The Jim Jones massacre was caused by religion agree or disagree?
The religious stuff made him so believable i was just watching him preach and going i wish i had a church like this then i remembered wow! he killed those people snap out of it! but he seemed to be such a good man accepting people of every race and color no discrimination was to good to be true
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQYoHiM-Uko&feature=related
http://www.whale.to/b/jonestown1.html
31 Answers to "The Jim Jones massacre was caused by religion agree or disagree?"
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Jones was a cult leader, a murderer, a fraud, a criminal mastermind, a narcissist, and more (i'm sure)... still his crimes were not so much 'about' religion, but exploited people's need for spiritual connection. - I hope he rots in the deepest pits of hell.
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No- the Jim Jones massacre was caused by a man who was out of his mind.
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Of course Jim Jones was a christian. And Jeffrey Dahmer was a fundamentalist christian. Gary Ridgeway (the Green River serial killer) is a christian. Dennis Rader (the BTK serial killer) is a christian. Aileen Wuornos (a serial killer, show in the movie "Monster") was a serial killer. The Ku Klux Klan are christians. Anti-abortion terrorists in the US (Scott Roeder, Eric Rudolph, James Kopp) are christians. The Nazis were christians.
How does it hurt christians to admit all those scumbags were christians? It doesn't. Serial killers and war criminal are not representative of christians in general, and yet christians will repeatedly lie and deny their shared religion.
Have you EVER heard an atheist say that Stalin wasn't an atheist? No, you haven't, not even when the fact is known that Stalin attended a seminary as a boy. Why? Because lying and denying facts weakens an argument, and because lying is dishonest and unethical.
How does it hurt atheists to admit that Stalin and most communists are/were atheists? It doesn't. Communists and war criminal are not representative of atheists in general, yet christians will hypocritically lie and claim they do.Like (2)
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I attended one service at the People's Temple when they were in San Francisco back in 1974, with a couple of acquaintances. Being a reluctant Catholic, I was unimpressed, but one neighbour who was dating a young man there, and a couple of others I knew, joined and eventually died in Guyana. There were all types of people involved, not just poor; some were middle class and well-educated, all were searching for...something they thought the Rev. Jones could help them find. They now rest in a mass grave in the Evergreen cemetary, over in Oakland. Religion was in fact only a small part of their fate, but I admit it made me more cynical about trusting those who offer easy answers.
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Easy answers are never free. Thank you for sharing.Like (1)
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I disagree but he was part of a cult and he did brainwash a large sum of people into killing themselves and doing what he wanted.He just had a warped way of thinking...I watched a few things on him and it has been said that he was a drug user he smoked pot and used acid also, and I think that could be why he was not all there.
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Jim Jones was just a little more extreme than Jimmy Swigert and the rest of those bible thumpers who take advantage of the weak of mind. They're in it for their own agrandisement, especially monitarily. They're all pretending to be what they aren't in order to appeal to the gullible.
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I agree with several of the comments above that point to Jones being a narcissistic cult leader who preyed upon vulnerable people. This tragedy makes a fascinating study. When reading about it one finds it under the subject of dangerous cults. What I find the most interesting about it is the devotion of the people he led. He got them to go to this isolated place far removed from the rest of the world. He made it sound so highly desirable, so utopian. And they gave him their fortunes and also their liberty. There were some who saw through it and tried to get out, by passing notes to visiting journalists. I think people do need to be educated about mind control and how people can exercise an inordinate and dangerous amount of influence. The Jim Jones tragedy is not about religion, it is about mind control.
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Religion-yes, salvation no, following Jesus no! You said he seemed to be such a good man." He was a drug addict, he turned some of his followers into homosexuals, he made husbands and wives stop sleeping together, publically humiliated some of his members,ordered some members to be beat, took widows monthly checks, held them captive in the jungle of Guana, killed people for only wanting to leave...What do you call evil?
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Maybe in his younger days. I watched a documentary with his birth son and he had a lot to say about his Dad. Also the movie was made based on what survivors or defectors have reported. Have you seen the movie?
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That is like saying it was caused by the English language because that's the language they used.
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Nah, Jim went a bit nuts and blind misguided people went along with it
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More agree than disagree. He wouldn't have amassed so many followers if it weren't for the religions pull.
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yes the religious stuff made him so believable if i had no idea he killed people i would of loved his church
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Agree. All fanatics are dangerous. Except Me.
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Following blindly caused it. Just my opinion.
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Agree. I've seen control through religion in many churches by people who sell themselves as righteous. Every service I've been to there's always the guilt trip to tithe and offer more. I once had an ex-pastor of a failed church look me in the face and complain that the people of his former congregation needed to submit themselves much more completely to his control. I've had inlaws that pursued pastoring careers only to get caught up in webs of empty promises and church politics. An inch below the gold leaf veneer of religion is the same imperfect rot of humanity that exists with every other group of people with all 7 deadly sins intact. Jonestown happened because one religious leader had been found out and was about to be busted. He couldn't live with the shame and couldn't leave his pets behind.
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Disagree. The massacre was caused by a man with a severe mental illness.
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Personally, I believe that an evil spirit had some control of or strong influence on Mr. Jones, and it gave him the ability to have too much influence on his followers. Maybe you could say it was religion, but it is hard for me to know that. It seems that some or all of the adult koolaid drinkers and pushers thought this was what "god"wanted them to do.
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unless you take the viewpoint that cult atrocities are different.
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that was so horrifying when it happened. they murdered congressman ryan, then they brought out the poison kool-aid and committed mass suicide. men, women and children, about 1,000 people.
i just looked up leo ryan on wikip. he sounds like quite a guy. years before he went to jonestown, he posed as an inmate and infiltrated folsom prison to investigate prison conditions. i might enjoy reading his biography sometime.Like (1)
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I think Jim Jones had it right at the beginning and was a very good preacher and naturally at that time, the political atmosphere at the time was divided and he and other preachers sought peace that only the Lord can provide.
As time went on I think the power that Jim felt in his local community went to his head and used the scriptures to justify his own ends as most Christian Cult leaders do. They use the sc riptures to fulfil desires for themselves and their core supporters and they effectively are wolves in sheep's clothing and prey on the vulnerable and insecure.
Jim used religion as a vehicle to achieve ultimate community dominance and sought refuge in Guyana when his practices were being questioned by wide Christian communities in America. I agree that he used very dangerous religious doctrine of his making not what is widely accepted as a vehicle to create fear and perceived persecution in the church he founded to get the ill fated residents of Jonestown to reside in Guyana.
I do believe at the end he used evil justifications to end the lives of his congregation and I do believe that religious conformity was used to kill hundreds of followers in Guyana and abroad.
I think using the scriptures in this way is highly dangerous and can harm the message of what is truly a freedom being saved by the blood of Jesus. Like (1)
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Anything can be a religion. I could set up a religion tomorrow if I wanted to. "Religion" will send more people to hell than just following Jesus. If you get involved in religion that can be anything. Satanism is a religion if you want to look at it that way. Look at the definition of religion. The second definition in the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary is (2)a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs and practices. Jim Jones preached his own philosophies and people chose to buy into it. Brainwashing practices had a lot to do with it and fear of retribution too once they were in his camp. Always beware of anyone who is as charismatic as Jim Jones. Trying to find blame for something that happened in the past is futile. It is best just to learn what we can from the situation and move on.
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There are no "gods". Religions are ideologies, and religions are no different than communism or fascism. They are invented and promoted to control the populace of countries, and the more extreme an ideology is, the more likely it is to incite and participate in war crimes. Atheism is not an ideology, it is an absence of ideology. No one ever murdered anyone in the name of nothing. Religions, fascism and communism mass murdered people for the same reasons: race, money, power, sex.
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Best Answer (Chosen By Asker):
Posted by SpiritOfTheRabbit Jun 20th, 2012 at 7:36PM
Disagree.
It was caused by trusting and desperate people looking toward a charismatic man as their leader, and him taking terrible advantage of that trust.
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Reply by bijouxbroussard Jun 20th, 2012 at 7:37PM
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Reply by BamPow Jun 20th, 2012 at 7:40PM
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