Why I Write

"Violent, Irrational, Intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive towards children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on it’s conscience"

-Christopher Hitchens,

-"God Is Not Great"


It is not hard for me to understand why so few people are inclined to write and or speak out about MOVE. Who, after all, wants to put up with being subjected with pitiless and absurd ad-hominem attacks while expressing an opinion that the cult finds objectionable? If the said commentary is one that is more directly on target, than one can expect more than just the average name-calling and silly personal attacks.

If you are too much on target, MOVE members/supporters will attempt to ruin your life and the lives of those you love.

If the physical demands on the group’s collective conscience become too much or you cross the cult’s leader, than your life is in certain danger (see John Gilbride)

Of course, with the risk of sounding like Dr. Phil, it can be said that such rhetorical attacks take on only the life and importance to which you attach to them. Take myself for example, I have developed quite a thick skin over the last couple of years and can say unequivocally that silly ad-hominem barbs need to be more than above average to cause me to loose some winks of sleep.

That is not to say that you walk away from any authoritarian cult un-scarred.

You don’t.

Your post-sect life is no cake walk, and anyone who tells you otherwise is peddling falsity.
That said, it is always better to be a servant of truth than a servant of MOVE’s brand of rank hypocrisy and nihilism, regardless of the short-term angst that separation from the cult will likely cause. Call it growing pains.

I have seen a variety of post-MOVE lives lived. Some bounce right into another cult with the enthusiasm of a deranged fool, while still others in rejection of MOVE’s "ethics" take the counter life-style to excess and meander close to the self-destruction that led them to MOVE in the first place.

But at the end of the day, difficulties aside, most people end up on the proper course of action.
You grow up (most of us anyways), and take responsibility for your actions and guard yourself against the kind of mythological aphorisms as espoused by the likes of MOVE members.

Again, this is not always the case. Some people find themselves addicted to the cult-mentality to the point that they believe that they cannot function without an authoritarian enterprise to enable their most basic human functions. A falsehood to be sure, but one that apparently holds a powerful appeal.

This is the most extreme and depressing aspects of post-MOVE life, but one that according to cult-experts that I have spoken to, is more frequent than you might believe. A sad outcome indeed, but one cannot be overlooked if one seeks to be intellectually honest with regards to the abandonment of MOVE.

The life of a cult-junkie.

So, to those who might be considering an extrication from the pointlessness of MOVE, I could only do my best to argue a rigorous process of "de-programming" from the sect for lack of a better term.

For it is well established that those who leave an authoritarian cult do so in a state of mental paralysis. Once you surrender the ability to make choices for yourself, you retard your mental growth. The longer your term of surrender, the more damage to the psyche is done.

And for those who are raised in such an environment, the course is that much more perilous, painful, and full of rejection of those to whom you believed were your family.

All of this gets to the point as to why I continue to write this blog. As I told reporter Monica Yant Kinney, this blog is an extension of my view of injustice, so to it is also a response to the sometimes overwhelming fight against religious extremism and intolerance that has been placed at the forefront of our collective fight for survival.

Nowadays, it is hard to find anyone, regardless of political proclivity who will not admit that our physical environmental decay, coupled with the rise of religious extremism (and it’s covert enabler, religious moderation) that provide the most daunting of challenges to humanity.

There is a war that pre-dates MOVE and will exist long after MOVE has made it’s way into the garbage bin to which it belongs. I consider this blog to be my humble contribution towards the proper side of this conflict. To be sure, after the necessity for this website has been reached, I will continue to write on these very pressing issues.

I have seen the pain, up close and personal, that those who KNOW that God is on their side has wrought upon the innocent and those whose vision of the divine differs from that of their own.

Because I have seen with my own eyes the damage done I will write on.