QuoteVTHokie How did we get this far off-topic? :) I was merely trying to show how the god of the Bible was also used as a cure for all ills. Remember how people used to take the pages of the Bible and wrap them around people limbs etc. The Bible makes explicit promises to reward people who follow the "ways of God", so to speak. As such, it's sort of an "all-purpose
Forum: Hate Groups

I can't take seriously the belief that Jesus walked on water, resurrected the dead, et al. I believe all of this is mythology and was known to be such by the people who wrote the New Testament. My belief is that the founders of most religions simply mythologize their system to sell it. It's the founders of the world's religions that I have the most beef with, not the people who
Forum: Coercive Persuasion and Undue Influence

My contact with various people high up in certain religious groups (Protestants, some Catholics and Lubavitch, in particular) lead me to conclude that many people are inducted into religious institutions and taught fertilizer "for their own good and for the good of society". Even a philosophy professor I had in college told me "for the sake of creating a society we can lie.&q
Forum: Coercive Persuasion and Undue Influence

I think this was the evangelist who was toppled by Jessica Hahn and his church was very close to the Hickman church I went to. And of course, the were both rivals. Profeta's people constantly went around saying how "... God was going to do great things..." Exactly what, they didn't know. My parents went to his church to spy on it years ago. The walls in the main
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

With the proliferation of the internet and considering how were "in the information age", it seems obvious to me that you should shop around for EVERYTHING you do. Would you marry the first girl you see, or marry her after only knowing her for a few hours or days? Only if you're an ex-actor from the Partridge family (if anyone doesn't know what I mean by this, I'll
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I found out from a website that there's a form of mental illnes going around Israel, particularly Jerusalem, that people think that they're the reincarnations or resurrected figures from ancient Judaism like Elijah, Isaiah, etc. And you can find people like this around the Carlebach group and around Diasporah Yeshiva. I've tried to exorcise any last residue of what these org
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteVTHokie "gods" in the polythiestic sense were more like medicine today. Having trouble getting pregnant? Try one of the fertility gods. Ask your neighbor what she used and give it a try. Of course, you had to buy the god to put on your shelf and then make sacrifices and there was no HMO for that kind of thing. The Bible also says (paraphrased), "...." or words someth
Forum: Hate Groups

In the article, "The shadow side of Shlomo Carlebach" it was pointed out that some of the women couldn't believe what actually happened. And one woman, when she was little, told her mother who said, it couldn't have happened. But these days, people are mobilizing. Fighting back may be difficult but there are organizations that can help and there are hotlines to handle a
Forum: Clergy and Therapy Abuse

QuoteVTHokie If a person doesn't believe their religion is the best one, they probably shouldn't bother with it. There's a difference between saying your religion is the best and saying that all other religions are bogus and dangerous. I have no problem with people witnessing their faith to me as long as they don't throw the weight of law behind it. As a former atheist, I am
Forum: Hate Groups

I think he joined Islam of his own free will. Jihad is a central belief in Islam although he took it to mean overthrowing America. Personally, I think a just punishment might have been to deport him to a Moslem county (of course, then he might have done more terroristic activities but I don't think so - I think he'd flounder overseas).
Forum: Terrorist and Extremist Groups

I think you have to realize that all religions "light their religious symbol". All of the religions I had contact with in my youth were VERY vehement that only they had the keys to the truth. Now, they're all backing off of this. The Catholic Church used to say that only that church was the "one true church". Today, from what I heard, they believe that if a perso
Forum: Hate Groups

I believe that clegy need to be cut from a better cloth than the typical person. They shouldn't be abusive by nature and sexual misconduct is out. But the reality is that, as of the last generations anyway, there were abusive clerics and little or nothing was done about them, either in their lifetimes, or as of now if they're living. Rabbis Lanner and Carlebach come to mind
Forum: Clergy and Therapy Abuse

Every cult I ever saw or read about thinks they're in a world unto themselves. But underneath it all, there's more similarities than differences. Most cults wall off the world and make a strong line of demarcation between those in the cult and the outside world. It's as if only the world in the cult is spiritually correct and the rest of the world operates in a fashion that
Forum: Destructive Churches

Destructive religious movements are a topic I comment on because I got involved with a few as you know from reading my posts. I don't believe that any person is capable of joining a destructive organization. It seems to me that most of the people I knew from Hickman's church and Lubavitch, among others, were people who were estranged from religious establishment of their upbringing.
Forum: Destructive Churches

On Purim, besides reading from the Megillah, Jews also dress up in costumes and do pranks. One really artful prank was a spoof on the Jewish Press called, "Not the Jewish Press". Without getting involved in all the details, the second version had a mass rally pictured on the cover with thousands of people waving their arms in the air. The headline read, "Meshiach Hegiyah"
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I'm using the word Messiah in the broadest sense, not just in the orthodox Jewish sense. Many movements caused problems when they promoted the idea of the religious leader as a Messiah. Moon, Guru Maharaji, Hickman (a rather small potato), and others, transcend the role of a normal religious leader. They become answerable to no one (actually, Maharaji's mother demoted him as L
Forum: Destructive Churches

I joined a number of movements that went ballilstic after I joined them. The Hickman church (Shoresh Yishai) in the mid 70's, the Chabad circa the late '80s, and my affiliation with a noted Jewish folksinger and his followers. The Int'l Church of Christ also tried to sign me up. By that time, I was pretty well innoculated against all of this. The best suggestion I can give
Forum: Destructive Churches

If I remember correctly, it's illegal for churches to try to convert Jews in Israel.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

A high up person in Jews for Jesus told me that I should have feelings of concern for Jack Hickman, the misleader of the Shoresh Yishai movement that started out in Hicksville, LI and East Meadow, LI. It would have been easier to do that if Hickman didn't start threatening to kill people who decided to leave his movement. Also, I was followed by people in his movement when I came back from
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

There's a bookstore over by the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem that tries to convert Jews openly. The missionaries take on Hebrew names and tell potential converts how to "complete" their Judaism. For example, there's 2 types of Jews, a completed one and one who hasn't . Also, Israel attracts missionary groups that put on musical performances et al. on the streets of Jer
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

There's a university called Hamilton U that Dr. John Bear calls a diploma mill and so do the courts. As the state the school operates out of has loopholes in their laws for religious schools, they can grant degrees for any subject based on their religious basis. They claim affiliation with a religous order called FION. I'm not sure if this constitues just a business scam or a cu
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

It's noteworthy that the daughter of a Rabbi who spent so much time and energy trying to bring Jews back towards orthodoxy has so much trouble with the orthodox world because of the "kol isha" issue. Perhaps it's divine providence that she has to sing to reform and conservative audiences. It seems to me that she is experiencing why so many people left the orthodox world
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The late Lubavitcher Rebbe believed that the sun actually revolved around the earth. But since it happened so fast, it looks the other way around. And since he's the grand rabbi, who can argue? Even Einstein should marvel.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I've heard this story a few times from a certain Rabbi MF. This rabbi, tells about a woman who became a BT. Then, she visited her parents (after she was a BT for awhile) and they undid a lot of the "reprogramming" as it were that they did to her. So they shipped her off to Jerusalem to be put totally under the watchful eye of some outreach workers in Israel. They did what
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

When I was at Yeshiva D'var Yerushalayim Rabbi YK gave this talk about how Einstein really wasn't that bright compared to many of the ancient rabbis. The funny thing is that the Lubavitcher Rebbe was a good mathematician, but was he on Einsteins's level? I don't know. Also, Einstein wasn't a braggart. His only field was physics, his theory of relativity specifica
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

There are alot of real estate gurus out there who advertise their "guaranteed" methods more or less. Some will tell you that the people in their infomercials aren't typical. Some use old techniques that every real estate agent in the country knows that a given guru's pupil uses. Also, you usually need good credit to buy a home no money down. And no money down is illegal in
Forum: Multi Level Marketing and Commercial Schemes

If you look up Hadar Hatorah's web page, you'll see that Rabbi Shea Hecht, is the executive director and Rabbi Yaakov Goldberg is the Rosh Yeshiva. Goldberg was hand picked by the late Rebbe, Menachem Schneersohn. Hecht's father, JJ Hecht used to run (and I think he founded) the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education, which also operated out of the same buildi
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The more a cult likes to tamper with a person's ability to think and reason for themselves, the greater the problem recovering. Some cults sort of function like : Only the leader has real brains, you aren't very bright, let him do all the thinking. It can be extended that the leader's top disciple(s) may have reasoning power too. It took me years to get free of all the vari
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

When you deal with MLM, you're involved in what's called a Ponzi scheme. It works based upon a principle in mathematics called a "geometric progression". I remember an old episode of "Dragnet" where it was explained that when you're involved with this type of deal, by the time you get to the 12th level, it involves hundreds of millions of people. (You get 1
Forum: Multi Level Marketing and Commercial Schemes

This is a good question as their are numerous factions. As far as I can tell, it seems to be between Liebel Groner (he's the believer in miracles), Yehuda Krinsky (the one with all the international contacts), some smaller groups and probably also the Schneersohn family as they control the rights to the "Tanya" the textbook which is the "Bible" of the Chabad group.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"