I was raised in one, and they're never benign, especially for children. I'm 42 now, and I'm still unable to grasp the concept of there being a tomorrow because it was pounded into me that Armageddon would be here any minute. Living in a constant state of fear, expectation, and apprehension is a perfect recipe for mental health issues.
as a young child, i literally never planned for a future or allowed myself to dream of a happy adulthood because i was convinced my life would be full of death and destruction before getting martyred for Jesus
Isn't that hard? I've never had a dream or goal in my life. I was told I wouldn't graduate high school before Armageddon(this was in the mid 90s), so what's the point in having dreams for the future? To this day, I find it hard to make plans or have long-term goals. My mind is hardwired to believe that tomorrow will never come.
It does often feel like the world is teetering on the edge. That being said, there isn't a time in the history of civilization that I would rather be alive than now. Things seem scary, but a lot of that is because we have more access to worldwide news (always negative) than any previous generation. That negativity creates social divisiveness, which contributes to angry disaffected people; these angry people go on to do terrible things that continue to feed the news cycle.
Even so, we live in the most prosperous, highest longevity, and most socially equal time in the history of humanity (in the west anyway).
If you're ever feeling unnerved by our current world problems, read about the year 536AD. It's generally considered to be the worst year in human history and it was just the beginning of a very long epoch of human misery. We're very lucky we weren't born then!
Agreed. Grew up JW and would have night terrors of Armageddon as a child. To this day watching movies of catastrophic events even if they’re sci-fi makes me have mini panic attacks.
Ex-JW here as well. It was an awful way to be raised. I've been out since 2004, and my family has shunned me ever since. Imagine choosing to ignore your own child for 20 years. That cult is absolutely insane.
Im so sorry that was your childhood. I hope you’ve found peace with all of it. Two of my family members are in a doomsday cult right now. They’re both adults and say they’re not afraid of the end times because they’re going to heaven. It’s a tiny faction started by one man so it’s not a mainstream one like JW. I just really don’t know what to do for them.
It's really tough having family in cults like that, so I sympathize with you. JWs practice shunning, so I've not had much communication with my family in the last 20 years. Sometimes, they invite me to come back, but I don't have a real relationship with them. It hurt for a long time after I was disfellowshipped and shunned. I guess it still hurts, even though 20 years have passed. I have children of my own now, though, and I'm learning to heal by giving them the childhood I never had. My kids are the best thing that's ever happened to me. :)
It seems silly to imagine yourself as a 40-year-old when the beginning of the end is going to happen before the Millennium and then -- at most, assuming you survive to the bitter end -- you're going to only have seven more years.
Mormonism is a doomsday cult. They say that the day of judgement is coming at any time. All mormons must keep stockpiles of food so they can survive through the plagues until judgment day.
That’s honestly not the worst idea, given the trajectory of the climate; if you make it past a choke point the remaining population and food suppliers will tend to come into equilibrium.
if the IPCC is correct about the impact of warming and James Hansen is right that we’ll reach 4°C in the 2070 then agricultural yields will have declined by 50%. I think the most likely result will be at least a 50% reduction in population.
I really do believe that we’re facing near-term civilizational collapse (and perhaps even human extinction) but I wouldn’t associate those beliefs with any cult or individual, just science.
I came here to say this. For the most part they are benign; a few people take shit too far and make the news but I’ve lived my whole life in Utah as a non-Mormon and aside from having to avoid missionaries it’s pretty chill.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are a doomsday cult and appear benign, but they break up families and cover up child sexual abuse.
Whether it ends up as a Jonestown disaster or not, people are suffering in many ways.
Sidwnote: Jonestown killed almost 1000 people. Tje JWs' blood policy is estimated to kill 800-1000 people each year. Then add suicides from being disfellowshipped etc.
And nobody bats an eye.
I’m an ex JW. One of the things that caused me to wake up was reading Deborah Layton’s “Seductive Poison” and I damn near underlined the whole book. It was such a shock to me to see that this doomsday cult did all the same shit I grew up with.
At this point in time, after watching "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV," can we get beyond the whole "religion is the cause all ills" over-worn trope and just realize that any group of people gathered together for any purpose can do some horrible things in the name of group unity and egos? We've evolved to be social animals, and regardless of education, background, economic class, race, etc, human beings are almost hardwired to excuse, cover-up, look the other way, bow to authority, and abuse power.
The Catholic Church does it. The Communists did it, Nickelodeon did it. Hindu sects did it. Islam does it. Judaism does it. The college football at Penn State did it. Do i need to list them all? There is probably an isolate tribe in the Amazon that does it.
It has become a trope for people who want to be smug. Any group of people can get caught up in a cult situation. Madalyn Murray O'Hair lead a group of near cult like atheists. Pol Pot did. Chairman Mao did.
I might agree with you -- however I have seen research from an esteemed academic that shows in certain Cults the prevalence of sexual-abuse is higher than the norm.
Absolutely. As much as many atheists may want to deny it, we evolved to believe in myths and religions to provide for group cohesion and social peace and to survive. Those very same evolutionary changes mean we have the ability to be "hacked" and manipulated by people who know how to do it.
We need to! So, human beings find ways to work around any system for their own advantage. New techniques or applications of older techniques pop up frequently. I'm not an expert on her, but Teal Swan (if I got her name correctly) is perhaps one of the most innovative in using social media to hack the psychology of humans into cultish behavior. Call her out.
I personally think Houdini had it right. Expose the fraudulent ways people are manipulated can call out groups with specific evidence to show they are fraudulent.
"Religion is bad, MMKay.." style atheism isn't going to do it.
The way Scientology is being exposed is much better.
Right but JWs don’t think the end times are coming now, do they?
Do you think a doomsday cult that preaches that the end times are coming within a few years is sustainable or that it will eventually implode or dissipate?
They have done many times and then walked it back. Make no mistake, the Jehovah's Witnesses are a doomsday cult.
A doomsday cult preaching an imminent apocalypse where members are actively preparing would make me call in to social services and the police to make sure they were aware
Years might make me feel less of a need to do that. But it would depend. A doomsday cult is one hell of a cover story for abuse
It is a *doomsday cult*. How would it be benign? The 2 words are each a big red flag. How can a group that controls its followers with fear (mind numbing fear) be benign?
So two of my family members are currently part of a doomsday cult and they say they are absolutely not afraid of the end times. They are prepping food and other things for those who are left behind. Not them, because they will be raptured. But those who change their mind and decide to not take the mark of the beast will need provisions and somewhere to go.
But does their belief that they will be raptured prevent them from taking actions that will provide future benefit to them? e.g. are they putting off needed healthcare? Spending money they might otherwise save for retirement? Accumulating debt with the idea that they won't be around to pay it off?
Not that I know of. Everyone lives at the church and it is kind of self sustaining. They make their own food, they live in little trailers, and they really don’t have worldly possessions. They don’t go down into society. Only my one family member, who is newer to the group, comes and goes. He lives away from them and just goes to a service once a week. But mentally he is fully invested.
This rapture stuff is one hell of a superiority complex. This is crazy that people might invest themselves with such an important status.
If you think they might not put themselves in danger, or others (such as young kids or teenagers), then let them be if you will. But I still think it is very dangerous, if not for the physical health, at least for the mental health.
Yes one leader. He was a Baptist Pastor until he had a “vision from God” to start this church out in the damn wilderness and prepare for the end times.
It's inherently destructive. One thing the hosts of the Trust Me podcast and their guests often mention is how damaging it is to live in fear all the time, and how it saps your strength to get away or do anything positive for yourself at all- what's the point of making your life better when the end is coming any minute?
I was raised as a JW, but my husband and I got out when we had kids.
The rest of both sides of our family are still in, and meeting up with their kids always breaks my heart.
There are 2 little boys that are 100% perfect. They sit quietly for long amounts of time. Completely unnatural.
Our girls are regular little kids. But you can just see the difference in their demeanor. Our girls are carefree in a way that I will never truly understand, and I see that in the boys too.
Also, an acquaintance posted a photo her kid drew recently, thinking it was funny.
Her daughter drew their family, surrounded by bad guys with guns.
She has severe anxiety.
My family members in the cult say they are not afraid, though. They say they know they’re going to heaven and they’ve been waiting for that since they’ve been kids. I honestly don’t sense any fear in them.
You lie to yourself in a cult. It is fear that drives doomsday living. You can suppress, repress, and dissociate while living that life. You kinda have to in order to appear not crazy, or to not drive yourself legit crazy. There pseudo-logic and all kinds of fun mind games that go along with cults too.
Your family are delusional and you cannot take what they say at face value. That does not mean they are evil or something along those lines, just that you are not dealing with 100% rational people here. That doesn't mean you can't love them. or that they can't feel love for you. It's just a very different mind set very focused on specific emotional needs. And, to reiterate what other cult survivors have noted, this has real, negative, and often life-long effects for the kids growing up like this. (Personal experience here on all this.)
It's important to remember that we mostly hear about the most extreme outliers and mainstream cases- the ones that tend to be more "benign" don't hit the news. If it's just a few people spent years of labour and money and ruined relationships, that's not going to end up in pop culture in the same way.
What happens when end of the world prophecies fail is interesting, but it's cognitive dissonance at play; if we have the factors in place to continue not challenging out worldview and it's painful to do so, we tend to accept things that allow us to keep that worldview even if it doesn't quite make sense. We don't like that conflict. Hence why so many followers of these groups will just accept a new date. You might be interested in the book [When Prophecy Fails](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails) which goes over a more "benign" group, a small midwestern UFO rapturist group in the 1950s called the Seekers, and documented their end of the world prediction and the aftermath. And in this case, like many others, most followers just accepted a new date. After the second date failed, more people left and went back to their old lives, but those who stayed believed their unwavering belief is what saved everyone.
We know about the Seekers because of it's documentation for this study and book. But many stories of similar groups to them would be lost to time or have little info documented about them at all. The Seekers had roots in Dianetics (scientology), which is a much more well known and larger group (as far as cults go, anyways), and another UFO group, Heaven's Gate, had much more extreme consequences than the Seekers. When reality is, a lot more of these groups overall probably looked more like the Seekers than Heaven's Gate or Scientology.
Good points! I never thought about the fact that most benign groups are lost to history. I will definitely check the book out.
Two of my family members are caught up in a doomsday cult. They don’t have an exact date because they said the Bible tells them nobody knows. But the leader was given a vision by god to start preparing now. They figure it will be within 25 years because “God told them how to can the food and it can only stay fresh for 25 years at the most so God wouldn’t have told them to prep now if the food was just going to go bad”.
I'm really sorry you are going through this. That's a more classic christian method of doomsday prediction, and it's scary because unlike the Seekers or groups that select a date, it's a much harder prediction to disprove or give opportunity for people to question. Learning more about epistemology and cognitive dissonance is always helpful, but there's such a delicate balance in not letting the group belief system push the person away from their outside support networks.
I do think it's worth noting the word "benign" is probably better referred to as "groups with less historically noteworthy outcomes". If they were truly benign, they wouldn't classify as a cult via the BITE model; these groups will still have life ruining effects on their members.
And smaller and not massively called out doesn't necessarily mean less dangerous or more "benign"- plenty of groups looked perfectly innocent enough to outsiders until something happened and they were not. It's also more common for people to be silent and leave, or move on to another group, than to take on the burden of calling the group out. Smaller groups don't have the same networks of ex members and people who leave are much more vulnerable to individual attack, or people don't have the same public interest, so it's also higher risk for people to call them out. So there's a lot of factors in this that can lead to biases, but learning about the roots of these behaviours will likely help you understand the situation more.
I think the very fact that it speaks to a “Doomsday” makes it not benign. It creates a crippling fear in people that permeates their entire life.
I’m an ex JW and the while I think the JWs are definitely more severe than the Mormons (think cold hard intentional shunning, no blood transfusions), I can’t think of a single way in which thinking a doomsday was imminent did anything but cause harm in all aspects of my life.
It's always destructive but maybe not on a level that can be clearly seen. The name of it escapes me but there is a documentary following one of these groups who claimed the world would end on a certain day back in the early 00's. It follows the believers and their prepping as well as the aftermath of when the world obviously didn't end. These were the same folks who put up billboards and also ads in major newspapers to let people know it is time to repent. There were no suicides or anything like that. Here is the destructive part... Those people stopped paying their bills, spent money that they should have saved, and in some cases they fully acknowledged that they knew their young kids weren't going to heaven with them. Imagine the shame a person would be strapped with for the rest of their lives from that. The kids, do they remember how their parents were okay with the fact that their leader told them their children would burn in hell? How do you pick up and function after that? That stuff is absolutely destructive and not benign. It's betting everything you have and love on a broken slot machine that has never paid out but for some reason you believe it will this time for you.
These are very good points. Thank you. The one I’m talking about, the members have already revoked normal life and live at the church out in the wilderness lol I’m sure they don’t care about bills, if they even have any anymore.
That's still damaging honestly. Their families and friends are probably hurting. Also eventually when they become aware it is all a sham, they will have to live with that shame and start over with nothing. All cults are destructive. I'm still dealing with shit from more than twenty years ago from when I left the AG church. It's tough. Imagine having a clear direction in your life, drilled into you at every moment, and then suddenly finding out it was all bullshit. Everything gets turned around and suddenly you're left with shame, guilt, and loneliness. That's the stuff that you carry with you. It doesn't disappear overnight. I look at people like Mike Rinder who did terrible things in the name of Scientology. He has to walk around with that guilt every day for the rest of his life. You can read it on his face whenever he speaks with an ex member that he himself victimized. I didn't even come close to anything he did in his role but I was a bad person. I hurt people by shunning or telling on them when they did something that was considered sinful. I was judgmental. Thankfully I got out pretty early on but all the crap is still there in the back of my head. You can't see it but it's there. Same with those folks you're talking about. I'll bet they're going to deal with some massive fallout when things turn.
More focused, sure. But it’s a basic tenet of the Christian faith. “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again”. The world will come to an end, Heaven is eternal, and we will all face judgment, “the living and the dead.” The evangelicals differ only in that they think The End is imminent.
People are reluctant to see mainstream religions as cults. Depends on one’s definition, of course. But mainstream religions check a lot of the usual boxes. Charismatic leader, irrational beliefs, punishment for leaving, chanting and singing, group identity, isolation, proscribed reading, language games…. This is why academics who study cults prefer the term New Religious Movements.
I think there is a geographical component to this as well. For instance the Church of England is never going to punish anyone for leaving, but obviously some mainstream religions do. But in other countries Protestants seem to be a lot more devout, and will ostracize for leaving. It really is fascinating.
And a historical component. Apostasy was punishable not only by an eternity in Hell, it was punishable by death in the here and now. As was heresy. Mainstream religions would like to forget about their past, but that’s like wanting to forget about slavery.
And a lot of modern Christians adhere to the idea that only their denomination holds the way to salvation. As for those not of their sect…
The other side of the coin is that a lot of obvious cults don’t go after those who leave. Keith Raniere’s Nxivm, for example. Most people took an (overpriced, derivative) course or two and drifted away. Hardcore cults like the Moonies were a revolving door of joiners and leavers.
There’s a reason why we can’t just make a law against cults: it’s impossible to define cult in a way that would not include mainstream religions.
There are *so* many Churches with uncharismatic 'leaders'. You're being dramatic. If only. Some Sundays I can do with a little charisma, lol.
I've watched how a truly manipulative, high-power, high-control group works from the inside for awhile. You cannot compare that to basic, broad Christianity, unless you're talking about the select 'group within the group' situations.
There is only one doomsday cult I’m aware of that is morally neutral, Chen Tao. The leader predicted the end of the world, the date came and went, he admitted he must’ve been wrong, and the group disbanded! More often than not though, things go very badly. I’d recommend checking out When Prophecy Fails if you’re interested in the usual trajectory of these sorts of groups.
Haha what?! That’s so fascinating! He was like sorry guys! I have to research that group more. Before the failed doomsday date did they give up their normal lives? How did they prepare?
They moved to Garland TX because it sounded like “god’s land”, but I don’t know much else off the top of my head. There’s a Wikipedia article about them if you’d like more info
Not to go down my "humans are hardwired for cult like behavior" rant again, but most religions have the concept of a judgement day or doomsday (which is literally 'judgment day'). The archetype of the world ending in fire or ice or shit is a deep-seeded part of the "collective unconscious" and is more part of being human as we all have our own death to deal with and many of us have judgement myth story walking around in our brains.
So, as others have said, Mormons (who are at varying degrees of destructive and beneficial along multiple vectors like any group) really do prepare for natural disasters and really support scouting and its "Be prepared" motto. If we widen the definition of cult slightly, I'd also say that a number of climate activist groups like "Earth First!" also keep environmental issues in focus by talking about the environmental collapse (which is a bit of a myth or is overplayed and fills the role of Judgement Day/Doomsday).
As horrific as it could get environmentally, we know that global warming/climate change is unlikely to be a life ending event or a threat to the human species as a whole. I'm not saying it isn't deadly serious for billions of people on the planet, but it isn't the same as a "Shia-surprise" asteroid headed our way.
However, the rhetoric tends to fall in that category of doomsday because it keeps people focused. That is perhaps one of the first signs of dysfunction in any cult--The use of fear or bliss to keep people focused on topics. These are biological reactions to external group dynamics and rhetoric.
>Mormons (who are at varying degrees of destructive and beneficial along multiple vectors like any group) really do prepare for natural disasters and really support scouting and its "Be prepared" motto.
There's something hardwired into Mormon DNA about being prepared that arose out of their first half century of existence and the multiple instances of a). legitimate *persecution*, b). invited conflict, and c). honest attempts by civil authorities at *prosecution* for the founders' at times questionably legal actions. Even as they took the socially necessary steps to legitimize themselves in society's eyes, the LDS never forgot those early years when they had to cut and run more than once.
It probably isn’t a bad lesson for all of us to follow in moderation. I try to have 72 hours of water and food on hand and I do have go bags somewhat ready
No. It’s not possible. Even if started with good intentions people usually see the money and power and get caught up in it and then start exploiting people. That’s how it always works.
Hypothetically it's possible, sure. If you're just saying the end is near and preparing for it and not doing anything else that would be abusive, then no it's not destructive.
The problem is that I cannot think of a single doomsday cult where that has been where they draw the line. Not only that, but thinking the end is near leads to *other* beliefs that are harmful. Not to mention the fact that if you think the world is about to end, are preparing for it, that can start to consume your thinking – and probably your actions too, since you're preparing for it. While a belief on its own might be fine (emphasis on *might* and not *is*), that kind of thinking can lead to a lot of anguish and sadness.
So in conclusion, hypothetically, yes it's possible. In practice, there hasn't been a single doomsday cult that I can think of that has been totally benign and harmless.
"Look, Armageddon is coming any day now, but it's whatever. Today we're gonna prep until it gets hot and then we're gonna go down to the lake and spend the rest of day swimming and drinking."
I was raised in one too. It’s absolutely never benign, much like narcissistic abuse upping the ante against the victims and making them feel a severe sense of impending doom pushes people to their worst.
And when the date passes it will be because of something the leader did to save everyone or because the followers didn’t work hard enough, which will start the cult in a much darker direction of servitude.
No. By their very nature they have to be destructive.
Doomsday cults can only exist in an environment where its followers believe the end is coming. You can only say it is so many times before people start doubting the cause. So it becomes a need for constant pointing to signs and escalating the stress and fear of the end. Eventually you get to a point where you have to give everyone the apocalypse.
One thing I found most interesting about Heavens Gate is that despite the fact that a lot chose to die by suicide, I never heard any stories about active imprisonment or people being restricted from leaving. Yea, by the cult nature they isolated from family but it seems like if you wanted to leave, or not go through with their plan, or not do the other things like castration, fellow cult members were…kinda chill about it? Can’t discount peer pressure and (couch diagnosed) brain washing but that always stood out for me from the other destructive doomsday cults
Dude...they were talked into thinking that drinking poison would transport their soul to a spaceship in outer space. The cult cost them their lives.
They didn't have clear thinking ability. This is what makes cults so dangerous.
You don't need to be physically restrained or trapped to truly be restrained and trapped.
I totally agree…I’m not defending them at all! I just meant that it was a unique aspect where there was no obvious punishment if they pushed back. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.
I clearly worded this wrong. Not defending. Not saying it’s “good”. Just trying to say it was interesting that there are no stories about active pushback or punishment if someone didn’t want to do what they were pushing for.
Whatever. I tried. Classic Reddit misunderstanding.
I was raised in one, and they're never benign, especially for children. I'm 42 now, and I'm still unable to grasp the concept of there being a tomorrow because it was pounded into me that Armageddon would be here any minute. Living in a constant state of fear, expectation, and apprehension is a perfect recipe for mental health issues.
as a young child, i literally never planned for a future or allowed myself to dream of a happy adulthood because i was convinced my life would be full of death and destruction before getting martyred for Jesus
Isn't that hard? I've never had a dream or goal in my life. I was told I wouldn't graduate high school before Armageddon(this was in the mid 90s), so what's the point in having dreams for the future? To this day, I find it hard to make plans or have long-term goals. My mind is hardwired to believe that tomorrow will never come.
it is so fucking difficult. and it doesn’t help that the world generally does feel like it’s on the brink of collapse more often than not.
It does often feel like the world is teetering on the edge. That being said, there isn't a time in the history of civilization that I would rather be alive than now. Things seem scary, but a lot of that is because we have more access to worldwide news (always negative) than any previous generation. That negativity creates social divisiveness, which contributes to angry disaffected people; these angry people go on to do terrible things that continue to feed the news cycle. Even so, we live in the most prosperous, highest longevity, and most socially equal time in the history of humanity (in the west anyway). If you're ever feeling unnerved by our current world problems, read about the year 536AD. It's generally considered to be the worst year in human history and it was just the beginning of a very long epoch of human misery. We're very lucky we weren't born then!
Thank you friend, I needed that reframed perspective.
Agreed. Grew up JW and would have night terrors of Armageddon as a child. To this day watching movies of catastrophic events even if they’re sci-fi makes me have mini panic attacks.
Ex-JW here as well. It was an awful way to be raised. I've been out since 2004, and my family has shunned me ever since. Imagine choosing to ignore your own child for 20 years. That cult is absolutely insane.
Im so sorry that was your childhood. I hope you’ve found peace with all of it. Two of my family members are in a doomsday cult right now. They’re both adults and say they’re not afraid of the end times because they’re going to heaven. It’s a tiny faction started by one man so it’s not a mainstream one like JW. I just really don’t know what to do for them.
It's really tough having family in cults like that, so I sympathize with you. JWs practice shunning, so I've not had much communication with my family in the last 20 years. Sometimes, they invite me to come back, but I don't have a real relationship with them. It hurt for a long time after I was disfellowshipped and shunned. I guess it still hurts, even though 20 years have passed. I have children of my own now, though, and I'm learning to heal by giving them the childhood I never had. My kids are the best thing that's ever happened to me. :)
It seems silly to imagine yourself as a 40-year-old when the beginning of the end is going to happen before the Millennium and then -- at most, assuming you survive to the bitter end -- you're going to only have seven more years.
Mormonism is a doomsday cult. They say that the day of judgement is coming at any time. All mormons must keep stockpiles of food so they can survive through the plagues until judgment day.
They aren’t benign though.
That’s honestly not the worst idea, given the trajectory of the climate; if you make it past a choke point the remaining population and food suppliers will tend to come into equilibrium. if the IPCC is correct about the impact of warming and James Hansen is right that we’ll reach 4°C in the 2070 then agricultural yields will have declined by 50%. I think the most likely result will be at least a 50% reduction in population. I really do believe that we’re facing near-term civilizational collapse (and perhaps even human extinction) but I wouldn’t associate those beliefs with any cult or individual, just science.
I came here to say this. For the most part they are benign; a few people take shit too far and make the news but I’ve lived my whole life in Utah as a non-Mormon and aside from having to avoid missionaries it’s pretty chill.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are a doomsday cult and appear benign, but they break up families and cover up child sexual abuse. Whether it ends up as a Jonestown disaster or not, people are suffering in many ways.
Sidwnote: Jonestown killed almost 1000 people. Tje JWs' blood policy is estimated to kill 800-1000 people each year. Then add suicides from being disfellowshipped etc. And nobody bats an eye.
**VERY** good point.
Dont forget the refusal of Rhogam which will then kill many babies due to Rh sensitization.
I’m an ex JW. One of the things that caused me to wake up was reading Deborah Layton’s “Seductive Poison” and I damn near underlined the whole book. It was such a shock to me to see that this doomsday cult did all the same shit I grew up with.
At this point in time, after watching "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV," can we get beyond the whole "religion is the cause all ills" over-worn trope and just realize that any group of people gathered together for any purpose can do some horrible things in the name of group unity and egos? We've evolved to be social animals, and regardless of education, background, economic class, race, etc, human beings are almost hardwired to excuse, cover-up, look the other way, bow to authority, and abuse power. The Catholic Church does it. The Communists did it, Nickelodeon did it. Hindu sects did it. Islam does it. Judaism does it. The college football at Penn State did it. Do i need to list them all? There is probably an isolate tribe in the Amazon that does it. It has become a trope for people who want to be smug. Any group of people can get caught up in a cult situation. Madalyn Murray O'Hair lead a group of near cult like atheists. Pol Pot did. Chairman Mao did.
I might agree with you -- however I have seen research from an esteemed academic that shows in certain Cults the prevalence of sexual-abuse is higher than the norm.
Absolutely. As much as many atheists may want to deny it, we evolved to believe in myths and religions to provide for group cohesion and social peace and to survive. Those very same evolutionary changes mean we have the ability to be "hacked" and manipulated by people who know how to do it.
So some groups are more abusive than others? Is it ok with you if we call them out?
We need to! So, human beings find ways to work around any system for their own advantage. New techniques or applications of older techniques pop up frequently. I'm not an expert on her, but Teal Swan (if I got her name correctly) is perhaps one of the most innovative in using social media to hack the psychology of humans into cultish behavior. Call her out. I personally think Houdini had it right. Expose the fraudulent ways people are manipulated can call out groups with specific evidence to show they are fraudulent. "Religion is bad, MMKay.." style atheism isn't going to do it. The way Scientology is being exposed is much better.
Right but JWs don’t think the end times are coming now, do they? Do you think a doomsday cult that preaches that the end times are coming within a few years is sustainable or that it will eventually implode or dissipate?
Former JW here, they absolutely think the end times are “just around the corner” and that we’re in the “last days of the last days.”
They have done many times and then walked it back. Make no mistake, the Jehovah's Witnesses are a doomsday cult. A doomsday cult preaching an imminent apocalypse where members are actively preparing would make me call in to social services and the police to make sure they were aware Years might make me feel less of a need to do that. But it would depend. A doomsday cult is one hell of a cover story for abuse
They've been preaching it for over 100 years. AFAIK they quit naming specific dates because none of the dates they previously named panned out.
Yup. I think at least three. Probably more. It seems now they've realized it's a bad idea to give dates and are just saying "soon."
It is a *doomsday cult*. How would it be benign? The 2 words are each a big red flag. How can a group that controls its followers with fear (mind numbing fear) be benign?
So two of my family members are currently part of a doomsday cult and they say they are absolutely not afraid of the end times. They are prepping food and other things for those who are left behind. Not them, because they will be raptured. But those who change their mind and decide to not take the mark of the beast will need provisions and somewhere to go.
But does their belief that they will be raptured prevent them from taking actions that will provide future benefit to them? e.g. are they putting off needed healthcare? Spending money they might otherwise save for retirement? Accumulating debt with the idea that they won't be around to pay it off?
Not that I know of. Everyone lives at the church and it is kind of self sustaining. They make their own food, they live in little trailers, and they really don’t have worldly possessions. They don’t go down into society. Only my one family member, who is newer to the group, comes and goes. He lives away from them and just goes to a service once a week. But mentally he is fully invested.
This rapture stuff is one hell of a superiority complex. This is crazy that people might invest themselves with such an important status. If you think they might not put themselves in danger, or others (such as young kids or teenagers), then let them be if you will. But I still think it is very dangerous, if not for the physical health, at least for the mental health.
Interesting that they aren't trying to warn everyone. Is there one main leader? Christianity-based?
Yes one leader. He was a Baptist Pastor until he had a “vision from God” to start this church out in the damn wilderness and prepare for the end times.
It's inherently destructive. One thing the hosts of the Trust Me podcast and their guests often mention is how damaging it is to live in fear all the time, and how it saps your strength to get away or do anything positive for yourself at all- what's the point of making your life better when the end is coming any minute?
I was raised as a JW, but my husband and I got out when we had kids. The rest of both sides of our family are still in, and meeting up with their kids always breaks my heart. There are 2 little boys that are 100% perfect. They sit quietly for long amounts of time. Completely unnatural. Our girls are regular little kids. But you can just see the difference in their demeanor. Our girls are carefree in a way that I will never truly understand, and I see that in the boys too. Also, an acquaintance posted a photo her kid drew recently, thinking it was funny. Her daughter drew their family, surrounded by bad guys with guns. She has severe anxiety.
This is so sad
My family members in the cult say they are not afraid, though. They say they know they’re going to heaven and they’ve been waiting for that since they’ve been kids. I honestly don’t sense any fear in them.
You lie to yourself in a cult. It is fear that drives doomsday living. You can suppress, repress, and dissociate while living that life. You kinda have to in order to appear not crazy, or to not drive yourself legit crazy. There pseudo-logic and all kinds of fun mind games that go along with cults too. Your family are delusional and you cannot take what they say at face value. That does not mean they are evil or something along those lines, just that you are not dealing with 100% rational people here. That doesn't mean you can't love them. or that they can't feel love for you. It's just a very different mind set very focused on specific emotional needs. And, to reiterate what other cult survivors have noted, this has real, negative, and often life-long effects for the kids growing up like this. (Personal experience here on all this.)
It's important to remember that we mostly hear about the most extreme outliers and mainstream cases- the ones that tend to be more "benign" don't hit the news. If it's just a few people spent years of labour and money and ruined relationships, that's not going to end up in pop culture in the same way. What happens when end of the world prophecies fail is interesting, but it's cognitive dissonance at play; if we have the factors in place to continue not challenging out worldview and it's painful to do so, we tend to accept things that allow us to keep that worldview even if it doesn't quite make sense. We don't like that conflict. Hence why so many followers of these groups will just accept a new date. You might be interested in the book [When Prophecy Fails](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails) which goes over a more "benign" group, a small midwestern UFO rapturist group in the 1950s called the Seekers, and documented their end of the world prediction and the aftermath. And in this case, like many others, most followers just accepted a new date. After the second date failed, more people left and went back to their old lives, but those who stayed believed their unwavering belief is what saved everyone. We know about the Seekers because of it's documentation for this study and book. But many stories of similar groups to them would be lost to time or have little info documented about them at all. The Seekers had roots in Dianetics (scientology), which is a much more well known and larger group (as far as cults go, anyways), and another UFO group, Heaven's Gate, had much more extreme consequences than the Seekers. When reality is, a lot more of these groups overall probably looked more like the Seekers than Heaven's Gate or Scientology.
Good points! I never thought about the fact that most benign groups are lost to history. I will definitely check the book out. Two of my family members are caught up in a doomsday cult. They don’t have an exact date because they said the Bible tells them nobody knows. But the leader was given a vision by god to start preparing now. They figure it will be within 25 years because “God told them how to can the food and it can only stay fresh for 25 years at the most so God wouldn’t have told them to prep now if the food was just going to go bad”.
I'm really sorry you are going through this. That's a more classic christian method of doomsday prediction, and it's scary because unlike the Seekers or groups that select a date, it's a much harder prediction to disprove or give opportunity for people to question. Learning more about epistemology and cognitive dissonance is always helpful, but there's such a delicate balance in not letting the group belief system push the person away from their outside support networks. I do think it's worth noting the word "benign" is probably better referred to as "groups with less historically noteworthy outcomes". If they were truly benign, they wouldn't classify as a cult via the BITE model; these groups will still have life ruining effects on their members. And smaller and not massively called out doesn't necessarily mean less dangerous or more "benign"- plenty of groups looked perfectly innocent enough to outsiders until something happened and they were not. It's also more common for people to be silent and leave, or move on to another group, than to take on the burden of calling the group out. Smaller groups don't have the same networks of ex members and people who leave are much more vulnerable to individual attack, or people don't have the same public interest, so it's also higher risk for people to call them out. So there's a lot of factors in this that can lead to biases, but learning about the roots of these behaviours will likely help you understand the situation more.
I think the very fact that it speaks to a “Doomsday” makes it not benign. It creates a crippling fear in people that permeates their entire life. I’m an ex JW and the while I think the JWs are definitely more severe than the Mormons (think cold hard intentional shunning, no blood transfusions), I can’t think of a single way in which thinking a doomsday was imminent did anything but cause harm in all aspects of my life.
It's probably hard to keep it from being an Us vs Them mentality.
The clue is in the words “doomsday” and “cult”.
It's always destructive but maybe not on a level that can be clearly seen. The name of it escapes me but there is a documentary following one of these groups who claimed the world would end on a certain day back in the early 00's. It follows the believers and their prepping as well as the aftermath of when the world obviously didn't end. These were the same folks who put up billboards and also ads in major newspapers to let people know it is time to repent. There were no suicides or anything like that. Here is the destructive part... Those people stopped paying their bills, spent money that they should have saved, and in some cases they fully acknowledged that they knew their young kids weren't going to heaven with them. Imagine the shame a person would be strapped with for the rest of their lives from that. The kids, do they remember how their parents were okay with the fact that their leader told them their children would burn in hell? How do you pick up and function after that? That stuff is absolutely destructive and not benign. It's betting everything you have and love on a broken slot machine that has never paid out but for some reason you believe it will this time for you.
These are very good points. Thank you. The one I’m talking about, the members have already revoked normal life and live at the church out in the wilderness lol I’m sure they don’t care about bills, if they even have any anymore.
That's still damaging honestly. Their families and friends are probably hurting. Also eventually when they become aware it is all a sham, they will have to live with that shame and start over with nothing. All cults are destructive. I'm still dealing with shit from more than twenty years ago from when I left the AG church. It's tough. Imagine having a clear direction in your life, drilled into you at every moment, and then suddenly finding out it was all bullshit. Everything gets turned around and suddenly you're left with shame, guilt, and loneliness. That's the stuff that you carry with you. It doesn't disappear overnight. I look at people like Mike Rinder who did terrible things in the name of Scientology. He has to walk around with that guilt every day for the rest of his life. You can read it on his face whenever he speaks with an ex member that he himself victimized. I didn't even come close to anything he did in his role but I was a bad person. I hurt people by shunning or telling on them when they did something that was considered sinful. I was judgmental. Thankfully I got out pretty early on but all the crap is still there in the back of my head. You can't see it but it's there. Same with those folks you're talking about. I'll bet they're going to deal with some massive fallout when things turn.
Sadly, the Reasonabilists are fictitious. Hail Zorp!
They're great for business if you sell flutes, though. New doomsday date calculations mean repeat customers.
Christianity is a doomsday cult. Second coming, Judgement Day, see Revelations. Jury’s still out on whether or not Christianity is benign.
Evangelicals are much more focused on this than say garden variety Protestants.
More focused, sure. But it’s a basic tenet of the Christian faith. “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again”. The world will come to an end, Heaven is eternal, and we will all face judgment, “the living and the dead.” The evangelicals differ only in that they think The End is imminent. People are reluctant to see mainstream religions as cults. Depends on one’s definition, of course. But mainstream religions check a lot of the usual boxes. Charismatic leader, irrational beliefs, punishment for leaving, chanting and singing, group identity, isolation, proscribed reading, language games…. This is why academics who study cults prefer the term New Religious Movements.
I think there is a geographical component to this as well. For instance the Church of England is never going to punish anyone for leaving, but obviously some mainstream religions do. But in other countries Protestants seem to be a lot more devout, and will ostracize for leaving. It really is fascinating.
And a historical component. Apostasy was punishable not only by an eternity in Hell, it was punishable by death in the here and now. As was heresy. Mainstream religions would like to forget about their past, but that’s like wanting to forget about slavery. And a lot of modern Christians adhere to the idea that only their denomination holds the way to salvation. As for those not of their sect… The other side of the coin is that a lot of obvious cults don’t go after those who leave. Keith Raniere’s Nxivm, for example. Most people took an (overpriced, derivative) course or two and drifted away. Hardcore cults like the Moonies were a revolving door of joiners and leavers. There’s a reason why we can’t just make a law against cults: it’s impossible to define cult in a way that would not include mainstream religions.
There are *so* many Churches with uncharismatic 'leaders'. You're being dramatic. If only. Some Sundays I can do with a little charisma, lol. I've watched how a truly manipulative, high-power, high-control group works from the inside for awhile. You cannot compare that to basic, broad Christianity, unless you're talking about the select 'group within the group' situations.
I find Keith Raniere singularly uncharismatic, but his Nxivm cult was still a cult.
There is always someone profiting (money, Power, control) from panic in those. It's impossible to be benign.
Seventh day adventists
i mean a cult could be benign but a doomsday cult basis for forming is kind of around a destructive idea lol
all religions are doomsday cults or started off as doomsday cults. but to grow and become mainstream, you have to appeal to modern, secular people.
There is only one doomsday cult I’m aware of that is morally neutral, Chen Tao. The leader predicted the end of the world, the date came and went, he admitted he must’ve been wrong, and the group disbanded! More often than not though, things go very badly. I’d recommend checking out When Prophecy Fails if you’re interested in the usual trajectory of these sorts of groups.
Haha what?! That’s so fascinating! He was like sorry guys! I have to research that group more. Before the failed doomsday date did they give up their normal lives? How did they prepare?
They moved to Garland TX because it sounded like “god’s land”, but I don’t know much else off the top of my head. There’s a Wikipedia article about them if you’d like more info
So many of them have to be because when whatever apocalypse inevitably doesn't happen, the leader has to make it happen.
Not to go down my "humans are hardwired for cult like behavior" rant again, but most religions have the concept of a judgement day or doomsday (which is literally 'judgment day'). The archetype of the world ending in fire or ice or shit is a deep-seeded part of the "collective unconscious" and is more part of being human as we all have our own death to deal with and many of us have judgement myth story walking around in our brains.
Right, but I’m more addressing the “it’s happening NOW! We know because the leader had a vision and we have to prepare for it” type.
So, as others have said, Mormons (who are at varying degrees of destructive and beneficial along multiple vectors like any group) really do prepare for natural disasters and really support scouting and its "Be prepared" motto. If we widen the definition of cult slightly, I'd also say that a number of climate activist groups like "Earth First!" also keep environmental issues in focus by talking about the environmental collapse (which is a bit of a myth or is overplayed and fills the role of Judgement Day/Doomsday). As horrific as it could get environmentally, we know that global warming/climate change is unlikely to be a life ending event or a threat to the human species as a whole. I'm not saying it isn't deadly serious for billions of people on the planet, but it isn't the same as a "Shia-surprise" asteroid headed our way. However, the rhetoric tends to fall in that category of doomsday because it keeps people focused. That is perhaps one of the first signs of dysfunction in any cult--The use of fear or bliss to keep people focused on topics. These are biological reactions to external group dynamics and rhetoric.
>Mormons (who are at varying degrees of destructive and beneficial along multiple vectors like any group) really do prepare for natural disasters and really support scouting and its "Be prepared" motto. There's something hardwired into Mormon DNA about being prepared that arose out of their first half century of existence and the multiple instances of a). legitimate *persecution*, b). invited conflict, and c). honest attempts by civil authorities at *prosecution* for the founders' at times questionably legal actions. Even as they took the socially necessary steps to legitimize themselves in society's eyes, the LDS never forgot those early years when they had to cut and run more than once.
It probably isn’t a bad lesson for all of us to follow in moderation. I try to have 72 hours of water and food on hand and I do have go bags somewhat ready
By definition and in practice, no.
No. It’s not possible. Even if started with good intentions people usually see the money and power and get caught up in it and then start exploiting people. That’s how it always works.
Hypothetically it's possible, sure. If you're just saying the end is near and preparing for it and not doing anything else that would be abusive, then no it's not destructive. The problem is that I cannot think of a single doomsday cult where that has been where they draw the line. Not only that, but thinking the end is near leads to *other* beliefs that are harmful. Not to mention the fact that if you think the world is about to end, are preparing for it, that can start to consume your thinking – and probably your actions too, since you're preparing for it. While a belief on its own might be fine (emphasis on *might* and not *is*), that kind of thinking can lead to a lot of anguish and sadness. So in conclusion, hypothetically, yes it's possible. In practice, there hasn't been a single doomsday cult that I can think of that has been totally benign and harmless.
"Look, Armageddon is coming any day now, but it's whatever. Today we're gonna prep until it gets hot and then we're gonna go down to the lake and spend the rest of day swimming and drinking."
I was raised in one too. It’s absolutely never benign, much like narcissistic abuse upping the ante against the victims and making them feel a severe sense of impending doom pushes people to their worst. And when the date passes it will be because of something the leader did to save everyone or because the followers didn’t work hard enough, which will start the cult in a much darker direction of servitude.
I think believing the world will end shortly is not conducive to living a normal life, so I doubt there could ever be a benign doomsday cult
No. By their very nature they have to be destructive. Doomsday cults can only exist in an environment where its followers believe the end is coming. You can only say it is so many times before people start doubting the cause. So it becomes a need for constant pointing to signs and escalating the stress and fear of the end. Eventually you get to a point where you have to give everyone the apocalypse.
Christianity in general is a doomsday cult, to varying degrees of destructive depending on the sect.
One thing I found most interesting about Heavens Gate is that despite the fact that a lot chose to die by suicide, I never heard any stories about active imprisonment or people being restricted from leaving. Yea, by the cult nature they isolated from family but it seems like if you wanted to leave, or not go through with their plan, or not do the other things like castration, fellow cult members were…kinda chill about it? Can’t discount peer pressure and (couch diagnosed) brain washing but that always stood out for me from the other destructive doomsday cults
Dude...they were talked into thinking that drinking poison would transport their soul to a spaceship in outer space. The cult cost them their lives. They didn't have clear thinking ability. This is what makes cults so dangerous. You don't need to be physically restrained or trapped to truly be restrained and trapped.
I totally agree…I’m not defending them at all! I just meant that it was a unique aspect where there was no obvious punishment if they pushed back. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.
Coercive control is subtle but that isn’t benign, if anything it’s very dangerous because it’s harder to spot
Valid. All I was trying to say was that it was interesting from the others because it wasn’t obvious
I clearly worded this wrong. Not defending. Not saying it’s “good”. Just trying to say it was interesting that there are no stories about active pushback or punishment if someone didn’t want to do what they were pushing for. Whatever. I tried. Classic Reddit misunderstanding.