Go Your Own Way

I guess he sent a postcard? Or maybe a text?

I have recently met a new friend who was raised inside a religious cult but found the courage, in her mid-fifties, to break free after a lifetime of indoctrination. Another old friend of mine was raised in a religious cult and found the courage to break free when she was just 18. I applaud both of them, since the decision to join those groups was, in each case, made for them by their parents at birth.

I have never understood the appeal of behaving a certain way while you are here in this life, the only one we know for sure is real, in order to possibly have a better time in the next one which nobody knows with any certainty exists. Still, joining a flock remains quite popular. Here are just a few worldwide statistics concerning the most popular cults:

Mormons: 15 million

Jehovah's Witnesses: 8.2 million

Church of Scientology: 40,000

Unification Church: 1-2 million

Catholic Church: 1.25 billion

Hasidic Jews: 90,000 to 100,000

Amish: 128,700

It's a mystery. I can barely find someone who wants to see the same movie as I do, yet here are all these folks who follow the same set of complicated rules every day of their lives and are happy to do so. On the plus side, I guess those church members never have to see a movie alone (if they're even allowed to see movies).