Thread by @chimaihueze

Jim Jones.

An American cult leader; preacher; & self-proclaimed 'Messiah' who conspired with his inner circle to direct a mass murder-suicide of himself and his followers.

He ultimately led his followers into a mass suicide, which left more than 900 dead.

As a young child, Jones became a regular churchgoer, and, after graduating from Butler University, he decided to enter the ministry.

In the 1950s and ’60s, he gained a reputation as a charismatic churchman, and he was a vocal proponent of racial integration, a position that ran afoul of some church elders.

In 1955 he established the Wings of Deliverance, a Pentecostal church that eventually became known as the Peoples Temple.

During this time he was noted for his work with the homeless, and in the early 1960s he served as director of Indianapolis’s Human Rights Commission.

Fearing a nuclear war, he relocated his church to northern California in 1965.

Following the move, Jones, who adopted the name “the Prophet,” apparently became obsessed with the exercise of power.

Before long, he began to face various allegations, most notably that he was illegally diverting the income of cult members to his own use.

Amid the mounting accusations, Jones and hundreds of his followers emigrated to Guyana and set up an agricultural commune called Jonestown.

He also staged bizarre rehearsals for a ritual mass suicide.

On November 14, 1978, U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan arrived in Guyana with a group of newsmen and relatives of cultists to conduct an unofficial investigation of alleged abuses.

Four days later, as Ryan’s party and 14 defectors from the cult prepared to leave from an airstrip near Jonestown, Jones ordered the group assassinated.

However, only Ryan and four others (including three newsmen) were killed.

Fearing that those who had escaped might bring in authorities, Jones activated his suicide plan.

When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die".

"We must die with some dignity, don't be afraid to die; death is just stepping over into another plane".

Jones concluded with: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."

Afterwards, he commanded his followers to drink cyanide-adulterated punch, an order that the vast majority of them passively and inexplicably obeyed.

Children were given the drink first by their own parents; families were told to lie down together.

When they finished drinking the cyanide flavoured thingy, Jones took a gun and shot himself.

Guyanese troops reached Jonestown the next day, and the death toll of cultists was eventually placed at 913 (including 276 children).

Here's the scene of the mass suicide.

Personally, I think religion controls people's life and determine how they think and act. It suppresses freethinking and critical rationalization.

Religion increases gullibility. It indoctrinates people into believing imaginary fairytales they wouldn't normally believe.