Page "Jim Jones" Paragraph 29

By the spring of 1976, Jones began openly admitting even to outsiders that he was an atheist.

Despite the Temple's fear that the IRS was investigating its religious tax exemption, by 1977 Marceline Jones admitted to the New York Times that, as early as age 18 when he watched his then idol Mao Zedong overthrow the Chinese government, Jim Jones realized that the way to achieve social change through Marxism in the United States was to mobilize people through religion.

She stated that " Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion ," and had slammed the Bible on the table yelling " I've got to destroy this paper idol!

" In one sermon, Jones said that, " You're gonna help yourself, or you'll get no help!

There's only one hope of glory ; that's within you!

Nobody's gonna come out of the sky!

There's no heaven up there!

We'll have to make heaven down here!