Billy Graham has a column in which he answers letters — he’s a kind of evangelical agony aunt, I guess. A recent letter will make you laugh.
DEAR BILLY GRAHAM: Why do people get involved in cults? My cousin has gotten involved in one, and no matter what we say to him, he refuses to listen. He says we are the ones who are in the dark, and he alone in our family has found the truth. — S. McM.
That’s a real problem, and I’m sure we all know someone who has gone off the deep end with some weird belief. That’s not the funny part; the good bit is Graham’s oblivious reply.
DEAR S. McM: One characteristic of cults is that they strongly believe they alone are right in their beliefs and everyone else is wrong. Thus they reject the central truths of the Bible that Christians have held in common for almost 2,000 years and substitute their own beliefs for the clear teaching of Scripture.
Shorter Billy Graham: The difference between their cult and mine is that they think they have the absolute truth, when I know that I do.
Billy Graham is still alive? Who knew?
Shorter Billy Graham: “Guhrrrr…”
“my cult is better than your cult…my cult leader told me so.”
“Billy Graham is still alive? Who knew?”
I heard he’s supposed to live forever, like a vampire or something. The blood of Jesus revitalizes them or something so that they can live forever.
That sound you just heard is the collective sound of thousands of reader’s irony meters exploding.
And the best part is that they will never, ever see the double-standard.
Dear S. McM,
Yeah, cults sure are crazy, aren’t they? Now please excuse me while I engage in ritualistic worship of this giant lower-case ‘t’.
Your Pal,
Billy G.
Does this mean the Hindus and Taoists that have held their beliefs in common for 4,000 or even 6,000 years trump Christians and their young’un religion?
What will it take to make people more self-aware?
You see this sort of thing with homophobia too. “I’ve got nothing against gay people, but I think homosexuality is wrong and they are going to burn in hell.”
Same thing.
Does Graham write his advice column himself, or does he have a gaggle of hacks to write it for him?
Dang, now I need to order another gross of fuses for my irony meter. That answer blew the one in the meter and a dozen more for good measure.
Time + gullibility = Truth. Yes, of course.
Also, “My cult is older, and therefore has seniority in matters of Absolute Truth ™.”
Argumentum ad antiquum?
(Apologies if that’s the incorrect Latin)
By Graham’s line of reasoning, shouldn’t, say, Hinduism be even more truthful than Christianity?
No kings,
Robert
I guess that Jesus and Mo had the best answer for such a post: “Spoing!“
Do they try to go for irony?
Also, religions are older than cults. Things that got made up more than a few hundred years ago are generally accepted as religions. So Sikhism (15th Century BCE) is usually thought of as a religion, while Bahai and Mormonism (19th Century) are kind of iffy, as is Pentecostalism (early 20th).
Anything newer than that, you’re a cult.
Of course that oversimplifies, since the nature of any conflict with existing religions is also a factor. Pentecostalism is not too far from mainstream Christianity, for example, while Bahai is a horrible heresy to many Muslims.
“One characteristic of cults is that they strongly believe they alone are right in their beliefs and everyone else is wrong. Thus they reject the central truth that people who believe the same things I do are alone right in their beliefs and that everyone else is wrong.”
Do these people listen to themselves? Like, at all?
“ritualistic worship of this giant lower-case ‘t’.”
You know, I’ve always figured we were robbed of some serious humor by the Roman’s choice of execution two thousand years ago. What kind of jewelry would xtians wear if Jebus had been stoned to death? Hung? Bow and arrow firing squad?
How would Catholics “cross” themselves if he had been strangled? Impaled?
Ooops! That should be “Sikhism (15th Century CE)”
“truths of the Bible”. Um, what are they?
Of course a “cult” is the one that hasn’t succeeded–yet. Xianity was a cult, now it gets to call other religions “cults.”
One reason “cults” arise is that most of the “truths of the Bible” are far from clear, let alone can stand up to tests for “truth”.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Reminds me of the Simpsons episode with the Movementarians, and the speech made by Rev Lovejoy about the cult:
Headmallet*.
*’Cos sometimes, the desk isn’t enough.
/Religion (n.)–a cult that made it.
“Down inside, we all hunger for God, whether we realize it or not, and we search for something to satisfy that hunger. Some try to fill that empty place in their souls with money or success or entertainment or pleasure, or in any one of a thousand other ways. Some try to fill it with the promises of false religion.”
Or they could fill it with SCIENCE!
I, for one, hunger for spaghetti. That’s one advantage the flying spaghetti monster has over other gods. More cults should be as accommodating.
…Aaaand I see Glen beat me to the ‘made it/hasn’t succeeded’ line by… damn, what, was it 30 seconds?
If I may summarize the good Doctor’s wisdom (with apologies to George Orwell):
Jesus cult: gooooooddddd
Other cults: baaaaaadddddd
Did I get that about right?
I missed the part where the letter writer said it was a non-Christian cult.
Why in the world are there no comments below this letter? Get on over there and register and point out this mental conflict.
Sounds like Billy Graham is writing Jesus and Mo now.
Ai. My brain just broke. If anything should evoke an “a-ha” moment in someone, it’s gotta be an email like that, right?
Nangleator @ # 18 You know, I’ve always figured we were robbed of some serious humor by the Roman’s choice of execution two thousand years ago.
He shoulda been thrown to the lions.
Christianity is not a cult. It’s a mind-control system. Wholly different.
PZ are you sure it’s OK to say “cult”? The word is strongly reminiscent of another, in both sound and meaning.
“Almost 2000 years”? Wow! Let’s see: Homo sapiens dates back 250,000 years minimally; that means that Billy’s god has made his absolute Truth available to his little images for less than 1% of what he could have. Nice. Oh, Billy’s a YEC? Then it’s less than 33%, not a whole lot different from the WTF? perspective.
Not to be contrary, but I’d say that’s the worst part. Seriously.
A total embarrassment to human intelligence!
Any more of this nonsense and I am returning to my own planet and taking my technology with me….so there! huh!… game set and match!!
To paraphrase… ummm… somebody-or-other, a religion is nothing more than a cult with its own navy.
Remind me again, is that one of the “good” Gods or one of the bad ones? And how the flip are we supposed to know? If only the deity would be a little more eternal and unchanging.
I wish He would stand still so we could just get a look at him. Oh, wait a minute…
“Some try to fill it with the promises of false religion.”
Funny how religious people have a blind spot exactly covering their own religions.
Big cults or small cults, some of them becomes The President of United States….
More and more these days it seems that Christians are all about the projection. Nothing else seems to guide their idiotic finger-pointing so much as what they refuse to acknowledge in themselves.
Billy Graham is a cracker, right PZ?
How does a cult become PotUS?
Is that position held by a group of people?
Cut some slack guys! Sikhism is not really an ‘ism. The Sikh gurus’ (all 10 of them) followers included people of all sorts, mostly the landless, artisans, petty traders, mercenaries, of many different shades of Hindu-Muslim tradition. Beyond a few simple rules such as be virtuous, be compassionate, work hard, don’t lie, steal or cheat, the Sikh gurus demanded nothing else. Every guru appointed a common man of the masses as his successor, and the last Guru – Gobind Singhji, left the Guru Granth Sahib – itself a collection of the popular sayings of many people of virtue and compassion of the centuries before. By BillyG’s definition this would be a cult and its followers are all destined for the ovens of heaven. The Baha’i too in their time, in 19th century Iran were apostates, because they deemed polygamy, chattel slavery, religious indoctrination, looting, killing, and plunder, misogyny, all unethical and immoral. Obviously the Moslem powers of the time found that unacceptable, and promptly started slaughtering Baha’is, and continue to do so to this day. Bahais again are great people who despite all the oppression heaped on them, continue to act with great kindness and charity. To become a Bahai you needn’t change your name or any such thing. Unfortunately according to BillyG, the Bahais too are bound for hell!
“The turtle moves!”
— Sir Terry Pratchett
So this brings up a question in my mind. Are these people only against cults because it takes away from Jesus-worship?
Sounds like a follow-up letter is called for:
DEAR BILLY GRAHAM: Thanks for clearing up the question from S. McM. regarding cults. Could you explain how this differs from the characteristic of your own Christian cult to strongly believe you alone are right in your beliefs and everyone else is wrong? Why do you reject the central truths that, for example, the ancient Greeks held in common for more than 2,000 years and substitute your own beliefs for the clear teaching of Zeus?
*facepalm*
That was incredibly ironic and idiotic. Sometimes, I feel like I am living in a dream because that doesn’t seem real.
@44,
Basically, yes.
I like the photo caption:
“Former president Bill Clinton, left…”
Er… Where? There’s just Graham in the pic!
Oh hell. We’ve all been wasting our time. With that kind of logic and reasoning coming from the faith-based community, who needs education?
I think the reason Graham (and his readers) probably fail to see the irony is that they have convinced or persuaded themselves that their views — are not their views. Instead, they are God’s views.
They all do it. “Other people have distorted what God is, fitting it to their own desires and needs. But, if you approach God humbly, and allow God to lead you, then you can avoid turning God into something God is not.” And then the believers think the nonbelievers will be satisfied with this.
“Ohhh, I see. You’re the ones who let God be God. The other people are just into themselves.”
But every side thinks they’re purists when it comes to God, a humble follower of where God is leading. Graham would emphasize what he sees as the “self-seeking” nature of people in cults. “They believe they alone are right.” The evil word is “they.” It shouldn’t be there.
He thinks that, if you love God enough, you can make yourself so small that you no longer have an interpretation of God — there’s nobody there but God.
Looks like a case of successful troll is successful. Now someone just has to explain to Billy Graham what a troll is.
Here’s some help with definitions for you.
Cult: (n) see Religion, unpopular.
Religion: (n) see Cult, popular
*frantically organizes a retrieval unit to bust Billy Graham out of his own cult*
That’s entirely appropriate and funny criticism.
Why religion hates the science of evolution and genetics. My latest theory….fear of Mutant Chickens…..
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=mutant-chicken-grows-alli
I’m sure there is some very reasonable (and safe) explanation for using chickens in these experiments, but cock and dog fighting enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting an opportunity to replicate these results! Looks like anything is now possible? If I get to see pigs flying over the Vatican that will literally be a “Holy Shit” moment for me.
Enjoy.
Difference between a religion and a cult, about 100 years.
And which of the 45,000 Christian sects provides this “clear teaching”?
“Cut some slack guys! Sikhism is not really an ‘ism. The Sikh gurus’ (all 10 of them) followers included people of all sorts, mostly the landless, artisans, petty traders, mercenaries, of many different shades of Hindu-Muslim tradition. Beyond a few simple rules such as be virtuous, be compassionate, work hard, don’t lie, steal or cheat, the Sikh gurus demanded nothing else.
Posted by: rimpal
Yet Sikh believers have murdered others for both religious & communal reasons. Just like Hindus & Muslims have murdered Sikhs, and for alike reasons.
Oh, hey now, let’s not be hasty. I figure the odds are pretty good he’ll pass his head with his next bowel movement, anyway…
… Oh.
Never mind, then.
Written like that, surely you err?
-ism is merely a suffix used to describe an idea you dislike, which others take way too seriously.
PZ are you sure it’s OK to say “cult”? The word is strongly reminiscent of another, in both sound and meaning.
Yes, but that other C word names something that is actually of some benefit, both to its owner and to her consenting partner.
“My God has a bigger dick than your God.”
–George Carlin.
People, please. Christianity is not a “cult” — it is a “death cult.” Big difference! Maybe the surprisingly-still-alive Billy Graham is simply concerned that the competing cult does not highlight a properly bloody superhero narrative; or maybe it doesn’t adequately forsake this world in favor of the really, truly, fabulously awesome world that comes after death.
I’m just saying that if you squint hard enough and, I don’t know, hit yourself over the head with a rock while standing close enough to a busy airport runway to deafen yourself with the noise level, and THEN re-read Graham’s reply in the intended death-loving spirit, it makes a certain amount of sense. It’s all about context and seeing things from the other guy’s point of view.
Yes, with “c” words one has to separate object and designation. Sign and signifier, if you will. As in “Christianity is a death cult” – the word here, a ghastly, unattractive one in any case, is appropriately attached to its religious stem – it would be quite improper to use it in, lets say “evolution is a scientific cult”, where a beautiful idea is inappropriately libelled.
“Billy Graham, is a cult on his own” would be another appropriate usage.
Billy Graham, the clueless compartmentalizer.
Definitions for the word “cult” vary. When used in the popular sense, it denotes an extremism far beyond the typical “cake or death” versions of mainstream religions like Christianity.
Robert Lifton once gave an outline of the 5 characteristics of a “cult.”
1)Totalism – This is an us against them philosophy, which is used to achieve complete separation from the past, which is portrayed as filled with the satanic or unenlightened.
2) Environmental Control – Everything that perspective recruits see, eat, and do every waking minute is carefully manipulated.
3) Loading the Language – This is the jargon of the cult, which take the form of quick easy phrases and statements that only have meaning to the cultists. Such jargon encourages isolationism and cloning.
4) Demand for Purity – All actions are judged by the cult’s definition of purity, which is crafted by the leadership to suit their needs. Such definitions are applied in an absolute, black and white, manner. Anything is acceptable in the pursuit of this purity.
5) Mystical Leadership – The cult leader endows himself with a mystical mantle, often an agent of divine powers on Earth. Confession and denunciation to the leader are ingrained. The victim acquires a pawn-like attitude, wherein devotion and obedience to the leader supersede standards of morality or self-preservation, even unto choices of life and death.
Early Christianity appears to have fit into this list; today, there are some groups, but, taken as a whole, not so much. Thank goodness. The more they secularize, the better.
The scary thing is that the cult is the ideal — but only if the leader really is God in human form.
I just posted the following comment there:
And your god is a bigger dick than my God. Really? Let’s find out – Deity Penis contest anyone?
Does that mean scientology is a religion?
Do you guys think that religious leaders are really this dumb? Or are they entirely aware of how stupid their arguments are, but they are cynical enough to know that they can keep making them and the gravy train will keep rolling in? Honest question. I read things like this and the stuff that comes out of Ray Comfort’s mouth, and I have to wonder if, at the upper levels, any of these guys remotely believes the things the profess.
Only in the sense that it has a Cruise liner.
*da boom tish*
Only in the sense that it has a Cruise liner.
And I like the idea of an “Evangelic Agony Aunt” – a sympatheitic ear you go to when the fundies really are getting you down.
/hopes no one was injured in the cataclysmic asplosion of irony meters.
Wizard of Id said it best:
What’s the difference between a religion and a cult?
Religions have money.
cameron #70 wrote:
I think that there are some religious leaders who exploit their followers knowingly (Peter Popoff and L Ron Hubbard come to mind), but, as for the rest, many of them have found a strange psychological place where they can believe opposite things at once, or else isolate and compartmentalize the way they think so well that they successfully deceive themselves into sincerity. I suspect Graham doesn’t see the irony because he’s both thinking of cults in the perjorative, extremely controlling sense, and because he honestly thinks that, if you’re right about God, you can follow different rules — including epistemic ones for finding out about the God you’re going to be right about.
Most of the really bad religious arguments and beliefs make a sort of intuitive sense, if the issue is framed in a very simple way. Someone called Comfort’s views “comic-book evolution.” If you surround yourself by people who agree with your views — and if you also think there is something very noble, difficult, and praise-worthy about approaching life “as if you were a child” being lead by a parent-God — then I think you can believe some very weird things.
The smarter you are, the better (or more contorted) the rationalizations.
The clear teaching of scripture is an empty set, truth value 0. If we assume a contradiction is true we can proceed to prove anything. Thus, by the clear teaching of scripture, [insert any claim] is true.
Since we assume the contradiction, we also get a miracle thrown in for free, and our truth depends on the miracle.
Just dress all that up all folksy like (or however you want it), and you have the seeds of a religion.
One of the reasons why I gave up religion is that question inside of me, about religions and cults. I wondered “what is the difference between religions and cults, between MY religion and a cult?”. Of course, when you are inside your religion, you find a lot of reasons why your religion is not a cult, but all these reasons don’t hold.
It is difficult to live with one’s religion with these questions. The solution by people is often tell to themselves not to ask questions, to “trust God”, things like that.
Actually the way I see it, there are three stages to cults. In the early stage of course they are just called cults. Once they reach a certain critical mass though, they become religions. Then once another religion has wiped out enough of their followers through holy war, inquisition, holocaust, or death squad, it becomes a myth.
*abandons plan to rescue Billy from cultdom and considers giving donation to the Church of the FSM to help buy the pirate ship to combat the Scientology cruise liner*
Ahh, the irony is strong in this one.
I forgot who said this, but essentially a religion is just a cult with political influence.
Lurker of a few months delurking to say that Graham is very likely just as much a hypocrite now as he was 50-odd years ago:
My mother liked to tell about the time she and one of her friends went to one of Graham’s revival meetings in Long Beach, CA, in the mid-50s. Not being Southern Baptists like the Reverend Mr. Graham, they topped off their evening with drinks at a local bar…and who should they see in a corner nursing a beverage that was obviously not water than ol’ Billy himself!
Mom and her friend, of course, went over to tell him how much they enjoyed the meeting. All Billy could say, apparently, was something to the effect that it just didn’t pay to do what you’d told others was wrong, as you were sure to get caught.
Somehow, though, I doubt he really learned anything from the experience.
***relurking***
#30 Richard Harris:
Continuing the glorious tradition, “Sign Of The Lion” would make an excellent power metal band name.
That’s hitting the nail on the head!
In Harper’s Magazine, December 1998, Billy Graham gave the size of heaven as 1,500 cubic miles.
Given his figure, then if heaven enveloped the entire earth evenly, what would be its vertical extent?
Less than half an inch, and that’s for heaven in contact with the surface — land and sea.
Billy Graham is a batshit halftard.
From Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Fun With Cults”:
…the difference between a religion and a cult is chiefly a matter of size. Forty-eight people donning plastic bags and shooting themselves in the head is a “cult,” while a hundred million people bowing before a flesh-hating elderly celibate is obviously a world-class religion. Similarly, a half-dozen Trotskyists meeting over coffee is a “sect,” while a few million gun-toting, Armageddon-ready Baptists is referred to as the Republican Party.
I nominate this thread for the day’s most ironic (not that I expect the usual crew to get it). Oh, and to Syd (#83): Graham was never a Southern Baptist (or any other kind of Baptist). He’s Presbyterian.
It actually does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freewinds
All part of Hubbard’s fine naval tradition (he was discharged after firing on mexican land for the hell of it).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Org
It feels good being more knowledgeable about something than the rest of you guys for once.
Ah, thankyou. And to think, I thought Hubbard only had a space ship.
On which he served as a cadet.
??
Lessee. This Billy Graham? The guy who was ordained at Palatka Peniel, attends First Baptist Spartanburg, previously First Baptist Dallas…
I get that his wife was Presbyterian until death, and he was raised Presbyterian… But he sez he was converted by Mordecai Ham…
I’m missing something here, mebbe? Or you’re just one of those who figures since he didn’t forcibly dunk his wife in the Baptist tank at first opportunity, he’s not Baptist enough for you?
Greetings from Charlotte, NC — Birthplace of Billy Frank Graham and now home to his Evangelistic Association of that name (the family business now run by one of his sons, Franklin). Seems BGEA got tired of the winters up there in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a few years ago and relocated to grounds off the Billy Graham Parkway and just up the hill from a municipal sewerage treatment plant.
Highlight of your visit, if you tire of the dinosaur museum up north outside Cincinnati, is the cow-barn-style Billy Graham Library and Museum, home of the talking COW who will regale you with the fascinating and stupendous knowledge imparted by her species to the young Billy who had to milk them on his daddy’s dairy farm.
To complete your pilgrimage, Billy’s late wife, Ruth, is buried out back of the barn. We hear tell that he is a-yearning to join her there in Glory.
Oh, ha ha–because commenting on a particular Interweblog is just like being a member of a religious cult. Oh, I am slapping my knee I am so amused by your clever wit.
Just to keep things simple in my own “worldview” I stopped trying to differentiate between “cults” and “religions” and just use the quick rule of thumb that if a cult out-lives it’s creator/figurehead it becomes a religion.
Thanks to AJ Milne @ 91–my limited Google-fu had so far only turned up Mr. Graham’s upbringing and eventual conversion to Southern Baptist. I mean, catching him in a bar wouldn’t have been nearly so memorable for my mom if he’d been Presbyterian…
AnthonkyK @67 – I’m in, I’ll raise you Priapus in the deity dick contest.
Are you alluding to ‘colt’?
It is closer in sound, but like the word Ray C. inferred, neither colt or c*** mean anything close to cult.
Priapus, yes, but he’s so turgid….Ganymede? Under age…I’d also nominate the god “Sphincter” though he’s too up his own arse….
just use the quick rule of thumb that if a cult out-lives it’s creator/figurehead it becomes a religion.
the only thing separating a cult from a religion is 501c3 status.
A few weeks ago, I took a picture of Billy Graham being utterly useful, rather than his normal utter uselessness.
It was a picture of me using his newspaper column to clean the windows of my car. Musta been his grin! The window’s nice & shiny!
A cult is the larval form of a religion.
Round our way, there is one “cult” that’s literally on its last legs. It’s down to just two old poeple who tend the terrace of houses in Bedford that the founder left them. He had a revelation – as religious people often do – and the text he received from God (well, more a letter, than a text) was of earth-shattering purpose. It could only be revealed if all the Archbishops of the Church of England were to move into the terrace, prepare themselves, and receive the message in a special ceremony. Showing a great lack of curiousity, the gentlemen of the cloth refused the offer, and to this day the prophecy remains undelivered.
The old couple wait, the prophecies moulder, and no one will ever know. Now that will be a dead cult.
God will not be mocked!
In the love of Christ,
-Mel
Nice one. But does Scientology have 501c3 exemption? Surely Xenu wouldn’t allow them to be burdened with paying taxes, right?
Yep
Melvin’s talking about fictional characters. How charming.
But does Scientology have 501c3 exemption?
ayup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Scientology_International
I think they are getting dangerously close to losing it, according to something I read concerning their tutoring program. Supposedly they use LRH’s methods of assigning an “auditor” to help break down barriers to learning (as they also do with new initiates to the cult, except those are apparently different barriers), and they’re getting challenged on it. I read it on Dispatches..
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/03/public_funds_for_scientology_t.php
No? Sounds like a challenge….
Stop picking on poor billy. He’s old and missed his wife. Humanoids didn’t evolve until 60000 years ago not 250000 and writing didn’t manifest until 6000 years ago. The Torah is dated to be around 5500 years old. So leave that out of it. It’s obviously just a standard letter sent out by the BG foundation. Just chil. Read a book maybe you’ll seem less retarted then.
I read it on Dispatches..
I’d fucking LOVE to see the damn scientologists lose their non-prof status!
that would be a nice chunk of change for the feds, too.
Don’t know what you’ve been smoking, but you are off by 2500-3000 years. Archaeology puts the writing of the Torah over a ~500 year period starting about 3000 years ago.
Just one more reason to love this blog. ‘Cos let’s face it: it isn’t every day you get to see a prophecy fail in realtime.
Beyond a few simple rules such as be virtuous, be compassionate, work hard, don’t lie, steal or cheat, the Sikh gurus demanded nothing else.
Except for bombing a plane or assassinating a PM now and then.
That ship sailed along time ago Mel. Doesn’t appear that he’s done much about it.
Indeed! (Now excuse me while I try to clean the tea off my keyboard and monitor…)
“Humanoids”?
Don’t forget their own brand of magic underwear.
And Humannerds – 20 years ago? Or did they exist before computers?
“Oh, ha ha–because commenting on a particular Interweblog is just like being a member of a religious cult. Oh, I am slapping my knee I am so amused by your clever wit.”
No, but thanks for playing. You’ll enjoy the lovely parting gifts, I’m sure.
“Lessee. This Billy Graham? The guy who was ordained at Palatka Peniel, attends First Baptist Spartanburg, previously First Baptist Dallas…”
Spartanburg would be an awfully long drive on a Sunday morning. The Grahams moved to Montreat, NC in the 1950s and attended the local Presbyterian church there whenever they were in town.
Read a book maybe you’ll seem less retarted then.
IRONY METER FEEDBACK OVERLOAD
now i have a facefull of little metal parts.
thanks a lot, fuckwit.
I must admit, being forced to teach R.E. a few years back (the module on “suffering” glumly appropriate) I had to “teach” Sikhism. I was profoundly grateful to have to find about a religion which wasn’t as clearly crazy as all the others. Well, the rituals are, and the five Ks are nutty, but once I found out that Guru Nanak declared, as a central tenet, that men and woman were equal, I was much more sympathetic. They don’t garner converts either.
You’ll enjoy the lovely parting gifts, I’m sure.
oh! oh! can I have the “boardgame” version of “Family Feud”?
kthnxbye!
Pray tell, just what book did you read those facts in?
Wow…so off-base on so many things. Your date for the beginnings of “writing” is a little vague, depending on your definition of the word. And humanoids existed much earlier than 60,000 years ago (look up “Lucy” if you still don’t think so), and the Torah claim has already been explained to be wrong. Before warning someone on sounding stupid, you might want to fact-check a bit more, especially concerning how you’re supposed to spell the word retarded.
No? Shit, thought I had it.
Wait–because Darwinism is a religion too?
Or is it atheism that’s a religion too?
Or is it scientism?
Or naturalism?
Materialism?
c’mon…just one clue?
Silva @23:
I left mine alone, and just run against the wind a lot.
Wait a minute – is this irony meter ironic? Does that cancle out?
I bet “irony” doesn’t even have an opposite.
Jack @ #109 == Poe.
You heard it here first.
“No? Shit, thought I had it.
Wait–because Darwinism is a religion too?
Or is it atheism that’s a religion too?
Or is it scientism?
Or naturalism?
Materialism?”
Wrong on all counts.
“c’mon…just one clue?”
From the OP: The difference between their cult and mine is that they think they have the absolute truth, when I know that I do.
AnthonyK #118
The first completely electronic programmable computer Colossus, was operational in 1944. For that matter, Alan Turing, who was the epitome of a nerd, died in 1954.
Your lack of nerdity knowledge is disturbing. Turn in your pocket protector, Anthony.
On behalf of tarts everywhere I object to this slur.
Plenty of tarts read books, some tarts even write books. Hit the road Jack.
Yeah, I got that much…so for the post to be “ironic” you must think that PZ Myers (and/or the “usual crew”) is also a member of a (perhaps metaphorical) “cult.”
So what’s the (perhaps metaphorical) “cult”? I’m out of guesses.
Cult of internet users?
My guess is that Irony Meter, instead of letting himself get called out on the atheist=faith crap, is now trying to suggest that he was saying no such thing…I’m not buyin’ it.
From the OP: The difference between their cult and mine is that they think they have the absolute truth, when I know that I do.
that’s not a clue.
If you have something to say, say it.
otherwise, stop being such an obtuse git.
…and don’t forget to leave me my consolation prize on your way out.
on second thought, don’t bother clarifying your inanity.
just go.
No, I’m not a nerd, but I’m very interested in becoming one. Are there any technical sites that could help?
Poor man, suicide. Apple poisoned with cyanide. He moddled that on Snow White
Awww, come sit by me AnthonyK. I didn’t know the correct answer either. *pout*
OT, but I’m assuming none of you guys “troll” on Xtian sites? Are there any more open sites out there that one could go to for the purpose of talking to them in a less antagonistic way? Or is there just no point?
Yeah, he has a column. They run it in our local paper, the Excuse-for-News.
You think this one is good? How about when someone wrote to him about how to convert an atheist co-worker, why was he that way, etc.
Fucktard–er, Graham, said that atheists were atheists because they thought they were better and smarter than God. I don’t remember what the advice was. But I did send him a little letter telling him that I was an atheist, and yes, I did think I was better and smarter than nothing but hot air (no offense to hot air), thanks very much.
He didn’t reply.
Emulating his god, then,
“(with apologies to George Orwell)”
The Orwell reference that came to my mind instead was doublethink.
As in, this is a perfect, real-world example of doublethink.
doublethink? Or demi-think? Factor of 2 in there somewhere.
Nangleator @ # 18 For some reason your post just cracked me up. All those gross crucifixes left hanging around buildings in Quebec, not to mention the cross on top of Mount Royal (in Montreal) could have been…….
I honestly wouldn’t know where to start with sites like that. And as soon as they started quoting Answers in Genesis…
The two contradictory notions held by a mind performing doublethink can’t be very full thoughts, I suppose.
While I’m on the subject, other examples of doublethink related to this blob’s subject matter:
Science/Atheism/Whatever is bad because it’s like religion, therefore religion is good.
Religion is a metaphor, but don’t doubt it’s absolute reality.
No, of course not. I kind of assumed that no-one here would bother – they’re enough of a pain here. Besides which, trying to kick someone’s site over is just…ummn, nat, facilis, Barb – no, just no.
Religion is a metaphor, but don’t doubt it’s absolute reality.
Unfortunately, I do believe in religion.
“Unfortunately, I do believe in religion.”
I meant the supernatural aspects of religion. I don’t doubt the Pope is real, alas.
Some strange cults illustrated here :)
http://www.macguff.fr/goomi/unspeakable/vault292.html
Anthony K,
If you want to try sites that have historically had relatively non-hostile exchanges between believers and skeptics, you may want to try “The Friendly Atheist” or “Off the Map.” I haven’t been to either site in a while but they have been fairly lively yet good humored, for the most part, in the past.
Wes @ # 11: … does he have a gaggle of hacks to write it for him?
Not as many as he did ten days ago:
Pierce – they’re down to an annual budget of only $84 miliion. Why does god need all that money, and is he taking fewer souls in heaven because of the credit crunch? Of course, just as prisons are much more expensive than colleges, hell must be in real trouble. Heh heh. If anyone has to volunteer, can I just be plain dead? I don’t want to be an expense in the afterlife.
And what have you all done with your lives? Billy Graham led many to faith in Christ. His son has a related ministry that has done a great deal of relief work –Samaritan’s Purse.
I realize you think Christianity is a cult but it was not started by one person. It’s the story of events prophesied and fulfilled and written about by many. It’s based on history –whether or not you believe it is beside the point–except for your sake.
I haven’t led a single person to faith in Christ, so my life is far more worthwhile than Billy’s.
*cough* Saul of Tarsus *cough*
Billy Graham got rich by peddling religion, selling false promises, and lying to millions. And you think that constitutes “doing something with your life”?
There we go, right on schedule. Believe in Jesus or you’re GOIN’ TO HELL!!! Do you have any clue how pathetic that sounds? How utterly juvenile? Here’s a hint: for a threat to work, the person at whom it is directed has to believe the threat is real. Do ya not understand this simple fact, Barbie? Hmm?
Timeline:
Asshole writes a prophecy.
Later, another asshole writes that the prophecy was fulfilled!
No opportunity for fraud there. Nope.
That reminds me of a story I once read. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but the story goes that a woman in Roman times wrote to the local magistrate complaining about this bizarre new cult that needed to be dealt with. They were corrupting young men and women, turning them away from the good and moral traditions their parents had instilled in them.
That cult, of course, was Christianity.
Would be. But apparently he gets communion at home from them. And had been for some time prior to the switch from SBC Dallas…
In more detail: he was ordained in an SBC church (in Florida), pastored one Baptist congregation (in Illinois), but his ministry since then has been more more deliberately non-denominational. Officially he was a member of the (once very prominent) SBC church FBC Dallas for more than 50 years, prior to the switch to Spartanburg, which might have been political/theological–FBC Dallas had been making headlines he may have found awkward–or might have been more inline with that grandson’s description. Guess you could still whine he’s SBC and/or Baptist in name only or somethin’, if you want to save a little face, here. But let’s remember your first statement here on the subject was ‘Graham was never a Southern Baptist (or any other kind of Baptist). He’s Presbyterian…’
And from where I’m standing, you’re dealing with backing that up about as well as, say, your average faith healer deals with severed limbs.
But there’s somethin’ instructive, here, for you. Even a bit of irony, if you like…
See, that’s an awfully absolute statement you made, back there. Seemed awfully sure about it, you did. Maybe even oversold it a bit, didn’t you? Weren’t a lot of qualifiers, there… Kinda left a mess for you to clean up, really.
Had a certain smell, it did, too. And it didn’t take much to point out it was, let’s put it gently, a bit exaggerated…
And at the same time, you were on about how the irony here concerns who’s so terribly sure they’re right.
The funny thing is, I expect if you think a bit harder about it, you might notice it doesn’t work out quite the way you think it does.
Because for one thing, it’s not usually that anyone’s so terribly and completely sure they’re absolutely right about anything, in the natural sciences. And they always know there’s more they don’t know. And there’s always catches, there’s always qualifiers… Knowledge in that arena is tentative and subject to refinement, by its nature.
But you can frequently be pretty fucking sure when someone’s completely full of shit.
But then, that’s because certain folk so often make that knowledge so very, very easy to get at. Like say, the creationists. So, to put it simply, it’s not that the evolutionary biologists think they’ve got the answers. They just know when someone else is pulling theirs entirely out of their ass…
Or wait, let me make this a little simpler still–smaller words, for smaller minds, after all:
It’s not that evolutionary biologists are so sure they’re right about everything. Hell, they haven’t even decided what they think about some of it.
But they sure as hell know the creationists are wrong. Seeing as they catch them lying rather obviously and rather regularly.
Something oddly parallel happens between atheism and theism, actually, too. That’s to say: I don’t know for an absolute fact that there are no gods… Can’t technically prove it as a matter of rigourous epistemology, as has been pointed out regularly (but then, I can’t prove there aren’t invisible, silent, odourless leprechauns at the bottom of my garden, either)…
But I can be awfully confident for a large, large set of reasons that those who claim they know there are such things are entirely full of it up to here. They have a way–much as you just did–of making that rather easy.
So again: it’s not so much about what I know. It’s what I can be reasonably sure certain others don’t.
I know. Terribly complicated, I’m sure…
So like I said: I’ll just leave it for your consideration.
“characteristic of cults is that they strongly believe they alone are right in their beliefs and everyone else is wrong.”
Projection?
Of course Christianity started off as a cult, does Barb just think Jesus came on the scene and suddenly half of Jerusalem was converted? The movement started with a leader – Jesus, gained a small but growing following. The leader was martyred off. Adherents martyred themselves to the cause, yet while this is not meant to be a cult the movement was not really known outside of Jerusalem and too insigificant for most secular historians to mention.
Of course it started as a cult, it would have been impossible for it not to. It starting as a cult has nothing to do with the validity of the message, nor does it have anything to do with the truth claimed therein. It is just a descriptor of how religion has it’s beginnings.
Babbling Barb wrote:
Is that anything like a Wizard’s Sleeve?
There’s no reason not to call all existing religions cults. Length of time is not a useful distinction.
Now, if we want to define cults as those groups which are exceptionally dangerous, where the members give themselves over completely to the leader, then that might be useful. It would be the only reasonable distinction by which Christianity in general is not a cult, and I know Barb is keen to find such a line.
This would make Catholicism and many individual evangelical congregations into cults, though.
~~~RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD~~~
TAOISM > Shit happens.
SUFISM > Shit let’s dance!
SHINTOISM > Shitting now.
LUTHERN> Divided up shit.
JANSENISM > Shit let’s will it.
UNITARIAN > What’s this shit?
BAPTIST > Let’s roll in this shit.
ATHEIST > I Don’t believe that shit.
CHURCH OF GOD > Shit’s out there.
URANTIA > Can you believe this shit?
AGNOSTIC > I believe some shit stinks.
CHRISTIANITY > He died for this shit?
HINDUISM > This shit happened before.
ISLAM > If shit happens, take a hostage.
ZEN > What is the sound of shit happening?
PROSTANTES> Our Shits is better than theirs.
CATHOLICISM > If shit happens, we deserve it.
TV AVENGELEST> We want your monetary shit.
MORMON > Shit happens again & again & again.
EVANGELACALES> faith will heal your shitter.
BUDDHISM > When shit happens, is it really shit?
SCIENTOLOGY> We think our shit does not stink.
7TH DAY ADVENTIST > Shit happens on Saturdays.
CONFUCIANISM > Confucius say, “shit will happen”.
JUDAISM > Why does this shit always happen to me.
JEHOVAH WITNESS > knock, knock “shit’s happening”.
HARE KRISHNA > Shave your head so shit can’t happen.
RASTAFARIANISM > Let’s smoke this sticky cannabis shit.
COMMONSENSE > Only you dude, can stinking shit yourself!
~~~Gasser~~~
Under that definition, Christianity was at it’s early stages a cult. You had a fanatical devotion to Jesus that led to martyrdom for the cause. You can’t get more cult-like than “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
The definition of a cult that I find rigorous and defensible is a religion which invests supernatural authority in a living leader. It captures most of the weird cults out there, but also includes Mormonism and Catholocism. Most fundamentalist Christians don’t qualify since they don’t really acknowledge any current living supernatural authority. God for them has been pretty much dead since the council of Nicea, when he finished inspiring the selection of the books of the bible. God himself is constrained to never go back on his words in the bible.
Posted by: Kel | March 10, 2009 3:05 AM
Claim of exclusivity on absolute truth – check.
Weird self-referral by a prophet – check.
Creepy patriarchal “cometh unto the father” talk – check.
Indeed – well said, Kel.
You’re right, Kel. I should have said “modern Christianity in general.”
Barb, the stupid sanctimonious moron, @153 babbled
I’m involved in Alzheimer’s research. You?
Sodding formatting. I’m gonna pray real hard that this sorts itself out. Maybe I’m just not tithing enough.
The difference between their cult and mine is that they think they have the absolute truth, when I know that I do.
That is going in my quotes file.
My wife and I volunteer on a consistent basis and give a significant percentage of our paychecks to various charities, even during these times. I don’t have the financial backing the Grahams do, but I do my part.
What do you do?
Bringing people to Christ doesn’t count. We want results unburdened by the trade off of proselytizing.
“off of” – off of? *shakes head, more in sorrow than anger*
Yeah well, I work with difficult, damaged kids. I have to deal with the consequences of selfishness and stupidity that religion has so singularly failed to diminish. Heck, it doesn’t even think about them.
Except to say that atheists are selfish and stupid.
But that just ain’t so.
Normal human imperfectedness notwithstanding.
Growing up, my mother would tune in to Billy Graham every time he was on TV, night after night during one of his crusades. And of course, every sermon was the same-ol’-same-ol’. Even as a kid, my attitude was “you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all”, which didn’t go over well with Mom at all.
Ok, I’m probably going to regret asking this, but Africagenesis, at no. 165 – how does “God himself is constrained to never go back on his words in the bible.” tie in with the standard omnis that generally seem to be assumed to be a given by most of the fundamentalist christians I’ve come into contact with?
Also, I’ll admit I’ve never bothered to pay much attention to the workings of scientology, but would your definition include them on the list of cults? I thought the leader was dead.
And I like to call them “Jesus’ little fuckups”.
Or, more often: “Jesus! Little fuckups!”
There is a subtle difference.
You will. The worst case scenario is that he might give you an answer.
If he gave an actual answer that would be a first. I suspect what you meant by answer is that he will spout a load of meaningless waffle that does not address any of the points raised and is all but incomprehensible.
Yes. The word “answer” should have been italicised. Sorry.
a cult, as Billy is reffering to, is a group that takes a little bit of the Bible and adds a lot of their own ideals to seduce people. Take Jim Jones, he preached parts of the Bible yet he failed to read this part “Take warning for many will come in My name saying I am the Christ. Do not believe them”. of course, Jim Jones said he was jesus and if the cult actually read the Bible then they would have ran…as fast as they could.
Take the JW’s they claim Jesus isnt the Son of GOd but rather a ‘revelation’ that he is actually an angel. Then ake Mormons, they teach Jesus to be lucifers brother. Both JW’s and Mormons started in the late 1800’s and they dont have one peice of literature to prove their existance before then however they will say they have been around for centuries. Both those cults were started by teenage boys. Jw was Charles Russel and Mormons Joseph Smith.
Anything of value will have a deceptive counterfeit, such as gold, diamonds or even dollars. So it is with Christianity. The real will have counterfeits who twist teh scripture and the outcome is bondage, not freedom that Christ taught.
a person true to themselves knows that they sin and need forgiveness or the person is delusional about their own weakness. Neagers tell me they are god but I see that they are not. I see mere men.
This Bible IS THE TRUE WAY! Billy Graham was right. Cults are evil.
Gotta go, I’m on my way to symbolically cannibalize my god. It’s my turn to buy the wine.
dave,
I still don’t see how you can tell what the True Christianity is.
Can you then tell me why this doesn’t apply to that version
I also notice the paper’s website has removed all the comments that were there.
Dave – I’m not sure you have the linguistic and semantic attributes to contribute : if you can’t write properly, you shouldn’t post here.
You’ll only get hurt.
Funny thing is, the writer was speaking of Christianity as the cult. Billy’s mistake.
Jesus, people. We need to be a little more sensible here.
Use a logarithmic irony meter so that they don’t explode every time a christard says something stupid.
Kel,
Not sure if you were simply impartially portraying the Christian belief that Jesus (as opposed to Saul of Tarsus) started their religion, or if you actually grant that there was a historical Jesus. If the latter, I suggest reading some Ebon Musings. Allowing Christians to claim $deity existed with no proof is counterproductive.
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/camel.html
Did anyone else notice that a link to Brayton’s blog made it through the filter? I thought they were still verboten.
I love when the religious come and say “My cult is not a cult!”
dave #180 wrote:
Pretty much every sect takes on their own spin and interpretation of the Bible (including the ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ folks), and every sect also tries to persuade others to join, so I’m afraid your criteria doesn’t narrow it down much — though it does give us some insight into how Graham is thinking. I have heard plenty of “liberal” Christians assure me that Creationism is a “cult” too, and I’m sure there are those who would include Graham in the group of “those who distort the Bible for their own ends.”
That’s one of those charges that’s easy to make, and impossible to refute. There’s no God to come down and settle things beyond reasonable dispute. That is, not so far.
My list in #85 could probably be applied to early Christians, including the character of Jesus in the NT. Obviously, no Christian would say Jesus was illegitimately “adding his own ideals” to Christianity — and yet his inner group of apostles would I think meet most of the characteristics.
Paul #188 wrote:
Saw that, and was pleased. PZ is going to be on one of Ed’s upcoming radio shows, too.
If they join forces, the earth will tremble…
From what I’ve read, it was Saul who started the religion. I was just showing Barb that no matter what historical events transpired that Christianity like all religions started out as a cult – an extreme Jewish sect.
Dave @#180, when you get right down to it, what most people mean by a ‘cult’, and certainly what Billy Graham seems to mean is ‘any religious belief that isn’t mine’. To take your example of Jim Jones, you say that the folk who followed him should have run if they read the Bible, because it said, ‘Take warning for many will come in My name saying I am the Christ. Do not believe them.’ Put yourself in their place – to everyone else, he and his followers were obviously a ‘cult’, but the people following him probably thought that they were the only ones who knew the truth, and all other religions were ‘cults’. That being the case, to them, as Jim Jones is therefore Christ returned, if he says that part of the Bible no longer applies, he has the ultimate authority to determine such things, so what he says goes. After all, last time he was here, his teachings contradicted the existing Testament, and thus formed the New Testament. Therefore, if this Third Testament is different again, it’s no real surprise.
As for your points about the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, their ‘revelations’ are no more ridiculous or surprising as, say, Mary’s ‘revelation’ that she would have a child with God as his father (perhaps to explain to her husband a preganancy achieved through more earthly means, just as an alternative off the top of my head). As for idea that those religions couldn’t have existed before the 1800s, due to no literature, the New Testament, which is supposed to be the literature proving Christianity existed was only mostly completed in the 2nd century AD. It wasn’t utterly completed until 400 AD or so. Following the same logic, Christianity could not possibly have existed before the 2nd century, or possibly the beggining of the 5th.
As for them being ‘teenage boys’, does not the same book you supposedly hold so very dear say, ‘a little child will lead them’? Is this principle not underlined again and again by Jesus himself, or was I reading a different Bible than you when I was a Christian?
The problem with what you say is the simple question – what if YOUR religion is one of these counterfeits? I am now an atheist, due to an utter lack of any evidence, of any kind, of the Christian god or any other. If I am wrong to be an atheist, I have failed to worship a god who deliberately deceived me into believing he didn’t exist. If I am right, I have not wasted my life worshipping a god who isn’t there.
“a person true to themselves knows that they sin and need forgiveness or the person is delusional about their own weakness.”
Posted by: dave
Sin is a particularly fine example of a Fairy concept. It has no relation to the paired concept of good & bad, which is a relativistic judgement based upon the observation of the results of action in the real world by real people.
By a Fairy concept, I mean that sin is alleged to be a absolute quality determined by a magical being or Fairy that judges the behavior of humans under any & all circumstances. It has no relation to cause & effect in the real world. It is an arbitrary value system based upon the alleged values of the Fairy.
Have I ever done things that were wrong or destructive or evil?
Yes I have.
Have I ever sinned?
No, there’s such thing as sin.
Do I need “forgiveness” for the bad things I have done in my life?
Not in the least. What I need is to learn from my mistakes and avoid making the same or similar mistakes in the future. Hopefully I do that; at the least, I try.
But the type of cosmic “forgiveness” by the Fairies that you are really describing I find rather repugnant. It’s used to avoid really looking at the results of one’s own behavior, and allows Believers to act in the most horrific ways with impunity because the Fairy says so.
I think that it is you who is “delusional about” both your “own weakness(es)” and about reality.