Murder and Suicide Reviving Claims of Child Abuse in Cult

[Desperadoe]

Growing up in the 1970's in a religious cult known around the world as the Children of God, Ricky Rodriguez was revered as "the prince." The group's leaders were his mother and stepfather, and they taught that their son would guide them all when the End Times came.

He was so special that his unconventional upbringing - by a collection of often-topless young nannies - was chronicled in "The Davidito Book," which was distributed to cult members as a how-to guide for rearing children. And children the cult had in multitudes.

Last Saturday in Tucson, Mr. Rodriguez, now 29, invited a former nanny, Angela Smith, to go to dinner. He took Ms. Smith to his apartment, stabbed her to death, went to his Chevrolet, drove west across the California border to a small desert town, Blythe, and called his wife on his cellphone to explain why he had killed Ms. Smith, the police in both states and Mr. Rodriguez's wife said.

Then with one shot from a semiautomatic handgun, the police said, he ended his life.<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/15/national/15cult.html?hp&ex=1105851600&en=33a9d76243a6df6f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Freebird12004]

1. one less abuser

too bad the child in Ricky thought that killing Ms. Smith was his only option to 'right an old wrong'.

[TahitiNut]

2. This is a story for everyone wishing to exercise their pointing finger.

Christians and Faux-Christians, flower children and anti-hippies, sex-obsessed and sex-oppressed ... you name it. There's something in this story for every blame-shifter under the sun. Wow.


It seems clear to me that public discussion of this story will be a case study in the logical fallacy of "Coincidental Correlation" (i.e. post hoc ergo propter hoc).
Let the fun begin. :party:

---

Coincidental Correlation
(post hoc ergo propter hoc )

Definition:

The name in Latin means "after this therefore because of this". This describes the fallacy. An author commits the fallacy when it is assumed that because one thing follows another that the one thing was caused by the other.

Examples:

(i) Immigration to Alberta from Ontario increased. Soon after, the welfare rolls increased. Therefore, the increased immigration caused the increased welfare rolls.
(ii) I took EZ-No-Cold, and two days later, my cold disappeared.

Proof:

Show that the correlation is coincidental by showing that:

(i) the effect would have occurred even if the cause did not occur, or
(ii) that the effect was caused by something other than the suggested cause.

http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/posthoc.htm

[1monster]

3. .

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ripley]

5. I blame handguns, toplessness, the End Times and the whole Southwest.

What did I leave out? :evilgrin:

[TahitiNut]

7. Preservatives, air pollution, Hustler Magazine, ....

... the list is endless. :evilgrin:

Like it or not, we live in a society that's increasingly habituated to blame others and react to violence with violence, exploitation with exploitation, and anger with anger ... always directed at the most convenient target and not towards those interests deliberately fomenting this moral decay and societal fragmentation for their own greedy purposes.

[jdj]

20. do you REALLY believe in "moral decay"?

wow.

There's nothing new under the sun.

[TahitiNut]

22. When increasingly extensive ethical corruption ...

... is being exposed almost weekly at the very senior levels of institutions in every public sector, including government, religion, and private enterprise ... what would you like to call it?

Tooth decay? :dunce:

[1monster]

6. .

[melnjones]

10. You wrote a confusing and unclear post

on a sensitive subject. One has every right to respectfully ask for clarification as to what you were trying to say. Using even the tiniest bit of tact might do you some good, my friend.

[TahitiNut]

14. "respectfully" never includes putting words in another's post ...

... that aren't even remotely there. And I'll be fucking goddamned if I'll tolerate the sleazy innuendo that I'm somehow demeaning the psychological impact of child abuse!!! There wasn't a fucking thing in my post that warrants or excuses such an implication!

My post was, loosely speaking, a "meta-observation" ... observing that this story has an abundance of hot button elements: hippies, "free" love, child abuse, spousal abuse, murder, suicide, extramarital sex, adultery, guns, religion, nudism, race, immigration, you-name-it!

The story is an open invitation to every single-issue-drum-beater to weigh in and point a finger of blame.

Just watch.


Clue: Ripley got it. It was neither confusing nor unclear.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[melnjones]

11. Bless your heart...

I relate so much to what you wrote. Please don't take what this guy says personally.

[NashVegas]

17. You Left Out One

Innocently smacking head-first into societal rule-breaking, and trying to cope with the results. (upper part)

[TahitiNut]

18. (grin) You mean like "Cool Hand Luke"?

I dunno. Every once in awhile, one of the window shades pops up in our national neighborhood and we get a glimpse past the facade and inside the reality of other people's lives. Just a glimpse, though. But that's all we need to fill in the blanks in our individually unique ways. Based on our individual notions of what's "usual" and what's "anomalous," we react - usually by swinging our own particular brand of baggage. (Mine's "American Two-Wrister.") It's never really very simple, though, no matter what we write on our banners.


Remember, the "cool hand" is the one that has nothing in it.

[NashVegas]

24. I Think I Need to See That One Again

The thread that holds us together as a unit and keeps us in line is more fragile than, I think, we're collectively aware. When something comes along and exposes just how fragile the thread is, society will act to protect itself. Baggage is great for that. You can get so bogged down in sorting it out and rationalizing it, you're distracted from realizing exactly what the threat is and what it threatens, and coming to livable terms with your baggage in the process.

And I imagine that sounds kinda vague, but it's a personal issue :shrug:

[TahitiNut]

25. Y'know, I'm a "social democrat" ... right on the edge of being 'socialist'

But there's one mindset close to me that I abhor - it's the sanctification of "society." I abhor priesthoods (and anointed spokespersons). I abhor worship of the means and sacrifice of the ends on the altar of the Unquestioned.

Humans cooperate and collaborate, not to subjugate themselves but to liberate themselves (in the sense of the "Four Freedoms"). Slavish, mindless compliance to the 'rules' (e.g. customs, habits, rites) ignores the fact that the vast majority of such (mostly unwritten) 'rules' are derived and inherited from the overwhelmingly autocratic and authoritarian history of assembled humanity.

I deliberately express support for those who "challenge authority" ... shit-stirrers, boat-rockers, whistle-blowers, protesters, potty-mouthed, streakers, farters-in-church, and anyone who dances to different drummers ... especially those whom I personally find most offensive. The last people I support are those who climb on some authoritarian bandwagon - partisans, reichbots, followers, and those who speak with the imperial "we."

The "powers-that-be" just don't need my help. To me, that's the essential difference between totalitarian Communism and (what I see as a liberal/libertarian brand of) Socialism.


There's a very pithy line in "Cool Hand Luke" where George Kennedy's character argues against 'rocking the boat.' Luke says something to the effect that "That's good, because we all know the bosses need all the help they can get." Luke viscerally understands oppression. He's a shit-stirrer.

[NashVegas]

26. Okay, Now I Gotcha

And we all know how Newman's character ended up, don't we?

Of your above post, we see eye to eye on much. I just think there's a lot to be said for subversion. For one thing, it's healthier. Throwing a spanner in the works can move the boat into a different direction and you don't have to get pitched overboard, yourself.

[TahitiNut]

27. I've never doubted "we see eye to eye on much."

:evilgrin: Never.

Hayduke rulez! :dunce:

[DELUSIONAL]

8. Cult thinking -- Cult Religious Groups -- and GW Bush

I did a quick search -- Cult Psychology -- and came up with the following

Some degree of cult behavior can be seen in all groups, so instead of asking “Is this group a cult?,” a more useful inquiry is: “How much cult behavior is taking place here?” This question has special urgency as we face the reality of a present-day terrorism whose destructive possibilities have been fearfully magnified by modern technology. Although it is not hard to spot cult behavior in al Qaeda, we are not inclined to notice it in ourselves as we respond to the threat. Yet, we had better be able to do so, because the price of cult behavior is diminished realism. We cannot afford that now.

To heighten our awareness, Them and Us identifies four basic cult behaviors that influence our thinking: 1) compliance with a group, 2) dependence on a leader, 3) avoiding dissent, and 4) devaluing the outsider. These forces operate in all aspects of society. The core process is devaluing the outsider, resulting in Them-versus-Us behavior.

The book is: Them and Us: Cult Thinking and the Terrorist Threat by Dr. Arthur Deikman

There are so many cults -- the one in the article is an extreme example.

As I read the article I realized that the control the leaders had over their followers was very similar to the control that GOP cultists have over their followers.

And then there was the WACO bunch -- the Branch Davidians which was an offshoot of another cult like church -- the Seventh Day Adventists.

The 4 basic cult behaviors that influence our thinking

1) compliance with a group, 2) dependence on a leader, 3) avoiding dissent, and 4) devaluing the outsider. These forces operate in all aspects of society. The core process is devaluing the outsider, resulting in Them-versus-Us behavior.

http://www.deikman.com/wrong.html

http://www.deikman.com/eval.html

-----------------------

There are over 3,000 destructive cults in the US, with approximately 4 million members. They fall into 4 basic types:

* Religious -- the type we hear about most frequently;
* Psychological/Enlightenment -- offering expensive "enlightenment" workshops;
* Commercial -- including certain pyramid and multi-level marketing organizations;
* Political -- which are organized around a political dogma. Nazism was originally a cult, and cults can still be found lurking in the left and right wings of American politics.

http://www.workingpsychology.com/cult.html

[Minstrel Boy]

9. The Children of God linked to the far right and Bush family

I've cribbed this from Alex Constantine's book, Psychic Dictatorship in the USA:


Chief Inspector Juan Carlos Rebello, who led police in the COG raids (in Argentina), said "we found evidence suggesting that the Family was funded by influential businessmen worldwide." One Argentine magazine found that some financial supporters of the cult were "well-known and powerful people," and pondered whether Berg's disturbed mental state "is being exploited by a network of powerful people to sexually control an army of children....

According to the Washington Post for June 2, 1993, "the Family's leadership follows a policy of lying to outsiders, is steeped in a history of sexual deviance and has even meddled in Third World politics." Edward Probe, a Canadian who once edited Family publications, worked in the Philippines from 1986 to '88. He told the Post that "Family officials openly sympathized with right-wing military officers who tried to overthrow the government: What we were doing was supplying all the moral support." One former member from Costa Rica told Argentina's Gente magazine: My father used to have certain privileges inside the organization. He was considered a very important person for public relations. His paternal grandfather...was a close friend of Pinochet and Juan Carlos, the king of Spain." Pinochet and Carlos became financial and political benefactors of the cult.

In the United States the political pull of the sect extended to the Bush administration. A chorale of Family children (in 1978 the COG changed its name to the Family of Love) kicked off a Christmas show in 1992 for Barbara Bush in the East Room of the White House, for which they received certificates of appreciation signed by President Bush. The sect also sang for Bush after he toured the ravages of Hurricane Andrew in south Florida. It wasn't the first time Bush's name arose in connection with a child prostitution cult....

[Judi Lynn]

19. So glad to see this post. Gives one so much to think about.

The puzzle definitely deepens here. Thanks for taking the time to provide this info. A group has to have some wildly cruel influence to create this kind of explosive rage in a child over a lifetime. This man must have suffered wildly before he finally got this desperate (from the original posted article):

He said he saw himself as a vigilante avenging children like him and his sisters who had been subject to rapes and beatings.

"There's this need that I have," he said. "It's not a want. It's a need for revenge. It's a need for justice, because I can't go on like this."

Mr. Rodriguez is not the only suicide among people reared in the Children of God. Some former members who keep in touch with one another through a Web site, movingon.org, say that in the last 13 years at least 25 young people reared in the cult have committed suicide.
(snip)

Your information on their political associations is invaluable.

Found a photo of the recently departed's grandfather and church's founder, David Berg...

For most of the next 27 years he worked as a pastor and in various evangelistic endeavors until, in 1968, he received God's call to take the Gospel to the hippies of southern California. There he and his then teen-aged children began a ministry to the youth that grew and was known as The Children of God, and eventually became known as The Family. Today, members of The Family engage in missionary and humanitarian work in about 90 countries worldwide.

David Berg called on his followers to devote their full time to spreading the message of Christ's love and salvation as far and wide as possible, unfettered by convention or tradition, and to teach others to do the same.

Berg also decried the de-Christianization and decay in moral values of Western society. He viewed the trend towards a New World Order as setting the stage for the rise of the Antichrist, a godless world dictator whom the Bible predicts will rule the world in the last days before Christ’s return.
(snip/...)
(From the group's own website.)

http://www.thefamily.org/about/davidberg.php

[bobthedrummer]

21. The Mormans did quite well in J. Edgar Hoover's FBI-they were upper

management and supervisors known as the Mormon Mafia. Hoover prized LDS agents.
But this Children of God cult is really spooky.
Lot's of cults in government.

[biblio]

12. This group has ties to the far-right Institute for Religion and Democracy

I researched them for my blog last year when I was looking into Sam Brownback and the right-wing anti-North Korea movement.

Here's what I came up with:
"Helping Hands Korea" is run by the Family Care Foundation which is the non-profit arm of The Family. The Family, or Children of God, as it was formerly known, is a cultlike Christian group that came out of the Jesus Movement in the 60s. Ex-members report abuse, pedophilia, prostitution and polygamy.

The whole article is here.

I'm a newbie, so please, forgive any breaches of protocol!

[Minstrel Boy]

15. Thanks biblio, appreciate the link.

And welcome to DU. :hi:

[UpInArms]

13. countercog website

http://countercog.excult.org/

[derby378]

23. They've set up shop in Dallas, too...

...under the name "Good News Outreach." Look for them in Deep Ellum on Friday and Saturday nights, looking for new converts.