» Part 1
» Continued from Part 2

=== Other News
24. German teens bent on death by website
25. Philippine Christian sect vows to help locate French fugitive
26. Trial in O'Hair disappearance set for Jan. 29
27. Man who killed daughter thought he was Christ
28. Girl tells judge dad called mom the devil
29. Sun will dim in rare Dec. 25 partial eclipse
30. Religious Freedom Act challenged
31. A Glaring Exception

=== Hoaxes / Pseudo-Science
32. Christmas Story Found In 3000-Year-Old Writings Of King Solomon

=== Noted
33. Looking for identity, 'half Jews' shmooze on the Web

=== Books, Internet, Other Media
34. The faithful believe in Net's power
35. Themes From Thinkers Who Are Not Believers

=== The Grinch Around The Corner
36. Court rejects suit to outlaw Christmas

=== What's Playing Around The Corner
37. 'Jesus' Movie Watchers Get R-Rated Surprise


=== Other News

24. German teens bent on death by website
The Scotsman (Scotland), Dec. 20, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
German authorities are investigating an occult group which they say is behind a disturbing number of suicides among young people.

Police and social workers say the ''Blue Rose'' cult has made suicide glamorous among bored teenagers in small east German towns. Computers and mobile phones are being confiscated in a bid to halt the trend.
(...)

Police say the root of the suicides is Blue Rose, an internet- based cult. Tied into the Gothic music scene, the group encourages youngsters to wax lyrical in internet chat rooms about the uselessness of their lives, the pointlessness of their existence and the glamour of death.

In a region where many towns have no railway station, cinema or disco, the nihilistic message has hit deep with disillusioned youth.

School teachers reported to police and the youth authorities about a ''depressed atmosphere'' hanging over classes. Young people have taken to dressing only in black, sporting ghoulish black eyeliner and lipstick.

Black mass candles have been found in local graveyards. Local vicar Andreas Breit said: ''The occult scene is thriving in this region. They have held black masses in the ruins of buildings and in the open. They have rituals and swear oaths.''

Police have also found the remains of slaughtered animals.

In nearby Havelberg police said the Blue Rose followers call themselves ''Black Souls'' and cut each other to drink blood ''while it is still warm''. ''This is not fiction,'' said a police spokesman. ''It has happened and it continues to happen.''

In Salzwedel, 43 miles away, police found a number of severed goats' heads this year, victims of ritual sacrifice by another occult group called the Thelema Order.

This upsurge in the occult and Satanic worship culminated in the region at Whitsun this year when 30,000 youths descended near the town of Leipzig to hear bands such as Wolfsheim and Elegia sing morbid songs of suicide and depression.

''Mail order companies, the Blue Rose, the Death Metal music scene - no one single element can be said to be responsible for these deaths, but taken in total, they all are,'' said Wolfgang Bauch, a police official in Brandenburg.

Klaus Metzer, a Satanic rituals specialist, said: ''The kids in this region have sworn off the far right and left for their own kingdom of the dead. They walk down the streets and flash each other the special Satanic sign - two fingers up, two down - and plot weekend rituals and even their own suicides.''

In Leipzig, Solveig Prass from the Parents Initiative of Saxony works with youths who have forsaken Satan and are trying to overcome their suicidal feelings.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


25. Philippine Christian sect vows to help locate French fugitive
AFP, Dec. 20, 2000
http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A powerful Philippine Christian sect said Wednesday it would assist French and local police track down French fugitive Alfred Sirven, believed hiding in Manila with the mother of two sect members.

The Iglesia ni Kristo (Church of Christ) also rejected claims that it had been sheltering Sirven, the former number two at French oil giant Elf Aquitaine.

Sirven has been on the run from justice since 1997 for alleged embezzlement and operation of a slush fund to buy influence in several illicit deals.

Sirven's Filipina girlfriend, Vilma Aguilando Medina, was a former member of Iglesia, which backs President Joseph Estrada and commands a three million membership in the predominantly Christian Philippines.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


26. Trial in O'Hair disappearance set for Jan. 29
Dallas Morning News, Dec. 21, 2000
http://www.dallasnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
AUSTIN - A man facing charges in the disappearance of atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair and her family will go on trial Jan. 29, federal prosecutors said.

David Waters, 53, faces a five-count federal indictment alleging that he and others kidnapped Ms. O'Hair and her family in a plot that investigators believe ended in their slaying.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


27. Man who killed daughter thought he was Christ
The Guardian (England)/Press Association, Dec. 20, 2000
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A doting father who believed he was Jesus Christ plunged a 14in carving knife into his sleeping daughter's heart in the belief she would come back to life after the attack, a jury heard yesterday.

A Swansea crown court jury took five minutes to find Phillip Andrew Hall, 41, not guilty by reason of insanity of the murder of his daughter Emma, 12, last June .
(...)

Neil Bidder, for the prosecution, said Hall had a history of mental problems.

But a series of hoax emails from a rival company led to him taking a bogus trip to India and might have been the catalyst for the tragedy.

The trip took place while Hall, a marketing manager, was working for a new firm called Molecular Light Technology in June.

The jury heard that Hall had been trained to demonstrate an experiment to the Indian clients. He became convinced that 15 full tubes that he had to take with him represented 15 Christian families which were facing death. A 16th empty tube represented his family which he would have to kill to save the others, he told psychiatrists
(...)

Hall's first signs of delusional behaviour, it was told, began when he went to America briefly to work in 1992.

He later claimed he had made a profound discovery - that he was Jesus Christ. He still managed to rise in his career despite spending time in psychiatric hospitals.

After the trial, a statement issued by the Hall family said: ''Andy was the victim of a cruel hoax perpetrated apparently for business reasons by others.

''The hoax acted as a catalyst for this tragedy and had it not been carried out it seems likely that the awful consequences to the Hall family would not have happened.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. Girl tells judge dad called mom the devil
San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 21, 2000
http://www.uniontrib.com/
A Vista man accused of killing his wife last month thought he was Jesus Christ and she was the devil, a teen-age daughter who saw them quarrel the day before her death testified yesterday.

Prosecutors say William Dennison, 44, beat his wife, Julia, 43, to death with pliers Nov. 3.
(...)

Dennison's 17-year-old daughter testified that he ''was acting strange'' the day before her mother's death, calling himself Jesus Christ and trying to take apart an electric can opener he told her contained a hidden police microphone.

Dennison also called his wife the devil, the girl said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


29. Sun will dim in rare Dec. 25 partial eclipse
London Free Press, Dec. 21, 2000
http://www.canoe.ca/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
A solar eclipse visible in the London area on Christmas Day won't be spectacular, a University of Western Ontario physics and astronomy professor said last night.

''This will be a partial eclipse for most of Canada, so we won't be covered by the moon's shadow and be able to see the sun's corona,'' said Prof. John Landstreet.
(...)

The eclipse will be the final one of the millennium that ends Dec. 31, if counting by the method of dating years beginning Jan. 1 of AD 1.

Not everyone will be happily awaiting the Christmas spectacle.

Some Christians who believe in the apocalypse feel the event is a sign the end of the world is near or that global catastrophe will strike.

''It's a very bad sign for the world,'' Gino Esposito, 56, a Roman Catholic, said in Toronto. ''It's bad luck.''

Some religious groups believe the apocalypse will occur in 2000 and view the Christmas eclipse as an omen.

Cult expert Irving Hexham said some fringe fundamental groups may find the eclipse alarming.

''There may be some nutty groups panicking about it,'' Hexham said from his Calgary office.

However, scientists say there's no particular scientific coincidence for the moon to block the sun on Christmas Day.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


30. Religious Freedom Act challenged
The Idaho Statesman, Dec. 20, 2000
http://www.idahostatesman.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Sen. Grant Ipsen, R-Boise, is a sponsor of Idaho's Religious Freedom Act. A bill to repeal the act may be introduced during next year's session, but Ipsen says he doesn't think foes have enough votes to overturn the new law.

Eight months after Gov. Dirk Kempthorne signed this year's most controversial bill into law, efforts are afoot to repeal the new ''Free Exercise of Religion Act'' or at least to amend it to death before it takes effect.

Religious leaders and politicians have profound disagreements on what the new law will allow, and they say those differences won't be settled before the Legislature convenes Jan. 8.

Supporters say Idaho's version of the law, like those passed or being considered in other states, only restores 1st Amendment religious rights erased by U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the 1990s. They say the high court left it to the states to pass laws to protect religious activities, so long as those activities don't run counter to ''compelling government interests'' such as protecting basic civil rights of citizens.

Opponents, including some religious leaders in the Boise Valley, say the new law will allow Idahoans to violate civil rights and other laws by claiming the laws run contrary to their religious beliefs.
(...)

Schroeder sees the spooks. He said the new law was a big topic during the November elections, and most of his constituents want the law tossed out.

''In this part of the country, we have (Aryan Nations leader) Richard Butler's church,'' he said. ''What I understand is that freedom of religion overrides civil rights unless the state goes to court and shows a 'compelling interest' as to why it shouldn't.'' Under the new law, he said, an avowed racist such as Butler could deny housing or a job to a minority or a Jew and claim the denial was based on religious grounds. And whenever that happened, the state would have to pay its attorneys to go to court to fight the decision, he said.

''I just want to repeal it,'' Schroeder said of the law. ''It's taken us 200 years to get where we're at with regard to equal protection regardless of skin color and whatnot. My philosophy with regards to civil rights is that I'm not willing to go back. Not one inch.''

Ipsen denied any rights would be lost under the new law. While he acknowledged landlords in small properties might be allowed to deny renting to homosexuals or others with whom they had religious differences, he said those running apartment complexes could not discriminate. He said the law doesn't allow Idahoans to trample on civil rights, and said the courts would never allow it.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* A sidebar included the following links:

SB1394 - Free Exercise of Religion Act
Marci Hamilton - a critic of Idaho's religious freedom law and law professor
Religious Freedom Web site
The latter site is owned and ''sponsored by the Christian Science Committee on
Publication, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.''

31. A Glaring Exception
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
It's that time of year again: to mail cards, trim the tree--and complain about the light display at Trinity Broadcasting Network headquarters in Costa Mesa.

But this December, the complaints--usually centered around matters of taste--have had greater resonance as the state endures its worst energy crisis in more than two decades.

In previous years, Trinity kept the lights blazing despite the comments. But this month, in response to public requests from power companies, the religious broadcaster is listening. For the past 11 days, the lights haven't fully gone on until after 8 p.m. and were shut off shortly after midnight. Previously, the lights shone from dusk to dawn.
(...)

Costa Mesa Mayor Libby Cowan said she wishes Trinity officials would pull the plug on their decorative displays for the entire night during the energy shortage.
(...)

The Christian television network, founded in 1973, is shown on 1,500 television stations, 16 satellites and thousands of cable systems worldwide, Trinity officials said.
(...)

Cowan said she believes Trinity officials use the massive display of lights, in part, to be seen and talked about.

''I think that Trinity does draw more attention, and that's their intent--to draw attention,'' Cowan said. ''With the amount of decorations and lack of aesthetics, that draws complaints.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Hoaxes / Pseudo-Science

32. Christmas Story Found In 3000-Year-Old Writings Of King Solomon
Internet Wire, Dec. 20, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Details of the Christmas story have been found encoded together in the ancient Hebrew text of the Bible, written nearly a thousand years before the event.

The surprisingly extensive collection of predictions was discovered beneath the surface text of the book of Proverbs earlier this month by Bible Code Digest researchers.

In announcing the finds, the monthly e-newsletter and web site (www.biblecodedigest.com) noted that its researchers suspect there are many more similar codes yet to be found in the passage.

Centered around a puzzling Christmas message, the researchers have so far found dozens of Hebrew equidistant letter sequences (ELSs) such as Mary, Joseph, Bethlehem, stable, manger, nativity, shepherds, star and angels.
(...)

According to veteran mathematician R. Edwin Sherman, director of the Bible Code Digest, the odds against these words appearing by chance is less than one in a trillion.
(...)

Sherman is a consultant to Fortune 500 companies and government agencies on insurance risk, Sherman uses extensive statistical analysis to evaluate the validity of Bible codes.

Researchers included Sherman, physicist and Hebrew expert Dr. Nathan Jacobi, and Dave Swaney, editor of the Bible Code Digest.

Bible Code Digest researchers use search software developed by the pioneering Israeli scientists whose paper announcing the significance of Torah codes was first published in the prestigious journal Statistical Science.

The software uses the Koren version of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Noted

33. Looking for identity, 'half Jews' shmooze on the Web
Associated Press, Dec. 20, 2000
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Hanukkah candles or holy water? Easter or Passover? Bagels and lox or a ham sandwich?
And who am I, anyway?

For ``half Jews'' -- people with one Jewish parent -- identity can be a complicated thing, inextricably bound up with questions of culture, family and God. And other people's definitions of who is Jewish can make things trickier still.

``There are sort of a lot of jokes about it, that you don't know whether to celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, but mostly it's that you don't know how to present yourself,'' said Wendy Marston, whose new Web site, www.halfjew.com, gives partly Jewish people a chance to shmooze online. ``The idea would be to become both and reject neither, and to be allowed to do that.''

The irreverent site includes essays on cultural identity and a multi-faith glossary of religious terms -- from karma, Good Friday and rosary to mensch, mitzvah and original sin -- that promises to help readers avoid being caught off guard in any sacred situation.

But behind the joking lie some serious issues.

Most branches of American Judaism recognize as Jews only those with Jewish mothers. The Reform movement, one of the country's three largest, also accepts those whose fathers, but not their mothers, are Jewish.

While many offspring of religiously mixed marriages say they're happy embracing both sides of their heritage, pressure from outside can make that difficult.
(...)

With surveys showing that half of American Jews now marry outside the faith, the questions facing the children of such unions have grown more pressing.
(...)

Klein and Voijst's book includes sections on half-Jewish cuisine, celebrities and even humor.

``We used to go to confession and I would bring a lawyer with me,'' they quote half-Jewish, half-Catholic comedian Bill Maher as saying.

While many of those posting messages on Marston's Web site share that relaxed, celebratory approach, others admit their hodgepodge of heritages leaves them confused.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Books, Internet, Other Media

34. The faithful believe in Net's power
USA Today, Dec. 21, 2000
http://www.usatoday.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Churches and synagogues may have concerns about pornography, privacy and rampant commercialism on the Internet, but that isn't stopping them from leaping online themselves, a survey suggests.

Thousands of U.S. congregations have Web pages; many send e-mail to members. Some even put their worship services online in streaming audio and video.

''There's an impression in the world that the Internet is for young, computer-savvy, materially minded folks, but this shows it's being used for lots more,'' says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which studies the Net's impact on various segments of society. Its ongoing research finds 21% of Net users seek spiritual material online.

The findings are not a representative sample of U.S. religious institutions -- they're based on questionnaires answered Nov. 21 to Dec. 8 by 1,309 congregations with Web sites. As the report notes, it's likely respondents were ''more enthusiastic about the Internet . . . than a randomly chosen group of congregations.''

But Pew believes it's the first national survey of how congregations use the Net.
(...)

Although Pew's phone surveys of Net users suggest 19 million to 20 million people have sought spiritual information online, the reach of most religion sites is so low that only in the past few months have they even begun to show up on Internet analysts' radar.

''These are still very much niche resources,'' says Anne Rickert, a measurement analyst at Media Metrix, which tracks sites with more than 200,000 visitors a month. ''None of these sites approach the visitor numbers you'll see on major portals, search engines, retail or Web service sites. That isn't to say they aren't important for a number of people.''

The top general-interest site, Yahoo, gets about 55 million unduplicated visitors a month, but the Web's No. 1 religion site, Gospelcom.net, had 773,000 unduplicated visitors in November and ranks only No. 1,565 among all Web sites, Rickert says.

The reason? Many sites focus on one denomination or are non-profit and don't advertise; people often find them through search engines, Rickert says. ''Clearly, these aren't known destinations on the Web.''
(...)

Sidebar:
Top religion sites
USA Today, Dec. 21, 2000
http://www.usatoday.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
1 Gospelcom.net 773,000
Online ministries, Bible search

2 Christianbook.com 611,000
Christian books, gift catalog

3 Familysearch.org 481,000
Genealogy resource site

4 Beliefnet.com 418,000
Multifaith spirituality portal

5 Ishaah.com 405,000
Inspirational personal page

6 LDS.org 373,000
Official site of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

7 Family.org 353,000
Focus on the Family ministry

8 CSMonitor.com 346,000
Christian Science Monitor

9 NewAdvent.org 315,000
Catholic Web directory, links

10 OnePlace.com 295,000
Christian radio programming
Source: Media Metrix, November; visitors are unduplicated audience.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


35. Themes From Thinkers Who Are Not Believers
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 16, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ATHEISM, A Reader, Edited by S.T. Joshi, Prometheus Books, $20, 350 pages
(...)

According to ''Atheism: A Reader,'' a collection of essays that spans the last three centuries to provide an atheistic critique of religion, belief may be simply a knee-jerk reaction to the existential horror of life, and religion itself little more than a sham designed to prey on human fear and superstition.

Included in the collection are essays from some of the West's most learned thinkers. Friedrich Nietzsche writes an angry commentary on religion's correlation of scientific thought with sin, while Charles Darwin offers a touching personal essay on his slow conversion from belief to doubt. George Eliot gives a funny, ironic and stinging indictment of a preacher in her day, a narrative that will warm the heart of readers who have experienced similar frustrations with illogical and inconsistent arguments put forth by some of today's sermonizers.
(...)

Bertrand Russell forcefully disputes the idea of God's existence based on the first-cause argument.
(...)

Clarence Darrow, defense lawyer in the Scopes trial of 1925, writes a humorous and biting rebuttal to an argument put forth by the Lord's Day Alliance, a group that promoted legislation prohibiting ballgames, museum visits and other enjoyments on Sundays.
(...)

To argue their points, the writers settle on a number of recurring themes, many of which deserve attention: that religion has perpetrated interminable harm in the name of God; that the capacity for moral behavior is not limited to believers; that if God exists and deserves credit for all that is virtuous, God is equally responsible for evil; that many religions, and specifically Christianity, have had a demeaning influence on the social status of women; that the belief in an afterlife is a case of unreasonable hope in the face of mortality; that there is no way to prove God's existence apart from mawkish and unscientific terms; and finally, that all religious feeling is simply wishful thinking in powerful combination with human anxiety about those things we cannot define.
(...)

These essays--philosophically rigorous and often dense reading--may cause some to question tenets of their faith, which atheists and more than a few deists might argue is a good thing. By subjecting one's beliefs to some of the world's strongest arguments against faith, one risks the intellectual shake-up necessary to move on to a more authentic stage of belief--or to cross over to uncertainty.

Thought-provoking as the essays are, still it's clear that the writers were not able to explain that elusive something that causes believers to believe.

The bottom line is this: God either is or God isn't, and belief--that intangible, ineffable ingredient of faith--is something other than logic. Whether that imprecision is in its favor or not depends on which side of the atheism-deism fence you sit on. Clearly, though, the concept that belief either surpasses or undermines logic doesn't make faith any less convincing to those who do believe.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== The Grinch Around The Corner

36. Court rejects suit to outlaw Christmas
The Cincinnati Post, Dec. 21, 2000
http://www.cincypost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
[...more offbeat news...]
The score is now Santa 2, Grinch 0.

But the Grinch isn't giving up. He's going to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw Christmas as a holiday.

''It's not that I'm against Christmas,'' insists Cincinnati lawyer Richard Ganulin. ''I'm seeking the dignity of equality for non-Christians.''

For the second year in a row, Ganulin lost a lawsuit challenging Christmas as a national holiday.

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that Christmas is a legal federal holiday in the United States. The court upheld a decision issued just before Christmas last year by Cincinnati U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott.

''I'm going to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court,'' said Ganulin, who admits his chances are remote. ''I hope the Supreme Court rules in my favor, but I'm a realist.'' Sixth Circuit judges Boyce Martin, Ralph Guy and Guy Cole didn't explain their ruling except to say they agreed with ''the reasons set forth in the district court's opinion.''

Ganulin, who is Jewish, said he was disappointed the appellate court didn't analyze Ms. Dlott's decision, which he says is wrong in three ways.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== What's Playing Around The Corner

37. 'Jesus' Movie Watchers Get R-Rated Surprise
NewsChannel2000, Dec. 18, 2000
http://www.newschannel2000.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
ORLANDO, Updated 12:18 p.m. EST December 18, 2000 -- A Central Florida family who sat down to watch the story of Jesus on tape got an R-rated movie instead.

A local Christian ministry, Vision Orlando, sent out more than 500,000 copies of the G-rated ''Jesus'' movie to families in Orange and Seminole counties, just in time for Christmas.

Eric and Jennifer Duncan and their two daughters were all looking forward to watching the free video that they received in the mail. But when they started watching, the tape showed the movie ''When Harry Met Sally.'' That movie is rated R.
(...)

Vision Orlando leaders said that the mixup happened at a dubbing house in Texas. Executives at the dubbing house believe that the problem is limited to no more than 100 tapes.

If you need a replacement tape of the ''Jesus'' movie, you can contact the nonprofit group Vision Orlando at (407) 826-2605.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]