Let's include male infant circumcision too.
tete wrote:The point was that the Children of God "may" appear as having changed but still protects the abusers.
My question of relevance is how relevant is all this, an American Judeo-Christian evangelist movement born of the "free love" movement in the late 60s and early 70s, to a forum about a Sindhi/Hindu-based movement, the Brahma Kumaris? The mode suggest almost zero. Its a very commonly used. In my opinion, both 'Scientology' and 'The Family' (and, of course, Jonestown) were more exaggerated expressions of the new American psyche than 'new religious movements' as a whole and all three have been further used, misused and exaggerated by the anti-cult movement - and exploited for its prurient sensationalism by the media - so as to make rational investigation and discussion impossible, e.g.;
Scientology - weird beliefs and aggressively defending itself
The Family - "love bombing"
Jonestown - mass suicide
Can we add the Brahma Kumaris to this list for equal "crimes" against society 'by association' or by just screaming "abuse ... abuse"? I don't think we can yet. Especially without documentation and individuals coming forward.
So far, I would still have to agree that the numbers of individuals abused within the BK system ... and the extent of their abuse ... is miniscule in comparison to that other famous Jewish new religious movement such as "Christianity" (I am being deliberate in my terminology here) and society in general. I also think that it will never reach anywhere near those extents, simply because it is too tough a religion to follow to attract significant followers (and they are kept too busy and set too high standards to get up to serious mischief).
My only caveat on that is at that point where it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the teaching are false and Destruction does not happen within a reasonable period (
again), every individual that has given a Dollar or an hour or had their minds plugged into BapDada, has been ripped off. The problem then is who is held responsible; the 'holy ghost' source, the leadership who acting knowingly that the teachings were falsified or individual members acting in "good faith" promoting them?
I think I reject the equation because it is too cheap and easy, and likely to backfire on any attempt at serious critique, e.g. The Family are a cult + cults do sex abuse ÷ Brahma Kumaris are a cult + isolated abuse incidents happened = all cults sex abuse children therefore "all Cults are evil" and hysteria being used to create an atmosphere of indiscriminate and irrational fear. Personally, I would rather states the obvious; that cultic sects are the reflections ... and natural developments ... of the greater societies that they arose from either "illnesses" or "antidotes" to those societies ... and both.
In 2003, the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Department of Criminal Justice noted 123 incidents of serious sexual assault by Policemen in the state of Nebraska alone. Those are only clearly REPORTED cases (and I guess they don't have so many black people in Nebraska ...). By the same logic above, one would
FAR LESS send one's child to a public school, leave them with a relative to look after, trust a Police officer (
true ...) or attend a Catholic Church than join a new religious movement. So where does that leave us?
The Family were a product of their time and place in which sexual mores were being re-examined and conservative American Christian attitudes towards sexuality and the body challenged. "Sex is not a sin" (
The Devil hates sex but God loves it - he made it!) was a maxim from that time.
By the look of that video, I would guess it is mid-80s and at the peak of hysteria in the anti-cult movement and, yes, that specific religion has changed and moved on claiming "approximately 10,000 full-time and associate adult volunteer members, working out of over 1,100 centers or communities, situated in over 100 countries". You cant make specific claims without documented evidence and I would say non-specific claims are damaging of one's self and this site. I would say AIDs had more of an impact in policy change but, probably, so did group and individual maturation.
Was it "mere" abuse? No, it was not. It was something more complicated intermeshed with religion, Judeo-Christian theistic tradition and the uncomfortable zone in our society of the very real and unresolved sexuality of children. That two of your recent video include girls/young women in highly-emotional states and crying would perhaps also suggest to me a personal element of your own behalf that you are attempting to voice?