Saturday, March 15, 2014

How Cults Rewrite The Brain?


How Do Destructive Cults Rewrite Your Brain?
from Diane Benscoter's Speech in TED 

My journey to coming here today started in 1974 that’s me with the funny gloves. I was 17 and I was going on a peace walk. What I didn’t know though was that most of the people standing there with me were Moonies. Within a week I have come to believe that the second coming of Christ has occurred and it was Moon Sum Myung and I was specially chosen and prepared by God to be his disciple. as cool as that sounds my family was not that thrilled with this. And they tried everything they could to get me out of there. There was an underground railroad of sorts that was going on during those years, maybe some of you remember it. They were called the programmers 

After about 5 long years my family had made a program and I became into programmer. I started going on cases and after about 5 years doing this I was arrested for kidnapping. Most of the cases that I went out on were called involuntary. What happened was the family had to get their loved ones to some safe place somehow so they took them to some safe place and we would come in and talk to them for about a week. And so after this happened I decided it was a good time to turn my back on this work. About 20 years went by. There was a burning question that would not leave me. And that was how did this happen to me and what did happen to my brain because something did. And I decided to write a book a memoir about a decade of my life. Toward the end of writing my book there was a documentary that came out and it was about Jonestown and it had a chilling effect on me. These are the dead in Jonestown about 900 people died that day most of them taking their own lives. Women gave poison to their babies and watched foam come from their mouths as they died. This picture is a group of Moonies that were blessed by their messiah their mates were chosen for them and the bottom picture is the Hitler youth and this picture is the leg of a suicide bomber. The thing that I had to admit to myself with great repulsion was that I get it I understand how this could happen I understand how someone’s brain how someone’s mind can come to a place to where it makes sense to in fact it would be wrong when your brain is working like that to not to save the world through genocide.

And so what is this and how does this work? How I come to view what happened to me is a viral memetic infection. For those of you who are not familiar with mimetic infection it, mime has been defined as an idea that replicates in the human brain and it moves from brain to brain like a virus. Much like a virus the way a virus works is that it can infect and do the most damage to someone with a compromised immune system. In 1974 I was young and naive and I was pretty much lost in my world. I was really idealistic and easy ideas to complex questions are really appealing when you’re emotionally vulnerable. What happens is circular logic takes over. Moon is one with god, god is going to fix all the problems in the world, all I have to do is humbly follow because god is going to stop war and hunger and all these things that I’ve wanted to do and all I have to do is humbly follow because after all he is the messiah and he’s going to fix all of this. It became impenetrable. And the most dangerous part of this is it creates us and them, write and wrong, good and evil and it makes anything possible and anything rationalizable.

The thing is though if you looked at my brain during those years in the Moonies, neuroscience is expanding more exponentially as Randy Cursaw said so yesterday science is expanding more and beginning to look in the brain. And so if you at my brain or any brain that’s infected with viral memetic infection like this compared this with anyone in this room or with anyone that uses critical thinking in a regular basis I am convinced that it would look very different. And that, as strange as it may sound, gives me hope. And the reason that gives me hope is that the first thing is to admit that we have a problem. But it’s a human problem, a scientific problem. It happens in the brain. There is no evil force out there to get us. This is something that through research and education I believe we can solve. The first step is to realize that we can do this together and there is no us and them.
 
 
Korean
다이앤 벤스코터(Diane Benscoter)가 어떻게 통일교에 빠지고, 5년 동안 활동했는지에 대해서 이야기합니다. 내부인 관점에서 컬트(사이비 종교 및 유사 집단) 및 극단주의 운동에 대하여 이야기하고, 현대사에서 가장 문제시된 분쟁들에 대한 새로운 해석을 제시합니다. 제가 오늘 여기에 서기까지의 이야기는 1974년에 시작됩니다. 이 사진에서 우스운 장갑을 끼고 있는 소녀가 저입니다. 평화 시위에 참가한 17살 소녀였죠. 그때는 알지 못했지만, 여기에 저와 함께 서 있는 사람들은 대부분 통일교 교도들이었습니다. (웃음) 그리고 일주일 안에 저는 우리에게 두 번째 그리스도가 강림했고, 그 그리스도가 문선명이며, 제가 문선명의 제자로 신에게 특별히 선택되어 그의 계획 안에 준비되었다는 것을 믿게 되었습니다. 듣기에는 대단한 일이지만 제 가족들은 그다지 달가워하지 않았습니다. (웃음) 그리고 가족들은 저를 그 곳에서 빼내기 위해 온갖 노력을 했습니다. 그 시절에는 사이비종교에서 빠져 나오도록 돕는 비밀조직이 있었습니다. 몇몇 분들은 기억하실 것입니다. 그들은 재교육자(Deprogrammer, 종교에서 빠져나오도록 돕는 사람)라고 불립니다. 5년이라는 긴 시간이 지나서야 제 가족들은 저를 통일교에서 빼내는 데 성공했습니다. 그 뒤 저는 재교육자가 되었습니다. 저는 (사이비종교에 빠진) 다른 사람들을 재교육하기 시작했습니다. 그렇게 5년 정도의 재교육 중에 저는 납치혐의로 구속되었습니다. 제가 참여했던 대부분의 재교육은 강제적으로 이루어졌습니다. 왜냐하면 가족들은 어떻게 해서라도 (사이비종교에 빠진) 가족원을 어딘가 안전한 곳으로 데려와야 했습니다. 그래서 가족원을 (강제적으로) 안전한 곳으로 데려온 것입니다. 그러면 재교육자가 와서 그 가족원과 한 주 정도에 걸쳐서 이야기를 나누곤 했습니다. 제가 구속된 후 저는 재교육을 그만두는 게 좋겠다고 결심했습니다. 그 후 20년 정도 지났습니다. 그 동안 머리 속을 맴도는 한 가지 의문이 있었습니다. 그것은 "어떻게 이런 일이 내게 일어났을까?" 입니다. 요컨대, 내 뇌에 무슨 일이 일어났던 것일까? 왜냐면 분명 어떤 일이 일어났기 때문입니다. 그래서 저는 제 생의 이 10년에 대한 회고록을 쓰기로 했습니다. 집필이 끝날 무렵에 한 다큐멘터리가 발표되었습니다. 존스타운에 대한 것이었습니다. 저에게는 소름 끼치는 것이었습니다. 존스타운의 사망자들 사진입니다. 그 날 약 900명이 사망했습니다. 대부분의 사람들이 자살했습니다. 여자들은 그들의 아이들에게 독을 먹이고, 아이들이 입에 거품을 물고 죽어가는 것을 보았습니다. 위 사진은 그들의 메시아에게 은총을 받고 있는 통일교 교인들의 사진입니다. 그들의 배우자는 교단에서 결정됩니다. 아래 사진은 히틀러 유겐트입니다. 자살 테러범의 다리 사진입니다. 큰 거부감에도 불구하고 제 자신이 인정해야 했던 것은 이를 이해할 수 있다는 것이었습니다. 저는 어떻게 이런 일이 일어나는지 이해합니다. 저는 이해합니다. 대량학살을 통해 세상을 구해야만 한다는 생각을 할 정도로 한 사람이 세뇌될 수 있는 지 이해합니다. 이는 대체 무엇일까요? 어떻게 이런 일이 발생할까요? 제 자신에게 일어났던 일은 밈 바이러스의 감염이었습니다. 밈을 잘 모르시는 분들에게 설명하자면, 밈은 바이러스처럼 한 사람의 뇌에서 다른 사람의 뇌로 복제되는 아이디어(생각)입니다. 바이러스는 약한 면역체계를 가진 사람을 감염시켜 큰 해를 끼칩니다. 1974년의 저는 어리고 순진해서, 제 자신의 세상 속에 빠져 있었습니다. 저는 대단히 이상주의적이었습니다. 세상의 복잡한 질문들에 대한 다음과 같은 단순한 생각들은 감정적으로 불안정한 사람에게 굉장한 호소력이 있습니다. 실제론 순환 논리에 불과합니다. "문선명은 신과 함께 하십니다. 신은 세상의 모든 문제를 해결하실 것입니다. 제가 해야 할 일은 겸허히 따르는 것뿐입니다. 신은 전쟁과 기아를 멈추게 할 것이며 -- 제가 원하는 모든 것을 실현해주실 것입니다. 저는 그저 겸허히 따를 뿐입니다. 왜냐하면 결국 신께서는 구세주를 통해 모든 것을 해결할 것이기 때문입니다." 이런 믿음은 완고해집니다. 여기서 가장 위험한 점은 "우리"와 "그들"을 나누고 "옳음"과 "그름"을 나누고 "선"과 "악"을 나눈다는 것입니다. 이는 모든 것을 가능하게 만듭니다. 어떤 일이라도 합리화할 수 있게 됩니다. 요컨대, 만약 제가 통일교도였던 시절의 제 뇌를 보신다면 어제 레이 커즈와일이 얘기했던 것처럼 뇌신경과학은 비약적으로 발전하고 있습니다. 과학은 발전하고 있습니다. 과학은 뇌가 어떻게 동작하는 지 알아내기 시작했습니다. 예전의 제 뇌와 같이 밈 바이러스에 감염된 뇌를 조사하면, 여기 있는 분들과 같이 일상적으로 비판적 사고를 사람의 뇌와 매우 다를 것입니다. 이상하게 들릴지 몰라도, 이는 저에게 희망을 줍니다. 저에게 희망을 주는 이유는 (문제 해결을 위해) 가장 먼저 해야 하는 일은 문제가 있다는 것을 인정하는 것이기 때문입니다. 이는 인간의 문제입니다. 어찌 보면 과학으로 해결할 수 있는 문제입니다. 이는 인간의 뇌에서 발생하는 문제이지, 악마에 의한 것이 아닙니다. 따라서 연구와 교육을 통해서 해결할 수 있는 문제라 믿습니다. (문제 해결을 위한) 첫 단계는 모두가 문제 해결에 동참할 수 있으며 "우리"와 "그들"을 나누는 경계는 없다는 것입니다. 감사합니다. (박수)

Dangerous Memes
from Philosopher Dan Dennett in TED 

How many Creationists do we have in the room? Probably none. I think we're all Darwinians. And yet many Darwinians are anxious, a little uneasy -- would like to see some limits on just how far the Darwinism goes. It's all right. You know spider webs? Sure, they are products of evolution. The World Wide Web? Not so sure. Beaver dams, yes. Hoover Dam, no. What do they think it is that prevents the products of human ingenuity from being themselves, fruits of the tree of life, and hence, in some sense, obeying evolutionary rules? And yet people are interestingly resistant to the idea of applying evolutionary thinking to thinking -- to our thinking. 



And so I'm going to talk a little bit about that, keeping in mind that we have a lot on the program here. So you're out in the woods, or you're out in the pasture, and you see this ant crawling up this blade of grass. It climbs up to the top, and it falls, and it climbs, and it falls, and it climbs -- trying to stay at the very top of the blade of grass. What is this ant doing? What is this in aid of? What goals is this ant trying to achieve by climbing this blade of grass? What's in it for the ant? And the answer is: nothing. There's nothing in it for the ant. Well then, why is it doing this? Is it just a fluke? Yeah, it's just a fluke. It's a lancet fluke. It's a little brain worm. It's a parasitic brain worm that has to get into the stomach of a sheep or a cow in order to continue its life cycle. Salmon swim upstream to get to their spawning grounds, and lancet flukes commandeer a passing ant, crawl into its brain, and drive it up a blade of grass like an all-terrain vehicle. So there's nothing in it for the ant. The ant's brain has been hijacked by a parasite that infects the brain, inducing suicidal behavior. Pretty scary. Well, does anything like that happen with human beings? This is all on behalf of a cause other than one's own genetic fitness, of course. Well, it may already have occurred to you that Islam means "surrender," or "submission of self-interest to the will of Allah." Well, it's ideas -- not worms -- that hijack our brains. Now, am I saying that a sizable minority of the world's population has had their brain hijacked by parasitic ideas? No, it's worse than that. Most people have. (Laughter) There are a lot of ideas to die for. Freedom, if you're from New Hampshire. (Laughter) Justice, Truth, Communism. Many people have laid down their lives for communism, and many have laid down their lives for capitalism. And many for Catholicism. And many for Islam. These are just a few of the ideas that are to die for. They're infectious. Yesterday, Amory Lovins spoke about "infectious repititis [infectious repetitis]." It was a term of abuse, in effect. This is unthinking engineering. Well, most of the cultural spread that goes on is not brilliant, new, out-of-the-box thinking. It's "infectious repetitis," and we might as well try to have a theory of what's going on when that happens so that we can understand the conditions of infection. Hosts work hard to spread these ideas to others. I myself am a philosopher, and one of our occupational hazards is that people ask us what the meaning of life is. And you have to have a bumper sticker, you know. You have to have a statement. So, this is mine. The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it. Most of us -- now that the "Me Decade" is well in the past -- now we actually do this. One set of ideas or another have simply replaced our biological imperatives in our own lives. This is what our summum bonum is. It's not maximizing the number of grandchildren we have. Now, this is a profound biological effect. It's the subordination of genetic interest to other interests. And no other species does anything at all like it. Well, how are we going to think about this? It is, on the one hand, a biological effect, and a very large one. Unmistakable. Now, what theories do we want to use to look at this? Well, many theories. But how could something tie them together? The idea of replicating ideas; ideas that replicate by passing from brain to brain. Richard Dawkins, whom you'll be hearing later in the day, invented the term "memes," and put forward the first really clear and vivid version of this idea in his book "The Selfish Gene." Now here am I talking about his idea. Well, you see, it's not his. Yes -- he started it. But it's everybody's idea now. And he's not responsible for what I say about memes. I'm responsible for what I say about memes. Actually, I think we're all responsible for not just the intended effects of our ideas, but for their likely misuses. So it is important, I think, to Richard, and to me, that these ideas not be abused and misused. They're very easy to misuse. That's why they're dangerous. And it's just about a full-time job trying to prevent people who are scared of these ideas from caricaturing them and then running off to one dire purpose or another. So we have to keep plugging away, trying to correct the misapprehensions so that only the benign and useful variants of our ideas continue to spread. But it is a problem. We don't have much time, and I'm going to go over just a little bit of this and cut out, because there's a lot of other things that are going to be said. So let me just point out: memes are like viruses. That's what Richard said, back in '93. And you might think, "Well, how can that be? I mean, a virus is -- you know, it's stuff! What's a meme made of?" Yesterday, Negroponte was talking about viral telecommunications but -- what's a virus? A virus is a string of nucleic acid with attitude. (Laughter) That is, there is something about it that tends to make it replicate better than the competition does. And that's what a meme is. It's an information packet with attitude. What's a meme made of? What are bits made of, Mom? Not silicon. They're made of information, and can be carried in any physical medium. What's a word made of? Sometimes when people say, "Do memes exist?" I say, "Well, do words exist? Are they in your ontology?" If they are, words are memes that can be pronounced. Then there's all the other memes that can't be pronounced. There are different species of memes.

Remember the Shakers? Gift to be simple? Simple, beautiful furniture? And, of course, they're basically extinct now. And one of the reasons is that among the creed of Shaker-dom is that one should be celibate. Not just the priests. Everybody. Well, it's not so surprising that they've gone extinct. (Laughter) But in fact that's not why they went extinct. They survived as long as they did at a time when the social safety nets weren't there. And there were lots of widows and orphans, people like that, who needed a foster home. And so they had a ready supply of converts. And they could keep it going. And, in principle, it could've gone on forever, with perfect celibacy on the part of the hosts. The idea has being passed on through proselytizing, instead of through the gene line. So the ideas can live on in spite of the fact that they're not being passed on genetically. A meme can flourish in spite of having a negative impact on genetic fitness. After all, the meme for Shaker-dom was essentially a sterilizing parasite. There are other parasites that do this -- which render the host sterile. It's part of their plan. They don't have to have minds to have a plan. I'm just going to draw your attention to just one of the many implications of the memetic perspective, which I recommend. I've not time to go into more of it. In Jared Diamond's wonderful book, "Guns, Germs and Steel," he talks about how it was germs, more than guns and steel, that conquered the new hemisphere -- the Western hemisphere -- that conquered the rest of the world. When European explorers and travelers spread out, they brought with them the germs that they had become essentially immune to, that they had learned how to tolerate over hundreds and hundreds of years, thousands of years, of living with domesticated animals who were the sources of those pathogens. And they just wiped out -- these pathogens just wiped out the native people, who had no immunity to them at all. And we're doing it again. We're doing it this time with toxic ideas.

Yesterday, a number of people -- Nicholas Negroponte and others -- spoke about all the wonderful things that are happening when our ideas get spread out, thanks to all the new technology all over the world. And I agree. It is largely wonderful, Largely wonderful. But among all those ideas that inevitably flow out into the whole world thanks to our technology, are a lot of toxic ideas. Now, this has been realized for some time. Sayyid Qutb is one of the founding fathers of fanatical Islam, one of the ideologues that inspired Osama bin Laden. "One has only to glance at its press films, fashion shows, beauty contests, ballrooms, wine bars and broadcasting stations." They’re just Memes. These memes are spreading around the world and they are wiping out whole cultures. They are wiping out languages. They are wiping out traditions and practices. And it's not our fault, anymore than it's our fault when our germs lay waste to people that haven't developed the immunity. We have immunity to all of the junk that lies around the edges of our culture. We're a free society, so we let pornography and all these things -- we shrug them off. They're like a mild cold. They're not a big deal for us. But we should recognize that for many people in the world, they are a big deal. And we should be very alert to this. As we spread our education and our technology, one of the things that we are doing is we're the vectors of memes that are correctly viewed by the hosts of many other memes as a dire threat to their favorite memes -- the memes that they are prepared to die for. Well now, how are we going to tell the good memes from the bad memes? That is not the job of the science of memetics. Memetics is morally neutral. And so it should be. This is not the place for hate and anger. If you've had a friend who's died of AIDS, then you hate HIV virus. But the way to deal with that is to do science, and understand how it spreads and why in a morally neutral perspective. Get the facts. Work out the implications. There's plenty of room for moral passion once we've got the facts and can figure out the best thing to do. And, as with germs, the trick is not to try to annihilate them. You will never annihilate the germs. What you can do, however, is foster public health measures and the like that will encourage the evolution of avirulence. That will encourage the spread of relatively benign mutations of the most toxic varieties. That's all the time I have, so thank you very much for your attention.

Korean
여기 계신 분들 중 창조론자가 있나요? 없는 것 같군요. 우리는 모두 진화론자인 모양입니다. 그렇다 해도, 진화론자 다수는 좀 불안해 하죠. 진화론의 적용범위에 어떤 한계를 두고 싶어합니다. 그래도 괜찮습니다. 거미줄 아시죠? 예, 그것은 진화의 산물입니다. 월드 와이드 웹은 어떨까요? 그렇다고 말하기 어렵죠. 비버가 만드는 댐은 맞고, 후버 댐은 그렇지 않습니다. 그들은 어떤 점 때문에 인간의 독창적인 창조물들이 자연계의 과실로부터 구별되고, 따라서 일정한 의미에서, 진화 법칙을 따르는 것이 아니라고 보는 걸까요? 그리고 사람들은 흥미롭게도 진화 개념를 사고, 우리의 사고에 적용하는 것을 꺼립니다. 그걸 주제로 좀 이야기를 해보려 합니다. 여기서 할게 많기는 하지만 말이죠. 자, 당신이 숲에 있다고 해봅시다, 아니면 들판이던가요. 거기서 개미 한마리가 풀잎에 기어오르는 것을 봤습니다. 풀잎 끝에 올라갔다가 떨어지고, 올라갔다 떨어지길 반복합니다. 풀잎 끝에 계속 매달려 있으려 하죠. 개미는 뭘 하는 걸까요? 왜 이러는 걸까요? 풀잎 끝에 개미가 기어올라서 얻을게 뭘까요? 풀잎에 뭐가 있을까요? 해답은 아무것도 없다는 겁니다. 개미를 위한 건 없어요. 그렇다면, 개미가 왜 저러는 걸까요? 그냥 우연(fluke)일 뿐일까요? 예,플루크 (fluke,기생충이란 뜻도 있음) 는 맞죠. 란셋 흡충입니다. 뇌에 기생하는 작은 벌레지요.이 뇌기생충은 양이나 소의 내장에 들어가야만 합니다. 살아서 번식하려면 말이죠. 연어는 강을 거슬러 올라 산란장소로 갑니다. 그리고 란셋 흡충은 지나가는 개미에 올라타서, 뇌속으로 들어간 다음 개미를 차량삼아 풀잎 끝으로 올라갑니다. 그러니, 개미를 위한 행동이 아닙니다. 개미의 뇌는 기생충에게 뺐긴 상태니까요. 그래서 자살행위를 하게되는 거죠. 상당히 무서운 일이죠. 그런데, 인간에게 이와 비슷한 일이 벌어질까요? 물론 이런 것은 자신의 유전적 이득에 도움이 되기 때문이 아닙니다. 어쩌면, 이미 여러분에게 그런일이 벌어졌을지도 모릅니다.이슬람이란 단어는 '굴복' 또는 '신의 뜻을 위해 자기 욕심을 버림 '이란 뜻입니다. 이는 기생충이 아닌 아이디어(개념,사상)가 뇌를 점령하는 거죠. 세계인구중 꽤 주목할만한 소수가 이런 기생적인 아이디어에 뇌를 빼앗겼다는 얘기냐구요? 아니요, 그보다 심각합니다. 거의 모든 사람이 그렇습니다. 웃음 목숨을 바칠만한 아이디어는 많습니다. '자유'가 있죠. 뉴 햄프셔 출신이라면요. 웃음 정의. 진실. 공산주의 많은 사람들이 공산주의를 위해 목숨을 바쳤습니다. 그리고 또 많은 사람들이 자본주의를 위해 그랬지요. 또 가톨릭교를 위해서, 이슬람교를 위해서요. 이는[이것들은] 목숨을 바칠만한 사상의 일부에 불과합니다. 아이디어는 감염력[점염성]이 있습니다. 어제, 애머리 로빈스가 '감염성 반복행위'란 말을 했죠. 사실 놀리는 뜻으로 쓴 것이긴 합니다만. 아무 생각 없이 벌어지는 일입니다. 문화적으로 전파되는 것들 대부분은 훌륭하거나 새로운, 고정관념에서 벗어난 사고가 아닙니다. 감염성 반복행위죠 그러니 감염이 일어날 때 무슨 일이 벌어지는지에 대해 이론을 세워볼만 합니다. 그래야 감염조건을 이해할 수 있으니까요. 숙주는 사상들을 퍼뜨리기 위해 노력합니다. 저는 철학자 인데 직업위험 중 하나가 사람들이 인생의 의미가 뭐냐고 물어보는 거죠. 이걸 간단한 표어 수준으로 설명할 수 있어야 하죠. 알다시피 주장이 담긴 한마디를 할 수 있어야 합니다. 자, 이게 저의 대답입니다. 행복의 비결은 자신보다 더 중요한 뭔가를 찾아내고 거기에 인생을 바치는 겁니다. 이제 자기중심 시대는 과거가 되었고 우리들 대부분은 실제로 이렇게 하고 있습니다. 어떤 아이디어들이 우리 인생 속에서, 생물로서의 절대명제[생물적 명령체계] 들을 대체해버렸습니다. 우리가 가장 높이 떠받드는 것은 아이디어 입니다. 손주를 최대한 많이 두는 것이 아니지요. 자, 이는 심오한 생물학적 효과입니다. 유전적 관심을 다른 관심에 종속시키는 거죠. 다른 어떤 생물종도 이런 행위를 하지 않습니다. 그럼, 우리는 이걸 어떻게 봐야 할까요? 이는 한편으로는 생물학적 효과지요. 아주 거대한 효과입니다. 틀림없이 그렇지요. 여기서 어떤 이론을 적용해봐야 할까요? 이론은 많습니다. 하지만 무엇으로 여러 이론들을 종합할 수 있을까요? 바로, 아이디어를 복제한다는 아이디어입니다. 아이디어는 뇌를 옮겨다니는 식으로 자신을 복제합니다. 오늘 강연을 들어보실 리처드 도킨스는 그의 책 '이기적 유전자'에서 '밈'이란 용어를 만들고 주창하여 이 이론을 처음으로 명백하고 확실한 것으로 만들었습니다. 자, 여기서 제가 도킨스의 아이디어를 얘기하면, 이해시겠죠. 이젠 그의 아이디어가 아닙니다. 예, 그가 시작한 것은 맞습니다.하지만 이제는 모든 사람들의 아이디어입니다. 그리고 도킨스는 제가 밈에 대해 말하는 것에 책임이 없습니다. 제가 밈에 대해 말하는 것은 제가 책임져야 하죠. 사실, 제가 보기엔 우리 모두는 우리 아이디어가 우리 의도대로 사용되는 것만이 아니고 오용되는 것에 대해서도 책임이 있다고 생각합니다. 그러니 제 생각엔 리처드에게나 저에게나 이런 아이디어가 오용되거나 남용되는 것은 중요한 문제입니다. 오용되기 매우 쉽지요. 이게 아이디어가 위험한 이유입니다. 그리고 그런 아이디어를 무서워하는 사람들이 그것을 과장되게 왜곡해버리고는 극단적 방향으로 튀어버리는 것을 막으려면 많은 노력이 필요합니다. 그러니 아이디어가 퍼지는 어떤 연결들은 끊어서 잘못된 인식을 수정하고 오직 해롭지 않고 쓸만한 아이디어만 퍼지도록 해야 합니다. 하지만 문제가 있습니다. 우리에겐 시간이 많지 않습니다. 저도 이 얘기를 조금만 더 하고 마칠겁니다. 왜냐하면 달리 말해야할 주제들이 많거든요. 그러니 중요한 것만 찍어보지요. 밈은 바이러스와 같습니다. 리처드가 93년에 그렇게 말했지요. 여러분은 이렇게 물어보실지 모르겠습니다. "무슨 소리야? 바이러스란, 그러니까... 물체잖아! 밈은 뭘로 이루졌는데?" 어제, 네그로폰테가 "바이러스성" 통신에 대해 말했지요. 그런데 바이러스란 뭘까요? 바이러스는 "성깔이 있는 핵산 덩어리"입니다. [웃음] 바이러스에는 경쟁자보다 더 잘 자기복제를 수행하게끔 하는 것이 있습니다. 그게 바로 밈의 성질이죠. 밈은 어떤 성향을 보이는 정보 패킷(다발)입니다. 밈은 뭘로 이루어졌을까요? 엄마 엄마, 비트는 뭘로 이루어졌나요? 실리콘이 아닙니다. 정보로 이루어졌습니다. 그리고, 어떠한 물리적 매개체로도 운반될 수 있습니다. 단어는 무엇으로 되어있습니까? 가끔 사람들이 "밈이 존재합니까"라고 물으면, 전 이렇게 말하죠."그럼, 단어는 존재하나요? 당신의 존재안에 들어있는 겁니까?" 만약 그렇다면 단어란 발음할 수 있는 밈인 것입니다. 그리고 발음할 수 없는 밈도 있습니다. 여러 종류의 밈이 있죠. 쉐이커파 아시나요? '단순한 것은 축복'이란 찬송가는요? 그들이 만든 단순하고 아름다운 가구들은요? 물론, 쉐이커파는 현재 사실상 소멸했습니다. 소멸한 이유 중 하나는 쉐이커파 신도는 번식행위를 금해야 한다는 계율이 있었기 때문입니다. 성직자 만이 아닙니다. 모든 신도가 그래야 했습니다. 뭐, 그 사람들이 소멸한게 전혀 이상하지 않죠.[웃음] 하지만 사실 쉐이커파가 사라진 이유는 그게 아닙니다. 그들은 사회 안전망이 없었던 시절이었기에 그 정도나마 오래 살아남을 수 있었습니다. 그 때엔 과부나 고아가 많았고 그런 사람들은 머물 곳이 필요했습니다. 그 중에서 개종자를 구할 수 있었죠. 계속 이런 식으로 유지가 가능했습니다. 이론적으론 언제까지나 그럴 수가 있어요. 숙주가 전혀 번식을 하지 않더라도 아이디어는 개종을 통해 이어집니다. 유전계보를 거치지 않더라도 말이죠. 즉, 아이디어는 유전적으로 전해지지 않더라도 살아남을 수 있습니다. 밈은 유전적 건강을 해치더라도 번성할 수 있는거죠 아무튼, 쉐이커파의 밈은 본질적으로 번식을 중단시키는 기생체입니다. 이와 같은 효과를 보이는 다른 기생체도 있지요. 숙주를 거세시키는 것 말입니다. 이건 그들의 계획의 일부입니다. 계획을 세우는데 꼭 정신이 필요하지는 않습니다. 이제 밈 중심[밈이론] 관점의 여러 함의[속뜻] 가운데 제가 추천하는 한가지를 여러분께 소개할까 합니다. 많은 사례를 다룰 시간은 없으니까요. 제레드 다이아몬드의 명저, '총, 균, 쇠'를 보면 필자는 세균이 어떻게 총이나 쇠보다 신대륙(서반구)과 다른 세계를 정복하는데 더 도움이 되었는지 얘기합니다. 유럽인 탐험가와 여행자가 퍼져나갔을 때 그들은 이미 면역이 된 세균을 같이 가지고 갔습니다. 그들은 수백년 수천년 동안, 병균의 근원인 가축들과 같이 살면서 저항력을 키웠죠. 그 세균들은 아무 면역이 없는 다른 세계의 원주민들을 완전히 쓸어버렸습니다. 그리고 우리는 또 다시 그런 일을 벌이고 있습니다. 이번에는 유독한 아이디어로 말이죠.어제, 니콜라스 네그로폰테를 비롯한 몇몇 사람들이 우리의 아이디어가 퍼져감에 따라 벌어지는 온갖 멋진 일에 대한 강연을 했습니다. 세상을 덮은 새 기술 덕분이죠. 저도 동의합니다. 거의 훌륭한 것들이죠. 거의. 하지만 우리의 기술 덕으로 전세계 퍼져나가는 아이디어 중에는 유독한 것도 많습니다. 이 현상은 꽤 오래전에 알게된 겁니다. 사이드 쿠투브는 오사마 빈 라덴에게 영향을 끼친 이념 중 하나인 광신적 이슬람을 창시한 사람 중 하나입니다. 아니면 "사람은 그저 영화와 패션쇼, 미인대회, 춤, 와인 바, 방송에만 관심을 가져라"라는 밈도 있죠. 이런 밈들은 전세계에 퍼져 문화들을 통째로 쓸어버리고 있습니다. 언어도 잊혀지게 하고전통과 관습도 없애버립니다. 이건 우리 잘못이 아닙니다. 면역이 없는 사람들에게 세균을 흘리는 정도의 잘못이죠. 우리는 우리의 문화 곳곳에 널린 쓰레기에 면역이 있습니다. 우리 사회는 자유롭습니다. 그래서 포르노 같은 걸 허용하지만 별 신경도 안씁니다. 그냥 약한 감기에 지나지 않죠. 우리한텐 별다른 문제가 아닙니다. 하지만 세상의 많은 사람들에게는 이게 큰 문제라는 걸 깨달아야 합니다. 그리고 매우 주의해야 할 점은 우리의 교육과 기술을 세상에 퍼뜨린다는 것은 우리가 그 밈(교육, 기술)의 매개체가 된다는 뜻이며 다른 많은 밈의 숙주(사람)들에게 그들이 선호하는 밈, 목숨을 걸고 지키는 밈에 크나큰 위협으로 비칠 수 있다는 겁니다. 그럼 어떻게 우리는 좋은 밈과 나쁜 밈을 구별해야 할까요? 그건 문화전파학(memetics)의 소관이 아닙니다. 문화전파학은 도덕적으로 중립입니다. 그래야만 하고요. 증오와 분노가 끼어들 주제가 아닙니다. 만약 친구가 에이즈로 죽었다면 HIV 바이러스를 미워하겠죠. 하지만 바이러스 처리는 과학이 할 일입니다. 도덕적으로 중립인 상태에서 밈이 어떻게 그리고 왜 전파되는지 이해하는 것과 왜 그렇지요. 사실을 알아내십시오. 그에 따른 함의를 밝혀내십시오. 사실을 알아낸 다음에도 도덕을 따지거나 무엇이 가장 좋은지 알아낼 시간은 많습니다. 그리고 세균에 대해서는, 절멸시키려는 건 좋은 생각이 아닙니다. 세균을 절멸시킬 수는 없습니다. 할 수 있는 것은 공중보건 수단 등으로 무해한 요소의 진화를 촉진시켜 독성이 강한 세균을 상대적으로 무해한 돌연변이로 바꾸어 퍼뜨리는 겁니다. 이제 시간이 다 되었군요. 들어주셔서 매우 감사합니다.  

Sunday, February 23, 2014

The One-Man-Protest warns Lee Man Hee


The One-Man-Protest Warns Lee Man Hee and Government
One-man-protest, in front of the Blue House where the first woman President in South Korea, Park Geun-Hye, lives, says "A good and model student who was seduced by Shinchonji Cult ran away from home and has not come back home",
"Destroyed family! Run away!, and Divorce!"

 Anti-SCJ has been protesting since February 14, 2014 against SCJ's disguise churches and theology seminaries in Seoul and Kyung-Gi province; the decision made from its first off-line meeting and they said "it will be an unlimited one-man protests."
The prayer requested to all members for one-man-protests according to Ephesians 6:11-17.

Ephesians 6:11-17 The Armor of GOD 
11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
  
Shinchonji Boramae Center - SCJ theology saminary
Address: Sinwon Building floor 8
Sinjil 6-508, Boramae Metro station Exit 5
Youngdeungpo-Gu Seoul

There are a couple of 'Room of the Gospels' near the center.
The protest flag says "This is Shinchonji Cult's Secret Brainwashing Center!", "Destroyed family! Run away!, and Divorce!"


King Sejong Statue 
Address: Kwang-Hwa-Moon road Seoul

One-man-protect, in front of the King Sejong Statue, says "A good and model student who was seduced by Shinchonji Cult ran away from home and has not come back home",
"Destroyed family! Run away!, and Divorce!"


Wonju Haksung center - SCJ's disguise theology seminary
Address: Wonju, Kangwon province

Shinchonji members are disturbing the one-man protest, the white banner says "The corrupting mainstream churches, which is a current reality!", "Silence is not virtue any more"


The One-Man-Protest On the 3rd day at the Blue House
A member of anti-SCJ called Mr. The righteous and Salvation (nickname) holds the protest board, saying  "Destroyed family! Run away!, and Divorce!", "Shinchonji Cult! return my family and our happiness!"
The prayer requested to all members for one-man-protests according to Ephesians 6:11-17.
On the 3rd day protest at Joy fellowship church 
Address: Han-nong Building
996-1 Sinjeong-dong
Youngchon-Gu Seoul

The protest flag says "Joy fellowship church is Shinchonji Cult's Secret Brainwashing Center!"

Secret bible study -> Runaway from home
Trouble between couple -> Divoice
"Destroyed family!"


On the 4th day at Ahnyang city hall 
Address: Ahn-Yang city hall
Ahn-yang city, Kyunggi province

The protest flag says "The chief of Education department! Crackdown the SCJ illegal institutes by law, and close them!"

"My child runaway into the SCJ's illegal institute! Return my child back to me!"

"Nation's education is being destroyed by neglecting of the illegal institutes"
" The illegal institute is a criminal group that the chief of the education neglects!"


On the 4th day at Gwacheon city hall 
Address: Gwacheon city hall
Gwacheon city, Kyunggi province

The protest flag says "The mayor is responsible on neglecting of violence building law, Shinchonji uses 7-8 floors as a church in New Core shopping building!"
"My child runaway from home to the SCJ which Gwacheon city hall neglects! The mayor is responsible on this issue! Return my child back to me!"
"The mayor of Saenuri Party and the manager of building permission department!, your own children are fell into Shinchonji cult!, Are you neglecting them!"
"Keep the law as charge of taxes on SCJ and accuse SCJ church on the illegal use of the building!"


On February 23, 2014 at the SCJ disguise church 
Address: Shindaeban Nonghyub floor 5
Youngdeungpo-Gu Seoul

The protest flag says "Joy fellowship church is Shinchonji Cult's Secret Brainwashing Center!"

Secret bible study -> Runaway from home
Trouble between couple -> Divoice
"Destroyed family!"


On February 24, 2014 at Two SCJ Centers
Address1: Andia building floor 2
Sutek-dong Guiri city 
Kyunggi-do province

Address2: A building floor 3 - 4, the opposite side of Hanna Bank
Sutek-dong Guri city 
Kyunggi-do province

The protest board says "Shinchonji Cult! return my family!"

"Runaway from Home and Quitting College!"


One-man-protest at the Guri metro station
Address: Guri metro stationGuiri city
Kyunggi-do province

The protest board says "Shinchonji Cult! return my family!"

"Runaway from Home, Quitting College! Ruin Life"


One-man-protest at the Sungkyunkwan University
Address: Sungkyunkwan University
Seoul

The protest board says "Shinchonji Cult! return my family!"

"Runaway from Home, Quitting College! Ruin Life"


One-man-protest at the Soongsil University
Address: Soongsil University
Sangdo-dong Dongjak-gu Seoul

The protest board says "Shinchonji Cult! return my family!"

"Runaway from Home, Quitting College! Ruin Life"


On February 25, 2014 at the SCJ Centers

Address: a couple of area 
Wonju city Kyunggi province

The protest board says "Don not being deceived by Shinchonji Cult! who claims 'Flesh-Immortality!'"

"It Destroys Family!"


Seoul Station

Address: Seoul Station

The protest board says "Shinchonji Cult! return my family!"

"Runaway from Home, Ruin Life"


Disturbing the one-man-protest by SCJ members on February 25, 2014 
Address: Jegi 2 dong
Dongdeamun Seoul

Four shinchonji members are encircling the one-man-protest.
A SCJ member holds a board too, saying "Jesus loves You!"


Sunday, February 16, 2014

The Shinchonji Wife in Heaven, The Letter From a Prison


The Shinchonji Wife in Heaven, The Letter From a Prison

I am writing from a prison called Detention Center C because I was charged with murder. I met my wife in Seoul in 1980. In spite of an objection from her parents, we got married and had two sons. My family had been happy in Si-Heung city, Kyung-Gi province, although our livelihood was not enough from two incomes. I worked as a driver for a long distance bus and my wife worked as a taxi driver.
Unfortunately, a car accident set our family in debt and as a result, I had to sell our townhouse. Subsequently, we moved to our father-in-law’s house in Ulsan City. My wife attended the church that my brother and his wife went to when we were in Si-Heung city, so she also wanted to continue attending church when she came to Ulsan.


My Wife Fell Into Shinchonji

In 1996, I called my wife and two kids everyday— my family is all that I had— because I could only come home twice a week once I had changed my job to transport business. My wife and I loved each other and were devoted to each other for 27 years (I was 50 at the time). I didn’t know what church she had joined, thinking that all Christian churches were the same. However, my wife had been being brainwashed by the doctrine of the Shinchonji cult.

The Ulsan Church of Andrew was part of the Shinchonji cult! They told my wife it is her most urgent task to study the Shinchonji theology and help fill the church up to 144,000 members because the ‘end time’, in Shinchonji belief, would come in three years and a new heaven would emerge. She shirked her duties as a housewife and became fully engrossed in the Shinchonji bible studies— even dragging my son into it, who was a high school senior at the time. They had been completely brainwashed. To my wife, Lee Man-Hee was Christ, Counselor, and he was the Jesus, the savior who came to Korea. She was nothing but a pawn who acted only by the Shinchonji cult.
  
I tried to change her church, but she wouldn’t budge an inch so I quit my job. After searching for counselors everywhere, we met a couple counselors from the Shinchonji Heresy Association but it was in vain. One night, John Tribe in Seoul came to me accompanied by police officers and claimed that I confined her. My wife agreed with them and followed the members out with the officers.
The officer said Shinchonji was out of control, he knew that the group was a dangerous cult, but he had to do it because there is the freedom of religion by the law and my wife was an adult. Thereafter, she was handed over to the Andrew tribe and came home again. I knew I couldn’t stop trying to counsel her because I knew Man Hee Lee is not the savior and the second coming of Jesus, so she, her two sisters, and I came to the counselor of ‘D-church’ in Julla-Nam-Do province.

However, she denied the Pastor’s word during counseling. On the way home, she sat down in the middle of road, rolled over and over again, rushed at us crazily, and assaulted us. In spite of that, her two sisters and I persisted to persuade and beg her to continue these counseling sessions. However, on the third day of counseling, my wife ran away from the help of a few members of the Andrew tribe. 

She Did Not Come Home
Man Hee Lee, runs the Shinchonji organized criminal group in all nations. Shichonji, which in disguise of the Word of God and is protected by Korean Law, is not a Christian church but it is a cult. They know that families, society, and the spirit of their followers are destroyed by them but they just overlook the issues they cause. 

My family moved back to Ulsan but she did not. Our family protested, “The cult should return her to her home” and that “Man Hee Lee is not the Second-Coming Jesus, the immortality is a fraud, return my wife and my mother back to her family” in front of the church of Andrew tribe. We did not stop protesting, even when we were wet from the rain; we shouted “Shinchonji is a cult” and cried. There were a lot of other families who were looking for their family, and additionally, we protested in front of Shinchonji’s churches in Kwa-Cheon, An-San, and Kang-Ju city. We protested for lost sons, daughters, parents, husbands, etc. We looked for her for many years. My sons didn’t understand why their mom had disappeared. Eventually, we reported her lost to the police office, and finally we could meet her by the Shinchonji’s members’ guide.

After all, I told her that I would acknowledge her beliefs if she would come home. However, my wife requested that I become a member of the Shinchonji cult after participating in bible study for 6 months. I learned the Shinchonji doctrine through the free bible study for one month, but I could not go further because I knew all their groundless words were nothing but fraud. I quit attending the bible studies. 
As a result, she demanded to divorce me and expressed her desire to never see me again. We could not live any more in her father’s house in which we had been staying, so my sons and I moved out. We continuously searched for her while we slept in cars or massage rooms.
["Return My Daughter Back to Me from Brainwashing."]
She accumulated a lot of debt: private taxi bills, charged to my credit card, and borrowed money from here and there, in order to donate to the cult. It deceived its members to build new headquarter church (Shinchonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony) in the Kwa-Cheon City, known as the Holy Land in Shinchonji belief. I was a defaulter, homeless, and almost bankrupt. We barely managed our livelihood while I was working as a taxi driver. I had struggled to live with her; I could not afford that I lose my wife and sleep in tragedy.

The Shinchonji Wife in Heaven

I could never have imagined that I would want to kill my wife. I had been in front of the Shinchonji Church every day but she avoided me. My younger son who was a freshman in a college gave up his academic work and asked me, “Is it impossible to forget mom?” My older son wandered around and joined a gang, and I had to drink to endure the distressful situation.

The Day Before the Incident. I shouted, “We can’t live without you!” as I begged to my wife for her to come home and take care of her family. I even started to threaten her. In the process of pulling and pushing each other, we began to fight violently. I, drunk and enraged, picked up a car tool in the ground. I didn’t know which part of her body I hit. 
She was dispatched to the emergency room, and she went to heaven after 7 days. October, 13, 2007, 2 A.M. my wife ascended to heaven which was not the Shinchonji kingdom that Lee Man Hee and its members would accomplish according to their belief.

Standing on the Gate of Repentance


I am a sinner. My sin was that I loved my wife, I wanted my wife to die, I couldn’t let her go from me, I couldn’t live without her, I lived in her parent’s house, and that I let her fall into the cult because I was too busy with work. I had the realization that there was nothing but tragedy and sadness after love. I cannot stop trembling, thinking that my wife could not come to me again and it was useless waiting for her, and only the sadness that I could not endure rushes like a wave into my mind. 

There were no response to what I was crying out, appealing, and praying to the truth. It was the time that, a pain, like a sharpen knife came into my heart, never disappearing but rather repeating over and over again. I had been crazy and angry because of the Shinchonji cult. I was a mess that who others around me could not recognize. There was even a time that I blamed God, who created the universe and exists in our deep life, why HE could not protect my family from Satan, which I thought was unfair. I poured out ill-speaking of myself for my ruined life: I had nothing to lose, I was blind and deaf, my life wasn’t normal, and I blamed myself for even inhaling oxygen in the air.

The indoctrination of the cult is ten times stronger than intoxication of any other drug and or communist system. They can be controlled by law and there are hospitals for drug abusers. But, there are no hospitals for those brainwashed by the cult, rather Korean law protects the cult under the law of freedom of religion. Shinchonji is not a religion, it destroys families. Attending the cult results in members running away from home, dropping out of school, suing family members, neglecting loved ones, giving up on their lives, and committing suicide.
How can Shinchonji claim that 144,000 members will allow the chief priest to return, for new heaven to emerge in East Korea, for them to rule the world? The promise of “new heaven and new earth will be accomplished in three years” has existed for nearly 30 years.

I finally met Jesus Christ after anguish and sadness while I have been standing at the end of my life. Now I am praying for forgiveness. I am a sinner. I am still trying to get out of the remnants of the tragedy. I have been healing through prayer, repentance and forgiveness based on the Word of God. Even in the cold winter and in the hot summer of prison, I endure the punishment that I deserve.
I don’t think that I am old; I am not too week to heal. Even though I still have the sad past in my mind, I don’t think it is God’s will that I remain frustrated, clinging to the past. I will put hope and faith in God’s work because I realized the truth.



["Cult Victims, you can tell now!"]
(Provided by HD Jongkyu)
I think that I can pass through the gate of repentance when I receive forgiveness and am born again. I am confident that the God of Abraham and God of David is my God. I don’t have much academic experience and actually I am fairly ignorant; however, I will be a helper for brothers and sisters, by sharing my experience of suffering in the hell that is the reality of the Shinchonji cult.

Shalom!

September 22, 2009.

Kim Tea-Sik (Pseudonym) from Detention Center C

If you would like to learn more about Shinchonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony and how to prevent and or recover from being its victim, click here.