[FRIAM] YAC - yet another cult

[Marcus Daniels]

It's all feeling a little too Westworld, lately!   Time to run the mass shooting Swarm, again.

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2022 9:17 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] YAC - yet another cult

Yep. And it's not focused on religion or cults of personality, either. It broadens out beyond, say, conspiracy theories with real political impact like QAnon and voter fraud all the way out to the alienation many feel from social media, incels, mass shootings, doomscrolling, the pandemic of existential ennui, gerrymandering, oligarchy, disenfranchisement, etc. Hell, I'll even blame the 15 lbs I've gained over the past 2 years on a "lack of belonging"!  ... yeah, that's the ticket.

On 7/19/22 08:57, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> When it becomes as a serious as dogma, it seems like it might be time to confront what is leading to the addiction rather than the addiction itself.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
> Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2022 8:45 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] YAC - yet another cult
> 
> I agree. And that's why the criticism that atheism *is* a truth claim (a belief) is convincing to me. Standard caveats #notallatheists, obviously. But I find it especially in the "deconstructed Christians", those atheists that are really just running from a toxic religiosity. They need a recovery group to cope with their traumatic history. The problem is that their recovery group *seems* to orbit "atheism", whereas it shouldn't.
> 
> Addiction recovery methods often involve "substitution". E.g it helps to use nicotine patches to quit smoking. Or, alcoholics can drink tea every time they get the urge to quaff some vodka. Recovering Christians may tend to substitute Atheism for Christianity. It *is* a category error. But someone who is habituated to metaphysical claims might invert atheism and treat it as a truth claim. I think a lot of recovering Christians do exactly that.
> 
> On 7/19/22 08:34, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Glen writes:
>>
>> < And that's something non-religious atheists don't really have (though they clearly *want* it: https://seattleatheist.church/). >
>>
>> A support group connected to an idea undermines the integrity of the idea.  It's culty.
> 
> 

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