Posted on 07/16/2005 3:40:55 AM PDT by AdmSmith
Nobody, from any and all religion, should blindly allow others to tell them what to think.
"Killer cults tend to be led by charismatic megalomaniacs who pit themselves and their churches against the rest of the world. They are usually apocalyptic visionaries drunk with lust and power that have physical and sexual control over their followers. In most cases their beliefs stem from twisted interpretations of established doctrines. These self-proclaimed divinities usually amass a large arsenal of weapons before bringing forth their personal day of reckoning."
Liberals democrat party is a killer cult by these standards.
The fact is that the only a minority of people are thinkers. Majority are the followers. Even the greatest thinkers have most of their ideas inherited from the past generations (many of them unknowingly). Men are social animals more than they are individuals.
That is why we do not have 6 billion religions or 6 billion political ideologies or 6 billion civilizations.
"Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save those whom he intended to be his ASHISHIN. There was a fortress at the entrance to the Garden, strong enough to resist all the world, and there was no other way to get in. He kept at his Court a number of the youths of the country, from twelve to twenty years of age, such as had a taste for soldiering... Then he would introduce them into his Garden, some four, or six, or ten at a time, having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried in. So when they awoke they found themselves in the Garden.
"When therefore they awoke, and found themselves in a place so charming, they deemed that it was Paradise in very truth. And the ladies and damsels dallied with them to their hearts' content...
"So when the Old Man would have any prince slain, he would say to such a youth: 'Go thou and slay So and So; and when thou returnest my Angels shall bear thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, natheless even so will I send my Angels to carry thee back into Paradise.'"
(from 'The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian', translated by Henry Yule, London, 1875.)
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/assassin.htm
We have these same type of ordinary Putz's living here, working hard in the 7-11 by day fermenting violence by night. Ordinary looking middle -eastern people who pose as Americans, but are really hoping to destroy our America and rebuild it into an Islamic shiitehole. Dont be surprised when these people attack.The ACLU is doing all they can to help.
garpes => grapes
The author's diagnosis of symptoms is right on the money.
Most cults don't turn violent, hence they're usually laughed off and/or ignored.
Imo, 'deprogramming' is just another name for trying to negate learned (and varying degrees of) submissiveness and instilling a human being with a rational, independent backbone for the first time in their lives.
In most cases, scaling Mt. Everest on one's knees would be an easier task.
Once a cult turns to unprovoked violence toward innocents, the factors of time and the safety of the community will/should exclude any responses 'gentler' than imprisonment or extermination.
If the quote attributed to him is accurate, Einstein was close, but wrong.
The two most common elements in the universe are actually hydrogen and wishful thinking.
Skepticism was deployed in the east in support of theology long before it was used in the west to attack it. Ghazali is a lot older than Hume. The belief that nothing can be known with certainty can promote mysticism (by erasing the line between rationalism and mysticism). Doctrinal Asharite theologians are determined skeptics. Faith is acknowledged to be devoid of certainty, certainty and any desire for it is regarded as a species of pride, attempting to control God. To the point where belief in necessity in any form is regarded as heretical. This is not an obscure theological position held by nobodies, it is one of a handful of dominant theological schools in Islam.
Nor is the willingness to accept death a sign of madness. The article turns bravery into madness, or any hope for an afterlife. All Christianity, all Islam, all Hindus teach the existence of afterlifes, as things taken on faith typically, nothing to do with certainty (a modern philosophy shibboleth, not a religious one). You can think they are reassuring fairy tales, but two thirds of mankind profess them so you can't call them abnormal. Ask an anthropologist how far back it goes and across how many cultures. Nor have peoples who rejected such things as mythical been famously tolerant. The greatest mass murderers of the 20th century professed no such beliefs.
Men accept death because they are mortal, and at some point any reasonable man recognizes that there can be and are things more important. The lay runs "then out spake brave Horatio, the master of the gate, 'to every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late, and how can man die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of their gods?'" There is nothing irrational in self sacrifice even to the point of death, if the object is important enough. No one can permanently avoid death, but men can avoid cowardice, servitude, immoral actions, disgrace. Many a soldier has accepted death in battle to save others, there is no metaphysical mystery involve. A rational acceptance of mortality is quite sufficient.
The thing wrong with terrorists who blow others to bits is not that they aren't philosophical skeptics, or that they believe in an afterlife, or that they accept death. People exist who have any or all of those characteristics that have absolutely nothing wrong with them. It is that they kill innocents, and in doing so they commit a great moral evil. That is quite completely all, and it is not complicated.
But people like the writer of this piece are not really interested in what is wrong with the bombers themselves. They are merely using them as a prop to preach against their ideological bete noirs. Since belief in morality and the existence of real moral claims binding on all men is not something they philosophically accept, they look for anything else. And hurl their denunciations at anyone who seems certain of themselves (when the bombers needn't be, and mathematicians can reasonably be certain of all sorts of things), or believes in an afterlife (Mother Teresa must have been so dangerous then, right?), or accepts mortality (as though they will live forever if they don't, and all soldiers are fools).
"[I]f we persuade people to attend a Tupperware party the chances are that they will buy something, even if they have no particular desire to do so."
I always suspected Tupperware was a cult!
No, seriously, good article. Although I'm not sure the DUP (Democratic Ulster Party?) will appreciate being included.
Link is incorrectly parsed and appears to be no longer existant.
Later link works, thanks.
I agree with your two posts.
This author's point of view is standard American Liberalism, that is, that "believers" are very dangerous, and that anyone who thinks differently than they do should be criminally prosecuted.
That American Liberalism is also a cult escapes him.
A better perspective is to study God's Word to discern between a false god and the Truth.
The evil vice isn't faith, rather faith allows one to discern and avoid such evil consequence.
Bump!
Thank you for the post. The general tenor of this thread revolves around the mechanical and group psychological issues in the cult behavior of the most intelligent of the herd animals on this planet.
While interesting, I would suggest that the 'technology' of cult behavior is not the issue. The problem is profoundly spiritual.
In short: There is a spiritual ruler, an adversary, a deceiver of all mankind - whom the Jews correctly see as the problem at the very beginning of The Book: Ha Satan.
Islam is a demonic religion. Satan has invaded some of the Christian church, but not to the extent of his success with Islam.
This entire historical process is a Greek tragedy in slow motion and will eventuate in much more blood and fire before long, if the Islamonazis are not treated in the same manner as the Bushido cult in Japan in the 1940s.
(Now donning my asbestos undies...)
So then FR is a cult ?
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