Self-Isolating Religious Groups, Mass Suicide and Belief in the End of the World!
I have added large sections to "Religion, Violence, Crime and Mass Suicide" by Vexen Crabtree (2009) on Self-Isolating Religious Groups, Mass Suicide and Belief in the End of the World! Here is some of the new text:
We saw the Jim Jones' Peoples Temple movement progress gradually from mainstream Christianity, through to a fully-fledged survivalist cult. An emphasis on the end times (when in Christian belief, apocalyptic wars and death scourge most of humanity) emerged slowly. Such ideas are present in most mainstream religions so it is hard to tell believers that it is a dangerous belief. Isolationism, extremism, idealism and an intolerance of people without the same beliefs: these are all commonplace across religious communities. Once you believe in some of those principles, it is hard to draw a firm line and stop a community progressing down a slippery slope to a place where they consider their ideals to be more important than human life. Such a slope met the Peoples Temple in the Jonestown disaster where over 900 of them lost their lives in 1978. Another American group, the Branch Davidians, also took on an increasingly them-and-us attitude. They started out with Biblical ideas about the cataclysms of judgement day, and ended up stockpiling weapons. It culminated with the Waco siege where over 80 of the religionists died during a shoot-out with authorities in 1993.
Irrationality and susceptibility to believe some unlikely things about the universe can lead to ideals and sectarianism that separate 'others' from their humanity, and allow despicable acts to be undertaken. Aum Shinrikyo was the religious movement responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway that killed a dozen people and injured thousands. The movement had also already murdered others in order to protect itself. The leader believed in karma, and preached that murder was justified because it stopped people accumulating bad karma. He had picked up Christian ideas, and preached that such actions were an act of mercy, and started preaching about Armageddon. "Political failure and a feeling of national rejection led to increasing millenarianism"; again, the idea of a cataclysmic end of the world fuels seemingly insane bloodshed. The victims are not only the suggestible adherents of the movement, but the relatives, friends and communities that are affected by the religion's otherworldly aims.
The rest is on www.humanreligions.info.
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