When Did You Realize 'Oh crap, I’m in a cult'?

Am I the Genius?

youtube.com/@amithegenius

Self-improvement, Education

4.7 • 643 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Transcript

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0:00.0	When did you realize? Oh, crap, I'm in a cult. When I was stationed on Okinawa, late 90s,
0:06.9	I went to this church that seemed to be the pretty generic Christian church, but they met in a
0:11.7	small room above a store. I didn't think too much about that until they got a new pastor.
0:16.7	They owned a house in town and always invited everyone over for some cookouts and Bible study.
0:21.5	The new pastor was actively encouraging the enlisted service members to move into the house
0:25.9	and get the housing allowance to support the house.
0:29.0	Then you wanted to see our LES, which are like our military pay stubs, to ensure you were supporting the church enough.
0:35.1	I think the final straw was when they started taking attendance for their seven days.
0:39.5	And yeah, you were expected to attend some church things seven days a week, with a level of shame for anyone
0:45.1	who didn't make it to everything. I didn't tell them I wasn't going anymore, I just stopped showing up.
0:49.9	They knew where my barracks room was and they sent soul savers to take me back to the church.
0:54.9	The last time they talked to me, they again went with the shame route, that no other church
0:58.8	would get me into heaven, and I told them I think they proved I made the right decision.
1:03.8	I googled my cult's name for the first time, which I thought was just the name of the church,
1:08.1	and I saw many articles about how the leader was charged for a lot of cases of the unspeakable act. I showed my fellow cult members, and they told me,
1:15.9	The leader said that all those articles are lying, and we shouldn't believe them. I reflected some
1:20.6	more and realized that weekday services at 4 a.m. and Sunday services that last seven hours
1:25.5	were absolutely not the norm. I grew up in mine and I
1:30.4	kind of always knew. There wasn't an oh crap moment. It was more like a, I've had enough of this
1:35.8	moment. For me, it was when one of my elders told me I should try and figure out why God was
1:40.1	punishing me by giving me cancer. F you, Kevin, for your sake, let's hope we never cross
1:45.2	paths again. When the leader wanted to split up all the marriages and take the wives for
	...

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