so, I have a question for the family members around here because I'm curious about what your family experiences are like.

the question: Why do you think this family member involved with FDR wants nothing to do with you?

I'm not looking for "cuz stef is an evil cult leader"... cuz well then this topic won't be too interesting. Thing is you've known this person for most if not all of their life, and for the parents you've had a large hand in forming who they are today... so you surely know many if not all of the reasons they have for their decision.

also, if you can put yourself in their experience and look at them as rationally choosing not to see you then that could go a long way towards helping to fix things.

And also, because to be perfectly honest, I don't want to be involved in a group that welcomes with open arms the sick and abusive. I mean if I started a group because I wanted to help falsely accused car-thieves, I damn sure don't want actual car-thieves in the group.


I'm looking forward to what you come up with.

Here's my interesting answer:

(Short Version)
Because it's easier to be a victim than to disagree. And people like to do what's easy. God forbid anyone actually agree to disagree, or not talk about politics.

(Long Version)
You first want nothing to do with your friends because you become a bore and a one-note conversationalist and they start making fun of you or changing the subject within one sentence. You'll stick with family longer because, well, that's who people are used to but also because they are often part of your home (perhaps even financing part or all of your lifestyle), but you eventually leave your family because--in this particular way of thinking about the world--they represent the state in a microcosm and the whole point of this worldview is that you must divorce yourself from the state and all its manifestations.

Toolbox, this line of questioning doesn't seem especially charitable to anyone. These are people whose children won't even have a conversation with them; I suspect very few of them have any idea what their kids are truly upset about, because they haven't been told. And if they are not, in fact, "car thieves," then it's as if you are a secret police officer asking an innocent person to guess why he might be arrested.

It's immaterial to me whether these parents have actually caused their children any grief. Probably they have. Most parents have, but that's just a pitfall of parenting. I have no reason to suspect that these parents are an especially heinous bunch, and it strikes me as grotesque to compel anyone to prove--absent any accusatory evidence--that they are not abusers of children.

Toolbox,

we don't know about how the relationships between the parents and their children were, and can't know it.

That may make the situation akward (cuz obviously I for one wouldnt want to defend somebody who has horribly abused his/her child), but it is at least as odd to ask the parents to prove their innocence first. Partly because it's impossible, partly because it may be insulting and partly because it buys into the story Molyneux tells the children about their relationship with their parents, and since the latter is questionable evidence and the only 'evidence' we have it doesnt seem strong enough to warrant strong suspicions.

I don't know, the parents on LM seem sympathetic and concerned, but just like any sympathetic person you meet perhaps they're sick, abusive people behind the facade. It's just that I kind of don't want to go through life being suspicious in that way. I think quite a few people on LM have asked sensible questions, provided sensible insights that may help the parents along. That's all that can be done at this point it seems to me.

Toolbox,
Stef's group follows the classic and necessary (for the group) distancing from real family - - which includes the extended family of friends
While there may or may not be other family issues unrelated to the cult problem, the key is during recruitment and indoctrination, a recruit begins to see their past life in a different and unflattering light - - regardless of the reality of that view.
The Moonies put that Satan works through those you love and that they will try to get you away from the group - - which is equal to leaving God.

The cult - process, aka, undue influence, creates a second ego/value system that becomes the executive or operating system. The old self is placed in a box/closet, able to hear the information but cannot act on it in a normal, critically thought out way. The new system follows the party or leader line - - - .
In FDR, Stef decides who are real "thinkers" - - and anyone else is not - - which just happens to include family and friends that don't decide to follow Stef. This is very critical to the group because it causes the new follower to move closer to the group once they distance from their regular support group. I believe FRD's term is defoo family - - am I correct here?

Are group leaders "Evil"? One might use that term but it may be more useful to say that the actions of the leaders are harmful to the families, the individual and as a result, to the communities in turn. They are for certain, egomaniacal, narssacistic, abusive, and possibly mentally ill.

Keep in mind that the followers almost never make a conscious decision to join. One former member of the Children of God, aka, The Family, said he willed to give up his free will - - he didn't want to be getting in the way.

To use real family issues as the reason for involvement and the distancing from family and friends ( especially when there was
little or no prior evidence of the so called reasons for defooing), is lapsing into the blame the victim(s) thinking which then let's the group and leader off the hook.

Does this make sense?

Stef says to others, "calling FDR 'a cult' or 'culty' is like calling my wife a whore. I take great offense to that." Well, he calls the family, my family, your family, all families, "The CULT of the Family."

Did he just call my mother, my sister, my two-year-old niece and everyone else in my family a bunch of whores? I mean, if the high heels and feather boa fit... right? Right?