France puts itself on suicide watch: MIVILUDES vilifying 'cults' to justify its own existence

Source

16 people including 3 children are shot dead, then burned with a flame thrower on December 23, 1995, on the Vercors Plateau, near Saint-Pierre-de-Cherennes in France

A government agency is taking on superstitious cults with unusual zeal

No other nation in recent history appears to have taken so fervently to apocalyptic prophesies as France has, reports the London Times. Then again, not many nations have a government agency specifically responsible for investigating "cults and suspicious spiritual activities." Indeed, the French agency - known as MIVILUDES - delivered a mass-suicide warning last week, apparently worried about a possible suicide frenzy come Dec. 21, 2012, the day the 5,000-year-old Mayan calendar ends. MIVILUDES contends that the Internet age, natural disasters, and economic turmoil - combined with the ancient Mayan prophecy - have inspired widespread belief in a coming Armageddon (there has been a recent migration of people to the hilltop village of Bugarach, said to be a place immune to apocalypse).

The agency's concern is not entirely outlandish: in the 1990s, 74 people belonging to a cult called the Order of the Solar Temple - 16 of them in France and eight in Quebec - died in murder-suicides to avoid an Armageddon. But cult expert Susan Palmer of Concordia University says that "MIVILUDES is creating artificial emergencies to support the state-sponsored anti-cult movement." Palmer, whose upcoming book The New Heretics of France, about the French anti-cult movement, believes MIVILUDES spends more time vilifying cults than actually researching them - "obviously trying to justify its own existence."

I, personally have never figured out the logic behind cults. The fact that people follow usually one person or a set of leaders that are said to be 'the enlightened ones' just baffles me with the amount of peoples ignorance. I find it very sad that people follow to the point were they take their own lives or allow their lives to be taken for this so called cause.

Although, technically, most organized religion is just a glorified cult, most of the believers would not be okay with just sacrificing themselves, well in the big religions anyways.

I think this whole 2012 thing is getting a little out of hand, but I guess the crazy ones will always be crazy. Maybe they will eliminate themselves and then we can call it natural selection.

If this group wants to exist, why is it not getting rid of all cults? Including the major religions? That's a group I would join and fully support.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

OP statements
"Although, technically, most organized religion is just a glorified cult, most of the believers would not be okay with just sacrificing themselves, well in the big religions anyways.

I think this whole 2012 thing is getting a little out of hand, but I guess the crazy ones will always be crazy. Maybe they will eliminate themselves and then we can call it natural selection."


. You state that you believe that most organised religions are cults, then equate them to crazies then suggest that they may eliminate themselves through natural selection? Seriously? Where is your compassion for individuals who have succumbed to a fanatical cult that suggests suicide is the answer to the supposed end of the world? Show me one place where an organised religion states this nonsense? These are individuals that have made a tragic mistake and choice.

reply to post by WhoKnows100


Ok, let me restate that.

Organized religion is just a cult with more real estate, and rather than killing yourselves, you kill other people who do not believe in the same god as you do.

I do have compassion for the people, I feel bad for them, but, people are brainwashed, and that's hard to undo. I could sit in here and argue all the negatives about religion non stop, and people will still come in here and tell me how it helps them. What people need to realize is, there is no god that helped you, it was you, you got yourself through whatever, god was nowhere in the picture. For if he helped you then he put you into whatever crappy situation to begin with.

Cults, as with religion, are all about taking the power away from the people. And most people gladly give it away.

Pred...

ETA: There is little you can do for a cult member. You could take each one out, give them a psychologist and hope and keeps tabs on them all the time, but it's almost like a drug addiction for these people. This does not apply as readily for major religions as most are just following repeaters who use religion as a crutch to make them feel 'special'.