A utopia is a perfect world or society. Many groups and organizations leave normal society to create their own perfect community. A dystopia is the total opposite. This can be caused when a utopia goes under total control of the leader. The Peoples Temple cult aimed to start a utopia of its own, intergating blacks and whites in a common space. Things went well until their leader, Jim Jones gauned total power over their minds and spirituality.The Peoples Temple was mostly successful. Although the followers of the cult ultimately committed a mass suicide, mostly the group gained many followers and helped to integrate hospitals and churches, during a time where America was segregated.
The cult started off as an interracial congregation and later moved to a jungle in Guyana to seek a utopia. They moved into their own compound, Jonestown, to isolate themselves from the outside world. The goal was to build their perfect world.
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This is something that seemed tabo during the 60’s, where America was still racist and segregated. Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple helped to break mant social barriers. “He helped to integrate churches, hospitals, restaurants and theaters…was one of harmony and equality rooted in communism” (Latson). The church had blacks, whites, Asians, etc; they wanted a “rainbow” family. They loved and welcomed all people into their community.
Although The Peoples Temple ended when its followers committed a mass suicide, thcult was mostly successful because they gained hundreds of followers a year and helped to racially integrate hospitals and churches. The Peoples Temple was a church that eventually formed into a cult. They traveled to create a utopia with racial and social equality, on a plot in Guyana. This all came crashing down when Jim Jones started abusing drugs and eventually forced his memebers to poison them to
The Mormons' Success in Setting Up a New Community The Mormons are a religious group in the United States of America. Their full name is The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints. Joseph Smith founded them. Joseph Smith was the man who founded the Mormons. He translated the golden plates and wrote the book of Mormon.
Dystopia is a society where something is flipped from our normal society, making everything else different and worse than we can imagine. Harrison Bergeron is a good example of a dystopia because it changes one thing that makes that society worse than ours. In the society of Fahrenheit 451, reading books is illegal. This changes how people retain knowledge and see the past that their society was once in. In our society, books are not illegal to read.
First, people slowly started to realize this may not be what they want yet have no option, leading to psychological torture. It was said to be that if anyone was caught running away Jim Jones and his guards would use tactical skills to torment the people into staying, basically scaring them into any other idea. Also, Jones convinced his people that they were under attack by the government and that the US wanted to shut them down, using brainwash. After hundreds of nights practicing the suicide he finally called the actual drinking of the cyanide-laced kool aid (Jonestown and peoples temple, chidster). The people of Jonestown were manipulated and brainwashed into thinking that the life they were living was a hell and that suicide would bring them to peace. Jim Jones had implanted false thoughts in their heads causing emotional distress and ultimately leading to the mental break down of killing their children and themselves. The people of Jonestown were taken to the level of abnormal living and held high reliance on Jim. It was because of all these adaptions that Jim forced on these people that they became a cult (Cult, Gallagher). Jim Jones is one of the main and biggest examples of the difference between a religious leader and a cult leader. Another key example of a cult that used psychological techniques to persuade people
...instituted fear into his followers by telling them that if they do not join his cause they will lose their souls forever upon the recycling of the planet Earth. Hence, the only way to save their soul was to rid themselves of their human nature. The last technique that Applewhite used to gain his students trust was institution of power and importance. Applewhite told his followers that he was a member of the evolutionary kingdom bought to earth in order to prepare its inhabitants for re-enlightenment; to teach them how to be saved and not “plowed under” with the others. (Initiation Video one) These behaviors, along with many others not discussed here allowed Applewhite and Nettles to gain and maintain control of their followers. Behaviors such as these can be seen in practice today, not necessarily in cults, allowing us to further explore how and why cults develop.
A cult society is an organization that basically disguises itself as a religion. In a cult, they normally perform rituals. There are usually many people in these societies. In Jim Jones’s cult, there were at least one thousand people in this community.
The idea of cults stands out for me in the reading. It was good for Lynch to draw the contrast between how we see cults today in the 20th century versus how cults were seen and operated in Antiquity. Today cult is often used to describe a negative aspect of a religion and their practices. One example I recall is Jim Jones and his followers who committed suicide by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid
Cults are becoming more and more of an issue for Jews every day. Many cults are beginning to target Jews. They say you can believe in Jesus yet remain a Jew, or many other things like that. It is important for people to educate themselves of these cults and their recruiting techniques so that they will not be taken advantage of by these cults. Cults now are very different than they were in ancient times though. The Jews, rather than being targeted by cults, were themselves a cult. In fact they were one of the first documented cults.
The People’s Temple was religious cult founded and lead by Jim Jones, based in Jonestown, Guyana. The converts belonging to Peoples Temple may have joined for various reasons differing from one another, yet the one common bond they all shared was Jim Jones. They loved Jim, they feared Jim, and eventually they died for Jim .
Jehovah witnesses have membership of 83 million. The governing body of the Jehovah witnesses is a group in Warwick, NY of elders. This group establishes doctrines from their interpretations of the bible. I was founded by Charles Taze Russell in the 1870’s.
Furthermore, the film is highly inclusive, giving the viewer thorough detail not only about the religious organization, but also Jones himself. To start off, the film gives detail of Jones’ upbringing, how he behaved as a child, and certain psychological traits that could potentially explain why the incident happened. For instance, it was stated within the film that Jones grew up in a very poor family. His father, James Jones was an alcoholic, leaving his mother to provide for the family alone. As a result of his dysfunctional home-life, Jones grew to be
Dystopia is a term that defines a corrupt government that projects a false image. Thus, in a dystopian society, making belief and comfort that the society is proper to its followers. One good example of dystopian society is the Hunger Games. The terms that describe that dystopia towards the Hunger games are a “hierarchical society, fear of the outside world, penal system and a back story” (“Dystopia”).
While Utopia shines a light on what a society could achieve, Dystopia shines a light on how they can fail. Both a Utopia and Dystopia can begin with the same goals in mind, although in the end can have very different results. When describing a dystopian society, our minds often conjure up the words “dictatorship” or “totalitarianism”. Both these words are commonly associated with forms of government and lack of the common man’s control. Constant supervision, regulated activities, and lack of individualism and emotion are all common signs of a
Utopia Vs. Dystopia Each person has their own vision of utopia. Utopia is an ideal state, a paradise, a land of enchantment. It has been a central part of the history of ideas in Western Civilization. Philosophers and writers continue to imagine and conceive plans for an ideal state, even today.
be found in The Quakers move from a sect to a denomination in the USA
Utopia and dystopia can be viewed as a story, as utopia that can be a good person not the story, where dystopia can be the bad person in the story based on how they act. A utopía is an imaginary place where the government laws and social conditions are perfect, whereas dystopia would be different as an imaginary place where everyone is unhappy and they are usually afraid because they are not treated fairly. What a utopia is in a story is a person that's happy and does everything it is said, where dystopia does not listen and is harsh to everyone that is around that person. Utopia derolves into dystopia because it's needed for utopía to improve from a story if it's necessary in a problem from a story. It basically means that dystopia has to