[[How could God even have allowed that someone with as strong a faith as I, was abused in his very name?... How could a loving God allow that? Why are there no easy
answers?"]] [[...maybe the quick and easy explanation you heard whas that God would not interfere with our free choice and we were responsible for creating our own lives...]]

Good guess[g]. That is pretty much how "Lazaris" explains it - we create our own reality completely, including the pain. This explanation satisfied me for a long time, and I'm sure there is a lot of truth to it, but I wouldn't say it's complete.

"Lazaris" also says that we chose to allow others to have impact on us. If not, then we couldn't experience love. And of course the giver of the love must have free will to give or withhold the love, otherwise it's meaningless. Makes sense. But it doesn't explain why "we chose" to allow others the ability to hurt us. We don't need to grant others the ability to hurt us in order to allow for them to love us - they could simply have no impact if they don't love us. Unless the fact they don't love us causes us pain - but that's not the same as allowing them to control, insult, or physically violate us.

As for God not intervening - people intervene where appropriate. Most of us don't stand by and watch someone suffer if we can do something about it, even if it's clear the person's suffering is a direct result of their own actions and decisions. We don't take the attitude that they made their bed, now they must lie in it. Why would God? I don't know. And I haven't found a cult yet that adequately explains that[g]. And that's OK. Perhaps sometime I will understand it, but not as a result of the "easy answers" provided by cults. Disclaimer: when I say "intervene", I don't mean to force a solution down anyone's throat, or force them to get better if they insist on remaining unhealthy. That's what I mean by, "where appropriate".

[[BTW, did you know that cults specifically target strong idealistic people?]]

That makes a lot of sense. It's the idealism that motivates people to seek answers that are allegedly provided by the opportunistic cult leaders. It also means we don't need to feel shame for having been had by them.

Thanks for your insights and have a Happy Holiday.

The reason the quoted parts didn't show up is because you enclosed then in < and > signs, which make the browser think that the stuff in between to HTML code. (I got the < and > to show up by typing &lt; etc. and to show how I did that I had to type &amp; in front of the lt; - never mind[g]) Long story short, it doesn't work if you enclose text between < and >.

Anyway, I checked the source code to see what you said "right on" about[g]. It was "As for God not intervening - people intervene where appropriate." The rest I was able to figure out.

[[Ted my friend, classic example of cult circular logic. Go back up and read it again. It doesnt make sense, and it is a circle you can never get out of.]]

I'm not sure why you see this as circular logic. The idea is that, since we create our own reality completely (if you buy that premise), we have/had the choice as to whether or not we will allow other people to have impact on us. I'm not sure I agree with it, but I don't see the logical flaw.

I can certainly see the potential for "blaming the victim". As you stated, cult members can refuse to take responsibility for their impact on another person by saying that the other person "created" or "allowed" the impact. In fact, some of the Lazaris cultists told me exactly that when I told Peny that she had had negative impact on me. Strangely, though she wasn't "creating her own reality" when I allegedly had negative impact on her. I was to be responsible and my impact on and her impact on me.

[[One flaw is that if someone else hurts us, they can always say that it is because we need to work something out ourselves, since we "allowed" them to hurt us.]]

Even if that's true, it doesn't excuse the party doing the hurting. If I brow beat a recovering alcoholic into having "just one drink" and they do and wind up falling off the wagon, they made the choice. But I would still be a schmuck for encouraging them. Or if I have someone sign a contract which doesn't jibe with our verbal agreement, knowing they wouldn't read the small print, I may be operating within my legal rights, but it's still unethical. Exploiting other people's weaknesses is social Darwinism and is not conducive to a civilized society, IMHO. And, with cults, it's not even a level playing field, since the "leadership" has brainwashed minions to fight their battles for them.

[[Our idealism, and desire for a better world, and our strength in working towards making it a better world. Those qualities were used against us. We need to reclaim them, and use them right this time around.]]

Right on. And it's the strength behind our idealism which will ensure that we will get it right.