Posted by Detractor on July 23, 2009 at 23:54:03
In Reply to: Re: Edward's illogical chain of logic posted by I do research for a living on July 19, 2009 at 11:57:21:
I'd agree that Revolutionary Suicide was not taught by COG, ever. But I'd ask whether it was ever taught by People's Temple? They did have an awful lot of cyanide on hand so I'd imagine that Jim thought he was taking his flock into the light like Carol Ann after it was apparent that his little garden of (not) eden was going to be under scrutiny from a US government official and media who were there to take people back who wanted to leave.
The danger that TF could have faced under Berg, was probably more like what happened to the Davidians than what happened to Jim Jones and followers. A crazy person is cornered and rather than have people defect, Jones mixes up the kool-aid.
Koresh gave a green light for some to leave but not for all and then once dug in, there was a very poor chance that anyone would make it out of there alive.
Berg did initially recognize Jim Jones and his following as some sort of martyrs. I'd think that any cornered cult leader could be capable of something tragic. This has happened too many times with too many orgs., like Koresh Davidians, Applewhite's following and others, but was Revolutionary Suicide a doctrine that was taught by COG? No, never.