(811) Wed 30 Apr 97 4:49 By: ROBERT CURRY To: ALL Re: cults vs. religions St: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @EID:699e 229e2620 @MSGID: 1:3603/210 68774177 @TID: GE/2 1.2 Marie Castle, recently elected president of the Atheist Alliance, is making some great new contributions as editor of _Secular Nation_ (the international Atheist Alliance magazine, published quarterly). The following sample, taken from the back cover of the April-June 1997 issue, may be of interest to some here. I have also listed the complete table of contents at the end. ======================================================================== The Difference Between Cults and Religions ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Religion, despite the occasionally published failings of avaricious televangelists and pedophile priests, holds a place of honor in our society. It is deferred to and fawned over as the one institution that is just and good and decent. Then along come suicidal religions such as Jim Jones's People's Temple, David Koresh's Branch Davidians, the Order of the Solar Temple, Aum Shinri Kyo, and now Heaven's Gate. With their spectacularly tragic endings, the words, "just and good and decent" don't fit. The solution is to isolate them from mainstream religions by calling them a cult, which simply means a religion, but is popularly interpreted to mean one that is small, strange and weird. (All religions start out small, strange and weird, but after they've been around awhile the strangeness wears off and the weirdness seems normal.) The main difference between cults and religions is that cults tend to be suicidal and religions tend to be homicidal (as evidenced by history as well as current events in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, India, the Middle East and almost every other war-ravaged area). The Catholic Church in its early days certainly bore out this definition of a cult. Its members committed suicide in droves so they could make a fast trip to heaven. The Church finally got its rather serious membership attrition under control by declaring suicide a mortal sin. However, despite their tendency to immolation, cults usually mind their own business and limit their damage to small groups. On balance, it's the religions that bear watching. Following each religious tragedy, there is a lot of agonizing about how to keep such things from happening again. (Unlike mass deaths by war, mass deaths by suicide freak us out.) The sticking point is our concern for freedom of religion, and this is admirable. People do have a right to their beliefs. But people also have a right to know the truth, and this is a bigger sticking point. Telling the truth about religion is taboo. Religion is a sacred cow, not to be criticized and not to be questioned. Atheists, who tend to be the ones most willing to criticize and question, are often accused of hating religion because of this. The truth is, any hatred we have is based on human compassion. We see people hurt, and children die, and whole societies suffer because of destructive religious beliefs. We speak out against this, which perhaps makes us the Ralph Nader of religion, but does not make us popular. Most people do not care to face the truth that their cherished belief system is an intellectual, historical, and philosophical lemon. The religion-is-good notion that permeates society is a barrier to critical thinking. It allows a religious-minded person to be drawn into any belief system, some of which turn out to be disastrous for them. Perhaps if the media stopped protecting religion and started telling the truth about it, fewer people would become entrappedin religions that convince them to destroy their lives, the lives of their children, and the lives of others. Perhaps if the unvarnished history and irrational doctrines of the various religions were publicly and regularly discussed and analyzed, faith might be accompanied by a more critical evaluation of respective merits. How liberating it would be if the media reported that Christianity in all its variations is nothing but a reprise of numerous crucified-savior-god religions that went before it. Or that the Passover and Exodus stories are pure fiction because the Israelites were never in Egypt in any great numbers. Or that Mohammed was just an ordinary camel driver with an extraordinary imagination. Or that Christian Science was founded as a spin-off of a carnival act. Or that the Mormon Church was founded by a hallucinating alcoholic. The religiously inclined might still not avoid religion, but they might avoid the most damaging ones. ------------------------------------------------------------------ If anyone is interested in subscription information, please ask. The issue I took the above from contains also: * New Directions for Atheism * Attorney General Janet Reno: Taxpayer Funding for Christian Science Nursing Homes Unconstitutional * Why Join an Atheist Organization? * Rumor Roundup: Everything Everyone Suspects About Madalyn's Disappearance * 3rd Annual Atheist Alliance Convention Combined With Humanist Convention a Big Success * The Last Taboo: Why America Needs Atheism (by Wendy Kaminer) * Reincarnation * Young and Free (by Tami R. Hoffman) * Religious Web Site Incites Anti-Abortion Violence * Why an Atheist Bible Scholar? (by Kenneth H. Bonnell) * The Freethought Bookshelf (by Jim Cox) and * The Letters Desk * SLMR 2.1a * [ curry@gte.net ][ http://home1.gte.net/curry ] --- PCBoard/2 15.30 * Origin: The 128th Parallel Seminole,Fl 28.8k 813/397-1339 (1:3603/210) SEEN-BY: 12/12 24/888 102/2 943 105/72 106/2000 109/7 112/2715 114/262 SEEN-BY: 124/1 130/1 1008 133/2 143/1 147/34 2021 167/166 170/400 202/777 SEEN-BY: 202/1207 213/213 218/2 801 890 900 901 907 270/101 275/429 280/1 SEEN-BY: 280/169 282/1 62 283/120 284/29 300/603 310/666 322/739 323/107 SEEN-BY: 324/278 343/600 346/250 352/3 356/18 371/42 377/86 380/64 382/92 SEEN-BY: 387/5 388/1 396/1 45 690/660 730/2 2401/0 2442/0 3603/420 3612/41 SEEN-BY: 3615/50 3619/25 3632/21 3651/9 3652/1 3667/1 3828/2 @PATH: 3603/210 3615/50 396/1 218/907 801