No. This is all nonsense.
At the poker table, if someone says they have Aces you believe them right? If someone calls a cat a dog, you think its a dog then right? If someone says he is the King of England, you say "Its an honor your highness" because that's enough for you? Any fool can call something a "religion" and apparently you would go along with whatever they say. They couldn't possibly be mistaken or lying, right?


Is Astrology a legitimate science since it uses stars and planets? Apparently you think so, but it is not.

Is Numerology a legitimate branch of mathematics since it uses numbers to make predictions? Apparently, you think so, but it is not.

In the earlier post, I posted partial definition of a cult which was taken from knowledgeable academic sources rather than from some elementary school dictionary. Just because some organization has some superficial features of a religion, it does not make then a legitimate religion. Notice the term "legitimate". I'm not referring to the generic superficial use of the word "religion". Legitimate, authentic religions are never cults. Cults are never legitimate religions.

As for the rest of the statements, you simply do not understand the extreme abuse, intimidation, violence, exploitation, and threats that Scientology has made on their victims. It is nothing like the cherry-picked questionable examples you gave about mainstream religions. You need to learn more about the horrid practices of the Scientology cult.

On this topic I take my cues from Bart Ehrman. Here's a link to an elaborate review of one of his books (with main arguments bolded):

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...us-the-gospels

Even if that were true, it applies also to cults. Thus no distinction is drawn.

You can be a distant follower of the so-called cult, the Dravidian branch for instance. I prefer not to used the word cult- new religion is more apt. The new religion, scientology, is a curious case- part of the religion is only available to elite members (donors). But even so, that doesn't stop you from being a distant follower of the accessible doctrine. Likewise, a distant follower of Christianity misses out on the church aspect of the religion- something he would only enjoy if he attended church and paid the expected tithe.

@ Pokerologist, there's no point continuing if all you're willing to do is impose your self-made defintions of cult and religion without addressing the points of discussion.

Even if I accept your distinction, I have a joker card to play- the KKK. This group appears to fit within your definition of a religion- or at least, it doesn't meet your 8 distinguishing points. Indeed the KKK was considered a religion by most Americans over 100 years ago.

So don't be bashful Pokerologist, I want to hear you say, in this thread, that you embrace the KKK into your definition of religion.

The KKK was not and is not now a religion and never believed to be so. I believe the crosses they displayed somehow stated that they were Christians who were against Catholics and Jews among other things . Not a Christian organization but more a political reactionary force but the read is better.

Also the idea of "cult" is of course in the negative but if there is an organization which displays the attributes as stated by Pokerlogist then it would be better to beware of the same.

Definitions only serve to somehow obfuscate the issue but if a group of Catholic priests are being manipulative as to tithing it would not be a good thing and would hardly be the test as to whether the Catholic Church is a "cult" and be placed in the same ground as Scientology.

Of course, considering the natural negativity of some there will be some that would pick Scientology over the Catholic or Christian churches, LOL

It would be better to speak to its origin and if it was begun by aliens then no amount of logic should dissuade one from approaching this group with hesitation. To each his own but really, when the politicians get involved and declare a religion anything goes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

And oh yes, one can be a Christian or other, without being a member or practicing member of any specific church. Lots of them now days because of the lack of fulfillment of the churches.

The following is an amalgamation of lectures give by Rudolph Steiner as he speaks to "cultus" as the focus of religion. Of course it has been turned on its head in modern times and anything termed a "cult" is anathema and probably should be in our intellectual exegesis. The mystery of spiritual comprehension is in practice barely awake and hopefully to be reawakened again but here is:

"The cultus derives its binding power from the fact that it conveys spiritual forces from the spiritual world to earth and presents supernatural realities to the contemplation of human beings living on the earth. There is no such reality for man to contemplate in rationalistic talks that have the effect of making him forget the spiritual world, forget it even in subconscious soul depths. In the cultus he has it right there before him in a living, power-pervaded picture that is more than a mere symbol. Nor is this picture a dead image; it carries real power, because it places before man scenes that were part of his spiritual environment before he was incarnated in an earthly body. The community creating power of the cultus derives from the fact that it is a shared, comprehensive memory of spiritual experiences."


"The cultus speaks to greater depths than those of intellect: it speaks to man's inwardness. For at bottom the soul really does understand the speech of the spirit, even though that speech may not be fully consciously perceived in present day earth life."

Why do you care what they believe? What importance does it play in your life what one believes. It is true if one believes that blowing themselves up in a act of suicide bombing one then can be worried about such beliefs. But in general if one believes in a pink elephant god what harm are they doing? From my perspective the world in and of itself is crazy whatever belief you hold. You may have a fixed rooted belief in logic and science but that is just as crazy as believing in a Pink Elephant God. We reach a certain point of security in our lives then after that it is all gravy. Since no established rule can be made on how one ought to live their life it merges into a mere subjectivity. Your own personal experience of life is all that matters to you and only you. Why do intelligent people only seem to spend a vast amount of time at work (they usually hate) and buying things they don't want, getting married to people they don't really love and having kids they don't have a clue on how to raise. To me that is far more crazy than any belief in scientology but don't take my word for it just look around you.

Religious beliefs and the mindset behind it have far reaching consequences in our daily lives that go beyond terrorism. They are not a solely internal phenomenon but inform the decisions of the believers.

I witness more madness from economical and government beliefs than I do religious ones. I also see how believing in an education system that fails students is more reaching and has more dangerous consequences than any religious ones. I spoke to a head teacher about the education system and she said "It isn't about the subject you learn that gets you a job. What gets you a job is the type of jobs available currently on the market." I was suggesting that one should be taught to be an entrepreneur to create future job markets and businesses. She failed to understand my point. She was claiming (with the fixed belief) that one could get a qualification in Islam just because it can be taught as a subject. She believed that any subject can be taught. Which is true (but to me it is a crazy belief). My point was that one should be taught subjects that actually prepared them for real life situations. She didn't back down. Here I rest my case. On one hand we have the idea that Koran is a bad book for teaching kids morals but yet acceptable to be taught as a subject in school that one can get a degree in.

The meaning behind this then is any subject is up for grabs. Do you want a qualification in FSM? because thats just as valid as any of the rest of the bull**** flying around. So I agree religious beliefs are dangerous but NOT as dangerous as government policy and big business deals behind those things also are belief systems. A belief in the greater good or production but never human well being. But who cares what I think!!!

Which is completely irrelevant to this discussion. This is a debate (or rather has become) on religious (or rather a discussion of some specific) traits.

If the best you can come up with in retort is "two wrongs make a right", you have pretty much conceded the point.¨

Also, the implicit argument you're making... that people who criticize certain aspects of religion must automatically support any aspect of any non-religious movements is completely absurd.

Anyone ought to know that if someone comes along with a wind bag story that this "religion" is based on the theory that an alien warlord came to earth 75 million years ago with billions of frozen souls, placed them in and around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Those spirits then attached themselves to humans and that is the cause of all of the worlds problems. That takes a lot of explaining to do so that it can convince people to believe. The question then arises what existing state are these people in to believe such a thing in the first place. In my opinion it is the direct result of the society they live in. This is why I bring it up. Look are we really going to debate the facts about scientology? Where the **** would you begin? More important is the cesspool from which these thoughts came from.

To me it is disconcerting that no one seems to approach government or big business in the same fashion. You know things that actually impact our daily lives. Everything from money to the education system just seems less important. But what is MORE important is the type of Pink Elephant you believe in.

okay. Forgive me. Who wants to hold the belief that scientology is true and I'll argue why it isn't. That should take about 10 minutes. Let me see the proof!

The very link you provided states that:

"At its peak in the mid-1920s, the KKK claimed to include about 15% of the United State's eligible population, approximately 4–5 million men"

The "eligible" criterion probably excludes females and non-whites- so let's reduce the 15% to 5% of the overall population.

That's still a big number. To put it into perspective, Islam is only followed by 1% of the US population (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_..._United_States) yet it's widely accepted in the US as a religion.

The KKK has always been politically motivated. But, in the vain of other religions, they take a leap of faith in their unsupported belief that the white race is superior to others- a belief that forms the back-bone of their political agenda. They have a hierarchy similar to other religions and adopt some of the Christian doctrine into their belief system.

Even if you don't accept that the KKK is or ever was a religion, you'd be hard pushed to fully categorise it as a cult owing to the fact that it follows part of Christianity. Is the Christian component to it's teaching categorised as a religion but the remainder cast aside as a cult? Isn't that a rather strange way to treat it?

I want to hear Pokerlogist admit, like a man, that his definition of religion encompasses the KKK.

How is the 'something' you offer distinct from the 'somethings' offered by islam, judaism, buddhism, hinduism, daoism, etc?

You say that man was never an animal. Do you accept that **** sapiens evolved from other species? If so, at what point did our predecessors cease to be animals?

Psychology Today isn't exactly a place that one should normally go for a scholarly review of a history book.

Ehrman's works are not without their flaws. He does seem to overstate the strength of his position with regular frequency and in his books he often does not meaningfully address the many counter-arguments to his position. It leaves the reader with a poorly-informed view of the scholarship.

This isn't to say that his work is without merit, but consider this a warning to not fall into the intellectual echo chambers and take his arguments as unchallenged truth. I strongly urge you to carefully read and consider the critiques of his work as part of developing a broad understanding of the material.

No I do not at all believe the pseudo Darwinian belief that we are direct descendants of the ape. Like I said the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms are the "rejected" or "precipitated" beings/entities of the human evolution.

One will find the entire animal kingdom in the human being but only with respect to the negative. It calls for understanding that evolution is manifest spiritually and I believe that somewhere in the written above I made mention of this.

To your first paragraph what I wrote speaks for itself.Also, as I spoke of the Christ Being there were references to Him within the Hindu, Persian(Zoroastrianism) and Hebrew religions, all of whom I have great respect for and homage to .

Christ is about the individual man and his development across many lives into Man's new state of being and in this time manifests appropriately. As per Paul, "Not I but Christ within me".

I see what Pokerlogist presented is clearly different than the impressions of the KKK . The Ku Klux Klan does not and has not ever followed Christianity or Christ, which is not about divisiveness but about Love, like it or not.

Stretch all you may, but everything is not everything, and the differences are clearly there to be seen.

Well, the 2nd KKK was driven mainly by protestants who argued that Catholics weren't Christians and that Jews were sub-human. They clearly thought of themselves as Christians, and many agreed with them.

It's nothing new. Christians have been quarreling and killing eachother for two millenia over which version of Christianity is correct. It's safe to assume that if negative aspects of Christianity is discussed, it is in reflection over such practices more so than religious acts of charity and acceptance. For you the more aggressive versions of Christianity might not be "true Christianity", which is a good thing - but that hardly renders the discussion of such practices void.

Whoh !! There was the reformation and Martin Luther of the 16th century and of course the separation of the Church of England during the reign of Henry V111 . The pilgrims came to the new land in order to escape from the suppression of the English Monarchy and perhaps for other reasons.

The wars of Europe had a decided Roman Catholic edge until the breakup subsequent to Luthur but the various sects and churches didn't fight against each other in the manner you stated.

There was talk, there was study, there was excommunication, but the idea that the sects such as Presbyterians, Methodists, baptists, roman Catholics, or other distinct churches in Christianity were at literal war is nonsense. The wars were fought by nations which were actually formed during the reign of the Roman Empire transformed into the roman Catholic Church; this period ended at approximately the 16th century.

Pretty strident that you would state that they were killing each other for 2 millennia and a sweeping generalization. This in no way justifies some of the practices of the Roman Church/Empire prior to the 16th century( or afterwards) but at least say something reasonable .

The Norseman wrecked havoc on the British Isles and other northern
European countries and the arrival of William the Conqueror in 1066 stratified the English aristocracy who proceeded to wreck havoc on Europe under the guise of civilization and were primary factors in World Wars 1 & 2 as they were not without sin. That's the legacy of the Norsemen; abject killers and mercantile miscreants, still at it. Are you one of them ?

The KU Klux Klan has been denied by just about every Christian Church but matters do take time and its easy to condemn Christianity in this prurient hindsight. Laying the KKK on the doorsteps of Christianity is the great lie, easily appreciated for men of understanding. Read the reference again and sit on your hands.

I'll state clearly that Christ is not about war, or divisiveness but of course mankind is on a great journey in which the individual man improves in nobility, this through the risen Christ. This is all men, of every nation, race, clan, gender but as we all well know the individual is not perfect but hopes to be so.

I'd like to add that the "cultus" is within the Christian religion and is expressed in the sacrifice of the mass. In the so called "secret societies" such as freemasonry there is the expression of the "cultus" within . As per my reference above the "cultus" is present in many religious and occult societies but due to our loss of an appreciation of the spiritual world it has morphed into some type of materialist error, to be used by men of negative faith and comprehension.

I have imbibed western civilization but out and out factual errors should not be left untouched because of the negative bias of anti religious zealots. I can't justify the world for you but hope for its improvement.

I never said the KKK was representative of all protestants, I merely said they viewed themselves as such, and their views were not uncommon. Catholics have a long history of being persecuted in the US. The rest of your post makes little sense to me, you don't seem to be disagreeing the long history of Christian against Christian violence - but you also seem to call me stupid (paraphrased) for saying it has occurred. That doesn't make much sense.

I don't agree that Christ is not about war. His everyday teachings might be to accept your fellow man, but the revelations and general message of the bible clearly speak of a very real and very brutal conflict. The revelations very clearly tell us that Christ has a very central part in that war.

That's about as foolish as anyone can get; I'll stop for somewhere in that type of perception/thinking there is no tomorrow. If you bring forth gospel sayings to that effect you might make a point but you're just throwing rocks. LOL

You keep calling me ignorant, but actual knowledge of the religion you keep calling me ignorant about seems to have escaped you.

No, I get it and that particular revelation is when John was within the spiritual world or kingdom of God. there is suffering in the heavens and earth and in fact as you and I travel between lives there will be a time in which we will actually demand a particular suffering in order to fulfill our destinies.

Observation from that world is one can see the opposite that of the earthly perspective. Man demands his difficulties upon return to the earth and in this reincarnation and karma manifest large.

Most, if not all, cannot come to grips with the Revelation of John and I consider myself one of them. It is so much involved with the evolution of the soul and if you consider just one statement "rod of iron" would it ever occur to you or me that the salient referral is the evolution of the iron laden blood in some perspective.

The blood in Christian esotericism is the vehicle of the "ego" or the "I" of Man. The physical is included in the bodies of man and strangely enough the "I" or highest spiritual being of a man rides the blood, so to speak.

In ancient times up to the event of Golgotha man lived within the "blood" of peoples such as the Persian, Hebrew, Indian,Egyptian or Greek and so mankind learned the mission of Love within a nation and this is even obvious today.

During this time(s) the work if Lucifer was the attempt to individualize the individual man and did so within man as he rode the sensate body(astral body) whose physical projection is the nervous system. Lucifer was ever present attempting to extricate the individual from his nation, the nation of blood ties. Blood ties were/are more than a simple smear on a petri dish but a active force within each and everyone of us. Love developed and grew through the blood ties as projected through higher beings who wished man to travel the road of goodness.Lucifer fought on...

The difficulty with blood ties is that individualization was non descript for in blood ties the "ego' of man was masked, for want of a better word,'I and Abraham are one", the Hebrew spoke through the blood to Abraham and in fact was able to perceive the peoples of the Hebrew blood to which the "Ego" of Abraham was source. In another approach this is called atavistic consciousness.

And so, man is encased within his nation as one's finger would be in our body, not really able to individualize without a new Impulse and the Christ Being, known to the ancients s the Messiah incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth at the Baptism. Within the lower bodies(3) of Jesus of Nazareth the Ego was replaced by the Christ Spirit and worked until the event of Golgotha or death in which times He became the Spirit of the earth.

Just as you and I are spiritual beings so is the earth and the Christ entered into the hearts of All Men as guide to the overcoming of death and into the refurbishment of the human soul. Now, at least, the blood ties would be broken and in this there will be difficulties between Father and son, mother in law and daughter or in effect the blood ties will become a the ties of blood or the ego between all men through Christ.

The Love within nations was now to become the love within all human beings within Christ, through wisdom and Love. the rule of iron, so to speak.

Lucifer changed his course and attempts to keep the human soul within his nation or race and manifest within as in old times thus denying each man an individuality within the Love of the Christ Impulse through the blood.

If you're an atheist who does not see, believe, comprehend or whatever a spiritual world, no matter how little it is, it becomes difficult to comprehend the same. Atheism is unhealthy thinking and the truth cannot be ascertained within unhealthy thought.

If you followed me in some manner then through thinking we were both contained within the world of the spirit.

The "Philosophy of Freedom' by Rudolph Steiner also known as the "Philosophy of Spiritual Activity".

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/...004_index.html

The KKK is political organization and nobody, not even the KKK, claim it to be a religion onto itself. The Republican party is composed of a lot of religious people too but it is also not a religion. Why I even need to explain this I do not know.

Btw I'm declaring Twoplustwo a religion and that Mason Malmuth is our Patriarch and David Sklansky is a high priest. Our current god is called Fortuna. We follow the doctrine of Expected Value. Our main prayer is "Come on... One time!"

Of course this means that anybody who is a member of this TwoplusTwo forum is now a member of a religious group. Sorry secular atheists, but you are now in a religion whether you like it or not! If you really don't want to be part of a religion, you' ll have to asked to be excommunicated from Twoplustwo and it will be considered. A small donation will help.

BTW Please address me as Pastor Pokerlogist for now on.

I'm not sure who you are trying to address, but obviously no subset of a religious movement is the religious movement. I don't understand why this is somehow a very important point.

To continue your analogy, republicans of the southern states is not the Republican Party. They are still republicans, however. The behavior / attitudes they exhibit might be relevant in a discussion about the republican party.

If your point is that the 2nd KKK's views were very marginal and thus should be considered an extremist outlier when it comes to Christian religion, that is a another point entirely. We could bring up the same point about the 3rd KKK when it comes to politics. Obviously they represent a very extremist political stance, but it is not necessarily irrelevant when discussing broader political lines.

see post 128

KKK is not a religion nor is it part of a religion. According to wiki, KKK advocated white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-immigration. Nothing to do with religion. No Christian church has declared the KKK a subset of it. "Virtually every Christian denomination has officially denounced the KKK. (wiki)" Just because a high proportion of some group tend to claim to religious doesn't make that group a religion. If not then you must consider that a group like the Republican party is a religion and other similar goofball ideas. gl

The KKK don't meet your 8 distinguishing points (below) brah. So they can't be a cult.

The KKK's particular leap of faith is that the White race is superior. This is not a political stance. It's a belief without evidence.

So now, dear pastor, you need to suck it up and embrace the KKK into your definition of religion.