It’s been 30 years since 900 people in Jonestown ‘drank the kool-aid’

[moobu2]

CNN’s special about it airs tonight at 9pm eastern. I’ve always been fascinated at how far Christians can be pushed by these super charismatic people like Jim Jones. Jim Jones started out as a fairly respectable preacher who at one time had a huge following. He preached racial equality and social justice etc...His followers were, at one time, just ordinary everyday people who eventual killed their own children and themselves for this guy.

Anyhow, if you wanta watch it, it comes on tonight.

Thirty years ago, 900 people died by murder and suicide. Only a few survived. Now, CNN special correspondent Soledad O'Brien reports on their untold stories as "CNN Presents: Escape from Jonestown."

CNN

[Parche]

1. koolaid

and they are still doing that today..........:hi:

[laconicsax]

2. They didn't drink Kool Aid. It was Flavor Aid

[Faygo Kid]

3. I just saw another one earlier this week. I think it was on the History Channel.

Chilling. Brought back terrible memories. I remember watching the news unfold in disbelief.

[JuniperLea]

4. I was carrying my first son at that time...

And I remember thinking that it was a really fucked up world I was bringing life into... then John Lennon was shot just before his first birthday, and I thought, this kid better be tough.

:cry:

[givemebackmycountry]

5. It only reinforces my theory that....

There's no insanity, like religious insanity.

[Taverner]

14. Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions

[oldtime dfl_er]

6. Holy crap

am I that old???

[kestrel91316]

7. Same here. That was the year I got my BS from CSU. So I wasn't

even a kid anymore.

[struggle4progress]

8. Jones wasn't pushing Christianity in Jonestown: he claimed to be the re-incarnation

not only of Jesus, but of Akhenaton, Buddha, and Lenin also

But you knew that already, didn't you?

[moobu2]

9. His followers thought he was a gift from god (that would be the christian god)

Doesn’t really matter what he believed or didn’t believe. He convinced 900 christians followers that they should kill their children and then themselves and anyone else that got in the way.

Yeah he was crazy as shit though.

[struggle4progress]

10. That's dishonest of you. You're welcome to believe what you like and disbelieve what you like,

but Jones wasn't preaching Christianity -- and you know it

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. I recall that when the news broke, I was watching Saturday Night Live

with my then-boyfriend, and the news flash about the Jonestown suicides came up immediately after SNL ended.

The colony had been in the news a lot, but the idea that 900 people had committed suicide by drinking a cyanide-laced drink was so incredible that we wondered whether it was real or a SNL joke in very bad taste.

[juno jones]

12. Informative investigative article on Jonestown

They probably didn't kill themselves much. There's a good amount of evidence that they weren't keen on dying, but had that survival option removed...

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/Jonestown.html

[Taverner]

13. I remember as a kid when it happened

I knew families who had left for Guyana as well

I can only assume the worst...

This was when I was about 7