Troubled Teen Programs Kill

So I've finally gotten around to putting together the latest petition (It's in the box and right here.) This is one is being sent to Senators and the POTUS. From the CHILD (the agency responsible for getting this bill through the House, and an awesome advocacy group) website

At this moment, I feel the need to let my readers know, cults aren't always religious. It's easy for us to look at the Moonies, Heaven's Gate, and the FLDS Mormons and say, "Yup, that's a cult." What I find a lot of people have difficulty with is recognizing the non-religious (or psuedo-non-religious, like Alcoholics Anonymous) cults in their midst.

Teen "rehab" boot camps, wilderness camps, and other residential facilities, are by and large cults. They follow the model, techniques, and even buzz words of Synanon (which eventually changed its name to the Church of Synanon and is listed as a cult by the reliable Apologetics Index. Oh, and they did church-wide wife swapping.)

Reason Online and Mother Jones each did stories on the teen correctional industry in 2007, following the well publicized torturing death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson. Anderson was placed in a wilderness camp in Florida, following a trespassing violation. Within three hours of arriving, he had stopped breathing. He was pronounced dead by hospital staff early the following morning. He was kicked, punched, and beaten to death in an effor to "break him" of his "defiance".

Looking at this list of groups classified as cults, it's strange how many I recognize, and how the name of a group will bring up a full catalog of facts, back story, and death toll in my head. It's like seeing old enemies in your high school yearbook - you never liked them, but you share a history. Sure, I expect to

I think, in part, I study cults because I'm still llloking for the place I belong. I had that need - to be part of the group, the family - instilled so strongly as a child, but I was and still am weird, and I have gaps in my pop culture memory, and I was taught how to control sheep rather than how to love friends. I have a greater need to belong and less capabaility. So I look for other cult survivors, and I find them. From the eastern transcendental cults to the Bible based fringes of non-denominationalism to tough love teen boot camps. And once I find them, I try to help them. I try to raise awareness, raise funds, and raise outrage. Once you're pissed, you're motivated.

So sign my damn petition. Call your Senator, or hey, call mine. Let them know you object to non-evidence based treatment protocols being used in sentencing or diversionary programs (the "instead of jail" route), and that you want stricter oversight for residential facilities housing teens. Ask them to sponsor or co-sponsor HR 911, which is currently languishing in the HELP committee. Tell them you think it's wrong for teenagers to be beat to death by cult members.

Also, check out Kids of El Paso, about one particular Synanon clone and what went on there. The front page advises former program teens who are contemplating suicide to contact the national Suicide Hotline. Sometimes, when I feel like nobody else knows what it's like to grow up in a cult, I remember that I'm an idiot, and that a lot of us are struggling in secret - hidden in plain sight.

To any of my readers who are fellow survivors, hello. I'm glad you're here. I hope this blog helps and I always answer private emails. Let me know what you'd like me to add to the blog or any questions you have. We're not alone.

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Cults Can Be Funny

Today I wanna talk about one of my favorite topics - Cults. Now I know most of you probably have hobbies that are entertaining, or physically exhausting, or mentally stimulating. I have a hobby that's suicidally depressing. But important.

One way I deal with the the compassion fatigue or emotional overload that comes from reading tol many cult survivor stories in one sitting is with the lulz. This video, while being totally instructive and accurate, cracks me up in a dark humor kind of way. (I still think Angela's Ashes is funny and has a happy ending. My family saw the movie based on my impression, and now they think I'm twisted and weird.) So, with that kind of a endorsement, watch and enjoy!




I may have posted that before - I don't care. It's a good video. Seriously, of all the cult checklists and papers and testimonies I've read, this is the best, simplest Cult 101 explanation I've seen. I showed this video to a Christian cult escapee who was staying with me for a while this summer. I was trying to let her know that what happened to her happens to lots, yadda yadda. I think it just freaked her out that I know how to start a cult.

But really, starting your own cult is easy. Just look at the five simple steps in this eHow article. (I don't know if it will happen for you also, but when I pulled up that page a giant flash $cientology ad came up under the checklist, lol.)

Phil Milstein has a more thorough (and delightfully snarky) six steps in his piece "How to Become a Cult Guru or, You Too Can Induce Mass Suicide." Some pearls of wisdom from it include:

Remember that everyone you meet is, deep inside, like a scrawny branch wavering in the stiff wind of life, just waiting for a big tree to sprout up alongside and protect them. Be that tree...

And on why laundromats are an awesome place to collect new recruits:
Down at the local suds parlor you'll find oodles of brain-dead scum, just sitting around twiddling their thumbs and spitting pumpkin seeds. Perfect cult fodder.

Heartwarming, no? Although I'm pretty sure around here sunflower seeds are a lot more popular than pumpkin, I'm sure the principle still applies.

This post that made me wanna ROFL or at least PMP (pee my pants - come on people, it could catch on). It's 5 steps to starting your own $cientology off shoot denomination.

So remember folks, whatever your cause or passion is, while it's important to stay dedicated towards positive actions and efforts, and while promotion awareness and legislation and social protests (I mean marches dumbass - leave your assault rifle in the armory at home), it's okay to laugh, too. I know cults are awful. I know good people do terrible things and have terrible things done to them. But laughing can be a really effective coping mechanism, and it's served me well through many trials and tragedies, so I'm gonna keeping LOLing over here, even about the serious stuff like cults, and I'd love it if you joined me in the merry making.

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Well what do you want me to say? It was my fault?

I called my grandmother last night. She's in a nursing home with Alzheimer s. It really sucks to want to have the Big Confrontation, to be at that stage in your therapy and personal growth to really tell someone "You messed me up!" ...and they're senile.

But I'm learning to turn her Alzheimer's to my advantage. If I'm pleasant, and only talk about Little Man, for four or five 10-minute phone calls, then once a month I can really, really push her for information and what memories she has of her cult leader days. And then she forgets we talked about it the next time I call! As long as I'm pleasant again a few times, she doesn't raise up her defenses and I can get to some truth.

I wanted to know whether or not Harrison Johnson's death shook her, if it changed her position on faith healing. It changed mine. I've said before, I was raised in a faith healing cult, to become the next faith healer. I started laying hands on and praying for adults when I was in Kindergarten, and by the time I was seven I had a "miracle" under my belt. So from the time I was 12 till I was 16 I ran the cult's office. I put up the website, updated the blog, maintained the data base, managed the bills and payments, and sent out her newsletter and her books.

I was 14 when Harrison died (he was 2) and my faith in faith healing took a serious toll with his preventable death. I stopped believing in faith at all costs, and at scoffing at the medical system in a time of true emergency. I still thought vaccines were dangerous, that home birth was safer than hospital birth, and that you could pray away any number of ailments. But I thought people should know that they were allowed to go to the doctor if their child was going to die. Surely God didn't really want Harrison to die?

Me: When Harrison died - Kelly and Wylie's son - how did you feel about the whole situation?
Giggy: I was just glad it didn't have anything to do with me. I wasn't there. You know there was a lot of press about it, but I managed to stay out of it, so I was glad about that."
Me: But how did it make you feel about the medical system, and about faith healing?"

(She kept getting confused and thinking I was taking about an infant death or still birth. Then a nurse came in, and she had to take a pill. She called it a "vitamin" and shuddered, but it's the medicine she takes for Alzheimer's and an SSRI for her craziness. I managed to remind her who Harrison was.)

Me: Harrison. His parents were visiting at Van and Nicole's, where the HIZM office was. He fell and got stung by 400-some yellow jackets.

Giggy: That's right. He died from the trauma of all the toxins from, some kind of stinging animal, a bee or a wasp or something.

Me: If he'd been taken to a hospital, he would still be alive today. (He'd be 14.) But his parents stayed out of the medical system, which is what you believed, and he died. Did that change how you felt about praying for healing?

(She starts quoting an incorrect 20-years out of date statistic on home births being safer than hospital births.)

Me: This isn't about home birth vs. hospital birth. Harrison was 2 - he was already born. (exasperated) Do you still believe that going to a doctor is a sin?

Giggy: (shocked) I never said going to a doctor was a sin!

Me: You just told people that the alternative was absolutely evil and unacceptable.

Giggy: Well, what do you want me to say - that I'm sorry? That it was my fault?

Me: Well, yeah. Just a little - don't you think?

Giggy: I never told anyone not to go to a doctor. Now I personally don't go to doctors, but I don't tell anyone else what to do.

Me: Do you think not going to doctors is spiritually superior?

Giggy: I, I, I...

Me: Do you remember the woman in Australia? She hemorrhaged to death over three weeks during a home birth and left five kids without a mother.

Giggy: You seem to be awfully mad at me. I'm not gonna sit here and defend myself for things that happened twenty years ago.

(Defenses up - Further conversation is futile. Wrap up with pleasantries about Little Man.)

It was intense and shocking and hard and weird. I absolutely idolized this woman for years. She was my cult leader. You really can't get bigger in someone's eyes than that. Shoot, she was bigger than God. The grace we used to do at meal times was "Thank you Giggy, thank you God." Kind of sums her up, really.

And as I age and grow and learn, she becomes more and more a monster in my eyes. A woman who cares more about keeping her name out of the papers than she does about the needless death of a young boy. I feel like I was born trapped in vines. As I grew, the vines began to strangle me tighter and tighter. Finally, as I kept learning and growing and becoming more myself, one by one the vines snap and fall off me.

Faith healing in emergencies was the first to go. But my grandmother urged complete reliance on faith for twenty some years, during which time she didn't have so much as a cold. Once she was in pain, however, it all went out the window and she went in for the works - prescription eye glasses, prescription hearing aids, and a prosthetic hip. Hypocrisy, meet your match.

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Rantings of a Crazy Woman

No, not me, someone even crazier.

Today I take on a chunk of the truly insane. This is the Big One, what all my Chats with Mormons, Sarah Palin speech interpretation, and Worldwide Church of God deunkings were building up to. Today, I take on: My Grandmother. (That's supposed to be read aloud with the voice of doom sound effect and thunder crashing in the background.) So, let's see what "Giggy" wrote in a book on faith healing.

There exist currently on this planet earth two separate realms. "Alongside worlds", to use a science fiction term, which occupy the same space at the same time, without really touching. These realms are the Kingdom of God and the World System. They are totally different - different rulers, different laws, different goals and different destinations - yet without the Spirit of God we can't tell them apart.

First, there's the sheer making-assertions-without-backup. This will continue throughout the passage. It went on my whole childhood, after all. Also, how does something occupy the same space and time without touching? And seriously, who uses science fiction to make their bullshit supernatural claims seems more credible? Isn't it convenient that the voice in her head, er "Spirit of God", is the one that helps you see this invisible magic world? (Growing up with a magic world hurt my brain.)

They are in constant warfare for dominion over the earth and its inhabitants, even though the outcome of this warfare is already determined and the leaders of both sides know it. The most important decision any human can make concerns which realm he will inhabit.

The most important, eh? Well, yeah maybe I see your point. After all, whether you choose to live in reality or la-la land can make a big difference in the quality of your life. (I choose reality!) Also, Gig loved to throw in Armageddon threats whenever possible. Nothing like creating a sense of fear and urgency to get people to shut down their critical thinking skills (which may be why End Times memes are so popular).

Let's review: There are two worlds, but one is invisible and unless you have the exact God she has (more on the exclusivity of her particular branch later) you can't even tell the second world exists. Also, the two worlds are at war (oooh, sense of drama!) but don't worry, the guy on her side is gonna win. Oh, but you'd better choose quickly, because whether you'll live in this world (the real one) or the invisible, indistinguishable-to-anyone-else other world, is the most important choice you'll ever make. Right.

Which ruler will he yield to? Whose laws will he obey?

Is she talking about physical laws or civil/criminal ones? Both! Anyone who believes in miracles believes to some degree that the laws of physics just stop working sometimes, and she is no exception. (Heck, she she might even be the rule.) And when you fill your followers with fear (fucking alliteration) you encourage distrust and violence toward secular entities. Kind of like what we're seeing in the health care debate with people thinking the government is out to kill them. Those people are scared enough to do something really regrettable.

And when the two realms separate, as they will someday, which destiny will he share?

So the two worlds (which are sharing the same time and space but not touching) will separate, and they have destinies? Assertions hidden in the form of a question - smooth moves Grandma!

The Bible was full of it: two realms, a veil between. Within an hour or so (of coming up with this crackpot worldview), we had this outline:
WORLD SYSTEM

• Sight
  
• Temporal
• Things seen
• Flesh
  
• Matter
• The curse (Pretty sure the curse/ fall of man was *supernaturally* caused)
  
• Sinful nature (Again, if God gave Adam's descendants a sinful nature, it wasn't in their physical bodies)
  
• Heaviness
• Earthly
  
• Mt. Sinai - law
  
• Kingdom of darkness
  
• Terrestrial
  
• Sickness, diseases
• Condemnation
• Law of sin and death
• Satan is god (Notice atheism didn't make the list! She loves dualism, so if there are more than two options, she ignores them.)
  
• Hunger
  
• Thirst
  
• Born from below - Huh?
  
• Burdens (help, charity)
  
• Labor, striving
  
• Deception
  
• Dead works
  
• Slavery
  
• Tree of knowledge Carnal mind Sons of the bondmaid Guilt Death Foolishness Walking by sight The old nature Sorrow Defeat Sacrifice Field Destination: hell
• (Freedom, beauty, poetry, compassion, advocacy, activism, love, hope, secular humanism, doing good for goodness' sake)
  

KINGDOM OF GOD

• Faith (A vice, not a virtue)
  
• Eternal (Nothing has ever been shown to be eternal.)
  
• Things not seen (or real)
  
• Spirit (see above)
  
• Energy (Now hang on a minute, I'm pretty sure the physical world is made up of matter and energy. You can't go hijacking energy!)
  
• The blessing
• The righteousness of Christ (imaginary, unsupported assertion)
  
• Freedom (in that "die to be born again" "take up my yoke" definition of freedom, which doesn't resemble true freedom in the slightest)
  
• Robes of righteousness (yawn)
  
• Garments of praise
  
• Heavenly (never-ending and boring with a crappy guest list?)
  
• Mt. Calvary - grace (hahahahahaha! Grace was the farthest thing from her doctrine. Oh boy *wipes tear*)
  
• Kingdom of God's dear Son (so "dear" that daddy watched the mobs torture him to death. Ya know, so that *then* daddy could forgive them for being born with the sinful nature he gave them.)
  
• Celestial Healing, health (the true crux of the matter, hidden in the middle)
  
• Acceptance, adoption into family (read: isolation from the rest of the world)
  
• Law of life in Christ Jesus
• Jesus Christ is Lord
  
• Fullness, satisfaction (She was so satisfied she ate half a gallon of ice cream for lunch every day of my childhood.)
  
• Living water (imaginary, yadda yadda)
  
• Born from above
  
• Benefits, blessings (I like how "benefits" are spiritual. Can you tell my employer that I'd rather have the physical "realm" benefits package with my 401K?)
  
• Rest
  
• Truth, reality (*SNORT*)
  
• Fruit of the Spirit
• Dominion
  
• Tree of Life
• The mind of Christ (Can I keep it in a jar?)
  
• Forgiveness
  
• Abundant life (If you consider hiding out in a bomb shelter terrified of the world around you an "abundant" life, sure.)
  
• Wisdom
  
• Walking by faith (The bullet above this one is antithetical.)
  
• Destination: heaven
  

Now see, I'd split the list in two very simple ways. Real World (everything that exists, including non-physical things like ideas and emotions) vs. Fantasy Land (crap someone made up using their imagination and/or mind altering substances). See? That wasn't hard. Also, Gig seems to be under the impression that making long lists is the same as making a reasoned argument. Also, I know using Bible verses never persuades atheists, but her audience for this ramble is entirely Christian. And none of her followers seemed to think this was a problem.

It was actually bigger than the World System vs. Kingdom of God. It was also flesh or spirit, sight or faith, temporal or eternal. The idea of two separate realms seemed to us an essential concept for understanding not only our walk with God, but the universe we inhabit.

An essential concept for your walk with god and understanding the universe we inhabit - wow. I guess Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawkings, and Carl Sagan have been doing it all wrong. They've been trying to understand the universe without this essential concept she came up with an hour ago.

Everybody on earth lives in one realm or the other. Christians have the choice of which realm they will inhabit.

No, grandma. Everyboy on earth lives in one realm (the real one), and not the other. You don't get to choose to inhabit another world - sorry.

Once we start looking at Scriptures with this concept in mind - that there are two along-side realms, separated by an uncrossable barrier - we see all kinds of illustrations.

Confirmation bias! And the uncrossable barrier is new. How can two things take up the same time, the same space, not touch, and have an uncrossable barrier between them?

In fact, the whole of the Old Testament is written in a language designed to handle such a concept. The Hebrew language with its inherent "parallelism" is perfect to deal with this. Parallelism is a fundamental element in Hebrew, especially in poetry written in that language. Most poetry in English is based in rhyme and meter; Hebrew poems are based in repetition. This style consists of saying what is essentially the same thing two different times, with slight alterations.

This may be the longest string of words that are not on their face factually inaccurate in the whole book. Also, I may be missing something. It's gotten to the point that if I realize I can't find one error in a sentence, I probably didn't look closely enough. (Again, Sarah Palin made *more sense* and had fewer outlandish claims in her gov. resignation speech.)

Very often this repetition of the same thought, with small differences, occurs not just because of the nature of the Hebrew language, but also because one iteration applies to the natural realm, the other to the spiritual

Okay, I know I said earlier that she was going to make unsupported assertions throughout, but this is a biggie. She's laying out here the supposed Scriptural basis for her entire worldview, as well as all the requirements of her followers that come out of this worldview. So, it's a really big deal that she doesn't actually have anything backing up her claim that the Old Testament writers were telling us about an invisible world (that shares time and space with this one, but doesn't touch it, and apparently is separated by an uncrossable barrier). She goes on to interpret several verses in light of this delusion.

God says something, for example: "For nation shall rise against nation..." and that can be interpreted to mean natural, geographic, political nations. Then He follows this with, "... and kingdom against kingdom..." (Matthew 24:7). Is He just repeating Himself, or is there a difference? Can it be that there is a spiritual interpretation here? Maybe He is saying that there will be natural wars and spiritual wars.

And maybe there's really a teapot circling Pluto. Notice that she suggestively uses questions (like the Demon Busters and Every Student) without actually encouraging the kinds of actions that would lead to finding out an answer (like research, asking questions, talking to someone, etc.) She just casts doubt on the normal method of reading that verse "nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom" and infers that there's more to it than the obvious.

The whole world will stand united against Israel; God's natural land and His natural children. We will see all of the world's systems, armies, governments, states and people fighting against the nation of Israel. And in the spirit realm there will be increasing war against the church. All the forces which are not flesh and blood, the principalities, powers, thrones and dominions, demons and fallen angels, will war against the saints. Israel represents God's natural children, "as the sand of the seashore"; and the church is His spiritual progeny, "as the stars of the sky." (Hebrews 11:12).

Now for this one I actually looked up the verse (because really, how many have there been in all this rambling?) According to BibleGateway.com KJV (see theists, I can so refrain from linking to Evil Bible, Skeptics Annotated Bible, and Brick Testament. I just don't like to) Hebrews 11:12 says,

Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.

This is in reference to Sara (Abe's wife) having a son, and leading to Abe's many descendants. As in "There will be lots of them - like sand grains and stars!". Nothing about the sand being natural children and the stars being spiritual ones - they're all just descendants of Abraham, and the point is just "Gee, what a big number". So that giant "everyone vs. Israel" battle? Is all in her mind.

Two different realms, in parallel. Nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom. That is just one example of what I said about the Bible being full of passages which speak to the two different realms. Here a few more illustrations: "I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations." (Psalm 57:9). The people are the children of God, while the nations are the Gentiles. Two different realms.

Whatever you say, grandma. There really is no good "stopping point" because the whole book is one long, unedited ramble. I swear, she just sat down one day and typed everything straight through, from the table of contents to the last words (the mailing address of the cult's offices, so people could send money and order more books). Section titles listed in the table of contents don't actually appear anywhere else in the book. She just breezed through it, and it reads like the rantings of a crazy person.

How did I not know she was batshit for so long? I worked for this cult. I mailed this book to people, and I didn't feel any guilt at all because I didn't realize what toxic garbage it was. This is the woman who taught me how to read, and fold laundry, and tie my shoes. Honestly, I think I'm more confused than ever. I'm glad my mind is free now, but I don't know how I didn't see how completely insane she was years ago. She wrote this while I lived with her, while I was in second grade. She cooked me breakfast, and when I went to school, she wrote this garbage.

In recent days she's caused a bit of a ruckus at her assisted living facility/nursing home. She's started telling the other residents that they're being controlled by their medications and that they shouldn't take them. At least one poor old woman was convinced, and went off her meds for a minute there. Ah, crazy granny. If you weren't stirring shit up and convincing people not to take their pills, you wouldn't be the Giggy I know and love.

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Demon Busters: Part 1

I was going to post the story of when my parents sent me off to get the demons cast out of me, but I'll post that later in the week. First, I think I need to fully explain just how crazy my thinking - and the thinking of the adults around me - truly was.

I stumbled across the site JesustheDeliverer.com (I am soooo not giving them a trackback link. And you know me - I link *everything*.) The condescending, victim-blaming, disease-denying, batshit-crazy writings below pretty much perfectly exemplify the magical explanation of the world I was given.

The FAQ page is actually a sales brochure, convincing you - John Q. Christian - of your urgent need for demon exorcism, AKA "Deliverance". The page is essentially a series of "questions" detailing every possible thing that could be going wrong in your life, and affirming (without backup y'all, not even scripture) that every single one of these problems is caused by the presence of demons. You're crawling with 'em, can't step for tripping over 'em I tells ya!

Here are some honest-to-dawkins "FAQs":

Do you wonder why some people get cancer and some people don't?

Do you ever wonder why some people die of diseases at a young age, and some people live to a ripe old age?

Did they really just go to the cancer place? Dude! This is a country that flipping loves Susan G. Koman and Lance Armstrong. We have cancer survivor heroes And just about everyone knows somebody who's dealt with cancer. My grandmother has had uterine cancer and squamol cell and is still here. My godmother died during her third bout with breastcancer. My grandfather had prostate, and then lung cancer which ultimately killed him. A friend in her early 30s died of a brain tumor this year. Are these people seriously going to claim they have the magic wand for curing CANCER?

Yes, of course they are.

Sometimes curses provoke diseases... This is why cancer might run in a family, because curses can run in a family, i.e. "the family genes".

I've been going through my (cult-leader) grandmother's books trying to peel through all the layers of rhetoric and lies. This whole blog really started as a practice arena, where I could debunk and destroy writings that weren't embedded in my head, wired into my harddrive, and shoved down my throat. So I recognize one of her tricks here - notice the derisive, dismissive way that "the family genes" is written. The intention is to suggest that science doesn't know crap about genes or cancer, because it's really magical things like generational curses and demons making you get sick and die!

Now surely someone at this point will say, "But wait, why doesn't God just kick these demon asses?" And "Is this why intercessory prayer fails so spectacularly?" In the Word of Faith and Deliverance crowds God is a puny thing. The real drama and action, the epic battle for good and evil, is between demons (not Satan, just his henchmen) and the Christian. My grandmother treated God like a genie in a lamp; Sure, she unleashed his power to banish demons and vanquish foes, but she was always the master.

In addition, deliverance ministers have noted that cancer and arthritis may be provoked by unforgiveness, bitterness and resentment. Also, there is a demon of early death that causes people to die at a young age. This demon could enter someone through a curse.

*FACEPALM!* I wish I was making this up, really I do. And my grandmother used this kind of magical diagnostic process. She claimed my out-of-socket hip was a result of my "wrestling with God" (like Jacob). She told people that arthritis was caused by grief and that head and neck pains were the result of stubbornness. (I told you it was bat shit, but I seriously believed it growing up.)

• Do you ever wonder why some people seem to have a golden touch and prosper at everything they do, and some don’t, as much as they try?
• Do you ever wonder why to some people, everything comes easily without much effort, but to other people, everything seems to be difficult?

Socioeconomic inequalities, luck, knowing the right people, chance, etc.

God blesses those who obey His laws, and He blesses them with prosperity. There are Biblical curses relating to the lack of prosperity that need to be broken.

Wow, legalism and the prosperity doctrine, all in one. Nicely played Deliverers!

• Do you ever wonder why some people are sad and depressed when they seem to have no reason to be, while other people are happy even when confronting problems and difficulties?

It could certainly be a nuerochemical imbalance, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or Depression. Also, I don't think it's my place to judge if someone has a "reason to be" depressed.

Although depression and emotional instability are very much related to how much faith and trust people have in God, there is also the chance that the demons of depression, despair and hopelessness need to be cast out.

%&*^$*&#@^! I cannot even think of a strong enough curse word. Hey atheists, do ya'll feel depressed and emotionall unstable because of your disbelief? Nope, me neither. Though I was depressed as hell (damn near suicidal) more than once while having utter belief in God! So yeah, logic = fail.

• Have you ever felt like you were cursed?
• Have people called you "clumsy"?

*snort* I love the lulz! But seriously, doing pilates or yoga can improve balance and reduce "clumsiness". (Why the obtuse quote marks, why?) No exorcism required.

Curses are real, and there are different kinds of curses; biblical curses, witchcraft curses, self-imposed curses.

Yes, these are the kind of people who protest Harry Potter because they think witches are real.

This group preys on the insecure and ignorant. By having a litany of concerns, at least one of each any person can identify with, it seems to say "Aren't you unhappy? Isn't life tough? We can make it all better." Note: Doubt anyone who both tells you that you have a problem, and tries to sell you the cure. (Deliverance-ing can yield some big bucks in the revival circuit.) The monotonous, repetitive start to the questions also works on the reader to engage in that command word "wonder" over and over again. To see the effect command words can have on people, watch Derren Brown.


Derren Brown "COLOR BLIND" - Watch more amazing videos here

Then the same solution is proposed, over and over again, actually interfering with true thoughtful consideration, and instead lulling the reader into thinking that they have "wondered". They play on ignorance as well. When I'm curious about something, I don't simply "wonder" - I look it up. Knowledge really is power, and having the critical thinking and logical tools to discern whether something is true or not, can protect you from this form of brainwashing.

I'm breaking for now. This will just have to be a multi-parter. Actually I've been meaning to ask you, do you prefer when these "debunks" are really long, or do you like it better broken up into bite-sized installments?

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