1 result for (book:tps5 AND heading:"delet session novemb 22 1978" AND stemmed:religi)
7/33 (21%)
Jones
Jonestown
suicide
temple
quickie
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
(We also speculated that Seth might refer to what may be called the “Jonestown Affair,” or something like it. This had erupted in a mass suicide, involving over 400 Americans, in the community of Jonestown in what was formerly British Guyana, in South America. A US congressman was also murdered, along with media network people, etc. The sect, called the People’s Temple, had been created by Jim Jones, a charismatic fundamentalist who had eventually been hounded out of the U.S. for many reasons, to then set up his town for his devoted religious followers in Guyana. The whole thing had a weird unbelievability about it, as Jane and I watched the TV reports and read—and saved – the newspaper accounts.
[... 6 paragraphs ...]
The message is meant to make all question who call themselves religious people. It is there for (Prime Minister) Begin (of Israel) and (President) Sadat (of Egypt). It is there as an early Christmas present for those who use Christianity in fanatical ways. It is there also for all political leaders.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
Your religious leaders have freedom to say what they want to, and they have all of technology’s advances in communications at their service. As per James, when democracy does not work, people look elsewhere. Jones’s followers were the disinherited, the disenchanted, the poor and struggling, yet many of those people were intellectually gifted and felt their promise cut off.
They were bitter—but more. They were frightened. They could not free their native abilities—many, now. Jones seemed to be their key to the establishment. He was the opener of doors. He had his picture taken with celebrities, and because he was “a religious man,” the establishment took it for granted that his aims and policies were good, and that he spoke for those who had no voice otherwise.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
The fact that these were Americans is indeed a shock, and a shock that will make religious Americans question the nature of their own beliefs.
[... 1 paragraph ...]
Religious concepts that stress obedience over expression can also bring about civic disorder.
[... 11 paragraphs ...]
(I might add here that the Jonestown affair reminded me at once of the mass suicide of the defenders of the Jewish stronghold of Masada, in the First Century AD, in Israel. But those people had a strong uniting religious faith and tradition behind them. But wait—it gets tricky; The Jonestown people didn’t? A death is a death, regardless....)
