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Unregistered

07-24-2017, 05:40 PM

Hello dear members of this forum.

I'm a German atheist who found this forum by following the link of a link of a ...
Please excuse my mediocre English.
After having read through some of the stories posted here I'm incredibly happy to finally have found a place to share and to ask questions.

I'm not sure about the "common believe" of the members of the forum. You are christians, but do you believe that the earth is 5000 years old? Is homosexuality morally wrong? Prematurial sex a sin? Is human made climate change a hoax? Evolution false?
These concepts sound very strange to me and would to 99% of christians in Germany.
I apologize in advance if my believes offend somebody.

Halfway through writing all this I realized that much of it is probably of little interest to you all. But seeing as it is past midnight and I have been writing for the last 4 hours I don't want to spend more time cutting it down to the point. Apologies.
Some parts of my story sound as if out of a bad tear-jerker movie. But everything is real.

About myself:
I'm male, 29 years old,
I grew up in a semi-religious (roman-catholic) family (parents + 2 brothers) in a small town in western Germany. I was baptised as an infant, went to church with my family every sunday, later became alter server and received the sacrament of confirmation. Even though I did the full program I never felt very religious. I never believed that god created the world in seven days, Adam out of mud etc. I also didn't believe that god actively intervenes in human life (or anything really). God was to me always more of a feeling. Love for one, but also respect, open mindedness and calamity. More the teaching of morality than anything "active".
When I was 19 I got my university-entrance diploma and changed city for studying. I stopped going to church and basically didn't think much about religion anymore. At some point I got curious again and for the first time read the bible as a whole (old + new testamony). To be blunt, I was very disappointed and unimpressed by it.
I like the idea of a "creator" who created the universe and the beginning of life on earth but everything that comes afterwards just sounds too far fetched for me to believe.
This marked the moment when I didn't see myself as a christian anymore and instead as an atheist. I guess I had always been one I just didn't know it yet.

Jump to March 2013.
I'm travelling through south-east asia and meet a chinese girl in Luang Prabang, Laos (we are both travelling alone). She calls herself Cici because her Chinese name is rather difficult to pronounce for westerners, comes from a city with 3 million inhabitants that even most Chinese have never heard of, and in short is the most amazing person I have ever had the pleasure to meet. She is funny, lovely, outgoing, kind, open-minded and to top it off beautiful.
I had been in love before, I have had other relationships before. But in just a few days I had gotten closer to Cici than to any other person in my life prior. We talked about absolutely everything without ever having to worry about being judged or ridiculed by the other. We didn't always share the same opinions but we always wanted to hear each other's. We cried together when she told me about her abusive father who often beat her mom and her and finally left them both for another woman because his child was a girl not a boy (one child policy...).
We spent whole days together wandering through the city, visiting waterfalls, watching the sunrise from Mount Phousi...
I don't want to bore you with details so just let me say that I had never felt as connected to another human being and had never felt as happy as I had with her. Even though I didn't tell her at that time I had fallen in love with her.

We planned to continue our trip together and possibly even continue the relationship afterwards. Unfortunatly life had other plans with us and after some unfortunate events she decided that we should rather split up. I continued north, she south. We stayed in contact afterwards, but the time between our emails grew longer and longer while both our lifes continued. I thought I would never see her again.

Jump to December 2014
Cici and I start to have more contact again. Even talking on Skype from time to time. In April I begin my master thesis. In early June my then-girlfriend and I break up for unrelated reasons.

In July Cici calls and tells me that she got a job as a flight attendant and will be flying the China-Germany routes with base in Frankfurt (meaning this is where she will be living). I'm thrilled to be seeing her again. Frankfurt is only 1,5h away from where i live.
When we meet it is as if we had never been seperated. We joke, we laugh, we cry, and we love again.

I help her finding a flat in Frankfurt, help with paperwork etc. In August we are officially a couple. My family (and even my very conservative grandmother) love her. She has a way of making the sun shine wherever she goes.
I have never been as happy in my life than I am at this point in time. Everything is better than I had could have imagined. I've finished my degree, I've found a job that I like in the city I studied in. The relationship with Cici goes great. We are in this "long" distance relationship until January '16. Everytime she's back in Frankfurt I go visit her or she comes visiting me.

One day in January though Cici is told that she won't be kept as a flight attendant after her probationary period. No reasons given. She has time until the end of March to get all paperwork done, find a next tenant for her flat etc. Then she has to leave Germany.
Her Visa is connected to her work permit which she got due to her job and therefore now lost. She can't apply for another job in Germany as she doesn't have a universal working Visa. She can't even apply for a studying or a holiday Visa while being inside of Germany.

We talk about marriage. I know that this is the woman I want to spend my life with, but I'm worried. Not so much that I might be wrong about her, rather that my family wouldn't approve of me marrying so soon after getting together with her. My oldest brother married his wife after 5 years of living together, 11 years after being a couple. What would they say about us marrying after just a few months?
Anyway. I make the biggest mistake of my life so far and don't ask her to marry me.
We talk about our future though: She wants to apply for studying in Germany as soon as she gets back to China (bachelor in another field). The process usually takes half a year. I will visit her and her family for vacation (we get 30 days paid vacation in Germany).

She moves in with me for the remaining two months. But as I have to go to work everyday she spends most of the time at home feeling miserable, making me miserable when coming home from work... We try to enjoy the remaining time together, but as the inevitable day of her departure comes closer and closer we feel more and more desperate.
And then the day is there and she's gone. More than 8000km and 6 timezones away.

We videochat everyday. We are both counting the days until we can see each other again.

Then doctors discover that her mom (whom she lives with at that moment) has cancer. She never remarried after her first husband and lives a quite poor and lonely life.
Cici obviously doesn't want to leave her like this and holds all visa efforts. Then her aunt (whom Cici is close to like a sister) also discovers cancer.
While Cici has to take care of both her relatives I'm in Germany and barely able to help. I have a flight booked for July but in the weeks until then Cici's world breaks apart. Ontop of her own problems and worries she has to worry about her closest family members and feeling the full weight of all responsibilities on her shoulders. To cope with this she starts praying and going to LC meetings.

... I forgot to mention that Cici was an exchange student in the US during her time in high-school. She lived with a family that was deep into LC for half a year and got in first contact with christianity there. She also got baptised during that time. Back in China she continued to believe in God ("Lord Jesus") but didn't attend meetings etc. and soon after religion was just one small aspect of her life.

Her mother and aunt have operations. Everything goes ok.
Even though most of her worries are dealt with I can sense that Cici is getting... weird. Sometimes she links me videos with christian messages or quotes the Bible. A few days before my flight she tells me that she would rather not have sex with me anymore before we marry. If I mind? I tell her that yes I do mind, but (with a heavy heart) tell her that if this is how she feels we can wait until after marriage.
When I meet her in China she is the personification of lust for life again. She is over the moon happy. Her mother and grandparents accept me like their son. I get along great with everybody even though we can not communicate without Cici translating.
Cici and I have a blast. We spend 2 of my 4 weeks of holiday hitchhiking through the mountains, sleeping in small hostels, hiking up mountains to watch the sun rise... Everything is as if we had never been seperated (again...). She is also as physical as she had always been. All worries I had before coming to China are forgotten.

And then the day is there and I have to go back to Germany... See the pattern? :/

And again Cici falls into unhappiness. The videos she sends me get more and more concerning/crazy. "Prophecies in the Bible", "10 Marks For Why The End Is Near", "How to PREPARE YOURSELF For The Second Coming of Christ"... It is happening so fast, that I don't even know what is going on. First I'm worried where Cici got herself into and try to brush it off but then I'm getting scared. And the more we talk and the more I learn the more I'm getting actually terrified of what is happening to this person that looks but doesn't talk and think like the person I fell in love with.
I beg her to stop going to these meetings. To come back to sanity. I try reasoning with her, try to explain why these videos are bull****. But of course she doesn't listen. She tells me without these meetings, without the people there she would have killed herself in the spring, during the time when she was under constant stress. Without her believe she has nothing.
I tell her that she has me! That she has me with all my heart. But she says that I'm too far away. I tell Cici I will quit my job and come see her. I apply for Visa tomorrow and will be there in 2 weeks. But she knows that she has to decide between me and her newly-found believe in Christ (or whatever catchy theories it is she is believing). Around that time she has a big fight with her mother who also disapproves her changes and who knows that our relationship is falling apart. Cici moves out from her mother and in with somebody from LC. She tells me that she doesn't want me to come see her until she has herself figured out. Nobody knows where she is living. I would never find her.
Cici knows that I don't belive in "Lord Jesus" and she also knows that she won't be able to change my believes. Just 4 weeks after me getting back to Germany, after having our happiest time of our lifes together Cici breaks up with me by text message and blocks me from all ways of contact.

I want to contact her family because I know they are as terrified as I am as what is going on with Cici. But all I have is their home address. No phone number, no email address, no wechat contact (the chinese facebook). I ask a good chinese friend of mine (who also got to know Cici when she stayed with me) to translate a letter for me, send it by email to a friend in China and have him send a letter from there. But no reply. We try two more times but don't get answers.

______
It is 1am here right now, I have been writing for the last 5 hours and didn't even have dinner. I cut it short.
Many things happened to me during fall 2016 and spring 2017 that made it impossible for me to go to China in person. My 4th letter in May 2017 finally reached her mother. She also tried finding me the whole time but didn't know where to start looking. We videotalked on wechat with my chinese friend sitting next to me translating.
It is basically all three of us bawling our eyes out. Both her mom and I thought we could find some answers but all we get are more questions. Cici moved back in with her mother, caught and destroyed one letter, the other 2 might have gotten lost (letters get lost very often in China). 1st of February 2017 Cici took a flight to New Zealand without telling her mom in advance. She is doing a 2 year "full time training" course in Auckland right now.
Reading the same biased crap, talking only to people who are just as brainwashed as herself and generally living in an echo chamber.

This could be the end of my story here . I could say that I have tried all I could and try to move on.
For you it might even sound better the way it is now. "At least she isn't in a relationship with an atheist anymore who leads her away from God."
But I can't move on. Cici and her mom still talk from time to time and a few weeks ago her mom told me that Cici still cries whenever they talk about me. She still loves me just like I love her. I hope that some day we can meet again. And who knows what will happen.

Well... That's my story. I don't know where I'm going with it or even why I posted. It felt good to write it all down though. If anybody read this far: Thank you for reading. I can get into more detail about what happened since the breakup tomorrow but for now it is enough.

Good night, and God bless if He is there

zeek

07-24-2017, 08:10 PM

Welcome Brother Unregistered guest,

That's a remarkable love story you have going bro. The people here have mostly left the LC and now have a wide range of beliefs. Since everything is uncertain, it's possible that whatever you choose will effect the outcome of your story. The LC, of course, will work against your relationship with Cici unless you become one with it. I won't tell you what to do, but I sympathize with you. You are the answer to your deepest question.

awareness

07-24-2017, 08:35 PM

Welcome brother Unregistered. I'm deeply moved that you opened up to us out here. And I'm deeply moved by your story, and the love you and Cici found. And the loss of it ... and the heartache after heartache.

Alas I'm helpless to solve this problem, which clearly is a nerve-racking, to the core, existential crisis life problem for you. And clearly for Cici too.

What can I say? The only thing I might be able to offer is to explain some things about the LC that I experienced, and observed.

My first encounter with the LC was one of love and open arm acceptance by everyone. And everyone was full of joy and radiated happiness. That's what attracted me.

Right away they took me and about a half dozen friends of mine right in. They did this by putting us into service groups, and expecting us to attend meetings every night, twice on Sunday's, and sort of on Saturday's, with service expected in the morning. If you wanted the love, joy, and happiness, it meant all in right away.

Which brings me to this. Another expectation for us was to cut contact with those on the outside of the group, even family, to make a break with your old life. They even had burning's, where you burned everything that your heart was attached to, that prevented giving all of it to Christ AND the CHURCH. The joy and the love made this seem okay, at the time.

So I'm wondering if Cici is going thru something similar. I've read in recent past that apocalyptic-end-of-times Christianity is catching on like wildfire in China. Seems it's attractive to those experiencing hard times.

And the LC offers the best and the latest for those expecting the end times. The local church claims to be the final stages of the preparation of the bride for the coming bridegroom (Jesus returning for his church).

So any day now, it will all be better. Jesus will come back, will take us to heaven, where there will be no more troubles, problems, suffering, hunger, sickness, and the like.

In short, as I see it -- others out here will likely disagree -- when you're down at the bottom, the LC offers wonderful hope. And it's in China. Which unfortunately is just right for Cici. Even love takes a back seat to it ... we're talking God's eternal purpose here.

To me bro Unregistered, and I know other members, even exLCers out here disagree, but to me the LC is a cult. Not a dangerous drink the poison Kool-aid type of cult, but a mind control cult, with high life changing permanently bend the tree impact.

And sorry to say, likely this is what Cici is going thru. But brother, who knows what the future holds. You said Cici was smart. Maybe she'll see thru it. Let's hope.

Thanks again for sharing, and for this wonderful time & labor of love. We're still human, even if we are atheists ... with the same human heart as everyone else.

I wish you well.

Ohio

07-25-2017, 10:14 AM

Dear friend,

I got interested in your story because I too was Catholic (altar boy and Catholic schools) and my grandparents were from Germany. By the time I was a teenager, I hated the whole religious system, stopped going to church and confession, but still had to finish Catholic high school, with no girls and a strict dress code. I was not a happy kid. We were quite poor and my parents had 9 children. God was just a picture on the wall. The plaque from my Mom said "Smile, God loves you," but it never made me smile.

I decided that partying was the highest form of life. After several years of this, trying to work and go to university while maintaining my life of party, my car broke down. I met a guy from work who was taking the same Electric Circuits course at night as I was. Tony was going thru a divorce with his beautiful wife, but was the most positive person I knew. To put it plainly, Tony was excited about Jesus, and talked about Him the whole time I was with him. He never pushed me to believe, but did give me an easy-to-read New Testament. For some strange reason, I read it before sleeping. I think the second day I read the Bible, my heart was filled with Jesus' love and forgiveness. He became so real to me. I knew I was no longer going to hell if I died. I could never forget that day. Over 40 years ago. My friends and family couldn't believe how my attitude changed.

Anyways, what happened to your girlfriend Cici, also happened to me. And Tony too.

I also spent time in the LC. Some was very good, and some was bad. I could say the same for every denomination, including the Catholic church where I grew up. After all these years, I can say that people can be good and/or bad, trustworthy or not, but Jesus is always good and trustworthy.

Unregistered

07-27-2017, 04:28 PM

Evangelical

07-27-2017, 06:06 PM

awareness

07-27-2017, 07:20 PM

Unregistered

07-27-2017, 08:42 PM

Agree, high chance he won't get her back. But as an atheist, there is no greater chance to get her back if she wasn't in the LC. If she was part of any Christian group, they would likely discourage relations with an unbeliever. So it's not really about whether LC is a cult or not, but about whether she is a believer or not.

I will use the handle SA

Hi Evangelical,
I read your posts. You seem to be the sole representative (I don't mean officially) of LC here. But the more interesting thing is, you are nothing like the LC'ers I lived with.

We may not agree, but we can potentially converse. You act like normal and literal Evangelical Christians I know... which is, you won't agree with me, but you can hold a coherent conversation about your religion, while staying within the framework of your own beliefs. You simply have apologetics for LC. I don't think I would put you in a cult category, just in the fundamentalist category.

The LC'ers I know are nothing of the sort. They felt terrified to hear counter arguments. They refused to read any books other than what the ministry provided and their professions required. I cannot remotely imagine them reading any fiction or philosophy. The only non-LC book on Christianity they would have is that one single issue of CRI where LC got a favorable article - that "we were wrong" piece (I got the feeling that LC paid for it, since it did not cover any real issues in LC), which they wave at critics to insist they are not a cult. They were completely insulated from any theology other than that which was spoon fed to them. It is one thing to be unaware, but it is quite another to treat anything that does not come from LSM or its approval as basically poison, their actual term. This isn't about reading some text and disagreeing with it or discounting its validity or worth (we can all have opinions), but to be actually scared to have anything to do with it. And these weren't some rural farmers from middle ages, but engineers in the 21st century. It was bizarre. This is cult behavior that one reads about in books.

This forum has a number of ex-LCers, but no one seems to be asian-born (or perhaps I didn't read carefully enough). Your accounts of your past LC life seem mild compared to the total subjugation to the ministry that I witnessed with asian-born americans. I'd say most people here got out easy, given that you still seem to have your brains quite intact.

-SA

Koinonia

07-28-2017, 12:29 AM

Dear OP, thank you for your heartfelt post. I also greatly appreciate your honesty and willingness to share. I, along with others, sympathize with you--even if our experiences are different. As others have suggested, I would only consider the attitude that you convey to this girl with reference to her (apparently) heartfelt beliefs. If you convey disdain, it will only distance you further.

I am also sorry that your post has been placed in this side-forum, as it makes the discussion far less visible.

Koinonia

07-28-2017, 12:38 AM

I will use the handle SA
The LC'ers I know are nothing of the sort. They felt terrified to hear counter arguments. They refused to read any books other than what the ministry provided and their professions required. I cannot remotely imagine them reading any fiction or philosophy. The only non-LC book on Christianity they would have is that one single issue of CRI where LC got a favorable article - that "we were wrong" piece (I got the feeling that LC paid for it, since it did not cover any real issues in LC), which they wave at critics to insist they are not a cult. They were completely insulated from any theology other than that which was spoon fed to them. It is one thing to be unaware, but it is quite another to treat anything that does not come from LSM or its approval as basically poison, their actual term. This isn't about reading some text and disagreeing with it or discounting its validity or worth (we can all have opinions), but to be actually scared to have anything to do with it. And these weren't some rural farmers from middle ages, but engineers in the 21st century. It was bizarre. This is cult behavior that one reads about in books.

This forum has a number of ex-LCers, but no one seems to be asian-born (or perhaps I didn't read carefully enough). Your accounts of your past LC life seem mild compared to the total subjugation to the ministry that I witnessed with asian-born americans. I'd say most people here got out easy, given that you still seem to have your brains quite intact.

-SA

I am an Asian-American "church kid," the son of an elder/full-timer/coworker, FTTA graduate, etc. I have a good (and pretty standard) pedigree in todays' LC in North America. The FTTA is now about 80%+ Asian (either from Asia or Asian-American), and the demographic of the LC is rapidly moving in that direction. It is very cultural/subcultural and very insular and cliquish. Because of the subcultural component to it, the LC is becoming both more "worldly" and more religiously extreme. Precisely because they are so immersed in a subcultural bubble, Asian-American "young adult" members do not realize how weird their group is. To them, the adulation of WL and extreme religious mysticism are perfectly normal, hand-in-hand with an Ivy League education and a hyper-ambitious, wealthy, boba-drinking lifestyle with big house, nice cars, a fat retirement account, and regular trips to conferences, trainings, and Taiwan/China/Korea.

zeek

07-28-2017, 01:15 AM

I am an Asian-American "church kid," the son of an elder/full-timer/coworker, FTTA graduate, etc. I have a good (and pretty standard) pedigree in todays' LC in North America. The FTTA is now about 80%+ Asian (either from Asia or Asian-American), and the demographic of the LC is rapidly moving in that direction. It is very cultural/subcultural and very insular and cliquish. Because of the subcultural component to it, the LC is becoming both more "worldly" and more religiously extreme. Precisely because they are so immersed in a subcultural bubble, Asian-American "young adult" members do not realize how weird their group is. To them, the adulation of WL and extreme religious mysticism are perfectly normal, hand-in-hand with an Ivy League education and a hyper-ambitious, wealthy, boba-drinking lifestyle with big house, nice cars, a fat retirement account, and regular trips to conferences, trainings, and Taiwan/China/Korea.

That's interesting. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like the LCM has changed markedly since I was involved. Since you are critical of it, I take it you are no longer actively participating in the LC. Right?

Koinonia

07-28-2017, 01:27 AM

That's interesting. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like the LCM has changed markedly since I was involved. Since you are critical of it, I take it you are no longer actively participating in the LC. Right?

Yes, I am no longer involved with the LC. Leaving was a semi-traumatic experience. Nobody I knew could even comprehend the possibility of considering leaving. That shows you how extreme it is.

Young adults in the LC are regularly regaled with stories about "the Elden years," 1970s migrations, "the spirit of absoluteness" and "spirit of consecration" of former days. The reason they talk about it so much is to remind members of how different (and wonderful) it used to be.

UntoHim

07-28-2017, 08:14 AM

I have split this thread in two (usually not a good idea, but in this case I think it is warranted. So, anyone, including the opening poster, who wants to address issues directly related to the Local Church can post them here on the main page. Those wanting to address issues not directly related to the Local Church can post them on the Alternative Views forum board.

Thanks
-

zeek

07-28-2017, 05:03 PM

Yes, I am no longer involved with the LC. Leaving was a semi-traumatic experience. Nobody I knew could even comprehend the possibility of considering leaving. That shows you how extreme it is.

Young adults in the LC are regularly regaled with stories about "the Elden years," 1970s migrations, "the spirit of absoluteness" and "spirit of consecration" of former days. The reason they talk about it so much is to remind members of how different (and wonderful) it used to be.

I understand the trauma. How long were you involved? I was a member for 13 years during which time I married and fathered three daughters. It was particularly difficult for my oldest daughter who was 10 years old when we left.

Koinonia

07-28-2017, 05:52 PM

I understand the trauma. How long were you involved? I was a member for 13 years during which time I married and fathered three daughters. It was particularly difficult for my oldest daughter who was 10 years old when we left.

I was a "third-generation church kid," in the LC for 28 years, with almost all of my extended family. When I left (several years ago), it hurt me to realize that even my dearest friends and family were incapable of continuing a normal human relationship. Everything related to me and my life was boiled down to this: I had "stopped meeting."

Unregistered

07-28-2017, 07:19 PM

I was a "third-generation church kid," in the LC for 28 years, with almost all of my extended family. When I left (several years ago), it hurt me to realize that even my dearest friends and family were incapable of continuing a normal human relationship. Everything related to me and my life was boiled down to this: I had "stopped meeting."

I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for you to even see through all this, given that you would have been in a bubble. How did you see that there is another way to looking at life?

I think you put it quite well: "incapable of continuing a normal human relationship". These guys simply could not be regular friends and chat about normal things. Every conversation had to end up in church talk in just a few minutes even though I asked them to not do that. They did not have a single friend, of any kind, outside the church. They were only capable socializing in context of the church.

- SA

Evangelical

07-28-2017, 09:00 PM

So you say bro EvanG. Most Christian churches don't pressure you into breaking all contact with outsiders. So it is about the LC being a cult. In short his sweet girlfriend has been caught up in a cult. Now to get free she's gonna need to be deprogrammed.

The LC I know doesnt pressure breakng contact. There is pressure to convert them perhaps.

Evangelical

07-28-2017, 09:06 PM

Hi Evangelical,
I read your posts. You seem to be the sole representative (I don't mean officially) of LC here. But the more interesting thing is, you are nothing like the LC'ers I lived with.

We may not agree, but we can potentially converse. You act like normal and literal Evangelical Christians I know... which is, you won't agree with me, but you can hold a coherent conversation about your religion, while staying within the framework of your own beliefs. You simply have apologetics for LC. I don't think I would put you in a cult category, just in the fundamentalist category...

Theres different types of people in the LC. Some look like cult people but are just pious like Amish. There are some who are actually in a cult from china who infiltrate. But no different really to how secret societies illuminati masonry etc infiltrated western churches. I think those born in the lc are treated different to those who join from denomination. Some families force their children to wear head coverings for example. Some forbid movies and tv. Others dont. Depends on the family and their culture or background.

awareness

07-28-2017, 09:13 PM

Young adults in the LC are regularly regaled with stories about "the Elden years," 1970s migrations, "the spirit of absoluteness" and "spirit of consecration" of former days. The reason they talk about it so much is to remind members of how different (and wonderful) it used to be.
Witness Lee killed Elden Hall. Why? Because the Spirit was strong enough at Eldon to compete with Lee's control. And "The Death Studies" completed the coup de grâce.

countmeworthy

07-28-2017, 09:47 PM

Witness Lee killed Elden Hall. Why? Because the Spirit was strong enough at Eldon to compete with Lee's control. And "The Death Studies" completed the coup de grâce.

Indeed! I did not know or understand the SPIRIT of God back then but I knew something was amiss in 1977/78. The Spirit of Life and Joy was replaced by the 'life studies' which as you well called it what they really were: death studies.

Lee's Jezebel spirit (spirit of control) kicked the Holy Spirit of Truth and Love, Joy and Peace out of the churches.

Ohio

07-29-2017, 05:59 AM

The LC I know doesnt pressure breakng contact. There is pressure to convert them perhaps.

It always sounded to me like the LC you knew was through highly edited books.

ZNPaaneah

07-29-2017, 06:58 AM

The LC I know doesnt pressure breakng contact. There is pressure to convert them perhaps.

Wow! Really? Where are these LC's located?

Unregistered

07-29-2017, 07:54 AM

Theres different types of people in the LC. Some look like cult people but are just pious like Amish. There are some who are actually in a cult from china who infiltrate. But no different really to how secret societies illuminati masonry etc infiltrated western churches. I think those born in the lc are treated different to those who join from denomination. Some families force their children to wear head coverings for example. Some forbid movies and tv. Others dont. Depends on the family and their culture or background.

I can believe that there are different types of people in the LC, beyond the types I met. But comparing LC to the Amish is hilarious. I have known pious people all my life, from all kinds of cultures. This isn't piety. But pious is probably the word people would use to describe LCers when they first meet them. It would be a word they would soon discard as they meet them a few more times.

That is how they met students at the local university. The students would come thinking that they are going to pray under the guidance of more pious people. But very quickly, they would find that they were just nuts and stopped answering their phone calls.

I am an atheist, but I like the Amish. I respect them. I think I can learn a thing or two about living life from them. Comparing LCers to the Amish would be like saying Hitler was just a patriot, but was misunderstood because he was acting from his culture.

I don't think anyone is "infiltrating" the LC. That is a pretty big and baseless conspiracy to casually throw around. The problem is exactly the opposite. The LC shapes (brainwashes) naive people into its image. If there was any infiltrating, that was by Nee and Lee. They did the hijacking.

LC is a cult denomination. It was also hilarious that not only did they argue that they were not a denomination, but they also insisted that they weren't even a religion. Who did they think they were fooling?

countmeworthy

07-29-2017, 09:54 AM

I am an atheist, but I like the Amish. I respect them. I think I can learn a thing or two about living life from them.

LC is a cult denomination. It was also hilarious that not only did they argue that they were not a denomination, but they also insisted that they weren't even a religion. Who did they think they were fooling?

Glad you like the Amish. I do too. I loved visiting the Amish towns and their markets when I lived in the east coast but they indeed are a cult. There is a lot of 'interbreeding' and you won't find Blacks, Asians, Mexicans in their mix. At least I never did. I also don't think most of them truly know their Creator. They are very religious perhaps but that does not mean they know and have a connection with God.

As for you being an atheist... you can call yourself an atheist all you want. You can hate religion and that's cool.. no problem with me on that. But I can 'prove' (although you will argue and disagree) you are not an atheist..more of an agnostic perhaps. So here is the 'proof':

There is 'something' inside you that tells you it is wrong to murder, to commit suicide in your dark hour, to steal, to lie, to cheat, vandalize, to do evil things. Call it your conscience if you want. Yes, people do these things all the time but they know in their heart what they are doing is not right. Yet they are willing to cross the line because we all have a free will. But "something" keeps you from wanting to be evil. You may argue with me all you want but GOD put that conscience in you.

My 64 yr old brother claimed he was an atheist all his life. Oh the arguments we had....

On his death bed, I asked him if I could pray for him. He said YES. He could have said no. I prayed over him. I then asked him if he would like to pray with me. He said YES! He prayed with me guiding him for about 3 minutes or so. At any time he could have stopped and said enough, or he could have started rambling on about computers in the middle of praying. But he prayed from his heart. The poor guy suffered a mild stroke due to AFIB, heart problems he had suffered. He sometimes was coherent and a lot of the times he just talked about his work on computers that made no sense like calling a pillow a monitor, or a cup, a phone. That evening, he went in for surgery again and suffered another stroke. He could not talk after that and the following week he passed away.

It is his story. It is my story. It is not yours. You have chosen to be an 'atheist' and that is your prerogative. Many a die hard atheist have come to believe in Christ because they had a 'visitation' if you will from the Spirit of God and let HIM inside their spirit, not in their intellect which is part of the soul. We cannot know GOD through our soul, that is our mind, our emotions and our will. That's what's wrong with religious people. They may believe in God with their soul, with their intellect and want to please Him with their 'good' works. And it just doesn't work that way. Everyone here on this forum that have a relationship with God will attest to this truth and this fact.

We cannot know God through our intellect. And good works alone does not give people a ticket into the Kingdom of God. Not saying it will happen to you. Hope it does though. :)

awareness

07-29-2017, 10:17 AM

LC is a cult denomination. It was also hilarious that not only did they argue that they were not a denomination, but they also insisted that they weren't even a religion. Who did they think they were fooling?
They were/are fooling themselves.

I remember long ago a meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, with John Ingalls as speaker. At the Lord's table a brother jumped up and shouted "we are not religious." He then ran to the table, took the bread and wine, turned the table up side down, and put the bread and wine on the table on the floor.

Then we got to singing. There were all kinds of musical instruments playing ; conga drums, tambourine's, guitar's and more. It was great. So great in fact that the whole meeting turned into a conga line. I remember seeing John Ingalls sloshing the wine around as he danced. It was wild, and not religious.

But when word got back to Witness Lee he put the kibosh on it. I short, he made sure we stayed religious. He didn't want anything to do with this, 'we're not religious' thing. There are limits. Turns out that that is just their advertisement ... haha ... to claim they are different. It's a bait and switch. Just like much of Christianity (I won't go into it), except this one catches you into a cult. They're not religious as much as they are cultious.

Thanks Unregistered. By the way, you can put any name you want on your posts. You don't have to leave it as Unregistered. And please consider registering. I'd love to hear more from you and it's a lot easier if you are a member.

07-29-2017, 11:22 AM

As for you being an atheist... you can call yourself an atheist all you want. You can hate religion and that's cool.. no problem with me on that. But I can 'prove' (although you will argue and disagree) you are not an atheist..more of an agnostic perhaps. So here is the 'proof':

I noted more than once that I was an atheist because I felt that it was an important part of the perspective I bring to the discussion. Most of you who left the LC retained your faith. I recognize that and I am not here to challenge you on that. There seem to be a couple who did not. But even those were once religious. I am different in that I never had any faith. I feel that this presents a very different perspective on how I saw the LC I wanted to disclose or even stress that. I noted that I was an atheist while talking about the Amish, because for an atheist, not every religious group is uniformly annoying. Some are more of a nuisance (especially the kind that try to shove their beliefs into others or insist they are the one true way) than others. Some are just quaint.

You should also understand that as an atheist, I actually said prayers with different religious groups, not just Christians. This did not make me a theist. I did not change my beliefs. To me they were simply rituals. Religious activity is just one aspect of the social dynamic and I am engaging with people through that, not their G/god(s). I am honoring them with my acceptance of their activities. It is more of politeness or sometimes even taking pity. Unfortunately, theists all too often confuse this polite exchange with some sort of a victory. You might think that praying to say a Japanese Shinto god is some sacrilege (false gods, prayer to idols etc), given that you practice an exclusivist religion. I, as an atheist, don't. I am willing to humor that person, and say whatever prayers are emotionally important to that person, if that is their strong desire. Of course, I would do this only out of politeness and not if I was being coerced.

I am not trying to convince you of my atheism. I am also not interested in your "proofs". I have a fairly extensive understanding of religion across cultures and the theological arguments made across the ages, including many from Christian authors. You on the other hand are entirely steeped in religion from entirely a Christian perspective. Getting to such a discussion would derail this thread and simply waste every one's time. I am trying to discuss the cult aspects of LC, not the general validity of Christian belief systems.

However to give an example of how I see things:

If you have a dog, you should note that your dog is not religious. Yet, it most certainly has a conscience. Conscience has been a topic of plenty of scientific study. It is not unique to humans and it does not require religious explanations.

Desperate people switching to faith in their weakest, least-rational moments or an unfortunately cognitively-impaired gentleman behaving not true to himself are hardly things I would present as "proofs".

I completely believe religious people when they claim "visitations". But I understand them with much more nuance of psychology, neurology, sociology, evolution etc.

But I am glad that you and your brother made peace, in whatever way that was important to you.

countmeworthy

07-29-2017, 12:55 PM

I noted more than once that I was an atheist because I felt that it was an important part of the perspective I bring to the discussion.

Thank you for sharing your perspective and for reading mine. Spirituality and religiosity may appear similar but they are not.

Peace be with you AC nonetheless. :)

awareness

07-29-2017, 01:04 PM

But I am glad that you and your brother made peace, in whatever way that was important to you.
See SA. That's proof you're not an atheist. Cuz atheist's are not nice people. The devil has got 'em hook line and sinker.

So if you're going to call yourself an atheist straighten up and fly right and act like one. By being nice, as this perspective goes, you have to have a little theist down there ... somewhere ... inside you. Get it bro?

Evangelical

07-29-2017, 03:55 PM

I can believe that there are different types of people in the LC, beyond the types I met. But comparing LC to the Amish is hilarious. I have known pious people all my life, from all kinds of cultures. This isn't piety. But pious is probably the word people would use to describe LCers when they first meet them. It would be a word they would soon discard as they meet them a few more times.

That is how they met students at the local university. The students would come thinking that they are going to pray under the guidance of more pious people. But very quickly, they would find that they were just nuts and stopped answering their phone calls.

I am an atheist, but I like the Amish. I respect them. I think I can learn a thing or two about living life from them. Comparing LCers to the Amish would be like saying Hitler was just a patriot, but was misunderstood because he was acting from his culture.

I don't think anyone is "infiltrating" the LC. That is a pretty big and baseless conspiracy to casually throw around. The problem is exactly the opposite. The LC shapes (brainwashes) naive people into its image. If there was any infiltrating, that was by Nee and Lee. They did the hijacking.

LC is a cult denomination. It was also hilarious that not only did they argue that they were not a denomination, but they also insisted that they weren't even a religion. Who did they think they were fooling?

Given that most atheists believe religion in general is brainwashing, I don't know that your assessment of LC as brainwashing has much basis. Anything that involves going to church regularly, prayer, Sunday school, or reading the bible could be considered brainwashing by you. And if you don't think religion is brainwashing, as an atheist, then you are saying it is something genuine, and implicitly approving of it. Something a true atheist would never do. By the way, keep in mind that most Christians think atheism is a cult, the cult of reason or cult of intellect. Many Christians also say Christianity is not a religion but a relationship, so your comment about what the LCers said about it not being a religion is nothing out of the ordinary.

Evangelical

07-29-2017, 04:04 PM

And again Cici falls into unhappiness. The videos she sends me get more and more concerning/crazy. "Prophecies in the Bible", "10 Marks For Why The End Is Near", "How to PREPARE YOURSELF For The Second Coming of Christ"... It is happening so fast, that I don't even know what is going on. First I'm worried where Cici got herself into and try to brush it off but then I'm getting scared. And the more we talk and the more I learn the more I'm getting actually terrified of what is happening to this person that looks but doesn't talk and think like the person I fell in love with.
I beg her to stop going to these meetings. To come back to sanity. I try reasoning with her, try to explain why these videos are bull****.

As a current LC "member", I am suspicious of this person, given the parts highlighted in bold. These videos mentioned do not seem characteristic of the LC or the types of videos produced by LSM. I have never seen these types of videos produced by the ministry, about doomsday/end times preparations and such. All the videos I have seen are about some aspect of Christ, or the "crystallization habitation in the New Jerusalem for the processed reconstituted Triune God" and such.

So in my mind either this person is not affiliated with LSM or is perhaps confused with some LC offshoot in China that has degraded into end-times conspiracies and doomsday thinking.

If I was this person and wanted to convert a boyfriend or girlfriend, I might send them a video about "God has a plan for your life" or something in line with the gospel tracts. I would not send videos about doomsday such and such.

So in all to me it's very suspicious.

countmeworthy

07-29-2017, 04:06 PM

You should also understand that as an atheist, I actually said prayers with different religious groups, not just Christians. This did not make me a theist. I did not change my beliefs. To me they were simply rituals. Religious activity is just one aspect of the social dynamic and I am engaging with people through that, not their G/god(s). I am honoring them with my acceptance of their activities. It is more of politeness or sometimes even taking pity.

I don't know how many atheistic friends you have but I can tell you my militant atheistic niece would have bonked you over the head. :whack: for being polite. She was sooo mad at me when my brother, her dad acknowledged praying with me.

Unfortunately, theists all too often confuse this polite exchange with some sort of a victory. You might think that praying to say a Japanese Shinto god is some sacrilege (false gods, prayer to idols etc), given that you practice an exclusivist religion.

And most cannot understand the difference between religion and spirituality which I continue to repeat. They also don't 'hear' very well.. Case in point, when we knew my brother was going to pass, I asked my niece if she thought her mom was going to want to cremate his body or fly/ship his body back to their home state. My brother was working in a different state when he suffered a stroke. Her answer was 'he would not want a religious service' :scratchhead: Of course he was not going to have a religious service.. probably NO SERVICE as he was antisocial! My question had nothing to do with religion and yet SHE brought it up.

I don't practice a religion. I don't even go to church! Does being in a relationship with someone make a religious person?

I, as an atheist, don't. I am willing to humor that person, and say whatever prayers are emotionally important to that person, if that is their strong desire. Of course, I would do this only out of politeness and not if I was being coerced.
I understand. I was raised Catholic and in the last several years have attended Catholic services, mostly funerals. The prayers even if they come across as "Catholic christians" bore me silly. :sleep: See they have no spirit.. no life, no light. (yet they are very religious!) What you don't understand is The dead letter kills and boy does it kill. The Spirit on the other hand gives LIFE, Light, Understanding, Wisdom and above all Love.

I am not trying to convince you of my atheism.
You don't have to. You are doing a good job in convincing me you are an agnostic at best.

I don't even think my militant atheistic niece is a bonafide atheist. I think she has been mad at her dad, my brother most of her life because he did not know how to be a dad, a husband, a brother, a friend. But on his death bed, he was sure happy we were all there for him. She wanted to get close to him and if she was an atheist like him, she hoped that would be the conduit that would connect them. But it did not.

I am also not interested in your "proofs".

I was only trying to point out the 'law' is not needed to tell us what is right or wrong because everyone atheist or not knows deep in their heart what is right from wrong. And it wasn't put in us from 'nothing'. If there were no bibles, we would still know right from wrong.

I have a fairly extensive understanding of religion across cultures and the theological arguments made across the ages, including many from Christian authors.
Good for you. And I mean it in a positive way. You have surpassed what my brother who claimed to be an atheist and his daughter ever did.

You on the other hand are entirely steeped in religion from entirely a Christian perspective.

Obviously, this forum or any forum does not permit truly getting to know a person. So you can choose or not choose to take my word for it. I am not steeped in religion. But I am steeped.. deeply steeped in my Creator.
You do not understand the difference between religion and spirituality. Again.. you can't intellectualize spirituality but you can intellectualize religion. A true spiritual person sees through a religious person.

Getting to such a discussion would derail this thread and simply waste every one's time. I am trying to discuss the cult aspects of LC, not the general validity of Christian belief systems.

You come to a Christian forum like this one, you are going to get snockered even if you are simply trying to discuss the cult aspects of the LC. You are the one who proclaimed on this Christian forum you were an atheist..and have always been. So sorry bud.. you opened yourself to a healthy discussion..or as healthy as it can possibly get.

Had you not said anything about your 'atheism' and just stuck to the topic that the LC from your perspective was a cult, I for one would not have 'challenged' you.

In this forum as you can tell, there are a gazillion threads and rabbit trails to boot. Some I am interested in and some I am not.

However to give an example of how I see things: If you have a dog, you should note that your dog is not religious. Yet, it most certainly has a conscience.
True and without going into a discussion I will say, animals know they have a Creator. But that is not a topic for discussion in this forum.

Conscience has been a topic of plenty of scientific study. It is not unique to humans and it does not require religious explanations.

OF COURSE ! Because a conscience has NOTHING to do with religion!

But I am glad that you and your brother made peace, in whatever way that was important to you.

My brother and I did not make peace because he prayed. Had he chosen not to pray, I still would have attended to him. When he was awake and fully conscience before the big stroke, we did not talk about God.

He made peace with His Creator because he CHOSE to. I did not twist his arm to pray. He did not pray to me.

The arguments we had over 20 yrs ago were about his lack of understanding the spiritual realm as he was always trying to intellectualize it. For the last 20-25 yrs the topic of GOD never came up. (Oh to be a young whipper snapper like I was once.. but I aint! :D )

Now.. before Mr UntoHim does this to me: :whack: :stayontopic:

I won't bring up your belief of being an atheist anymore. But please stick to criticizing the LC as a cult from your observation without the atheistic perspective. ok? Thanks and SHALOM. :)

awareness

07-29-2017, 08:58 PM

Given that most atheists believe religion in general is brainwashing, I don't know that your assessment of LC as brainwashing has much basis.
I don't know from where Unregistered comes by his brainwashing conclusion, but I can testify of the brainwashing when I was in the local church. After leaving, or getting excommunicated, it took me 3 years easy to deprogram my brain ... and it really hurt to discover that I had been wrong for a decade, and hurt to extract it all.

But talking to Untohim recently I found out that the local church changed after I left. (See what happens when I leave ... haha). He told me that they don't even do burning's any more (a big thing back in my day).

So if I claim brainwashing in the local church it may be an anachronism. However, it really doesn't matter. Cuz if I went back to the local church today, they'd spit me out the minute I would open my mouth. They would see right off that they weren't going to be able to wash my brain. Cuz now my brain has been washed from all the brainwashing I got in the LC. I put all that brainwashing into the spin cycle of critical self thinking. I got rid of all of Lee's bewitching.

Evangelical

07-29-2017, 09:03 PM

Some mistake order for religion. That sort of behavior would never be accepted even at a non-christian event. The bible says about taking the bread and wine in an unworthy manner.

Evangelical

07-29-2017, 09:29 PM

I don't know from where Unregistered comes by his brainwashing conclusion, but I can testify of the brainwashing when I was in the local church. After leaving, or getting excommunicated, it took me 3 years easy to deprogram my brain ... and it really hurt to discover that I had been wrong for a decade, and hurt to extract it all.

But talking to Untohim recently I found out that the local church changed after I left. (See what happens when I leave ... haha). He told me that they don't even do burning's any more (a big thing back in my day).

So if I claim brainwashing in the local church it may be an anachronism. However, it really doesn't matter. Cuz if I went back to the local church today, they'd spit me out the minute I would open my mouth. They would see right off that they weren't going to be able to wash my brain. Cuz now my brain has been washed from all the brainwashing I got in the LC. I put all that brainwashing into the spin cycle of critical self thinking. I got rid of all of Lee's bewitching.

The claims of brainwashing are similar to the claims of some Christians that they were healed of terminal cancer without any scientific or medical proof. It is nothing other than self-deception. e.g. I had a pain in my back, it must be cancer, go to church and be prayed for it, and the pain disappears shortly after - "God healed me from cancer". Same with brainwashing. You had some experiences that you associated with what you know of brainwashing, from science fiction , movies or otherwise, and you claim you were free from it by leaving the church.

To me, the only "brainwashing" that is occurring here is that you have convinced yourself that you were brainwashed. Because I know that medically/scientifically, brainwashing does not exist. Because we have this scientific basis that actual brainwashing does not exist, you or the atheists cannot easily claim that you or others were in fact brainwashed.

The concept of brainwashing is sometimes involved in legal cases, especially regarding child custody; and is also a major theme in both science fiction and in criticism of modern political and corporate culture. However, in the view of most scholars, it is not accepted as scientific fact.

Usarski, Frank (2012-12-06). Cresswell, Jamie; Wilson, Bryan, eds. New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response. Routledge. p. 238. ISBN 9781134636969. ...there has been until now a lack of any convincing scientific evidence which can be applied in a generalised form to show that involvement in a New Religious Movement has any destructive consequences for the psyche of the individual concerned. ... The fact that, in all the ensuing years, no one has succeeded in verifying beyond reasonable doubt any of these claims, has however, never been regarded as a reason to exonerate the groups in any way. ... Thus, up to the time of writing, there has not been one single successful, legal conviction of the Scientology Church, even though this group has come to be regarded as the most dangerous of the new religious organisations. ... The fact that even long-term investigations have as yet failed to produce the desired results continues to be ignored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing

"The popular idea is that brainwashing techniques can completely alter a person's opinions, while he or she is powerless to stop the conversion," he says. "But such techniques have never actually been found to exist."

Finke argues that the term is a historical inaccuracy that has become entrenched in social lore. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest English use of the word brainwashing dates from 1950. It entered the language from the Chinese words "xi nao" meaning "wash brain," a term used to describe the coercive methods of the Maoist regime.

When these movements were studied systematically by social scientists, however, it was found that they had no powers of brainwashing, says Finke. Propaganda and other methods of persuasion were used to make the movement look as attractive as possible to prospective members, but, in the end, the vast majority of people that explored these movements never joined them. "It was really only a tiny percentage that joined," notes Finke.

http://news.psu.edu/story/141191/2009/11/03/research/probing-question-does-brainwashing-exist

And consider, if real brainwashing techniques were truly employed by the LC and actually worked, then the membership and growth rate would be high wouldn't it? Since the growth/membership rate is not high, but even decreasing, this disproves any claims that it is a brainwashing cult.

So I think people need to take responsibility for their own willful choices and decisions, that they were made without any sort of brainwashing and claims of brainwashing in the LC "cult" are just fabricated nonsense which have no scientific basis.

As stated in the last article I posted, it is not brainwashing, but rather it is the power of persuasion from friends and family.

awareness

07-29-2017, 09:59 PM

To me, the only "brainwashing" that is occurring here is that you have convinced yourself that you were brainwashed. Because I know that medically/scientifically, brainwashing does not exist.
Spoken like the brainwashed.

And I guess there's never been a Charles Manson, or Jim Jones, or Waco, or Scientology, or Nazi Germany, or Mormon polygamous cults.

Brainwashing & mind control techniques :

1) HYPNOSIS - Inducing a high state of suggestibility, often thinly disguised as relaxation or meditation.

a. Repetitive Music (most likely with a beat close to the human heart 45 to 72 beats per minute). Most likely used during "study sessions" as the teacher will say the music helps you relax and concentrate better!
b. Voice Roll -- A "voice roll" is a patterned, paced style used by hypnotists when inducing a trance. It is also used by many lawyers, several of whom are highly trained hypnotists, when they desire to entrench a point firmly in the minds of the jurors. A voice roll can sound as if the speaker were talking to the beat of a metronome or it may sound as though he were emphasizing every word in a monotonous, patterned style. The words will usually be delivered at the rate of 45 to 60 beats per minute, maximizing the hypnotic effect.

c. Room "Feel" - The way a room feels is essential to hypnotizing unknowing subjects. It needs special lighting, florescent lights are best because they aren't too dim, but aren't too harsh. Also, Room Temp helps a bit, usually a little cooler than normal room temperature. You need to have the unknowing subjects very relaxed, perhaps even close to falling asleep.

2) PEER GROUP PRESSURE - Suppressing doubt and resistance to new ideas by exploiting the need to belong.

3) "LOVE BOMBING" - Creating a sense of family through physical touch, thought & feeling sharing and emotional bonding.

4) REJECTION OF OLD VALUES - Accelerating acceptance of new lifestyle by constantly denouncing former beliefs and values.

5) CONFUSING DOCTRINE - Encouraging blind acceptance and rejection of logic through complex lectures on an incomprehensible doctrine.

6) METACOMMUNICATION - Implanting subliminal messages by stressing certain key words or phrases in long, confusing lectures.

7) REMOVAL OF PRIVACY - Achieving loss of ability to evaluate logically by preventing private contemplation.

8) DISINHIBITION - Encouraging child-like obedience by orchestrating child-like behaviour

9) UNCOMPROMISING RULES - Inducing regression and disorientation by soliciting agreement to seemingly simple rules which regulate mealtimes, bathroom breaks and use of medications.

10) VERBAL ABUSE - Desensitizing through bombardment with foul and abusive language. (Physical abuse, such as torture, is the more extreme form of this.)

11) SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND FATIGUE - Creating disorientation and vulnerability by prolonging mental an physical activity and withholding adequate rest and sleep.

12) DRESS CODES - Removing individuality by demanding conformity to the group dress code.

13) CHANTING OR SINGING - Eliminating non-cult ideas through group repetition of mind-narrowing chants or phrases.

14) CONFESSION - Encouraging the destruction of individual ego through confession of personal weaknesses and innermost feelings of doubt.

15) FINANCIAL COMMITMENT - Achieving increased dependence on the group by 'burning bridges' to the past, through the donation of assets.

16) FINGER POINTING - Creating a false sense of righteousness by pointing to the shortcomings of the outside world.

17) ISOLATION - Inducing loss of reality by physical separation from family, friends, society and rational references.

18) CONTROLLED APPROVAL - Maintaining vulnerability and confusion by alternately rewarding and punishing similar actions.

19) CHANGE OF DIET - Creating disorientation and increased susceptibility to emotional arousal by depriving the nervous system of necessary nutrients through the use of special diets and/or fasting. Also applying drugs for these purposes fall in this category.

20) GAMES - Inducing dependence on the group by introducing games with obscure rules.

21) NO QUESTIONS - Accomplishing automatic acceptance of beliefs by discouraging questions.

22) GUILT - Reinforcing the need for 'salvation' by exaggerating the sins of the former lifestyles.

23) FEAR - Maintaining loyalty and obedience to the group by threatening soul, life or limb for the slightest 'negative' thought, word or deed.

Evangelical

07-29-2017, 10:12 PM

Unless you have medical proof that you were brainwashed, you have no business to claim that you were just as a person who doesn't have cancer has no business to claim that they have cancer. Because medically speaking what you claim to have been given by the LC does not exist. So you may as well claim that the LC infected you with unicornitus.

I bring your attention to this:

First things first: There is no scientific proof that brainwashing (a theoretical form of mind control) exists or is even possible. The term itself is no longer used by mental health professionals (well, reputable professionals, that is), and no peer-reviewed experiments or studies have been done that demonstrate that it is even possible.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/12/23/brainwashing_is_mind_control_real.html

I guess Prof Finke and many other scholars are wrong then?

Where is that list from? It is good practice to list your sources.

There is no scientific proof that brainwashing is real. Since scientists say that brainwashing/mind control does not exist, you are like someone going to a doctor insisting they have cancer when in fact they do not. I would take comfort in the fact that you weren't brainwashed because it is not possible to be. You weren't brainwashed. You simply chose to believe that the group meets most or all of your wants and needs. When it didn't, you became disappointed. You cannot claim that the LC was responsible in anyway for your choices by overriding your free will. It was all you.

awareness

07-30-2017, 06:05 AM

07-30-2017, 03:37 PM

They were/are fooling themselves.
Thanks Unregistered. By the way, you can put any name you want on your posts. You don't have to leave it as Unregistered. And please consider registering. I'd love to hear more from you and it's a lot easier if you are a member.

Thank you for welcoming me. I have been reading this forum for about a year. I did not post so far since I felt that my views are far too removed from the members here (they are not at all removed from your own of course) and felt that I would gain by simply lurking. Generally, discussions are only fruitful when there is a sweet spot of difference of opinion. I felt that would not be the case with mine. I intend to restrict myself to this thread and so won’t register. You on the other hand belong here because you actually were in the LC. I am entirely an Outsider (that would be my handle if I ever did join :-) ).

07-30-2017, 03:45 PM

You don't have to. You are doing a good job in convincing me you are an agnostic at best.

And you are doing a mighty fine job convincing me that you are religious, not spiritual. We disagree on the distinctions between the two. For me, if you think you believe in the one true way, you are religious. If you think the one holy book you read is inerrant and everyone else’s books are not The Truth, you are religious. If you are seeking spiritual experiences, regardless of doctrinal constraints, then perhaps you are spiritual. You can be spiritual and you can also be agnostic. For instance, certain schools of Buddhism (others are plainly religious) do not teach any divine doctrines, yet they are spiritual. For me though, spiritual or religious, neither is rational. They both put too much stock in the religious experiences that people from all religions and cultures experience (far more often than people realize) and draw too many conclusions from them.

To me, it just looks like you gave up on hyper-institutionalized religion and transitioned to a more private and personal kind of religious practice (that is an improvement, in my view) and you are confusing the later to be non-religious spirituality. The LCers I am talking about also vehemently denied practicing any sort of religion. For some reason, it appears the word religion seems to have fallen out of favor in discourse and no one wants to have anything to do with it.

Had you not said anything about your 'atheism' and just stuck to the topic that the LC from your perspective was a cult, I for one would not have 'challenged' you.

I am not worried about being challenged. I have heard pretty much all the theistic arguments and can effortlessly defend my positions. I was more concerned about the aftermath of accepting that challenge.

But please stick to criticizing the LC as a cult from your observation without the atheistic perspective.

The topic is: “An Atheist's Experience”. The atheistic perspective is exactly on topic. What isn’t on topic is simply, theism vs. atheism.

07-30-2017, 03:56 PM

And consider, if real brainwashing techniques were truly employed by the LC and actually worked, then the membership and growth rate would be high wouldn't it? Since the growth/membership rate is not high, but even decreasing, this disproves any claims that it is a brainwashing cult.

Not at all. If anything, I would argue that the brainwashed LCers in US are actually so intellectually neutered at this point that they can’t actually preach to anyone except fresh (and almost always already Christian) asians in US. A US raised Christian would start eagerly, but usually smell crazy after a couple of meetings. But the asians they do get, they can utterly dominate them.

The claims of brainwashing are similar to the claims of some Christians that they were healed of terminal cancer without any scientific or medical proof. It is nothing other than self-deception.

That is wonderful critical thinking that I would not have at all expected from the LCers I knew.

To me, the only "brainwashing" that is occurring here is that you have convinced yourself that you were brainwashed.

The problem is exactly the opposite. All cult watchers will tell you how hard it is to make the brainwashed person understand that he is in fact brainwashed. Denial is always what you get.

Because I know that medically/scientifically, brainwashing does not exist.

I am thoroughly amused to find that you have very high standards of scientific evidence on these matters. If only you applied that to all of your other positions on the doctrine.

Here is a framework on cults, by an author who was in one.

https://freedomofmind.com/bite-model/

No cult satisfies all the criteria. I think LC hits enough of the checklist to be called one.

Evangelical

07-30-2017, 05:11 PM

I am thoroughly amused to find that you have very high standards of scientific evidence on these matters. If only you applied that to all of your other positions on the doctrine.

Here is a framework on cults, by an author who was in one.

https://freedomofmind.com/bite-model/

No cult satisfies all the criteria. I think LC hits enough of the checklist to be called one.

I should expect the same high standards of scientific rigor from an atheist should I not? Afterall, you are on the side of reason aren't you? Most atheists I know do not accept that their mind can be altered or controlled in any way.

These people that are mentioned on the website you gave are not credible from a scientific point of view and have no scientific basis for their views. Singer's views for example were mostly rejected by the scientific community.

Whatever accusations of brainwashing you or others wish to throw around, they won't stick, because

the idea that the conversion is due to brainwashing techniques is just that: an idea, a personal opinion. Nothing more. In fact,it has no empirical evidence. On the contrary, dozens of researchers found that people join and freely leave religious or spiritual groups. It is certain that in some groups (religious or not) fraud, deception and any kind of abuses can be perpetrated on the followers, but they can be punished using existing laws.

http://www.dimarzio.info/en/articles/this-is-me/64-conference/370-laws-against-cults-and-mental-manipulation-in-italy.html

The article gives a good overview of the official position of the APA

The official position of APA (American Psychological Association) is very important in this matter. In fact, on February 10th, 1987, APA joined other parties in submitting a brief in the Molko case, pending before the California Supreme Court, involving issues of brainwashing and coercive persuasion with respect to the Unification Church. The brief stated that, as applied to new religious movements, the theory of coercive persuasion “is not accepted in the scientific community” and that the relevant methodology “has been repudiated by the scientific community”.

To state with more clarity such a position would be very difficult indeed, and the brief also implied that, when applied to new religious movements, theories of mind control were uniformly regarded as “not accepted in the scientific community”, be they referred to as “brainwashing”, “mind control”, or - as Singer preferred -“coercive persuasion”.

Another very important step in this matter was APA’s refusal to approve the DIMPAC (Report of the Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Techniques of Persuasion and Control), submitted by Margaret Singer and other five scholars. APA rejected the report by a Memorandum of May 11, 1987 because it “lacks the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA imprimatur”. APA stated in 1987 that brainwashing or coercive persuasion theories, when applied to new religious movements, are not scientific.

Finally, in 1991 APA’s Division 36 (Psychology of Religion Division) published a resolution in which it said that the “undue non-physical persuasion (otherwise known as `coercive persuasion,' `mind control,' or `brainwashing')” really exists and it made clear that “there is no consensus” regarding whether or not scientific research demonstrates that certain religious groups practice “brainwashing”.

After more than twenty years the situation of the scientific research in this field has not changed. The last attempt to revitalize the debate about this subject was made by Benjamin Zablocki in 1997. Few scholars challenged and criticized his theory and no scientific research followed his proposal.

Evangelical

07-30-2017, 05:27 PM

Spoken like someone in denial. Like you or anyone can tell me if I was brainwashed in the LC. I spent thousands of hours offering my brain for washing while in the LC. And it took.

That's why it took at least 3 years to get the brainwashing out of my head.

But like was pointed out to me by Untohim, that the LC changed after I left. And maybe the Blended Brothers don't have the power to brainwash like Witness Lee had. For example, I know for a fact that Ron Kangas is no Witness Lee. Kangas is strong of intellect, and gravitas, but he lacks Lee's charisma.

So now, maybe the LC is no longer cult like, but just another ordinary Christian denomination or sect -- #boring -- and no longer the spearhead of God's eternal purpose. Which means the LC has lost its mojo.

Answer me this please bro Evangelical : Does the local church got mojo?

Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you,

It is only your personal opinion that you were brainwashed or that Lee brainwashed anyone. You joined the LC willingly, you left willingly. That's basically what science says.
That's not to say that your brain has not created the illusion that you were brainwashed and that to you it seemed very real. Everything you felt and experienced can be explained by medical science or psychology that does not refer to mind control or brainwashing. The power of persuasion, peer pressure, etc. But let's drop the act in pretending that the LC was employing some sort of communist era mind control tactics beyond your ability to resist, which have never been proven scientifically or held up in court when applied to any religious group to my knowledge, not even Scientology.

J. Gordon Melton has written that afterward, courts began to shift toward accepting the position held by the great majority of scholars studying new religious movements, moving away from the minority perspective of Singer and others sympathetic to her brainwashing claims.[16] According to Melton, this had significant consequences later on, since it meant that brainwashing could no longer be used as a defense for the practice of deprogramming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Singer

07-30-2017, 06:01 PM

I should expect the same high standards of scientific rigor from an atheist should I not?

As long as you are willing to hold your own positions to equal standards, I am game. But I can't debate you holding me to absolute scientific standards and none for your own arguments. When you say "secret societies illuminati masonry etc infiltrated western churches", are you going to also show scientific reports?

Most atheists I know do not accept that their mind can be altered or controlled in any way.

On contrary, the entire point of being atheistic is that the perceptions of the mind cannot be trusted (BTW, when I say mind - it includes soul, spirit and other religious conceptions. I am using the term from the position that the mind is all there is). That is the reason why we have science. That is the reason why we caution from concluding anything some religious experiences (getting saved, visitations etc). It is extremely easy for us to be deluded by our minds.

I know no atheist who would not accept that minds cannot be altered. The mind is simply the manifestation of the brain. Brain, as an organ, can be altered in any number of ways. Take Alzheimer's disease for instance. The mind is not what once was, after the affliction.

The brief you linked is also rather one-sided, for obvious reasons. Please cite from any actual academic papers, recent if possible, not reports from 30 years ago. I am familiar with APA position. It is acknowledged in most books on cults. The cult watcher position is that the APA simply is too cautious to make any declarations on cult matters and is lagging behind in initiative in investigations of cult psychology. I do agree that the science is not settled to the point where APA can make definitive proclamations though.

Can I take it that your position is that no brain-washing was involved in Charles Manson, Jim Jones, Waco or Scientology as awareness noted? Let me know what you think happened with Aum Shinrikyo and Heaven's Gate.

awareness

07-30-2017, 06:11 PM

I should expect the same high standards of scientific rigor from an atheist should I not? Afterall, you are on the side of reason aren't you? Most atheists I know do not accept that their mind can be altered or controlled in any way.
Since I don't know what the LC is like today I have to ask : do they still regal each other with "Brother, or sister, get out of your mind?"

07-30-2017, 07:06 PM

Since I don't know what the LC is like today I have to ask : do they still regal each other with "Brother, or sister, get out of your mind?"

Yup. They still Brother and Sister everyone, including me. They repeatedly kept telling me to get out of my mind because I had answers for everything. It is one thing if they advised you when you were a member. Still a cult tactic, but at least they had your consent. It was completely at another level when they kept playing that line even when I told them repeatedly that I in no way was looking for their advice and they need to lay off me. They still kept at it for months. It is as if nothing I was saying was going through. This is why I said they were brainwashed automatons.

Evangelical

07-30-2017, 08:38 PM

Since I don't know what the LC is like today I have to ask : do they still regal each other with "Brother, or sister, get out of your mind?"

I think it's expressed as turning to the spirit as per:

Rom 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace

The mind is neutral, and can be turned to the flesh or to the Spirit by our free will.

awareness

07-30-2017, 09:32 PM

I think it's expressed as turning to the spirit as per:
Rom 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace
The mind is neutral, and can be turned to the flesh or to the Spirit by our free will.
But it was way more than that. It was actually a control method.

I must have heard it a thousand times. Any time I would mention something other than the current flow coming out of Anaheim I was told to get out of my mind.

And yes it was worded, "brother get out of your mind and turn to your spirit."

But again it really meant "get with the program."

It's a cult practice, that is common to all cults. Cults don't like you thinking, especially on your own ... not unless you are going to be a leader, like Ron Kangas. I knew Kangas. And believe me the last thing he would ever do is get out of his mind.

But guess what? The local church has succeeded. They are officially and clinically out of their minds.

Brother get out of your mind is just one aspect of the cult. The biggie is, of course, the MOTA, or the personality cult leader.

And what happened to the minister of the age? Who is it now? The Blended Brothers? Where do they fit into the one and only minister of the age? I'll tell you where. They are the ones that were blended with the MOTA, they are the leaders of the local church personality cult of Witness Lee.

Koinonia

07-30-2017, 10:34 PM

Brother get out of your mind is just one aspect of the cult. The biggie is, of course, the MOTA, or the personality cult leader.

And what happened to the minister of the age? Who is it now? The Blended Brothers? Where do they fit into the one and only minister of the age? I'll tell you where. They are the ones that were blended with the MOTA, they are the leaders of the local church personality cult of Witness Lee.

This is exactly what it is.

countmeworthy

07-31-2017, 10:30 AM

But it was way more than that. It was actually a control method. And yes it was worded, "brother get out of your mind and turn to your spirit."

But again it really meant "get with the program."

I totally forgot about that phrase! It was used on me in my early days I call 'boot camp'. When I got with the program, they stopped drowning my conversation with 'O LORRRRD JEEEEESUS'.

countmeworthy

07-31-2017, 10:38 AM

I think it's expressed as turning to the spirit as per:

Rom 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace

The mind is neutral, and can be turned to the flesh or to the Spirit by our free will.

I for one understand Romans 8:6 and Galatians 5:6
walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

It takes time to learn to walk in the Spirit, to set the mind on the Spirit. It is a process in our connection with our Creator. It does not happen over night. But Lee expected everyone to 'walk in the spirit'.. while all along, he and the blendeds walked in the flesh. There could have been a time when Lee was walking by the Spirit and thus God used him but when he became the control master, he kicked the Holy Spirit out of church life.

The blendeds were given the opportunity to welcome the Holy Spirit back into the church life but instead they chose to follow the Lee spirit instead of GOD, the HOLY SPIRIT.

07-31-2017, 05:07 PM

I totally forgot about that phrase! It was used on me in my early days I call 'boot camp'. When I got with the program, they stopped drowning my conversation with 'O LORRRRD JEEEEESUS'.

They are still doing the 'O LORRRRD JEEEEESUS' chants. Chants are standard cult tactics to stop or interrupt the thinking process. They are mostly associated with eastern religions and cults. I am not sure of their application in mainstream churches. I don't recall any from the ones I visited.

They still do pray-reading.

They also still queue up to deliver, short and incoherent testimonies at their meetings. I don't think anyone can actually remember what anyone said after they were all done. The audience did lots of amens for just about everything. It felt more like people were trying to prove to themselves how zealous they all were.

zeek

07-31-2017, 08:12 PM

Evangelical

07-31-2017, 08:38 PM

But it was way more than that. It was actually a control method.

But you are wrong, because there is no such thing as mind control.

Another One

07-31-2017, 09:19 PM

Hi everyone,

I just found this thread and don't want to go through the trouble registering at this time. Also if you all feel I'm hijaking the thread, its okay if you split it. I couldn't find a way to make my own thread (assuming I need to register). Without going into much detail, I grew up as a "church kid", went to the FTTA, and am now an atheist. Now how might that happen?

I have always had a lot of curiosity, and there were a couple of years where I read a total of about 60 books exploring different topics. Eventually the more I educated myself on a number of topics and began recognizing the flaws in my own reasoning I began to doubt more and more to the point where I rejected faith. Finally I reached the point where I found that the very epistemological underpinnings of my faith were faulty and unreliable. To me it isn't so much about debating prophecies, the three parts of man, or creationism. Before even reaching that point, I think the very concept of faith is a problem in and of itself. It's simply an unreliable form of determining what is true in the world.

I was happy in the church life, but was disappointed by my way of thinking and how I was systematically indoctrinated in the local church. Having said that, I would say that while the local church has its own unique problems, it does share much with other denominations. There are fundamentalist Christian groups that have their own way of indoctrination that in some ways is even more pernicious than what I found in the local church.

I actually struggle somewhat with the "cult" designation of the local church. Its such a fuzzy word and depending on what context the word is used, really does determine its connotation. In a more charitable way of expression I would say the local church is "cultic" but not necessarily worse than what can be found in some fundamentalist groups.

What truly bothers me is the lack of critical thought in the local church AND most religious circles in general. The disregard for skepticism and the promulgation of "just believing", "have faith", as well as postmodernism and new age thinking is what troubles me. It replaces rational and free inquiry in order to understand what is true in the natural world with tribal superstition.

Although I am critical of religion in general, the local church specifically and the not just faulty but cultic ways of thinking definitely influenced my leaving of the faith in its entirety. I have still maintained good friendships with some "brothers and sisters" and usually have productive conversations with them. I can still see the good side of the local church and how it has effected me in a positive way. But I do enjoy my post-church life much more and as a whole my entire family is happier.

Just a short introduction. Maybe I'll post again.

awareness

07-31-2017, 09:43 PM

But you are wrong, because there is no such thing as mind control.
. . . WOW! Mind blowing! . . .

Evangelical

07-31-2017, 09:56 PM

. . . WOW! Mind blowing! . . .

It can't be "more than that" because the "more than that" you speak of, i.e. mind control, is not real. At least most scientists say so and the APA agrees. That means your views are in the realm of non-scientific opinion like Dr Mercola.

awareness

07-31-2017, 10:43 PM

It can't be "more than that" because the "more than that" you speak of, i.e. mind control, is not real. At least most scientists say so and the APA agrees. That means your views are in the realm of non-scientific opinion like Dr Mercola.
Again. Mind blowing ... but okay, if it works for you. I remember my father recognizing that I was in a cult, asked me outright if I was in a cult. I told him no. haha ...

Evangelical

07-31-2017, 11:11 PM

They are still doing the 'O LORRRRD JEEEEESUS' chants. Chants are standard cult tactics to stop or interrupt the thinking process. They are mostly associated with eastern religions and cults. I am not sure of their application in mainstream churches. I don't recall any from the ones I visited.

They still do pray-reading.

They also still queue up to deliver, short and incoherent testimonies at their meetings. I don't think anyone can actually remember what anyone said after they were all done. The audience did lots of amens for just about everything. It felt more like people were trying to prove to themselves how zealous they all were.

Chanting has been part of Christianity for centuries. It can be found even in Lutheranism.

In conclusion, chanting, as a form of expression, is not, in itself, evil. A chant is like a song or a prayer. Its rightness or wrongness depends on the purpose of the chant, the subject of the chant, and the motive of the mind, heart, and voice producing the chant.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-chant-Bible-chanting.html

There is a bible verse where God approves chanting:

Ezekiel 32:16
"This is a lamentation and they shall chant it. The daughters of the nations shall chant it. Over Egypt and over all her hordes they shall chant it," declares the Lord GOD.

And the Israelites would chant the psalms, such as psalm 133 as they made their ascent up to mount Zion. That's why it's called "A song of ascents".

Although I disagree that calling the Lords' name is chanting, even if it were, it is not a sin, and does not mean it is a cult.

08-01-2017, 05:21 AM

That means your views are in the realm of non-scientific opinion like Dr Mercola.

I love it when a religious person insists on the consensus of a scientific community on matters of religion. If only they looked at the question of inerrancy of their respective sacred texts in the same way – you know, like what the cosmologists, biologists, historians etc. agree on what the facts were.

There are several cult frameworks. Everyone understands that nearly everything in them is found in one religion or the other and that it is hard to put a formula down (that goes for anything in soft sciences), and that many activities, when very occasionally encountered are in themselves harmless. What makes a cult, a cult, is the great preponderance of them. I have friends in religions where they chant on occasion. I would not consider any of them in a cult, except maybe one who might be getting close, but he is leaving (same problems as LC, it is a non-Christian cult – as in others also called it a cult, and he recognizes that they are trying to control him way too much).

What makes the activities, cult activities, are the degree to which they are implemented.
The LCers I knew kept extolling me to call out their chant, even though I repeatedly told them that I was an atheist – I could only humor them so much. Would any normal religious person with any common sense do that? No. They would chant at meals, after waking up and at other times during the day. Like awareness said, as with his dad, you know that people are in a cult when you see them. You don’t even need any frameworks. They are just “off”. LC was the first group that I actually saw for myself, where I had no doubt that they were a cult. Everyone reads about groups like Scientology. I never met any from them. With LC, nobody had to tell me that something was wrong.

They were also conditioned to never look stuff up on the Internet that might criticize their group. Would a normal religious person, like say a Catholic be conditioned for that? No. They even told me, a well-educated adult, very early on, that the stuff on the Internet about them was a “poison” and I should not look.

One giveaway about cultists is that they will have no non-cult friends because they end up driving any normal person away with their cult behavior. If you as much as look at them on the street (and even that is not necessary), they start handing you invites to their prayer dinners, and get excited that they are going to preach to them. Who would want to be friends with people like that? So they end up in a bubble. Everyone who is willing to talk to them is as wacko as they are and so everything looks normal. They come up with all sorts of explanations why they are normal (and simultaneously special).

Although I disagree that calling the Lords' name is chanting, even if it were, it is not a sin, and does not mean it is a cult.

Why would I, an atheist say anything is a “sin”, if it does not harm OTHER people? (We understand bad morality perfectly fine, without the religious notions of the sin) These sin “concepts” (another LC term) are for you, not us (I am more concerned with wackiness and dysfunctionality). I do however think that chanting, when it goes over certain limits effects a person’s thought process and harms their own ability to analyze.

awareness

08-01-2017, 05:35 AM

Ohio

08-01-2017, 06:07 AM

I've been in meetings where we all shouted over and over again "O Lord Jesus" over and over and over and over again, and again, and again, and again. It's a mind numbing repetition, taken for spirituality ... haha

Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Mat 6:8 Be not ye therefore like unto them

Vain repetition, by definition, indicates a disconnect between mouth and heart. The Lord's emphasis was on the vain part, proven by His application to the heathen.

For me personally, calling on the Lord was never a vain repetition.

Here I find it a little ironical that you would quote scripture to refute a scriptural practice since you have repeatedly posted your distrust in the veracity of the text of the Scriptures.

But, of course, only your god is real. So you tell us.

08-01-2017, 07:00 AM

VainHere I find it a little ironical that you would quote scripture to refute a scriptural practice since you have repeatedly posted your distrust in the veracity of the text of the Scriptures.

It demonstrates how a religious text can be used to support any position. This applies to all religious texts I have seen, not just the Bible. There are often quotes that support contradicting positions and people get bent over backwards in trying to justify that their own position is the proper scripturally supported position.

But, of course, only your god is real. So you tell us.

That is the direct ironical bit. You are missing the sarcasm and humor.

Lots of people have religious experiences, not just in Christianity. That is how so many religions continue to thrive. Nearly all of them think only those obtained in context of their religion own are authentic. The LCers I know said everyone else's religious experiences are Devil's trickery. Their own however are the most holy kind.

zeek

08-01-2017, 08:01 AM

It can't be "more than that" because the "more than that" you speak of, i.e. mind control, is not real. At least most scientists say so and the APA agrees. That means your views are in the realm of non-scientific opinion like Dr Mercola.

Yes, lets call it "thought reform" instead.

Here are "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform" all practiced by Witness Lee's Local Church Movement during the time I was a member.
Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
Mystical Manipulation. The manipulation of experiences that appears spontaneous but is, in fact, planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies.
Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.
Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults" are discussed and exploited by the leaders.
Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism.
Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.
Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism

awareness

08-01-2017, 08:02 AM

Vain repetition, by definition, indicates a disconnect between mouth and heart. The Lord's emphasis was on the vain part, proven by His application to the heathen.
Hey, I heard that rationale, way back when I was repetitively calling on the Lord.

For me personally, calling on the Lord was never a vain repetition.
Calling on the Lord is not vain ... calling on the Lord incessantly is.

Here I find it a little ironical that you would quote scripture to refute a scriptural practice since you have repeatedly posted your distrust in the veracity of the text of the Scriptures.
So when you don't like the message, than shoot the messenger? Discussing the veracity of the text of scripture belongs on a thread on Alternative Views. If you like we can go to localchurchdiscussions.com/vBulletin/cmps_index.php?pageid=altviews and have that discussion. I'd really enjoy that. Please, someone go there and start a thread. But ya better have some moxy ... or mojo ... or something. Believe me, Ohio will shy away.

But, of course, only your god is real.
Where have I read that before? I forget.

Ohio

08-01-2017, 08:24 AM

It demonstrates how a religious text can be used to support any position. This applies to all religious texts I have seen, not just the Bible. There are often quotes that support contradicting positions and people get bent over backwards in trying to justify that their own position is the proper scripturally supported position.
Not really. The Bible interprets the Bible, and the Bible points us to Jesus, the only true God.

That is the direct ironical bit. You are missing the sarcasm and humor.

Not really. awareness and I are old friends. We go back a ways.

Ohio

08-01-2017, 08:26 AM

So when you don't like the message, than shoot the messenger? Discussing the veracity of the text of scripture belongs on a thread on Alternative Views. If you like we can go to localchurchdiscussions.com/vBulletin/cmps_index.php?pageid=altviews (http://localchurchdiscussions.com/vBulletin/cmps_index.php?pageid=altviews) and have that discussion. I'd really enjoy that.

Where have I read that before? I forget.

Touche.

So you come over here and transform into a fundamentalist again? :hysterical:

awareness

08-01-2017, 12:27 PM

Touche.

So you come over here and transform into a fundamentalist again? :hysterical:
I'm like Paul. "I am made all things to all men."
I Corinthians 9:19-22

08-01-2017, 03:59 PM

Not really. awareness and I are old friends. We go back a ways.

Ah, OK. It must be me missing the context in the conversation then.

Evangelical

08-01-2017, 04:21 PM

I love it when a religious person insists on the consensus of a scientific community on matters of religion. If only they looked at the question of inerrancy of their respective sacred texts in the same way – you know, like what the cosmologists, biologists, historians etc. agree on what the facts were.

There are several cult frameworks. Everyone understands that nearly everything in them is found in one religion or the other and that it is hard to put a formula down (that goes for anything in soft sciences), and that many activities, when very occasionally encountered are in themselves harmless. What makes a cult, a cult, is the great preponderance of them. I have friends in religions where they chant on occasion. I would not consider any of them in a cult, except maybe one who might be getting close, but he is leaving (same problems as LC, it is a non-Christian cult – as in others also called it a cult, and he recognizes that they are trying to control him way too much).

What makes the activities, cult activities, are the degree to which they are implemented.
The LCers I knew kept extolling me to call out their chant, even though I repeatedly told them that I was an atheist – I could only humor them so much. Would any normal religious person with any common sense do that? No. They would chant at meals, after waking up and at other times during the day. Like awareness said, as with his dad, you know that people are in a cult when you see them. You don’t even need any frameworks. They are just “off”. LC was the first group that I actually saw for myself, where I had no doubt that they were a cult. Everyone reads about groups like Scientology. I never met any from them. With LC, nobody had to tell me that something was wrong.

They were also conditioned to never look stuff up on the Internet that might criticize their group. Would a normal religious person, like say a Catholic be conditioned for that? No. They even told me, a well-educated adult, very early on, that the stuff on the Internet about them was a “poison” and I should not look.

One giveaway about cultists is that they will have no non-cult friends because they end up driving any normal person away with their cult behavior. If you as much as look at them on the street (and even that is not necessary), they start handing you invites to their prayer dinners, and get excited that they are going to preach to them. Who would want to be friends with people like that? So they end up in a bubble. Everyone who is willing to talk to them is as wacko as they are and so everything looks normal. They come up with all sorts of explanations why they are normal (and simultaneously special).

Why would I, an atheist say anything is a “sin”, if it does not harm OTHER people? (We understand bad morality perfectly fine, without the religious notions of the sin) These sin “concepts” (another LC term) are for you, not us (I am more concerned with wackiness and dysfunctionality). I do however think that chanting, when it goes over certain limits effects a person’s thought process and harms their own ability to analyze.

Its strange for me to see an atheist try to distinguish between genuine religion and cults. I thought atheists saw all religions as wackiness and did not consider religionists as "normal people".

If you are so scientific then why aren't you agreeing with science like I am that mind control or brainwashing is unproven?

Chanting is related to meditation and I think there are benefits that you are not considering. Go study the Shaolin monks for example and then try and claim that too much chanting is harmful.

Evangelical

08-01-2017, 04:26 PM

Yes, lets call it "thought reform" instead.

Here are "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform" all practiced by Witness Lee's Local Church Movement during the time I was a member.

Why don't you just quote communist mind control theories too? Anyone can create a list of criteria they say defines a cult...does not make it so.

08-01-2017, 05:14 PM

Yes, lets call it "thought reform" instead.

Here are "Eight Criteria for Thought Reform" all practiced by Witness Lee's Local Church Movement during the time I was a member.

Yup, this lines up with the LCer behavior I observed and I have seen nothing of this sort in any of my normal, some very religious, Christian friends with whom I have healthy friendships lasting decades.

I am interpreting these points as an outsider:

Milieu Control - The LCers were completely self-censoring themselves from any other information. Actively avoided popular media consumption. Refused to read or even look into general books on Christianity (because they were not from LSM, but did not state as such).

Mystical Manipulation - They strongly believed that if I did their chanting, I would get a religious experience and would be theirs. Chanting rituals are indeed associated with increased chance of mystical experiences.

There were numerous offers of faulty logic offered... do this chant and your problem will go away. Of course, often problems go away on their own or by our active interventions. But a logically weak mind that has been prepared this way would interpret that as a sign of divine intervention and leave themselves emotionally vulnerable for exploitation.

Demand for Purity - Yup, the senior most guys (total alphas) were extolling the junior guys (total betas) over this. One junior was especially submissive about this. Sometimes, this turned abusive, with a senior yelling at a junior over nothing (more than once). Remember, these were middle-age and up adults, but the scene was like parent completely exasperated over a child. It was over a non-issue that even a child should not be chided for. The poor guy was being yelled at in front of his wife. Very immature behavior by the senior guy (no idea if he was an "elder". I could not get that info out. They were not otherwise related). Dysfunctional in other ways that I won't go into.

Sacred Science - Yes, LSM literature only. Total Lee groupies. Presented Lee as the next best apostle after Paul. The term MOTA was not used (I presumably wasn't considered ready for that level of cult talk - perhaps thats like the level where Scientology begins Thetan talk), but the same essence was conveyed early on.

Loading the Language - Lots of words that meant exactly the opposite. It was indeed Orwellian Newspeak.

Knowledge and Critical thinking were called "concepts", in a very derogatory way. They see knowledge as something to overcome.

Critical viewpoints were called "poisons"

If you don't try their religion, you are not "open-minded". But when suggested on why they could not read something outside LSM, that was a big no-no and that had nothing to do with "open-mindedness".

Doctrine over person - Yup, everything is interpreted in LSM framework and vocabulary.

Dispensing of existence - I asked them if they kept contact with any former members. Nope, not even one. I think I heard this term Koinonia mentioned - "stopped meeting", but I am not sure.

They were guarding certain information about their church even when I asked pointed questions. They were surprised that I knew about full-time training. It took me months to find out that LC and LSM were the keywords for discovering their reality. I think they were actively hiding the terms in conversation.

Evangelical

08-01-2017, 05:35 PM

I've been in meetings where we all shouted over and over again "O Lord Jesus" over and over and over and over again, and again, and again, and again. It's a mind numbing repetition, taken for spirituality ... haha

Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Mat 6:8 Be not ye therefore like unto them

When I was in Pentecostal church we prayed in tongues endlessly which is known as using ones spirit and not the mind. Before that I was in a church practising Taize worship which involves a lot of chanting and meditation. I considered the LC practice better in that it is at least intelligible and genuine.

awareness

08-01-2017, 05:36 PM

Why don't you just quote communist mind control theories too? Anyone can create a list of criteria they say defines a cult...does not make it so.
Seems Evangelical want us to come out like Hank Hanegraaff & CRI and announce "We were Wrong."

The problem is that Hank and CRI saw only what the local church wanted them to see. They weren't seeing from the inside. And Hank is way to compromised by mammon to be trusted.

I, on the other hand, can't say that I was wrong when I saw that the local church was/is a cult. Once you see it you can't unseen it.

But those that are in the local church, like our brother EvanG, have scales over their eyes and can't see the cult. They're too blinded and bewitched by Witness Lee's "vision" to see the cult they are in.

And they will do anything to deny it. Even sue for hundreds of million of dollars to refute that they are a cult. Only cults have to resort to such means. It means they are a cult when they do it.

08-01-2017, 06:08 PM

Its strange for me to see an atheist try to distinguish between genuine religion and cults. I thought atheists saw all religions as wackiness and did not consider religionists as "normal people".

If you are so scientific then why aren't you agreeing with science like I am that mind control or brainwashing is unproven?

Chanting is related to meditation and I think there are benefits that you are not considering. Go study the Shaolin monks for example and then try and claim that too much chanting is harmful.

You don't really understand atheists. Many Christians don't. You probably only heard the most shrill of voices. There are as my kinds of atheists as there are different types of Christians. Atheists generally don't see all religions as equal. Atheists rarely criticize Buddhists, Jains, Native American religions etc. They always seem most annoyed at fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam. Can you guess why? I see a huge difference between a Zen Buddhist and those wackos from Westboro Baptist Church. I see a huge difference between Ahmedia and Salafi muslims.

Religion is a reality for mankind. Of course, I wish everyone thinks logically and I argued as such here. But our brains are wired to have mystical experiences and people will always come up with this or that religious framework to explain those conveniently. The most I hope for is for religion to not be dysfunctional or intellectually destructive.

I respect psychology as a science. I just haven't seen a whole lot of cult research in academia. I have no idea whether they are having trouble getting it funded or otherwise.

Tell you what, why don't you point me to comprehensive literature reviews of cult/mind-control studies in some major psychology journals that detail how they reached those conclusions detailing the strength of evidence. I will read those and see if I need to change my mind. But a report to the court, 30 years ago, saying we don't have enough science yet to assure you that we can call it mind-control, isn't good enough. You repeatedly waving that 1987 APA report is currently doing as little to me as that CRI journal did for the LCers. Let's not call it "brain-washing", if you insist. I will just call them common cult tactics, tactics reported across multiple cults, not in any way singling out LC.

Meditation certainly has benefits. It also has problems. Too much meditation ruins your capacity for complex thought. There are accounts of that from people who left New Age cults. Like chanting, meditation can also promote mystical experiences. But do tell me what these Shaolin monks have achieved mentally with this meditation. I don't care about their kung-fu. Tell me what geniuses meditation produced. But in any case, the chanting in LC is quite far from meditation. One is about mental calm and other is about fervor.

Evangelical

08-01-2017, 06:41 PM

Seems Evangelical want us to come out like Hank Hanegraaff & CRI and announce "We were Wrong."

The problem is that Hank and CRI saw only what the local church wanted them to see. They weren't seeing from the inside. And Hank is way to compromised by mammon to be trusted.

I, on the other hand, can't say that I was wrong when I saw that the local church was/is a cult. Once you see it you can't unseen it.

But those that are in the local church, like our brother EvanG, have scales over their eyes and can't see the cult. They're too blinded and bewitched by Witness Lee's "vision" to see the cult they are in.

And they will do anything to deny it. Even sue for hundreds of million of dollars to refute that they are a cult. Only cults have to resort to such means. It means they are a cult when they do it.

Unfortunately, your subjective experiences does not make you an expert on the matter to arrive at a rational and unbiased conclusion. Just as a person experiencing some medical problem does not make them a doctor and expert in that particular problem.

Your view is therefore no more credible than those with experience of the Roman Catholic church who declare it to be the largest cult in the world. Or those who declare atheism to be a cult. Everyone has their own subjective view of what is and is not a cult.

But the objective studies done found it was not a cult.

If we look to well regarded places like GotQuestions.org they say

"Closer scrutiny of Lee’s teachings elsewhere, however, brings to light that they actually agree with evangelical orthodoxy"

08-01-2017, 06:54 PM

Why don't you just quote communist mind control theories too? Anyone can create a list of criteria they say defines a cult...does not make it so.

Just so you understand, none of these frameworks were created with LC in mind.

Just for a moment, let us put aside the cult label.

1.) Do you agree that the features described in these frameworks are things we can objectively agree that religions should not have (e.g: breaking families for churches, removing critical thinking, having personality cults etc).
2.) Do you agree that LC conforms to far too many of the features described?

Do you think any bizarre psychology/mindset was involved with the events of Aum Shinrikyo and Heaven's Gate. I am not suggesting that LC is anywhere close. But do you think these two can be qualified as cults? Or would you insist that nothing more than "The power of persuasion, peer pressure, etc" was going on here?

UntoHim

08-01-2017, 07:31 PM

Hey SA,
If you are going to be a regular poster, even if only on one thread, you are going to need to register. This will make it more practical for everyone concerned.

Please send your request to register, along with your desired UserName to:
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awareness

08-01-2017, 08:50 PM

Unfortunately, your subjective experiences does not make you an expert on the matter to arrive at a rational and unbiased conclusion. Just as a person experiencing some medical problem does not make them a doctor and expert in that particular problem.
That a specious argue. I've had kidney stones off and on since I was ten. Now I'm no urologist, but when I have an attack I'll certainly know what's going when the doctor is still guessing.

Your view is therefore no more credible than . . .
It's your statement here that's not credible. You don't know what I know about cults. Trust me, prolly 20 or 30 times what you know. I've been studying cults since the local church. I have lots of personal exLC friends. They all say and admit that they were in a cult. One sister, going back to our Ron Kangas days in the c. in Detroit, back in the early 70s, is obsessed with cults. She's been sending me books on cults, and studies of particular cults, and links galore. Why is she obsessed? Because she resents that she was in a cult. So I'm not speaking from just my subjective viewpoint. You don't even know how I know the LC is a cult. You're doing what Witness Lee said T. Austin Sparks was doing : "passing gas."

You just want to dismiss it, ad nauseum. Sorry brother, I'm concerned about you, cuz you seem to be drunk on the LC kool-aid. In fact, they way you comport yourself out here, you seem like you may be the kool-aid mixer and maker.

It is your view and statements that are not credible.

But the objective studies done found it was not a cult.

If we look to well regarded places like GotQuestions.org they say

"Closer scrutiny of Lee’s teachings elsewhere, however, brings to light that they actually agree with evangelical orthodoxy"
S.Michael Houdmann is your well regarded proof? Weak brother weak. You just regard Houdmann cuz he's telling y'all what you want to hear. Talk about leaning on non-experts. That takes the cake.

I'm the one putting my neck out here. Kangas knows me. He could sick DCP and a bank of expensive lawyers on me for calling the LC a cult. They's done it plenty of times before. Each time proving they are a cult. We certainly don't see other ordinary Christian groups suing other Christians. Seems they only listen to some things GotQuestions has to say. Just not what they say about what Paul has to say about suing fellow Christians :
https://www.gotquestions.org/lawsuits-suing.html

Evangelical

08-01-2017, 10:49 PM

Why don't you call it a sect then like so many others do? Just as people don't normally call JW and Mormon a cult, but a sect.

awareness

08-02-2017, 01:11 AM

Why don't you call it a sect then like so many others do? Just as people don't normally call JW and Mormon a cult, but a sect.
Yes. I do that too. Tho I do tell my JW visitors -- one of them I made friends with -- that I've already been in one Christian cult, and don't need another. I explained the same to the boys on bicycles ... after a few visits (I like them. They're smart)..

But in general, dismissing my history with the LC, as I look at Christendom -- all other religions too -- the local church is just a small little sect. That's all. No big deal. But not all sects are cult like ; some more, some less, many none.

Bro EvanG. I like you. Look, I'm an old fart. I came out while others, some pre-church friends I brought in, stayed in. Cuz we were close going way back they'd call me from time to time, to tell me the LC had changed. It wasn't the same local church, they'd say. They wanted me to come back.

But I had seen it, they hadn't. So at a distance I watched. I didn't go back but I kept an ear to the ground, so to speak.

And then it happened. Their eyes were opened. The scales fell away. And viola! They saw it. The same thing happened to them that happened to me. They discovered something about the local church that was being hidden, something majorly wrong, or some such disconnect from basic Christian honesty.

For the lights to come, it takes more than the run of the mill discordance, that everyone runs into from time to time in the LC. Eventually tho, something makes it obvious : YOU'RE IN A CULT!!!

I feel like I'm watching you go thru a similar, if not the same, thing.

I'm waiting for that viola moment, bro. It's coming. Trust me. It won't be the first time I've seen the awakening happen right before my very own eyes. It brings tears to my eyes when it happens. Make me cry bro.

zeek

08-02-2017, 10:53 AM

Why don't you call it a sect then like so many others do? Just as people don't normally call JW and Mormon a cult, but a sect.

If a cult is a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object then Witness Lee's Local Church was a cult when I was a member. He claimed to be the Minister of the Age. Only his teachings were allowed to be taught. At that time the authorities discouraged member's from reading even Lee's the works of Watchman Nee, Lee's immediate predecessor. If the LC movement has enlarged to permit the teachings of others then it may broaden to the point of becoming a sect. But, I haven't seen much evidence of that among the LSM dominated churches yet.