Keith Henson wrote:
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> You might be right on this point, but there were a lot of dangerous cults > about in the past. For example the children's crusades in 1212 resulted in > a few tens of thousands dying.
So the claim would be that during the Dark Ages in Europe (Hi, Damon!), when the Catholic church was the only religion, that people were more susceptible to cultic memes, just as monocultured plants are more susceptible to pests and diseases?
That might be a valid analogy. Though, I would expect Europe of 1212 to be less of a monoculture then than it is today. On the other hand, the children's crusades came from rather small areas.
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> My favorite is the Church of the SubGenius--which is distantly related to > (of all things) scientology. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius
No, the Church of "Bob" doesn't work for me, since it seems too obviously a joke. (Your link does not seem to give any connection between "Bob" and "L. Ron Hubbard".)
Try scientology discordians OTO masons mormons in Google.
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> There is a reason to use the parasite model. As I mentioned in the clip > above, it is a common progression over evolutionary time for a parasite to > become a mutualistic symbiote. Disease and parasites are often the same > thing, malaria for example.
Got me, what is the difference between disease organisms and parasites? If the individuals are sufficiently large, we call them parasites, and if they are small enough, we don't?
The most common distinction is that of persistence. Disease is more often acute and is cleared by the immune system. A parasite has figured a way to limit the effectiveness of the immune system and persists for years to a lifetime. Parasites cause persistent disease.
... > >Most > >apocalyptic cults turn inward a bit before the predicted > >apocalypse. This seriously interferes with their ability to > >recruit more members. And so on... > > Correct, but *after* the date some of them get more into recruiting. The > JWs are an example.
I think the more common behavior is pushing back the predicted date of the apocalypse. But I guess one can only do this so many times.
Look up "When Prophecy Fails" by Festinger, Riecken and Schachter for an example of a typical cult.
Keith Henson
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