» Continued from Part 2

=== Hate Groups
27. Hate in state
28. Web restrictions unlikely to muzzle neo-Nazi speech
29. Cross-burning case appeal fails
30. McVeigh Execution Could Be in May
31. Devil Dogs left scars on Gilbert

=== Other News
32. Nun Killed, 13 Hurt in Church Attack
33. 2nd bust in Caribbean church horror
34. Millennium renews concerns about cult (Concerned Christians)
35. Dutch Faith Healers Make Inroads (Jomanda)
36. Sects and Religions in Russia Face Day of Reckoning
37. National Anthem Calls Russia 'Holy'
38. Cult attempts to regenerate deceased girl (Raelians)
39. True to the Temple (Indianapolis Baptist Temple)
40. Would-be messiahs back in action
41. Sects, power and miracles in the Bible belt of Essex (Peniel)
42. Iglesia ni Cristo's Executive Minister Era&#ntilde;o G. Manalo marks his 76th birth anniversary
43. Prayer urged to stop presidential `curse'

» Part 4

=== Noted
44. The Beauty And Perils Of The Irrational (False Memory Syndrome)
45. Miracles don't happen (Premanand, Indian skeptic)
46. Back to Ruby Ridge: Why Idaho Shouldn't Be Prosecuting FBI Agent Lon Horiuchi

=== Hate Groups

27. Hate in state
St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press, Dec. 29, 2000
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks active hate groups nationwide. In 1998, it had evidence of three skinhead, one Neo-Nazi and one Christian identity (fundamentally racist and anti-Semitic) group. The next year, it noted evidence of two skinhead, two Neo-Nazi and one Christian identity group. The National Socialist Movement made the center's ``Intelligence Report'' on several occasions, including for leafleting in St. Cloud twice in 1998 and in Landfall twice this year.

``Hey White Girl!'' trumpets the flier from the National Socialist Movement, which has been copied so often the black man and white woman holding hands appear blurry. ``Race mixing is a crime!''

Such fliers have been delivered sporadically in Washington County in the past couple of months. They contain information about the Minneapolis-based group, which says it is a continuation of the American Nazi Party. The fliers have upset some residents, yet rarely are such drops illegal.

People have received such fliers in Forest Lake, Lake Elmo, Mahtomedi and Oakdale in the past two months. Forest Lake requires a permit to leaflet on public streets or parking lots, though NSM members did not seek one in November.

In general, Washington County has little bias activity, said Cmdr. Mike Johnson with the sheriff's office, and people are likely to report such incidents. He said he was not aware of any laws broken in connection with this spate of fliers.
(...)

A woman who works with people of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds said she initially worried she had been targeted.
(...)

She said racial and ethnic minorities' numbers are growing in the county. ``I just wonder -- is this a response to that?''

Jack Levin would say it is. A professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University in Boston, he directs the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict and has co-written a book on hate crimes.

Edge cities that knit the urban core and rural areas feel the friction, he said.

``I don't think it's a coincidence that you're seeing propaganda distributed in suburban neighborhoods,'' Levin said. ``The perception is there's an audience there.

``If they see the community is apathetic, they get the wrong message. They may actually escalate from distributing propaganda to personal injury,'' he said. He suggested neighbors try to respond at a community level, by having a rally, developing a coalition against racism and spurring community involvement.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


28. Web restrictions unlikely to muzzle neo-Nazi speech
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 28, 2000 (Opinion)
http://beta.yellowbrix.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Let's face it: People can say some pretty stupid things on the Internet. And sometimes what they say can be pretty offensive.

A case in point is neo-Nazi hate sites. These knuckleheads still believe in a perverted socialist philosophy and rule by an Aryan ''master race.'' Worse, they want to spew this garbage to a larger audience than their buddies. They want a global audience. And the Internet provides the perfect medium.

The Washington Post recently reported that the German interior minister has identified almost 800 neo-Nazi Web sites located outside Germany. These sites are accessible to Germans and, therefore, in violation of its curbs on neo-Nazi speech.

Regrettably, to shelter themselves from the German restrictions, the global skinhead gangs got smart and housed their sites on servers in the United States. Now, the German government wants to shoot the messenger.
(...)

And it's not just Germany that is going after American firms whose sites might carry such material. In late November, a French court ordered the popular American Web portal ''Yahoo!'' to find a way to prevent French citizens from accessing auctions of Nazi memorabilia. ''Yahoo!'' has asked a U.S. federal judge to block the French court's ruling. The company says the court is violating the free speech rights of ''Yahoo!'' and its property rights as an American firm.

Whatever you think of the efforts by German and French judges to sanitize the Internet, there's a big problem: They can never work -- at least not without creating an international police force to patrol the World Wide Web and punish any company whose networks might be used to transmit neo-Nazi messages or deal in Nazi memorabilia.

Even if such a global government solution were possible, holding the messenger liable is rarely an effective way of halting the flow of objectionable material.
(...)

Trying to shut down a few skinhead hate sites may seem harmless to a European judge. But it poses an impossible enforcement challenge. It's also a serious threat to the sacred concept of free speech.

For now, let's ignore the Nazi wackos. Better that they are blathering on the Net than marching in the town square.

Adam D. Thierer is the director of telecommunications studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]

* The publisher of Apologetics Index believes there is not good reason to
provide hate groups with a safe haven. He also notes that fact that Nazis
(and assorted other hate groups) *are* marching in countless American town
squares, burning crosses, inciting hatred, and recruiting ''knuckleheads'' to
their causes.

29. Cross-burning case appeal fails
The Richmond Times Dispatch, Dec. 30, 2000
http://www.timesdispatch.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
The Virginia Court of Appeals has rejected the contention of a Ku Klux Klansman that burning a cross on private property in Carroll County was a form of ceremonial speech protected by the First Amendment.

A Circuit Court jury convicted Barry Elton Black in June 1999 of the crime of burning a cross with the intent to intimidate others. The jury recommended a fine of $2,500, but no jail time. He could have been sentenced to five years in prison.

A three-judge panel of the intermediate appellate court made quick work of Black's appeal. In a one-sentence order entered last week, the panel said an opinion issued by another panel in October in a case from Chesapeake established the law on the point. In both cases, the defendants raised the First Amendment as a shield to their criminal convictions, but the cases differed substantially in their facts.
(...)

David P. Baugh, the attorney who represented Black at trial, said he was disappointed that the panel in Black's case did not attempt to address the factual differences in the two cases. But he said he believes the law is unconstitutional as written, so the facts of a particular case do not affect his basic argument.

He predicted the issue will wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court. Black already has authorized an appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court, Baugh said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


30. McVeigh Execution Could Be in May
AP, Dec. 29, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
DENVER--Timothy McVeigh could be put to death as early as May now that a federal judge has granted the convicted Oklahoma City bomber's request to drop all appeals and get a prompt execution date. McVeigh's father said his son concluded ''it might as well be sooner than later.''

U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch, however, gave McVeigh time to change his mind. After Jan. 11, the judge said he would let the U.S. Bureau of Prisons set a date for McVeigh to die by lethal injection.
(...)

McVeigh's father, retired Pendleton, N.Y., factory worker William McVeigh, told The Buffalo News that he and other family members are respectful of his son's wishes.
(...)

''We spoke to him (by phone) on Christmas Eve, and we spoke to him before that on what he was going to do. He's explained it to us. I guess his feeling is, he knows he's going to die -it might as well be sooner than later.''

Some speculated McVeigh wants to become a martyr for anti-government causes. Others said an execution date is the only thing he can control.
(...)

McVeigh was convicted of murder, conspiracy and other charges and sentenced to die for the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people and injured more than 500.

He has lost two appeals, at the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal appeals court, but has not exhausted all appeals.

McVeigh has never admitted any involvement in the bombing.

Prosecutors argued at his trial that McVeigh hoped the bombing would touch off a revolution against the government. McVeigh was said to be angry over the cult disaster at Waco, Texas, and the deadly FBI standoff with white separatist Randy Weaver and his family at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

McVeigh's Army buddy Terry Nichols was convicted separately of involuntary manslaughter and conspiracy and was sentenced to life in prison. He is awaiting trial in Oklahoma on state murder charges that could bring the death penalty.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


31. Devil Dogs left scars on Gilbert
The Arizona Republic, Dec. 31, 2000
http://www.azcentral.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
In 1999, a gang of violent, teenage, White supremacists called the Devil Dogs sank its teeth into Gilbert and left scars.

Boys with fat allowances and vocabularies of hate attacked strangers with their fists. Several landed jail sentences this year; many more were captured on film and videotape yelling racial slurs and flashing White power hand signs.

Shocked by the incidents and by allegations of bigotry in this predominantly White, upper-middle-class suburb, town and school leaders are rewriting the rules for acceptable behavior.

Some say the push for diversity is healing the wounds inflicted by the Devil Dogs. Others argue that recovery has been slowed by the community's continued unwillingness to talk openly about how a gang of hate-inspired youths could have festered in its neighborhoods for so many years.

''Devil Dogs'' was the latest incarnation of a gang that had festered in the city for nearly seven years. Police and court records show that a White supremacist gang that had begun at Highland High School had been under investigation since 1993. Members changed, as did the group's name in any given year.

This year, at Mayor Cynthia Dunham's direction, Gilbert adopted a character education program and is forming a diversity task force. Dozens of residents are flocking to bimonthly meetings to tell personal stories and encourage change. One of them is Larry Lee.

An African-American who has lived in Gilbert since 1989, Lee said he was warned about the group in 1992 and then listened for years to people who didn't believe it existed.
(...)

With school district employee Chris Ybarra, Lee helped direct a residents group that wrote the schools' first policy against racial harassment. In January, Lee will begin work on a policy against religious harassment.

Lee has gotten to know Cheri Jarvis, a Mesa mother of one of the Devil Dogs' victims who attends nearly all the diversity sessions.

Her son Jordan Jarvis, 19, who is White, was disfigured in a gang attack more than a year ago and has had to undergo several facial plastic surgeries.
(...)

In February, police in Gilbert, Mesa and Phoenix connected the Devil Dogs to former Mafia hit man Sammy ''The Bull'' Gravano and a ring that trafficked in the designer drug called Ecstasy.

Gravano, who is in jail awaiting trial, and more than 35 other people were arrested.

Former Gilbert gang Detective Mike Sanchez said not all of Gilbert wanted to shed light on the gang, even after the Gravano arrests, and many still try to hush any mention of the gang that embarrassed the town.
(...)

Town Councilman Mike Evans said he was once told to keep quiet about the Devil Dogs ''because it would hurt economic development.'' He didn't, and he said he is now suffering political fallout. School Superintendent Walter Delecki and several municipal officials circulated nomination petitions for Evans' opponents in the March 2001 election.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


=== Other News

32. Nun Killed, 13 Hurt in Church Attack
The Associated Press, Jan. 1, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
CASTRIES, St. Lucia -- Two men who attacked worshippers in a cathedral on this small Caribbean island, setting them ablaze and killing an Irish nun, told police they were sent by God to combat corruption in the Roman Catholic Church.

''The way they're talking is that the world is going to end and that the time had come for what they had to do,'' police Inspector Gregory Montoute, who interrogated the men, said Monday.

The suspects - 20-year-old Kim John, and 34-year-old Francis Phillip - both identified themselves as Rastafarians, Montoute said. Police spokesman Albert Fregis said St. Lucia's Rastafarian leaders denounced the Sunday attack at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in the port town of Castries.

Monsignor Theophilus Joseph, the cathedral's administrator, said John told police ''that God asked him to do it because there is so much corruption in the Catholic Church.''

The men told police they were ''prophets'' sent by Haile Selassie, the late Ethiopian emperor worshipped as a God by Rastafarians.

Police said they don't believe the men belonged to an organized group.

''No one gave any indication that they belonged to a sect with extremist beliefs or violent tenets,'' Montoute said.
(...)

Sunday's attack came during Holy Communion while more than 400 people were inside the cathedral. The men burst in carrying machetes and a blowtorch while many worshippers were lined up in the aisles, police and witnesses said.

One of the attackers doused people with a flammable liquid, apparently kerosene or gasoline, while another used a blowtorch to ignite the flames, witnesses said. Police said the attackers hacked at people with the machetes. But Joseph, the monsignor who runs the cathedral, gave a different account, saying the intruders beat people with pieces of wood and used torches to set worshippers afire.

The attackers then made their way to the altar, where they set fire to the Rev. Charles Gaillard, injured an altar server and burned the altar. Gaillard, who suffered burns on his face, was flown to the nearby island of Martinique for treatment, Joseph said.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


33. 2nd bust in Caribbean church horror
New York Post, Jan. 2, 2001
http://www.nypostonline.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Police in St. Lucia captured a second suspect yesterday in the brutal New Year's Eve attack on worshippers at a Catholic Mass that left two people dead and dozens injured.

The first suspect, Kim John, 20, told police that ''God asked him'' to carry out the machete and blowtorch attack because of corruption in the Catholic Church.

A second suspect, Francis Phillip, 34, was found hiding in bushes near where he lives on the Caribbean island.

''The way they're talking is that the world is going to end and that the time had come for what they had to do,'' said Police Inspector Gregory Montoute, who interrogated the men.

Police initially said both the suspects, and as many as three other attackers, may be members of an anti-Catholic cult.

But yesterday, investigators said they don't believe the men belong to any organized group.

''No one gave any indication that they belonged to a sect with extremist beliefs or violent tenets,'' Montoute said.

The suspects, both Rastafarians, said they are ''prophets'' sent by Haile Selassie, the late Ethiopian leader revered by Rastafarians.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


34. Millennium renews concerns about cult
Denver Post, Ja. 1. 2001
http://www.denverpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Jan. 1, 2001 - The millennial madness of 1999 passed without incident, but as 2000 drew to a close, observers of the reclusive religious group Concerned Christians wondered if the violent, apocalyptic prophesy of Monte Kim Miller, the group's Colorado-born leader, was merely postponed, according to an avid cult watcher.

They were all asking, ''Is it going to happen now?'' according to Mark Roggeman, a Denver police officer who stays in touch with relatives of those in the group. ''It's like the anniversary of everything that was supposed to happen but didn't happen last year.''
(...)

But since then, the only news of what is now believed to be about 100 Concerned Christians has been a mixture of rumor, hearsay and occasional e-mails as members of the group have been reported to be anywhere from south New Jersey to Pittsburgh to Mexico to England to Greece.

''You'd think, with all the people looking for Kim Miller, somebody would have come up with him by now,'' says David Cooper, whose brother remains with the group. ''But for all intents and purposes, nobody's found him. It appears Kim is never really with this group. Every time they're captured or deported, there's no Kim Miller.''

As 2001 approached, relatives of the members of Concerned Christians wondered whether Miller had altered his take on the apocalypse by simply altering the calendar.
(...)

The combination of whole family units within the group, and the fact that most members are believed to be more or less isolated outside the United States, could help Miller withstand any challenges to his unfulfilled prophesy, Roggeman says.

''Usually, when things haven't happened, people start walking away,'' he says. ''I'd give a million dollars just to know how he corrected the false doctrine he made. He had to do something.''

Bill Honsberger, the Conservative Baptist missionary who has tracked the group for years, hesitates to put himself in Miller's shoes and venture a guess at how he might continue to hold sway over his followers. But he allows that the millennium controversy could offer an explanation.

''How best to explain what didn't happen last year except to say it will happen this year?'' he says. ''He has the benefit of blind trust, so he doesn't have to rationally explain things. But if I were in his shoes, that would be something to say. Even some secular Y2K fanatics say the same thing.'' Although concerns about the group have centered on the possibility of some kind of suicide pact playing off Miller's prophesy, not all family members believe that threat is real.

David Cooper, whose brother, John Cooper, is believed to be helping to finance the group, says he has listened to Miller's audiotapes and studied his doctrine. And while he allows that Miller's prophesy foretells a violent end for the leader himself, Cooper doesn't necessarily see that as foreshadowing death for the rest of the group.

''Initially, I was convinced he was a dangerous guy,'' says Cooper. ''But from ongoing e-mails with my brother, I was much less inclined to think so. It was pretty clear that the prime objective there was not a suicidal end. It might've been martyrdom for Kim Miller, but suicide and ending the cult in that manner was not to be found anywhere in anything I read, and my brother basically confirmed that, saying suicide is not a Christian virtue.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


35. Dutch Faith Healers Make Inroads
The Associated Press, Dec. 29, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) The 52-year-old former ballet dancer, who goes by the name of Jomanda, is one of a host of healers, New Age and other, who are using radio and television and making inroads into Dutch society, deeply influenced by Calvinism.

While church affiliation has plummeted to a record low of 25 percent, a recent study by the state-supported Social Cultural Planning Bureau found that belief in the supernatural has grown, especially among the young. It said more than half of respondents born after 1960 believe in miracles, an afterlife and heaven and hell.

Although faith healers are nothing new to Europe, the decline of mainstream religions and the rise of deregulated, commercial broadcasting have made Holland fertile ground for people like Jomanda.

Wouter Hanegraaff, a lecturer at Amsterdam's Protestant-based Free University, says the establishment Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant churches are losing adherents because they ''are focusing too much on doctrine and politically correct beliefs.''
(...)

Jomanda uses traditional Christian symbolism to strong effect.
(...)

Her most famous symbol is ''beamed water'' - tap water to which she ostensibly imparts healing properties. She claims people can get its benefits simply by staying home and placing a glass of water in front of a television or radio during her program.
(...)

Peter van Zoest, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Bishop's Conference, said the churches see Jomanda less as a threat than as a challenge to renew their own message.
(...)

Van Zoest noted that mainstream Dutch churches are incorporating elements of alternative spirituality, such as Eastern meditation techniques and flower rituals, into their own worship.

Gerrit LeRoy, a Belgian electrical technician who was paralyzed in a 1987 car accident, says Jomanda turned his life around. Even though his condition has barely changed since he started coming to her sessions in a wheelchair nine years ago, he has learned to live with his handicap.
(...)

Ewald Vervaet, a well known psychologist, says he investigated 40 purported cases of cured illnesses and could verify none.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


36. Sects and Religions in Russia Face Day of Reckoning
Russia Today/AFP, Dec. 30, 2000
http://www.russiatoday.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
MOSCOW, Dec 30, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Thousands of Islamic and Protestant groups, along with dissident Christian Orthodox faiths, are at threat after failing to win registration under a controversial Russian religion law.

Two months ago, the Russian foreign ministry said that just over half of the estimated 17,500 religious groups in Russia had been registered on the government's list of authorized faiths in time for the new year.

''This law contravenes the Russian constitution, which proclaims the equality of religions in Russia,'' said Alexei Marchenko, a Moscow representative for the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons).

The Salvation Army, a Protestant charity, says the 1997 law on religions that comes into effect Monday, is not only unconstitutional for penalizing foreign missionaries and certain Christian minorities, but also arbitrary.

''We are registered with all the regional authorities, except in Moscow. In the capital, they rejected our demand on the pretext that we are a subversive military organization. It's absurd,'' Colonel Kenneth Baillie of the Salvation Army protested.

With a flock numbering 100,000, the 1,400 Baptist communities implanted in Russia face the same problem. The Pentecostalists, for one, saw their publications banned in the central Volga town of Penza.

The situation is even tougher for the Jehovah's Witnesses, who have been taken to court four times since 1996 and denounced for their ''aggressive proselytism'' by Russia's Orthodox Church.

''In North Ossetia, we obtained all the necessary authorizations, bought a venue which we had started to repair, and when everything was ready we were thrown out without any reason,'' said senior church figure Yaroslav Sivulsky.

The Mormon official pointed out the Orthodox church was one of the heaviest backers of the religion law -- criticized by both the Vatican and Washington -- accusing it of censoring Russians' faith.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


37. National Anthem Calls Russia 'Holy'
The Associated Press, Dec. 30, 2000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
MOSCOW -- Russia's revived Soviet-era national anthem, which once praised the atheist Communist Party and dictator Josef Stalin, now celebrates Russia as a ''holy country'' that is ''protected by God.''

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday approved the new version, written by the same person who co-authored the old lyrics, poet Sergei Mikhalkov.

''Russia, our holy country!'' the new anthem begins. It goes on to praise the country's vast ''forests and fields ... from the southern seas to the polar region.''

The Soviet-era music was revived earlier this month by the Russian parliament, replacing the wordless anthem by 19th-century composer Mikhail Glinka that had been in use since the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly a decade ago.
(...)

The new lyrics' reference to God would have been unthinkable under the Communists, who enforced a policy of official atheism and persecuted religious believers. The last anthem to mention God was ''God Save the Czar,'' used by the regime that collapsed in 1917.

But unlike ''God Save The Czar,'' which refers to the ''Orthodox czar,'' the anthem doesn't specify any particular faith. Russia's dominant religion is Orthodox Christianity, but religious minorities include Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Catholics, and Protestants.
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


38. Cult attempts to regenerate deceased girl
New York Post, Jan. 2, 2001
http://www.nypostonline.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
An American couple whose infant daughter died last year during a routine heart operation is trying to bring her back to life through cloning.

In a move that makes skeptical scientists shudder, the parents are spending $500,000 to have a new baby cloned from preserved skin cells of the 10-month-old girl.

Adding to the eerie scenario, the cloning will be carried out by a company with ties to a religious cult that believes humans were cloned by extraterrestrials.

''We anticipate we'll start work on human cells soon, and hope to have the first embryo ready by early this year,'' says Dr. Brigitte Boisselier, scientific director for Clonaid, a biotech firm affiliated with the Raelian religion, which believes cloning is the key to eternal life.
(...)

For others, this is an ethical nightmare. They openly fear that by making human replicas, we could be crossing the threshold to the Brave New World of the social engineering of people.
(...)

Boisselier - a French-born, Montreal-based scientist with a Ph.D. in physical and biomolecular chemistry and a mother of three - brushes such criticism aside.

So do many others. Since Clonaid announced its plan in September, the company has been swamped with requests from infertile couples, gay couples and people who've lost an older child, Boisselier says.
(...)

Boisselier is a longtime member of the Raelians, a cult founded in 1973 by Claude Vorilhon, a former French sportswriter who uses the name Rael and believes humans were cloned by a group of alien scientists from another planet. The cult claims to have 50,000 members worldwide.

Rael, who lives in the province of Quebec, founded Clonaid in 1997 with a group of investors called Valiant Venture Ltd. The company is incorporated in the Bahamas and has a Web site, Clonaid.com.

Clonaid spokeswoman Nadine Gary, who is based in Nevada, says the company has about a dozen employees, but refuses to say where its headquarters are located.

The couple who want to clone their dead daughter are not Raelians, Boisselier says. But they are wealthy, and reportedly jumped at the chance to participate in - and finance - the Clonaid project.
(...)

Cloning using private funds is not illegal in the U.S., but the Food and Drug Administration says it has the authority to regulate and approve any cloning project.

The agency's Health and Human Services Department says any group seeking to clone a human being must apply for permission - and probably won't get it because of ''major unresolved safety questions.''

Boisselier says she won't contact the FDA because she doesn't believe the agency has authority over the Clonaid project.
(...)

Clonaid says on its web site that for a cost of up to $50,000, it will take cell samples from clients and preserve them in ''a safe, confidential place under cryogenic temperature'' for future use.

It also says it is mulling a Clonapet service for ''wealthy individuals who wish to see their lost pet brought back to life.''

Even if Clonaid's plan makes them wince, most experts say that recent scientific advances make it a fairly safe bet that human cloning can eventually be achieved - and probably sooner than later.

What's more, they say cloning might be easier in humans than in animals because much more is known about human reproduction.
(...)

The main problem with cloning is that most clone pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion. For example, Dolly the sheep was the only survivor of 347 embryos.

However, scientists believe that if a human clone survived the fetal development phase, it would probably go on to be completely normal.
(...)

Neither the American Medical Association nor the American Society for Reproductive Medicine endorses human cloning. Both have called for more extensive study into the safety and ethical issues.

The groups do support cloning-related and embryonic research, however, because it could lead to breakthroughs in treating or wiping out genetic and degenerative diseases, cancer and other illnesses.

Grifo and Foulk are far more outspoken about the matter.

''Nature has made clones - they're called identical twins. And even identical twins don't have the same personalities, the exact same life experiences,'' Grifo says.

''They share many similar traits, but they are different. These people think they'll replace their daughter by cloning her. They won't.''
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


39. True to the Temple
The Indianapolis Star, Dec. 30, 2000
http://starnews.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Tax cheats. Friends of the right-wing patriot movement. Plain crazy.

Members of the Indianapolis Baptist Temple have heard the names. But those who remain loyal to the Southside Indianapolis church contend they are merely fighting for religious freedom.

But the Indianapolis Baptist Temple is indeed unusual. For 17 years, it has been embroiled in a legal standoff with the federal government over its tax status.

In 1983, church leadership sought to sever all ties to the government, which members often view as out of control. Since then, the church has refused to withhold employee income taxes or pay its share of church employees' Social Security and Medicare taxes, a common practice for religious congregations.

In August, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the church, stating that tax laws are ''neutral laws,'' which do not affirm or infringe on free exercise of religion. A month later, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker ordered church members to vacate their building by Nov. 14 to satisfy a $6 million tax bill.

Today, 47 days later, church members are still occupying the church at 2711 S. East St. About 800 people still show up for Sunday worship.

In many ways, they're ordinary people -- raising their kids, coping with cancer in the family, working to pay the rent.

Here's a glimpse into the lives of four people who call the Baptist Temple their spiritual home:
[...more...]   [Need the full story? Read this]


40. Would-be messiahs back in action
The Globe and Mail (Canada), Jan. 1, 2001
http://www.globeandmail.ca/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
(...) He took out his identification and presented some impressive credentials. According to his genuine-looking U.S. passport, the 40-something man with a salt-and-pepper beard and a large knapsack was none other than King David -- the Hebrew ruler who made Jerusalem his capital 3,000 years ago.

It was a pleasure to see him. The streets of Jerusalem have been lacking John the Baptist, the prophet Isaiah and other would-be messiahs who were regular features in the holy city until about a year ago.

Many of them were gripped by the Jerusalem Syndrome, a recognized psychiatric disorder in which perfectly normal people become so entranced by Jerusalem's religious atmosphere that they assume the identities of biblical characters or become modern-day prophets.

But because of a security crackdown by Israel and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the prophets, kings and gods were rounded up and kicked out as 2000 approached and many feared that some millennialist sects might spark violence in this tense region.

''Every year we examine about 150 patients, of whom 40 or so require hospitalization,'' said Dr. Yair Barel, director of the Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital in Jerusalem. ''There was one case where two different patients insisted they were the Messiah, so I decided to put them in a room together to see if they would come to their senses.''

It didn't work, he said. ''Each thought the other was an impostor.''

Despite the security fears, or perhaps because of them, Dr. Barel said, the expected rise in the number of cases of Jerusalem Syndrome during 2000 did not materialize.
(...)

According to Gershom Gorenberg, author of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, published this week by the Free Press, a U.S. publisher, the overzealous police actions were not entirely misplaced.

''The expectation of The End is part of significant streams within all three of the monotheistic religions,'' Mr. Gorenberg said in an interview. ''In all three, there are significant numbers of people whose vision of the end focuses geographically on Jerusalem and specifically on the Temple Mount.''
(...)

Mr. Gorenberg said the fact that nothing happened last New Year's Eve has not destroyed belief in the apocalypse. Now that 2000 and 2001 have both begun quietly, the tension is even greater.

''This is really the point at which millennial and messianic groups become interesting and most unstable, when their expectations have been dashed via the continuation of history,'' he said.
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41. Sects, power and miracles in the Bible belt of Essex
The Observer (England), Dec. 31, 2000
http://www.observer.co.uk/
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An Essex Tory MP, a 'miracle-working' bishop and the Man In The White Suit are lining up to play a part in a compelling fight in the next general election.

The battle for Ongar will turn on the close support Tory MP Eric Pickles has received from Bishop Michael Reid and the members of his Pentecostal church, which some describe as a 'disturbing religious sect'.

Independent Martin Bell is to stand against Pickles for Brentwood and Ongar - the sixth safest Tory seat in the country - and may well pick up votes from those who are worried about the influence of Bishop Reid's hot-gospelling church in the constituency. Ex-members of the Peniel Pentecostal Church and others believe Pickles has 'an appalling conflict of interest' because the Brentwood and Ongar Conservatives have received thousands of pounds from church members.

Reid - a former policeman turned insurance salesman turned evangelist - and his companies have donated at least £2,500 to Pickles's fighting fund and the Conservative Party, while his church members have boosted Tory funds by around £5,000.

Pickles has defended members of the church 'as wonderfully normal people'. Others disagree.

Former church member Caroline Green was a constituent of Pickles at the time she left the sect. She is one of those who will be writing to the Westminster standards ombudsman. She told The Observer: 'The bishop is a deeply troubled man who says terrible things about people who have opposed him. He has been excommunicated from another church, runs companies controlling millions of pounds and is very intimidating. How can you ask your MP to help you, if he supports the bishop?'

Reid refers to himself and other evangelists as the 'anointed of God'. He was excommunicated for 'raillery' - a biblical term for slander - from Liverpool's Devonshire Road Christian Fellowship in 1969 and his 'flesh was committed to Satan'.

The billboard next to Sainsbury's car park in Brentwood proclaims 'Miracles, Healing, Faith: Come and See' and shows Reid holding a small boy with one hand and a microphone in the other. The miracle mentioned in the billboard is not detailed.

Miracles cited by the church have included the sensational recovery of a boy from leukaemia. The church explains the case of Sam Mildenberger as follows: 'The miracle was that he was cured of a rare form of leukaemia when he was 18 months old having been given an hour to live, Bishop Reid having been asked by his parents - who are not and never have been members of the Peniel church - to pray for him at Great Ormond Street Hospital. He died some eight years later from complications following a viral infection.'

The church did not highlight the fact of a bone-marrow transplant in the boy's recovery.
(...)

Reid now fronts a multi-million pound videos-to-insurance empire that includes one company, McCartney and Dowie Investment Management plc, which controls funds of £41 million but paid only £1,715 in tax in 1999. Reid's spokesman says the company is liable for tax only on its taxable profits.

Members of his church are invited to tithe 10 per cent of their gross income and to take out insurance policies through the bishop's companies.

Now the Bible school of which Reid is president is to be sued for assaulting children. Reid has been an enthusiastic supporter of corporal punishment or 'paddling' in the past. He has said: 'Children are little demons. They have foolishness in their hearts. You have a stick and they have a rear end. I believe in smacking them - a sharp smack on the rear end. But make sure it's a real shock.'
(...)

At first glance, services at the Peniel headquarters, in Pilgrim's Hatch, Brentwood, are impressive. Hundreds of well-dressed, polite churchgoers make their devotions. The choir sways and sings in smiling harmony. But the main event is the sermon by Reid. At the service The Observer went to the bishop was sweetness and light. But extracts from other sermons recorded on tape tell a different story. Reid has denounced Buddhists and Hindus as 'foul heathens', declaring 'non-Christians are ignorant. They are on their way to hell'.

Reid was enthroned by the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa of Benin City, Nigeria. Reid tells a story which illustrates Idahosa's allegedly supernatural powers. A Benin witchdoctor is supposed to have made it rain on one of Idahosa's ceremonies. Idahosa promised that the troublemaker would die. According to Reid, recorded on tape, 'The archbishop said by nine o'clock he'll be dead: ''I'll kill him''. At a quarter past eight he dropped dead.'

The church describes these allegations as bizarre and denies that Reid made such comments.

Pickles took part in a photocall with Reid, Idahosa and a third controversial evangelist, Bishop Earl Pearly Paulk of Atlanta, Georgia, some years ago.

Idahosa once claimed he raised eight people from the dead. The Advertising Standards Authority asked to see death certificates to prove they had been dead before Idahosa stepped in. No death certificates were provided, and the claim was dropped.

He first surfaced in the public eye in 1986 when a US embassy official found two US tennis players, Bud Cox and Skip Strode, in a hotel room in Lagos. 'I could hear chanting through the open door,' the US official said. 'Both were stripped naked. Everywhere were tiny pieces of paper, pieces of US currency, pieces of traveller's cheques, pieces of a Bible. They were born-again Christians and Rev Idahosa was the catalyst,' said the official. The babbling, naked tennis players were given clothes and tickets back to the US.
(...)

There are many people who have fallen foul of Reid who disagree with Pickles's view of the 'wonderfully normal' Peniel church and its bishop.
(...)

Reid and the Peniel church insist they are just successful Christians who have attracted jealousy from a 'handful of individuals'.
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42. Iglesia ni Cristo's Executive Minister Eraño G. Manalo marks his 76th birth anniversary
Manila Bulletin, Jan. 2, 2001 (Editorial)
http://www.mb.com.ph/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
Iglesia ni Cristo, one of the most influential and solid religious movements in this country, honors its leader, Executive Minister Eraño G. Manalo, on his 76th birth anniversary today.

The INC stands out like a rock of sobriety, unity and nationalism amid the political, and economic turbulence shaking the country today. Minister Manalo has steered his religious movement safely through these shoals from one decade to another.

Under his leadership, millions of INC members here and abroad have been welded into a strong force in helping shape the destiny of this nation. The flock is a more disciplined lot than some religious persuasions.
(...)

As a sign of the prominence the INC now enjoys under Minister Manalo's stewardship, national and local officials led by President Estrada paid tribute to him in congratulatory messages.
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43. Prayer urged to stop presidential `curse'
St. Paul/Minneapolis Pioneer Planet, Dec. 30, 2000
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/
[Story no longer online? Read this]
An evangelical prayer organization is asking Christians to pray that President-elect George W. Bush will not succumb to a ``curse'' it says has killed seven presidents since 1840 before their terms ended.

The so-called ``zero-year curse'' has shown up every 20 years and killed seven presidents elected in years ending in zero except for Ronald Reagan. When Reagan narrowly survived an attempted assassination in 1981, believers say the curse was broken.

Still, the Leesburg, Va.-based Intercessors for America is asking for prayers that the curse will not resurface and that Bush will survive his four-year term.

``Because Satan would desire to use these new speculations to undermine faith and promote fear and suspicion . . . it is important that, as intercessors, we reaffirm the cancellation and `breaking' of death curses on the U.S. presidency,'' said Intercessors president Gary Bergel in the group's January 2001 newsletter.
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