seva wrote:Why is it that BK's dwell on death and destruction so much? I had just read Joel's post about being "dead-alive", and I wondered to what affect such negative ideas could have on a child. What do children have to inspire to?
Its an interesting question to ask "why?". Usually we don't question why and are merely examine the details of their beliefs. Do you know the story of the chicken that thought the sky was going to fall on its head?
The first observation I would make is to underline that from the very beginning of the BK religion in the early 1930s, it was full of the idea of the "End of the World". Without any doubt, although the leaders have covered this up. They thought that World War II, approximately 1950, approximately 1976, between 1986 and 96 and then year 2000 were going to be the 'End of the World', or "Destruction" as you call it. As the predictions failed, they hid them from later followers. Likewise, from time to time the BKs have re-written their history using stories from other religions to mkae their leader sound more important and incorporating new elements, e.g. in the early days they did not include Nuclear War but later
This practise is called "Millenarianism" and is widespread through religions of all nations, from some Christian groups to UFO cults. Typically such religions claim that the current society and its rulers are corrupt, unjust, it is taught that they will be destroyed soon by God or powerful forces. In most cases, the disaster or battle to come will be followed by a new, purified world in which the true believers will be rewarded. Millenarianists generally withdraw from society to await the intervention of God, e.g. at the top of a mountain.
Millenarian/End of the World beliefs makes people ignore conventional rules of behaviour and, in short, do crazy things. For example, if I made you believe that the world was going to end in one year (as the BKs did in 1949), you would not bother planning on going to university to do a 4 year course or building a new house would you?
If I then told you that if you gave up your family, worked for me for nothing, thought about nothing but what I told you, gave me all the money you were going to spend on your education or a new home and that by doing so you would become even more rich and powerful in the New World AFTER Destruction (of which I was going to be the Emperor) ... I think that at that moment you would start to understand what a "useful" technique Millenarianism was for controlling and profiting from other people.
Although most 'End of the World' religions benefit in this way, that still might not be the original "why?". One response to this is that the "Destruction" the founder is said to have imagined was not real and practical but "symbolic". The Destruction was a mental destruction of a state of mind or a way of life rather and not the Destruction of the real world. This is to suggest that the founder and his followers were not too smart and misunderstood what visions he was having. They took the vision and misused them as above.
To ask the question "why could this have happened?", we have to look at the time and place he was living, India at the time of British Rule, World War II and the Partition of India and Pakistan into 3 countries. All around the old gentlement there was craziness and destruction. Destruction of the old India by the White invaders, destruction of religious ways by foreign busines and ways of life, war between Hindu and Moslem religions, war between the British and the Indians. He was also under a lot of mental and emotional stress within his own family and community.
So the simple answer could be that the old man might have gone a little bit crazy, had some dreams and vision that he misunderstood, started a religion on their basis and that religion was taken up by others who understood less and turned into a kind of business.
What he also did was take idea from many other religions around him. The idea of "Dying Alive" is not new. Within some India religions, at the age or retirement or when someone joins the group, they perform a funeral service. The person "dies alive" from their old world, old life, family and friends. They are not allowed to speak to them, stay at home, they have to change their name and, often, like the BKs they dress in white which is the color for funerals or of death. And so the BKs adopted this too.
So to answer your other question; no, in my opinion and other young people's experience, it is not a practical or healthy religion for young people who need to develop themselves practically to face the world and establish themselves. In short, to be able to follow it you have to be a little bit of a split personality or else it will give you a split personality. Children are not seen as important as they distract their parents from doing "religious" work for the group or pracisting meditation, e.g. sitting doing nothing mostly.
The early BK did not need to worry about this. Their boss was very rich and looked after them. Once his money ran out, other people started giving them money so they did not have to go out and work. They became good at getting money and property off people, especially from Indians who are very superstitious and believe that giving money to religious people brings them good luck.
Individual BKs remain human beings and most human beings like children, so superficially they will be happy to see you. But the leaders, who have mostly never had children, and their sytem discourages any "ordinary" things whether it is children or movie or sport or whatever. In my opinion, children, and even mothers, are not so useful to them and so they prefer to have single people, or even split parents up, because single people can do more work for them and their minds are not so distracted.
Leaving the family behind is also typical of a number of religious groups, usually the more extreme ones. They are called "renunciate" religions. 'Renounce' means to give up. Mostly these religions are 'monastic', the followers go and live in a monastery, in forests or caves. They believe that by leaving everything in the world, they can be closer to God to escape this world, and suffering, for every. The BKWSU includes some of these 'renunciate' ideas as its own and combines them with the financial realities of having to run a center in a city. So although ont he outside the person is 'there', on the inside they are somewhere else. It is like they have died alive from this world and are living in their own little cave somewhere far away. They believe this stops them experiencing sorrow and means they can make more effort to become closer to their God.
I am sorry for the long answer and I am sure that it will raise more questions for you but it might give you some ideas to go and do research of your own. The bottomline is anyone could die anytime and so you should live every day as it is special.