acceptable resources. There are a lot of books out there written by individuals who are not considered authorities in their field and that can lend to serious credibility issues, esp. in a term paper. My recommendation would be for her to log onto her school's library website and use a reference source by subject link. For instance, they have databases of articles on the humanities (which religion fits into). I'd search for "new religious movements" first, as that's the more pc term for cults and so you'll find more current resources than by searching for "cult".
Cady
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46
Moral Poverty Costs New Orleans
by Frannie Banannie inwouldn't it be great if the media went to this guy for quotes, rather than jesse jackson???
moral poverty cost blacks
posted: september 21, 2005.
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Cady
Last night I had dinner with one of the volunteers I met in Houston who came from Seattle as well; among others there was a former evacuee
who had moved to Seattle. With this thread in mind I ventured a question about race. We talked about the topic for a bit, rehashing ideas and
the usual lines. But a few minutes into it he said that 20 years ago he couldn't have had this conversation with me. That at that time he would
have changed the topic to football or made an excuse to leave, after which he would have gone and had a drink (or several). He said living with
it every day made it too painful to actually talk about; just the experience of dealing with racism was overwhelming.
The change he said was not in the rest of the world but in him; he'd grown older (is 43 now) and stopped taking absorbing others' opinions
of him and believing them. He said if you look into Dr. King's message it is not about race; it is a spiritual msg of love. If you are okay with
yourself, you have no need to put others into negative categories in order to elevate yourself.
I want to sit and analyze his argument, put it into practical terms, etc. But the quiet dignity he carried himself with as he spoke - I can add
nothing to his words, and to even attempt to seems wrong somehow. I will say only that the peace which he carries calmed me and gave me
hope.