Is HBO's documentary about 'Heaven's Gate' an excuse to attack Christianism?

One thing that really stands out in CNN's docuseries about the 'Heaven's Gate' cult for HBO is how it desperately tries to link the cult with Christianity. But maybe this explains why the CNN produced a documentary about a cult that was news almost 25 years ago... 

Let me share just a couple of thoughts about it.

Watching it left me wondering why Clay Tweel's documentary about a millenarist UFO cult is so filled with comparisons between this cult and Christianism... I have seen many documentaries about Heaven's Gate and about other cults (several about Jim Jones' Peoples Temple, for instance) and never seen anything similar before... One thing is that the cult founders took elements from Christianism in the origins of the cult; and another is that, in the documentary, every element of the cults' history and characteristics is compared to some element of Christianism.

For instance, the comparison by sociologist Reza Aslan of the change in the group's beliefs after Bonnie Nettles' death (one of the two founders), with an alleged change in what he calls the "Jesus movement" (sic) after Jesus' crucifixion, arguing that Jesus' death contradicted the "Jewish definition of the Messiah"... Well that is why it's called Christianism and not Judaism, isn't it?

The same Reza Aslan claims that the concept "cognitive dissonance" was created in the theology field, what is false...  In fact, Aslan, when he speaks about cognitive dissonance in the Heaven's Gate cult and in early Christianism, shows a perfect example of cognitive dissonance himself, by ignoring the fact that Jesus' figure was a rupture from established Judaism... An evidence of this is that Jesus' fate was decided by the Jewish people, not by the Roman authorities, when they choose him over Barabbas to be executed. So he was a rupturist figure from the "Jewish definition of the Messiah" already before his death.

While I was looking at it I saw other parallelisms that could have been brought up but were ignored.

Regarding the genderless society proposed by Marshall Applewhite, the same day I write this, we learnt that:

Mr. Potato Head brand goes gender-neutral, dropping "Mr." title https://t.co/R5sMUIt869

— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 27, 2021

And what about millenarism, and Applewhite's meassage 'follow me or you are doomed'...?

What Journalism Should Be

For spanish citizens it is impossible an interview like this one, except if the interviewer works for a news corporation opposed to the ideology of the interviewed.

Soledad O'Brien, CNN anchor, interviews Mike Brown, head of FEMA, five days after the Katrina flooded New Orleans [CNN]:

S. O'BRIEN: FEMA has been on the ground for four days, going into the fifth day. Why no massive airdrop of food and water? In Banda Aceh, in Indonesia, they got food dropped two days after the tsunami struck.

BROWN: That's what we're going to do here, too. And I think...

S. O'BRIEN: But, sir, forgive me...

BROWN: Soledad, just a moment, please.

We're feeding those people in the Convention Center. We have fed over 150,000 people as of last night. That is happening.

S. O'BRIEN: But I guess the point is, as of last night -- sir, forgive me, I have to stop you here.

BROWN: What we're hearing, is that we're hearing people's frustrations. There are people that are beginning to manifest themselves out of the community that we didn't know that were there, and we're doing everything we can to find those individuals, case by case to get them help as quickly as possible.

S. O'BRIEN: But it begs the question, why are you discovering this now? It's five days that FEMA has been on the ground. The head of police says it's been five days that FEMA has been there. The mayor, the former mayor, putting out SOS's on Tuesday morning, crying on national television, saying please send in some troops. So the idea that, yes, I understand that you're feeding people and trying to get in there now, but it's Friday. It's Friday.

BROWN: Soledad, what's going on is in this situation, we have people who have gone, for example, to the Superdome, and we're feeding those people. And as we do the evacuations, as the water recedes, people begin to come out wherever they've been trying to keep themselves safe. They go to the bridges. They go to the overpasses. We find out about those people. We have every urban search-and-rescue team in this country out trying to find them now. We don't know where everybody is. And as they come out and they show themselves, we're rescuing them and moving them to places. I understand their frustration. I understand your frustration. This is a catastrophic event, and as these people continue to show themselves, we rescue them and take care of them.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you look at the pictures that are coming out of New Orleans? New Orleans? And do you say, I'm proud of the job that FEMA is doing on the ground there in a tough situation?

BROWN: Soledad...

S. O'BRIEN: Or do you look at these pictures and you say, this is a mess and we've dropped the ball; we didn't do what we should of done.

BROWN: Soledad, I look at these pictures and my heart breaks. My heart breaks just like the rest of the country's heart breaks. And so what we're doing is ramping up. I've asked the military to come in and help us and do -- I mean, I've mission assigned the Army, and the Coast Guard and the others to get those supplies in to all of those pockets. I don't want to see any American suffer the way some of these people are suffering, because of the consequences of this disaster.

Més mostres de la repercusió internacional de la manifestació

CNN.


Euronews.