memes, or genes...

[Bruce Bostwick]

On Jul 26, 2008, at 7:26 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote:

> At 07:17 PM Saturday 7/26/2008, Jon Louis Mann wrote:
>>> You quoted the beliefs, but you failed to explain why the
>>> beliefs
>>> described in each quote are perverted.  I presume you think
>>> the
>>> answer is self-evident, but for those of us dummies with
>>> IQs that
>>> fall slightly under 200 would you mind addressing each
>>> quote
>>> individually with the specific reason you find the beliefs
>>> presented
>>> in it "perverted"?  (IOW, not just,
>>> "It's a belief based on religion,
>>> and 'religion is evil and must be
>>> destroyed'.")
>>> TIA.
>>> . . . ronn!  :)
>>
>> One way to win an argument is to nit pick your opponent to death. My
>> I.Q. is closer to 100 than 200, and I get it, Ronn.
>> Jon
>
>
> Oh, I "get it," all right.  William is a very intelligent person with
> some interesting things to say on many topics, but he has a knee-jerk
> one-note answer when it comes to anything that has to do with
> religion, spiritual matters, or anything like that, and I'm calling
> on him to actually justify it instead.
>
>
> . . . ronn!  :)

The religious movement currently under discussion is one with a fairly  
well documented history of unhealthy behaviors including enabling,  
perpetuating, and interfering with investigation of a continuous  
multigenerational cycle of almost all imaginable forms of child abuse,  
coercive fund=raising practices that in some cases take more than half  
of the incomes of a majority of the congregation and often resort to  
private investigators to shake down holdouts, rampant and egregious  
use of their ministries to promote right-wing political agendas, and  
even organized takeovers of churches from other more moderate  
denominations.  They use the language, trappings, and symbolism of  
Christianity, but they are actually Bible based cults tied together in  
a loose leaderless-cell organization with theocratic ambitions.  All  
of this is thoroughly researched.

I do, however, concede your point in that that discussion is not about  
religion or anything spiritual, at least not in the commonly  
understood definition of those words.  It is about something  
pretending to be religion, that is destructive in exactly the ways  
religion is constructive.  And if there is anyhing perverted, I would  
think that would be the very definition of the word .. religion should  
feed the soul, not feed *on* it.

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor.  It must be  
demanded by the oppressed." -- M. L. King