Jonestown, 30 years Later: Inside People's Temple, the 1977 exposé.
In its special website section devoted to 30 years since Jonestown, the San Francisco Chronicle has republished a copy of a 1977 report on Jim Jones and People's Temple by Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy. The investigative report marked a turning point for People's Temple, an arc towards the catastrophic end that would come one year later. Before this exposé was published in New West magazine (because back then, the Chronicle's editor refused to run it), Jim Jones enjoyed what amounted to broad support and protection from news organizations, powerful social figures, and politicians who saw the influential preacher as a "deliverer of votes."
Collectively, they turned a blind eye to mounting reports of coercion, corruption, and physical and sexual abuse within his church. And they bear some responsibility for the tragedy that followed.
I agree with what one sfgate.com commenter wrote about the two tenacious reporters who fought to produce this piece:
30 years on, this is a piece that should be required reading by all journalism students at any level. To quote the 1998 article on why this was published in New West rather than the Chronicle, "Kilduff said that when he later proposed a story on Jim Jones, (San Francisco Chronicle city editor) Gavin said 'we had done a profile and that was sufficient.' I went at him several times, and said I thought we should do more. He didn't see it that way.'" Jones had co-opted the powers that were in the City, including the Chronicle, and only the persistence of Kilduff began to reveal the horrible truth.Three decades later, the whole article is a must-read. I'll paste the final two paragraphs here:
Inside Peoples Temple, Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy, Monday, August 1, 1977. (SFGATE.com). Here is a PDF of the original 1977 article (via Jonestown Institute). The SFGate web feature on 30 years after Jonestown includes a number of related features, both archived and new, all well worth reading.[S]omething must be said about the numerous public officials and political figures who openly courted and befriended Jim Jones. While it appears that none of the public officials from [California] Governor [Jerry] Brown on down knew about the inner world of Peoples Temple, they have left the impression that they used Jones to deliver votes at election time and never asked any questions. They never asked about the bodyguards. Never asked about the church's locked doors. Never asked why Jones's followers were so obsessively protective of him. And apparently, some never asked because they didn't want to know.
The story of Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple is not over. In fact, it has only begun to be told. If there is any solace to be gained from the tale of exploitation and human foible told by the former temple members in these pages, it is that even such a power as Jim Jones cannot always contain his followers. Those who left had nowhere to go and every reason to fear pursuit. Yet they persevered. If Jones is ever to be stripped of his power, it will not be because of vendetta or persecution, but rather because of the courage of these people who stepped forward and spoke out.
What lesson should we learn from this today? Why does this matter now? Snip from an extensive piece in today's Washington Post by Charles A. Krause, one of the journalists who survived the November, 1978 trip to Jonestown with Congressman Ryan:
Many Jonestown survivors and their families believe that the lessons of Jonestown are to remember and guard against demagogues who use religion as a cover for fraud, deception and imposing their own sometimes dangerous social and political beliefs on their naive and unsuspecting followers.(...) It was that theme that dominated Tuesday's memorial service at the mass grave in Oakland. In an emotional and highly charged address, the Rev. Amos Brown, bishop at San Francisco's Third Baptist Church and president of the San Francisco NAACP, warned the mourners to beware of religious leaders who claim to have all the answers and insinuate themselves into politics, as Jones did so effectively in San Francisco.
"Good religion elevates folk, it teaches people to think for themselves. Good religion isn't authoritarian. Good religion isn't bigoted," he said. "Open up your eyes, America. America isn't a theocracy, it's a democracy. . . . And that is the lesson we must learn from Jonestown."
Boing Boing posts on Jim Jones, Jonestown and People's Temple:
- Jonestown, 30 years later: original audio recordings from People's Temple and Guyana.
- Jonestown, 30 years later: Life and Death of People's Temple (PBS video).
- Jonestown, 30 years later: interview with a survivor (video)
- Jonestown, 30 years later: From Silver Lake To Suicide
- Jonestown, 30 years later: "Father Cares," NPR documentary from 1981
- Raven: The Untold Story of The Reverend Jim Jones and His People
- Andrew Brandou on his Jonestown paintings
the latest
latest episodes
The problem is not that Jim Jones went crazy; no one learns the lesson, few get to the root of the problem. So, they asked what would that be, FoetusNail. Religion, all religions that rely on beliefs instead of logic are destructive. All paths lead to Guyana.
Jim Jones was not the problem. Sure, he conned a bunch of people out into a jungle. Yes, after many practice sessions, like emergency launch drills on a nuclear submarine, he convinced a majority not only of a need to die, but gave them the will to die and murder those who were weak. But Jim Jones did not create the existential handle with which he manipulated those people. Jim Jones just took advantage of what is already there in most of us brought up in the judeo-christian-muslim world, a handle welded to our brain stem by the purveyors of lies and fear.
See the people that died, more importantly the ones who murdered others and then committed suicide were not weak. No, this is where logic fails the believer. Those people were the strongest; the best religion has to offer. They give an abject lesson in what it truly means to believe in god.
Until we understand, the blood of those who died in that jungle runs through Jim Jones from every church, synagogue, and mosque in this world this will happen again and again. The blood of those children is on the hands of every parent who ever told their child to believe in the unseen.
We are made to believe when we can not understand,
and to obey so that we will never understand.
This is the lesson. This is the truth of Guyana. Almost a thousand people died for nothing. The only thing that will ever give meaning to their lives and deaths will be for the rest of us to understand there is no truth beyond this; religion is a lie. Religion is the most destructive lie ever told.
The Saviors Lament
Where were you when I called
Do you not see the signs
Among the deaf and blind I walk
Invisible before you
You will not know me
For there are no miracles, but life
No savior, but yourself
Refusing to understand
Unable to let go
You will deny this truth
You will deny me
For not giving to you
That which you possess
I have shown you the way
There is only one answer
If it were left to love
The world has taken a right
This is it
This is all
Take it
You wanted it
Not what you expected
Too late
What are you going to do
Kill me
As long as there are religions that practice mind control, as they all do with few exceptions, the potential exists for another Jonestown or Waco, Texas.
Sticks and stones
Tea leaves and bones
Pennies in a well
Stroking crystals
Reading palms
Pray the future tell
The spiritually impaired
Shake, rattle, and roll
The ethereal crutches
Of wandering souls
"All paths lead to Guyana."
Wow, that's quite the sweeping generalization you've got there. All religion is a lie? What would you replace it with, your truth? You know, you sound like just another evangelical to me.
"All have fallen short of the Glory that is 'fill in blank here'".
You're going to replace it with what.... Atheism? That hasn't worked out so well now has it.
Religion is one form that our desire for social cohesion can take but certainly not the only one. Like any other impulse it can get out of control and become destructive. It doesn't have to be and to eliminate religion with out some other way of holding society together would be... to say the least, unwise.
Balance, balance in all things.
The mistake is believing there is truth. Beyond truth and lies is acceptance. It must be recognized that all religions that start with the exploitation of a child's ability to believe have Guyana or the Twin Towers as a terminus. A very serious and dangerous mistake is to view a Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Osama bin Laden as the problem. They would not exist without the handle religion attaches to the believers mind. Also, by blaming them we never have to examine the nature of our own beliefs.
This is not about religion or truth, atheism or theism, and it has nothing to do with spirituality. This is not about fellowship, love, or compassion, all of which exist independently of religion. This is do we continue to implant institutional beliefs into our children, which serve no purpose other than to control their minds, their lives.
Religion is not some impulse, but a very ordered and successful method for controlling minds. Religion does not hold society together. Religion by its very nature splinters society, the proof is in the hundreds of divisions found in every religion. This is the truth that is hard to understand and accept, that religion offers no truth, yet continues to believe in itself.
There is only one wide path. We all are on the same road, but we each see it from a slightly different perspective. We are like snowflakes falling. We are all the same, yet no two are alike. We all fall from the same place to the same place through the same air. What makes us unique is that we all fall at different times, following many different paths through the same air, and some are drawn back up through the cloud once, others a hundred times.
Snow is a mind
falling, a continuous breath
of climbs, loops, spirals,
dips to the Earth
like white fireflies
wanting to land, finding
a wind between houses,
diving like moths
into their own light
so that one wonders
if snow is a wing's
long memory across winter.
Steve Crow
Religion seeks to impose its order on beauty that needs none and by doing so creates disorder where there was none.
"Many Jonestown survivors and their families believe that the lessons of Jonestown are to remember and guard against demagogues who use religion as a cover for fraud, deception and imposing their own sometimes dangerous social and political beliefs on their naive and unsuspecting followers."
""Good religion elevates folk, it teaches people to think for themselves. Good religion isn't authoritarian. Good religion isn't bigoted,""
I guess I'm wondering why that's the lesson. I thought the issue with Jones was that his "social and political" beliefs were laudatory (i.e. socialism). everyone thought he was doing great work.
I'm also wondering where the bigotry was in Jones (other than "pro-Jones" bigotry, I guess)
Maybe Jones was a tertium quid: neither religion nor politics.
They all operate under the guise of religion. Jones is no different than any other religious leader, politician, or conman. Does it not appear the entire human race is headed for a suicidal extinction?
All religion is bad, because all religion teaches adherents to think for themselves within the imposed boundaries of faith, which gives the grifters who exploit this vulnerability a pass through the believers BS detector. This is why the entire community accepted him.
We are born with freedom of the choices available, as each moment passes opportunities come and go. Some things we learn allow us to see further ahead in our individual time cone, we then perceive more choices. However, other lessons, especially when learned very early, serve to cloud our vision. God is one such lesson, which places limits on our thinking.
The beauty of their work is that the believer is convinced the opposite is true. Believers are convinced this implanted belief, this implanted experience, is the only way to gain the fullest experience of humanness. The pervasive nature of these beliefs makes it impossible for most of us to conceive a world without religion.
Well, Foetusnail, I was going to do my usual defense of my religion, but then you said
Since my religion is based in logic and reason, and my God really doesn't care if you believe or not, you are not addressing my own beliefs. (And there was great rejoicing from the myriad boingers who are tired of the same old arguments.)
I still think your viewpoint's a bit skewed, though; I think the things that you righteously excoriate are really not required attributes of religion, and that these hateful things are characteristic of many other social constructs... such as atheistic personality cults (think Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, and to a lesser extent Stephen Hawking) various political memes (such as fascism, corporatism, or neo-conservatives who say socialism is evil so we have to bail out wealthy bankers) and pseudo-religious racial destiny movements (like Christian Identity, Stern's version of Zionism, or the "manifest destiny" movement of the American West).
Appealing to logic and reason, the conclusion "the set X is bad because it has characteristic(s) Y" is disproved if it is shown that "not all members of the set X exhibit characteristic(s) Y". If you re-define the set X as "the set whose members all have characteristic Y" you get completely circular reasoning, which doesn't prove anything at all.
When you refine your argument down to "belief systems which require believers to abandon science, reason and personal value judgments are inherently destructive" I think you get something much more valid, because such systems are easily commandeered by charismatics, and when combined with strict authoritarian control structures (such as those of the historical Mormon and Catholic religious hierarchies) these same charismatics then command fanatical, self-sustaining armies that will commit atrocities without limits, such as mass murder/suicide, or religious crusades, or unprovoked wars to support the price of Texas oil.
OK, that's enough for today, I have code to write before I sleep. My inability to follow Internet threads makes me feel like Vramin sometimes.
--Charlie
Foetus, I largely agree with you. Anyone who tells you exactly what to believe is probably going to ask you for something. Anyone who helps you on your quest for your individual truth is probably a friend.
MDH, are you a UU?
1) See Stalin, Mao, Subutai, Hoxha, Kim il-Sung.
2) Syndrome sez: "you are a unique and special individual... just like everyone else".
3) Perhaps the human race is headed for a scientific apotheosis (or "singularity" if you prefer).
Foetusnail, you're getting very repetitive. Say something new?
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28151
Foetusnail - some of what you say I like and some not so much. I'm just coming at this from a pragmatic viewpoint that there is a real difference between a cult and religion, between leaders who seek to control and dominate and those who don't. I'm an atheist myself and yet I don't believe all religious traditions are evil. I don't agree when some people try to conflate fundamentalism with all religion.
Pduggie - "I thought the issue with Jones was that his "social and political" beliefs were laudatory (i.e. socialism)."
Ah no... that was just his front, his con. The issue with Jones is that he was a psychopath who used people. The fact that he took advantage of people's trust doesn't mean that we should throw away any institution built on trust. No more than because the twin psychopaths Bush/Cheney were able to game our political system means that we should abandon Democracy.
All those that exploit belief are the same, some others practice a more fundamental viciousness when they cannot control the controllers.
Stalin reopened thousands of churches when he needed them again during The Great Patriotic War.
Kim il-Sung's maternal grandfather was a Protestant minister, his father went to a missionary school, and his parents were active in the religious community. North Koreans believe he is an Almighty God who created the world and has no beginning. Since his death his son has continued the deification of his father. Christopher Hitchens likes to say N. Korea is only one short of a holy trinity.
Subutai was a Mongol. The Mongol Empire was probably one of the most religiously tolerant societies in history, Subutai was in modern parlance a Field Marshall under Genghis Khan who was quite religious.
I don't really care which Hoxha you're referring to, but so far these arguments are typically a waste of time. Why do those that oppose my posts always trot out a few bogus exceptions to the rule? OK, I concede there are exceptions to the rule, what does that prove about religious mind control and 50,000 years of mass insanity.
The fact remains after 6,000 years of modern religious indoctrination most people don't have a single original thought in their heads concerning gods or religions, even the so-called non-believers who believe we should be tolerant of this BS.
The fact remains extremely few people have been elected in most Western countries without being photographed attending some sort of religious service, especially to a national office. It will be a long time before any openly non-religious person is elected President in the US. Hell, these people will elect a Muslim before they vote for an anti-theist.
Lastly, after 6,000 years of peddling the same lies, you think I'm the one that needs to say something new, thanks for the laugh. The whole snowflake thing was new for me, the poetry was all new to this site. No, those that would defend the mass insanity that is religion, that has brought the human race innumerable Jim Jones, need to find something new to say. And you offer up a few names of which none are exceptions to my statements.
A scientific apotheosis, you mean some sort of rapture. I'm going to assume you understand that apotheosis refers to becoming divine. A scientific divinity, what a laugh, humans have been playing god with this planet for 50,000 years, why not make it official.
No, it is I who sits here at each thread waiting for something new, but the cap religion has placed on almost all human minds makes that impossible.
Here are some oldies, but goodies. Refute these statements. Religion is a lie. Religion offers nothing new. Religion offers nothing that can't be found somewhere else. Religion seeks to take credit for all that is good, while asking us to beg forgiveness for everything else.
Taking the kids to the park, I too am looking forward to something new.
The more interesting part of this is that rather than being "investigated" with any vigor that might have protected his followers, Jones was effectively exported over the horizon in the hopes that the "deliverer of votes" would blow himself up in someone else's back yard and do so quietly. Obviously this backfired very badly.
As a result, I think that the lesson was probably learned on a broader scale although the enthusiasm to not let similar situations fester led to other fiascoes such as the incident in Waco, Tx.
taxes on organized religions would be a good first step to controlling their excesses and abuses.
One can argue endlessly about belief systems. But if we go one (or more) level deeper, probably in our biology there are a few leaders or alphas and a majority of followers. We don't know what ants or bees believe in, but they follow their biologically programmed lives and very few of them are leaders or "in charge." Perhaps we humans are the same and the great majority will always follow something, whether it's religious or political or hedonistic or evil. Maybe the challenge is to get the followers to follow a path to the greatest good. But that could lead us back to religion.
First -- I want to address the Stalin meme (my first use of the word -- very exicting!) that it trotted out by folks as the answer to -- killing in the name of God. You know, Religion is the cause of all killings. Followed quickly by: No, godless communism and Stalin killed more.
This argument bothers me on several levels -- the most glaring is that when people kill for religion, they are doing so "in the name" of their religion. Not as a result of being religious. Stalin fails this test. He wasn't killing because he wanted to further atheism. They weren't linked in that way. He was just killing for political gain -- something Cardinal Richelu did under the guise of religion.
So -- this leaves the argument framed under -- well, if you remove religion from society, people will get killed -- look at Stalin!
I find this suspect because there are many countries in Europe right now that are essentially athiest and no Stalin is running up and down the street killing people. This one falls under the basic category of God-less athiest means no accountability. Ugh. Tiresome. This is an argument that is really just dressed up righteousness -- I'm-a-better-person-than-you Mr. Athiest.
Finally, I am worried that the right will sieze upon this Jonestown thing and spin it that Diane Feinstein let these killings happen on her watch for votes -- or as a wedge to tarnish Harvey Milk and the good push on gay issues of the current Milk movie right now ...
taxes mean oversight, records, audits. A chance to see what the true believers are getting up to in their cathedrals and basements. Get some money out of them to pay for universal medical care and keep them from abusing children. Win/win.
Taxing religious orgs would be a good start. Not gonna happen though. Trying to define some sort of legal distinction between religion and a cult won't happen either. Tar and feathers, stick with the classics.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aGSJzqaJm_b0&refer=europe
where is the legal basis for tax exemption of religion? Identify it, attack it systematically.
http://www.taxthechurches.org/
I hate to change the subject of "bash all non-atheists" but I am having a sense of deja vu:
"Jim Jones enjoyed what amounted to broad support and protection from news organizations, powerful social figures, and politicians who saw the influential preacher as a "deliverer of votes."
Hmmm...
1) Protection from new organizations
2) support from powerful social figures and politicians.
3) Deliverer of (new) votes
4) Kool-aid drinkers
It seems as though I have heard this more recently...
It starts in Colonial times with the little New England church on the green. Everybody goes there, no religious variety; it's the town's church. The citizens build it, maintain it, tithe to it, hire a soulwatcher; they even re-paint its scaling green wood every few years and dig new toilets. It's THEIR little church ... so they do not tax it! Why in hell should they? It's their money to begin with.
Fast forward: WHOOOOSSH! $cientology, Peoples Temple, Waco, the Romans, the shitkickers, the soul rockers and the cock knockers, et al. We exempt these monsters of extortion and embezzlement, these theistic abortions, all because we wanted to help ...
the little village church on the green.
Shit sure does get out of hand, don't it?
could still have the little church on the green and not hurt it at all - because it's poor to begin with. Can't take what ain't there.
Ah yes. Religion. The source of every single problem ever. Remind me to chain up my girlfriend when I get home. She's a methodist. Don't want her murdering me with her brain control now. Damn methodists.
Or, alternatively, it's possible that it's all a bit more complex than that.
Surely there's other factors than religion here. Firstly - the terrible dangers of centralising all you authority. Central authority and extreme hierarchy is at least as easy to blame for all humanity's problems. Actually it works better as a cover-all explanation than religion because it picks up those 'atheist' mass murderers that cause the entire 'it's all religion's fault' to look a bit shaky. Centralisation always leads to massive risk because if the centre fails (or, in this case as in so many, if the centre turns out to be a prime nutbar) then you suffer massive system failure.
Secondly - the terrible dangers of immensely charismatic but psychopathic individuals. If you think this problem is going to go away the moment all religion goes away then I'd be excited to see your working out.
Thirdly - the counter argument. The counter argument that religion also helps people to live happy lives as good people who do good things. (Disclaimer - I'm a staunch atheist.) Just because you believe in a god or gods doesn't make you a mass-murdering scumbag. For instance, can you say Ghandi? Tolstoy? Martin Luther King? Similarly, just because you believe there's no god doesn't mean you're any less likely to be a massive prick. For instance - I don't believe in God. I'm a massive idiot. It just does not compute.
so you agree we should tax religion.
Yes. I'm all for the redistribution of wealth.
#25 -- thank you, I agree, and even though I was posting my disdain for an athiest-bashing argument, I get sick of the other pole too. I too an am Athiest who knows many loving church-going, syngogue-going, mosque-going peeps who do good deeds, motivated by their faith. I get tired of the word "christians" being slurred to include all when it's really just an odious part of the spectrum ... I have to believe there is a way to harness the human desire for the faith experience into something more positive than hate soldiers ...
The only thing more nauseatingly tortured than attempts by religious zealots to present Stalin as the exemplar of atheism is the attempts by atheist zealots to excuse Stalin's behavior.
Maddy,
First of all, in the examples that I gave (and many others) large numbers of people were interned and slaughtered precisely because their religious beliefs were contrary to state atheism.
Secondly, the other victims of mass murders were also killed for a reason. In Stalin's case, huge numbers died because of his crackhead agricultural policies. Food is arguably the biggest cause of war throughout history, but I don't see anyone arguing that we should stop eating. Wars are fought for money, oil, other natural resources, food, cheap labor. You have presented Stalin et al's holocausts as if they were natural disasters.
I was raised by scientists. We had no religion at all in our household and I had virtually no exposure to it. I'm sorry for those of you who had infelicitous religious upbringings. Religion is one of a host of possible motivations for murder and mayhem. Five hundred years ago, it might have been number one. In the twentieth century, it wasn't.
The basis for tax-exemption is that the money that goes to churches has already been taxed when people earned it, and what the people who go there receive in return are intangible religious benefits.
Also, Christianity explicitly defines itself as an extra-political entity (the Kingdom of God, etc).
"The power to tax is the power to destroy", and generally, in the US, the state has recognized it has no authority to destroy religion or destroy the rights of conscience (often informed by religion)
The state taxing religion would be the state asserting dominance over religion (i.e. conscience). A state that does that is all-encompassing and totalitarian in outlook.
I still wonder why being against "bigotry" is "the lesson".
Was Jones bigoted? Is that the best way to get a handle on him?
Was Stalin bigoted?
Bigotry is bad, but not all bad is bigotry, is it?
pduggie,
So you're an anarchist? Can I define myself as an extra-political entity, too? Is it a free-for-all of self-definition? I'd certainly enjoy not having to pay taxes. And I'd be exempt from any number of other nuisances like laws and stuff.
pduggie: read the first page, it corrects your misapprehensions
http://www.taxthechurches.org/
Antinous,
Your #30 was hit clearly and cleanly out of the park. It doesn't take a lot of words to get it right, and you sure got it right.
FTW.
Takuan: that page actually makes my point: its view of tax-exemption as the state "granting" a privilege and asserting jurisdiction over churches is the root problem.
The state of Pennsylvania doesn't grant tax-exemption to the fenderal naval shipyards, for example. Rather, the federal government is immune from taxation by states.
Likewise the consciences of people are legally superior to the government of people (at least in the US)
I'll grant that talk of state "granted" "exemptions" from tax are confusing. Better to eschew incorportation and exemption as matters of conscience and live with tax-immunity.
If I pay my son $2000 to do some work around the house, do I have to have him file a tax return?
(I probably do: but that's just an example of why this country is so screwed up)
"consciences of people are legally superior to the government" oh? Try withholding the part of your federal income tax that goes towards war making, assuming you are against wars of aggression.
Antinous:
I'm not an anarchist, but I think its a positive good if we view some parts of social organization as sacrosanct. The intangibles provided by religion should be one but there could be others.
Think of the concept of sanctuary laws (ancient and modern) as an example. Its a check on overweening state power. We're Americans. We're supposed to like checks and balances.
For along time periodicals in Pennsylvania were not under sales tax because of first amendment issues IIRC. That's a good thing.
No, because you can gift anyone $11K per year tax-free. Note to self: Set up tip jar.
I'm merely arguing that religion doesn't get to be special. It isn't the cause of all human conflict and it shouldn't get a free ride either. It's just one of a number of large cultural entities.
Takuan: That's unfortunate. Its also unfortunate if tax-exemption would be removed from churches.
Its also unfortunate that rights of conscience against war only apply to those that are against all warfare.
But I get more dewy-eyed over agriculture than religion. To me, sowing and reaping have much more spiritual significance than anything that could happen in a house of worship. I'd much rather give tax breaks to small, organic farmers than religious mega-corporations.
Uncritical thinking is poisonous. That is it.
If Religion promotes uncritical thinking, then it is poisonous.
If Science promotes uncritical thinking, then it is poisonous.
Uncritical thinking is poisonous.
Truth will stand criticism. Power will not, lies will not, money will not, which is why uncritical thinking will be promoted by everyone with a vested interest.
That is it.
Uncritical thinking is poisonous.
That pretty much covers it. We inevitably grow up as a conglomeration of other people's assumptions and prejudices. If we don't examine and overturn them, we're no more than zombies.
It has also unfortunately been established that the growing of crops 1) is commerce, not religion, and 2) growing crops for personal consumption affects interstate commerce and falls under federal jurisdiction.
I'm not in favor of the latter at all, nor the political philosophy that spawned it.
Truth will stand criticism. Power will not
Well sure but in a real fight power will win. Then there is that pesky "Congress shall make no law..." that gets in the way.
I would prefer to trap flies with honey, vinegar don't work so well, so I'd like to see better access to education. People sometimes complain that journalists are liberal. Well that's because they have a college education. One's level of education correlates very well with liberal values, especially skepticism regarding religion. That's why the right has been attacking education for the past 30 years or longer. Ignorant, frightened people are easy to control.
talk, talk, talk, I'm going to go out and knife a priest and DO something!
I'm not great with words, but I think previous commenters have really come close to my own way of thinking.
There is no silver bullet or single cause to senseless killing like this. These issues become very complex and by the time it reaches the point of explosion (or implosion) there are so many myriad of causes and effects built into it that people cannot process it, and try to boil it down, to understand it.
Not to say analysis isn't a good thing, it is. Personally I believe that sometimes we have to accept that there isn't a single scapegoat or cause, there are many issues tied together in huge intertangling webs. You can't blame religion, socialism, communism, politics, greed or any other item for an entire fiasco. They may be individually responsible for aspects, but as a rule, I don't think you can hold an entire school of thought to blame.
Ahhh... that'll give you more time to post to BB then Takuan. Say... another 5-10 with time for good behavior. ;)
"demagogues who use religion as a cover for fraud, deception and imposing their own sometimes dangerous social and political beliefs on their naive and unsuspecting followers"
Doesn't that pretty much describe all religious leaders?