Once Mormon, I can't say you're officially certified but you are definitely in field training exercises.

I had to catch myself the other day when a really educated person of Government influenced behavior accused me of getting my news from "toilet" journalists. Of course I was subtle but still strongly disagreed.

The phrase line immediately was birthed, indicating I had already obtained cult survivorship.. no argument there.

I definitely agree with that to an extent. I know my politics changed when I left Mormonism and became an atheist. But I think it's more that researching out of Mormonism was a way to develop a skeptic mindset. I think there are subtle cults out there, like Lot's Wife was talking about that aren't necessarily strong in structure like scoring on the BITE model but which a bit of skepticism can take care of simply for asking for evidence and examining claims critically.

I think Mormonism encourages an intellectual laziness, that is not reflective of anyone's actual intelligence. I think my high religiosity and daddy issues(looking for approval in the patriarchal structure) was a good distraction for any impulse I might have had for being more critical of truth claims and evidence.

"skepticism can take care of simply for asking for evidence and examining claims critically"

Well said. I always tell people, I'm always willing to change my viewpoint but just give me evidence.

blackcoatsdaughter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think Mormonism encourages an intellectual
> laziness, that is not reflective of anyone's
> actual intelligence.

That is right. And sometimes people who escape Mormonism still seek a place where they can be intellectually lazy.

Put differently, sometimes the habits of cult membership persist even after a person has left his (first) cult.

At least I am not listening to on-air personalities who are anti-vaxers, or who think that eating horse paste is a good idea.

I can't believe they are killing off their own viewers and listeners. Seems counterproductive to me.

"Seems counterproductive to me."

Shhhhh. Don't tell them.

Not only can you maybe use your new-found cult survivorship training to help keep yourself afloat while the others could get drowned by abundant new strains of "Woke" cults, "End Of World" (again) cults and "Pandemic" (uhh, both sides) cults, your learned abilities might extend even further.

After weeks and weeks of studies, the truly spooky (and changing) crapola is apparently creeping around in the US too!

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/delta-ay-variant-ay4-2-urgent-research-scott-gottlieb-fda-which-us-states-uk-1639842%3famp=1

Viruses mutate, and COVID-19 is no exception. No new news.

I can't wait for one of the virus strains to evolve croutons.

I don't get out enough to worry about recognizing cults.