Thank you for your response and it is duly noted.
I have refrained in the past from stating my views that Mormonism is clearly a cult. I won’t hesitate in the future as long as we are trying to show how his religion might impact Romney, and in the interest of opposing viewpoints.
Thank you.
A cult is a group which violates the rights of its members and damages them through abusive techniques of unethical mind control. Unethical mind control happens when leaders, recruitment methods, doctrines, organizational structure, cult literature uses deception, lack of full disclosure of beliefs up front, guilt, fear and shame to gain converts and keep them in the group. The group discourages or limits free thinking based on independent investigation from all sources of information about the group, including former members and dissenting opinions about the group. Not all groups are considered cults, not even if they are based on strange beliefs. A destructive cult distingues itself from a normal social or religious group by subjecting members to deception or other psychological damage in order to keep them in the group.
What is a religious cult?
Relgious cults are primarily focused on strict adherence to religious dogma, given by a top-down leader/prophet/more enlightened person which one cannot question. Some use some holy scripture authority and some are purely inventions of their leaders and can be a combination of the two, scripture/invention via god’s authority in that leader. They use deception to appeal to potential converts and offer them a utopian way to live and define such a life in terms of rules to live by and rewards coming from total adherenece only. Once that process begins, the group can begin to define the world inside the group as exclusively worthy and outside the group not worth living, bad, misled or a dead end to destruction. Fear, paranoia, guilt and induced phobias about life outside of the group are used to keep the member in, so they’ll fear leaving such teachings. They then keep themselves in the group, in order to avoid what they’ve accepted MIGHT happen to them if they leave.
What are some of the methods Cults use?
The methods in which such cults indoctrinate members are diverse, but most cults use public “truth telling” or “testimony of the truth of the group” , swearing oaths to be faithful to the group, responsibility for recruiting other members, responsibility for teaching other members of group doctrines, a very heavy work load and most free time taken up in support of the group, doctrine over person, doctrine without questions and mandatory money giving to the group.
the four major components of mind control are:
behavior control - restrictions, rules of behavior, assignments, tasks, indoctrination in meetings, teaching or being taught. The whole realm of forcing particular behaviors in order to conform to the group.
thought control - black and white thinking, developing testimony for the truth of such absolute doctrines or group, thought stopping rituals, such as reverting to “statement of belief” or “testimony” of the truth of the group when confronted with any conflicting information or challenging information. Cults discourage questioning doctrine, making independent conclusions and free thinking. A person cannot come to their own conclusion if it is not in line with the group party line, or the person is deemed misled, unworthy or defective in their thinking. the fault is always found with the member and not the leader or doctrines.
emtional control - guilt, inducing feelings that you’ll never measure up, you’re not “worthy”. fear, by defining the “enemy” as one who is and will persecute you and normally defined in terms of forces like evil or satan. phobias can be induced with fear of the “enemy”. also, fear of discovery of a member’s questioning authority or doctrines and what consequences could be in store, like ex-communication or punishment, shame.
Information control - denying members from reading from independent sources of information to make sound and independent judgements on the group and group doctrines. Groups practice censorship in the form of producing “cult generated” faith affirming literature and restrict members from reading anything not published by the cult about the cult. All other sources of materials are labelled as “anti” and are “evil” and “of the enemy”.
How do you think the LDS faith fits into these definitions?