Watching the National Geographic Channel

I'll admit that I'm a little bit of a nerd. Therefore, I watch the National Geographic Channel a lot. Over the summer, I saw several shows on various cults. These include the Branch Davidians, Heavens Gate, and Jonestown. This lead me to wonder why people join cults. Obviously, these people are missing something in their lives. I'm not why they think that someone such as Jim Jones or Marshall Applewhite have the answer. It seems like cults are just one giant form of manipulation. The leaders exert total control over the followers and in some cases lead to followers to death I think it's interesting how people can people use religion to justify death. It happened in the U.S. with Heavens Gate and is one of the reasons behind suicide bombings in the Middle East. There's plenty of good works that have been justified by religion too. Sadly, most of those don't make the national news.