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.

ISIS is a religion of War

CNN: Everything you need to know about ISIS

ISIS, International and Evil to the Core by Sara Niles

There is a serial killing psychopath on the loose killing thousands, and the killer is not a single person, but a collective group that is heavily funded and well organized: ISIS

AP photo credit

ISIS, the Islamic terrorist group is a dangerous presence in the world that bobs its head like a poisonous snake, and it is growing fast. Known for its barbarism and utter cruelty, ISIS shocks and angers the world by beheading people and burning them alive, spreading the images rapidly via the social media. The message itself is more propaganda than it is concrete, more irrational than reasonable, and it is because of this ISIS is able to draw those lost souls without a sense of direction who crave power and a place to belong in the world.Social Media is the recruiting station for ISIS as they fill minds of vulnerable people with hatred. ISIS is a powerful threat to world peace because it is growing in size and power, with an estimated force in Syria and Iraq of over  30,000 militant fighters

ISIS has a presence all over the world as this map shows (click on link).

What is its message and what does ISIS want, actually? In a nutshell, ISIS wants power, as much as it can get :What Does ISIS Want: The Atlantic In order to achieve great power, there has to be either a just cause behind it, or the illusion of a good cause, in this case ISIS speaks as though it is doing a religious service for the greater good. This is a method used often by cult leaders and propagandists: God told me to do it, or I am doing is for our God. ISIS wants to take over the world, and it is obvious by watching their behavior that nothing good will come of ISIS actions, at least that is true of reasonable people. The problem is religion is not always logical and reasonable, in this case ISIS uses the 'Judgment Day' as their excuse to create a man-made apocalypse: Bin Laden corporatized terror and franchised it out, so ISIS uses this model to go a step further, even further than the notorious Bin Laden. Evil is growing in the name of religion to the dismay of innocent and peaceful Muslims who want no part of it all.

The message of ISIS is so full of hate and so devoid of any constructive direction, that even al-Quida’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri  publicly disavowed any connection with this terrorist group, and ISIS responded  "Isis now presents itself as an ideologically superior alternative to al-Qaida within the jihadi community: Charles Lister in The Guardian. The ISIS threat is bold and arrogant in its claims and its actions are far worse.

 ISIS knows no bounds in its savagery and cruelty, as they murder women and children, old people, and innocent journalists. The rogue organization is recruiting militants from around the world by presenting an aura of power and strength to lure in those who crave power and what they perceive as recognition in the world. ISIS is like a bad kid gone wild, desperately wreaking destruction in order to get its way with no concern for the lives of others. The force of ISIS possesses a demonized  power that is dark and intangible, with an ideology so full of hatred and violence that it is evil to its core.

Like a dangerous pit viper in a closed room, ISIS must be stopped before their venom is spread further.

Sara Niles

World War III: Is a Third World War Looming? By Sara Niles

I learned about history from my Great-Great Uncle Robert, who was himself born in 1883, and witnessed both the Great World Wars as an adult. By the time I was introduced to the world wars as part of my history education, I already had a feel  for the climate of war, or the state of affairs that signal a tinder box of influences have converged to set the stage for ‘war’, or the preliminary technological and economic behaviors of today’s modern war. There have been hints of a ‘Third World War’ cropping up in the news, either as a direct suggestion, an innuendo, or as a likely path that the world is headed toward.  Pope Francis spoke of war September, 2013 when he was quoted as saying "Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction,"  The UK Telegraph The UK Telegraph: Pope Warns of a Third Wold War

Is the presumption that another Great War is in the making a paranoid idea of those inclined to yell ‘the sky is falling’, or is it a real and an imminent threat supported by experts in the fields of politics and economics? According to  The Examiner, credible experts  suggest a legitimate fear of a third world war, due to the unstable global economy and the complicated mixture of security threats as well as the resulting alliances that may result.  The stage is set for world mayhem, as leaders struggle to maintain the fragile hold on the relative ‘peace and security’ that exists within their countries as nuclear weapons are being forged by North Korea and  by Syria

According to The Business Insider: Nine Nations have Nukes 

 It is important to note that only five nations are legally allowed to have weapons, and they are China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA, with the U.S.A. and Russia holding 93% of the world’s total nuclear arsenal.

Russia and the United States were the two big players in the nuclear armaments race when I was young (my age shall remain a mystery). During the 1970’s  the armaments race had created so many nuclear weapons, and created such fear that we kids had ‘Fallout Shelter’ training in the schools as we watched reels of film in darkened classrooms warning of what to do in case of the ever possible nuclear fallout from a nuclear bomb.

Little did we know at that time the combined total of destructive nuclear power would have wiped the planet clean of all human life many times over, not to mention animal and plant life. We had more to fear then than we could possibly imagine. The world today has much more to fear.

 

Today the international world is more connected than it has ever been at any time in the past, with over 7 billion people 7 Billion People: The Worldometer in 196 countries, connected by an economy that affects the world through interconnected global markets, and networked through social networks via the internet. The world has changed drastically in the last fifty years, as information and ideas are exchanged at lightning speed. The economic chains that connect the global markets are subject to the power of information. The minute the job markets reports losses, or the Gross Domestic Product drops, the stock market reflects the changes internationally, as though the market itself is a giant thermometer measuring the world’s temperature. Fear breeds fear, and the emotional climate of the world is part of the recipe for either stability or chaos. The United States, Great Britain, and the United Nations, have served to aid in the stabilization of the international political scene, as well as serving to foster a spirit of soundness in the world. The principles and values of great democracies promote unification of the world as well as the humanitarian treatment of others, and the United States is a leader in that regard, serving as a world ‘police presence’ of sorts when great atrocities are committed.

The United States is not only a world leader, but it is considered to be the sole ‘superpower’, although China, India, and the European Union, are close on its heels and subject to gaining superpower status during this century. So why is there a reason to fear?

The appeal of what seemed at first to be radical acts of a few deranged groups, is now gaining ground all over the world: ISIS. Although ISIS is a relatively small force, with a wicked ideology, the danger is not so much a result of the power they hold among their own, but the danger lies in their appeal to lost souls, and disenfranchised individuals looking for a cause. When the world climate is stable, groups like ISIS are not as powerful; their power grows when too many people are unhappy and confused. Chaos breeds chaos.

Will there be a Third Great War? No one knows, or can know, but the signs of war are foreboding in the chaos and ‘piecemeal’ chaos, with “crimes, massacre and destruction” as Pope Francis stated.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

ISIS, the New NAZI Threat?

ISIS vs. NAZI

ISIS: Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

NAZI: the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (English translation)

ISIS –the term evokes horrifying images and brings to mind ideology that brandishes hate like a sword, much like the acrimonious acronym, ISIS. Could it be ISIS is the new 'NAZI' threat?

I remember when another four letter acronym that originally was veiled under the disguise of hope, became instead, a symbol of pure hate:  NAZI the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, formed originally to foster pride and hope for the German common people, yet became a hate mongering tool of power crazed Adolph Hitler during the 1930’s and 1940’s before the Allies toppled his regime. The Hitler led NAZI regime murdered millions of innocent men, women, and children in the most brutal and cruel fashion, much like the ISIS regime of today is doing in the ‘name of Islam’. ISIS has adopted the habit of brutally beheading innocent people and using the imagery on Youtube to both horrify most people, while mysteriously attracting others as their followers. The attraction of ISIS for the few who abandon home and family is much like the strange power of cultist religious group over its members, as they gradually become mindless and unquestioning, like brainwashed robots. Religions seldom hold violent belief systems that result in terror for the rest of the world, regardless of their tactics. ISIS followers are like religious converts willing to do anything in the name of its dark power, like beheading innocent people.

The beheading of American citizens that were simply trying to live life and do good for others, like the humanitarian, Peter Kassig, the third American to come to such a horrible fate, leaves the motives of ISIS crystal clear: they are hate mongers and terrorists. Why would anyone in their right mind want to join them after witnessing such atrocities? The only obvious answer is they are not in their right mind at all, but are lost. If being lost can cause one to be susceptible to the ISIS regime, then being lost is a dangerous place to be. Those so desperate to find a place in the world that any place at all will suffice, may find they have been seriously disillusioned. There can be no good outcome for ISIS just as there was not good ending for the NAZI party.

The NAZI party evolved into an evil killing machine that attracted power mongers, hate mongers and disenfranchised souls, seeking an identity at any cost, as members to the ‘new’ gang. The present day ISIS movement seems to have the same twisted power, the power to attract the confused, promising them a mission in life and an ‘identity’ as an ISIS member, as they hold destructive power over lives. 

There is only one valid outcome: ISIS must be stopped for the good of mankind.

 CNN ISIS Fast FACTS

ABC News ISIS leaves fate uncertain