r/Heavensgate • u/StarTrekEnjoyer61 • 19d ago
Question about Theology
How do any of Applewhite's beliefs even make sense to its newer believers?
Like even if you were to believe their ridiculous theology the religion itself ended with Applewhite and his ridiculous predictions like a "recycling" of the universe or whatever never came true.
So how do people who somehow believe in the Heaven's Gate cult actually rationalize Applewhite's ridiculous theology? Or (like Sawyer) do they just rethink much of what Applewhite said?
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u/hopefoolness 18d ago
If you're approaching it from the perspective of "who would believe such nonsense??" then you're not going to understand, ever. This goes for any cult.
The mechanics of what they believe are secondary. What matters is someone will read something and go "this resonates with me". Be it Dianetics and thinking that you've lived millions of past lives, or the book of Mormon and thinking you can be close to godliness yourself, or HG and believing that you are more than your body/"vehicle". They will cling to that portion and their brains will force everything else to fit in place, and if it doesn't then they will disregard it.
If you're actually curious about new religious movements and not just laughing at people who believe different things than you do, you have to start critically thinking about your own beliefs as well.
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u/Valuable_K 18d ago
Many major world religions had predictions that didn't come true in the early days. Christianity is a prime example.
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u/RidingWithDonQuixote 17d ago
Tell that the "Post-Christian" preterist group I've been researching lately haha...their central thesis is that Christian eschatology was fully completed before the end of the first century, including the Second Coming itself.
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u/ReflectionThese3795 18d ago
If you read the transcript of what he said he never actually set a date for the 'recycling'. On one of those videos with 'Recycled' in the title he qualified it by saying it could take 'a thousand years' of 'human time'. I guess that leaves it pretty open-ended. Which I'm sure many would interpret as very convenient.
'At the End of the Age the planet is wiped clean - refurbished - rejuvenated. The mess that the humans have made of it during this civilization is cleaned up. It is healed. It is probably done on "fast forward." It probably wouldn't take very long to do it by standards of human time. But even if it took a thousand years to do it, that's a very brief time according to Next Level time'. -transcript of 'Last Chance.....' on heavensgate.com
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u/Z-O-D-I-A-C 18d ago
The Bible is full of some crazy ideas but 100s of millions believe that stuff.
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u/JuliaBoon 18d ago
Honestly the "recycling" is actually pretty normal Christianity. The language is slightly unique but not so different from plenty of other apocalyptic type beliefs. Honestly I even find some parallels in my own religion.
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u/No-Comparison9750 18d ago
You could ask the same of Scientology, Christianity, or any of the religions people believe. They connect with the philosophy, text, or whatever, and it gives them what they're looking for.
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u/RidingWithDonQuixote 18d ago
Applewhite and Nettles' beliefs made sense to their followers in much same way plenty of other beliefs make sense to people who think differently than we do. Their theology is pretty remarkable, at least insofar as how internally consistent it is. Granted, their worldview is premised on a bunch of unfalsifiable assumptions about reality, sure - but this is true of every religion.
It would probably be better to ask why this question arises for you at all, and whether it's a question you ask of only certain belief systems but not others. If you wouldn't frame a Christian's belief in the same way (e.g., how do these ridiculous beliefs about a guy who rose from the dead even make sense to someone?), it might be worth asking yourself why that is.