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Comment by initramfs | Hacker News Reader

I also recommend Don Delillo's Mao II, which covers the Moon cult and the deprogramming of one of the ex-followers.

And Ted Patrick! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzlNrWlakmA

Cults are fascinating- some appear to be by opportunists, and others true believers, but all are dangerous. I feel that the word cult is sometimes given a bad name, and it is overlooked in the word culture, yet I think it is a great way to examine modern-day dictatorships and nuclear powers, which still use some some of that power (maybe not so much in the west) to broadcast a cult of personality.

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i wonder about the boundary lines. is believing that moses got ten commandments on a mountain like a cult?

Judaism doesn't proselytize. It goes out of its way to reject converts[1]. It actively encourages questioning and critical thinking[2]. These attributes are contrary to cults.

1. https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/17635/was-judais...

2. https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3574984/jewis...

is proselytizing a requisite of a cult?

That’s like finding green patches after a wildfire and pointing out that wildfires aren’t all bad.

I guess it depends. I've always liked this phrase, and it's not exclusive to the Christian Bible- it's in other Abrahamic faiths:

"“Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted. To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because ‘they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.’ Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them… But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.” – Matthew 13:11-14, 16"

Though I have to say, what is in the ten commandments isn't the most terrible advice. :)

it's good advice. it's what i'd direct my tribe with. that's what it is. the tribe leaders writing what is what for the ordinary people. that becomes their truth. it is a brainwashing, and i think, is basically what cult means.

One moment Moses is ordering the male children put to death. Next thing you know 3000 years later somewhere in northern Michigan an old lady is playing the pipe organ while signing off key.

If you agree with the BITE model then yes. Yes it is.

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