extensively dealt-with already. None of them was born dominant. They became the mainstream through the support of a prevailing political power. I can't think through that diatribe all in one day. Good thing I don't fly! That's what I've said. Even cider had to start somewhere. For every apple that makes it to the press, a thousand seeds were eaten by birds or dried up. For every cult that makes it to the big leagues of mainstream religion, a thousand die of murder, internal strife, lack of funds, boredom or suicide.
But the seed is not the cider, nor a cult the church it might someday become. Well, not so extensively. And, furthermore, ike a mechanic can deal extensively with a car and still not get it to run correctly. Then again— —if 280 words is too much to process, well ... okay, sure, I'll take the note. And? You say that as if it means something. In your desperate struggle to redefine downward in order to lower the argumentative bar of your own private jihad, you're still going to need to spend more than 280 words. And while I am no less discouraged by the values you assigned, it is true I botched the meaning of the underlying list; sorry about that. But, really, the sloth of your imposition is very possibly the greater of its weaknesses. What happened in Boston, 1638, is important in American history and religion, but is not the whole of it. Furthermore, even with modernity on your side, as a modern-day Winthrop, Hutchinson would still kick your ass, and you would still need your sympathetic fellows to help you out of the jam. As you demonstrate, thought would be more useful than flight. Try it, sometime.
I'm flattered. I haven't had 280 words - more, if I counted the next paragraph and the ri-post - lavished upon me since the last time you were peeved.It's not so much the words I'm incapable of processing as the concepts they depict and the driving force behind them. I don't suppose there is a soft enough word in my meager vocabulary to turn away such wrath.
In the attempt to clarify my own thoughts on the vagaries of the word "cult", I came up with following ( so far): the term "cult" can not be used in a black and white (Yes/No) fashion. must include degrees of control by a charismatic leader that inspires/coerces members to potentially and actually act in ways that may be deemed illegal or seriously inappropriate according to local custom and law. To me I have found that it is about the issue of "controlling" a persons belief systems enough to enslave them to that belief. However that belief must include the notion that the Cult is above the locally applied law due to the charismatic leader's call to authority ( typically divine). The call to divine authority, a state of deluded self righteousness, a belief that the group and it's members are above the law and whilst they may maintain a legal state this is only lip service and only for functional convenience and has no real societal value. As such: Scientology, would be often border line. Manson Family, would be a definite candidate. Example: A local law states that a minor of less than 16 years of age is not legally able to engage in sexual relations. Cult leader, by a call to divine authority, claims the law is irrelevant and encourages defiance of the local legal requirement to protect the minor from sexual exploitation. Thus taking advantage of typical teenage vulnerabilities and naturally rebellious ( of the law) phase. The term Cult by default is a pseudo legal term for a group of persons that believes it self, individually and as a group, to be above the law and will only pretend to be law abiding. a work in progress...
Any attempt at defining "cult" that excludes the explicitly named and referenced Cargo Cults of post WWII Oceania needs a clear argument.
Certainly, nailing the definition for all instances of past use would be almost impossible. Currently in sociology a cult is defined : "...a social group with socially deviant or novel beliefs and practices" (SRC) This definition is in itself quite satisfactory yet I find it allows for too much generalization and much is said about it's vagueness and use as a descriptor generally due to it's varied use both colloquially and academically. Perhaps it is just me reacting to the media presentations of the more violent and grotesque versions and how I have always, in ignorance, associated the term with such? Perhaps I am just trying to justify my past ignorance?
what behaviours make a cult ? = unchallenged dictatorship followed by zealots what is the current meaning of the US term "political power" ? https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/north-carolina-partisan-gerrymander/550139/ how does a cult act ?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/north-carolina-partisan-gerrymander/550139/ Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! racist segragationalists
You have never seen them dancing and playing with their tambourines at airports and bus stations or in any capital city while dressed in various citrus shades? Aum Shinrikyo.. Think Japan, Shoko Asahara, sarin gas attacks.. Ring any bells now? It was a deadly cult, involved in terrorist attacks in Japan (not to mention many sheeps in Australia where they came to perfect their delivery system), murders and generally instilling terror across the country for quite a while. A cult does not have to involve any belief in a supernatural deity. They tend to revolve more around a person or group of people spouting particular beliefs.. Those beliefs do not have to involve what we would normally associate with religious ideology. Why not? Many people view the military as being cult like for various people, particularly the manner in which some members are willing to do anything and everything they are told to without question and with blind obedience. I would say it is both. Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who once taught at Harvard Medical School, wrote a paper titled Cult Formation in the early 1980s. He delineated three primary characteristics, which are the most common features shared by destructive cults. 1. A charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power. That is a living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority. 2. A process [of indoctrination or education is in use that can be seen as] coercive persuasion or thought reform [commonly called "brainwashing"]. The culmination of this process can be seen by members of the group often doing things that are not in their own best interest, but consistently in the best interest of the group and its leader. Lifton's seminal book Thought Reform and Psychology of Totalism explains this process in considerable detail. 3. Economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie. The destructiveness of groups called cults varies by degree, from labour violations, child abuse, medical neglect to, in some extreme and isolated situations, calls for violence or mass suicide. Some groups that were once seen as "cults" have historically evolved to become generally regarded as religions. Power devolved from a single leader to a broader church government and such groups ceased to be seen as simply personality-driven and defined by a single individual. For example the Seventh-day Adventists, once led by Ellen White, or the Mormons church founded by Joseph Smith. Some groups may not fit the definition of a cult, but may pose potential risks for participants. Here are 10 warning signs of a potentially unsafe group or leader. • Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability. • No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry. • No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement. • Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions. • There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil. • Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances. • There are records, books, news articles, or broadcast reports that document the abuses of the group/leader. • Followers feel they can never be "good enough". • The group/leader is always right. • The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible. That is a very simplified view that removes all complexities out of the equation.
I didn't even know there was an equation, let alone that it required complexities. However, I did elaborate on that statement a couple of times, so one might say that quoting the bare summary strips away complexity in a way similar to boiling a big international religion down to the essence of its founding cult.
from what i can tell (just a casual observation)Cults are mostly derivations of a base line religous indoctrination of the child. the child is either of a religous childhood indoctrination or raised ideologically as a missing item and that missing item being a belief system. The Cult always has a physicality that refers the thought of belief back to something physical as a process of mental pattern. in place of belief there is the required expectation to follow orders and or act without question.
Given the inherent incompleteness that assails us at literally every moment of our existence, driving us onwards in pursuit of ideals that prop up our future selves (or backwards to our previous selves, if we are so sufficiently aged to have more obstacles than opportunities before us), I guess that would make everyone a cult member.
LoL i have let a signifigant portion out however.. yes we are all of the human cult slaves to our biological functions and electrical mandates of synaptic behaviours.
Do you know how The People's Temple came to be? Do you know how or why Jim Jones started what later became that cult? What motivated him? The anti-communist stance of the US government at the time and racial inequality. His belief was that the best way to combat it, was to infiltrate religious organisations and change the underline ideology of the day that way. And that is what he essentially did. He was never religious in his early life. His intent was not religious. Religion was a means to attain social change, integration of African Americans and minorities in society, fairness, equality and human rights. He was an award winning civil rights campaigner and human rights activist. And I mean that literally. He started the People's Temple, to allow minorities the right and the ability to attend church freely and equally to every one else in that building. Jim Jones did so much to allow racial integration. The reason Indianapolis stopped religious segregation is because of Jim Jones. He should have been a hero and he was. Until he no longer was. So when do you think the indoctrination of children started? And what religion were they indoctrinated into? Keep in mind that Jones initial goal was never truly religious, but more about human rights and equality and he was very, very successful at it. Any group or organisation can become a cult. Does not have to be religious.
Yes. Too loose to be used as an adjective or as a noun. Religious studies scholars use the word one way. The media and the general public another. Even the fundies have their own meaning for the word. Historically, the word dates back to Greco-Roman antiquity where it meant 'cultivation of the gods', the religious practices that people performed at the ancient temples intended to induce the gods to behave benevolently. While most people believed in the reality of many gods, they would typically adopt one particular deity as their own patron deity, and they would perform the cultic practices traditionally associated with their chosen deity. That usage was kind of absorbed into Christianity and we see people talking about 'the cult of the saints' and so on. So it took on the meaning of a specialized and targeted devotional practice within a larger religion. Then in the in the last century or so, sociologists kind of hijacked it to refer to a particular kind of religious organization characterized by charismatic religiosity. Your Wikipedia article seems most interested in the sociological usage, which is only vaguely related to the older one. From there it kind of migrated into the mass media and into public usage, being used to refer to New Religious Movements in the 1970's when it acquired a very strong perjorative meaning. People were taught to believe that "cults" were dangerous and threatening. Even the fundies have appropriated the word, making use of the connotations of danger and threat to refer to non-Christian religion and to ostensibly Christian groups that aren't considered sufficiently Biblical. So calling something a 'cult' can mean almost anything (and hence nothing). In the present climate, it usually conveys hostility and distaste. For that reason, it isn't used as often in the academic world as it once was.
people denied the ability to go to church and be a real christian given a church they could go to, to be a real christian i will need to come back to that after some extensive reading on my days off, i can speculate that it probably attributes to his being bi-sexual or homosexual and having a dysfunctional sexual self identity formed through sexual and life long mental abuse which probably developed mental health issues like schitzophrenia and bi polar disorder with a bit of split personality typeBPD) thrown in for good measure. (im not keen to get right into the psychology of it currently i have a few things i need to focus on over the next few months) perversion(abuse he had suffered as mental and physical that changed the way he processed feelings and emotions and human to human interaction) mental abuse lack of attachment homosexual men until very recently have lacked solid parenting(close interpersonal bonding morality of care) models and have been forced to find them in other places through other people. it is well documented that because of societys stance toward gay men & women they have been subjected to a much more vaster and servre range of mental illness indoctrination of children starts from when they are yet to be born. everything from gender stereo types to what colour and type of clothing and toys(what friends they will have, what sports and activities they may participate in) they will be emersed in for ever. normalcy is the perversion as indoctrination(im not going to explain this as it is quite complicated for someone who is completely niave of the subject nature of the psyche) ra-ligion sma-ligion makes no difference but the majority religion in the usa is christian your asking the question backwards as if that means someting ? maybe you wish to remove the emotionally projected inference content and ask the actual question ? if you do i will answer it in a few days in this singular particular instance of jim jones. assuming he was bi-homo-sexual(maybe more soo repressed homosexual forced into bi-sexuality) given his perception of society being soo racist and bigotted he became the peoples father. thus domestic murder suicide is better than allowing the wife to escape with the kids. it happens all the time. my general malaise of the superficial data suggests he probably took on the role of the benevolent father and mother he never had which became wrapped up in the psychosis. once his world was endangered by the killing of the people at the air field, he probably innitiated his panic mode response which was to kill everyone as they would be better off dead than in the hands of that socuiety which spent its entire energy on abusing him and those who felt close to. i am keeping in mind the nature of the content knowing this is a public space so i ambeing very general and not posting further. dont expect me to respond to this thread any more.
