Sorry guys, I can’t get too wrapped up in defining “good” and “bad” spiritual movements.

I don’t believe anyone here has divided spiritual groups into “good” and “bad” either. Although I certainly define belief without, and in the face of contradictory evidence as a bad thing.

For instance, let’s say I belong to a “good” group…but I don’t practice the teachings, don’t love, am a greedy, grasping person. Does my “good” group membership make me good anyway?

According to me, or according to Christians? According to Christians, yes, if you are one of them you are saved, and it doesn’t matter if you’re evil Susan Atkins who murdered pregnant Sharon Tate so she’d stop begging for her life. According to many Christians, evil Susan Atkins is in their heaven now, because she converted, but Ghandi and Ann Frank are burning in their hell. Just one of the many reasons I am not a Christian.

My impression of Diane at that time was of a young girl with a good sense of humor, and my only concern was that she had a bit of a hero-worship thing going on with one older guy who had been the center director in the location where she joined. I didn’t think that was altogether healthy, as people tend to disappoint us. In my experience, the only firm and absolute thing we can base a religious search on is God himself (or herself!) not the personalities of the people who teach about God.

So…that being said…I had no idea she had gone through the whole deprogramming thing, or become involved in deprogramming others. Evidently, she also went to jail??? Very tough life. All things I never would have expected for a bright and sunny character like hers.

Anyway, I have very fond memories of Diane, and still remember some of the funny experiences we had. All these debates…sometimes tend to distract us from the core reality. Sorry guys, I can’t get too wrapped up in defining “good” and “bad” spiritual movements. For me, it ultimately comes down to what am I doing with my life. For instance, let’s say I belong to a “good” group…but I don’t practice the teachings, don’t love, am a greedy, grasping person. Does my “good” group membership make me good anyway? And vice versa, let’s say I’m ostensibly in a “bad” group. Yet, I love others, love myself, love God, serve mankind, and bring happiness everywhere I go. So, am I bad? Or good?

I know for me, I know someday I will reach the end of life, and I will have to look back at the way I spent these rare and precious moments on the earth. I want to be able to look back on a life lived in love, for as many people as possible.

I personally want to live so that those who feel themselves enemies to me will know that they are loved by me. What their feelings are then, I don’t have control over, but I would wish they would also be happy.

Anyway, I want to just express my fond memories and good wishes for Diane and everyone who’s been discussing, and thank you all for being people who care.

Funny is this though most commentators here think she committed the lesser crime. After all her “kidnapping” was supposed to “help” some-one.

So she then has the audacity to claim that “ALL GROUPS” ARE the “SAME” or could ACT IN THE same manner.

Islamic Suicide-bombers and others are Miles apart from a Member of the Unification-Movement. While the Qur’an is full of Verses telling the good Muslim to kill the “Unbeliever” no such text can be found in the teachings/writings of the Unification Movement.

But instead of looking at those things which separates the various groups, she like so many others gives the hint to focus on something that on the surface *MAY LOOK* similar.

I too came in contact with the Unification Movement in 1975 but I did not have Parents who would not trust me ,their child. Diane Parents most likely did not trust their child enough to let her make her own decision. Instead they had some paid Kidnapper come in and hold her against her will.

No wonder after her faith was broken, she didn’t see that she was a victim of a crime, instead she blamed the Unification-Movement.

She mentions
right and wrong:
us vs them:

Funny isn’t it most people here think exactly along these lines , but in this case it’s OK? I had had the experience that Christian Ministers didn’t want to talk with us because of this thinking, again in their case this was/Is OK?

I do not know what Diane did in the 5 years, but one thing of the teaching of Rev. Moon that hit me early very profoundly is that God’s will is that all people will be saved. We are all Children Of One God! Some might not know this while others (like myself) do know this.

Therefore there is no reason for me to divide people in “us vs them” They are all my brothers and sisters. Of course some i don’t know, or if I don’t like a person, then this is *MY* problem and not theirs. Yes Diane was chosen to be one of the early people to find God, and this is all this amounts to! Even now I think that one day she will take her rightful position as a beloved daughter of God.
God is not a vicious being punishing his children with a eternal hell.
This is one of the reasons why I still embrace this faith that Rev. Moon taught me.

Not ONE Member of the Unification Movement has committed suicide-attacks
as she used the example or any other violent crimes in the name of our faith or Movement . On the contrary as she said, Unificationists were the ones who got kidnapped.
The worst case of this happen in Japan, one Man was held for 12 years and 5 months by his Brother and Sister in Law, only because of his faith!

Yeah I know most of those who’ll read my post will disregard it as the writings of a “brainwashed” person. After all there is a mountain of information out there describing the UM as a very bad organization. Why do people who claim to think for themselvs not check out what the UM has to say? Why not look at what the Unification Movement has to say?

All the best to all. (even those who think I’m a lunatic)

Josef Oswald

yes this is my real name as I have no reason to hide it, in fact I’m very proud about my affiliation with the Unification Movement.

The idea that maybe some of these idiots maybe have a brain so fuddled and muddled, so mentally ill and unaware, that they are being honest – you can be honest and deluded and flat-ass wrong – is difficult for me to accept. Occasionally I consider it, when someone can’t hear any reason, can’t challenge themselves or their beliefs.

I knew I wasn’t getting responses or a relationship or the peace that passes all understanding, so I figure they have to know it about themselves too.

I take it back. They are not being honest. They are so dishonest with themselves – and with people who see through them – that they can’t wade through their own lies.

I was, astonishingly, not one of those people who never seemed to feel anything. In fact, I was somewhat of a spiritual prodigy – I dove into my Bible with gusto, prayed regularly, and felt what I believed to be God on multiple occasions. Still, I made a crucial mistake that left a gaping hole in my ability to rationalize – I valued the truth over everything, including God.

(I’m sure some Christian will come along now and tell me that if I keep trying, the truth will lead me to God. I reiterate: I am an ex-Christian who left the faith despite an intense yearning to save my soul and repeated studies of Christian teachings. I left because of reasons very different from most other atheists – reasons which no Christian has ever been able to rationalize their way around without falling back on the “seek and ye shall find” cliche.)

Now, though, I credit my heady immersion with much of my ongoing sanity. Because, despite my piety and yearning, I hardly ever felt/received answers from God – and, especially as I grew older, I found myself increasingly frustrated with the lack of results. Had I not been so immersed in the Christian faith, and tried my hardest to earn God’s blessings, I may never have come to realize that the only reasonable explanation for his absence – except that “faith as a grain of mustard” is FRIGGIN’ HUGE up in Heaven – is that God was not there.

And we’ve already seen one person killed (IN HIS CHURCH) by a “PRO-LIFE” individual after he was called “Tiller the baby killer” several hundred times by various screaming heads on Faux to say nothing of their naked promotion of “TEA Parties” to “protest tyranny” a few months ago … truly the mind boggles.

Some of the things that Diane says:

I believed I had been specially chosen by God to be his disciple

It feels good to have your ego bolstered. I know it. I see through you. Admit it!

young, naive, idealistic, emotionally vulnerable

Church youth groups, Young Christians, Hitlerjugend: all draw in the young impressionable ones.

my family had me deprogrammed

All the christians are positive that with enough persuasion, you’ll come back to Jesus! William Lobdell recounts this about good friends in “Losing My Religion”.

circular logic takes over

Look at the fundies who post to this site. (Or their own.) Look at John C’s rambles.

all I have to do is humbly follow

Thinking is hard work. This is not a wise-ass joke. Having to face uncertainty, make decisions, wonder, live with angst, are difficult. It’s tempting to throw over having to work at life. I’ve been there, and still feel it, so even if you don’t admit it, I see through you anyway.

us and them right and wrong, good and evil

christians vs atheists; christians vs. “the world”

makes anything rationializable

Again, look at fundies and John C posting. Some fundies have been defending murder. Or, at least, quietly feeling satisfaction about it.

memetic infection

The disease model distracts from our responsibility for our own choices. It’s not necessarily wrong – our choices have been responsible for some degree of our diseases. I still think it removes focus from one’s own choices.

first thing is to admit that we have a problem

Like christianity, like Alcoholics Anonymous?

Some commenters on YouTube replied that it was an emotional appeal! I thought it was intellectual, rant-free, even and nearly devoid of emotional appeal. She must have hit a nerve!