Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientology and other sects.

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Hi, I wanted to have this discussion with an asperger for a long time, but I never found other individuals with Asperger before so finding this forum was a real relief for me.

I will start by writing my own personal view of religious sects (two examples listed on Thread's title, but there are hundreds in the world):
I think that they are nothing more than pyramid hierarchies organizations made just to squeeze money out of the people who are the bottom and to control their lives. I see the ones at the top as "individuals with real issues" in this specific case, power issues. People who want to manipulate and control other people lives and want to live out of their work and sacrifice. I've seen recently a documentary on Netflix about Scientology where the same founder of this "sect" declared during his lifetime :
"there is no other way to become rich than to found a religion" (forgive if these are not the precise words but it was very similar indeed).

So that said, what are your thought on religious sects?

Do they really try to help people? are they doing some good for the mankind?
or they are just parasites living off "weak minds"?

I had this idea on my mind for a long time but I would like to further develop it and understand the point of view of other individuals with asperger.

I’m a former Jehovah’s Witness and have talked about it quite a bit on here. There’s a thread about preaching as an autistic person that’s down the list a ways that you might want to look at because I go well into some of my experiences. Edited: I just bumped it.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that they have the one and only “Truth.” If you aren’t a Jehovah’s Witness, they don’t believe you will achieve salvation. They try to convert people to save them and save themselves since preaching is a requirement.

Often in cults, rank and file members have these sorts of absolute beliefs while corrupt leaders are getting off on the power and money that running the cults gives them.

It’s hard to leave cults because you believe it’s “the Truth” and family and friends in the cult will shun you if you do.

Cults are all about money and control but it doesn’t feel that way when you believe in it.

So it is true that they are made only to become rich and control people...

This was my theory prior to watching a few documentaries and seeing people inside them.

Shameful, they should be abolished and destroyed.

"Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool." -- Voltaire

I think with Jehovah’s Witnesses it’s more about control, but one of the leaders was secretly filmed recently buying $1,000 worth of alcohol, so...

Your average, non-leader Jehovah’s Witness is in a relatively low socioeconomic class because they strongly discourage higher education. It’s a lousy way of life, but it’s the way they think they are supposed to live.

I just printed this statement in capital letters and whenever the idea of joining a religion will bother my mind I will read it again.

Scientology isn't even a sect, though maybe it's a cult. But you're right that it is a ponzi scheme since it's a scifi mafia masquerading as a religious organization. Lol

ahahahah scifi mafia had me laugh so hard

Anyway, I've seen their documentary and yeah they totally are some guys with a huge fantasy related to the sci-fi world. I remember seeing an adept saying "when you reach the top level they show you how the world was created, and you see UFO's along with dinosaurs all together explaining how the world became this way" this was the moment when I said "f**k man, these guys are just a bunch of crazy people"

I didn't know the JW's discouraged higher education, but that doesn't surprise me at all.

They are fairly okay with people going to a trade school for two years or less, but anything more is highly frowned upon. One’s life is supposed to be dedicated to preaching, not a career.

I was given a hard time for going to college, and they blamed the fact that I left on that. It’s constantly discouraged in their publications and in talks. It made for a very awkward couple of years.

Haha Ya. Which documentary did you see, one done by or one about Scientology? There have been several of the latter. I think I saw "Free and Clear" which I would recommend to anyone interested in learning more about them.

I actually have a public health claim on parliamentary record, but of course politicians have never acted on it, that there is a duty to health to ban the shunning. Which Scientology calls "disconnecting" and JWs call "disfellowshipping".
In 2015, scientific findings that loneliness affects physical health prompted the Scottsh parlt to consult and gather evidence on it. Edinburgh Lothian Asperger Society got invited to contribute our thoughts. I was not yet its chair as I have become since, but I was the only member with an interest in written engagement with politics, so I got to write our response: this submission.
The bit on disfellowshipping is at the end. I only managed to keep it in because the JWs are not the only religion to use the word: it was the Plymouth Brethren who invented it. The parliamentary clerks would not let me mention the JWs by name, on grounds of a code of not offending religions: which they were applying inconsistently as they had no objection to my points about other religions by name. It looked like they were trying to find a way to stop me making the point on disfellowshipping. The JW-watching scene is invited to see the moneyed lobbying influence of the cults in that, and the political elite consciously finding it convenient for some of the population to live in cult control.

I don't regard accepted organised religions as any better, especially when viewed through the lens of history. The big Abrahamic religions are only more acceptable because they exert their mind control over many millions.
It always comes back to a guy wearing a big hat who's getting off on it in ways I can't even begin to imagine.

Cults are worse because they make you shun people and tend to have more extreme requirements.

The major religions have been responsible for burning at the stake, mutilations, mass murders (look at the history of the Cathars). More recently, treatment of unmarried mothers in Ireland, child abuse by Catholic priests...

That all seems pretty bad. The cults have a way to catch up.

so to sum up this topic we can say:

f**k religion!