When Cults Become Religions...
We all think we know about cults. Most of all, we know we’re immune. Only stupid people get trapped that way. But it’s okay because it’s a kind of self-contained cancer. Jim Jones and David Koresh and the Heaven’s Gate morons take themselves out while we watch in righteous (but amused, let’s face it) horror.
Easy to blame it on splinter Christians run amok. It happens. But not always. The first three luminaries up top were nominal Christians. The latter three were/are not. Collectively, though, five of the six escape the popular definition of “cult.” They have become in the eyes of the world “religions,” meaning we’re supposed to give them the benefit of the doubt and judge their actions as maybe different but beyond damnation. The exact same way we give Islam a break. They’re a religion and have to be respected as such. It’s almost as important a distinction as tax-exempt status with the IRS. They’re in it for godliness, not money, whatever their other excesses.
Which brings us to a funny historical point in time, toward the end of the nineteenth century. Darwin is the latest intellectual fad, and high technology is driving everything, even philosophy. The Industrial Revolution has the bit in its teeth, mankind is feeling its oats, and even Woman is squaring her shoulders for the challenge of dominating the human race.
By then, the vaunted Encyclopedia Britannica is openly questioning whether Jesus Christ ever existed, and it’s all irrelevant anyway because… steam engines, trains, ocean liners, electricity, flush toilets, and long guns aboard ships and across the continents and oceans. Mankind is having his way with Nature, and God should step aside if He knows what’s good for Him.
Not surprisingly, there is Christian dissent. In the form of cults. Mormons, Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Who are conventionally persecuted to make them prove their sincerity, ultimately tolerated, and allowed to form their repulsive cult communities… until the founder dies. At which point the absence of community dissolution makes them — TA DA! — a religion.
Our liberal tradition seeks to persuade us that all religions are equal. Christianity started as a cult, spread by the maybe 3,000 people Christ ever spoke to, across the world by word of mouth and prodigious martyrdom. Islam started as a cult, spread at the point of a sword by a child-raping warlord who conquered all competing religions in his path and slew them to the last man, woman, and child until the survivors fell on their knees before Allah at sunset. Same thing, right? Well, 9/11 taught us that lazy equivocation might not be true. But there are also Jews and Buddhists and Hindus and Taoists and Shintoists and Wiccans who do not slaughter their enemies or oppress their own or others, right? Who are we to judge?
Well, we’re us. Americans. We are mostly — despite all the inroads of political correctness — Christians who believe in personal liberty and the right of self-determination within the constraints of constitutional law. A religion which violates basic American rights is suspect. A cult does NOT become a religion just because its founder has died.
No religion worthy of the name seeks to harm or oppress or persecute its faithful or even its competitors along the path to the divine. Pretty simple dictum, right? An institution which violates this precept is not a religion but a cult. Even if its public advocates are rich, famous, and powerful. Which means it should be dealt with by means of the common law. Prosecuted as individuals for provable crimes (extortion, stalking, kidnapping, terrorism, rape, murder, etc) and punished with imprisonment for those crimes, with no excuses permitted for a defense claim of religious faith. When the actions of individuals so charged and convicted are directly traceable to the scripture of a so-called “religion,” then the leaders of said faith should also be tried and convicted and sentenced to prison.
Where we are today with at least two of the “religions” cited above. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists are both terroristic cults which explicitly sanction and cover for child sexual abuse. The Scientologists in particular are far worse than pederasts. They are an aggressive entity engaged in organized crime for the purpose of fraudulently enriching a handful of bosses at the top.
They are a spectacularly dangerous and yet instructive example of just how evil large organizations can become. Why this post is only a launching pad for presentation of an evil analogous to Scientology and far more deadly in its ramifications for citizens of the United States.
Bear in mind that every large organization has cultish features. They develop their own internal reality, for example. Corporations all aspire to be cults. But in a free market, you can always walk away. Provided you have an interior sense of reality and morality that make you proof against the temptation to trade your identity for a title on a business card. It’s the places where there can be no walking away that constitute a danger to the soul and the culture. Sadly, our culture has been at war against moral consciousness for two generations. The schools no longer educate. The weed is everywhere. And the government is now not the last resort but the first for those who would be the elite ones. The Biden Administration will speedily show you all that you have lost in your native land. We have moved into a cult world, where all are at risk and no one will survive untouched. Hope you’re happy with the vote you cast in November.
Welcome to the UniParty Files. Ironically, of all the institutions implicated by these files, only Nancy Lieder is exempt. She is still alive. She is still the leader of a mere cult.
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