In Reply to: excellent point posted by Acheick on July 24, 2004 at 17:50:25:
It's really too bad. I've met a lot of ex-members at this point and as far as I can tell, every one was sincere when they started out.
There are so many ways to do good in the world. So many organizations that have been successful without promoting and encouraging abuse.
It seems like they try really hard from time to time to clean up their act. A while back, The Family quit mailing us GP publications, but one of the last ones we ever got really raised my eyebrows. It went on about how Family members had to start letting people know what they really believed. When they stated their beliefs, the very first thing on the list was "We believe in sex". Not, "We believe in Jesus Christ", or "We believe in helping people"... it was "We believe in sex".
When I read that I wasn't even sure what that meant. Sex is not really a belief system, it's something people do. It's like if someone walked up to you and said, "I believe in hearing", or "I believe in breathing", or, "I belive getting my back scratched". It's just very odd to have your entire religion based on something like that.