In 2005, I found myself in Charlottesville, Virginia. I’d just resigned from a job promoting volunteer work on college campuses that turned out to be more of a Ponzi scheme and scam than anything else, and lasted a month before we mutually agreed I go my own way. While giving cult-like entities the benefit of the doubt is something I need to periodically be reminded is not a good thing to do, it has meant I’ve had my fair share of up close and personal encounters with (usually well-intentioned) fundamentalists, and witnessed the power of rhetoric to motivate otherwise intelligent and compassionate people to involve themselves in situations many others would easily reject as dubious.

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