|
The existence of Free Zone Scientology suggests that it's going to have long term staying power
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2021 23:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 15:49 |
|
|
Not really, from what I've read almost all Free Zoners started out in the Church of Scientology and were either kicked out for asking the wrong questions or left because they were tired of being treated as a piggy bank for Miscavage's latest project. Neither the CoS nor Freezone groups are doing much recruiting of non-Scientologists, since it usually leads to the recruiters getting trolled.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2021 00:41
|
|
|
out of all religions started in the latter half of the 20th century, scientology does seem to have the most actual infrastructure. like they have centers in major cities all over the world, they own a bunch of property, there is a city in florida that they basically have direct control over, they have recruiters out there doing the e-meter stuff everywhere, etc. certainly they have gotten a lot of negative publicity in the last couple decades but this doesn't necessarily diminish the staying power of a religion their nearest competitor (in terms of founding period and nature of origin) the church of all worlds is not even close to being as entrenched for anyone curious wikipedia has a running list of new religions. however it does include parody religions meant purely to make a point (e.g. pastafarianism) as well as many forms of revivalism or splinter groups of existing religions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_religious_movements one thing i think is interesting is jediism, which started off as a sort of joke but which gained enough traction to be officially recognized in a couple of countries, and which is now connected to one of the most powerful and influential media companies on the planet. i wonder when and how they will take advantage of that Earwicker fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Nov 21, 2021 |
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2021 00:56
|
|
|
i like cao dai although its 100 years old now since it takes the usual NRM thing of all prophets and religious leaders your local culture are familiar with are actually secret prophets of our religion but then just adds some cool fun prophets like Victor Hugo into the mix.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2021 01:37
|
|
|
I find the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s pretty interesting, though mostly from an aesthetic standpoint I guess. It does seem like a Christianity I might have been convinced of if I were the right age in that time and place, but the requirement of religious belief is still there and I don't know whether that version of me would have any more of that than real me does. I read a lot of the Joy of Satan website a few years after its launch. I think it was the first time I really dug into an online rabbit hole of its kind. I was young and considering everything with equal weight so I stuck around probably longer than I should have. I just checked on it, and while I'm not exactly 'glad' it still exists, if it must exist I'm glad it still looks like a 1997 Geocities page. i guess the church of satan and therefore all modern satanism, theistic and atheistic, counts as an NRM though. So I guess my 'favourite' is the atheistic satanism i half-ironically subscribe to
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2021 02:33
|
|
|
Do the Unitarian Universalists count? I know the organization was founded in the 60's, but given they're sincretic of many beliefs I'm not certain. Discordianism's still my favorite though. Something pretty compelling about the argument that apparent order and disorder are simply the result of human pattern recognition as applied through a given cultural lens.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2021 10:15
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:Do the Unitarian Universalists count? I know the organization was founded in the 60's, but given they're sincretic of many beliefs I'm not certain.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2021 10:44
|
|
|
Earwicker posted:out of all religions started in the latter half of the 20th century, scientology does seem to have the most actual infrastructure. like they have centers in major cities all over the world, they own a bunch of property, there is a city in florida that they basically have direct control over, they have recruiters out there doing the e-meter stuff everywhere, etc. certainly they have gotten a lot of negative publicity in the last couple decades but this doesn't necessarily diminish the staying power of a religion Mystery cults have a long, long pedigree in Western religion. https://i.imgur.com/FS0Wy2F.mp4
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2021 14:48
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:Discordianism's still my favorite though. Something pretty compelling about the argument that apparent order and disorder are simply the result of human pattern recognition as applied through a given cultural lens. Its my favorite. Every time I go back to the PD I find new things in it that have me asking five other people what they think a out it. The amount of genuine thought provoking material in something so goofy on its face is great. The Principia Discordia posted:NONSENSE AS SALVATION The Principia Discordia posted:-On Occultism - Edit: Hail Eris UwUnabomber fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Nov 22, 2021 |
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2021 03:28
|
|
|
Sounds like someone’s just figured out that nirvana is not an escape but found within samsara itself.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2021 03:43
|
|
|
Howdy from TFR. Tias asked me to pop in and share a little bit about prison ministry. This is from a post I made in GBS: http://www.kairosprisonministry.org/kairos-inside-prison-ministry.php It's a ministry called Kairos International. Inside the units, we are unofficially called "the cookie guys".* We visit the prison twice a year and our weekend is called a Walk. We are a 4th day ministry, meaning that we are in the prison for three days, then the fourth day is the beginning of a new life for the prisoners. We don't go in to convert anyone to a specific denomination, we don't preach hellfire and damnation, we go and follow Jesus last commandment to us: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." We do our weekend with the participants, then we go up on Saturdays for Prayer and Share so that the men stay accountable to each other and the Word. Our motto is "Listen, listen, love, love." We show the men inside the unit that God's love doesn't stop at a prison wall. The guys inside often feel discarded, forgotten, hated. Some haven't heard from family members in months or years. Some are struggling with their faith, some have no faith, some are initially hostile to us. When they enter the library to a bunch of "free worlders" who are whooping and cheering for them, they are confused. Usually a couple will ask if we are being paid to be there or doing community service. It blows their minds when they find out that we are taking time off work and paying out of our own pockets to visit them. That usually starts knocking down the walls in their hearts and minds. The warden and chaplain of the unit select 42 inmates to participate in the weekend and about a dozen previous Kairos participants to act as stewards. Participants are divided into tables of 6 with 3 volunteers, with each table called a family and each family named after a disciple. We give a series of ten talks about accountability, Christian action, walking in faith, fellowship, etc. We also have chapel time and meals together. Meals - that's the big draw for a lot of the men. We bring in pizza, brisket, hamburgers, fresh fruit, ice cream, etc. Dining together facilitates fellowship. We don't sit at separate tables from the men, each family dines together, prays together, sings together, and often cries together. All too often we hear from the men that they never had a father or that the father they had wasn't a good father. I'll never forget a HUGE tattooed guy (later I found out that he was in for double homicide) crying on my shoulder and telling me that he had felt more love in the last three days than he had know in his entire lifetime. We also have hand-drawn placemats at every meal that are made by Sunday school classes. Some of the kids draw flowers, rainbows, birds, some get right to the point. "DON'T ROB BANKS!!!!!!!" written in crayon in 4"-tall letters was a favorite one year. A lot of the guys will save the placemats after every meal. In the afternoon of the second day, each participant gets a bag of letters, one from every volunteer on the team and from anyone else who wants to write one. Sometimes it's just a Bible verse, sometimes it's an inspiration quote, just a small bit of friendship that they can carry with them back to their houses (cells). This is a HUGE turning point for many on the participants. Stories: I can't tell a lot because of confidentiality stuff, but let me see: One Walk we had a guy who refused to participate. Wouldn't join in the talks, wouldn't look at the speakers, tried to upset the volunteers in his family. We just let him vent and didn't let him disrupt the Walk. He kept it up until the second day when he got his bag of letters. He did his best to ignore it, then curiosity got the best of him. He took out one letter, tore it open like it was a past-due bill and read it. His lip quivered a bit and he slammed it down on the table. A couple minutes later, he read it again and you could see the barriers falling down. He read that letter over and over and then put his head on the table and let out 40 years of sadness. He was a new man the next day. I think he kept that letter in his shirt pocket all weekend. The unit I visit in Texas had an escape attempt back in the 1970's. There are still bullet marks on the concrete in the yard. (it didn't end well) *Cookies - We are known as the Cookie Guys because we bring 1500 dozen cookies with us to the unit. Every man incarcerated there gets a dozen cookies. This is a BIG DEAL to the men in the unit. If one guy on the wing acts up, we get pulled out and no one gets cookies. One of the things you do on your first Walk is hand out cookies to the men in the cells. When I first entered the block, the first guy that saw me yelled "Yo, it's the Cookie Dudes! Y'all don't f*ck this up!", then looked at me and apologized for swearing. Almost every man that got a bag of cookies shook my hand and said "thank you" and "God bless you." It's a life-changing experience for both the men inside and us volunteers. Until I did my first Walk, I tended to think of inmates as cartoon character bad guys. This has made me re-evaluate a lot of strongly-held beliefs and biases.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2021 18:22
|
|
|
my dad used to do Kairos but i never really asked him about it. sounds really nice
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2021 18:35
|
|
|
I had never heard of the Kairos before, but this is absolutely amazing! Thank you for existing, and keep it up!
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2021 11:42
|
|
|
As Advent approaches - tomorrow is the last day of the liturgical year, for Catholics and some Protestants - I thought I'd share something written by Servant of God Dorothy Day.quote:I have said rosaries on picket lines and in prisons, in sickness and in health, and one of our friends who lost a leg in the Second World War said that he held fast to his rosary as he lay wounded on the battlefield, holding on to it as he was hanging on to life. In peace, working for peace, suffering for peace, and suffering in war, in times of joy and pain and terror, Mary has been Refuge of Sinners.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2021 17:51
|
|
|
My church does a lot of stuff with prisoners and letting them know people on the outside actually give a drat can be a super powerful force in their lives.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2021 22:30
|
|
|
I wish sometimes that we Protestants had more time for Mary. Not to venerate (since, you know, that's not a thing for us) but just... the things she exemplifies, particularly hope for everything turning out all right when it seems darkest, are things I will never run out of the need for. In not entirely unrelated news, I'm home from the hospital and still recovering. It's slow, but progress is progress.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2021 22:50
|
|
|
docbeard posted:I wish sometimes that we Protestants had more time for Mary. Not to venerate (since, you know, that's not a thing for us) but just... the things she exemplifies, particularly hope for everything turning out all right when it seems darkest, are things I will never run out of the need for. I knew I shoulda tried the conversion while you were still groggy.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2021 22:58
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/CampbellxEmma/status/1464407455836819456
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2021 12:16
|
|
|
docbeard posted:I wish sometimes that we Protestants had more time for Mary. Not to venerate (since, you know, that's not a thing for us) but just... the things she exemplifies, particularly hope for everything turning out all right when it seems darkest, are things I will never run out of the need for. I feel like the Protestants who are afraid of mentioning Mary, lest they accidentally venerate her, should remember that the last thing she says in the New Testament - because she's present in the Acts of the Apostles, but isn't recorded as saying anything, and had to have been a source for Luke's Gospel, but her mention in John's Gospel is chronologically last - is "Do whatever He tells you," like Dorothy Day said in the quote. It's hard to go wrong following someone whose advice to us is to listen to Jesus - and who wasn't afraid to say to Jesus, "Son, why have you done this to us?" Because sometimes things seem super dark, and it's not bad to say, as The Message translation would have it, "Young man, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been half out of our minds looking for you." And, I think that if we ask that, and we hear Jesus saying, "How is it that you sought me? did you not know, that I must be about my father's business?" (as the Douay-Rheims has his reply), that answer can be comforting, in the same way that Job was not just silenced but satisfied to hear the Lord declaring, from a whirlwind, "Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words? Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth?" (I wasn't going to quote the D-R twice, but "wrapping sentences in unskillful words" is such a great turn of phrase!) And, uh, because that's three really long sentences and there were already parentheticals in it: just to be clear, docbeard, I was totally not accusing you of anything or saying you were afraid of mentioning Mary!
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2021 16:31
|
|
|
S3 of What We Do In The Shadows taking an interesting turn.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2021 18:57
|
|
|
That dog's name is FRIAR MOUSTACHE for heaven's sake. I would do anything for him.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2021 19:13
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:S3 of What We Do In The Shadows taking an interesting turn. "What is Guillermo doing here?" was my first thought too.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2021 00:24
|
|
|
Hims a monk.*
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2021 20:53
|
|
|
Corinthians says that love keeps no record of wrongs. How does that work when I'm autistic and can literally remember every wrong that was ever done to me ever?
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2021 22:31
|
|
|
Prurient Squid posted:Corinthians says that love keeps no record of wrongs. How does that work when I'm autistic and can literally remember every wrong that was ever done to me ever? It isn't meant to be taken quite so literally as that. The point is, if you love someone, you won't spend space in your mind adding up all the ways they have slighted you. It's about forgiveness. Many non-autistic people can also remember many, many times they've been wronged, but dwelling on that stuff will hurt you.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2021 23:27
|
|
|
Prurient Squid posted:Corinthians says that love keeps no record of wrongs. How does that work when I'm autistic and can literally remember every wrong that was ever done to me ever? Buddha posted:The mind comes before all mental states. Mind is their ruler and creator. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like a cart following an ox If you dwell on the bad things that were done to you, you will end up hating and resenting others and then wronging them. If you dwell on the good things that were done to you, you will be filled with gratitude and end up with a mind that is more giving and loving. The chances that you will be able to do this naturally are slim. Therefore fake it till you make it. People are formed by their habits. Find exercises online to develop gratitude like a gratitude journal. Try to be observant of your thoughts and mind. If you notice yourself thinking about bad things people have done to you, force yourself to think of good things they have done for you even if it was very small. The more you do this the easier it will get.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2021 00:29
|
|
|
BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:The more you do this the easier it will get. Not for everybody. Some people have less choice in what they think about and focus (or even hyperfocus) on. Especially if there are learning differences involved.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2021 00:44
|
|
|
Effort counts more than anything.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2021 01:01
|
|
|
Bar Ran Dun posted:Not for everybody. Some people have less choice in what they think about and focus (or even hyperfocus) on. Especially if there are learning differences involved. even for them the more they do it the easier it will get. easier is a relative word not an absolute one. if the goal is perfection give up now. if the goal is to do better than how you're doing it is possible through effort and patience. humans are naturally habit-forming creatures and i would say (as an autistic person myself) that autistic people tend to be even more so. what you're trying to do is simply recognize that and manipulate that natural tendency for good, like how an engineer manipulates natural laws like gravity and newton's laws to build a machine. you're replacing one habit with another and this does require large and great effort in the beginning but less and less as it stops being a choice and begins becoming a habit.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2021 02:09
|
|
|
BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:even for them the more they do it the easier it will get. easier is a relative word not an absolute one. if the goal is perfection give up now. if the goal is to do better than how you're doing it is possible through effort and patience. humans are naturally habit-forming creatures and i would say (as an autistic person myself) that autistic people tend to be even more so. what you're trying to do is simply recognize that and manipulate that natural tendency for good, like how an engineer manipulates natural laws like gravity and newton's laws to build a machine. you're replacing one habit with another and this does require large and great effort in the beginning but less and less as it stops being a choice and begins becoming a habit. It does not work this way at all for me. Worse it’s intensely irritating to try to force it to work that way. I don’t choose and grasp, I am grasped. I’ve always found Lewis’ tin soldiers analogy irritating for the same reason. I much prefer: You are accepted! to pretending be something other than yourself Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Dec 7, 2021 |
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2021 02:44
|
|
|
Prurient Squid posted:Corinthians says that love keeps no record of wrongs. How does that work when I'm autistic and can literally remember every wrong that was ever done to me ever? You might remember, but remembering isn't the same as keeping a record. What does keeping a record look like? Well you could be like a great-aunt of mine who literally had in a calendar all the times another great-aunt had wronged her. A less extreme version could be you constantly bringing up a time when someone hurt you. It could be constantly telling a story. It could constantly be gossiping about them and that situation. Think about the impact of keeping a record. I have a friend who would constantly bring up one of my less prouder moments because they think it was funny. But every time they brought it up, they were returning me back to that situation, and it was embarrassing. Eventually, I told my friend that the story needs to die. That's keeping a record. Sure, I might remember it, but I can't control what I remember. I can't control how I feel. But I can control how I respond.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2021 14:37
|
|
|
Prurient Squid posted:Corinthians says that love keeps no record of wrongs. How does that work when I'm autistic and can literally remember every wrong that was ever done to me ever? It's one of the many conundrums of spiritual living. Forgiveness is the precursor to the empathy, that makes gratitude and peace of mind possible, so we must -attempt- even though it's not easy. I'm both a mean drunk with a long childhood history of neglect and aspergers / ADHD, so I definitely know where you're coming from. However, getting into a routine of -trying- to place the events of the past in their proper size and consequence, trying to pray for those who did me wrong and those I had done wrong, and trying to admit my part of the responsibility in the situations that went sour, I have come to a much more loving and peaceful place - even towards people who really hosed me over. Disclaimer: I am NOT a christian, but worked specifically with these tools when I got sober through AA, a christian-inspired self help program.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2021 15:02
|
|
|
I think I've mentioned before 50s Girl Groupon's treatment diary in PYF. I've been following it for a while because she has a similar cancer to the one I've experienced plus other medical issues. IMO, it's been raining in her life for a long time and it just started pouring harder. Apparently, she's been back in the hospital recently, there's money woes preventing her from getting her full treatment and she's been having to work while sick with cancer (which is a misery I know all too well). It's nearing Christmas and I would ask everyone to at least pray for healing and the relief of her suffering. If you pray with the saints, I would suggest asking the intercession of St. Peregrine who I prayed with while I was in active treatment. If you would like to help with her financial woes as well (I plan to) her GoFundMe page is here.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2021 18:38
|
|
|
Maybe this is more “weird historical trivia” then “weird religious trivia” but it raised an eyebrow. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/george-washington-a-descendant-of-odin quote:George Washington: first President of the United States, father of his country, crosser of the Delaware, and descendant of Odin. This, at least, was the claim put forward by the late nineteenth-century genealogist Albert Welles. In the floridly titled, four-hundred-page tome The Pedigree and History of the Washington Family Derived from Odin, the Founder of Scandinavia. B.C. 70, Involving a Period of Eighteen Centuries, and Including Fifty-Five Generations, Down to General George Washington, First President of the United States (1879), Welles created a family tree for Washington of truly mythical proportions, and one which shows just how useful nineteenth-century Americans found the Middle Ages to be when it came to shaping their understandings of their country's origins.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2021 15:28
|
|
|
It's not even weird historical trivia so much as it's part and parsel of victorian "historians" being really in to racial theory and other non-scientific means of justifying colonialism. Proto-nazi poo poo is what this is.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2021 17:33
|
|
|
Is Welles the same guy who proposed a hollow earth theory where we live inside a hollow earth?
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2021 18:15
|
|
|
Pershing posted:Is Welles the same guy who proposed a hollow earth theory where we live inside a hollow earth? Speaking of religion and Hollow Earth, a couple years back I visited a utopian commune in Florida that existed from 1894-1961. They were led by a Dr. Cyrus Teed who invented Koreshanity. A major belief of theirs was that the universe is actually a concave sphere and we on Earth are sort of on the perimeter. There were lots of scientific experiments they performed involving bridges and stuff that reminded me a lot of Flat Earth experiments, and they had to use convulted logic like that the sun we see is a reflection from light coming from the center of the universe and the real sun that heats the Earth is a giant invisible electromagnetic battery. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2021 18:34
|
|
|
I wonder how many of these 19th century oddities got real big clubs of genuine adherents, as opposed to a lot of people joining for fun or because they didn't have anything else to do, leaving some future Atlas Obscura entries laying around, and then going back to the alligator farm. The concave sphere thing seems unusually easy to disprove.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2021 18:49
|
|
|
Nckdictator posted:Maybe this is more “weird historical trivia” then “weird religious trivia” but it raised an eyebrow. This Thanksgiving I learned my wife's family has some tenuous claim to William the Conquerer and Charlemagne, of all people. Here I am a Catholic Polack just the descendant of potato eaters.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2021 20:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 15:49 |
|
|
So many people can claim both those lines of ancestry though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2021 20:07
|
|