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In Reply to: There were two main reasons, Kerry posted by Donny on June 15, 2002 at 18:34:53:
You and your family situation was an example and a cornerstone in the God's attitude-Family style toward people who leave the group. It set the course for a lot of fear and was a fear tactic used to keep people in, and those who left were kept in the guilt-zone. I believe it is because of this that many of the younger generation especially who have left have completely given up on the idea of God and religion, and esp. denounced the Family because they have to decide if the Family was right, then they are guilty and therefore should rejoin the Family, or else the Family was wrong, therefore its doctrines were wrong, its leaders were wrong, and if the Family is wrong, where was God all those years and how could He have allowed so much bad to happen in His Name? Didn't He care for them (us)? So, the reasoning leads you down to:
Either there is no God
or God really doesn't care as much as the Family says
or He is a very biased and racist God and supports the Family, and in that case you don't want to have anything to do with Him.
At least these are the things I have gone through and still have to face every so often, this deep questioning about God and the Family and how it all goes together, and to be honest, I get a little lost in it sometimes.
All that to say, your situation was an example of abuse and control through the means of religion by a religious leader who had it wrong. And for which reason I totally support the American constitution that calls for a separation of church and state. It is my personal opinion that religion holds a stronger control over people in most cases then government, and when you mix the two together you get a very powerful dictatorship. But if they are separated then hopefully there are checks and balances so that one or the other doesn't become too powerful.
