Posted by humanist on November 18, 2013 at 14:52:44
In Reply to: Re: The "End Times" posted by David on November 17, 2013 at 14:54:06:
Cults didn't start or end with ours. Since people evolved to a level of being able to think more abstractly as a group, they've worked on explaining the unexplainable and then redefining beliefs as science proved things unequivocally, such as the earth is not flat and land masses were not giant tortoises whose movements caused earthquakes or tsunamis. Cults and some more mainstream religionists use current events as a fear factor to keep there "flocks" or followers as a key control method. Berg did so with Kohoutek, nuclear disaster scenarios, political situations in the world, diseases, plagues and famines and natural disasters both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, whether threats of unfriendly ufos or comets, asteroids and the like. Could the earth have a catastrophic event effecting the whole planet? Yes. It's possible and major events have covered in history. Topography of the planet clearly shows evidence of cataclysmic events before and during written history of the world. New viruses routinely present themselves. We have more technology to be aware of close encounters with things like asteroids and comets. What I hate I s when narcissistic cult leaders and delusional prophets use natural disasters or the ever present potential for such, to control their followers. Until someone gets out from under that kind of oppression, they can't really recognize the choices they have, and when out, it's a process to get to a point where political issues or natural disasters don't bring people back into that panic that, oh no, my life is not in line with God and now as a result, all these bad things will happen to me or to people close to me. Then if something bad does happen it's viewed as God's chasetisement. Isn't it odd how in Bergville, if something happened to Dave, it was because followers were doing wrong, not dedicated enough, or some sin of imperfect following of him, was in the camp. But if something bad happened to a follower, it was something wrong with the follower and God let the devil take them out. Like that poor girl that took the wrong shop o sed option of becoming 10 percenter when she should have been 110 percent, which isn't even possible. Or the former whiner litnesser who quit shining and died of lymphoma. Rather than sympathy for her illness, he blamed the illness on her lack of dedication. Whether humanist, Christian, or other belief now, many of us can agree that berg and many others like him are sick twisted and demented people who used fear as one key control factor. That's my take on end time fear.