I think jim jones more wicked than hitler

So somehow I’ve become interested in learning about Christian cults, and right now I’m watching documentaries about Jim Jones - the infamous leader who deceived his congregants to drink tainted Kool-Aide resulting in one of the worst mass suicides.

The reason why I think he was more evil than Hitler wasn’t because of the amount of people he killed, but his deception and hypocrisy.

When someone first hears about the Jonestown suicide they say “how stupid were his followers?” Well, before Jones (I think he was always this evil) he was civil rights leaders, he paid for adherents medical and college bill, he could “heal” people. But all this nicety-nicety was meant to deceive; his followers couldn’t accept he had turned. He used the people he helped to blackmail, to abuse him, to brainwash then to simpletons who would commit suicide for his cause.

Yes 6
No 10
Feeling Suicidal?
We couldn't help but notice that you might be asking about things related to suicide...
If that's not the case, please ignore this message.
But, if that is the case, please, please, please call this hotline and talk to someone about it. Or, visit one of these websites and get some help.
Unfortunately IIN isn't the best place for you to be asking about this. Check out the above websites or call one of the hotlines instead. They can help. Really. We know what we're talking about. Call. Do it. Please.
Remember that everything gets better with time.
Help us keep this site organized and clean. Thanks!
[ Report Post ]
Comments ( 21 )
  • CountessDouche

    I find them to be very similar. Anyone one person who capable of manipulating masses of people relies on the same personality traits & the same vulnerabilities. For JJ, it was people who were extremely dissatisfied with the direction of the modern world & human rights abuses, and he sold a utopia & ultimately an escape... 4 H It was rampant fear created by economic instability after losing a war & he sold nationalism, coming together as a country, insular strength, & economic solutions. Their message was different, but their means were similar. I mean, nazi Germany WAS pretty much a fucking cult- rallies, symbolism, rabid followers, recruiting the youth in the Hitler jugend...

    They were both charismatic, great public speakers, able to assuage fear by defining a common enemy-someone to blame, able to provide what appeared to be a solution...

    I mean, look at America after 9/11- weird, creepy support-our-troops, hero dialogue, support for the patriot act (by groups who vocally fetishize constitutional rights, too)...fear & uncertainty is a very, very powerful thing, and the manipulative can exploit w/ fucked up consequences.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • Gabloo

    Personally, I think it takes a certain level of evil to kill as many people as Hitler did. No Jim Jones might’ve been evil to write but I still think that Hitler did far more evil than Jim Jones. Whenever you’re killing millions of people, There’s a certain level of evil that makes this happen. This being said, I’m not saying Jim Jones was a good person by any means He is one of the most wicked humans that I’ve lived on this earth but I still think that Hitler is worse. You should watch American horror stories season cult if you haven’t already. What you’re saying just reminded me of it and it’s pretty good.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • Tommythecaty

    They aren’t similar at all I’d say hitler was a shit load worse even in mentality as you’re trying to argue. Jones appears to have slowly deteriorated and lost to ego and eventually “evil”

    Hitler... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jMqQBLZwRIE

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • Boojum

    Even if you could resurrect Jim Jones and Hitler, you couldn't attach some sort of meter to them and measure their relative inherent evilness.

    I guess the only halfway reasonable measure of evil is how many people your actions and decisions end up killing before their naturally allocated three score and ten years.

    If you accept that gauge of wickedness, Jim Jones is way down the list, while two people you don't mention - Mao and Stalin - are possibly even higher than Hitler.

    The Chinese authorities have always been very coy about admitting just how many died as a result of the famine created by Mao's exceedingly ill-judged Great Leap Forward, but it was probably somewhere between 35 and 45 million. Probably another 1.5 million died in the collective madness of the Cultural Revolution, and a few million more due to various other disastrous policies originating with Mao.

    And yet the bastard's portrait still dominates Tiananmen Square, and he's still venerated by the government and the majority of the Chinese.

    Stalin's body count is lower than that, but again it's difficult to be certain just how many people were killed by his purges, deliberately created famines, and programme of exiling all those whose loyalty he doubted to hard labour and terrible living conditions in the Gulags. The best guess is a total of around 9 million.

    But Stalin's legacy is even grimmer than that, because you could make a case for him being jointly responsible with Hitler for at least some of the deaths during WWII. Hitler knew that Stalin's purges had greatly weakened the Red Army, thus reducing the threat of one possible brake on Hitler's ambitions, and the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact essentially changed Stalin from Hitler's possible main opponent into his enabler.

    Then there's Pol Pot, whose Khmer Rouge regime resulted in the death of around 1.8 million people. That may seem paltry compared to the others, but it was between a fifth and a quarter of the population of Cambodia.

    Further back in history, Ghengis Khan and his successors in the Mongol Empire were amazing in terms of slaughter, general mayhem and massive social and economic upheaval over a huge part of the globe. The tally of dead they could claim was probably around 40 million. Since the population of the entire world in 1250 was around 400 million, that's pretty impressive. It certainly puts the 918 dead at Jonestown in some sort of perspective.

    Having said all that, I suppose one could ask if there's a difference between someone who directly orders people to be killed and a leader who makes bad decisions that result in the death of people. In ordinary life, that's the difference between murder and manslaughter, and most people accept that those two things are not morally equivalent. All the men I've mentioned did deliberately kill people, as did Jones. It seems to me that trying to come up with a score of relative evilness is pointless, and all you can really say is that they were all terrible human beings and the world became a slightly better place once they were gone.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • chuy

    Nah, hitler was more evil in the way he kilked people.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • Wellyoudliketoknoweh

    Hitler was way more deceptive
    Watch some about him too
    Even the way he started war was and how he got his power. Appeasement politics, propaganda, and basically he was a very confused man. He built up highways in Germany, social services for old and young, animal protection and he was a vegetarian. He made the people believe in what he said, he was a smart man, but like I said a very confused n angry one and he had the ability to manipulate people all too well.
    When the NSDAP got their power he spread propaganda and made the people vote, if by words or by force and smuggled himself into his position. I mean damn dude wanted to be an artist and look what happened.
    Nowadays we’d say how stupid were hitlers followers as well, but be in tat situation and see just how well u get out of there...,
    He basically got rid of his own men to put new, more cruel men into use, the NS and then came the SS. He got the population to want war even more, he got em to participate. Most leaders are deceptive, always keep that in mind
    If I’d have to write everything about him down I’d need to write a book. Watch some stuff about him too, there’s loads of stuff u probably don’t know yet
    Sometimes the worshipping reminds me of how North Koreans treat Kim yong un, just not that desperate

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk

    charles manson was a big deal amongst the hippies before the tate murders

    everyone loved his music and his blather about philosophy & shit

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • dimwitted

    For me it's all about choices. If you are meglo maniac then it on others to choose to follow you.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
  • Doesnormalmatter

    I mean he's bad but Hitler's affect was just on a much bigger scale. It depends what you measure by but I would say Hitler was worse.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
      -
    • At least Hitler was honest.

      Comment Hidden ( show )
        -
      • Ellenna

        Really? You are kidding me

        Comment Hidden ( show )
      • Doesnormalmatter

        Yeah but he still killed way more people.

        Comment Hidden ( show )
  • When you phrase it that way, Jim Jones sounds like an absolutely ruthless, heartless snake of a man. Can't blame you for thinking him worse than Hitler, even if I don't see the situation the same way as you.

    I couldn't say for sure whether all of the civil rights work that he did was calculated manipulation to get the followers to their final point, or if the final point came about in a more unplanned manner, by his mind and beliefs twisting over time.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
      -
    • Ellenna

      Hitler changed some things for the better for many people in Germany before he started invading other countries and mass murdering.

      Comment Hidden ( show )
  • He got a bunch of religious whackjobs to kill themselves so in my opinion he’s pretty cool.

    Comment Hidden ( show )
      -
    • Ellenna

      Cool that babies and children were killed too?

      Comment Hidden ( show )
        -
      • Those who refused to drink the Kool-aid were shot.

        Comment Hidden ( show )
    • But what about his deception of being “good” before he changed.

      Many people unaware of all good Jones did for his followers, such as paying off their hospital bills, college tuition, zealously fought for civil rights. Was that all a way to deceive his followers so they wouldn’t see his evil? I think so.

      Comment Hidden ( show )
        -
      • Ellenna

        No-one knows, but personally I think that like a lot of idealistic people he started out ok and then the power other people gave him went to his head. This happens a lot, both in personal relationships and in groups.

        Also, his expressed views appealed to the most powerless and disenfranchised people and he chose not to resist the temptation to manipulate them, to the extreme end of murder & enforced suicide.

        Comment Hidden ( show )
      • CountessDouche

        He also decieved himself into thinking that he was good & that what he was doing was good- it's the incredibly creative & twisted logic of the narcissist. Believe it or not, Hitler genuinely believed he was doing the best thing for his people too.

        Comment Hidden ( show )
          -
        • McBean

          Hitler was far more intelligent, and charismatic. Jim Jones was too dumb to accomplish the evil that Hitler spilled onto the world.

          Comment Hidden ( show )