#1. Sathya Sai Baba
Despite looking like an orange microphone, Sai Baba was one persuasive SOB. Many followers actually cried in his presence. Stirring these kinds of emotions, it’s no wonder they referred to him as Godman. Not exactly the most imprecise nickname ever.
Why he thought, or others thought, he was an incarnation:
Sai Baba wasn’t so much a cult leader as he was a highly regarded guru. According to Sathya Sai Organization there are an estimated 1,200 Sathya Sai Baba Centers in 114 countries worldwide. He didn’t do much to entice crowds. He would sit for long periods of time in front of an eager crowd without saying a word and then perform a miracle magic trick. The crowd would go wild, people would cry, and Sai Baba would get whatever he wanted. And since humans have something called a “sex drive” it’s no wonder someone who could get whatever he wanted would…
Rape:
Yes, and he was a pedophile too. During his reign of popularity he allegedly raped dozens of people, but most were too afraid to come forward about it. He was in his 70s and still allegedly raping the shit out of people. Rape is bad enough, but a grandpa with moth balls? (Don’t pardon the pun.) Just watch around the 5:40 mark of this video.
Reporter: “Why would God want to put his penis in your mouth?”
Rapee: “Got me.”
Oh, he got you, all right. Poor guy.
#2. Glen Taylor Helzner
So you want to take over the Mormon Church and usher in an age of peace and joy. Cool, go for it. But training Brazilian orphans to assassinate the leaders of the Mormon Church and then blaming it on the government behind the government? You would think this could only happen in a 1970s “B” horror movie by a 9/11 truther, but of course, you’d be wrong. This was Glen Taylor Helzner’s diabolical plan. Fortunately for those of us who don’t believe in the fine art of Brazilian orphan assassination, Helzner was arrested before he could follow through with it. What was his charge? He settled for the measly slaughter of five innocent people. His wife and his brother – both of whom he completely mind-fracked – actually committed the murders on his planning. Kind of like sacrifice…if you still consider the sacrificed not wanting to be sacrificed sacrifice.
Why he thought, or others thought, he was an incarnation:
Helzner was a Mormon, and if you know anything about Mormons you’d know that they fancy far-fetched stories about Jesus. Following this proud Mormon tradition, Helzner thought he was the second coming of Christ. Why? No one is entirely sure. The psychologist that analyzed him came to the conclusion that he was charismatic enough to convince his brother and his wife…and even himself that he was the reincarnated Christ. All three of their delusions fed off of each other’s until they reached a point of complete disconnect from reality. Or in other words: completely frackin’ nutters.
Rape:
No rape, unless you consider calling telling a girl that you’re God to get her to sleep with you rape. Telling followers you’re God gets them on their knees faster than Jenna Jameson on Jupiter (Jupiter has 245% the gravity of Earth).
#3. Adi Da Samraj
Adi Da literally means “the radiant avatar, primordial giver, universal ruler.” In other words, his name is basically God. Because, as we all know, referring to yourself as God just isn’t awesome enough. Did you just sneeze? If so then “Adi Da bless you.” A simple “God bless you” won’t suffice among the ranks of the crazed Adi-Damites. So what is his claim to fame? A unique and complete offering of the total way and wisdom of the pre-cosmic Divine Light. He claims to be the most spiritualized being to ever exist. You’d think the most spiritualized being in history would have the ability to create a coherent and intelligent form of spirituality:
The ego, which in various traditions is understood to be an entity, is identified as the activity of separativeness, which is enacted in every moment. Ultimately, there is only one divine consciousness, which is the state to be realized. This can be done by turning one’s attention to the realizer of the divine in every moment, thereby receiving the grace of spiritual blessing and transmission.
Nope. In 2007 the Encyclopedia of Cults referred to this as complete BS. Don’t believe me? Ok, don’t, it was a lie. But you could imagine that if such an encyclopedia did exist it’d say something along those lines.
Why he thought, or others thought, he was an incarnation:
On September 10, 1970 Adi Da says he had a reawakening in which he awoke as a divine incarnation. He told people he was God, they followed, and that’s about it. We can imagine it went something like this:
Adi: Yo.
Random: Oh, hey stranger.
Adi: I’m God.
Random: Totally. Here’s my money.
Rape:
Again there was no actual rape, but on the rape scale – yes, such a thing does exist – I’d place the sexual abuse he allegedly committed at around a 7 out of a maximum rapiness of 10. You can be the judge. Here are his allegations:
- lining female members up, making them strip, and then cutting their pubic hair
- lining girls up, making them strip, then taking his pick of the one he wanted to sleep with that night
- sexing up a 10-year-old at a naked party
- forcing a girl to act in a porno flick and subsequently giving her herpes
#4. Charles Manson
From jamming with the Beach Boys to killing Roman Polanksi’s pregnant wife, a Natural Born Killers-esque movie about Manson’s insanity practically writes itself. Need I say more?
Why he thought, or others thought, he was an incarnation:
During the age of free love, flower power, and the start of insanely reductionist postmodern thought, Charles Manson rose to fame as a guru in San Fran’s Haight-Ashbury district. He gathered a following, which was mostly made up of young girls in search of meaning in their lives – kinda like Girls Gone Wild, except they flashed their souls. His charisma led his followers to think of him as the incarnation of Christ. The hair probably helped too. On top of that he called himself “The God of Fuck.” Which leads into:
Rape:
Before starting a cult Manson spent six years in prison on charges of theft and, you guessed it, rape.
In earlier news, Wright declard that Spore was performing at
Political Untouchables
Friday, August 29th, 2008I’ll admit it. I had caught Obama fever.
It started when my girlfriend’s mother gave me a copy of Dreams from my Father, Obama’s bestselling 1996 biography. Reading it got me very excited about Obama’s candidacy, and once it became clear that it was going to be a contest between Obama and McCain I enthusiastically threw my support behind Obama. A McCain presidency promises a fresh social conservative in the Supreme Court following Justice Stevens’ imminent departure, something that, as a freethought activist, I felt I had to oppose. Meanwhile, Obama has been explicit in several speeches about his staunch support of church-state separation. To me, the choice was obvious.
Then my wake-up call came, in the form of Obama promising to promote and enhance faith-based initiatives across the country. I was shaken; was there any candidate who could help us progress as a society, who would not actively promote conformity to mainstream religious modes?
The answer is simply no. This election is noteworthy, among many other things, for the fact that the Evangelical Christian bloc is up for grabs for the first time in recent memory. They carried Bush II to victory in the 2000 and 2004 elections, swinging states like Ohio into the Red and helping him capture the White House. However, the evangelicals are not as excited about McCain as they were Bush II, and both camps know that they have to mobilize to target this very motivated group of voters. The first real appearance of the two candidates together was the recent Saddleback Church forum, hosted by celebrity evangelist pastor Rick Warren. Before they debated on real issues, they instead got on-stage in front of the nation and tried to out-Christian each other, jumping through the Judeo-Christian hoops to prove that they are Christian leaders who will lead a Christian nation with Christian values towards a Christian world.
As an non-believer and a secular freethought activist, this sickens me. Many who decry the role of religion in Middle Eastern politics passionately advocate a Christian stranglehold on our own government, the worst of which we have seen since Bush II came into office. Christianity disproportionately dominates our government, unreflective of the true nature of the American religious demographic: anywhere from 4%-14% of Americans(depending on who you ask) consider themselves to be non-believers, not including many who keep their mouths shut about their disbelief. Despite this fact, one has to ask: where are the non-religious politicians? Well, here’s one, and he’s not the first; California Gov. Culbert Olson, a Democrat who served from 1939 to 1943, declared his atheism as well. But these men “came out” close to or after the end of their political careers, when they had little left to lose by such an admission. It would seem as though the non-believer is among the last of the political outcasts; the Democratic Party has a black man running for president with a Catholic as his running mate, and it came narrowly close to nominating a woman. A Jewish man was a Vice Presidential candidate in the 2000 election. The Democratic party openly supports civil unions for homosexuals. Yet, for all of its talk, the “party of inclusiveness” shuns those whose worldview tends toward the skeptical.
Given the current socio-political landscape, this makes bitter sense. To formally recognize non-believers as a political entity would be instant suicide for any political party. The best that we can hope to do is to vote for someone who would hurt our cause less, and in this case, the choice is clearly Obama. However, it is a regrettable choice, one that hurts more and more with each election cycle as we grow as a subset of the population while facing the same political disenfranchisement year after year. Perhaps someday the non-believers will know the joy of having a real say in politics, like women, minorities and soon homosexuals. Until then, we’ll fight the good fight until the world considers our voice a legitimate one.
Tags: dreams from my father, election, government, Obama, politics, religion, secular
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