Dealing with Narcissists

Dealing with Narcissists

This is written from some personal experience, and from experiences of some of my closest friends.  This stuff really happens, so be on the lookout!

Most of us psychologically “normal” people feel pain when our friends and family feel pain.  Not the narcissist – they are not happy unless others around them are suffering.  And, this is what you need to understand.  You must prepare yourself, because chances are you will have to deal with this sooner or later.

http://darrenhardy.success.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Narcissist.jpg

They will invade your social circle.  They will appear normal, but they will hide a mask of trying to make others miserable.  Once they invade your social circle, they will begin to isolate a target.  They will attack the target under the radar.  The target will defend herself.  But, the narcissist will turn it all around and make the target look bad and mean.  The narcissist will turn the entire social circle against the target.  The others in the social circle will never know this until they are the target of her rage and secret hatred of happiness.  This can go on years undetected.  Researchers at places like “Anonymous Conservative” suggest that you cannot deal with a narcissist with her own tools, because she will win – they are experts at manipulation.  You will have to cut off all ties to this person and completely avoid them – they are poison, and they are making you miserable.  All your precious memories of the narcissist are merely illusions – who you thought they were, is not real – they hid their hatred from you like an expert until you were ripe for attack.  There is a slight chance that you can get rid of the narcissist by being a clever “detective” by not leaving any stone unturned and delivering a “coup de grace” in a potentially kamikaze social strike.  This may or may not work, since the narcissist has built many allies who are equally fooled as you are, but are not yet targets of the narcissist.  You will probably lose until the others figure out just how nasty the narcissist secretly is.

http://sparkfreedom.org/files/2013/04/narcissism-disorders.jpg

What are you to do?  You must take action.  You cannot allow these people to continue in your life.  You have to figure out a way to completely break contact with them, even if you risk losing friends in the trust of the dangerous narcissist.  Get away.  Get as far away as you can.

http://chickgeek.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/narcissist.jpg

Here is one likely scenario.  In your usual circle of friends, you begin to get a loss of eye contact.  Select people begin to avoid you.  The firm handshake gives way to the “no handshake” and even you may not get a greeting at all.  Then, you wonder what the hell is going on.  Suddenly, someone normally passive toward you, does something passive aggressive – like, takes one of your trophies (symbolizing success and happiness) and marks all over it with a marker.  You ask this person about the incident.  They reply with aggressiveness of which shocks you immensely coming from this person who had previous little interaction with you.  You ask for an apology, but do not get it, and you shrug it off as someone who is just socially inept or perhaps depressed.  Then, you notice other forms of passive aggressive behavior from this person, but they recruit someone close to you to unknowingly participate in this passive-aggression.

Now, you are in a situation where a person who is virtually invisible to you has committed passive-aggression against you, and has embedded themselves into a family member and is committing nasty acts, and this family member is unwittingly participating.  You wonder “Who in the hell does this person think she is?”  You perform investigations over a period of time and discover that this narcissist has turned a substantial portion of a social circle against you with lies.  The investigation is clear.  The evidence is clear.  But what do you do?

You must take absolute control over the situation.  Do not allow this to continue more than one week after you have identified the Narcissist, and have resolved to take action. 

(1)Break all contact. 

Those who are your close friends and family – you will have to tell them you are breaking all contact with the narcissist and also breaking all contact with associates of the narcissist.  If you do not break contact with the narcissist’s associates, you will be involved in a poisoned social circle, which nobody needs in their lives.

(2) Make it absolutely clear to the Narcissist that you will not compromise on the ultimatum.

Do not even allow them the possibility of ever renewing any kind of relationship with you or your family.  They are programmed robots and will merely resume their poisonous and destructive behavior.

(3) Do not hesitate in breaking off friendships with allies of the Narcissist.

This may be painful, but you cannot allow a narcissist in your life.  If this means breaking friendship with others, so be it.  This is where people may go wrong and hesitate.  YOU CANNOT HESITATE ON THIS POINT!  Remember, this social circle is already poisoned, and you are probably being negatively affected by this person anyway, so new friends will be a breath of fresh air anyway – or rekindle old relationships you have neglected.  Again – DO NOT HESITATE or you will be sorry.

http://southfloridalawblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/iron-fist2.png

There are of course, savvy ways of dealing with nasty people, which involves getting nasty yourself.  If you need details, feel free to send me an email, and we may be able to speak over the phone about some very effective weapons you can use.  This is only if you are willing to get your hands dirty. 

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Gluttony: Notes on Pentecostal Behavior

Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony

When studying the Seven Deadly Sins, as traditionally taught by Christianity for over 1000 years, which were probably inherited from moral teachings from the Greek philosophers such as Plato and Socrates, I was struck by common Pentecostal practices that not only violate these traditional “deadly” sins, but actively encourage these deadly sins.

In browsing some Pentecostal websites with pictures of gatherings and meetings, I was struck by a strange sight of obesity. Now, we all know that some people are fat or bubbly somewhat. However, when it gets to the point of not being able to perform basic functions without undue stress, I think we need to take a closer look at what is going on. Are these people just a little big large or are they gluttons at the table, consuming food like wild hogs? Are they having some medical problems, or do they have a problem with self-control? And, let me be clear that I probably have been guilty of this myself.

Traditionally, one can commit gluttony in several ways, according to Thomas Aquinas (reference Wikipedia):

(1) Eating too soon
(2) Eating too expensively
(3) Eating too much
(4) Eating too eagerly
(5) Eating too daintily
(6) Eating wildly

Now, look at this list again, and tell me that Pentecostals regularly violate several of these guidelines. I would say I have always seen Pentecostal meetings where they (a) Eat too soon, (b) Eat too much, (c) Eat too eagerly, and (d) Eat wildly. I was among Pentecostals recently, and I was struck by something I never noticed before: they were devouring their food as would a hungry dog or a hog. Being away from that crowd for several years, and seeing this activity struck me as memorable.

What is wrong with all this gluttonous behavior? Who is being harmed? Well, in most ethical systems, we are taught how to be good to others, but also we learn forms of self-control because an extreme lack of self-control in one area almost always signals a moral problem in many other areas. It is an outward sign of an inward disorder. Why do we become gluttons? Are we substituting food for socializing? Are we substituting food for not confronting undesirable situations (cowardice). Are we eating because we are lonely? Are we devouring food because we lack meaning and spirituality in our lives (I think this is the piece de resistance, myself)?

Also, think about the prohibition of alcohol among some of the more extreme fundamentalists. Well, do they prohibit and police gluttony? Well, drunkenness is only a subset of gluttony! What is drunkenness? Consuming too much alcohol to the point of neglecting our duties. Again, lack of self-control is the key.

What do you remember about the hoggish consumption of food in your Pentecostal experience?

Comments Policy Note

Please continue to post comments here. However, please attempt to be reasonable and coherent. Posts deemed to be blatantly irrational, blatantly incoherent, or juvenile will probably be deleted.

Thanks to you thoughtful posters, by the way.


Lutherius
President
Association of Former Pentecostals

A Concise Refutation of Materialist Atheism

Scientific-evidence based arguments for the non-existence (or the existence) of God are essentially incoherent. To explore this, one must ask, “What is science?” What does science really do? Science is, briefly put, correlation of data to a model. It asks: how well does this particular model follow the data and the evidence collected?

What is the assumption here? One clearly must have data. What does the collection of data assume? It assumes a material existent. Science cannot work with anything that is not a material existent. Thus, the pop atheist books now in circulation that use the argument, “There is no scientific evidence for the existence of God” are clearly offering an irrational argument. Science assumes material data. To apply its methods and argumentation to a deity question is to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is.

Also, the problem of universals shows that there are indeed non-material existents. Most or all of math is a non-material existent. One cannot find math anywhere as a physical object. Thus, one must accept the existence of non-material existents, unless one wishes to claim that mathematics does not exist. One knows that the number two really exists, but where is it? Two tables before me and two chairs behind me both use the exact same existent “two.” However, can we point physically to this number two? No, it is a non-material existent, as are most or all universals. Thus, one cannot reasonably claim that there is no such thing as a non-material existent. This opens us up to another realm where there are things that are real, and exist, apart from physical phenomena, such as mathematics and consciousness.

Thus, the evidence based atheist who says there is no evidence for God, and therefore, he does not exist is using an invalid method for the debate. One cannot use any purely material based approach to the question of a non-material existent, such as God.

Therefore, any scientifically based argument in a discussion for the existence of God is clearly irrational, and invalid. Science assumes material phenomenon for applications of any of its methods.

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A lot of confusion among materialist scientists is perhaps a misunderstanding of the philosophical basis of the methods they practice. The correlating of evidence to fit a model usually is the application of this data to a mathematical model. And, one does not perform science without mathematics, or some abstract model. And, it seems that a materialist scientist should accept the reality of mathematics, since they necessarily use it. Thus, they accept material evidence (data) and determine how close this data correlates to the non-material models, usually mathematical.

Perhaps they do admit mathematical realities, or, perhaps they do not think about the issue at all, simply performing their work habitually without understanding philosophically what is going on. So, when the arguments for the existence of God are examined, the materialist, I suspect in some ignorance, asks the wrong questions, out of habit, not taking the effort of examining, and thereby understanding, the valid applications of their habitual method. Since the methods they use give them consistent results and a high confidence in its validity for what they do every day, they make an incorrect assumption that it applies to some philosophical questions. In many cases, this confidence turns into arrogance, which in turn explains some of the recklessness when a materialist glibly applies the method to non-material questions.

I also suspect that when a philosophically astute challenger points out these obvious errors of materialism, the materialist suddenly feels exposed and naked, since his previously unassailable method has been shown useless (for some questions) with arguments he has never thought about before. And, a scientist usually does not take very well to exposure that his previously reliable intellectual approach, (and often by implication his reputation of being “smart”) is shattered so easily. I think a lot of the materialist evasion after being challenged effectively is a turning away on their part to the truth shown in the argument coming from from a fear of looking directly at the issue, because an entire world-view will be shattered for them, in many cases.

Lutherius
President
Association of Former Pentecostals

Local Church Claims Others are all Wrong

A local church reports that Christianity as a whole has it all wrong. The Reverend Billy Gooseneck of the local Apostolic Beacon church just outside the city limits informs this newspaper that church should not be “dead, dull and boring” but lively like a football game. He mentioned that some scripture speaks of having life “more abundantly.” Supposedly, this “abundant life” means a wild church service complete with screaming by the pastor and some of the congregants. Some members – in fact, most members – “run the aisles” in the midst of fast paced music, screaming like wild hogs, reports Jim Robinson, who lives three houses from the church. Other visitors report strange, occult-like practices like ecstatic speech bursting forth from the mouths of congregants, usually called “speaking in tongues,” although no one knows what language they are speaking. This reporter could not recover any records of this Rev. Gooseneck having any college diploma from any accredited, known university. The Rev. Gooseneck claims that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is all wrong. He says that there are not three Gods in heaven, but one. Asked to explain which churches teach that there are three Gods, Gooseneck replied that most churches do, with the exception of Apostolic Beacon.

This reporter interviewed over 30 pastors in this city and could not find any who claims that there are three gods. Furthermore, Gooseneck said that Jesus is the name of the Father. Asked for proof, he replied that Jesus once said, “I and my Father are one.” Pressed for a direct answer and an explanation from the Bible, Gooseneck simply responded, “You cannot understand because you do not have the Holy Ghost.” This reporter asked about this “Holy Ghost.” Gooseneck said that this is the spirit of God that “falls” on people and the person talks in tongues when it happens. Asked for the basis of this idea, Gooseneck responded that the Bible says so, although he could only point to certain scriptures where foreign languages were spoken, but not the ecstatic mumbling that goes on at Apostolic Beacon. Asked what language this causes people to speak, Gooseneck responded that it was a “heavenly language.” Asked for the basis of this idea, Gooseneck responded that those with the Holy Ghost just “know” these things. Asked why people ran around screaming and shouting during church, Gooseneck could only point to the scriptures where during the Day of Pentecost people thought those in the upper room were drunk. Asked for specifics from the New Testament about running around, shouting, dancing, screaming, moaning, Gooseneck could not respond and just said this was the way the early church did it. This reporter could not find anywhere in the New Testament where churches acted so strangely. Gooseneck then said that unless one was baptized in Jesus’ name and filled with the Holy Ghost and talking in tongues, one would go straight to hell. Again, Gooseneck could not show this with scripture. Asked why his women only wore dresses, Gooseneck said that pants were men’s clothes. Asked about women’s pants, Gooseneck somehow thinks that this is men’s apparel.

Others who know church members report that these people are strange. The women are pale faced and have long hair. The young people do not go out to dances and do not make friends with other people. The people appear to be scared of Gooseneck and would only speak about him in terms that he is the “best Pastor” and the “greatest pastor on Earth.” Occasionally, people would go around harassing people in some ritual called “Door knocking.” These people would explain that Acts 2:38 was a “Plan of Salvation.” Traditional churches in the area deny that there is such thing as a plan of salvation.

This reporter will keep an eye on these strange people. They tend to be somewhat at the lower end of the economic scale and are always broke. The pastor demands 10% of people’s paycheck. The regional IRS was asked if this was legal; he responded that it sounded strange, but appears legal – in most cases. Former members of the church were interviewed; they hate everyone and everything about Gooseneck’s church. Church members spread hatred and slander against them after they left. Many went to drug use to cope with the pain inflicted on them. In conclusion, the people of this church are indeed a strange bunch.

Filed by you local newspaper.

Lutherius
President
Association of Former Pentecostals

Pentecostalism and Insanity

I am no expert on this issue (I am an electrical engineer by profession), but I have thought about this somewhat. I think that mentally ill people are attracted to Pentecostalism because of its irrationality and also because Pentecostalism condones insane and inappropriate behavior such as screaming, shouting, running, wailing, hopping, and other such things where insane people could fit right in and indulge their theatrics for attention. I think a large proportion of Pentecostal preachers are mentally ill also, given that the overwhelming majority of them are uneducated, and that there is no requirement for rigorous scholarship to become a Pentecostal “minister.” I understand that the level of education one has is not a determinant of mental illness, and that intelligent people can also be mentally ill; I am just speaking in general terms and general trends.

I also believe, based upon my studies, that Pentecostals and many Ex-Pentecostals who have not had appropriate therapy, suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You will find many Pentecostals suffering PTSD symptoms as follows: stomach ulcers, depression, disassociation, troubled sleep, irritability and outbursts, difficulty concentrating or remembering, hypervigilance (like extreme paranoia), exaggerated startle responses, etc.

I encourage all who are interested in PTSD to get “The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook,” by Glenn R. Schiraldi. It is available on Amazon and I have a copy, of which I have found great use.

The problem with the Ex-Pentecostal movement is that the field of psychology has not yet focused upon Pentecostalism; the closest material we can use at this stage of our history is the research done on cults – and, yes, some Pentecostal churches are cults. However, I have looked at PTSD symptoms, and also the symptoms of two other disorders that have been helpful in my studies: Disassociative disorder and De-personalization Disorder. You can Google either of these and find some useful information, and I think many here will see some parallel experiences with our Pentecostal experiences.

Entertainment and Pentecostalism

I think a core attribute of Pentecostalism is participatory entertainment. The service is always emotional, and people always seek particular emotional states during the service. Take yourself out of the religious zone for a moment. Why do you watch some forms of entertainment on television? Why do you watch horror? You get an emotional state plus sometimes a good story. Why do you watch America’s Funniest Home Videos or Comedy Central? Again, it puts us in an emotional state usually of levity and laughter.

Pentecostalism perverts religion and doses it with entertainment. The most common forms of emotional induced entertainment within Pentecostalism are jubilant excitement, terror, fear, horror, sadness and guilt. Remember that when the leaders appear as hypocrites in watching stuff that the congregants are forbidden to watch, the core is still preserved. They shock their audience into thinking that certain movies create demons coming out of their televisions. They shock their audiences into thinking that people with Tourrette’s are speaking forth in demon languages. They induce extreme guilt when they say that smoking a cigarette will send you to the Lake of Fire and Brimstone – they conjure up the most shocking and horrifying image and bring forth the common guilt in that one has “transgressed the laws of God.”

Think of some of the entertainers in music and on MTV like Maryly Manson, Ozzy Ozbourne, and such. They get their money and increase their audience through shock value. It does not matter if they believe what they are doing or not. Think of nasty political fights on TV where talking heads like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Greta Van Susteren, Michael Moore, Larry King, Oprah, and others say things for shock value to increase the audience. They are all part of the same scam that Pentecostalism uses: scare them, shock them, induce fear and horror at the enemy, induce sadness and guilt and you have tons of entertainment cash coming into your bank account.

There is a large audience out there begging messiahs and leaders to manipulate their motions. Sadly, sometimes we are all suckers. Perhaps our involvement in Pentecostalism will inoculate us from a lot of this mess. Pentecostalism does indeed consist - in large part - of manipulative entertainment.

What makes our truth better than theirs?

What makes our truth better than theirs?

I do not approach Pentecostalism with equity. To treat someone with equity requires certain pre-conditions. Scientists generally will not take seriously people talking about things about which they are not trained. Pentecostals are generally deficient in objective rationality. In a rational society, we approach people with more or less equity, but what are the exceptions? The insane, the criminals, children who are not yet rationally developed, and so forth and so on.

I think it is a serious mistake to approach Pentecostalism with equity. This is the major mistake of the mainline churches in my opinion. It is also a defect within the American way of seeing things, and which has spread somewhat over the western world since the 1940’s and 1950’s.

Those of you who have experienced the atmosphere in the mainline churches, have you noticed that they are too tolerant of deviant religious movements in the United States? How many times have you noticed that they do not take seriously that Oneness Pentecostals are not only in a slight error, but that they are essentially not really difference from the mainlines? However, there is an essential, non-negotiable difference that the mainline churches ignore at their peril. Pentecostalism is not based on serious theology or praxis as are the mainlines and the Catholics. The difference is so broad as to be unbridgeable. There is a fundamental base of irrationality in Pentecostalism. Mainlines and Catholics have serious theology backing just about everything up – whether we all agree on their basis is another subject.

Now, there might be an argument from skeptical unbelievers that all religions are irrational and thus equal. This is to be expected in some sense from unbelievers who have left irrational Christianity and have become unbelievers. However, it must be understood that this skeptical position is not based upon a serious comparison and study; it is based upon mirror-imaging broader Christianity with the skeptics own experience – and who can blame them? I was such a person myself for many years, and I fully sympathize with the position. But, it is a fundamentally unserious position to equate Pentecostalism with mainlines or Catholics. There is too much theology supporting the mainlines and the Catholics and there is virtually nothing supporting the Pentecostals and Charismatic position. This is a very shocking thing to contemplate. Most people think that there has to be something supporting the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. No – there is nothing. Read the histories of the movement when it started around 1901-1906. It is pure irrationality which mixed some Christianity with American paganism. The leaders of the movement were ignorant and uneducated with the exception of one out of several dozen leaders.

For a quick summary, the Catholics and Protestants take their reasoning traditions from Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and expanded upon this base throughout the Middle Ages with scholasticism. Augustine and Aquinas built upon the foundations laid by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who also built upon thinkers before them, whom I cannot recall at this time. The Protestants starting with Luther and Calvin were a very intellectual people who challenged the Catholics church of the time to reform. Everything about Christianity of the major Protestants and the Catholics is based upon extremely highly educated intellectualism. Pentecostalism was formed by uneducated and ignorant preachers. This is a fact. And this is the reason why Pentecostalism is not on an equitable level as the mainlines and the Catholics

This is why Ex-Pentecostals has a “better” Truth, as it were, than the Pentecostals.

[I wish I could expand further upon this basis some time. Perhaps a few of us might be able to do this.]

FCF: Has the Pentecostal Movement died?

The following post was put on New Faithchild forum, a Oneness Pentecostal discussion board. Apparently they did not like it because it was deleted within minutes. So I share with you the text I wrote and the link to the original thread there. Perhaps we can discuss the end of the Pentecostal movement here.

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FCF: Has the Pentecostal Movement died?

http://www.newfaithchildforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9851

The Pentecostal movement by its nature is unstable, and thus, is not sustainable without an influx from stable people coming in from more stable churches that are liturgical and orderly. Pentecostals cannot produce a Bible nor produce any serious or coherent theology, or seminary or serious theologians. They have to borrow from other churches their very foundations. The best defenders of Pentecostalism in many places are apostate Catholics. Why? Because the Catholics (or Lutherans, or Anglicans) produce a high degree of religious order and these people come into the Pentecostal movement and ironically sustain the otherwise unsustainable.

What one sees when there are people leaving liturgical churches to go to Pentecostal churches is not that they are leaving their former churches; they are leaving Christianity. Pentecostalism is merely some purgatory on the way to atheism. Oneness Pentecostalism is the closest to atheism of all the sects because of the rejection of the Trinity. Almost all Ex-Oneness Pentecostals become atheists.

So, yes, the movement is dying, and it is only being sustained by an influx of people from other churches giving temporary life to the movement. What you are seeing is the decline of Christianity, as one looks at the bigger picture.

All those big plans and ideas about building churches in the mid to late 1990’s are crumbling in the dust. The 21^st Century has thus started a serious trend decline and stagnation in most cases of Pentecostalism, and specifically Oneness Pentecostalism.

The buildings are not being built any more. The UPC and other anti-Trinitarian Pentecostals are fragmented and torn by internal hatred and chaos, of which these forums are a microcosm. The AOG is practically dead.

The question is where will Pentecostals go from here? They tend to reject structure and serious institutions to sustain the movement, and thus, if they do not create stability, they will eventually completely die off within about 50 years.

JPI

Oneness Pentecostalism is not Christian

Oneness Pentecostalism is not Christian

Christianity throughout the ages has very distinctive things about it. The one thing all Christians of just about all times accepted, except for short bursts of heresy here and there (specifically Arianism), is belief in the Trinity. There were debates about the nature of the Trinity here and there, but you cannot deny the trinity and claim to be a Christian. Theologically, it is impossible. A lot of this stuff is theologically technical, but Oneness Pentecostals have more in common with Islam and Judaism than Christianity. Jesus is just Yahweh in the flesh – or Allah in the flesh. They do not believe that Jesus is really the Son of God in a Trinity. The words “Son of God” to them mean a big suit of flesh that God decided to put on so he could go down there and die on a Cross. Pretty stupid. And the Holy Ghost is God putting on some Ghost Suit and causing all kinds of chaos during church service like screaming, yelling and running around the church. God puts on different masks and does some crazy stuff – that is the Oneness Pentecostal God.

Since one’s concept of God reveals himself in one’s actions by imitation and modeling, their concept of God creates all this evil you find among Oneness Pentecostals. Their God is some monad, remote, isolated, lonely, and vindictive God who fools people with masks like “Father” “Son” and “Holy Ghost.” This lonely isolated god has emotional problems because he does not commune in a Trinity as the Christian God does. He is vindictive, capricious, and an instigator of chaos. In sum, their god is a demon. Demons create chaos. Many meanings of the word “hell” and “inferno” and “demonic” suggest chaos, horror and terror, which is exactly what the Oneness Pentecostal God produces. So, the irony is that they have made this single and isolated god the God of Christianity (in their minds) and basically call some idiot demon by the name of “Jesus.” And, by their fruits you shall know them, because they act and treat each other as their demonic god treats them: viciously and with all manner of insanity and evil.

Imagine a World Without Pentecostalism/Charismaticism

Imagine a World Without Pentecostalism/Charismaticism

I want you to use your imagination. How would the world have turned out if the Azusa Street Revival did not happen in 1906? Think hard. How many religious people would have studied more constructive theology and joined more rational churches over the years. It has been 101 years since this revival. Think of all the wasted minds and wasted energy of all the millions of people who wasted their lives within Pentecostalism. Could some of these people have figured out a cure for cancer? Think of how far we have advanced in science in the last 100 years. Now think of how much further we would be if a fraction of all these minds would have been studying chemistry, physics and engineering. Would we have stations on the moon by now? Would we have had a manned mission to Mars yet? Would we have some great form of energy to power the world that was safe and plentiful? Perhaps some of these would-have-been scientists would have found a way to make water be a prime source of energy like gasoline or something. The possibilities are limitless.

In politics, imagine if these people would have devoted themselves to public service and given themselves to their communities to make the world a better place. Would the 1960’s have been so destructive a decade if these people would have been helping out? Would Nixon have been impeached if more minds were working on problems trying to solve them? Would we have had World War II with Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini if we had more brains working on the entire world’ problems? Imagine. Expand your mind to think about the possibilities. How much cleaner our cities would be if these people would have been working on the public problems? How much more money would be in the national budget if these people would be more productive citizens? How much more money the states and the cities would have if they were more productive? Let’s say if they were not Pentecostals, their productivity in income, public service would be five times as much? How much richer society would be!

Imagine if all those families that were torn apart the last hundred years would all have stayed together. Imagine how much stronger our society would be. Image that all those psychologically damaged children would have been productive and strong members of their community. Imagine how much more imagination and creativity the kids would have been to invent, create, work and serve the community and the world. How farther along we would be in relations to opposing forces in the community? Would there be as many fighting groups in society tearing each other apart? Would we be working together instead at each other’s throats? Would there be more love to go around for the lonely, the elderly, the disabled, and the stranger? Would the orphans have more options to find a strong home? Would the abused have more options to find refuge and hope? Would those who were lonely be able to find love more quickly because the people within the community would be more trusting and public service oriented toward their fellow man?

Where would you be if Pentecostalism had not invaded your family? How far does Pentecostalism go in your family heritage? It takes usually two generations to establish a vocation within a family to make a solid contribution; how many of us have had broken vocations within the family tree because some fool in our family “felt a call of God” and became a preacher instead of pursuing the vocation that he was most suited for? Think about that very hard. How much of a loss to all of us, to the neighbors, the town, the state and the nation! Multiply this by the millions and this adds up to a staggering number of things that DID NOT happen in the last hundred years. We have been held back! Society has lost so much!

Now, after pondering this thought, now think of how we can restore society. How do we rebuild our towns and communities to remove the filth, the loss and the destruction that Pentecostalism has wrought? How to we mend the broken hearts? How to we restore community and trust where it has been destroyed? How do we help the child of Pentecostalism regain his bearings as he escapes this living hell called Pentecostalism? He is lonely and afraid. She is groping in the dark for answers. She does not know where to turn because she has been isolated. How do we reach her? How do we touch those who have grown cold? How do we restore the corrosiveness of cynicism in the Ex-Pentecostal, when in fact this cynicism is totally justified?

We are here to repair the damage. How do we do it? How do we help rebuild people out of the ruins to a new life? How does a person or an organization do such a large and huge task?

First we must imagine the world without Pentecostalism; then, we must take this vision and find a way to rebuild, helping those out of the corrosive fires of Pentecostalism.

How would you do it? What do you think needs to be done? How do we repair such widespread damage?

Broaden Yourselves to Prevent Despair

Broaden Yourselves to Prevent Despair

I think one of the most important things an Ex-Pentecostal person should do is to make sure that the majority of social contacts in their circle are non-Pentecostal. I cannot stress this enough. Remember that Pentecostalism isolates you from the wider community because it is so weird. When you are sufficiently isolated, they can manipulate you because you do not have an outside source of challenge to the insanity within. However, as an Ex-Pentecostal, you must actively and boldly fight this tendency toward isolation. Some of us might whine and complain that it is hard to do; however, we must do it. If we find problems in this area, we probably have terrible social skills and can use some professional counseling to improve our Emotional Intelligence. We must connect with other people. Think of the times of despair you had recently as an Ex-Pentecostal. I would bet that a large portion of this anxiety and despair was because you felt isolated, lonely and afraid. We did not consider our options. We were not connected to the larger community of non-Pentecostals to offset the radical de-socializing effects of Pentecostalism. We sat alone, and we suffered alone. Make sure that the overwhelming majority of people in your social circle are non-Pentecostals. THIS IS EXREMELY IMPORTANT!

So, please, broaden yourself socially. This is extremely important.

After we broaden ourselves socially, we should also broaden ourselves in other areas like careers and hobbies. I think that we are capable of a hundred times more things than Pentecostalism would allow us to think. Pentecostalism restricts our ambition, our creativity and our consideration of the World of Options. There are millions of options that we were never exposed to within Pentecostalism. Pentecostalism straight-jacketed our brains into not even being able to see our options.

Ask yourself a few questions:

In your wildest dreams, what would you like to do? Why are you not doing this right now? What is limiting you? Are you limiting yourself?

You are standing at your own funeral and people are giving their respects to you and your effects on their lives. What do you want them to say about you? What do you want your children to say about you? What do you want your neighbors to say about you? Now think about this: what is stopping you from being that person right now? Will you give them a reason to say all these good things about you at your funeral?

If you had 10 million dollars (or whatever currency for our international members) what would you like to do with it? Make a list. Now, what is stopping you right now from doing this? Is it really money, or is it your inhibitions that Pentecostalism has limited you to? Can you do perhaps half of these things with the situation you are in right now? Can you do one-fourth of these things right now? Think very hard about that. You might not be as limited as you think when you really consider the possibilities available in the larger world out there.

What are the five most important things in your life right now? Are you scheduling time for each of these things every week? How much time are you giving to each of these things? Count the number of hours and days. Now, are you dedicating enough time to these things that YOU say are truly important? Why are you not pouring a significant amount of time into things that are most important? Are you again limiting yourself because you are isolated and do not know your options? Or, are you stuck in a Pentecostal rut of not thinking too much about the most important things in your life? How will you change in the next two weeks? Will you take action on these five most important things?

Where are you spending your time? What three things have you spent the most time with in the last two weeks? Are these among the five most important things you listed in the previous section? If not, why not? Will you be more careful with your time in the future to focus on the five most important things in your life? If you say they are the most important, you should be spending your five most busy times during the week on things that are most important. Are you sacrificing urgency to importance? When things are urgent, ask yourself if it is merely urgent, or if it is truly important. We must focus only upon those things that are important – urgent or not. Remember that as Pentecostals we focused our time on things that were NOT important like emotional self-indulgence for the most part. Remember not to fall into the trap of allowing emotional self-indulgence to sap our time and energy.

What other ideas do you have to broaden yourself? What have you done in your life that makes a significant difference?

JPI

Pentecostal and Charismatic Chruches: How to Take Them Down

Pentecostal and Charismatic Chruches: How to Take Them Down

I wish to open this thread to a challenge for all of us to think about. If these crazy churches are a danger to society and caused a lot of ruckus in our lives, how can we stop them? I think the key is to analyze what allows these churches to exist. (1) All churches need money, (2) Money usually comes from church members and donors.

So, if we starve these churches of people – even a few people – we can starve them of funds.

So we must aim at these people feeding the beast. How can we stop these people from giving their money and time to these places that leech off of people?

(a) We must break their confidence in their movement

When people lose confidence in a movement, they will not give as much time and money to the movement. We can attack the legitimacy of their churches by calling into question their doctrines and showing them how much harm they cause.

(b) We must remove potential members from the church influence

We must starve the churches of new members. This will also strike a critical blow to their confidence. When people start laughing at their recruiting and challenging the legitimacy of their churches, they will not be as bold and will lose energy in the potential success of their movement.

Potential members are usually “backsliders.” These people come and go usually with too much guilt to completely make a break. We must go out, find all these people, and give them a final inoculation shot – as it were – and convince them that these churches are harmful and that they should never return or support something that causes harm.

So, if we (a) Break their confidence, and (b) Starve them of potential converts, we have come a long way in taking these places down. No money, no church. That is a fact.

So, what other ways can we take them down? We are a small, but committed group here. We do not have much money, because we do not need too much. But we can be effective in implementing a strategy for all who come here. What should everyone that comes here take away in a strategy that they can implement on a personal level? List the ideas.

We can network with phone calls, conference calls, and discussion boards. We can organize local meetings with "backsliders.” We can visit old friends who are “backsliders.” We can break the confidence in regular members by dismissing their ideas a quaint, strange, or anything else.

We must starve these churches of potential converts and break the confidence of current members in some fashion. This will drive less revenue and less cash into the coffers, and hopefully remove these churches from being such a large threat to the communities they operate in.

Okay, what else? We need your brains.

JPI

This is How Pentecostalism Destroys Our Families

This is How Pentecostalism Destroys Our Families

I think this is a very important topic. Let’s run through the questions and see if we can generate discussion and possible solutions. You can answer as many as you like.

Has Pentecostalism caused a divorce in your family?

Has Pentecostalism caused your kids to break off contact with you?

Has Pentecostalism caused your parents to break off contact with you?

Has your pastor caused your family to break up?

Has your pastor increased the arguments between you and your spouse or kids or parents?

Has Pentecostalism broken strong ties with your extended family such as aunts, uncles, grandparents, or grandchildren? How?

Has your pastor or anyone in authority in your former churches committed adultery with anyone in your family? Have they committed adultery with anyone in the church and in the process destroy any families?

Have any pastors or anyone in church authority try to take advantage of young girls sexually – or girls too young to understand the deviousness of older men looking for young meat?

Have you mended any of the damage that Pentecostalism has caused your family? How?

Do you have plans to mend the damage to your family? What are they?

Let’s roll with answers and options. Let’s help each other out here!

JPI

Isolation is Not Good

The isolation within Pentecostalism is dangerous. A constricted intellectual horizon will limit your options. Even though there are thousands of resources for help out there, if you do not know anything about them because of your isolation, you will wither on the vine in loneliness and despair. So, all the help out there, which poses a threat of getting you out of there, will be labeled as evil, worldly, of the devil and so forth to keep you isolated, alone and afraid. You will feel horror at the thought of leaving because you will know absolutely nothing of your options.

But, as we know here, there is a great big world out there with people willing to help if we just open ourselves to the possibilities out there. There is so much more to life and living than the narrow, restricted world-view of Pentecostalism. When you taste the variety out there, you will look upon Pentecostalism as pathetic and pitiful because they limit themselves so much that they waste their lives. They waste their lives on nothing. Think of how many more people we would have out there practicing science, playing music, writing novels, inventing new things, building houses, serving the community, going to college, teaching students, painting great pictures, running businesses, and many other things. What a waste because they do not know the world of options out there.

If one’s horizon of options is sufficiently constricted to the point where they cannot imagine a way out, this leads to despair, a broken spirit, and thoughts of suicide. The person becomes a nobody and an empty shell where a vibrant life should be.

JPI

Dealing with Cynicism after Pentecostalism

Dealing with Cynicism after Pentecostalism

When one initially leaves Pentecostalism, it is a bitter cup to drink to admit that we were fooled and that we believed in something so stupid. Usually, after we leave, we must build defense mechanisms to protect ourselves. We do this because after a recent escape, we must vow never again to be fooled by any such movement or anything similar. This is a necessary process in most cases. We are so close to the exit from the religion that fooled us, and we might be vulnerable to get fooled again if we do not take steps to build up our defenses. Thus, we study the techniques used to manipulate people, and we form a way of thinking that sifts through the potential rubbish of anyone or any idea we meet. If we do not sift through the stuff that comes at us, we can end up in a similar situation that we left.

Emotional appeals to a particular political movement, or for a car sales pitch, or to meet some interesting person must be severely sifted. We were sucked in through the manipulation of our emotions, and we must be on guard like an armed sentry at the gate of our heart.

This is where the process of leaving can get difficult. We have been hurt severely and we vow to fight anything that even remotely would threaten us. We see potential friends approach us with an upbeat smiling face, and we have flashbacks to that evangelist preacher who had a similar smiling face who promised healings that never happened – but we deeply believed the evangelist. We look at the new potential friend or acquaintance with suspicion and cynicism. So, we link what we saw in the past with the things we are introduced to in the present. The past haunts our present.

Such a state of mind can produce a mild to severe form of cynicism in the Ex-Pentecostal. We were fooled so deeply by people we loved - in some cases with all our hearts. This has the potential – with a high degree of probability - to make cynics of us all. We see the potential evil in humans. We look at people we meet every day and try to figure out what type of manipulating evil they are capable of. We have come face to face with pure evil in our past and we begin to see evil all around us in the present.

Why do we do this? Is this normal? Is this potential cynical outlook bad?

I do not think that being a cynic as a recently emancipated Pentecostal is a bad thing. I think that we need a good dose of cynicism to balance out the lack of cynicism we overdosed on for years within Pentecostalism. Think of a pendulum. We were at one extreme of a big pendulum in Pentecostalism with full trust of our leaders. It is a good thing that for some time we swing to the other side of the pendulum to the point where we trust nobody. We must learn to build a solid boundary. Initially, we will tend to build a fortress of steel, iron and brick, as it were. Again, this is not a bad thing for a period of time to learn how to build boundaries. A strong dose of pure cynicism could be the proper dosage to offset the disease of Pentecostalism. However, after our mental immune system is healed with this serious, bitter dose of medicine, we can begin to wean ourselves from this bitter pill.

After a few years of getting our bearings, rebuilding our social networks, working through emotional problems with counselors and trusted friends, we should be able to let go of most or even all of our cynicism toward the world and toward other people. After we go through this dark period of treatment with the bitter medicine of cynicism, we can begin to love again – although we must start out slowly. We must test ourselves in many cases to see how easily we fall for scams, but we can begin to reach out to others once more. Our bitter cynicism will be seen by the observant ones a little behind our eyes, and that will be a mark of wisdom through trial in our souls. We will be able to see evil without affecting the innocent. We will be able to recognize evil long before it affects our families and social circles long before so that we can take preventive measures from this experience of wisdom.

We must always remember that as Ex-Pentecostals we have several stages to go through before we are truly healed and free. If we suffer from cynicism, we just need to remember that this too shall pass, and that tomorrow is another day, and each day it gets a little easier.

derkrash-at-earthlink-dot-net
JP Istre

Be Proactive

Be Proactive

In our recovery from the ill effects of Pentecostalism we have to relearn some things that outsiders may take for granted. One example is the recognition that we are in control of our lives and that nothing is going to happen unless we make it happen. Sometimes this is called being Proactive. Stephen Covey, in his bestselling book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” has being Proactive as the first habit.

In Pentecostalism, we often were at the mercy of control freaks who prescribed many things in our lives in varying details. We looked to the leaders sometimes for mundane decisions like what clothes to wear, how to raise our kids, how to approach careers, what careers to choose, and so forth. When we leave Pentecostalism we have to face the fact that we were fooled into this strange obedience thing and we have to understand how to take control of our lives.

Covey explains that being Proactive is recognizing that there is a space between Stimulus and Response. Animals have no choice when they have a stimulus – they just respond. Humans, however, have a great thing IN BETWEEEN stimulus and response. We have the power to CHOOSE our response. How is that for freedom? We can choose our response to a stimulus and we do not have to accept the programming of our former church leaders.

Being proactive also means that we are not primarily REACTIVE to our situations and our environment, but we are ACTIVE to the point of Choosing to be active, which is being PROACTIVE. Being proactive at work, for example, is not showing up at the office or job site waiting for the boss to tell you what to do. Being proactive is actively using our power to choose our response in trying to figure out what the best ACTIVE response is to whatever stimulus we face. We do NOT wait. We ACT. We look at the situation, and read it. We then formulate the best response we can come up with. We then may approach the boss with a complete solution to the situation for perhaps approval, or if we are already trusted by the supervisory persons, we simply act and get the job done. In the area of health, we do not wait for sickness to take us down, but we actively pursue a healthy lifestyle TAKIING RESPONSIBILITY for choosing our response to a stimulus. We perform proactive check-ups to make sure all the things are working properly. When something is not quite right with our bodies or minds, we are immediately active in trying to figure out the problem to immediately find the proper solution to any particular health problem.

We are in charge. We are responsible for our own lives. Nobody is going to make us good or great in our careers and lives except us. If we do not act, nothing will happen. If anything is screwed up in your life, you must take responsibility to fix it – in fact, fix it NOW! Get out a pen and paper, figure out the Root Cause of the problem, and formulate several possible ways to fix the problem – plan A, plan B, and plan C, and get to work on it NOW. Why? Because you are responsible for your life. From now on, if things are screwed up, it is your problem. What does this mean? It does not mean that you are necessarily responsible for bad things happening to you like falling into bad religion like Pentecostalism. What it means is that you are alone responsible to fix the problem. You had a bad stimulus – Pentecostalism, now you have the power to choose your response instead of obeying the pastor. It is your own responsibility for your recovery. Get help. Find the answers. Order books on the subject. Take a trip to the library to study Mind Control. Start a support group. Post on this board your problems you need help on.

Do it. You are in charge now and you are responsible from here on out. Make the best of it and enjoy the ride!

JP Istre