{"quotes":[{"text":"Some churches, sects, cults or religious movements are basically collective egoic entities, as rigidly identified with their mental positions as the followers of any political ideology that is closed to any alternative interpretation of reality.","author":"Eckhart Tolle","tags":["church","cults","ego","movements","politics","reality","religion"],"id":422,"author_id":"Eckhart+Tolle"},{"text":"The desire to experience new kinds of community led a number of thoughtful and idealistic people to reject the patterns of vocation, family life and religion with which they had grown up. Their attempt to establish new patterns of social bonding in uncontaminated rural retreats can be seen as a secular monasticism, but they often discovered that to abolish the boundaries of authority, family and property created a whole series of problems which they did not have the spiritual and personal resources to solve.At their best, such groups have opened up new horizons of discipleship, but they have often learned some hard lessons about the intractable sinfulness and selfishness of partly-redeemed human nature.","author":"Ian Breward","tags":["australia","christian","christianity","community","cults","discipleship","human-nature","idealism","religion","selfishness","sin"],"id":36567,"author_id":"Ian+Breward"},{"text":"Obviously, there must be some connection between the subordination of actual individuals and the grotesque exaltation of symbolic ones like Kim Il Sung.","author":"Christopher Hitchens","tags":["cults","dictatorship","kim-il-sung","north-korea","psychology","subordination"],"id":48255,"author_id":"Christopher+Hitchens"},{"text":"Don't tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh. ...And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.","author":"Dan Brown","tags":["cults","organized-religion","religion"],"id":73331,"author_id":"Dan+Brown"},{"text":"I could not undo overnight the damage that had been done to my psyche over many years. The only way over was through-I knew that_ but it was still debilitating and stressful. All I could do was face the fear and keep going.","author":"Carolyn Jessop","tags":["cults","debilitating","fear","overcome","psyche","stress"],"id":171340,"author_id":"Carolyn+Jessop"},{"text":"It is a disturbing aspect of human nature that if there is a place where there are no consequences and where the most grotesque murders are tolerated in the name of a cult claiming to be a faith, a certain type of person will be attracted to it.","author":"Richard Engel","tags":["anarchy","cults","fundamentalism"],"id":246013,"author_id":"Richard+Engel"},{"text":"As hatred is defined as intense dislike, what is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion, if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?","author":"Rowan Atkinson","tags":["atheism","cults","hatred","human-rights","liberty","logic","morality","prejudice","superstition"],"id":294748,"author_id":"Rowan+Atkinson"},{"text":"In the beginning, I only wanted to know, love, and serve God and understand the Bible. What harm could that possibly bring?","author":"Charlene L. Edge","tags":["cults","god","harm","memoir","religion","the-bible"],"id":304361,"author_id":"Charlene+L.+Edge"},{"text":"In sum, doubling is the psychological means by which one invokes the evil potential of the self. That evil is neither inherent in the self nor foreign to it. To live out the doubling and call forth the evil is a moral choice for which one is responsible, whatever the level of consciousness involved.","author":"Robert Jay Lifton","tags":["brain-washing","cult","cults","evil","mind-control","murderers","psychology"],"id":306295,"author_id":"Robert+Jay+Lifton"},{"text":"These hapless livers were probably not always mere myths, and these legends which traced their spilt blood in the purple bloom of the violet, the scarlet stain of the anemone, or the crimson flush or the rose were no idle poetic emblem of youth and beauty fleeting as the Summer flowers.","author":"Sir George James Frazer","tags":["anthropology","cults","historical-curiosities","magic","religion"],"id":309377,"author_id":"Sir+George+James+Frazer"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":19,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}