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Dave has sought to blame me for questioning the ambiguity of quotes he made regarding pedophilia for the various allegations that have followed, and even suggested I initiated this discussion out of the blue. This is not true. The original discussion began in response to a poster on the JCs forum who asked why the JCs considered it a sin for consenting homosexuals to enter relationships comparable to heterosexual marriage. This woman suggested that morality needs to be based on an understanding of minimising harm with the example of rape in which the use of force against someone is manifestly wrong. Dave was trying to suggest some things are immoral just because God/society says so. The problem was that in comparing pedophilia to homosexuality and in the argument that so-called "seduction" negates the issue of force, Dave appeared to fail to grasp the issue of coercion and the sense of real harm that occurs when an adult abuses the trust of a child.

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Perhaps in Dave's mind he was just having an intellectual discussion and so it was not fair to try and analyse what he says beyond that. But a point is not justified just because you can spin an argument to defend it, and the isolation of Dave-speak from the real world seems to be part of the problem. How else can you explain the whipping trial that went ahead it seems against the good counsel of his own members? Dave seemed to lose sight of the forest with his interest in the trees in this conversation, and I felt the same myopic logic resulted in a convicted pedophile operating without the necessary supervision required to stop him from re-offending in India. The experiment to see if a pedophile who was accepted into a community where he would be denied the private liberties on his own and where he was surrounded by healthy adult child relationships may assist his rehabilition, failed. There were no community children in India, and so it seemed he was largely unsupervised when he went on to trains to sell Easy English books.

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The response against this individual when he voluntarily confessed his crimes was swift and absolute. It may be argued that he should have been handed over to Indian authorities and the involvement of the group that this person came from in handing him over to Australian authorities represents an attempt to distance himself from the situation, but the severity of the jail sentence would not support a claim of the minimising cover-ups that appeared to be common in the Catholic church.

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I recalled Dave's resistance to informing community members of this person's history for fear that the stigma may interfere in his acceptance into the community (although Cherry's counsel ultimately reigned.) And one parents horror in discovering they had left their two children in his direct care in ignorance, and overstated the extent of that problem, for which I apologised. However, the account of another pedophile being sent on outreach with a mother and her children some years later who had not been notified of his history suggests the original issue that I raised might have represented a relevant concern.

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The main point in the forum discussion where Dave denied "force" in relation to the coercion inherent in pedophilia, was that it might reflect a blind spot in his own behaviour in influencing young people to do things they may not have otherwise chosen to do. Dave has argued that parents have had a whole childhood in which to influence their son or daughter's thinking and if they have failed in this regard he is entitled to compete as an influence. Children are exposed to all kinds of influences and we can't wrap them up in cotton wool. But I don't think its normal for a 12 year old child from an Indian village to be told they can come for a visit to Australia where they will be sent to school, but find themselves sent out to flog literature on the street instead and told, when they beg to return home, that they are choosing between serving God or Satan... much less be maligned, when after some thirteen years service, for having joined with ulterior motives and leaving when she saw the prospect of a better life and taking their husband with her. [Comments posted by Ross and defended by Dave]

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I think comments where Dave minimises the nature of sexual perversion in the COG comes from the perception that critics have exaggerated the common experience, and individuals should take responsibilities for their complicity in the activity they were part of. Strangely this seems to result in Dave trying to blame xJCs for things they did under his leadership and acting like a victim when confronted by anyone who takes offence at his various attempt to demean and demonise those who oppose his excesses

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I am not seeking to join a lynch mob or have anyone publicly flogged for his "errors of judgement". But the truth is the truth and it might be in Dave's interest to swallow a little pride and accept a little personal responsibility for his actions, instead of always blaming other people for his failings

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The odd outreach team come to stay for brief periods

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It is after midnight here in Australia, and I have had a hard day. However, I have just come across a couple of posts by Blackhat on the RR site which raise some hope of meaningful dialogue with others on that site. I do not have time to respond tonight, but I do hope to make time tomorrow.

It is timely because I have been seriously thinking about the differences between the approaches taken by both sites over the past few years. Brian compares it to grenades and tanks vs a therapy group. Pretty good.

Even on the RR site there are some rough and tumble tactics that are allowable by law, even if some would prefer not to make use of them. It has been very helpful for me to go through the law over the past few weeks, comparing what I can take action on and what I cannot. It helps to accept that some criticism, whether true or not, may be quite unavoidable.

I have been conscious of efforts over the years by Kevin and Craig to distance themselves from some of the things that Brian and Rick Ross have done. I have been critical because of other similarities that I have seen. But maybe there is room for overlooking some of those similarities, even if we cannot fully get around them.

Anyway, off to bed now, and let's see what I think after a good night's sleep.

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It's morning now, and I see that Anita was up late last night too... later than myself, as she tried to deal with Apollo/Stoic, Corboy, and Rick all panicking at her suggestion that I may have been a victim of the COGs in some small way.

Obviously, as an adult, I MUST take responsibility for my own actions, and I hope to do that. But there is a glimmer of hope if someone can even begin to see that there may be understandable explanations for our differences, and that is what has so obviously freaked out these other three or four boys. They have so much riding on the other approach.

The chasms that exist between us (and that could be me and the RR site, but it could also be me and the X site) do, in my opinion, stem from at least a PERCEIVED unwillingness to allow for any hope of dialogue. If you read through the RR forum as I have been doing, for any length of time, you see that recurring theme. It appears to be why the term narcissist is so important over there, i.e. because they also have follow-up quotes which say that narcissists are unredeemable, that they should not be touched with a ten-foot pole. It's classic demonisation with a pseudo scientific veneer.

One of Rick's favorite quotes (and the one that came out during the Waco standoff, when he uttered it to the press) is that "all cult leaders are evil" or, what I think was one version of it at the time, which is "If you have seen one, you have seen them all."

But Anita's two posts (one from Kevin trying to give an honest account of my various encounters with the COGs, and one from Anita suggesting that this account could actually give a more hopeful interpretation of our differences) suggest that I may have been too negative in my impressions of the X site.

I see this one chink in the wall, with a little light coming through, and I want so badly to make some progress here, but I also realise that there is a huge wall (and a pretty thick one at that) still standing between the X site/Kevin and myself. There are a jillion things I want to say, and I can imagine there being objections about just about anything. But the bottom line is, "Do we want reconciliation?" For that to happen, I am going to need to resist the temptation to rubbish anything that is being said against me, and dare I say it, a similar impulse is going to need to be repressed (for want of a better) word over there, long enough to at least consider the possibility that this could be a turning point.

The rather obvious reaction by many would be, "So what are you doing wasting your time on the RR site, if there is more hope of reconciliation on the X site? I will try to explain.

I have tended to see the two sites as different attempts to achieve the same end, i.e. to ultimately condemn me, without any hope of resolution. But let's believe for now that I am wrong with regard to at least some people on the X site. I haven't been there for some time, mainly because it hurts so much when I BELIEVE that I am seeing Kevin take a similarly hopeless stance toward myself. I also BELIEVE that I see a lot of the same spirit in people like Anita, and I know that I cannot help but FEEL (rightly or wrongly) that it is supported by Kevin. I'm just saying that to explain why I am not rushing over there at the moment. Sometimes you have to actually get some distance away from those with whom you disagree, in order to let the air clear before you make another attempt.

I WANT to believe that there is hope, and I do NOT want to see things that might dash my hopes. If I run into the same kind of cynicism at the X site that I see coming from the four men mentioned above, I think it would be too overwhelming at this stage, and there is so much in the two posts that Anita made yesterday that I would like to build on first. I'm sorry if that seems unfair to people on the X site, but hopefully, if we can deal with this patiently, it won't be long before we are communicating more directly. (Even yesterday, I was talking with Cherry about the possibility, at some point, of actually accepting the offer of "dialogue and reason" that has been extended there, in the hope that it is an offer to me as well as others.)

Okay, so now let's move on to what Anita posted...

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I wonder if we can see those polarising traits anywhere else?

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Yes, I have tried to "minimise" the association by pointing out that I LIVED IN A CHILDREN OF GOD COMMUNE for a total of about three weeks.