Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "10 Killer Cults You Should Know About" video.

@dcastleb69 Not really, agnostic is essentially the safest bet in terms of being correct. It doesn't reflect a lack of any higher power, it just recognizes that it's pretty much impossible to know with any meaningful level of certainty if there is or not. I've met some atheists over the years who were just as religious about it as the more devout followers of organized religions.
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@ferociousgumby I think they say that because a lot of the people who do get involved in cults didn't put it on their to do list and probably didn't realize it until they were in deep. If they even realized it at that point.
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@scait88 It's been around for probably just about as long as humans have had the ability to form complex ideas. But, it's definitely been on a downward trajectory in much of the developed world. Even in the deep south where religious communities were a major institution, it is starting to shrink a bit. Although, that's probably going to take generations.
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@Chelaxim That certainly has been a part of it, violent crime in general is down from then, even though it may not seem it at times. But, there's also been a lot of progress in terms of law enforcement techniques to track and catch these people. Serial killers do still exist, but it's a bit harder to get away with now that there's not just much improved techniques for working with DNA, but the ability to track an individual to a family and then from there figure out which one it is that is the culprit. I also think that the fact that fewer people are interested in religion in general as the solution to their problems probably also factors in to the drop in these large scale cults. If more mainstream religious organizations like the Roman Catholics are having a hard time getting people to look past their sex crimes and just generally questionable take on reality, it's going to be harder for less mainstream beliefs to catch on.
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Aren't they the ones that own Circle K convenience stores? Anyways, I'm not sure they really count as a cult as they don't seem to be particularly any worse than other organized religions.
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Keep in mind that none of these cults jump straight into the super crazy stuff, it takes time to indoctrinate people the same way that it took generations to indoctrinate Catholics to turn a blind eye to what those priests were doing.
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@Shogundoxie1414 I don't think they even do that anymore due to them not wanting to have their leader subjected to depositions and have to start answering questions under oath. It's my understanding that if they do kill people, it's via incompetence and lack of care, rather than actual intentional murder. After all, they do need people to pay for their costly services and they can't do like the Catholics and require a new mass for each body part from the victim of a serial killer is found. (Yes, that really is true and it's both petty and corrupt, there should have been some sort of a break after the 3rd or 4th body part was found)
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What's really scary is that these are cults. Organized religions have done far worse. The fact that these are cults rather than mainstream religious organizations speaks volumes for how far we've come as a species.
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