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In Reply to: Crisis posted by goth88 on July 30, 2002 at 15:10:15:
That is so true what you describe. We WERE raped, we did have a knife at our throats and the worse thing is how cleverly disguised it was that people STILL don't see it. I still hear even exmembers say, "Well, why didn't they just leave, blah, blah, blah." It's just the same as people who smugly criticize a woman for returning to her abusive husband. They don't understand the dynamics, they haven't taken the time to even wonder why people respond the way they do. For example, they don't realize that in an abusive relationship, battered wife, cult-life, whatever, the battered person is made to feel that they are no good - useless - and that all their troubles are their own fault. If they didn't do this or that, or if they hadn't been this way or that way, these bad things wouldn't happen - it's all their fault. This is why I also believe, just like Joseph, that there are good and bad people in the F. It is obvious to me that the bad people are 99 percent of the time in the leadership positions, and the very high leadership positions. Certaily, they are the most responsible. Of course, this isn't always true because we do have Ray :) here and SSam, James Penn and others who I don't believe were or are bad people and if they were, they have certainly changed their ways enough to make amends for it. I do believe in forgiveness too. Basically, though, there are so many little peons who are just following stupid words and stupid leadership mantras and they don't know how to get out if it. They've been beaten down to think that anything that goes wrong is their fault and it's because they aren't good enough for God. We all know that song, don't we.
I'm glad you said that about anger, too, because that is very important. I was pretty angry at God for many years and then I felt guilty about it. Also, the guilt is pretty suffocating, that nearly did me in. Even my hubby said recently when he got an ear infection that maybe "God is trying to talk to me - it's a spiritual illustration." See, how ingrained we have been taught? I told him, "No, you just need to learn to use ear plugs when you swim in the river." Simple, end of discussion. All the rest is hooey.
