Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Seed Discussion Forum => Topic started by: cleveland on October 08, 2004, 04:19:00 PM
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It's been a while since I've posted, I got tired of seeing my name all over this board and thought I'd give it a break. But now I'm ready - I've been thinking about what my thinking was like before, during and after the Seed experience.
Before the Seed, I was very concerned about myself, I thought maybe I was going crazy. I'd get high with my friends and just get paranoid; I'd drink and feel better, but only for a while and only before a hangover sunk in; I desparately wanted to be tough, to be cool, to be well-thought of by my peers, and especially by the opposite sex; I was angry at my parents, I hated myself, I was feeling estranged from my friends. I would spend time daydreaming about a perfect world, where I would feel free of all of this - maybe a 60s-style commune, or a never-ending roadtrip, or living in some small town. My only real escape was books - I read all the time, which gave me the reputation for being smart. However, my chaotic family life meant that I had very little self-discipline, and in fact, could barely spell, do any math besides the basics, and was ill-equipped for college or work. And it was after my first year of college that I came upon the Seed...
I entered the Seed, and felt that it was a parallel universe - being cool was a bad thing, being happy was OK, I was to be totally honest, I had been a 'Druggie' before but now I was going to be straight, which was going to be the greatest thing in the world, and then I'd be like Art or one of the guys who'd been around for a while.
OK - I had my doubts. A lot of it seemed like doublespeak to me, I mistrusted authority and hierarchy, and not everyone was funny and smart at the Seed -
BUT - I was told - what did I ever do on my own? All I had done was make myself unhappy. And I was afraid of what had happened to members of my family - alcoholics - and some high school classmates - suicide or 0D - that what I was told at the Seed resonated with me. And people told me that they loved me - I was SO SO hungry for attention.
..and so I graduated, and got a job, and stayed on...one year to the next...still a Seedling...
...waiting to truly feel happy...waiting to accept myself...waiting to feel secure...
I tried so hard to 'be straight' - which meant, to me, honesty - absolute - and selflessness, hardwork, always having a 'great' attitude, and doing the right thing, which meant, listening to staff - sometimes instead of my own heart. And not reading books, thinking 'non-seed' thoughts, and not talking with - or trusting - non-seed people!
Then - doubts crept in. I realized that there was a certain amount of selfishness, competition, pettiness at the Seed - after all, we were a group of young adults, 18 - 35 years old, some better-looking, some smarter, some nicer, and we were living in this fish-bowl environment - and NO SEX. We worked at jobs staff approved of, studied things at schools staff approved, played games or sports together STAFF approved of - there was no freedom to develop an independent identity, unless you 'split' which was a terrible thing to do...and when someone did, they simply weren't ever spoken of again, except in hushed tones.
By the time I left the Seed, I was physically ill from the stress of trying to be perfect all the time - whenever I was at the Seed, or around staff, or Art, or representing the Seed at work, I had butterflies in my stomach, my hands shook, I felt sick - and yet I would have this stupid, perfect-seedling smile plastered on my face (for some reason, this was called a 'shit-eating grin' - how appropriate). NOW, the flip side of this IS THAT I PROBABLY HAD SOME OF THE BEST TIMES OF MY LIFE. I know some of you won't believe this. But for those of us who hung around the Seed for some time, it was like a never-ending slumber party, or summer camp - I mean we'd LAUGH our asses off. We knew each other so well, and of course, we'd revealed a lot of embarrasing info about ourselves in raps, so - no where to hide, baby. And we lived in houses with 4, 5 or 6 of us together, and we'd stay up late, laughing, telling jokes, whatever. Some of us worked together, too, and then we'd go into the seed, catch a rap, and then home and on and on...
Oh, it was far from ideal. The no freedom part sucked, of course, and having to clear everything with an ever-shifting heirarchy ('cause sometimes a very senior oldcomer or even staff, would 'fuck up' and lose stature, maybe even 'start over' on the front row - and usually we'd never even find out why this happened, at least if you were scrupulous about the 'no talking behind another's back' rule), the non-dating policy for most of us (only a few were given permission in the seven years I was there), and plus - as some people got more stature and status at the Seed - doing things like getting good-paying jobs, or being allowed to go to college, or becoming a staff or junior staff person - it would be hard to maintain a friendship. They'd be out of your league, maybe, or perhaps you'd advance, and they wouldn't, and it would be kind of embarrasing to hang out with them - oh how petty.
And none of the above, to my mind, had anything to do with what I thought being straight was supposed to be - being honest, being selfless, being a friend and, you know, changing the world and all - so, after a while, I left too. And no one there ever knew why, they weren't supposed to talk about it, and I am unlikely to ever see any of them again - although, who knows...
As to my psychology now - oh, the world is not so black and white. I am so so much less inclined to worry about being perfect, about status, and maybe this is just the maturity of getting older, and being happier. But I in no way have that fundamentalist mind-set the seed encouraged!
Whether I had learned good things from the Seed - I don't know - I learned how to work hard, I learned how to 'change my attitude' and I learned to be unafraid to commit myself to something.
ONe thing for sure...I didn't need the Seed. I needed a strong, healthy family - and that I didn't have. The Seed was a temporary substitute, but it papered over it's own weaknesses and inconsistancies - you couldn't question it.
Where else did the Seed go wrong? Well, no one was willing to let us go, to really give us freedom. We shoulod have been given tools to live better lives, and set free...Instead, it was a party that went on too long, or an old-fashioned dad who can't let his kids go...because after all, he's lonely...anyway, that, and the black and white 'fundamentalist' thinking of the Seed, ruined it for me and brought it down in the end. And it spawned horrors like Straight, to boot!
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Wally Gator[ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2004-10-08 13:30 ][ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2004-10-08 13:33 ]
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A lot of people enjoy being in cults even when they can see the good side. This is why when you ask a cult member, say Tom Cruise, about scientology he will say it is GREAT. Also why people come here and say Art was a great man and the seed saved their lives.
I tend to think anyone still alive today is due to their own inner strength and not some strength derived from seven stepping and writing moral inventories. Nor do I think the ego destruction and cultic behavior can destory a strong person. The Seed couldnt save nor destroy those with strong wills. Only the sheep got saved or got destroyed by the seed.
I understand you had some good times there. That doesnt change the fact that the Seed was a mind-personality cult. I found it disqusting then and my opinion hasnt changed all that much. I think all the hero worshipping, groveling and cultic behavior was a bad thing for most people, and those that thrived under it...I think it says something about them, not the seed.
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Wow, Walley! Evan's not the only one with a gift for vignettes. That was beautifully told and brought back so many memories of watching my big brothers navigate their way out of Seed culture.
G: "If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
EB: "Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area."
-- Somewhere in No Man's Land, BA4
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Greg, I wonder about those seedlings I met at the doughnut shop. I bet they're out by now. I bet Wally knew them, too.
I swear by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
* - ~ Galt's Creed ~ - *
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It could either to all tose things to you. I didn't even know t was a cult in full referendom. I just thought it was a drug rehab while I was there. I was only 14 years old, so call me naive.
Don't worry about temptation--as you grow older, it starts avoiding you.
-- Old Farmer's Almanac
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On 2004-10-08 13:19:00, cleveland wrote:
Whether I had learned good things from the Seed - I don't know - I learned how to work hard, I learned how to 'change my attitude' and I learned to be unafraid to commit myself to something. ONe thing for sure...I didn't need the Seed. I needed a strong, healthy family - and that I didn't have. The Seed was a temporary substitute, but it papered over it's own weaknesses and inconsistancies - you couldn't question it.
BINGO! Well said.
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I'm sorry-The Seed was not perfect but what the heck is? We are all human beings. People have flaws. I saw lives turn around when I was at the Seed that others said there was no hope for. These people believed some where down in there psyche that they couldn't change either. Guess what they did. I'm one of them. You can call it a cult you can call it what you like. I do not know(and sure you can argue it) what would have happened to me if the Seed had not come along when it did. I was ready for the nut house at 18, some of this was my fault(drug usage) some my alcholic father's and nervous breakdown mother's, suicidal aunt(s) ect. I was what I was & I needed help & got it. I loved the help I got & became stronger & taught what I needed to learn to survive & thrive. Sure some people were controlling sure some were thickheaded & a few were even excuse the expression Assholes. Guess what the majority of people cared about me & helped me and even loved me. This is my story & I wanted to tell it.
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I think the worst aspect of these types of programs is in the totalist mindset.
Ok, maybe you were in deep trouble and asking for help when you showed up. So you never experienced what I and many, many other kids did. I was not a drug addict. I wasn't mean or thoughtless or irresponsible. I got decent grades, went to band practice, did more than my fair share of chores around the house w/o complaint, worked part time w/ my dad in a neighbor's Hunter ceiling fan store, never forgot to feed my dearly loved dog, etc.
But I was forced to denounce myself and, to a large degree, to believe it. Worse? In order to stay out of trouble and, eventually, to get out, I had to force others to denounce themselves as well.
I don't know if anyone can adequately explain what that's like to someone who hasn't been through it. To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson
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I agree with you 100% The Seed help set me on the road with tools I still use to this day. I know there are some people on this site that want to see only the bad. If the Seed was such a cult,
What was it's intentions? I believe the Seed's intentions were to help save lives, and with the good and bad I am honored to have been a part of it.
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Is that so? Well wildcard, GregFL, You thought you were lost until you ran into Fager......Gee I thought I read his portfolio..........Isn't he a freemason? and don't freemason's take care of freeemasons? You learned any high level handshake salutations? Got yourself a mason ring et? I wouldn't be so wise in your own eyes yet clown..........You are just trapped in another cult still, and I don't want to run any group or freemason forum ....clown.Or any group for that matter. I got better things to do with my God-given rights.
There are two kinds of people; those who's lives have been somehow touched by harsh tragedy and those you don't know very well.
-- Ginger Warbis
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Antigen- It sounds like your parents suck- but they also were worried that their little girl could possibly turn out like her brothers. It sounds like to me they did the best they could. Maybe thet wern't right about alot and gave the responsibility to othgers to love & nurish you - but so what you are like the rest of us. Its 30 years later and why do you make a crusade out of it? Let it go for your sanity. (yeah I know your worried about the rest of the world) Thats good but its sounds like & it rings loud and clear to me that you need to LET IT GO. Move on like others have. Have a good life & love the hell out of someone else like you didn't get.
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On 2004-10-10 06:30:00, Anonymous wrote:
Its 30 years later and why do you make a crusade out of it?
My parents got suckered by a smooth operator. It wouldn't have been so bad to turn out like my older brothers. They really weren't getting into a lot of trouble. They just got swept up in the Seed craze just like a lot of other people in our neighborhood.
The reason it's still important today is becase of what they've been doing for the last 30 years. Art and his little band of freaky followers may have pulled in their horns but there's more to it.
For almost 20 years, I did put it behind me. Never stayed in touch w/ old Seedlings or Straightlings, never really talked about the experience except w/ very close friends, usually when asked about high school or when they were talking about their youth or reminiscing about how they'd come to be friends.
What got my attention was when Brother Jeb took office in `98. One of the first things he did as governor was to promise $100M in funding for juvenile rehabilitation programs. I remembered that Nancy Reagan had been involved w/ Straight and we all know that the Büsh dynasty is pretty much an extention of the Reagan admin. So I had to look. And what I've found is that the Program really never shut down at all. The corporation changed it's name from Straight to Drug Free America Foundation, which is an extremely influential, not to mention expensive, public advocacy group. They're making disasterous public policy in my country.
Here's just one example.
The Governor's Sub-rosa Plot to Subvert an Election in Ohio
http://fornits.com/anonanon/Forbes/ohio/ (http://fornits.com/anonanon/Forbes/ohio/)
There's much, much more. DFAF members are also involved in Drugwatch International, which seeks (w/ great success) to steer our forign policy to the task of their manic jihad against drugs that they don't sell. DFAF was very proud of their accomplishment in getting the federal government to pay the Taliban $43M to declare opium poppies to be ungodly. That was the summer before the towers came down.
Here's a google search that illustrates some of those ties.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=df ... +drugwatch (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dfaf+global+drugwatch)
They're also behind DARE in the schools and the Safe and Drug Free Schools/Workplaces/Communities programs. They lobby for mandated public spending directly to their piss nazi corporations.
Art didn't start The Seed all by himself like he always said. He didn't invent the method and he couldn't have expanded as he did w/o federal funding through NIDA under Bobby DuPont. NIDA also funded a bunch of other Synanon based programs accross the country, just like he said he would after touring Synanon back in the late `60's.
And the plan was much more comprehensive than just warehouse and storefront groups. I think that if people understood just how crazy these people are, maybe they'd quit letting them write public policy and quit handing them public funding.
These crazy bastards were not just dreaming when they talked about turning the whole country into the Program. To a great extent, they have succeeded. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
--Unanimous
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Here's something that just landed on a discussion list today.
THAILAND'S WAR ON DRUG USERS:
THE ESTIMATE OF THE NUMBER OF EXECUTIONS
NOW PLACED AT BETWEEN 3,000 AND 5,000
http://www.actupny.org/reports/thai_support.html (http://www.actupny.org/reports/thai_support.html)
Ganjawarnews: 10-8/9-4 http://tinyurl.com/3pahb (http://tinyurl.com/3pahb)
Illustrated: http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/msg1x74598.shtml (http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/msg1x74598.shtml)
US PRAISES THAI DRUG WAR! 2500 dead the first 10 months...
http://makeashorterlink.com/?H440131B6 (http://makeashorterlink.com/?H440131B6)
United States' Answer To Drug War Proves Harmful
http://makeashorterlink.com/?N261231B6 (http://makeashorterlink.com/?N261231B6)
Thailand: US Grants Usd 45 Million Assistance To Thailand
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04.n1416.a02.html (http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04.n1416.a02.html)
* The Thai Army receives U.S. training...
* Since 1974, the U.S. government has provided a total of over 85 million dollars
to Thailand under the bilateral assistance program for anti-narcotics...
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What else would they do?
The Thai's are just following through with Bushn Newtn Walters and Bennetts
avocation...
They poison hundreds of thousands with chemicals, hemp doesn't use, Thousands more on
morons hidden chemical weapons in cigarettes. Pesticide venom, Prison rape as
deterrents and poisoning pot with paraquat for disobedient kids. Scams for profits
killing citizens to push reefer madness, This is the inevitable result of Trafficking
the Büshit Ganjawar to profit his NewWeirdOdor fascist.
Peace, Love and Liberty or Büshit DEAth! ... DdC
http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/cultu ... 4/4933.gif (http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/culture/media/4/4933.gif)
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Bush's Faustian Deal With The Taliban By Robert Scheer
Published May 22, 2001 in the Los Angeles Times ... DeJaVu!
http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn ... 052201.htm (http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm)
The people who contribute to these lists, for the most part, don't know of the connections between Program founders and current drug war lunacy. I'm trying to remedy that.
To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.
Thomas Jefferson Letter to Elias Shipman and others of New Haven, July 12, 1801.
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OK, since Ginger has opened the door to considering this from a Policy perspective...
I am no expert here at all. However, I'll take a quick stab at this...
1. I live in an inner city neighborhood, my job has to do with neighborhood revitalization. My neighborhood is 'trendy;' i.e., suburbanites will visit our high-end restaurants and some will by and renovate houses here or new townhouses. But just adjacent to the 'gentrified' area, there are drug houses, drug dealers, hookers, the occasional shooting. Cleveland's the poorest city in America, and it shows in our poorly performing schools, lack of services, police cuts, etc.
Every couple of weeks during the summer, I spend time calling the police on kids who are 'wild in the streets' outside my door - intimidating people with stares and loud music, selling drugs, drinking, getting high. These are by and large the boys, of course. The girls hang out with the guys, and some (many) of them concieve children in their mid to late teens. Some of them have substance issues. Most houses on my street are rental units, with absentee landlords. The housing stock is falling into disrepair.
My peaceful, middle class neighbors are moving away, and not being replaced by as many younger working people. There are not many jobs for those who live here, unless you're an entrepreneur or a professional - the working-class jobs are going fast.
The suburbanites demonize the inner city poor, of course, causing further loss of services to the neighborhoods, more sprawl, more segregation, more poverty, poorere schools, etc.
2. Two most dangerous drugs - alcohol and cigarettes. Alcohol has some health benefits when consumed in moderation by adults; tobacco none (unless used as a sacriment as the native americans do). Marijuana has some negative effects on lungs and perhaps motivation and perhaps sperm counts, but most users are pretty low-key; many people slow down in early adulthood because it's hard for most of us to function in a job stoned - although I do know of one person who smokes daily, but he's manic depressive and it is far superior to other anti-depressants for him - he's self-medicating. There are other alleged health benfits too but I can't go into that. Indiginous people chew coca leaves - it's part of their culture. Refined drugs like cocaine and herion are dangerous when abused, no doubt. Some people have found positive experiences from LSD and other hallucinagenics.
Point is, people will get high, In our culture, we've turned it into an 'all or nothing' proposition, instead of honestly evaluating the pluses and minuses and being conscious about whatever we consume or put in our body.
3. My wife and I are going to have a baby. What will we tell our child about drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.? I hope we will be honest, but also realizing that children's awareness is limited. I hope to preserve innocence for as long as possible. Many people in my family have struggled with alcohol use; I hope that my child won't. I also don't want my kid to be toking up in sixth grade. Again, I think honesty and awareness are the key here, without being too permissive - or totalitarian for that matter.
4. The drug war is not working, as Ginger points out. I don't think it works with a person, if you try to shame them into being straight, or with a neighborhood, or a culture or country. I think it's a shame what we are doing to other countries with a drug policies - not to mention our oil policy (another dependancy for us).
My suggestion? Legalize most drugs, moniter use, provide plenty of treatment, national health care, invest in the schools, slow sprawl, preserve the environment, push sustainable development, change the political system to encourage honesty and long-term solutions, limit the power of corporations. See what a naive liberal I proudly am!
What the seed had, and straight lacked, was a sense of community and commeraderie at it's best. Coercion for the most part was gentle, teasing and positive (in my day). Most of the graduates have turned out pretty good, judging by these postings. However, I think the lack of freedom, the 'either-or'thinking, the heirarchy, the anti-intellectualism and closed mindedness of the seed doomed it in the long term, and I'm sad to see what it spawned in straight and national drug policy. I see it as part of a big american denial system.
I'm still clarifying my thoughts on this...
Interesting to see what others think.
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Could you please explain: "Legalize most drugs, moniter use & slow sprawl? Thank you
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Yes, sorry I was typing fast. I mean, make most drugs legal, as is alcohol. This keeps the price down and removes the incentive for drug dealers - today's bootleggers. Monitor use means - make users aware of risks and provide treatment for addiction. Try to limit access to youth.
Reduce sprawl means - instead of abandoning the city, and leaving drug sales as one of the few options for employment, limit the sprawl of suburbs through reducing incentives like city subsidy of water and other essential services, or charge a development fee to build on green pastures instead of redeveloping land in the inner city. It all fits together.
I know none of these options is perfect, but hypocritically banning drug use and limiting treatment in prisons, hospitals and public health facilities while pushing AA as the only option, mostly because it's low cost (but not very effective, according to statistics although I've had family members who swear by it!)
What other options do we have?
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Wally Gator[ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2004-10-11 10:02 ]
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Elect Kerry & hope for the best...you got me :???:
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On 2004-10-09 15:13:00, rjfro22 wrote:
"I agree with you 100% The Seed help set me on the road with tools I still use to this day. I know there are some people on this site that want to see only the bad. If the Seed was such a cult, What was it's intentions? I believe the Seed's intentions were to help save lives, and with the good and bad I am honored to have been a part of it."
That you are proud to have been a member does not negate the fact you were in a cult.
Perhaps you should read up on cults...the intent behind the personality group is almost always religious or self help with a hidden agenda to recruite, build a financial empire, garner a loyal and unquestioning following, expand and control. Exclusive language and an us or them mentality is always evident. The seed contains almost every element of a destructive mind cult which incidentially always has followers that claim to have been saved by the group such as yourself. This is repeated over and over in such groups as scientology, Moonies, Hari Krisna and other cults that have come and gone and still exist.
The Seed could be used in textbooks as a case study on the rise and fall of an american cult.
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Greg- would you call the Cathloic Church & every other religion a cult? Is everything organized a cult. Does anything help people that isn,t a cult in group form?
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When's the last time you heard anyone say they'd have been deadinsaneorinjail if they hadn't converted to Catholocism?
If you think yourself too wise to involve
yourself in government, you will be governed
by those too foolish to govern.
--Plato
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On 2004-10-11 13:43:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Greg- would you call the Cathloic Church & every other religion a cult? Is everything organized a cult. Does anything help people that isn,t a cult in group form?"
No. Cults have very distinct traits.
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Absolutely. I've heard of recovering Catholics and now, its great - Recovering Seedlings. What a long, strange trip it's been.
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I would go as far as to say that most religions have many, many cult characteristics. I am NOT saying that all religions ARE cults, just very cult-like. They're like politics. Based on fear. They get you to do what they want or behave the way they want through fear. If you don't believe you won't have an afterlife. Sorry, just can't buy into it.
History does not record anywhere or at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unkonwn without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.
-Robert A. Heinlen, American science-ficiton author
All who doubted or denied would be lost. To live a moral and honest life -- to keep your contracts, to take care of wife and child -- to make a happy home -- to be a good citizen, a patriot, a just and thoughtful man, was simply a respectable way of going to hell.
God did not reward men for being honest, generous and brave, but for the act of faith. Without faith, all the so-called virtues were sins. and the men who practiced these virtues, without faith, deserved to suffer eternal pain.
All of these comforting and reasonable things were taught by the ministers in their pulpits -- by teachers in Sunday schools and by parents at home. The children were victims. They were assaulted in the cradle -- in their mother's arms. Then, the schoolmaster carried on the war against their natural sense, and all the books they read were filled with the same impossible truths. The poor children were helpless. The atmosphere they breathed was filled with lies -- lies that mingled with their blood.
-Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer
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Well, whether you support organized religion or not (I am not a believer) you must admit there are substantial differences between cults and legimate religions, in fact much more differences than similarities.
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definite differences yes, but more than the similarities....don't know. All the fear, hellfire and damnation just seems to me a way to control people.
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Technically, a religion is a cult. The term cult only picked up a negative connotation in the past hundred years or so, I think.
The modern definition of the term 'cult' is probably something like 'high demand, destructive cult'.
And that's the difference, at least in my mind, between legitimate, benign or benevolent religion and a destructive cult. As regards public policy and public service, I think it's important to draw a distinction. I don't mind if our public servants attend church and pray for guidance. But when they cop out on solving real problems, especially those that fall under their job description by saying Jesus will handle it or the Rapture will come so we don't have to worry about it, that should be grounds for immediate removal from office on grounds of mental illness.
Never trust anyone with your future who doesn't believe there will be one!
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Mark Twain
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When people say "cults" today, it really means coercisive cults. Sure the term came from religion but it really does mean something different now. However, religions somtimes take on personality cult behavior and then they are very similar. Take christianity and then look at the rattle Snake people in the deep south, Or take The Hindu faith and compare that to The american Hari Krisna movement. Christianity and Jim Jones....
So yes, religions can become destructive cults. It just isn't always so or even usually so. Lumping Religion at large in with coercsive cults is a mistake.
Religion as a legitimate social force is another topic for another forum.
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On 2004-10-11 13:43:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Greg- would you call the Cathloic Church & every other religion a cult? Is everything organized a cult.
I know my grandmother believed her children would not go to heaven because they left the church.
I was protected because I was never offered the true church I would go to like Limbo or something.
_________________
Cleveland chick 76-77[ This Message was edited by: NOT12NOW on 2005-10-28 07:17 ]
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If you need the external structure of the church to be a decent person, something is wrong with you.
Also: Jesus Saves, transubstantiation, the mythologization of saints, arbitrary moral values, and the implication that rituals cleanse your soul (simply through confession or baptism and other rites) are all hokey crapola. I have never understood how intelligent people buy into this shit. It's archaic. I mean, you really believe that you are going to limbo just for lack of a head rinse? Is God really so petty to pay attention to the sex lives of billions of people to determine your moral purity?
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I think rituals and taboos have their place. But people get crazy about it, imbuing these things w/ more power than they're actually worth.
"The FARC is part of the history of Colombia and a historical phenomenon", (President Pastrana) says, "and they must be treated as Colombians". ... They come and ask for bread [aid from Washington], and you give them stones.
Robert White is a former American ambassador to Paraguay and El Salvador, and former No. 2 man with the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, is president of the Centre for International Policy in Washington D.C.
Robert White
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I actually like rituals. What I meant was, I don't like it when some religion espouses that you are somehow incomplete, errant, or immoral if you don't get baptised or wed at the altar etc.
Shanlea
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Oh, I agree entirely. I guess I read too quickly.
" If you need the external structure of the church to be a decent person, something is wrong with you."
Yeah, too many get it bass akward. They confuse the observation of rituals w/ actual personal merit. So perfectly rotten people are deemed good while wonderful people, why just don't subscribe to the same version of dogma, are deemed apostates.
Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever.
--Sigmund Freud, Austrian-born psychologist
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OK Wally, when I win the Lotto (that is if I ever buy a ticket, education lottery....what a joke) you will be the mayor of my new city....lol
The drug war is not being won, people have used various drugs for thousands of years. There is too much big money, power and politics involved. As much as I would NOT like to legalize drugs, shit could it be any worse than what we have now? Prison populations are over flowing from drug convictions (mostly African-Americans) and they are not the big guys, but users. With the "3 strikes you're out" law, many are now lifers.
There is soooo much wrong with our society, drugs, IMHO is not at the top of the list. We have let things become what they are mostly inpart because we are a complacent society. We are trained to be good little consumers. I see little difference between the elephants and donkeys. They are both sooo far right or left that few of us want anything to do with either.
So Wally, if I actually go and buy the ticket, are you on board....? A self sustaining green city, teachers make premium salaries, everything located so that there is little need for cars, and an actual government run by the people and for the people......any other takers?
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Not that you asked me but I would say yes. Any group that tells you how to think and will alienate you if you don't conform is. That includes MOST religous group.
What do you think would happen if you were Cathloic and had an abortion, Baptist and believed in Karma, Assembly of God and didn't speak in toungues or Republician and were an enviromentalist?
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Going by a strict dictionary definition, I would have to vote NO. But I can see how, in these modern times, a present-day cult could be a religion gone bad. But I don;t think a cult can elevate itself to the status of a religion because religions are based on faith and intution whereas cults are generally based on persons, ideals or things. I know, I know, Scientologists will tell me I'm wrong - but if that's so, why didn't lronhubbard call it Religiontology?
If any person still isn't sure whether The Seed was a cult or a religion, just read the following definitions from a 1966 Ramdom House Dictionary of the English Language - The Unabridged Edition.
cult (kult), n. 1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies. 2 . an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: a cult of Napolean. 3. the object of such devotion. 4. a group or sect bound together by devotion or veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc. 5. Sociol. A group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols. 6. a religion that is considered or held to be false or unorthodox, or its members. 7. any system for treating human sickness that originated by one claiming to have sole insight in to the nature of disease, and that employs methods generally regarded as being unorthodox and unscientific. [
religion (ri-lij-en), n. 1. concern over what exists beyond the visible world, differentiated from philosophy in that it operates through faith or intuition rather than reason, and generally including the idea of the existence of a single being, a group of beings, an eternal principle, or a transcendant spiritual entity that has created the world, that governs it, that controls its destinies, or that intervenes occasionally in the natural course of its history as well as the idea that ritual prayer, spiritual exercises, certain principles of everyday conduct, etc., are expedient, due, or spritually rewarding or arise naturally out of an inner need as a human response to the belief in such a being, principle, etc. 2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Chrisitan religion. 3. the bod of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions. 4. a deep conviction of the validity of religious beliefs and practices: to get religion. 5. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion. 6. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
7. a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice. 8. religions, Archaic. Religious rites. 9. Archaic. strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to one?s vow.
:grin: Rehash (v. re-hash; n. re-hash), v.t. 1. to work up (old material) in a new form. ? n. 2. the act of rehashing. 3. something rehashed
[ This Message was edited by: Stripe on 2005-10-30 06:10 ][ This Message was edited by: Stripe on 2005-10-30 06:16 ]
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Jupiter,
I don't know what the answer is. I don't think we are having an honest dialog nationally, though.
My wife and I live on the edge of a 'trendy' area in the inner city, but a recent wave of drug crimes in our part of the neighborhood - which is otherwise quite beautiful - has led us to contemplate moving, esp. now that we have a 6 month old girl. So, do we move to the lilly-white suburbs too? I have always thought living in the city by choice is part of the solution, but if I am one of a relative few, what difference does my presence mean, except that I get a small sense of moral superiority that is rapidly diminishing?
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On 2005-10-31 06:53:00, cleveland wrote:
So, do we move to the lilly-white suburbs too?
Definitely! The drugs are always better and, often, cheaper in the burbs. And there's very little crime associated w/ them in that setting. I turned to speak to God, About the world's despair; But to make bad matters worse, I found God wasn't there.
--Robert Frost, American poet
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I'm not kidding. Someone was shot in their car, and the car set on fire, one block from our house. And last winter, the little corner market on our street was robbed; the clerk was shot, and a women with a newborn, who had stopped by to pick up formula, was shot in the back as she ran out. Her husband was circling the block with their baby in the car - she was dead on the sidewalk. All this on a tree-lined street of Victorian century homes, and the police department is right up the street. It makes me sick!
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Tonight I choose not to use my username, yet here it goes. I am a Born Again Catholic. In the late 70's the Catholic church had what is called The Charismatic Renewel. My 2 older kids and I went to prayer meetings, Baptisim of the Holy Spirit, which resulted in receiving the Gift of Tongues, and whatever gift God had planned for people. I have the gift of healing. I don't go around telling people, yet if the situation occurs, I will use that Gift. It's not me, it is the Holy Spirit working through me. I give God the Glory, not myself.
As far as a Catholic having an abortion, the Catholic church embraces women who have been through one. It is callled Project Rachael. Through this program you are connected with a Priest or Deacon, and go step by step through the healing process.
The Catholic Church has been through a lot, yet throughout the years, at least here in the US, has changed so much. Has anyone who left the church ever pictured the congregation singing and praying with arms lifted up or dancing in their place or in the aisles? Or during the Our Father, people reaching across the aisles to hold hands so everyone is ONE!?? Most churches are NOT CULTS. They are people coming together for one purpose--- To listen to the Word of God, learn from it, Pray and Praise Jesus, as the BODY of Christ. Check it out sometime. You may need to search a little, but if you find a Catholic Church with a younger Priest you will be amazed.The seed was a cult because they knocked us all down to feel we were a nothing, no good druggies, then raised us all up the same way with untruths and brainwashing.
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I'm not kidding either, Walter. Used to be pot deals were closed w/ a handshake, coke deals at gunpoint. Now it's more like drug deals in the burbs vs those that occure in the city. And, maybe not surprisingly, it seems to work a lot like grocery stores. The ones in the ghetto are low quality and more expensive than the ones located next to retirement communities.
The only way I know to clean up a neighborhood like that for good and all is to move it to Holland so that the trade can be conducted by responsible business people. Mean time, they're not going to repeal prohibition any time soon, at least not soon enough to benefit your daughter. So you'd better get off to somewhere where they're not so prone to violence and they have a genuine respect for keeping the kids out of it.
A student burst into his office. "Professor Stigler, I don't believe I deserve this F you've given me." To which Stigler replied, "I agree, but unfortunately it is the lowest grade the University will allow me to award."
--Professor Stigler
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Anon, why would a woman who'd had an abortion necessarily require a guided healing process? What if she's over it? What if she doesn't have a problem with it at all, and yet wants to come back home to Mother Church?
Not saying the Catholic church is anywhere near as damaging, insular or militant as the Seed was. But honestly, I think Catholic Guilt has a listing in the DMV.
Funny thing, though. The church you describe (now) sounds a whole lot like the Haitian Catholic churches down in So. Fl. It always goes that way, too. The innovators are always the more recent converts.
Tonight, we're pretending to celebrate something to do w/ All Saints Day while, secretly, observing some Druid cultural traditions for this day. The Catholic Church definitely adapts to the times. I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.
--Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter
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Drug war POW
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82
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That "body of Christ" stuff seems so primitive and provincial. The idea that there is only ONE portal to salvation with arbitrary moral values/rites you have to follow to achieve it is just so simplistic. The belief that God only accepts you into his kingdom if you worship him and take his son into your heart (regardless of your compassionate nature or good works) strikes me as petty. When is society going to outgrow this narrow thinking?
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give it a hundred years or so, and the christ myth will join the other god myths such as Zeus, Mythra, Poseidon and the hundres of others that have transfered from deity to legend.
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Antigen, Anon, & Anon,
First, a lot of women don't see the fetus as anything. At abortion clinics they are told, "it's just a blob of tissue". I personally don't believe that because I have seen the miracle of birth with 4 children. Of course a women can heal on their own.I did. I was just saying the Chuch has help for women whom are laden with guilt. No one is denied going to the Catholic Church. We even have gay couples who go to Mass on Sunday's. As far as the only way to get to Heaven is to be saved, that is mostly Fundalmental churches. Yet today the Catholic Churches are teaching about Christ. God loves all people, and He will be the final Judger. Not me, not you, not anyone else. The "Jesus thing" has been around 2005 yrs, even though Jesus only mimistered for a little over 3 yrs. So, anon, why is it that you think it will go away in 100 yrs. It never will, because people all around the world, by their own choice, believe Jesus is The Way, the Truth and the Life. As He said, "No one get's to the Father accept through Me."
This is all I have to say on this subject. Everyone is entitled to believe what they choose to believe, and no one, including myself is standing in judgement of anothers beliefs.
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While I am happy that you find support in your church I am sad to see that the vatican issues yet another challenge to gay priests, as if all gay men were pedophiles and all straight men (and we are only talking about men here) were incapable of it. I have catholic friends who have stopped going to church because of what they see as the hypocrasy of the bishops.
I read in the paper today that the methodist church defrocked a female minister for admitting that she is in a long-term, committed lesbian relationship; meanwhile, they have reinstated a minister who had lost his chuch because he had denied membership to a man who was gay and refused to see it as a sin.
Personally, I find debates like this are degrading to whatever message Jesus tried to have about 'love they neighbor as thyself' and I also remember that he was skeptical about religion - that is why I cannot call myself a christian today (well, I never have).
Personally I am opposed to any authoritarian system that tells me that 'they' have the answer. So most religions turn me off because many (but not all) do this.
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okay, you go ahead and believe that god creates people and then throws them in a lake of fire for all of eternity because he gave them free will to choose him, yet he knows in advance they won't, yet they still can choose this if they want, yet he knew before they were born they wouldn't, yet they can choose them if they will only believe, yet it was known before they were born they wouldn't and therefore predetermined, that god hates sin yet is the creator of all, including sin. That a band of other gods that we call angels pulled a coup in heaven and left the place and will one day be beaten down by the forces of heaven, That god placed the "pillars of the earth" up, that a race of magical giants once upon a time roamed the earth because the angels had sex with women, that god sent bears to kill children who dared to taunt one of his prophets because he was bald. That during revelation an angel will be placed in the four corners of the world, Ad nausem rediculous impossible logic and magical stories all contained within the bible, which is proclaimed by the believers as "scientifically and historically accurate".
As we slowly descend down the spiral of absurdity, people realize that their beliefs aren't compatible with current knowledge. Oh sure, they fight it, just as people were killed by the early church for believing the earth was flat or that the earth really wasn't the center of the universe, or for example why during the reformation when people questioned the interpretation of the bible they were killed, and why currently the christians are inventing competing "science" and waging a war against scientific knowledge to squelch the voice of those who know the earth isn't 6000 years old. In spite of these efforts by believers in the supernatural, eventually knowledge replaces belief and the old gods die out and new beliefs more compatable with known knowledge replace them.
This is why the god myths of old went by the wayside and why the current gods will one day go into mythological storybooks as well.
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I'm not so sure that we will progress from fairy tales to rationality. It seems that we have left the Enlightnment and the Age of Reason behind and are returning to magic, mystery and irrationality. People believe in angels, fate, creationism and destiny and other forms of 'magical thinking'...
We on the left do this just as much as those on the right, but we beat drums and call ourselves pagans while they go to mega churches and call themselves 'born again.' We just have different stories we tell ourselves but it is equally dangerous is my conclusion to abandon reason for this stuff, fun as it may be.[ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2005-11-01 08:54 ]
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you beat drums and call yourself a Pagan?
I think if you look at the world 2000 years ago and then now, we have made tremendous progress towards reason. However, individuals will always duck into religion because it explains the unexplainable, our mortality and death. It in essence gives you a free ticket to immortality, at least in your mind.
As far as the christians being right wing, it is only because that is currently where they are getting their political support.
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On 2005-11-01 07:46:00, Anonymous wrote:
This is why the god myths of old went by the wayside and why the current gods will one day go into mythological storybooks as well."
I love these discussions, so I can't help butting in.
I doubt religion will go away anytime soon. Too many people believe in them and they cannot be swayed.
Meantime, science, in a sense, is also a faith. It depends on some unproven hypotheses. For example; The world exists in a state of order and humans can understand at least part of that order.
Another is Occam's Razor. When Copernicus came up with his view of the solar system, his new system was less accurate than the old Ptolmeic system. This was because he used circular, not elliptical, orbits. When asked how he knew he was right with a less accurate system, his response was, "Because God would create the Universe in the simplest, most harmonic, manner."
Then, of course, there is always Max Stirner who pointed out that once God is removed, any higher values one holds above oneself become arbitrary. The concept of 'legitimate authority' cannot stand. Even Democracy tumbles; "A slave to the majority is still a slave."
Jefferson justified (and legitimized) the Revolutionary war by proclaiming that God gave Men 'unalienable rights.' Not even the King can take these away. Thus the foundation of the United States as a legitimate country rests on a religious assertion.
Those that believe in God are not necessarily idiots. In Europe, for instance, there is no raging debate between evolution and creationism. They seem to be able to see it both ways without an issue. I once had a philosophy professor who stated that science and faith had nothing to do with each other. He also stated that when Christianity became an institution, it ceased to be a religion. I never figured out what that meant. All I know is that the guy was a biblical scholar and a leading phenomenologist. He held degrees in physics as well.
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Science is not faith, no matter what the religious propaganda machine would have you believe.
there are simple but fundamental differences between faith and science that makes the two incompatible.
Faith starts with a conclusion and rejects all new information that tends to disprove it. It relies on dogma and belief.
Science never deals in absolutes (which is why all science if framed in theories)but instead relies on emperical data and evidence, is subject to peer review and accepts change with new information. As such science is self-refuting.
Thus, "creation science" is a misnomer, the draq queen of science, faith all dressed up as science.
creation science, intelligent design, christian science...all of them belong in theology or philosophy class, not science class.
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On 2005-11-01 17:07:00, AtomicAnt wrote:
Jefferson justified (and legitimized) the Revolutionary war by proclaiming that God gave Men 'unalienable rights.' Not even the King can take these away. Thus the foundation of the United States as a legitimate country rests on a religious assertion.
You, Mr. Ant, while seemingly well intentioned, are just misinformed. There was an ideological war fought in this country where the christians did indeed TRY to insert their religion into the early documents of the country, but due to great american heroes such as Jefferson and Adams, they failed. They failed because of the history of the christian church and government in England and early america was oppressive and violent, and the framers of our country had great insight and forethought and excluded them from screwing the goose, so to speak.
The foundation of the United states was NOT on a foundation of religiosity. The inverse, the founders of the democracy were trying to purge the scourge of religous bigotry from government, a wild and radical idea not only for its time, but for our time as well.
Don't even get me started on Mr. Jefferson, the true founder of this great country.
Crap........ too late. here is how he really felt about religion and government.
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.... error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.... I deem the essential principles of our government.... Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; ... freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
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And Sir, to cut to the heart of your assertion that the foundation of the government according to Jefferson was religious in nature...
The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.
Thomas Jefferson
[Our] principles [are] founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason.
-- Thomas Jefferson, to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:379
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson