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Self-help guru James Arthur Ray in court on manslaughter charges

February 5, 2010 /

james ray mug shot

The Secret contributor James Arthur Ray has been arrested after the deaths of 3 people at a $9,000+ “purification ceremony”:

Self-help guru James Arthur Ray says it was all a tragic accident when his followers began collapsing one by one in a sweat lodge at his retreat, with three of them dying. As unfortunate as the ordeal was, he says the participants knew about the risks the ceremony presented.

Prosecutors say it’s a blatant case of manslaughter by a man who recklessly crammed dozens of people in a 400-square-foot sweat lodge and chided them for wanting to leave, even as people were vomiting, getting burned by hot rocks and lying lifeless on the ground.

The two sides will be on display in coming months now that prosecutors have charged Ray with manslaughter in a case that could send him to prison for more than 35 years. The 52-year-old Ray said nothing during his first court appearance Thursday, and his lawyer entered a not guilty plea.

Business Week: Self-help guru in court on manslaughter charges

It’s a sad but interesting case. Ray is obviously an asshole, but is he also a murderer? If so, what about the people in the sweat lodge who didn’t die or pass-out? Are they also liable?

Dutch church retains supposed “atheist” preacher

February 5, 2010 /

atheist preacher

The regional church assembly in the southwestern town of Zierikzee decided that preacher Klaas Hendrikse’s views do not fundamentally differ from those of other liberal theologians in the Protestant Church. A clerical court case against Mr Hendrikse has been suspended. The decision was opposed by about a quarter of the representatives at the regional meeting.

Mr Hendrikse was subjected to an inquiry following the publicaton of his book, Believing in a God who does not exist. In it, Mr Hendrikse explains that he does not believe in a personal God, or in his words, “To me God is not a being, but a word for what can occur between people.” He has since been loosely referred to as “the atheist preacher”, although he has not declared himself a total non-believer.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide: Dutch church retains “atheist” preacher

(via: Religion News)

Politician Claims Atheist Sign Is ‘Hate Speech’

February 4, 2010 /

atheist sign

A candidate for Illinois Comptroller has sued the state for allowing an atheist group to post a sign alongside the religious holiday displays in the State Capitol. William Kelly, a Republican, claims Capitol Police unjustly “detained (him) and escorted him from the building” because he turned the atheists’ sign face down. Kelly calls the sign “hate speech.

Kelly’s federal complaint against the Illinois Secretary of State claims: “In December 2009, a sign was placed in the Capitol Building, approved by the Defendant, that read as follows:

“At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just a myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

Kelly’s complaint does not object to the several holiday displays “celebrating various observances” in the State Capitol. He objects only to the atheists’ sign, which, he says, stood near a Nativity scene and next to a decorated Christmas tree.

Kelly claims that for the two weeks the sign was displayed, visitors, including young children, could get the impression that the sign is “endorsed” by the state as an “opposing view to the displays.”

Court House News: Politician Claims Atheist Sign Is ‘Hate Speech’

(via Religion News)

Photos: Iranians celebrate Zoroastrian holiday

February 3, 2010 /

Zoroastrian Celebration Sadeh

Zoroastrian Celebration Sadeh

Sadeh is an ancient Iranian tradition celebrated 50 days before nowrouz (Persian New Year). Sadeh in Persian means “hundred” and refers to one hundred days and nights left to the beginning of the new year celebrated at the first day of spring on March 21 each year. Sadeh is a mid winter festival that was celebrated with grandeur and magnificence in ancient Iran. It was a festivity to honor fire and to defeat the forces of darkness, frost, and cold.

Payvand: Photos: Iranians Celebrate “Sadeh” Ancient Persian Fire Fest

Air Force Academy creates space for pagans, druids, wicans

February 1, 2010 /

pagan soldier

The U.S. Air Force Academy, viewed in recent years as a deplorable example of religious intolerance, is now accommodating witches, warlocks, druids, and other worshipers of “Earth-centered” religions. A stone circle has been allowed on a hill somewhere on the academy’s vast military grounds in the Colorado Springs area.

Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, a pagan, worked to convince academy officials to allow the space. “When I first arrived here, Earth-centered cadets didn’t have anywhere to call home,” he said in a news release. “Now, they meet every Monday night, they get to go on retreats, and they have a stone circle.” He added that the academy hasn’t stood in the way of the idea and that the chaplain’s office has been “100 percent” supportive.

Dscriber: Air Force Academy creates space for pagans, druids, wicans

(via Religion News)

See also: Does the military have a Christian missionary agenda in Afghanistan

Scientologist accused of murdering business partner

January 25, 2010 /

scientology ruins lives

Adams County District Attorney Don Quick filed charges against William Rex Fowler in the shooting death of 42-year-old Thomas Ciancio, his former business partner at Fowler Software Design.

Investigators say Fowler shot Ciancio three times in the head with a 9mm Glock handgun when Ciancio came to Fowler Software Design to collect $9,900 in severance pay. […]

Employees of the software company told investigators Ciancio had blamed Fowler for the company’s recent financial difficulties.

The employees said Fowler had taken about $200,000 of the company’s money without asking and gave it to a church or charity, according to the arrest affidavit. […]

Investigators say the gun was registered to Andrew Hyung Fowler, 26, who lived at 1413 L. Ron Hubbard Way in Los Angeles when it was purchased. In interviews with police, Andrew Fowler said he gave the gun to his father for Christmas in 2007.

Police also found a briefcase and a typed note, dated Dec. 30 and signed by Fowler. The note said nothing confidential was in the satchel and that it should be given to his wife, Janet.

When Janet Fowler was interviewed by detectives, she demanded the briefcase.

“It is important to me and my church. It is religious material and I want it now,” she said to investigators. “Even if you looked at it, and read it, you would not understand anything in it. Because it is way above a normal person and you would not know what it meant. I want it back right now.”

Janet Fowler also reportedly told investigators that her husband “is a Scientologist and would not have gone without a fight. He would have grabbed a gun in a struggle and would not have let someone shoot him.”

Denver Post: Adams County software-firm owner charged in killing of ex-business partner

(via Religion News)

I have to admit it feels a little tabloidy to be blogging this, but I can’t help it.

Top Five (Less Sensational But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson

January 22, 2010 /

Pat Robertson

2) Robertson’s 1991 book, The New World Order, recycled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and stated that George Bush Sr. was part of a conspiracy to institute “an occult-inspired world socialist dictatorship” (through his work with the United Nations in the first Gulf War). This caused few of Robertson’s neoconservative allies to break with him in any decisive way—although one former neocon, Michael Lind, denounced him in a major exposé in the New York Review of Books.

Religion Dispatches: Top Five (Less Sensational But More Dangerous) Things to Remember About Pat Robertson

(via Religion News)

See also: Fascism by the Numbers.

Defense contractor to remove Bible references

January 22, 2010 /

jesus code

A Michigan company that manufactures combat rifle sights for the U.S. military that carry Bible verse citations said Thursday it would send kits to remove the inscriptions, NBC reported.

Trijicon Inc. also said it would take off Biblical references from all U.S. military products that are still in the company’s factory and ensure future items do not have any inscriptions on them.

MSNBC: Defense contractor to remove Bible references

Previously: U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret ‘Jesus’ Bible Codes

(Thanks Bill)

Faith healings, dead raising teams part of Bethel experience

January 20, 2010 /

faith healing bethel

In an Oct. 19, 2008, sermon, Johnson shared a story about a former BSSM student who moved to Washington State and started a ministry called the Dead Raising Team.

“DRT,” he repeated the acronym dramatically at several points during the story.

In a video of the sermon, Johnson said the team got approval from Mason County to be listed along with other county services and had been given badges so they can go behind police lines if there’s an accident or fatality. Johnson told the audience, who erupted in shouts of “come on, Jesus” and cheers, that there had been one resurrection so far.

Marty Best, manager of the Mason County Department of Emergency Management, said he met the Dead Raising Team and suggested they become volunteers for his department so they could have access to emergency situations.

Redding Record Searchlight: Faith healings, dead raising teams part of Bethel experience

(via Religion News)

“God Helmet” inventor claims to have discovered magnetic telepathy link

January 20, 2010 /

shiva head

Well, what’s going on in the laboratory – and I have some fantastic graduate students and we work together as a team – and what we have found for example, is that if you place two different brains, two different people at a distance, you put a circular magnetic field around both. There’s a magnetic field going around like a coil, around both brains even at a distance. You make sure both coils are connected to the same computer which means they’re generating the same configuration of two different spaces.

If you flash a light in one person’s eye, even though they’re in a chamber that’s closed up, the person in the other room that’s receiving just the magnetic field now, they’re not aware of the light flashing or not, they will show similar changes in frequency in the room. And we think that’s tremendous because that maybe the first macro demonstration of a quantum connection or so-called quantum entanglement. And if that’s true then there’s another way of potential communication that may have physical application and application, for example, in space travel because there’s no time involved with it. That’s one thing we’re looking at. That’s one of our more exotic hypotheses.

Skeptiko: “God Helmet” Inventor, Dr. Michael Persinger Discovers Telepathy Link in Lab Experiments

(via Electric Children)

I think it’s worth mentioning that other researchers have failed to reproduce Persinger‘s “god helmet” results. (See: The God Experiments). Which doesn’t mean his latest results will prove unreproducible, but I think it should lead readers to be very skeptical of his claims.

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