hey zeuszor I understand what you've gone through, it takes time to get rid of the baggage of being in a cult. You should be proud of your courage for being a seeker after truth and to be able to join groups and do things that most people would find so scary, and then to have the courage to leave them too. I am also engaging in counselling (you have to find the right counsellour) who has really helped me understand everything I went through. There seems to me to be a very big correlation between joining a cult and having a "father hunger" of some sort; most of the JC's have had bad or absent fathers. I also believe that being willing to seek help is a sign of courage.
Xenophone, you seem to be a bit harsh on zeuszor, do you think you might still have some baggage from your time in the JC's? It can take time (years) and perspective to reflect on what really happened. You can still feel a compulsion to "preach the gospel" according to the JC's way when God actually just wants us to love eachother in a spirit of grace and peace.
It's amazing to open up your mind and soul to the everyday acts of love that are so widespread, to be free of a compulsive cult and see the kingdom of heaven all around you. The Western "system" has some problems but it has also overcome slavery, dictatorships, illiteracy, much poverty; in it's most advanced forms in Scandinavia it provides the best standards of living for everyone that have ever occurred, anywhere, in all of history. We concentrate on the evils which is probably important to continue to improve things, but it is important to look at history and the absolute drudgery, death and suffering that existed for 99% of the worlds population for millenia. We have emerged from that by the unfailing efforts of thousands of moral, corageous people who chipped away at evil, who campaigned to end slavery, to institute social welfare, for the vote, for the 8 hour day.
Even though our world population has increased dramatically, the proportion of people living in absolute poverty has actually decreased markedly in the last 50 years
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Hitler and Stalin were both beaten mercilessly as children. So was Dave, I believe. As we develop gentler, kinder societies, fewer and fewer of us are willing to go to war with eachother.
Creating a better society can be as simple as genuinely loving our children and spending time with them.
There is still a huge job ahead of us to make the world a better place, but we will only improve the world by being kinder, not cruel, by working with the best parts of the system, not against it, and by rejecting medieval and apocalyptic "solutions" .