Knowing It Is a Cult Yet Being Unable to Leave Because of Relationships
A viewer shared an extraordinarily heavy problem. Since childhood, this person had followed a mother into a Christian-derived religious organization. After growing up, the viewer realized that the group was a cult and its doctrine false. That realization did not end the problem; it began the real problem. The organization discourages close relationships with outsiders, expects members to marry within the group, and teaches that it alone is God’s chosen true religion while every other religion is false. Leaving may mean severance from family and the disappearance of nearly every existing relationship.
The viewer no longer believes, but continues attending and pretends to believe. The desire to withdraw is clear, yet so is the fear of becoming completely isolated. The viewer already knows that loneliness may be the price. This is what it means to say that actual life can be more dramatic than a film. The issue is not a simple change of doctrine. It may require changing family, friendship, marriage prospects, the foundation of daily life, and personal identity all at once.
I first asked what the viewer wanted. The answer was clear: to leave. Even so, I did not simply command, “Leave immediately.” I cannot live another person’s life or fully know the severance and pressure that person will have to bear.
First Lay Out Both Roads: Staying and Leaving
There are two possible choices. One may stay, and one may leave. Staying preserves family and long-standing relationships. The pressure a nonreligious person faces in a heavily religious community also exists outside cults. In conservative parts of the United States, a family that does not attend church can be isolated because neighbors and children all meet through the church. In Korea, someone raised in a Christian family may face immense pressure from parents and relatives after stopping attendance.
Many Christians regard inviting people to church as a religious duty. Not every Christian acts this way, but some inwardly discriminate against non-Christians as unsaved. If we sever every relationship whenever surrounding beliefs differ from ours, maintaining relationships anywhere in the world may become difficult. If losing family and community is unbearable and the group does not materially take one’s money, labor, and freedom, remaining while performing limited conformity is a possible choice.
The situation changes, however, if the group takes money, labor, values, and freedom, uses people like puppets or slaves, and cuts them off from outsiders. If it is a cult in that extreme sense, leaving alone is right even if relatives cannot be persuaded. Remaining because old relationships are precious exacts too great a price when the organization confines and exploits one’s whole life.
Cults Exist Because Superstition Fills Society as a Whole
We live in a far more superstitious society than we imagine. We cannot neatly divide the world into cults that believe superstition and ordinary society that is rational. When news of a death appears in a group chat, Koreans commonly write, “I pray for the repose of the deceased.” The expression presupposes an afterlife and a soul whose posthumous blessings can be wished for. Because I do not believe in an afterlife or soul, I hesitate every time I encounter it. On one occasion, I wrote, “May the memory of the deceased and the influence left behind endure,” but that is not a familiar conventional greeting.
This single example shows how many beliefs lie beneath culture and custom. People seek supernatural salvation from Amitabha or Maitreya, believe in rebirth, fortune reading and marital compatibility, miracles, and the Rapture. Such beliefs persist in modern life. A cult is not a monster that suddenly emerges from nothing. Extreme organizations become possible because the habit of believing without questioning already permeates society.
This does not mean attacking everyone we meet by declaring, “You believe superstition.” When the damage is small and a belief does not imprison a life, we may preserve the relationship. But if superstition turns life into puppetry, blocks outside relationships, and causes serious harm, one may leave without fearing the severance itself.
A New Road Guarantees No Success, but New Relationships Exist
Leaving may sever all existing relationships. Yet new relationships also wait in the world. I cannot promise that every one will be good. A new life may be better, or it may become more difficult than expected. We never know the future. We assume tomorrow will be there, but it may not. I may be alive in ten years, or I may not.
Impermanence means that the world does not remain fixed. Recognizing this does not give us a perfect guarantee; it shows that we cannot surrender today while waiting for a guarantee. We should ask which option leaves the mind more at ease. Even after doing everything within our power, success is not certain. Most people who enter a competition do not become successful. A society that celebrates the few who achieve their dreams as inherently superior and treats the majority who fail as losers makes most people unhappy. A happier society allows those who fail to live together and respects the attempt, not success alone.
The Rhinoceros Horn and the Narrow Gate Are the Minority Road of Questioning
Buddhism says that if good companions are available, walk with them. If no one will walk a wise path away from superstition, however, go alone like a rhinoceros horn. The Sermon on the Mount likewise speaks of the narrow gate rather than the broad road traveled by the majority. I do not interpret this as a demand for self-torment. A person who questions what everyone else takes for granted is always part of a minority, so the road is narrow and lonely.
I call this process a “fifth adolescence.” It is a period in which a person steps away from the concepts, superstitions, common sense, and customs received from parents, family, and society and asks, “Is that really so?” Most people never undergo it. A person who opens the eyes can therefore become lonely among those whose eyes remain closed.
Cults also claim to be the narrow gate. They say every other religion is false and only their small group will be saved. Being small and walking a hard road does not make a path true. The criterion is questioning. Does the group say, “Do not doubt; believe and follow me,” or does it encourage persistent questions, doubt, criticism, and thought? A prohibition on questions and demand for belief are superstition and anti-intellectualism.
I Know a Similar Isolation but Cannot Fully Know This Person’s Oppression
I too lived for a long time among people immersed in superstition. My father believed in transcendence, and such Gnostic belief made life difficult for everyone around him. I loved my father and understand him in part, but I must also say that mistaken belief hurt his family. Many religious people torment others with their faith.
Within Buddhism, I am treated as an outsider because I say rebirth does not exist. Many Buddhists insult me or regard me as strange. Some may agree but remain silent for fear of exclusion. I speak directly because someone must say what he thinks is true. This allows me to estimate something of the viewer’s isolation inside a group where even voicing doubt may be punished.
Yet my situation is not the same. I may be rejected for an opinion, but I do not face the immediate loss of family and every daily relationship, or the same degree of physical and direct control. I must recognize that I cannot fully understand the viewer’s experience and fear. That is why I said both staying and leaving were possible and advised choosing the road that brings greater peace of mind.
The Fantasy of Marriage and the Risk of a Partner Who Never Questions
The prospect of marrying another member may also make staying attractive. But the belief that marriage guarantees happiness may itself be an image planted by society. Everyone entering an examination with a ten-to-one ratio imagines being among the ten percent who pass, yet ninety percent fail. Romance and marriage end happily in stories and videos when two people meet; real marriage begins at that ending and produces countless new problems.
A person capable of questioning and conversation has more room to absorb conflict and avoid inflicting deep wounds. Someone who has never questioned a belief may be drawn into another superstition and become impossible to reach through conversation. Around the year 2000, people who believed in the Rapture surrendered property, bodies, and time. An ordinary religious belief could lead directly into extreme superstition. One of my relatives experienced the destruction of a household through such Rapture belief.
A person who believes superstition is not necessarily a bad spouse. The individual may be kind, and we cannot determine every future in advance. Superstition is dangerous, however, because it can disable the pause in which one asks, “Is this really true?” Whether a spouse can return to dialogue and reconsider a belief after falling into another doctrine is a practical question for married life.
Severing Every Relationship Is Not the Only Road for Someone Whose Eyes Are Open
I participate in a Buddhist group in which most members believe in rebirth. I am one of the few who call it superstition, and others may regard me as odd. Nevertheless, I do not sever every relationship. If I abandoned everyone who has not undergone a fifth adolescence, I would isolate myself completely. Rather than closing the door, I can knock and raise questions.
I too once knew Buddhism poorly, spoke incorrectly, and lived inside delusion. Recognition that everyone can remain inside a private well creates a need for tolerance. This is what I mean by criticizing without condemning. If I think Professor Kang Seong-yong presents claims contrary to early Buddhism, I can criticize those claims. If he is not intentionally defrauding people but is mistaken because he does not know, I need not hate and condemn the person.
Still, this viewer faces direct oppression and the risk of losing nearly every relationship. A new road therefore requires courage. Failure is possible, yet I would recommend making the attempt because the existing condition is already unhealthy. People outside the cult also believe countless superstitions, but one can at least leave the island on which a single organization decides an entire life and controls questions and relationships.
Do Not Suffer Alone; Keep Asking Questions
There is no shameful question. One may feel shame, but one should ask anyway. The present fear and confusion are not the person’s permanent self; they arose through many relationships and conditions. There is no need to spend a short and impermanent life crushed by the burden of “must” and by forced belief.
Within the mind, countless forces collide: whether to leave or stay, lose family or gain freedom, fail or discover a new road. This is not merely a duel between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Loss, fear, right and wrong, attraction and aversion, past relationships and future possibilities all interact until a decision emerges. This is not unique to the viewer. Every person undergoes it at every moment.
If some relationship has opened the eyes, one can build a new road even while afraid. Suffering alone and silently is the worst option. Keep asking questions and sharing thoughts. The first step out of a place that forbids questions is itself a question, and the recovery of the power to decide one’s own life also begins with questioning.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.