How easy is it for a religion to get everyone to commit suicide?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown
With regards to Jonestown, Jonestown was the communal settlement in northwestern Guyana founded by the Peoples Temple of California.
Over nine hundred men, women and children perished.

beloved...
Jones managed to secure an affiliation with the Disciples of Christ.... so there, religion, god, suicide. and honestly, do you really think no one is corrupt and in charge in most religions

Answer 1

Well you don't have to go that far...Religion can twist people minds in one second. Why do you think many religions starved for more power and attempted to convert people.
Look at Hitler....He told Germans that Aryan which is a pure white breed is superior. People just followed him. They never asked him anything and so many Gypsies, Russians, and Jews were murdered.
Look at the history of Christianity and Islam. They have waged war on each other and killing in thousands and thousands.
People get crazy. You know when 9/11 happened, so many people from India and middle east were murdered by few Americans thinking they were Muslims.

Answer 2

Ironically most of the people who end up in cults like Jonestown, Branch Davidians, and Heaven's Gate are usually those that posess some of the highest IQ's. It comes from a strong desire to seek something beyond themselves. High IQ and dissatisfaction combined with distorted reality of drugs and isolation are what has been shown to make you receptive to that kind of control. No to gain that type of control is not easy, it takes years and years of systematic indoctrination and isolation and continued reliance on the leader and group alone. No it can't happen overnight like some of the people say and no it is not easy, FORTUNATELY these are extrememly rare individuals that have the Charisma, Intelligence, and Power Complex that it takes to form cults like these.

EDIT: Also to point out most of the people were forced to drink the Kool Aid at gun point, not voluntary like Heavens Gate. And most did not even know it was laced with cynide. Most people at the Branch Davidians were shot inside by small caliber handgun up close. I would not call this actually committing suicide.

Also, I would be really careful when you try to use incidences like this to make a "statement about religions' first because most do not consider such groups as a religion and secondly you never know if or how the people you are presenting this to had their lives effected by one of these groups.

Answer 3

Toby P would be right. People are pretty susceptible to charisma. They're pretty dumb too when that someone throws the god word around. So yeah, I guess it's pretty easy.

Although he did misuse the word ignorance. Ha, he's ignorant to the word ignorance. Ignorance only means the lack of knowledge. So to say they are ignorant is lacking what they are ignorant to. So often today has the word received a demeaning connotation when really it is a neutral word. I can be ignorant to the workings of a particle accelerator, doesn't mean I'm racist or dumb. It just means I don't know. Nothing bad; I just don't know. Can't hold it against me.

"You cannot judge a man about what he doesn't know, but what he does know."

Answer 4

That took him 20 or more years to do! Plus, not everyone followed him to death. There were people trying to save their lives.

It's not a problem with religion and belief. It's a problem with people who are weak (in some sense) following someone who is extremely powerful promising some new light. If you listen to documentary of people living in cults, it is their fear that prohibits them. Cults contain rituals that are perverse - this may include constant degrading and physical abuse. Colonia Dignidad leader would put children through electro shock. Peoples Temple's leader would ridicule and abuse cult members. Charles Manson was known to use drugs to brain wash his followers. Many would isolate (physically and mentally) their followers more and more until reality is moldable.

It's not the religion but the people who lead and follow. There are other cults that have nothing to do with religion. This may include: Yoga or aliens. It's about people trying to follow a perverse leader with permission to break down their own "soul" and reconstruct their ideals to any perverted nature.

Answer 5

Jim Jones was also closely affiliated with the government. It is said that the whole Guyana affair was a field trip for mind control studies. It's too easy when one has blind faith which is just a nice way of saying brainwashable.

Answer 6

have u ever thought if there was a good and evil that had a beginning ,therefore a leader in the spirit world...have you ever imagined that the leader of evil must know the leader of good's ways better than us mere humans?if so he would be a fool not to use this 'god' given vehicle to his own us as well realising the power of it(apparently even science know says there is a part of our brain specifically for use in the belief/faith of a god)...realising how easily he can mislead the world about the truth of the word of the creator....surely the devil uses all but one religon as its written.there can be only one god and only one belief in him.

Answer 7

Very easy, if you noticed most mass suicides have come out of religion! People want to be a part so bad that they will believe anything when you have leaders that claim to be prophets,Jesus Christ...

Answer 8

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
1.Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you. Verily the killing of them is a great sin.
2.Nor come nigh to adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to other evils).
3.Nor take life - which Allah has made sacred - except for just cause. And if anyone is slain wrongfully, we have given his heir authority (to demand qisas or to forgive): but let him nor exceed bounds in the matter of taking life; for he is helped (by the Law).

if you kill your self you will go to hell then the god punishment will be same way you kill your self live time ma zing

Answer 9

Very easy apparently in the cases you mentioned. When religions go to extremes, they become known as cults. One leader that brainwashes his followers, who will blindly do anything asked of them.

Answer 10

Don't forget the Heaven Gate cult that also committed suicide.

It's amazing and scary to see what brainwashing can do.