by Chariklo 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Alert for those in the UK.
BBC Radio 4 programme Today anounced at 7 am that they are going to include an item on "what is the difference between a religion and a cult.
I don't know which part of the programme, and it doesn't seem to mention it on the programme's website. But, you can usually pick up replays on iPlayer and the programme's podcasts etc.
Today is on now and us Arsenders can get it.
Great! I wasn't sure anyone could get it outside the UK.
I haven't heard mention of it since that opening announcement. I'm listening online while exploring updates here and elsewhere.
Edit: announced again as coming up after 8.
thanks for the tip Chariklo, I just listened to the 10 min discussion. I don't remember the people names of who were involved. I did enjoy the one guy who spoke of coercion when describing cults. He said in his 30 year experience, he has never known anyone to join a cult, but rather one is recruited.
OK, for those who missed it, it'll be on their replay from 8.16.
This is the blurb from their website; I eventually located it:
"The news of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's divorce has brought scientologists to the fore once again, but has the religion been around long enough for us to take it seriously and stop calling it a cult? Ian Haworth, found and spokesperson of Cult Information Centre and Dr David Barratt, freelance writer and researcher of esoteric religions join the debate."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9735000/9735875.stm
Nothing there that'll be new to anyone, but it's an interesting discussion nonetheless. A very good definition of cults as being organisations that employ psuchological coercion in whatever form. The main focus was on Scientology, though they refused to say that this was actually a cult because of potential litigation.
The WT wasn't mentioned once, maybe for similar reasons, but they might just as well have been talking about it. The cap fitted beautifully.
They made the point strongly that those liable to succumb to a cult are highly intelligent, likely to be graduates etc.
Dang it, I missed it despite your heads up about it. Must have been on straight after the news at 8am? I will try it on iplayer when its finished and made available.
On just after 8.15, Witness.
Interesting. I actually thought the guy who was most vociferous about cults, I think Ian Haworth (see my post above) might be worth contacting about JW's.
He spoke about all forms of psychological coercion, and the discussion included rerence to paedophile catholic priests. I suspect he might be wide open to an approach about JW's that included that.
And it could mean publicity about JW's, though they all learly walk on eggshells because of fear of litigation with Scientologists, which would also apply to the WT.
Child abuse is indeed psychological coerciion. So too is the kind of indoctrination that people talking to JW's get. I feel strongly about what happened to me, though I was a bit relieved to see that I was apparently prime conversion material, a graduate, intellectually curious, wanting to know why people think the way they do, trying to disprove it....I've heard the story so many times from other people.
The thing about this guy on the radio is that he's very aware of all of that, and he sees that as abuse. he said he had never heard of anyone who "gets converted" into a cult. He said every new member has been recruited.
He listed a number of features that define a cult, and one of them is aggressive recruitment.
Q.E.D
In a cult, certain thinking patterns are enforced. You cannot speak against the cult, its leaders, or its policies in any way. It is like the "political correctness" movement, exaggerated. A religion is simply a belief system.
Personally I have come to view all religion/s as cults - it is only the degree that varies.
Religion cannot escape the concept of one group of humans controlling, coercing and manipulating another.
There is no difference. one group calling the other a cult.
