Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS)

sensitivity training /LGAT/ attention Program shoppers

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BuzzKill:
I was going to also say - about the mega Churches -
Personally, I like a large church. The reason? I can attend when I want to, and not have to answer to a lot of others about where I was the week before. I can dress casually and not be embarrassed about it - as in these very large churches there are masses of folks also dressed casually. I have found the theology sound in the "mega" church I attend - and that is important to me. If they depart from sound teaching, I can cease attending and no one will miss me. This suites me. I like it that way.

Others prefer the closeness of a small congregation - but I find the church politics to depressing in these small churches. In a large church, these things are far less obvious to the average attendee. No doubt it still occurs - but not among men and women I have come to think of as friends - who turn vicious with one another over trivial issues. When and if it occurs in the large church - I don't have to know about it.

Also - I like the diversity. In the mega church there are All kinds of people. There are a lot more young people, and a lot more people of color. There is obvious wealth - but lots of folk wearing "blue collars". This is more like what the body of Christ is supposed to be, IMO, as opposed to the limited diversity found in the average small congregation. I feel these large churches are more like what Heaven will be  -  very diverse.

Also - I like the music. Yes, it does seem more commercialistic - but it is good music that gives honor to God - and I enjoy it.

Lots of folk are appalled by "rock" music in church - but I enjoy the energy as well as the message.

My experience with smaller congregations have not been positive. So far, I have very much enjoyed attending the local Mega church.


BTW - that hypocrisy you speak of - that is not what Christ would have in His church if men and women would live according to His teaching.
In other words - it is not the Savior's fault, that the saved are so in need of saving.

AtomicAnt:
The author of the article clearly knows nothing about Hegel, history, humanism, or politics. What a hack job! A complete mess that is so incoherent and twisted there is not a single logical construct in it worth refuting. The author is a quack. Either that, or the whole thing is satire. Your call.

Why is it that Conservative Christians like to point to 'liberals' and cry "anti-christian conspiracy." That is so ridiculous it is pathetic.

As a liberal, I assure you that I am not involved in any conspiracies and as for consensus building, that is nothing more than a three dollar term for 'coming to an agreement.' Is the author seriously saying the Christians and Conservatives are not consensus building within their own ranks?

When I get into political debates, I like to point out that my father is a conservative and I am a liberal for the same reasons.

 My father is conservative because he believes in smaller, less intrusive government and decentralized solutions. He believes that local people are closer to and have a better understanding of local issues. He thinks the governement should mind it's own business and stay out of our families and busnesses as much as possible. In other words, My father believes in individual freedom and choice. My father is not a religious man.
 
I am a liberal because I find conservatives do exactly the opposite of what they say. I find that conservatives want to force everyone to adhere to their narrow vision and morality. As a liberal, I believe people should be allowed to live pretty much as they please (even alternative lifestyles) without outside interference.

So, you see, my Father and I are both individualists. We believe that any government should favor individual freedom and choice.

I have problems with both liberal and conservative platforms. I see conservatives as being hypocrits. The espouse 'free market' when what they really mean is pro-big business and corporate welfare. They espouse traditional values when what they really mean is forced adherance to a narrow set of values. They claim they are for smaller government but the last three Republican presidents increased the size of government and only the last Deomocratic President (Clinton) actually reduced the size of government. They claim 'family values' and undermine the family economically at every turn.

On the other hand, Liberals grate on my nerves because of their nanny-state approach. Nothing is more grating to me than the very programs the author talked about, sensitivity training, hate crimes, etc. I am also against seat belt and helmet and gun laws because I value individual freedom over regulation. I also like my violent video games, foul language in lyrics, and sex scenes in movies. So I despise the nanny-state which seeks to protect me from myself.

The reason I am liberal is because I must allow for alternative lifestyles (freedom) and because I believe we are our brother's keeper. There are people in our society that are too young, too old, too ill, mentially ill, or just too stupid to care for themselves. I believe it is our (society's) responsibility to care of these people and the best way to do that is through government programs. I also believe we need the government to protect us from the way-too-powerful and amoral coroporations that control so much of our lives and steal our public resources.

My nine-year-old son asked his Mom what the difference was between a conservative and a liberal. I liked her answer. She said, "Conservatives care more about money than people, and Liberals care more about people than money."

My response was, "Conservatives steal my money and give it to people that are richer than I am. Liberals steal my money and give it to people who are poorer than I am." I stole that from somewhere and can't remember the source.

Since we are on Fornits, I would also like to point out that it is the conservative Republican Party that supports programs and the tough-love approach. Forcing people to adhere to their value system is morally okay in their outlook.

Finally, I choose the Democratic Party because they don't have one vision of what the world should look like. The Party is fragmented on many issues. Because of this, there is a willingness to throw away policies that fail and try something else. Republicans call this flip-flopping. I call it reassessing one's position based on new and current information.

Republicans, on the other hand, adhere to an idealist position and refuse to change even when science, history, logic, reason, and experience, demonstrate they are wrong. But at least you always know where they stand.

Antigen:
AA, I think you're right about ppl who call themselves Conservatives. But that doesn't mean the Dempublicans are any better. Never mind what they say, watch what they do.

When Clinton was in office, he was just about the perfect Conservative. He got the economy headed in a better direction, which was painful as hell what with all the outsourcing resulting from all those well intended mandates for worker and consumer benefits and such. (sorry, nothing's purely good)

But on the social liberty side? We got "don't ask, don't tell" which is Jaberwokee for absolutely not a goddamned thing. On drug policy we got the first ever military General instead of a medical professional or schollar as head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. We got 100k more cops on the beat, making it more like impossible than difficult for the old guard to stave off the cultural invasion of the `80's era elite counterdrug taskforce mentality (and funding, don't forget all the buckets of hard cash plus expanded civil property forfeiture powers)

Then there was the clean indoor air act. Now there's freedom for ya! In Florida, you can neither allow smoking in the back room of the bar which you own nor choose a bar that allows smoking. It is verboten.

No, I think the only way out is a real distribution of power. Not to the individual states and commonwealths, but to the individual. And how to do that? I think Peter McWilliams had some pretty sound thinking on that point.

Here's his whole book online.
Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do:
The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes
in Our Free Country
http://mcwilliams.com/books/books/aint/

There are others, frankly I don't care for them. The only other one I was just dying to read was "What do do if your guru sues you", about how he wrote all those others while he was in a cult and how the shit hit the fan when he and his royalties escaped.

Interesting dude, interesting life, all too damned short, though. I really think he had the potential to become the next Mark Twain (or at least remind the world that American authors can be lovable and brilliant assholes)


The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie-deliberate, contrived, and dishonest-but the myth-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
--John F. Kennedy, U.S. President
--- End quote ---

Antigen:
On the premis of the article (Karen's).

I hear what you're saying and see what you're seeing, but I still think you're misatributing the source.

I learned some pretty solid ethics and values from the people who schooled me. My dad said he was an athiest, but what he taught me and what the decons and pastor and christian school teachers taught me meshed perfectly wherever they weren't quite identical. These folks had a lot going for them. They were adventurous young couples who left Holland, Michigan to start a church in Florida. No one knows why, but they did, maybe cause the pastor had made that big an impression on them and he was up for it. His kids were in grade school or maybe the oldest in highschool then.

They also happened to be Christians. But I haven't met many like them. Really, more of the Muslims and Budists I've met seem to have similar values and manners than Christians. And when I went back to that school a few years later to stop and say hi, things were a little less ... happy? Friendly? Comfortable? It was tense. The next time, maybe 6 years ago I went there for some old records, it was downright creepy! Same building, same dogma, same practices and rites, same name on the sign outside, even some of the same people (just one or two, who looked war weary, the rest were strangers)

To me, it looks like the Christian factor is a whole lot of coincidence. It just happens to be the predominant dogma in this place and time And by "this place", I don't mean the world or America, but Apalachia. I do love it here and for good reasons. Christians here don't take out hits on elected foreign presidents nor wish prime ministers dead. Instead, they vote out of office lunatics who want to teach religion as science and science as religion.

All good things come from Pittsburgh. Hell, Hippy's practically from Pittsburgh.  ::rainbow::
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
--Philosopher, Blaise Pascal
--- End quote ---

BuzzKill:
I realize most will want to argue that there is no conspiracy against Christianity - but I was hoping what the author is saying about mass thought reform might strike a cord with some others.

Naturally the politics irritate - but I don't agree this makes the author a hack. She seems pretty well informed to me - even if she would disagree with the majority opinion.

As for the "conspiracy" against Christians - this isn't really want I was hoping to debate - but I find this plausible, and I have been seeing sings of this for decades now. I first noticed it in High School and have been watching the trend every since. This last presidentinal election went a long way to convincing me that there has been a great deal of success in portraying Christians as mindless, selfish, intolerant and hateful - a group of people that need to be Stopped. I feel this widely held belief that they need to be stopped, will gradually, in future days, evolve to: they must be gotten rid of. They are a plague and a hindrance to the progress and betterment of mankind. That, I think, is where we are headed.

I mentioned the past election. My personal experience with the result was to receive several emails, from long time friends (as well as a couple phone calls) expressing great anxit & extreme despair, that they found themselves living in a fascist country. A place were Christians were able to shang high the public will. A country headed down a path of selfish, hate mongering, woman hating, racist policies - and all this was due to  "Christian" influence.

Now, I of corse would argue they are wrong on all counts - but it would fall on deaf ears. They are convinced, with the deepest of faith, that this view of Christianity in America is correct on all counts. And so I simply tried to console them that if "we" could survive a decade of Bill, "they" can manage to get through a decade of Dubya.  The Nation will some how get threw this, and I feel confident they will soon enough find things turning their way again. I do in fact feel very sure they will triumph over the Christian.

Question: Why do so many think this way, and feel so strongly about it, when a few decades ago, very few had such thoughts and feeling about Christians? What has changed?

So, as to the premise of the article - Is there an effort taking place in the universities, and the major media groups, and among liberal churchmen, to denigrate and undermine Christianity? Are these groups hostile to the Christian faith? Is there an effort to capture the minds of the children before their parents can instill this Christian yoke of oppression?

I think so. I think it is very clearly so.
And so, the question then is, how and why?
The article deals with How.

I felt it worth while to post it here, b/c it also happens to be how the Programs are able to so quickly get the parents to surrender their personal beliefs and individuality, and embrace the group - the program - as their new self. Truly, many of them they are  Program Parents before they are anything else. Many of them abandon major tenants of their faith to become better program-parents. My hope in posting the article was to maybe reach a few of them; and maybe awaken them to their true condition. Maybe warn others what to watch for. I really didn't want another faith debate - but I realize the overall content makes it unavoidable.

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