It's never a good idea to delegate your thinking to other people, especially the clergy. Humans keep having to relearn this lesson, because religion is a culturally acceptable form of mental illness. The preachers can talk about their loving Jesus and the promise of a glorious afterlife from now on, but make no mistake, it is wealth, power and control on this earthly plain they value above all else.
Well, you ask if I Dld, I have no idea about what that Dld means. Most words have a vocal letter in it. I didn't dare to take a look in my Norwegian to English dictionary. Ich will nicht Deutsch Schreiben eher.
TL;DR If you read cult expert Janja Lalich’s book Take Back your Life, she says that anyone can be vulnerable to power and control tactics. I haven’t read the whole thing [ADHD and lose interest quickly] but I was shocked to realize that, for example, it’s quite possible that members of the Trump administration might actually be under the influence of Corey Lewandowski or Stephen Miller, et al. Look at Marco Rubio’s dead eyes. And Trump constantly barrages people the same way this cult leader does. With the difference that Trump is easily swayed himself and does what whoever was the last one to whisper in his ear tells him to do. I’ve also read about half [damn ADHD boredom factor] of Take Back Your Life by Marlene Winell, about the major psychological damage of fundamentalism, causing actual developmental delays. I read about a chapter or two of Gareth Gore’s book on Opus Dei [at that point it was like “okay, same tactics, read enough”]—that cult preys on successful young men and turns them into self-flagellating monks who infest that financial industry and run human trafficking. It’s like domestic violence on a large scale. Yeah, I’ve spent decades believing that rightwingers made a choice and could leave if they wanted to. But my new research is telling me that there is this whole other world I knew nothing about. My mind is blown by how pervasive! I’ve been watching ex-Mormons on YouTube, following people in religious trauma groups. My own mother tried to do it to me. I understand now how much of an existential threat I am to them, why they’ve reacted so extremely to my efforts to reason with them. And I understand why Republicans want to shut down public schools. I’m the only one in my family who went to public school (for the gifted program)—I met Catholics and Jews and Muslims. And I’m sure my mom still goes on church lady Zoom 50 years later and tells them how she regrets that decision.
Oh, this Taylor character is a piece of work! He thinks he's all that and a bag of chips, and he's managed to convince a whole lot of sheeple of that specious lie. They're not only giving him money; they are effectively acting as slaves to his will, acting as indentured servants for him. And all of this because Taylor has put it in their heads that, if they don't, they will be condemned to everlasting punishment.
Taylor and Brannon both need to be tossed in jail and the key thrown away.
FWIW, my bride put me in charge of our Halloween costumes this year and I decided we are going as “All That” and “a bag of chips”. She will be all that and I will be the bag of chips. The mayor of our town puts on a Halloween party and the only requirement is you have to be in costume.
A few years ago we went as Thoughts and Prayers. One of us was Thoughts; the other was Prayers. The Millennials at the party found this hilarious whilst older people not so much.
I'm dying of curiosity....Can you describe the costumes for All That, as well as Thoughts and Prayers? I'm trying to visualize them because the idea is hilarious.
Thoughts and Prayers were really simple. One black T-shirt and one white one. Fabric markers. Big word balloons (like a comic strip) with Thoughts on one shirt and Prayers on the other. White text on black shirt and vice versa. The crowning touch though was that I printed up little cards with thoughts and prayers on them. The thoughts were word salad nonsense and the prayers were ridiculous pablum. My bride and I would ask people if we could give them a thought or a prayer and give them a card.
My bride is going to be All That, which will just be those words from iron on letters on a plain t shirt. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to attempt to recreate a chip bag on my shirt or just safety pin the biggest chip bag I can find to a shirt.
Piece of work? In medieval Europe, the scum like these two were placed in a shallow well covered by a grate. The public was then free to relieve themselves on whatever miscreant was in the well. I'd say these two deserve nothing less.
So much to unpack here. May I inquire as to why anyone who has an omnipotent god on their side feels the need to possess not one but FOUR bulletproof cars?
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
I used to work in the semiconductor industry, and I remember being astonished when a MASSIVE state of the art fab in Dallas, Texas (size of 2-3 football fields!) was closed. Then others fabs closed after that. Admittedly, that was roughly 20 years ago and whether those fabs could produce a product which represents the current state of the industry or not, I don't know.
But why more attention hasn't gone to all that idle production capacity is a mystery to me.
Yes, I think we’ve been strictly a service and information economy for quite some time now. With the emergence of AI technology (although mostly hype) I feel that pool of workers is being narrowed down and consolidated even more and folks are waking up.
And he was right. And still few in power is paying attention. Most of them probably have stock in said tech companies and the private prison labor camps they plan to put all of us in.
I bought my last suit off the rack at Kohl's, and it's pretty nice. Nice enough, at least, for Saturday-go-to-Severance-Hall and The Cleveland Orchestra!
[shrug] The house is coming around, slow but sure, but it's got a LONG way to go before it'll feel like HOME.
And I positively LOVE Severance Hall (they can call it "Severance Music Center" all they want; it's STILL Severance Hall to me!). The men and women who play there absolutely make MAGIC, and I cannot count the number of times I've walked out of there, saying:
Goddybitch/jeezyboy/the flying turd were too busy masturbating to orgasm brought on by the suffering of human beings. The more humanity suffers the more sexually aroused the trio of fuckwits get.
It’s a good thing the goddamm fucking assholes trio of deities are not real, or they would be brought to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The dickhead trio would be sentenced for eternity in that goddamm shithole which was created by the goat shagging trio of deities in the first place.
I realize that the brains of 5-year-olds aren't sufficiently developed to understand complex abstract concepts, but DAMN, I wish we could inculcate critical-thinking skills as early as possible in everyone. The sad thing is that we don't even seem to be trying.
That's been the GOP's silent goal for decades. Underfund schools ("keep 'em stupid," Trumpy loves the uneducated), scream that safety nets are filled with fraud, and just generally make people's lives so miserable they don't have time or energy to think even if they know how.
Just like the serfs from the medieval period. I really think the elite members of the Christian nationalist movement want to revive serfdom. The elite members of the Christian nationalists movement can then be the medieval nobility that they aspire to be! While the rest would be peasants (the average MAGAS) and everyone else would be serfs!
We did. We did try. Common Core 3rd grade language arts was ALL about “text evidence.” As an anthropology professor teaching evolution in Florida, who had religious students who thought demands for evidence came from Satan, I thought Common Core could take all that down. But the Christian right knew it—which is why they went after Common Core. The 5th grade science standards actually taught that a scientific theory is an explanatory model that explains facts! And 7th grade science introduced evolution! And Social-Emotional Learning taught children that they had inherent worth and value and could resist bullying. That was a direct threat to Christian control. So they came up with the “parents’ rights to abuse and mind control their children” movement. We were so close!! It wasn’t just a Black man being elected president that provoked the backlash. It was the child evangelists feeling threatened that their shame and fear tactics would no longer work.
I’ve been advocating for years that we need to end the tax exemption for churches and religious organizations, we also need to end tax exemption for charities that don’t spend at least 85% of the donated funds directly on the causes that are supposed to benefit and last but not least, end all unpaid/under paid labor over 10 hours a week.
All non profits and charities need to pass rigorous annual audits.
We also need to end the exception to the 13th amendment as slavery is horrendous no matter the circumstance.
Which is why the Right has attacked, understaffed, and tried to destroy the IRS. There was a case about a decade ago of the IRS investigating pastors preaching from the pulpit—Republicans shut that down.
Trump would have the shirts made in China (costing practically nothing to make, political prisoners used as slave labor) and sell the shirts for hundreds of dollars, which the MAGAS would buy using money that the average MAGAS should spend on necessities!
Uh huh, and Amway is not a pyramid scheme. To be honest Amway (and all MLMs) is pretty cultish. Then again, religions are all pretty much pyramid schemes as well. Same with cryptocurrency schemes and most grifting situations, they all have the mind control pseudo psychology manipulation tactics, they’re all about using gullible peons to recruit other gullible peons to enrich the folks at the top, they use promises of riches (either on earth or in heaven or both) to keep the peons from leaving.
Of course cults have a bad reputation, they’re bad businesses. They’re setup to take advantage of vulnerable people and make money off exploiting them.
These people need to be convicted. They shouldn’t be released before trial, and they should have the entire book thrown at them, multiple times.
Ironic they claim to be against human trafficking. Fuckers.
Amway is definitely cult-adjacent: Betsy DeVos’s in-laws use it to spread the Dutch Reformed style Christianity that Pete Hegseth converted into. Christian evangelism absolutely uses MLM tactics. The Mormons in particular.
“People have known for years that this guy was a religious fraud, pretending to be a Christian leader for the purpose of enriching himself and manipulating others.”
so what exactly is the story here? The people have known this for years? That the guy was a religious fraud? That he was pretending to be a Christian leader to enrich himself? That people from the Michigan Attorney General‘s office “didn’t feel comfortable letting [Brannon} go free? That he raised people from the dead?
And what does this mean? “ You see, I’m not trying to not only unify blacks and Caucasians, but my mission is to preserve the future and destiny of America.”
No, none of that. the real story is that Macy’s doesn’t carry the kinds of suits he wears.
Nah, just kidding. How is any of this all that different from what many churches and religious leaders do? Sometimes they’re nice about it, sometimes they do good in the world, and sometimes they just grift and grift and grift. And their God seems to bless them for it.
What I cannot wrap my head around is how grown adults can participate in a story like this one, and give up any sense of themselves, their families, responsibility, common sense, and morals.
People like Taylor and Brannon don’t operate in some kind of a vacuum, spiritual or otherwise.
Come to think of it, how does this translate into the wider world, especially the one that contains the mango taco in it?
The sad fact is that there are emotionally / spiritually / psychologically needy people out there. The sadder fact is that there are also people like Taylor and Brannon out there who see needy people and think, "SCORE!"
Which means that our society needs to start doing two things that it hasn't done well for a considerable while:
One – We need to start raising our kids to understand themselves, to be able to look at themselves and understand and value who they are, to make them stronger in their self-ownership. Self-examination is something Americans are generally loath to do, and that needs to change.
Two – We need to quit treating faith as a virtue, and when faith is used as a lure to pull stunts like what has been described here, the punishments need to be swift and matching to the crime committed. That's something else that the US doesn't do easily, but it is easily as necessary as my first point is.
Tim Gill said that the fight for LGBTQ+ equality was a never-ending battle. You could extend that statement to the fight between religion and secularity or between knowledge and stupidity, particularly stupidity with intent, and you would not be wrong.
I agree. But still, it’s hard for me to understand they are so needy that they give up what little un-neediness that they have and surrender it all to these charlatans and grifters.
I have a little bit of understanding. One of my brothers, now dead— I have written about him before I’m sure on these very pages— and I both got the same messages growing up. We were just destined for nothing but failure. The difference was that my brother took it all to heart, and grew up thinking – and I quote – “everything I touch turns to shit.” The message I got was that I would be a poor but honest ditchdigger. At least they said that I would be honest. But the message was unrelenting. I was getting this message when I was a straight A student in junior high school and high school. I was getting this message after I completed twodegrees. I was getting this message when I started my photography business. Then I just simply disconnected from the people who were giving me that message, because I knew from the time I was a boy that none of it was true. Unfortunately, my brother did not.
Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for what you describe. I wish I did.
I was wondering why the Trump administration was persecuting these Christians. This is about religious freedom, and what possible test of their faith could the government use that would be fair,.... But then I saw the picture and realized. Taylor must have failed the paint chip test as set forth by justice Thomas in the land mark case, people vs shut the hell up, and Brannon does have standing, or at least standing while pissing.
It's never a good idea to delegate your thinking to other people, especially the clergy. Humans keep having to relearn this lesson, because religion is a culturally acceptable form of mental illness. The preachers can talk about their loving Jesus and the promise of a glorious afterlife from now on, but make no mistake, it is wealth, power and control on this earthly plain they value above all else.
How dear you downtalk holy members of some brainwashing cult?
DId you mean dare? I did so because I can, and because it's fun.
You dear to kill a king's dare?
"D'oh a deer." - Homer Simpson
"A female deer!" ~Marge Simpson.
HOMER: "D'OH!"
LISA: "A deer!"
MARGE: "A female deer!"
Nope, I would not to kill a roe deer, but I had some for dinner yesterday and to day.
Well, you ask if I Dld, I have no idea about what that Dld means. Most words have a vocal letter in it. I didn't dare to take a look in my Norwegian to English dictionary. Ich will nicht Deutsch Schreiben eher.
Some of us were deluded into thinking we were making the world a better place. I personally grooved on the woo: the bells, and smells and candles.
TL;DR If you read cult expert Janja Lalich’s book Take Back your Life, she says that anyone can be vulnerable to power and control tactics. I haven’t read the whole thing [ADHD and lose interest quickly] but I was shocked to realize that, for example, it’s quite possible that members of the Trump administration might actually be under the influence of Corey Lewandowski or Stephen Miller, et al. Look at Marco Rubio’s dead eyes. And Trump constantly barrages people the same way this cult leader does. With the difference that Trump is easily swayed himself and does what whoever was the last one to whisper in his ear tells him to do. I’ve also read about half [damn ADHD boredom factor] of Take Back Your Life by Marlene Winell, about the major psychological damage of fundamentalism, causing actual developmental delays. I read about a chapter or two of Gareth Gore’s book on Opus Dei [at that point it was like “okay, same tactics, read enough”]—that cult preys on successful young men and turns them into self-flagellating monks who infest that financial industry and run human trafficking. It’s like domestic violence on a large scale. Yeah, I’ve spent decades believing that rightwingers made a choice and could leave if they wanted to. But my new research is telling me that there is this whole other world I knew nothing about. My mind is blown by how pervasive! I’ve been watching ex-Mormons on YouTube, following people in religious trauma groups. My own mother tried to do it to me. I understand now how much of an existential threat I am to them, why they’ve reacted so extremely to my efforts to reason with them. And I understand why Republicans want to shut down public schools. I’m the only one in my family who went to public school (for the gifted program)—I met Catholics and Jews and Muslims. And I’m sure my mom still goes on church lady Zoom 50 years later and tells them how she regrets that decision.
Oh, this Taylor character is a piece of work! He thinks he's all that and a bag of chips, and he's managed to convince a whole lot of sheeple of that specious lie. They're not only giving him money; they are effectively acting as slaves to his will, acting as indentured servants for him. And all of this because Taylor has put it in their heads that, if they don't, they will be condemned to everlasting punishment.
Taylor and Brannon both need to be tossed in jail and the key thrown away.
FWIW, my bride put me in charge of our Halloween costumes this year and I decided we are going as “All That” and “a bag of chips”. She will be all that and I will be the bag of chips. The mayor of our town puts on a Halloween party and the only requirement is you have to be in costume.
A few years ago we went as Thoughts and Prayers. One of us was Thoughts; the other was Prayers. The Millennials at the party found this hilarious whilst older people not so much.
‘ A few years ago we went as Thoughts and Prayers“
So you didn’t go?
Hardee har har.
I'm dying of curiosity....Can you describe the costumes for All That, as well as Thoughts and Prayers? I'm trying to visualize them because the idea is hilarious.
Thoughts and Prayers were really simple. One black T-shirt and one white one. Fabric markers. Big word balloons (like a comic strip) with Thoughts on one shirt and Prayers on the other. White text on black shirt and vice versa. The crowning touch though was that I printed up little cards with thoughts and prayers on them. The thoughts were word salad nonsense and the prayers were ridiculous pablum. My bride and I would ask people if we could give them a thought or a prayer and give them a card.
My bride is going to be All That, which will just be those words from iron on letters on a plain t shirt. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to attempt to recreate a chip bag on my shirt or just safety pin the biggest chip bag I can find to a shirt.
I'm thinking the All That letters should be as stylized as I can find. Italic if not cursive.
I got letters in Bling and script from Michael's. My bride approved.
Love it!!! It would have been a HUGE hit at the last Halloween party I attended!
I answered that question, and Malnothops didn’t seem to care. *sniff*
I'm old. I think that's funny.
Oh what fun!
The most effective chains holding the enslaved are forged in their minds.
Yeah, and jackasses like Taylor feed on that like it was Mickey-D's.
Piece of work? In medieval Europe, the scum like these two were placed in a shallow well covered by a grate. The public was then free to relieve themselves on whatever miscreant was in the well. I'd say these two deserve nothing less.
One could be sorely tempted...
Were they though? Or was it their victims who were put in the well by the cult leader/ human traffickers aka the medieval Catholic Church?
And Christians wonder why they are so hated.
So much to unpack here. May I inquire as to why anyone who has an omnipotent god on their side feels the need to possess not one but FOUR bulletproof cars?
Probably the same reason god needs a starship.
Because they dropped the 𝐉𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 back in '85.
Upgraded from an airplane in '74.
To protect those suits that you can’t get at Macy’s. Those are expensive.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
Carl Sagan
I used to work in the semiconductor industry, and I remember being astonished when a MASSIVE state of the art fab in Dallas, Texas (size of 2-3 football fields!) was closed. Then others fabs closed after that. Admittedly, that was roughly 20 years ago and whether those fabs could produce a product which represents the current state of the industry or not, I don't know.
But why more attention hasn't gone to all that idle production capacity is a mystery to me.
Yes, I think we’ve been strictly a service and information economy for quite some time now. With the emergence of AI technology (although mostly hype) I feel that pool of workers is being narrowed down and consolidated even more and folks are waking up.
And he was right. And still few in power is paying attention. Most of them probably have stock in said tech companies and the private prison labor camps they plan to put all of us in.
...𝑴𝒂𝒄𝒚’𝒔 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝑰 𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒓.
Fuck that guy.
Well, sir, neither does the prison. But you will have to just make do.
Hope he likes the color orange. 😁
The only suit I wear is my birthday suit.
The only suit I wear is other people's birthday suits.
-Buffalo Bill.
TMI
I bought my last suit off the rack at Kohl's, and it's pretty nice. Nice enough, at least, for Saturday-go-to-Severance-Hall and The Cleveland Orchestra!
Just being in Severance Hall would make anybody look good!
How are you adjusting to the move to Massillon?
[shrug] The house is coming around, slow but sure, but it's got a LONG way to go before it'll feel like HOME.
And I positively LOVE Severance Hall (they can call it "Severance Music Center" all they want; it's STILL Severance Hall to me!). The men and women who play there absolutely make MAGIC, and I cannot count the number of times I've walked out of there, saying:
"THAT is why we listen to live music!"
My sediments exactly. Fuck him and his impotent little gods that permitted this.
Goddybitch/jeezyboy/the flying turd were too busy masturbating to orgasm brought on by the suffering of human beings. The more humanity suffers the more sexually aroused the trio of fuckwits get.
It’s a good thing the goddamm fucking assholes trio of deities are not real, or they would be brought to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. The dickhead trio would be sentenced for eternity in that goddamm shithole which was created by the goat shagging trio of deities in the first place.
His Jesus had harsh words for the religious hypocrites in all their finery.
When I had a Jesus, he had harsh words for poor grammar also!
I realize that the brains of 5-year-olds aren't sufficiently developed to understand complex abstract concepts, but DAMN, I wish we could inculcate critical-thinking skills as early as possible in everyone. The sad thing is that we don't even seem to be trying.
If anything we seem to be trying to do just the opposite.
That's been the GOP's silent goal for decades. Underfund schools ("keep 'em stupid," Trumpy loves the uneducated), scream that safety nets are filled with fraud, and just generally make people's lives so miserable they don't have time or energy to think even if they know how.
Just like the serfs from the medieval period. I really think the elite members of the Christian nationalist movement want to revive serfdom. The elite members of the Christian nationalists movement can then be the medieval nobility that they aspire to be! While the rest would be peasants (the average MAGAS) and everyone else would be serfs!
We did. We did try. Common Core 3rd grade language arts was ALL about “text evidence.” As an anthropology professor teaching evolution in Florida, who had religious students who thought demands for evidence came from Satan, I thought Common Core could take all that down. But the Christian right knew it—which is why they went after Common Core. The 5th grade science standards actually taught that a scientific theory is an explanatory model that explains facts! And 7th grade science introduced evolution! And Social-Emotional Learning taught children that they had inherent worth and value and could resist bullying. That was a direct threat to Christian control. So they came up with the “parents’ rights to abuse and mind control their children” movement. We were so close!! It wasn’t just a Black man being elected president that provoked the backlash. It was the child evangelists feeling threatened that their shame and fear tactics would no longer work.
Taylor and Brannon: Groomers for God.
Need I say it? Neither of them is a drag queen.
That's a given.
To use a favorite phrase of mine, it's intuitively obvious.
Of course not.
Someone has to.
I’ve been advocating for years that we need to end the tax exemption for churches and religious organizations, we also need to end tax exemption for charities that don’t spend at least 85% of the donated funds directly on the causes that are supposed to benefit and last but not least, end all unpaid/under paid labor over 10 hours a week.
All non profits and charities need to pass rigorous annual audits.
We also need to end the exception to the 13th amendment as slavery is horrendous no matter the circumstance.
Which is why the Right has attacked, understaffed, and tried to destroy the IRS. There was a case about a decade ago of the IRS investigating pastors preaching from the pulpit—Republicans shut that down.
DEAR MAGAs, IF THE EPSTEIN FILES ACTUALLY CLEARED TRUMP, HE WOULD HAVE ALREADY SLAPPED THEM ON RED T-SHIRTS AND SOLD THEM TO YOU GULLIBLE IDIOTS. 🤣🤣🤣
Trump would have the shirts made in China (costing practically nothing to make, political prisoners used as slave labor) and sell the shirts for hundreds of dollars, which the MAGAS would buy using money that the average MAGAS should spend on necessities!
Sadly true.
Dear religion...
https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/557635269_1320648819854329_4725045842882328039_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s960x960_tt6&_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=hFqBHbrgn-IQ7kNvwGvnbE7&_nc_oc=AdlHFaXeL2Igx-jgNGQXSlHy1JojBMFi74GQwn-ti3KeWNPB59YgrQnGqMqtdeeW5pE&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-2.xx&_nc_gid=nB8gTDaCLdrD2CYG1W_Sfg&oh=00_AfeNoU4Up9AMJEWoNTWrG0EUXac9J44JzV1IJCXqAh76-Q&oe=68E9CE42
Remember. God will reward you because we sure as hell will not.
Uh-huh "Pie in the sky by and by when you die (it's a lie)."
“This is not a labor cult.”
Uh huh, and Amway is not a pyramid scheme. To be honest Amway (and all MLMs) is pretty cultish. Then again, religions are all pretty much pyramid schemes as well. Same with cryptocurrency schemes and most grifting situations, they all have the mind control pseudo psychology manipulation tactics, they’re all about using gullible peons to recruit other gullible peons to enrich the folks at the top, they use promises of riches (either on earth or in heaven or both) to keep the peons from leaving.
Of course cults have a bad reputation, they’re bad businesses. They’re setup to take advantage of vulnerable people and make money off exploiting them.
These people need to be convicted. They shouldn’t be released before trial, and they should have the entire book thrown at them, multiple times.
Ironic they claim to be against human trafficking. Fuckers.
Amway is definitely cult-adjacent: Betsy DeVos’s in-laws use it to spread the Dutch Reformed style Christianity that Pete Hegseth converted into. Christian evangelism absolutely uses MLM tactics. The Mormons in particular.
If there was any doubt left, let that doubt be dispelled once and for all. Religion is poison.
Wow! That’s quite a story there.
“People have known for years that this guy was a religious fraud, pretending to be a Christian leader for the purpose of enriching himself and manipulating others.”
so what exactly is the story here? The people have known this for years? That the guy was a religious fraud? That he was pretending to be a Christian leader to enrich himself? That people from the Michigan Attorney General‘s office “didn’t feel comfortable letting [Brannon} go free? That he raised people from the dead?
And what does this mean? “ You see, I’m not trying to not only unify blacks and Caucasians, but my mission is to preserve the future and destiny of America.”
No, none of that. the real story is that Macy’s doesn’t carry the kinds of suits he wears.
Nah, just kidding. How is any of this all that different from what many churches and religious leaders do? Sometimes they’re nice about it, sometimes they do good in the world, and sometimes they just grift and grift and grift. And their God seems to bless them for it.
What I cannot wrap my head around is how grown adults can participate in a story like this one, and give up any sense of themselves, their families, responsibility, common sense, and morals.
People like Taylor and Brannon don’t operate in some kind of a vacuum, spiritual or otherwise.
Come to think of it, how does this translate into the wider world, especially the one that contains the mango taco in it?
The sad fact is that there are emotionally / spiritually / psychologically needy people out there. The sadder fact is that there are also people like Taylor and Brannon out there who see needy people and think, "SCORE!"
Which means that our society needs to start doing two things that it hasn't done well for a considerable while:
One – We need to start raising our kids to understand themselves, to be able to look at themselves and understand and value who they are, to make them stronger in their self-ownership. Self-examination is something Americans are generally loath to do, and that needs to change.
Two – We need to quit treating faith as a virtue, and when faith is used as a lure to pull stunts like what has been described here, the punishments need to be swift and matching to the crime committed. That's something else that the US doesn't do easily, but it is easily as necessary as my first point is.
Unquestioned faith is a liability, not a virtue.
It's also an indication of poor moral character.
It would have to go farther than faith in religions. See aliens connerie and scientology.
Tim Gill said that the fight for LGBTQ+ equality was a never-ending battle. You could extend that statement to the fight between religion and secularity or between knowledge and stupidity, particularly stupidity with intent, and you would not be wrong.
Like it or not, we are all Sisyphus.
I agree. But still, it’s hard for me to understand they are so needy that they give up what little un-neediness that they have and surrender it all to these charlatans and grifters.
I have a little bit of understanding. One of my brothers, now dead— I have written about him before I’m sure on these very pages— and I both got the same messages growing up. We were just destined for nothing but failure. The difference was that my brother took it all to heart, and grew up thinking – and I quote – “everything I touch turns to shit.” The message I got was that I would be a poor but honest ditchdigger. At least they said that I would be honest. But the message was unrelenting. I was getting this message when I was a straight A student in junior high school and high school. I was getting this message after I completed twodegrees. I was getting this message when I started my photography business. Then I just simply disconnected from the people who were giving me that message, because I knew from the time I was a boy that none of it was true. Unfortunately, my brother did not.
Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for what you describe. I wish I did.
Christianity= cult.
If you still belong to any sect of the xtian cult, you are a sucker.
I was wondering why the Trump administration was persecuting these Christians. This is about religious freedom, and what possible test of their faith could the government use that would be fair,.... But then I saw the picture and realized. Taylor must have failed the paint chip test as set forth by justice Thomas in the land mark case, people vs shut the hell up, and Brannon does have standing, or at least standing while pissing.
No group is more likely to persecute Christians than Christians belonging to a differet tribe.
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Didn't cut Trump in on the grift.