Featured Post

TORN From the Inside Out & THE JOURNEY

 MEMOIRS In 1973,  a young woman, barely sixteen years old, and a zealous member of a cultist religious group, married a twenty-three year-o...

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

The Dangerous Power of Religion: from mainstream to cults

By Sara Niles


Religion has been a powerful force throughout history and it remains a powerful force in the lives of billions around the world today. Religion can be a force for good that tilts the moral compass in the right direction, or it can be both good and bad, or even mostly bad. In order for religion to help individuals remain spiritually and mentally healthy, there has to be a balance. Life is about finding and keeping a healthy balance in relationships, responsibilities, and in behaviors toward self and others. Religion can help an individual balance life’s responsibilities while maintaining good personal well –being while taking care to respect the rights and wishes of others as a socially aware individual. The application of solid religious principles often means acting in good will toward others and using the Golden Rule as a measuring stick with the once popular WWJD or What Would Jesus Do, as an internal mantra that guides one’s actions. The flip side of the positive power of religion is the dangerous amount of influence many religious sects and groups hold over the faithful.  The power of bad can sometimes become concealed within the power of good, as in the case of sects and cults that deviate from the mainstream religions to form small microcosms. It is within the confines of respectability that some religious groups entertain single focused leaders with hidden agendas, some of whom are sociopaths seeking to control large numbers of vulnerable people. In other cases the religious group contains dogma within its code of operation that teaches obedience without question, and total and absolute devotion to the religious teachings that is disguised as the direct edits of God, or his representative. The power that a religion holds over its converts becomes dangerous when there is no room allowed for free thought or to question.

There are approximately 19 major world religions which are divided into 270 large religious groups, according to David Barrett, et al., the editors of the World Christian Enclyclopedia

 There are, however, many smaller branches of each religion as a result of various leaders breaking free to form subgroups. In America, the Christian religions dominate the religious climate, with mainstream Christian religions grouped into over 217 denominations. The Roman Catholic Church is indisputably the largest Christian religion in the United States Fast Facts

If one aspires to the Christian faith there are many choices to select from, although once selected, some do not allow for a change of mind. I was a Jehovah’s Witness for almost thirty years, my devotion was forged during my childhood, and it stood solidly, unchallenged and unquestioned until one day when  I was shocked into awareness. Although the Jehovah’s Witness religion fosters good among its faithful, the cultish requirement  of obedience without question and the unspoken creed that prohibits ever ‘leaving’ the faith under  the threat of being banned from contact with family and friends for life, is in fact too much control to be healthy. In spite of the subtle cult-like features, Jehovah’s Witnesses operate as a mainstream religion with over  8 million members worldwide

 With most of its members content with the rules and regulations that they voluntarily choose to live by, and with  most being family oriented and morally pure in practices, the threat ratio is not great.  I simply outgrew the limitations imposed upon me by the Jehovah’s Witness creed, and as a result of leaving, I have no substantial contact with former friends and family. Jehovah’s Witnesses are primarily  virtual ‘sheep’ that willingly give up control in order to feel protected and safe in the ‘fold’, while living in the world, but separate from the world, as they practice isolationism from all things worldly. Jehovah’s Witnesses are on the lower tier of cultish religions, and although the religion shares a few traits with cults, they are definitely not comparable to hardcore cults.
The more sinister religious cults operate under the control of men like Warren Jeffs, David Koresh, and Jim Jones. Warren Jeffs was the leader of the fundamentalist sect of the Church of Mormon, or the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FDLS), an offshoot from mainstream Mormonism in which men took plural wives, even allowing old men to illegally ‘marry’young girls who were merely children. Jeffs was convicted of sexual abuse of children and sentenced to Life in Prison in 2007.

YouTube Prophet’s Prey: Warren Jeffs

David Koresh and Jim Jones were not only after the souls of the unwary and vulnerable, they wanted their money, and eventually took their lives. David Koresh  was a violent misfit armed with charisma and a nearly photographic memory of the Bible, which became tools he used to manipulate the members of a religious sect called the  Branch Davidians located in Waco, Texas.

Koresh gained control of the sect when the prophetess died, and eventually became the voice of God to his followers as he set rules that were not to be questioned or challenged. Koresh decreed it his right to have sex with whoever he chose, including children because God spoke to him. The violent nature of Koresh led to the accumulation of thousands of firearms within the walls of the Branch Davidian compound and a showdown with the ATF in 1993 after a 51-day siege. David Koresh and 75 others were burned as the compound went up in flames.Waco Siege

Many of the children who were held hostage within the compound before the inferno, were interviewed later by Dr. Bruce D. Perry, the chairman of research for Baylor University, revealing the degree of extreme abuse and trauma suffered under the cult leader who ran the paramilitary religious community using “sex, violence, fear, love and religion…all intertwined”New York Times: 1993

Jim Jones ruled the Guyana religious cult using the same tactics, and led his followers to the same end, only Jones used guns and poison Kool-Aid to kill 913 of his followers , resulting in the infamous 1978 Guyana TragedyNew York Times: The Story of Jim Jones

In all of these cases, religion lost it force for good when individuals were deprived of free thought and were totally controlled by an individual or an entity with bad motives. The follower becomes the victim of the leader when individual will is denied. The fear to question was implanted within the mind of the followers so that questioning was equated with being unfaithful, and being unfaithful was equated with being damned by God himself. The problem with such thinking is God was not the arbiter of the beliefs, men were.

Religion power over people can be exploited to the point of creating monsters, such as in the case of ISIS, in which the power of the group feeds off misdirected religious zeal and huge chunks of land and oil worth billions of dollars. Much like the American religious cults that are breakaways from mainstream, peaceful religions, ISIS is supposedly ISLAMIC which is the peaceful religion practiced by over one billion Muslims; however, with a twist-ISIS is ISLAMIC but in no way are they peaceful.

ISIS has become an international super-threat that has boldly claimed via its leader that ISIS is a ‘Religion of War’ not a ‘Religion of Peace’.  ISIS has all of the deviance of David Koresh and Jim Jones with a thousand times the power, a thousand times over.



Saturday, May 9, 2015

Who Killed Jimmy Lee Jackson: From Selma to Baltimore, what have we learned?

By Sara Niles


America is a dynamic nation that adjusts to meet the needs of the people. During the 1960's the turmoil and conflict of war and civil unrest provoked enormous changes in American Culture. We are now at a new crossroads: Racial Justice.as the killing of Freddy Gray evokes a look back in the past.



The events leading up to the killing of Freddy Gray that inspired the marches and riots of Baltimore are eerily similar to the events that led up to Bloody Sunday of 1965 in which peaceful Black protesters led by Martin Luther King were brutally attacked and bludgeoned during the Selma to Montgomery march. The death of an unarmed Black man preceded both the famous Selma march and the Baltimore marches and riots.  Jimmy Lee Jackson was a 26 year-old Army veteran , father, and activist, who was  also a revered church deacon whose only agenda had been to break down the voting barriers for Blacks living in the south, before he was murdered by an Alabama state Trooper while trying to protect his mother and grandfather. 

   Freddy Gray was arrested in April of 2015 after having been chased down and charged with carrying an illegal ‘switchblade’, or what some consider a pocket knife. During the police's  apprehension of Gray, serious injuries were suffered that resulted in his death. Jimmy Lee Jackson was shot by a state trooper, and Freddy Gray was killed by lethal force by the direct and indirect acts of six officers of the law, in both cases two young Black men were killed, sparking a national reaction.

Both Gray and Jackson became catalysts of change during a time when the climate was ripe: the civil unrest of the 1960’s due to racial inequality, was building to a climax, just as in the case of Freddy Gray. The  Rodney King Beating of 1992 Ignited protest and riots, leading to the trial and later acquittal of the officers responsible. See Video of Rodney King Beating

The killing of Freddy Gray was the last straw for many who were fed up with killings of unarmed Black men by members of law enforcement without any serious recourse. It is as though an unspoken creed was in place, based upon cultural biases: the general culture within law enforcement is a reflection of the larger culture, and as such, the devaluation of young Black men in America has become an implicit bias that is acted out more than it is openly expressed. The long history of American injustice toward Blacks goes back to slavery, and with the ending of slavery came hundreds of years of prejudice and bias that prevented the unimpeded Black vote as recently as 1965 when the violence against peaceful Selma marchers led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act   signed by Lyndon B Johnson which removed the multiple 'legal' barriers to the Black Vote.  The culture of the South was so infused with prejudice and a sense of White supremacy that a special act of congress was needed to overcome it.  In the case of Freddy Gray, culture hides implicit bias that protects ‘legal’ murder by police officers only when the victims are Black. If a police officer was seen on video firing several shots into the back of an unarmed, Rich Young White Man, for a minor offense or no offense at all, the outcry would be horrendous and the repercussions swift. But What If, What If the treatment or young White Men and young Black Men was reversed and young white men were killed in the streets by police? The value of the lives of white men would be changed and this would be especially true if such behavior became so routine that mothers and fathers of young, rich, White men would be uneasy and fearful that a police officer may murder their son under some pretense of just authority or cause. It would be especially unjust if the officers routinely 'got away with it', to the point they were no longer in fear of losing jobs or freedom if they carelessly fired upon unarmed, rich, White men. Pause for thought.

The truth that is borne out by an accumulation of facts,and that truth it is the fact that unarmed, young, poor, Black men are unequally targeted and unequally treated by police as part of police culture. The 'Blue Wall' of protection and false allegiance that exists within police culture is part of the larger 'Blue Culture', or the accepted norms and attitudes that exist within police departments across the country. Many of these attitudes are unspoken, not a part of written policy, but are in 'the air' as part of the belief systems that build police rapport. The unquestioning support of officers for each other allows room for the few police violators to exist as bullies within the force. Little by little values are eroded and the norms change until the 'good cops' stand quietly by while the few bad apples corrupt the badges they swore to honor. 

The police culture operates within the larger culture in which similar attitudes exist within juries and within the courts that allow too much leeway in the 'discretion' of an individual police officer. The boundaries should be the same for all, 'justice for all' includes holding police officers to the same standard as we are all held to. When courts routinely fail to indict and routinely acquit police officers for crimes they routinely indict and convict others for, it is an injustice.

Since the Rodney King case that ended in acquittal, the cases of police murder and unlawful killings that have received national attention are increasing:  Police Murder and Killings, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and Walter Scott are just a few of the well-known cases. The Killing of Young Black Men has reached epidemic proportions, it is almost like open hunting season has been declared and innocent blood is being shed. Justice is not being served and the patience of Lady Justice is running short, as evidenced by the enraged moral consciences of the Million Mother's March held this Mother's Day, 2015.

Justice involves the act of balancing the scales when a wrong is committed, an act that is integral to keeping a morally and judicially balanced structure within civilized society. When justice is lacking, or when it is only paid lip service to, the society as a whole suffers in the long run. Things are out of balance when Black men are murdered by those entrusted with the vested power of the law behind them, and especially when the scales of justice are tilted against the victims


The health of society demands the scales of justice become balanced. The killing of Jimmy Lee Jackson and Freddy Gray are loud cries that must be heard; otherwise there will continue to be growing civil unrest as injustice tears apart the fabric of society.  America was built upon the principles of justice and equality, as the Pledge of Allegiance states, we will have “ Justice for All”. Until there is justice for all, America will remain unbalanced. Jimmy Lee Jackson died seeking justice. Freddie Gray still awaits justice. Let there be "Justice for All".