In true holiday spirit, some current or former CUT members have shown their colors in the comment section.This blog was started with the desire to include all viewpoints, and within a certain range, I try to do that. I’ve never banned any IP addresses–until now. The only other time I’ve deleted comments is after notifying the commenter he was not welcome, and having the commenter himself ask me to delete them.
But this time, after I tried to respond with reason, a concerted group of three commenters resorted to what I can only call ‘love bombing.’ I deleted their comments, closed the posting to new entries, and banned their IP address, which is 68.72.137.69.
Love bombing is a term coined in the 1970’s and 80’s to describe what happened in cults at the time, who preyed upon lonely people by acting as if they were instant friends or lovers. As I define the term, love bombing also describes the peculiar form of condescension used by the faithful when their arguments collapse in the face of reason.
Usually, the love bombers start by telling you that god “loves” you, no matter how unfaithful you may be. Then they may talk about how much your parents “love” you, and how disappointed they would be in your lack of faith. They talk about helping the world, staying in the light, etc.–Anything to avoid looking at the central issue, which is that they are desperately afraid you may be right.
I’ve decided to re-post the deleted comments. Not to provide the commenters with a forum, but to show just how psychologically unstable they are. I think they speak for themselves:
Comment 1:
Sean My Son,
I Am God and I Am very real.
Go into your heart and find me there.
You do not need religion to do that.
You are loved.
God
Delusions of Grandeur…?
Comment 2:
Dear Sean,
I Am Buddha.
I watch over you always.
We are one.
Only Love prevails.
Be LOVE.
That is all.
Classic love bombing…
Comment 3:
I am sorry you feel so hurt.
What if you lost your family?
I have and worse.
So what?
Forget the black.
Come into the light of white.
This one is a little more sad. I always feel especially bad when those who’ve lost family turn to religion. Truthfully, all of us have a limited capacity for tragedy in our lives, before we literally lose our sanity. If anything happened to my family (like what has happened to so many families in wartime, etc.) I think I would probably come close to losing my mind. But I’m pretty sure even under those circumstances, I wouldn’t turn to unreason. That’s because it wouldn’t help. I’m immune to the fantasies, so I’d have to look for solace somewhere else. For this poor woman, I’d recommend extensive therapy, and an attempt to repair relationships that were broken and establish what new ones she can. My heart goes out to her.
One last example, sent to me by current CUT member May Grace: A “Christmas Greeting” from my dead father.
A Christmas Greeting From Lanello
Have you thought of the blessed mother that gave birth to you? The mother held you in the warm embrace of her womb and gave you the life of her blood, not unlike Mother Mary or Jesus. The father gave protection. Discipline and guidance was given by the father. He instructed you and kept you on the straight and narrow path. These disciplines were not only to you in your childhood but the greatest discipline is what you would accomplish as the Christ. You learn the disciplines in areas of life so more of the Christ may be where you are. You have the mother and father, holding you in the immaculate gaze of their heart, allowing you the opportunity to learn to expand your awareness to become the Christ.
It is my great joy to give you this instruction for I will always come to teach you the ways of life, the ways of constancy, of striving…how to move within this most exciting life to grasp opportunities to be victorious until your ascension is nigh.
Your ascension is already written on inner levels. Your victory is anticipated not unlike the little child anticipates unwrapping the anticipated gift from St. Nicholas. You have a glorious future. It begins in the here and now with the acceleration of the vibration of the Christ. Allow for your own Christhood to expand throughout your vehicles, filing every erg of energy, every thought. As you do this, you will understand what it means to celebrate the birth of the Christ. You will experience the joy and your heart will be filled. The light will bring forth many Christs, and bring forth the Golden Age, and bring forth the ascension of the earth.
I will be here with you when you request my presence to assist you along the way.
Lanello
Thanks, May. Merry Christmas to you, too. Now, I have a message for you from your dead parents…
With regard to CUT members and commenting: I’m not going to get into comment wars. If it’s clear to me after a couple of responses that you’re trying to ‘convert’ me or other readers of this blog, I’m going to delete the comments. Pure and simple. This is not a free-for-all. It is a blog and a forum for those who are looking, or have already decided to leave religion behind. Or for those who might be interested in my personal story or philosophy.
I know what I saw. As the son of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, I had 30 years of unique experience on the inside of one of the most destructive and insidious modern cults, the Church Universal and Triumphant.
Note: In retrospect, it’s very tempting to just delete this ugly, sad stuff. These people coming after me were not well, and I didn’t owe them my time or energy, nor any explanation. But I think it’s useful for anyone going through religious recovery, to witness the kind of long-tail gaslighting and manipulation that follows anyone, especially a high-profile leader, who leaves a cult. The apostate becomes, for a time, the singular focus of remaining members, who are forced to reconcile their former idolatry of the “betrayer” with their current feelings of superiority over the “fallen one.” This strange combination of denunciation and love-bombing from the cult lasts until its fury is eclipsed by the next high-profile defection. –Sean Prophet, August 2022
20 comments
Wow. A classic guilt/obligation approach. Example: “We love you so you have to concede our points or else you are rejecting our love and being mean, and you dont want to be mean to those who love you, right?”
Psychic Vampires, all of them. Humans typically have a vulnerability in that they will easily accept unearned guilt (hint: original sin) without even knowing it. Thats why love bombing is usually pretty effective, and is a very popular method of gaining converts in cults/religions.
Im glad to see that you dont fall for it, Blacksun. Youre too wise to fall for that trick.
Wow. That is sick and twisted. Talk about necrophilia…
Sean, I think we never really know what we would do under tragic circumstances. Personally, I have relied on the caring and loving support of friends and family. That is something that is real to me. Yes it is very subjective isnt it?
“I have relied on the caring and loving support of friends and family.”
No one here would argue that. Elsewhere, I’ve said that friends and family are pretty much all that makes life worth living. To me. Except science and reason of course…
Subjective? No. Your friends and family are actual people, therefore they can actually support you, unlike subjective supernatural beliefs.
Also, D O, regarding your other comment, and citing of sources, can you provide a more reputable citation of your claim that secular humanism is behind the “new world order?”
My understanding of the so-called “new world order” is that it has more to do with globalism and trade than an attack on religion.
Wow, here is a website that directly states the objective of humanism is to achieve a “One World” status. I stumbled on it and its not even a conspiracy theorist website. Cha Ching!
http://home.flash.net/~bob001/SecularHumanism.htm
oops forgot to paste.
D O,
I did some checking, and it turns out that basically this idea that Secular Humanists want to bring in a “new world order” came from the Tim Lahaye “left behind” series.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=cohen_21_2
Also, Pat Robertson has made these types of statements in the past.
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1615.htm
The link you provided was essentially a christian site trying to “debunk” secular humanism.
Here is a link to a site that provides a very long description of right-wing populism in America today.
http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/chapter-excerpt.html
I think that’s where most of this idea originated. Because many on the left share the goals of reducing theocratic influence, providing minority rights, protecting the environment, and changing the world, they all get lumped together by the right.
Because the “new world order” involves a de facto reduction in U.S. sovereignty in favor of a more global regime of trade and interdependence, it threatens the old conservative hierarchical model many believe to represent the “real” America.
To me American right-wing populism has no future. It’s based ultimately on several ugly premises: 1) White, christian supremacy. 2) Unfettered resource consumption, and ignoring of corporate externalities. 3) American citizens have a preferred position in the world, and are more valuable than others. 4) The idea that religion occupies a central place in the public square, and is a basis for law. 5) Isolationism, and the idea that trade is bad if it costs American jobs (even if the entire world economy ultimately grows).
What I find interesting is that CUT bought into many elements of this right-wing populism. It’s too bad no one bothered to question these assumptions. (But that’s what happens when you get knowledge from ‘on high’).
In any case, it’s more the term “new world order” that seems to inspire fear. When you actually look at what that might mean, in terms of international cooperation and the end of conflict, it sounds pretty good to me. Of course, a government is only as good as its checks and balances, and we need to make sure that as the world integrates, we don’t lose our freedoms. That’s a cause I could get behind.
well, I dont any end of any conflict in the near future, do you? There is always some new war on the horizon. I dont subscribe to right and left anymore. I used to be a pretty straight Republican. I think some Republicans are more left then the Left Wing Democrats, but the Parties go on. I sent a lengthy post citing a connection between Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Bavarian Illuminati and humanism, from a book I have at home. Either my post got lost in cyberspace or you deleted it. I would say, not that secular humanists are trying to bring in the NWO, but that Illuminists culled from the Secret Sect of Skull and Bones, whose members we know are on various lists of CFR, Trilateral Commission, Investment Bankers, and highly elected officials, is using humanism and Hegelian dialectical Reasoning to usher in their Global World in which they have all the money and power(or most of it). THis is not to confuse power-hungry globalists with the average citizen who believes that the humanist philosophy gives them the right to starve people like Terri Schiavo to death, deliberately. This is another moral ethic, which raged in my home state of Florida. I reread the Humanist Manifesto then, and it seems very seductive, and I happened to have researched it for an English essay at the time. This is a very sensitive issue in which many religious people feel that euthanasia is not morally right, and humanists often believe that is is alright to take active means to end a life that is suffering. In me many cases seem to revolve around saving families and hospitals money. this smacks of Nazi eugenics. Later I will post some citations.
Also, in the issue of global finance and trade, please dont forget that the Intl. bankers have caused instability in some countries which have become enslaved through loans. When large corporations build plants and expand into foreign nations to avoid paying taxes in the states, that can upset the balance of trade,as we then are paying more for goods we import from American companies overseas. And that’s the whole point isn’t it, or did I miss something.
DO, you’re not even addressing the points that BlackSun made, instead bringing up some conspiracy theories that have little relevance to this discussion. Secular humanism is a philosophy of science and rationality, (among many other things) and it seems like you’re trying to make BlackSuns philosophy fit the bill of this ridiculous NWO conspiracy theory rather than addressing what he means by it.
I think that the removal of Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube was a victory for rationality; that is, she was already dead, and the removal of the feeding tube should have been a non-issue. She essentially had no moral rights after she incurred the massive brain damage that destroyed her person (thus nullifying her status as one).
As for the issue of consented euthanasia, I suppose that you think overriding individual freedom and allowing a person to suffer a spiral of pain winding down to their death is the morally superior stance? When a person is damned to die, and they want to die on their own terms rather than wait it out, the hospital is not saving any money, but rather avoiding the waste of money spent on a person who doesn’t want it.
Nazi eugenics? That is quite an intellectually tenuous link. In fact, I’d say that the oppossing stance is much closer to Nazism, in that it requires subversion of individuality by governmental authority, which sounds quite like the foundations of Nazism and collectivism to me.
Seriously, conspiracy theories and moral standpoints presupposing the existence of a diety don’t really belong on this forum.
OK, Sean, I am not putting any more of my energy into this. I have homework to do. Best Wishes.
“Secular humanism is a philosophy of science and rationality”
So was – supposedly – Marxism. One must be careful not to confuse boastings with reality. I don’t really think that there is anything that is explicitly based on science or rationality in secular humanism. It is a feeble way for an atheist to justify his particular secular brand of collectivism, and little more.
Well, are you talking about suicide or supposed guardians of individuals, are you talking about one man having a victory by voicing what his wife is incapable of voicing herself?
If you’re asking me, I’m talking about choice in all matters of death. How, when, where, should be left up to the individual. If the individual is incapacitated, then either a living will should be followed, or the person closest to them (spouse, partner, etc.) should make the decision.
I’ll be posting on the right to suicide in the future.
Francois, I think that SH deserves more credit than that. While the doctrine seems to be a bit too inclined towards a common good for my tastes, they encourage a rational/skeptical approach grounded in science:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=main&page=affirmations
It’s not perfect by any means, but I wouldn’t compare it to the Marxist doctrine, requiring concession of one’s mind to culture/the collective. It all depends on weather they practice what they preach, but taken at face-value it seems to be a respectable worldview (SH, that is).
Choice, what choice did Terri Schiavo have, when those who loved her were ignored by the judiciary, and those who wanted her to die let her starve. Withholding food and water for longer than 7 days is not a painless death. Also, there is no way to prove how conscious Terri was, there was no conclusive evidence that she did not have conscious awareness. You think you know for sure she was “dead”? Her heart was still beating. Tell that to your atheist friends. Tell them some of my posts explaining my positions on tv evangelists such as P. Robertston did not show up on your blog somehow between my ip address and yours, or my post citing direct correlation between humanism, and the Communist Manifesto, and correlation between Adam Weishaupt, humanism, and the CFR. Please stop trying to paint me as a silly mindless zombie following the likes of P. Robertson. Thanks ever so much.
This is for Anon.
A. Ralph AEpperson-p202 quote from the Humanist Manifesto “As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand prayers, and to be able to do soemthing about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.” And p 205 The eleventh principle reads: “We believe in the right to Universal education.” “Karl Marx, who declared himself a humanist, in the Communist Manifesto, wrote this in the Tenth Plank:’Free education for all children in public schools.'”
Voila! Humanism and Marxism in the public educational system.
p108 from A. Ralph Epperson, “New World Order”…quote from Adam Weishaupt the founder of the Illumini–“Reason will be the only code of man. This is one of our greatest secrets. When at last Reason become the RELIGION of man, then will the problem be solved.” And also on p108 quote from WEishaupt,”The pupils(members of the Illuminati)are convinced that the order will rule the world. Every member therefore becomes a ruler.” Remember the Bavarian Illuminati-secret sect that infiltrated the inner core of the MASONS, set up camp in Skull and Bones at Harvard and Yale and that is exposed in Antony Sutton’s work.
“Choice, what choice did Terri Schiavo have, when those who loved her were ignored by the judiciary, and those who wanted her to die let her starve.”
I posit that she had no choice, as I’ve stated, or rather, she had no mind to make one. Below I support this position.
“Also, there is no way to prove how conscious Terri was, there was no conclusive evidence that she did not have conscious awareness.”
I suggest you read up on the facts.
Taken from a Wikipedia article:
“The official autopsy report[59] was released on June 15, 2005. Examination of Schiavo’s nervous system revealed extensive injury. The brain itself weighed 615 g, only half the weight expected for a female of her age, height, and weight.”
“…seven of the eight neurologists who examined her in her last years stated that she met the clinical criteria for [Persistant Vegitative State]…”
“A persistent vegetative state (PVS) is a condition of patients with severe brain damage in whom coma has progressed to a state of wakefulness without detectable awareness.”
You say that there was no conclusive evidence that she did not have ‘conscious awareness’?
If the severe brain atrophy isn’t telling enough, an 87.5% consensus of professional neurological opinion must mean something…
“You think you know for sure she was “dead”? Her heart was still beating.”
A beating heart has no bearing on consciousness except that some organisms require the former to maintain the latter.
“A. Ralph AEpperson-p202 quote from the Humanist Manifesto “As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand prayers, and to be able to do soemthing about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.””
Is this supposed to tell me something I don’t already know?
“And p 205 The eleventh principle reads: “We believe in the right to Universal education.” “Karl Marx, who declared himself a humanist, in the Communist Manifesto, wrote this in the Tenth Plank:’Free education for all children in public schools.'”
Voila! Humanism and Marxism in the public educational system.”
Wow! There’s your magical (and semantically dubious) ‘correlation?’ Marx was also an atheist, does that mean that he nullified the validity of atheism and secular humanism in one fell swoop? By your logic, I find a similar ‘correlation’ between the foundation of your beliefs and that of P. Robertson.
Secular humanism advocates skepticism towards the supernatural and a scientific approach to reality, as I’ve stated. Not only is Marxism grounded in fallicious assumptions about human nature (i.e., that man is inherently altruistic, etc.), but was also based on a supernatural belief of the ‘cultural superorganism’ (i.e., that man is a product of an intangible culture, etc.). Therefore, I posit that Marx’s claim to humanism is invalid.
Furthermore, even if Marx had based philosophy on pure facts, his claim to the philosophy of secular humanism does not mean that he represents said philosophy, for the same reason that you don’t think that P. Robertson should represent your philosophy, nor does the NWO represent reason.
The thing about math, science, critical observation, etc., is that they are not systems of belief, but systems of evaluating the world based on tried-and-true laws and principles that govern it. Nobody can taint them, because they are absolute. I do not claim to represent science, or reason, but I think that I’m instead represented by them. Because religious doctrine is man made, the actions of those who represent it will determine it’s fate. Science is absolute though, and can only speak one language: the language of the universe, and we can only listen, and then apply.
– Anonymous
They shoot horses don’t they……
They didn’t need to shoot Terry Schiavo, she was already dead. No 7 days, no suffering. It’s beyond irrational that anyone thought otherwise. We are our brains. No brain activity? No life.
“Those that loved her”
Pretty sick and twisted definition of love. And are you claiming her husband DIDN’T love her??
D O, your comments are getting a little paranoid. Nothing of yours has ever been deleted.
I agree with anonymous. You are attempting guilt by association, with your conspiracy/illuminati comments. When some people who were unreasonable claimed to be associated with reason or humanism, that’s an indictment of said people, not reason. Surely you are smart enough to see that.
As far as conspiracies go, they are just groups of people doing what we all do: acting with rational self-interest. Did they keep it a secret? Maybe it was so they could act unopposed. This is simply politics 101, and an example of basic principles of power and its effective use. The world has always been run this way. Look at Rome, or Europe in the period of monarchy. Better to surf the wave than to be swept out with the tide. With modern democracy, things get a little more subtle.
If you feel you have been taken advantage of by an evil cabal, why not start your own and take back your power? Playing the victim is just reflective of a lack of imagination. If you don’t like what someone did, learn the ropes and do it better.
Blaming conspiracies for the world’s problems is little better than whining. I frankly don’t have time to keep responding to it. You can find lots of blogs and resources, if that’s what you choose to focus on. But at BSJ, I’m going to have to insist that we keep the discussion on point in the future, to issues of a rational and scientific worldview.