Thanks, guys. I really needed to spit it all out. It was like lancing a festering wound.
Tigger--
Yes, the pain and guilt are great. Even if I leave Scn out of it, the pain and guilt would be there. They are common to survivors of suicides. I have gotten my own professional help.
That was another very hard thing to do--walk into a psychologist's office and ask for help. After all, for 30 years they had been the enemy.
Can OSA find me out? Possibly.
But, they should be more worried about defection from their own ranks than with mine.
I became curious last night about how big this bogey man really was, so I did some research. Let's put OSA and Scn in perspective..
CofS says they have 8 million members, right? Come on guys, let's give them the benefit of a doubt (be reasonable) and agree that at some point 8 million people cross paths with Scn in the last 55 years.
How does this stack up to the total world's population?
Here are the statistics:
WorldPopulation: 6,379,157,361 (July 2004
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2119.html Now, what does that mean in percentages?
Well, divide 8,000,000 by the world's population. I did and I got 0.00125 or .125%. Scn at its best--which we all know is a gross exxageration--is 1/10th of a single percent of the total world. A drop in the bucket!
The table below tells how Scn really stacks up with other world religions. It has a very long way to go and it is targeting the wrong market--just like a Suppressive Person--Wrong Target!
From a table found at:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm Religion, Membership , % of World
Christianity: 2,039 million, 32% (dropping)
Islam: 1,226 million, 19% (growing)
Hinduism: 828 million, 13% (stable)
No religion *: 775 million, 12% (dropping)}
Chinese folk rel.: 390 million, 6%
Buddhism: 364 million, 6% (stable)
Tribal Religions, Shamanism, Animism: 232 million, 4%
Atheists: 150 million, 2%
New religions.: 103 million, 2%
Sikhism: 23.8 million, <1%
Judaism: 14.5 million, <1%
Spiritism : 12.6 million, <1%
Baha'i Faith: 7.4 million, <1%
Confucianism: 6.3 million, <1%
Jainism: 4.3 million, <1%
Zoroastrianism: 2.7 million, <1%
Shinto: 2.7 million, <1%
Taoism: 2.7 million, <1%
Other: 1.1 million, <1%
Wicca: 500,000, <1%
attributed to:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm Do you know who I am?