The Jonestown Massacre

[duck]

i am doing a project on this in school. i just want your guys opinions.

incase you dont know about this massacre its about a cult that was headed by Jim Jones. It was some kind of church that he lead. They were kicked out of indiana and then they went to san francisco, then they got kicked out of that and they went to guyana. they made a town called jonestown. on 11-18-78 jones convinced his entire cult (~1000 people) to drink a cyanide laced kool-aid (were the phrase "dont drink the kool-aid" was coined). they all knew they would die, he convinced them that they would go to heaven and that living on earth wasnt as good as heaven. it is often considered both a massacre and a mass suicide. what do you all think it is?

[meh]

They had kool-aid back then?? What flavor was it?

[SovietPanda]

They had kool-aid back then?? What flavor was it?

almond flavor

all I know is they killed themselves because they killed a congressman and some other people. They were afraid that after the US government heard about the congressman's death, they would storm their community and kill them all, so they committed suicide.

[meh]

They had kool-aid back then?? What flavor was it?

almond flavor

Haha I see what you did thar

[willitgoalltheway]

i bet none of the black people died because it wasnt grape flavored

[mrProtagonist]

That's a little racist "Will".

Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple, a cult led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown, Guyana's capital. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations.


Wikipedia is awesome.

[duck]

i think it was grape flavor. also 68 percent of the people were black

[Fence!]

This is a tough one... You have people who HONESTLY believed that they were being offered salvation, while the rest of the world viewed them as a cult.

Insofar as the religious aspect is concerned, I don't care. But I do care when it comes down to taking the lives of innocents. In my opinion, and from what I understand about the events, the mass suicide was a result of being backed into a corner which came about from lack of leadership.

I'm all for people believing that Jim Jones or David Koresh will bring them salvation (because who knows, really, that's another debate), but I'm not all for brash ideas leading to the death of people who were just along for the ride...

So I guess in my opinion it comes down to, "Who is the bigger fool, the fool who leads the fools, or the fools who follow?"

Fun fact: it was the only time a US congressman has been killed in the line of duty!

Also, they lead the children away as they drank the cyanide poisoned drink so that their resulting convulsions wouldn't UPSET the other children who had yet to drink the poison... That is fucked up.The kids didn't even know what was going to happen to them. Rage.

[duck]

its weird what people will beleive, i had a buddy, last summer, shoot himself because he thought it would bring him salvation. he was an extremely smart kid. he had no reason to do this, which is odd