yuli wrote:Leonne wrote:Chris wrote:Sounds like a lot of mainstream religions... just sayin'...
Really? Which one?
For example: the catholic church in European countries until as recently as a few decades ago (the timing and extent of the control varies from country to country - check "Ireland" for the most obvious problems in the recent past)
Please help me with something to read about that, cos I'm not familiar to the particular problem you mention. It should be quick for you as you seem to know what you are talking about.
Are we talking about mainstream or particular movements in the mainstream? Because there are extremism everywhere, in every domain.
yuli wrote:For exemple, I don't think that common catholic churchs try to isolate their people from their families. I don't think they try to strictly control their daily routine, neither demand absoluten, unquestioning devotion and loyalty. It they do, of course they should be questionned.
I'd suggest you need to study a bit more history...
And while you are at it, look at Wahabi Islam in Saudi Arabia or Shia Islam in rural Iran.
And anyway, if you reread my comment you will see that I started with "How dangerous? And dangerous to whom?" and went on to suggest that when put into the context of other many other religions, "there is not much that strikes me as unusually unbelievable or unusally dangerous about the beliefs peddled by Ms. Ching Hai and her followers". In other words, i didn't really disagree with you as much as I was suggesting that i consider criticism or attacks on that particular religious group of Ms. Ching Hai misguided, since out of proportion, in view of the damage and pain other religions (notably the Judaism- Christianity- Islam triad) have inflicted.
Here I was giving the exemple of catholic churchs not trying to isolate their believers from their families, etc. The exemples you give are about particular islamic movements. I'm not sure I understand your point.
The mainstream religions whom you say they cause more damage than Ching Hai cult, they can be preached and practiced at many different degrees of committment, so there's no point in saying they are dangerous just because a few extremist movements in these religions are harmful (better consider these extremist movements independently, and maybe classify them as cults if they match the criterias). For the most, mainstream religions usually don't affect peoples daylife as much as cults can affect. Disciples of cults are 100% dedicated to their cult. Their enrollment ans degree of committment is not the result of the weight of archaic traditions, but the result of a conscious strategy of mind control, of which the goal is simply to exploit the disciples as efficiently as possible and get as much power on them as possible. That's 2 different problems, I think.
I think that in the previous post I have implicitly answered your questions. How dangerous? >>> look the criterias, these are exemples of the dangers of cults on people. And dangerous for whom? For the disciples of course, and the people who are vulnerable, and who can possibly fall into the deceptive speech of a cult like Ching Hai Association.
After that, I agree, there are other things more dangerous than Ching Hai, or cults in general. For exemple a virus, an earthquake, cancer, etc...
But this topic was about Ching Hai, that's why I didn't mention the other dangerous stufs which can affect people.
