To talk about Qanon. This one is exciting. I feel like a young atheist at BYUI all over again (uh, in the good ways; there were some good ways).

https://youtu.be/nz5uCaLhVyw

I’d also like to say, I don’t hate people for how they voted. What I hate is the phenomenon where people fall for the abusive mind control tactics of a malignant narcissist and forbid me from criticizing their faith in him. Donald John Trump is yet another charismatic conartist that my parents have fallen for in totality, in the ways that Trump wanted their minds from the get go, that I’m not allowed to help them out of. That’s what I hate. I don’t care if people still hate liberals at the end of the day if I can at least disabuse them of their most culty bullshit and make them understand someone like me as a human being. If I can make them understand my human motivations for thinking things, that’s at least going to deescalate things before they get to where they were on the sixth of January

The clashes we’ve had (me and my folks particularly) over the last five years were not just differences of political opinion. It was something akin to arguing with the hyper religious and the way the walls go up when the hyper religious feel threatened. That’s different. What happened on the sixth was different from anything that’s ever happened before. The culture and the speeches and the lies and the tweets and the YouTube videos that set the sixth up to happen were different from anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. It wasn’t just a different political ideology . It was the emergence of a new cult. And now the expert on cults has commented. I’m loving this episode.

I have posted this before but I can't say enough good things about it. IT IS A CULT. And Q falls into the same category.

https://www.amazon.com/Cult-Trump-Leading-Explains-President/dp/1982127341/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3IW29ANVWSV29&dchild=1&keywords=the+cult+of+trump&qid=1614184931&sprefix=the+cult+of+tru%2Caps%2C218&sr=8-1

Something he says towards the end about therapy cults trying to take control of you and make you dependent instead of helping you achieve emotional balance and autonomy had me thinking about the LDS anti-porn addiction cottage industry.

I’ve been through that mind blender, which is why I talk about it so much. One of the things I was taught was that I would be an “addict in recovery” for the rest of my life. So there’s the twelve step knock-off which is just a manual read chapter by chapter by a volunteer followed by a round table, uh, basically a testimony meeting about how you know church chastity culture is true. They rip that phrase off of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is also arguably a therapy cult. But I also saw the local LDS therapist who works with kids that bishops don’t know what to do with. He sought him voluntarily, because I was super depressed at that point in my life. He taught me to be kinder to myself, but he also showed me MRI scans of what he said were brains addicted to porn and he showed them side by side with brains of addicts doing hard drugs and he told me there was no difference. They looked almost the same to me, but what did I know. I was just here to do sufficient penance to prove to God and to my priesthood leaders that I was not lacking godly sorrow. He too, the LDS therapist, told me that I was going to be an addict at risk of relapse for the rest of my life, and I believed him even though the thought made me want to go home and put a gun in my mouth. You mean even if I stop, I’m the “porn guy” forever now? Like there’s innocence that my brain had that is just gone now that a professional can see under a microscope?

It didn’t sit right with me, but I didn’t know if I was being had or if I just didn’t have the spirit anymore. It sounded like I may never have the spirit again. It made me extremely distrustful of myself and threatened to undermine every single thought I would ever have about pushing back against the church on anything. Of course that’s the point. Guys that go through that soul-grinding process are church broken at the end of it, or they just go further into the “deep end,” at least from the perspective of the priesthood leaders and LDS therapists who were working with him, which sometimes only means they stopped giving a shit about all of this silliness and moved on with their lives.

Cults are a big deal to me, because I was raised in a big one and in order to keep my testimony or at least let people know I was sorry for doubting and blaming myself for my loss of testimony, I subjected myself to other cults. When someone says liberalism or atheism or social-justice-warriorism are cults, that just falls flat for me. No they’re not. Not at any time have I been under the same kinds of pressures than when I was a doubting Mormon being told that it was all my fault, although I praise moderation in all things. Anything can become problematic by going too far, true, but cults use this excuse to keep indulging in the BITE model. I am so tired of — after having pointed out something else that the Trump administration had done that destroyed norms, eroded democracy, and set new corrupt precedents — hearing about what Q says about Mrs. Clinton and George Soros controlling the world, even though the 2016 election had been over for three years.

The stock that I used to put in my former mode of thinking has been utterly destroyed and discredited in a spectacular fashion by the shit show of the last five years. It’s dead. When my dad, who supported Q and “stop the steal,” becomes a YSA bishop out of the blue and texts me saying that he hopes to be able to serve me in any way that I need, he just doesn’t understand how much I don’t give a shit for his help on anything anymore, not in the way that he means it. Because what he means is that it’s not too late for me to repent and come back. No matter what I say to my father, I’m the porn guy, I’m the apostate son with the nasty habit, and how often I actually do that or how long it’s been since the last time doesn’t actually matter. As long as I don’t want to be Mormon anymore, I’m the porn guy — do you see how that works? He thinks this about me thinking he’s dodged a bullet, and then he excuses himself as he and his wife and all of their friends who are drunk on church and MLM marketing and conspiracy theories completely go off the deep end and make the rest of us afraid for democracy itself. I’m not the one with issues, but I know something about escaping the grip of a cult and I’d like to help him if he’d let me.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2021 01:57PM by Cold-Dodger.

Every nevermo young man that I knew in my youth looked at porn. Young men are very interested in sex. I don't know why this is a surprise to anyone, right? All of those young men grew up to live normal lives. They got their education, developed successful careers, got married, and had children. Porn is only a problem if it takes over your life to the exclusion of other, important things. But for most people, that is not the case. The Mormon church invents an "addiction" where there is none.

Even though the rational part of my mind knew better, as a former Catholic I felt residual guilt for having unmarried sex for many years. Eventually as I matured, I realized...it's jut sex. It's not the huge deal that the Abrahamic religions make it out to be. Yes, you want to approach it with some degree of care. You want to make sure that unintended pregnancies do not result. You want to make sure that the participants are consenting, mature enough to deal with it, and emotionally okay with it. But in the end, it's just sex. It's not a big deal. It should not be an enormous vehicle for guilt.

At an an ex-Mormon Conference several years ago. He does not consider Alcoholics Anonymous a cult, but rather a benevolent fellowship that admittedly employs some of the dynamics that toxic cults use as part of their brainwashing tactics. The Tradition of "attraction rather than promotion" is particularly powerful. You are a member when you say you're a member, and leaving operates on an identical principle. Moreover, each AA group is autonomous, and adherence to the Traditions is voluntary and not coerced. I know of groups I "don't care for," but even court-sentenced individuals are allowed to select meetings that appeal to them.

Here is his "BITE Model" of authoritarian control. To suggest AA is "arguably a cult" ignores 85 years of the fellowship's contributions to recovery. The simple truth is we have found one approach that works for us, and whether one chooses to follow that path is entirely optional.

https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2021 09:28PM by SL Cabbie.

"whether one chooses to follow that path is entirely optional" ... It's not optional when it is required by a court of law.

The choice is not enforced by 12-Step Programs, but rather by the courts.

And yet AA welcomes the courts doing this.

AA "welcomes" anybody at open meetings. To borrow a "BYU Cliché" I read here once, your knowledge of the Fellowship and its suggested program of recovery amounts to a "peeled zero." There are longtime members who are grateful for that "nudge from the judge."

This crapola started when Cold Dodger derailed his own thread about Steven Hassan with that attack on AA as a cult and some irrelevancies about Trump and Q-Anon. I offered a refutation from a PhD anthropologist but a phenomenon identified in the AA Big Book as "contempt prior to investigation" seems to have arisen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2021 10:24AM by SL Cabbie.

You offered a sentence from a Ph.D. that describes Mormonism, Scientology, and others as "religions" and not "cults." Here you double down on that sentence.

I repeat: do you seriously believe Mormonism, LDS fundamentalism, Scientology, and Jehovah's Witnesses are not cults? Do you believe AA is not a cult in the same way that Scientology is not a cult?

Contempt prior to investigation.

Zapped: redundant.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2021 05:40PM by Lot's Wife.

SL Cabbie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> To suggest AA is "arguably a cult" ignores 85
> years of the fellowship's contributions to
> recovery.

That sentence makes no logical sense.

Because you say so?

From a grad class I had from a PhD anthropologist: "The difference between a cult and a religion is a religion survives the death of its founder."

And I see both of you are ignoring Stephen Hassan's analysis. Given that he's possibly this country's foremost authority on cults, I'd say your credibility is nonexistent.

SL Cabbie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Because you say so?

That is not a logical argument.


----------------
> From a grad class I had from a PhD anthropologist:
> "The difference between a cult and a religion is a
> religion survives the death of its founder."

Irrelevant. No one is arguing over whether AA is a religion or a cult.


----------------
You stated:

> To suggest AA is "arguably a cult" ignores 85
> years of the fellowship's contributions to
> recovery.

The logic in that sentence is that if an entity yields positive results for some of its adherents, it cannot be a cult. That is not logical insofar as bad organizations sometimes produce good results.

I am confident that Mormonism helped many people over its history, whether they were European immigrants in the 19th century who got a second start in North America, young people who needed some structure at various points in their lives, or the depressed or even suicidal who gained support from a ready-made community. I know some such people and I am sure there are many more. Indeed, I am comfortable asserting that there are posters on this board who benefited from their time in the LDS church. By your logic, therefore, the LDS church is not a cult.

The truth, however, is that the Mormon church is a cult. What determines whether an organization is such is its internal structure, teachings, and demands and not whether it generated some beneficial effects for some people.


-----------------
> And I see both of you are ignoring Stephen
> Hassan's analysis.

Irrelevant. The question is whether your statement about cults made logical sense.


-------------
> Given that he's possibly this
> country's foremost authority on cults, I'd say
> your credibility is nonexistent.

I have not criticized Hassan; indeed, I have not even addressed him. You can try to defend yourself by scurrying under his skirt if you want, but he's wearing pants and there's nowhere for you to hide.

Defend your own logic.

Here's another spurious argument.

> From a grad class I had from a PhD anthropologist:
> "The difference between a cult and a religion is a
> religion survives the death of its founder."

That makes Mormonism, Mormon fundamentalism, Scientology, and Jehovah's Witnesses religions and not cults. Is that your belief?

Trumpians are not conservatives. Conservatives value the constitution, the separation of powers, and established legal processes; try to protect individual liberties against mob rule; believe in a strong national defense and alliances in the service thereof; emphasize law and order as opposed to insurrection; and promote, at least nominally, fiscal rectitude.

Trumpians are not conservatives.