First, I love all the Wisconsin football clothes. Only the daughter isn't wearing a football shirt. I can see that's a Packers sweatshirt that Janna Ryan, the wife, has on. We've got 10 electoral votes here in Wisconsin, you know. And people love football. (Are Americans more excited about the campaign season or the football season? I say the football season, in part because campaigning never goes away, so there's no season anymore to look forward to — other than to look forward to its ending.)
So, here's a lovely, wholesome family. Janna, looks a bit like Ann Romney to me, but the 2 women are distinctly different:
Janna Little, the future Mrs. Paul Ryan, was a Washington tax attorney living in Arlington, Va., when she met him. The Oklahoma native graduated from Wellesley College and George Washington University Law School.Despite some Googling, I can't figure out if she still works or if she became a full-time homemaker.
Speaking of Googling, CNN can't bother to do the most basic Googling. I just heard it say that Ryan is from a "small town" in Wisconsin. Janesville isn't a small town! It's a small city, with a population over 60,000. It takes 2 seconds to discover that. If you don't bother to get the little, easy things right, why should we ever trust you? Of course, we don't. Speaking of small... CNN ratings are way down.
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449 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 449 of 449O Ritmo Segundo,
Crack probably agrees with mainstream Christianity's mission of exterminating native Americans with smallpox because, you know, they were PAGANS. Worshiping STRANGE GODS.
I pay no more mind to American Indian beliefs than any others. It's all bullshit to me. Now let's test you, Ritmo - since you insist on inserting yourself into this to diss me:
Where's evidence early American Christians understood the concept of germs and viruses?
Like I said, you guys LOVE to display your ignorance,...
Crack wrote:
You're not paying attention, either. I don't bother with only what cultists say - they're trained to lie and dissemble - but what they do and what their doctrine says as well.
So maybe your friend, being a cultist is similarly lying to you about his intent. He is trained to lie, and that is what he does. Got it. Your friend is a liar.
Mitt Romney couldn't be in the supplement business if he was truly into being honest. It's a scam. We know his character - we use euphemisms like "flip-flopper" but the truly honest term is "liar." You'll vote for that, but not me - I'm not a mark.
And is that Christian?
Again with the blanket statements. You can argue that some vitamins are scams,and some vitamins are nto that effective, but it's simply not a fact that no supplement has any benefit whatsoever. Vitamin D is very popular right now, and many doctors say that people should be supplementing with it. If you don't want to, no one is stopping you, but that doesn't mean that every supplement maker is necessarily a liar because they sell Vitamin D. You don't want to waste your money on supplements. Good, don't do it. For those that do, or don't consider it a waste what's wrong with catering to their needs?
Your vote doesn't make you one - your defense of cultism does.
How am I defending cultism?
I think most Americans assume our country is "too big to fail".
Personally? I'm beginning to think we are "too small minded to succeed".
jr565,
How do you know that Romney is not [a guy born into a situation and making the best of it he can]?
He was a bishop. My friend is just a native Utahn.
Your default position seems to be that if you are a mormon, you are trapped in that situation and must be rescued.
Yeah, I mean they look kind of silly when they're around others, trying to convince them a tapir is a horse or whatever, just because it makes Mormon teaching "work". Think about the kids - why should they be raised to be numbskulls?
And, before you say Romney isn't as numbskull, I'll remind you no one's asking him anything about Mormonism in public.
You are not serving your friendship by shitting all over his beliefs that he may have come to willingly.
Bullshit. "Beliefs" aren't sacred objects, shielded from criticism. You want to hold a silly idea? Then walk the walk but don't expect anyone to treat it like anything other than what it is - a silly idea.
If someone is literally holding a gun to his head, and telling him "YOU MUST NEVER LEAVE THE MORMON CHURCH" then I'm supportive of him getting out of the situation. Not everyone feels trapped because they are a mormon.
How big of you. You know nothing about what cults do to people who try to leave, do you?
Why are you talking to me if you're this dumb?
Ritmo, the Amherst quote is the only one I've ever seen (in 45+ yrs of reading history) promoting smallpox warfare. That was done for a military reason, not a religious one. And, I think, he was ordered not to continue, for both moral and practical reasons.
@Ritmo,
Deficient aggregate demand has nothing to do with the entitlements crisis, since all the relevant projections are based on steady-state, full-employment growth over the next couple of decades.
The $16 trillion in federal debt isn't even 10% of the debt-equivalent represented by the shortfall between projected spending and revenue over the long term. That number is now estimated to be $222 trillion. These total federal liabilities have been known and have grown over many years. Bush tried to implement SS reforms but was demagogued off them. Obama has chosen to do nothing at all, except to demagogue anyone with any realistic proposals.
Again, that shortfall isn't b/c we haven't been able to find enough shovel-ready jobs. It's driven by the interplay b/w entitlements and demographics. Since the demographics are predetermined, we've either got to find a drastically different way to design old-age security programs or else raise taxes way beyond any levels we have ever known. (Obviously, all combinations of those two are also in play, but it makes more sense to frame the discussion in terms of the polar cases.)
Course, being the optimist, I remind myself there is money in bickering.
No major long term problems resolved, but hey. Most of us still have enough money to buy Chinese.
Dust Bunny Queen,
Religions...ALL religions are full of stupid, mythical, bullshit thinking. All religions/cults have been this way, have been forever and probably always will be. It seems to be part of the human mind. The human condition. We just have to be the smart ones who avoid the magical thinking.
It would be better if we decided, as a culture, to start putting some parameters around this thing. For instance, we've been into space - been to the moon and just landed another probe on Mars - so let's make the concept of Heaven a goner. For now on, anybody who speaks of Heaven is a focus of ridicule, because we know better.
That's what we're not doing. We let this bullshit just go on, no matter it conflicting with reality. I say put a stop to it. How? Teach critical thinking in schools. That way, kids can spot the holes in these stories and call "bullshit" on them.
To just say "it's the human condition" is not true, otherwise I'd be spouting that nonsense as well,...
They understood the concept of contagion, which does not require any elaboration of "germs" or viruses to be valid. Cadavers killed from the plague were used as military weapons. The first publication on the use of cow pox to vaccinate against small pox was written in 1765.
Your problem is that you're not only ignorant, but adamant about and proud of furthering ignorance as a political and social goal.
As someone else might have said, it's execrable.
Crack Emcee wrote:
. . . so let's make the concept of Heaven a goner.
Heaven was once thought to be "up there" because that was the home of the stars. Stars did not move, hence their association with the prime mover.
Heaven is also a metaphor for the idea that we know that things are not as they should be.
How can you get rid of the concepts of a prime mover and that things are not as they should be?
...to "extirpate" an "execrable race"? Ok, genocide might be a military tactic, but let's not kid ourselves into believing that the impulse behind it is exclusively military. That sounds like an excuse.
"(Obviously, all combinations of those two are also in play, but it makes more sense to frame the discussion in terms of the polar cases.)"
Exactly, Chip!
Why just today I was telling my real estate agent to find me something at the North Pole or the South Pole.
Chip,
The fact that there are now and have for a long time been prosperous welfare states in Europe utterly demolishes the assumption that fiscal irresponsibility can only be tied to entitlements and must be separated from taxation structures.
Obama is right to attack/ignore the debt-entitlement fetishists. Their cult has been tolerated for way too long.
Sounds like a Wodehouse novel.
Don't forget the Althouse portal!
jr565,
So maybe your friend, being a cultist is similarly lying to you about his intent. He is trained to lie, and that is what he does. Got it. Your friend is a liar.
Shocking, isn't it? But would it be as shocking if I said politicians are liars? I don't see you abandoning them for it.
You can argue that some vitamins are scams,and some vitamins are nto that effective, but it's simply not a fact that no supplement has any benefit whatsoever.
Unless you have a special condition, no one - no one - has to take supplements.
Vitamin D is very popular right now, and many doctors say that people should be supplementing with it. If you don't want to, no one is stopping you, but that doesn't mean that every supplement maker is necessarily a liar because they sell Vitamin D. You don't want to waste your money on supplements. Good, don't do it. For those that do, or don't consider it a waste what's wrong with catering to their needs?
Because, as YOU said, it's a waste of money. We are in an economic crisis now, right? Gee, I wonder how that happened? Maybe WASTING MONEY has something to do with it, huh?
How am I defending cultism?
Too dumb for a reply. Sorry. Go take a supplement and feel smarter about yourself. I can't help you,...
"Obama is right to attack/ignore the debt-entitlement fetishists."
That would be humorous, if this piss poor economy had not taken away the auto-fetishist refrain - "GET A JOB!"
Terry,
How can you get rid of the concepts of a prime mover and that things are not as they should be?
Like I said, introduce critical thinking into the equation. All of a sudden, this "prime mover" fellow doesn't exist and you can either A) make the necessary changes or B) learn to accept what is that can't be changed.
Continuing to drift in nonsense is definitely not an answer,..
Ritmo,
One of the most remarkable deviations of reality from the predictions of standard growth theory has been the failure of Europe to catch up to US gdp per capita. Some of those countries are "prosperous", certainly, but not as prosperous as we are. Others, notoriously, are in utter shambles.
There's no good explanation for any of that that aside from the economic burden imposed by the modern welfare state.
The economy is grid-locked.
And no one can figure out how to unclog the arteries?
Reading the last (4) threads, there's gonna be some pissed off cons when Obama wins re-election. ok, ok, they're already pissed off lol.
We now return you to
"What about Paul Ryan's wife and kids?" wanting to convert to Mormonism ...
Obama at least has us on life support... aka entitlements.
But we're gonna go from there to hospice.
And we ALL know how that ends.
There's no good explanation for any of that that aside from the economic burden imposed by the modern welfare state.
Actually, I've got a much better explanation.
Social scientists now seem to recognize that there are many different forms of what we call "capital". It's not just a fiscal or physical thing, but there can be cultural capital, social capital.
The rich history of Europe and the longer time period over which its accumulated its wealth figures into both the latter, as well as the former. When you live in a country where history is all around you, the amount of financial investment necessary into institutions that enrich a society - its museums, libraries, colleges - is less necessary. And tourism to see all these accumulated riches becomes a greater (and easy) driving economic force.
European states (and nearly every other state) are also comprised of societies that aren't as obsessed with the idea of individualism. As our current economy continues to grow along the lines of the internet and "social networks", the efficiencies realized from making use of communal strengths are becoming harder to ignore. When this is done with physical capital, we call it "an economy of scale". But Americans, in their obsession with proving how great they individually are, and denigrating the strength they derive from their social networks, are slow in realizing this. They've also had less time as a nation to come together with their various, disparate backgrounds, and make it work along those same lines.
Anyway, that's the way I see it.
Read Gordon Wood. There are consequences to our disdain for history, intelligence, and community. There are advantages, certainly. But there are consequences, too.
What happened to all that American ingenuity?
To just say "it's the human condition" is not true, otherwise I'd be spouting that nonsense as well,...
Are you now All People?
I've noticed a lot of intellectuals buying into this leftism stuff. It seems to me to have a lot of the same trappings as religion to me. Yeah, there isn't a god, per-se, unless you count Mother Earth Gaia, Subservience to the God Like All Mighty State, Subservience of ones own will to the Needs of the Masses, or something.
Just take a look at the Climate Science Crowd. They refuse to release their data on a regular basis, yet when you get down to the core group spouting the stuff, it's a small group of people. They are like Monks wanting to spread the word, from a secret book you can't read.
Or this idea that today's morality is So Perfect and Correct, we are willing to enslave future generations to our notions of "Fairness" today, borrowing trillions upon trillions future generations must repay.
Or the "Treat your Neighbor Right" thing. You might appreciate this, Crack. People were coming out of this "Low Income Housing" section driving BMWs. So the guy did some investigating, and found out there was a significant number of prostitutes living in that area.
Section 8 housing, with its lottery mentality. Everyone's a winner. Maybe Greece got it wrong, but we will get it right with all this deficit spending.
Roads, too. Europe has to invest less in roads.
Of course many of theirs are made of cobblestone and don't require repaving every few years.
I could really piss off Althouse by wondering whether rails require as much maintenance, also. But why bother. Her mind is made up on that.
Holy cow.
We haven't had a thread with over 425 comments since ...
It's going to be a long three months!
European states (and nearly every other state) are also comprised of societies that aren't as obsessed with the idea of individualism.
I'll grant you this point, but then ask why Europe's balance b/w the individual and the collective is the correct one for the US.
I happen to like the idea that the US is the place to be for people who have an unusually strong commitment to individual liberty. So do the people who've come here from places that value the collective more than the individual. Why must we make ourselves over in Europe's image?
I like your point b/c I think it goes to the heart of what this election is fundamentally about. France is primarily concerned with the preservation of French culture--and I wouldn't say that's not a worthy obsession. The same basic thing can probably be said about most of the nations of the world. But the US isn't about cultural heritage. It's the place where you can leave your heritage behind, and follow your own path.
I like that. I like it b/c it leads to greater prosperity--which is empirically demonstrable. But I also like it for reasons I can't quantify--I think it leads to greater happiness, at least for the kinds of people who like to be free and self-reliant.
Europe knows well that you can't have a comprehensive welfare state and open borders. I'd much rather the US continued to be a place people were free to come to in order to find their own way than a place where those who got here early erected a wall around their reasonably prosperous welfare state.
How big of you. You know nothing about what cults do to people who try to leave, do you?
I too worked at a Mormon company, and spent some time with one of the evangelists. He talked about the getting the planet thing, but it wasn't for him because he was married in the church, and so he's married for life, I suppose. Or maybe it's OK to get the planet of babes as well as the wife.
In any event, my understanding is that the more one KNOWS about Mormonism, the harsher the after death penalties are for leaving it. Anyway, like I said, I prefer the carrot to the stick. Better than the Baptist who told me despite my reasonable morals, my soul was going to burn in hell for eternity. At least he said it in a nice way, and apologized that was just the way it is.
That last bit you said about cultural capital actually made sense, Ritmo. And I'm not being at all sarcastic.
I don't think it's without a drawback or two, though. Being less concerned with individualism probably explains why I've never met/talked-to a European who wasn't a racist. They are all tolerant and accepting and all that, they just don't understand why an immigrant might not want to conform.
France is primarily concerned with the preservation of French culture--and I wouldn't say that's not a worthy obsession.
Not in my experience. They are obsessed with living in the past and not moving forward. They are still obsessed with their language because it was, at one time, the language of the world, and they hate that they are irrelevant.
Insular snobs. When I was in Barcelona, I was reading an article from the President adjuring the populace to be nice to foreigners, because they bring in money. And considering how they treat the Muslims they have allowed into the country, well, screw them.
And screw them for trying to break up the Iraq coalition, and set up deals for Oil with Saddam Hussein for using what little power they have in the UN.
My goodness. Look what a sprawling thread!
Well, I respect (and have long accepted) your point. We do have different histories and America's can't be demeaned. I guess I come to that conclusion more out of the "national greatness" or sense of destiny perspective than for any economic reason... although they could certainly be related. I think America has a role to play in the world, and certainly over the course of recent history, and for those reasons am willing to give the Republicans much more leeway when it comes to fighting choice wars of ostensible liberation.
But the flip-side is that, if the world's getting smaller and more connected, and we still, as the dominant nation, want to be an empire - but not a typical one that colonizes but a unique one that encourages NATIONAL freedom for EVERYBODY ELSE, then I think it is inevitable that other countries will become more like us while we also, at the same time, become more like them.
We built the practice of an international community (the idea came along centuries ago), and now we will have to find a way to make it stable. If this is how the international order will be, there will be necessary compromises and give-and-take between us and them. Maybe there is a way to achieve the strengths of both what they do well and what we do well. Maybe the international "melting pot" of national policies will get a bit more jumbled.
Thanks for your comment, Synova.
---The fact that there are now and have for a long time been prosperous welfare states in Europe utterly demolishes the assumption that fiscal irresponsibility can only be tied to entitlements and must be separated from taxation structures.--
Undergirded for 60 years by the US Military and taxpayer.
We're broke, Sweden's even learned their model failed.
If we actually ever did start drilling, I always wondered what would happen to Norway's vaunted socialistic health care model.
They've had 225 years of having the option of being like us. They're feudal, they can't be. They don't have it in them.
O Ritmo Segundo wrote:
Social scientists now seem to recognize that there are many different forms of what we call "capital". It's not just a fiscal or physical thing, but there can be cultural capital, social capital.
So "Social Scientists" think there is something called "Social Capital"? And it's just as important as money?
Boy, who could have seen that coming!
Smallpox blankets
Amherst quote. Summer of 1763:
Louis Pasteur. Pasteurization 1862
There is a difference between understanding the role of microorganisms in transferring diseases and pasteurization, yes, but still, there is a hundred year gap there.
But management saw through it and decreased his hours to nearly nothing anyway.
How come they didn't fire him?
I don't mean to harsh anyone's mellow, but the last time we were excited about a rock-ribbed conservative who would be around for a long time, we got John Roberts.
Congressman Ryan, please don't become a John Roberts.
O Ritmo Segundo said...
Roads, too. Europe has to invest less in roads.
Of course many of theirs are made of cobblestone and don't require repaving every few years.
I could really piss off Althouse by wondering whether rails require as much maintenance, also. But why bother. Her mind is made up on that.
uh. No.
If that were true the Autobahn would be made of cobbles.
Maintaining cobbleestone roads is very labor intenseive. You'll find, in Europe, they are there for asthetic or because it is too inefficient to for one reason or another to change them over.
Smallpox blankets
Oh god! Not that fairytail, again.
When Louis and Clark went west the Mandan tribe was the largest west of the Mississippi, probably 25-30 thousand people. Within two years the mandan villages were ghost towns. an estimated 4000 mandan survived their first epidemic. They would not survive another one.
So ijn one sense the military did bring the plague of smallpaox t the western indians, but it was never intentional.
To borrow a phrase from Mitt Romney, it takes a severe misunderstanding of science to confuse a scientific phenomenon with an explanation for that phenomenon. To assume that germ theory was necessary for people to understand the concept that disease could spread from one person to another is really quite ignorant. Here's wiki on what the ancients were doing with corpses killed by the bubonic plague to their enemies.
Historical accounts from medieval Europe detail the use of infected animal carcasses, by Mongols, Turks and other groups, to infect enemy water supplies. Prior to the bubonic plague epidemic known as the Black Death, Mongol and Turkish armies were reported to have catapulted disease-laden corpses into besieged cities. The last known incident of using plague corpses for biological warfare purposes occurred in 1710, when Russian forces attacked the Swedes by flinging plague-infected corpses over the city walls of Reval (Tallinn).
Chip seems to propose that these accounts must be false because those people would have had to theorize about "germs" in order to know that disease could spread from person (or corpse) to person, and make use of that concept as a weapon of war.
And if you want an even older source for evidence that the ancients probably understood the concept of contagion, try what some ignoramuses take to be the inerrant and infallible word of all intellectual authority, The Bible - wherein Leviticus goes to great lengths to describe detailed procedures for quarantining lepers, cleaning their clothes, sanitizing their homes.
The lengths you people will go to in order to deny reality is strange.
Siege of Fort Pitt
Colonists in western Pennsylvania fled to the safety of Fort Pitt after the outbreak of the war. Nearly 550 people crowded inside, including more than 200 women and children.[59] Simeon Ecuyer, the Swiss-born British officer in command, wrote that "We are so crowded in the fort that I fear disease…; the smallpox is among us."[60] Fort Pitt was attacked on June 22, 1763, primarily by Delawares. Too strong to be taken by force, the fort was kept under siege throughout July. Meanwhile, Delaware and Shawnee war parties raided deep into Pennsylvania, taking captives and killing unknown numbers of settlers in scattered farms. Two smaller strongholds that linked Fort Pitt to the east, Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier, were sporadically fired upon throughout the conflict, but were never taken.[61]
Before the war, Amherst had dismissed the possibility that the Native Americans would offer any effective resistance to British rule, but that summer he found the military situation becoming increasingly grim. He ordered subordinates to "immediately ... put to death" captured enemy Native American warriors. To Colonel Henry Bouquet at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was preparing to lead an expedition to relieve Fort Pitt, Amherst wrote on about June 29, 1763: "Could it not be contrived to send the small pox among the disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them."[62]
Bouquet agreed, replying to Amherst on July 13: "I will try to inoculate the bastards with some blankets that may fall into their hands, and take care not to get the disease myself." Amherst responded on July 16: "You will do well to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race."[63]
Officers at the besieged Fort Pitt had already attempted to do what Amherst and Bouquet were discussing, apparently on their own initiative. During a parley at Fort Pitt on June 24, 1763, Ecuyer gave Delaware representatives two blankets and a handkerchief that had been exposed to smallpox, hoping to spread the disease to the Native Americans in order to end the siege.[64] William Trent, the militia commander, left records that showed the purpose of giving the blankets was "to Convey the Smallpox to the Indians."[65]
It is uncertain whether this fully documented attempt to spread smallpox to the Native Americans was successful.[66] Because many Native Americans died from smallpox during Pontiac's Rebellion, historian Francis Jennings concluded that the attempt was "unquestionably effective".[67]...
Crack Emcee wrote:
Because, as YOU said, it's a waste of money. We are in an economic crisis now, right? Gee, I wonder how that happened? Maybe WASTING MONEY has something to do with it, huh?
Except no one is FORCING you to buy supplements. If you don't buy them, you don't waste the money. If you want them you buy them.What is the problem here?
Crack Emcee wrote:
It would be better if we decided, as a culture, to start putting some parameters around this thing. For instance, we've been into space - been to the moon and just landed another probe on Mars - so let's make the concept of Heaven a goner. For now on, anybody who speaks of Heaven is a focus of ridicule, because we know better.
Christians believe in Heaven too. Why are you directing all your ire towards Mormons and none towards CHristians?
Crack Emcee wrote:
Yeah, I mean they look kind of silly when they're around others, trying to convince them a tapir is a horse or whatever, just because it makes Mormon teaching "work". Think about the kids - why should they be raised to be numbskulls?
Whether they look silly or not TO YOU is simply your opinion. YOu make look arrogant and silly to them too. And are you going to use govt force to make these parents teach their kids proper thought? Who is determining that, YOU?
If they listen to your rants, they have the ability and the right to discount what you have to say because they can determine what they believe. So you say Mormonism is idiotic, they beg to differ. Where does that leave us? THey can raise their kids however they want, and their kids and they can believe whatever they want, even if you find it stupid.
Crack Emcee wrote:
He was a bishop. My friend is just a native Utahn.
Is it POSSIBLE for you to conceive, Crack, that someone who is a Mormon choooses to be one, because Mormonism works for them? Like, your friend for example. Maybe he simply likes being a Mormon because the belief system and value system appeals to him. And if not, I certainly wouldn't say he should be forced to continue being a mormon.
Crack Emcee wrote:
Bullshit. "Beliefs" aren't sacred objects, shielded from criticism. You want to hold a silly idea? Then walk the walk but don't expect anyone to treat it like anything other than what it is - a silly idea.
I'm talking about a friendship, not that you have to countenance every idea as if they are equal. You seem to treat your friends as adversaries, and all to willing to point out how stupid and silly their ideas are. Other than your ridicule and megalomania what are you bringing to the table that would make someone want to remain friends with you?
And Crack, just because some find it hard to get out of a religion, or a cult, or a group in general, doesn't mean that everyone wants to get out of said group. A lot of people are happy being in a religion/cult/group and there's nothing to do about it. You seem to be arguing that because I don't view everyone in a group/cult/religion as a victim trying to get out, that therefore I am unsympathetic to those that do.
FOr the record, if you don't want to be a mormon anymore, then you shouldn't have to be. But the converse is also true. If you DO want to be a mormon then you shouldn't be forced NOT to be. And not everyone in a cult/religion/group sees the negative side of the cult/religion/group that outsiders do.
You actually, on your website,linked to a woman who abandoned her husband after going to a certain group and, the consensus seems to be that after going to said meetings, a lot of people end up divorcing their spouses and spent all their time trying to get loved ones to join the cult. And of course, she was remorseful and thought she had ruined her life and was trying to warn people about the danger of the cult. And a lot of people came forward with the same story. About how the cult was responsible for the death of their marriages. But others responded that the group was helpful for them.
My question though is, what were the people who left their spouses to join the cult missing in their lives or marriages that would make them want to join a cult. perhaps their lives or marriages weren't that fulfilling and so they sought meaning from a group that seemed to provide them what they lacked. And did the cult MAKE them drop their husbands, or did they decide that their husbands/wives were losers not hip to their new found enlightement and were judgemental about it. Not saying that their new found enlightement was in fact enlightment, or that they were right to dump their spouses. I can't know that. But I can't say it's all the groups/cults fault, or that perhaps they weren't right to dump their spouses (maybe their spouses were jerks). They have free will to f up their relationships, and their lives, and there is nothing preventing them from believing things that others think are foolish. And you can't force people to believe things that they don't believe. And you, Crack, don't have a monopoly on common sense, or the right answer,especially when it comes to spiritual matters. You can say you are an atheist, but you can't FORCE people to similarly be atheists.
In the case of the woman who joined the cult and then dumped her husband, it's not the cults fault. It's HER fault. If she has second thoughts about her actions and realizes what a twat she was to those that loved her, then those are the lessons life gives you. But what if she never learned those lessons, and went on acting like a selfish twat and dumping all the people who loved her for some group. How do you force her to not make bad decisions? Or force her to stay in a relationship she no longer values?
YOu can't.
But lets look at the converse. What if someone is in a cult/group/religion and yet seems happy about it, and also raises a family and is succesful at their jobs and has a lot of friends and acquaintances who speak higly of their character. THe cult then is not ALL bad if it can produce that person.
But of course, what is a cult versus a religion anyway. CHristianity is an old religion, but it's not the oldest. WHen it first came out, people viewed IT as a cult. Why is Mormonism somehow a cult, but Judaism is not a cult? And how is mormonism even New Age?
Most new Age spirituality doesn't have a Christian God at it's center. It's a more touchy feely nebulous god/entity that appeals to all people and is non judgemental, non denominational etc.
Mormonism may be a wackier offshoot of Christianity, but it still has a God father figure. Therfore, not New Age. Doesn't mean that all cults have to be new age, either,or that because it's not new age that it isn't a cult, only that lumping in Mormonism with new age is wrong.
Here's a good overview of New Age Religions.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/newage.htm
Mormonism does not fit into new age thoughts. It's new(er)than Christianity, but that doesn't make it new Age.
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