I am Jesus, deal with it. New cult on Ch 7 now (Main Forum)

Let us light a candle and say to the dark, we beg to differ

He's not the Messiah, he's just a very naughty boy". Unfortunately there are going to be a lot of very vulnerable (psychologically unresolved) people who are going to be hurt, yet again by, yet again, another equally damaged and unresolved person who has come to believe that their damage is actually truth.

Look into his childhood (and Mary's) and I can almost guarantee some form of abuse. Oh if only we could know. I wish any case like this when it is exposed would do the necessary digging into their childhoods. Too often people such as this are treated as if they just fell out of the sky. There is a cause for most bizarre human behaviours and if there was information as to what it is all the time we might just get somewhere in solving much of it.

But the children here, oh, but then, take a huge step back and look at what we teach our kids in our Catholic schools: to someone totally unfamiliar with it, it would sound equally as bizarre to what this new 'messiah' is teaching. Truly, it does, it's just that for most of us it is 'normal' because we in our turn have been broguht up with it.

The only thing that transforms and that matters to children is are they valued and loved - whatever that package comes in matters not. Unfortunately, too often the package can turn destructive as well.

Stephen

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill

Why can people NOT grasp that there are reasons why adults behave like this. If it is common knowledge why then is it not common to say as much?

My doctor could explain this guy away in ten minutes - as could a whole host of people in the world of psychiatry - don't we want to believe that? Why aren't we given possible psychiatric explanations about such people - is it politically incorrect? I don't get it. Or is there no one willing to speculate even give possible scenarios as to why someone would carry on like this - I've got a few but I'm an amateur and too subjective for the most.

Well I suppose one would have to do a thorough analysis of such a person. I'd be interested in hearing what Matt Taylor (the singer from Chain who got involved in a cult in WA, would have to say).

Why did the interviewer (David Mullikin, is it) say "What makes him different is that he is not mad". That really intrigues me. If he's not mad, then what is he? Perhaps he meant that he is damaged. That I can understand. But how, why is he damaged? What's the difference? Most of us would define madness as being out of touch with reality but believing the opposite, would we not?

Oh well, I suppose we will just have to wait till they all drink cyanide cordial and then set their compound alight and burn - all of them, women and children included. Great, aren't we humans.

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill

What is the difference between a "cult" and "true religion"

The victor???

I think the difference between a a cult and a religion is an important question in this case.

There seems to be a volume of information on the net about cults. My understanding was that one of the key markers of a cult are the forms of control that they exercise. One of the examples, in the program last night,was the woman who accepted the suggestion that her husband was not her soul mate and left him for the group. Who knows what kind of relationship they had. However, in some of the interviews through the program, one of the common themes was people being separated from the influence of family. These are the people who often operate as a reality check in our lives. Families can be destructive, but they can also operate as an important and positive social influence.

Is a religion like Catholicism without blame? Of course not. I am sure plenty of people who participate in this forum will witness to this. Manipulation and control have been used in the church. However, the conversation happening in places like this, whether or not welcome by Rome, acts like the family member who influences us to reconsider what we are doing. People are constantly challenging the hierarchy; the Austrian priests are a case in point. Issues like conscience, religious freedom and accountable leadership are on the table for discussion in forums like this. Catholicism is too large to put into a compound where the pope can tell us what to think. We do have power and we are using it here; the power to disagree.

What about Jesus. Firstly, Jesus was the original Jesus, not the imitation. Also, it seems that at the very least, Jesus saw himself in a valid tradition of Jewish prophetic teachers. John the Baptist seems to be a key influence. Scholars do debate the question of what claims he made about himself. They do ask which are the claims made by Jesus and which are the statements of faith superimposed by his followers. Then there is the question each must answer themselves. Did Jesus engage in ministry for his own advantage or was he acting out of a divinely inspired purpose?

Warren,

I'm happy to accept that many cult leaders are involved in some form of aberrant sexual behaviour - often with under age people, our own Little Pebble, being a prime example, but I think David Milliken would certainly put Scientology into the category of a cult without there being any rampaging sex involved. Ron Hubbard was a boring writer and a fraud, but I've never heard him trying to get it off with Tom Cruise - or with any follower for that matter.

I really think that a distinction can be made and should be made between the institutional Church that proclaims the teaching of Christ and overzealous or cultish behaviour within the Church. What you say implies that the Church is cult or nothing and I do not think that is correct.

I don't think I suggested that the whole membership of the Church is involved in cultish behaviour. In fact, they are not, mainly because they don't take it all that seriously.

The point I was trying to make is that if you wish to follow what has been the traditional teaching of the Church or its spiritual leaders as to the "path to holiness", you basically have to adopt practices which are decidedly cultish.

David Milliken seems to be regarded as an expert on cults, and this is his description of them,

in ninemsn_events1 asks: David, just wondering, what do you classify as a "cult"?

Rev Dr David Millikan says: Cults are different from sects and religions. Cults stand alone. They are extreme in the demands they place on people in terms of their time, their money and their social life.

All cults are religious and they become cults when they isolate people from their families and friends and capture them in the particular world view of that group and rob its members of its capacity to make judgments about what's best for them and their families.

Guest_Ben in ninemsn_events3 asks: How do you find out if a "religious" group is a cult?

Rev Dr David Millikan says: I would put three tests. One, does the group allow internal criticism and discussion? Two, does it have a hostile relationship with the world outside and, three, has it sought to isolate its members? If those things are in place I think it's beginning to move in extreme directions.

If you take the first "test", I would have thought that it applies to everyone who joins a religious order taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

And taking young people into religious life or even seminaries in the past, did isolate them from their families and friends.

And then if you look at the third paragraph, the religious life would not allow internal criticism or discussion about the basics of Christian theology - on the margins yes (should it be 9 or 7 first Fridays) etc. It still has a hostile relationship with the world (relativist, materialist secularism) and it did, at least in the past seek to isolate its members.

Now, of course, this does not apply to those sensible laity who decided that the "path to perfection" was not for them. But that is why I said that difference seems to be a matter of intensity.

The more seriously you take Catholicism, the more you are likely to get involved in cultish behaviour. Opus Dei for example, has to be a classic case. Now, I know you can't judge the whole Church on Opus Dei, and I can't see too much evidence of cultish behavior amongst contributors to Catholica. But that is because they generally seem to reject the Church's teaching on the "way to perfection". And if that is what you have to do to be "perfect", it's not worth the trouble.