What a terrifying response, Tony! And I agree. I'M Catholic, however, I couldn't call myself strict because I'm not against abortion for everyone and do believe in the death penalty for some, etc etc (a career in Law Enforcement and seeing the horrors of society affected my reasoning). I have seen what you describe as the good vs evil battle, rather than facts, prevailing more and more in today's society. And Stephen King's "The Dead Zone," what an amazing example! I'd never considered that. Most cult members (some would include religions) DON'T believe what they're doing is crazy or wrong, even though the general public can't believe members could find it anything BUT crazy! Just as you mentioned Sherry Shriner's cult. How could anyone believe such nonsense?! But reading your example, and thinking about Stephen King's book, it terrified me! They find it perfectly reasonable.
It is a really difficult position to be in. I think a lot of us want to do the right thing, but figuring out what that is from situation to situation is more difficult than we think.
The reason I like (and pick on) Catholics as an example is people like you who are like, "Yeah, I believe, but I don't want to be mean about it."
Growing up as a Catholic, there was always a weird nod-and-wink aspect to the more hard-line approaches. I've got a story I'm working on now about just that. Knowing the difference between living one's faith and using it as a weapon against others is where the real problems start to creep in.
In the case of the fringier cults (and honestly any hard-line religious practice), I feel like people are exhausted from having to parse a gray morality in a fast-changing world. It's so easy for people to find absolute ways of responding to everything.
From there, the slide into Reptilian cults is pretty easy. Most of Sherry's folks were people who had migrated from very conservative, angry (but legitimate) religious sects and just needed a better explanation for why the Devil was winning.
What a terrifying response, Tony! And I agree. I'M Catholic, however, I couldn't call myself strict because I'm not against abortion for everyone and do believe in the death penalty for some, etc etc (a career in Law Enforcement and seeing the horrors of society affected my reasoning). I have seen what you describe as the good vs evil battle, rather than facts, prevailing more and more in today's society. And Stephen King's "The Dead Zone," what an amazing example! I'd never considered that. Most cult members (some would include religions) DON'T believe what they're doing is crazy or wrong, even though the general public can't believe members could find it anything BUT crazy! Just as you mentioned Sherry Shriner's cult. How could anyone believe such nonsense?! But reading your example, and thinking about Stephen King's book, it terrified me! They find it perfectly reasonable.
It is a really difficult position to be in. I think a lot of us want to do the right thing, but figuring out what that is from situation to situation is more difficult than we think.
The reason I like (and pick on) Catholics as an example is people like you who are like, "Yeah, I believe, but I don't want to be mean about it."
Growing up as a Catholic, there was always a weird nod-and-wink aspect to the more hard-line approaches. I've got a story I'm working on now about just that. Knowing the difference between living one's faith and using it as a weapon against others is where the real problems start to creep in.
In the case of the fringier cults (and honestly any hard-line religious practice), I feel like people are exhausted from having to parse a gray morality in a fast-changing world. It's so easy for people to find absolute ways of responding to everything.
From there, the slide into Reptilian cults is pretty easy. Most of Sherry's folks were people who had migrated from very conservative, angry (but legitimate) religious sects and just needed a better explanation for why the Devil was winning.