Beyond the tats, faux industrial look and motifs you have the same old fundamentalist crap -- intolerance, sexism and plain old unchristian behavior (exclusion) tapping into good old fashion postmodern angst. I suppose it's not any different then any other time except the co-opting factor which gives it a curious feel and spectacle. It is a fascinating read.

Any way, take out the Jesus factor you have all the elements of a cult.

I think what ties the 'conversion' stories in this piece, along with every other conversion of an adult under the age of 30 that I've ever known, is this: they always elect to convert under one of two circumstances. One, they are utterly alone and despondent for some reason. Or two, they haven't previously been *alone*, but they are suddenly among a large group at a church service and are overwhelmed.

See the connection, here? These people aren't converting because the party line is the one they want to hear. They're converting because there's a need that the world doesn't fill and the church does. The church then proceeds to exploit this to push them into lives they don't necessarily want, in order to keep the community. Don't want kids? Too bad! You're a woman who loves your work? Sorry! If you want to keep this new family, you do what we say.

This is exactly the same driving force that works in cults. And when young people go off to live in eco-communes. And, for that matter, when they join the military. There's a pattern. A group says, "Join us, and you'll belong." And we want to belong so badly that we'll do it, no matter what it costs.

And I've felt it, myself. I'm 25. I have a boyfriend, but nobody I'd call an actual friend besides that. I go to work, to graduate school, I see people but I'm never close to them, I don't even usually like them. I don't like my family most of the time, either. The secular world doesn't offer a lot of solutions to that. But thankfully, faced with that conundrum, I'm not looking at anything like this... I'm thinking about looking up a Quaker Meeting.

We can all sit here on our computers feeling superior to these people, I do, but the simple fact is they get together every Sunday getting together when most of us are hanging out alone and not forming communities. You can't love people and hate groups, myself included. Repressive, regressive, judgmental, women-hating religions prey upon our core desires to belong, to be accepted, to be emotionally connected to other people. Funny how this warm and fuzzy sense of belonging is counterbalanced with threats of expulsion from the group if you don't conform and apocalypse always on the horizon. Nefarious.

I wonder how much money these parasites are getting from east coast dominionists like James Kennedy. The story reads like the stirrings of the early Nazis, and we should watch these people and be prepared for what they'll eventually become. If even the most severely pacifistic leftist group had that kind of draw, they'd be so infested with Feds they'd barely have room for congregants.

I fear that someday we'll be fighting these bastards in the streets, along with their Dominionist/Reconstructionst buddies and possibly their Islamic equivalents as well, when they figure out they have the same worldview with a different brand name.

When an organism has this kind of rapid growth, we usually view it as a cancer. I hope this group of parasitic trash implodes on itself, before it damages the host. Seattle used to be a pretty sweet town. These people diminish it's beauty.

With six billion people, the only thing that will slow the coming ecological collapse, is birth control. Just when I think I've found a limit to my disgust...

Why is this news? What makes you think this is special or differnt?

There are things about this cult that make any truly open-hearted individual cringe. It's old-school patriarchy with all traditional misery. It is obvious the way women are exploited, what folks don't notice so much is how these babies, these children are exploited. They are "bred", not for love, but as meat, as fodder, to extend the cult leader's powerbase. Oh there will be support groups for these kids when they grow up. We'll hear stories about the misery and the abuse.

But this hit a personal note with me. I read what these women had to say, and I cringed. Smart women, powerful women and they give up their freedom, their autonomy, their adulthood really, to serve. All this in the name of love.

It chilled me because that was me a couple of years ago. I'm smart, I'm a feminist and I gave it all up in the name of something better; love and family. Only I wasn't in a cult. I was in a relationship with another woman. And because it was a woman, I allowed things to happen that I would not have tolerated from a man.

I wasn't hit. I was given compliments, told I was loved and given verbal support. But all the while I was controlled. She had charisma. I gave up everything I had, gave up my autonomy, and worked like a dog for nearly a decade. For love, for something important and pure and... utter bullshit.

I got out, but not before she robbed all I had, not before she managed to do real damage to me.

So the bible is invoked, Jesus is invoked, but this is not about God or religion, really. It is an anti-spirituality. The core of what is happening here is about mental illness and mere mortal humans, spiritual stunted and emotionally deformed humans, abusing one another. And they are cunning, oh so cunning and manipulative.

There are people who use people, a spiritual subspecies that adapt from childhood to exploit. These kinds of people can mimic love and compassion, but they are emotional vampires. You want to get a good read on a cult leader? Go chat up the folks who counsel battered women and ask them about batterers and stalkers. Learn about the hundred different ways that victims can be severely abused without the abuser lifting a finger.

My ex-girlfriend had, at the very least, severe Borderline Personality Disorder. This isn't a rare condition, one out of fifty people has it. Combined with the people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Anti-Social Personality Disorder and you've plenty of predators and parasites prowling for victims, for host organisms.

And as for those of us who fall under their spell, we are vulnerable because of our own issues. We may well have been raised by disordered parents and have a really high tolerance for control and abuse. You may read this and think, well it couldn't happen to ME. And all I can say is, you'd be surprised.

This charismatic preacher sounds like every other cult leader. He's a controller and an abuser and he mouths love and god, but it is all about meeting HIS needs. He mouths love and compassion and caring, but it is all about control and abuse.

And all the external frills are just that. A tattooed vert-sk8ting patriarchal fundamentalist is just a patriarchal fundamentalist.

There have always been toxic people looking to gain control of others and there have always been people willing to follow, some to gain their own piece of the power. Some women join out of fear and some in an ill advised and unhealthy attempt to find love and meaning. What makes this news? What makes this different?

And to those women who sign on, for whatever reason, I say this: You want to find god and love by being a doormat, okay, that's your call. But having kids specifically to fill this cult, to extend its powerbase? Now you aren't just a victim, you are an abuser. Your kids are going to be twisted and in pain. And I can tell you now, they will grow up to resent you and hate you for what you are doing to them.