Tag: religion

Pagan Temple Shifts Rome’s Narrative of Rapid Conversion to Christianity

The ruins of an ancient pagan temple under a parking lot in central Italy 70 miles (112.65 km) north of Rome, sheds light on the cultural shift during the transition from Roman imperial theology to Christianity. The structure has been dated to the era of the Roman emperor Constantine, who ruled Rome between 306 and 337 AD, whose reign is marked by being the first Roman emperor to officially convert to Christianity.

The temple was found in Spello, Italy, as part of The Spello Project, an international effort to uncover the lost history of the ancient town formerly known as Hispellum. The announcement was made by Douglas Boin, a history professor at Saint Louis University, during the Archaeological Institute of America meeting in Chicago, according to a press release by Saint-Louis University.

The excavation team, led by Boin, discovered three walls of the monumental structure using underground imaging. The significance of the finding is connected to a concession made by Roman Emperor Constantine during the fourth century. In a letter inscribed in Spello’s Town Hall, Constantine allowed the townspeople to celebrate a religious festival in Spello, which had transformed into a Roman colony in 1st century BC, instead of traveling long distances.

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The Medieval Crushing of the Cathars and Sexualizing of Witches

Many Christian writers identified the gods and lesser spirits of the Greek and Roman world with demons. This ushered in the Christian practice of demonizing those they perceived as their opponents. One of those opponents to the Catholic Church was the Cathars, whose persecution set the stage for many of the horrors committed by the church – in the name of God.

Who were the Cathars?

In the 12th to 14th century, the Cathars emerged as a medieval sect, who questioned many tenets of the Catholic Church. For instance, they believed that there were two gods: one a god of good, and the other a god of evil. They also preached about poverty, and rebelled against the Catholic Church’s corruption and exploitation of the poor. As a result, they were first branded as heretics, and ultimately as devil worshippers and practitioners of witchcraft. The tales circulated about the Cathars would make Frankenstein look like a comedian. All the horrors and sexual fantasies imaginable by a Bosch or Bruegel were heaped on these miscreants, who dared to follow too closely in the steps of Jesus.

According to some medieval writers, the susceptible were lured into a religious building and introduced to the devil. Those who agreed to join his following were made to take an oath of fidelity. They vowed to kill as many children under the age of three as possible, and take their bodies to the religious building. They swore to impede sexual intercourse among married people wherever possible, and to bequeath some part of their body to the devil at their time of death. So was said by the medieval propaganda machine.

To celebrate new members, the sect supposedly ate a meal prepared from the flesh of dead children. After dinner, the devil ordered the lights out. Then, at his command, the witches engaged in orgiastic sex: men with women or men or in groups, sometimes father with daughter, mother with son, or brother with sister. When the party was over, people were given a jar of magic ointment, supposedly made from the fat of incinerated children, to rub on the tip of their walking sticks and speed them on their journey home (Almond, 98).

These were the reasons given by the Church to torture the Cathars, and confiscate, destroy, and appropriate their property, along with that of others.

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Granddaughter of pedophile who founded Children of God SEX CULT opens up about what it was like to be raised inside twisted ‘religious’ sect – from being forced to be intimate with adult males as a CHILD to facing heinous physical and sexual abuse

A woman has candidly revealed how her grandfather founded the Children of God cult to promote his liberal views on sexuality – practicing polygamy and free love even with underage members.

Faith Jones appeared on a recent episode of the Cults To Consciousness podcast to discuss her harrowing experience as part of the sect, which was later known as The Family International.

The now 47-year-old was born into ‘The Family’ in 1977 in Hong Kong and was considered cult royalty as the granddaughter of psychosexual leader David Berg.

Berg founded the organization in 1968 out of Huntington Beach, California, before it evolved to have a following of more than 15,000 members worldwide, including Joaquin Phoenix and Rose McGowan.

Faith has said that her grandfather, who died in 1994, encouraged sexual and physical abuse against children as part of the sect’s principles. 

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Who wrote the Bible?

The Bible tells an overall story about the history of the world: creation, fall, redemption and God’s Last Judgement of the living and the dead.

The Old Testament (which dates to 300 BC) begins with the creation of the world and of Adam and Eve, their disobedience to God and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

The New Testament recounts the redemption of humanity brought about by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It finishes in the book of Revelation, with the end of history and God’s Last Judgement.

During the first 400 years of Christianity, the church took its time deciding on the New Testament. Finally, in 367 AD, authorities confirmed the 27 books that make it up.

But who wrote the Bible?

Broadly, there are four different theories.

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Coco Berthmann says she’s a sex-trafficking survivor who was sold to paedophiles by her own mother – but after she admitted to faking cancer, is her story all it seems?

The lies of a cancer scammer who also claimed to be a survivor of human trafficking are unravelled in a gripping podcast exploring her manipulation of others.

Coco Berthmann, 29, originally from Germany but now living in the US, first began to gain fame and interest after sharing a horrific story about her ordeal as a trafficking victim in 2017.

During the height of her fame, the cancer faker hosted her own TEDX talk, appeared on podcasts speaking about the things that allegedly happened to her, and met survivors of human trafficking including Elizabeth Smart, whose case of being abducted, held hostage and repeatedly raped for nine months in 2002 made headlines around the world after she successfully escaped her captor.

But after Coco pleaded guilty to communications fraud in July 2022 after pretending she had cancer and raising almost $10,000 USD through a GoFundMe page for ‘alternative treatments’, a journalist from Florida began to look into other parts of her story on which people have cast doubt.

Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story, which was produced by Dear Media, charts the influencer’s rise to fame after moving to Salt Lake City, Utah, becoming a Mormon, and procuring a loyal following by sharing stories about being trafficked by her mother, sometimes in harrowing detail.

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Moses’ parting of the Red Sea may NOT have been a miracle and could have been because of a ‘meteorological phenomena’, study suggests

Moses parting the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to escape the Egyptians may not have been a miracle after all, a new study suggests.

The parting of the Red Sea appears in the Book of Exodus in The Old Testament of The Bible.

It is the moment when Moses performs the miracle to allow the Israelites to escape from the Pharoh’s men who were in pursuit.

But according to the University of Leicester’s School of Biological Sciences, there were four natural occurrences which could explain the drying of the area.

Students Rebekah Garratt and Rikesh Kunverji claim that negative surges, eastern winds, tidal surges and Rossby Waves may have caused a resurgence of water large enough to allow people to cross the sea by foot.

Writing in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Topics, they said: ‘Investigating into the methods in which the waters may have receded, allowing Moses to cross safely, may be dependent on having ‘perfect’ conditions, but are still physically feasible events.

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Mormon church now owns $2BILLION of US farmland, with more acreage than Bill Gates and China combined: Huge land grabs in Nebraska and Florida spark backlash from local farmers

The Mormon church has sparked a fierce backlash from local farmers after snapping up around 370,000 acres of prime ranch land in Nebraska, with the Utah-based religion now owning at least $2billion of agricultural terrain across the country, DailyMail.com can reveal.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), commonly known as the Mormon church, has bought more land than anyone else in the state over the past five years, according to The Flatwater Free Press.

It now owns an estimated $134million worth of agricultural land in Nebraska and is on track to surpass CNN founder Ted Turner as the single largest landowner in the state if it continues its spree at the current rate.

But the church has provoked the ire of the Nebraska Farmers Union, whose president John Hansen told DailyMail.com that its land grab was driving up prices and forcing out local farmers.

‘It’s not fair competition when folks bring in that much outside money and bid against local farmers and ranchers,’ he said.

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New York lawmakers introduce bill to force Chick-Fil-A restaurants along highway to stay open on Sundays

Yes, New York apparently cares more about travelers and their munchies than they do about religious freedom — or freedom at all, for that matter. Chick-Fil-A closes on the Lord’s Day to give employees a holy day of rest, but it looks like they could be faced with a big-time decision in their New York State rest stop locations — whether to stay and remain open on Sunday, or to simply move out.

It’s the holiday season, meaning thousands of drivers will be on the road, and now a group of New York State Assembly officials want to ensure all travelers can access all restaurants…seven days a week. News10 spoke with one of the sponsors of the Rest Stop Restaurant Act, Assemblyman Tony Simone …

The bill will require companies contracted to provide food and beverage services along the Thruway and at the Port Authority in New York and New Jersey to remain open seven days a week.

That means Chick-Fil-A, in locations at rest stops along this highway system, would be forced to stay open on Sundays.

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Zombies and Voodoo: The Living Dead Religion of Modern Haiti

On the list of the most well-known monsters from Hollywood movies, zombies clearly occupy one of the top positions. In their cinematographic version, they consume human flesh and brains with the explanation that this fact diminishes their pain of being dead, while humans bitten or hurt by zombies end up becoming zombies as well. In Haiti, zombies not only exist in movies, but as a day-to-day reality that is steeped in Voodoo, which revolves around spirits known as lwa. In Haitian Voodoo (or Haitian Vodou) the Iwa spirits get their names and attributes from traditional West and Central African divinities, and they are also equated with certain Roman Catholic saints.

Haiti, the first black republic, is distinguished by colonialism, poverty, zombies, and Voodoo. Situated in the Caribbean and with its capital at Port-Au-Prince, this country continues to be dominated by the existence of gangs and corruption, and the silence of the night is often interrupted by gunshots and by violent thunderstorms. The harsh living conditions in this island nation have reduced the medium life expectancy to just 43 years. Even though life goes on, just like business, each morning brings forth the necessity to clean the streets after the confrontations of the night.

The Spanish arrived in Haiti in the year 1492 and they exterminated the local indigenous population in less than ten years. Taking into consideration the fact that the Industrial Revolution had not occurred yet, slaves continued to be in high demand and colonial Haiti quickly got involved in this horrible industry. In roughly 1503, the Catholic priest Bartholomeo de las Casas came up with the idea of bringing slaves to Haiti from Africa. After this, the French rulers of Haiti, in turn, followed the Spanish model and they continued to bring slaves from Africa to Haiti with the purpose of making them work on plantations.

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Mississippi politician Michael Cassidy, 35, is charged with criminal mischief after ‘BEHEADING’ Satanic altar statue inside Iowa State Capitol

A former US Navy pilot and unsuccessful congressional candidate has been charged with criminal mischief after allegedly destroying a controversial Satanic Temple’s display inside the Iowa State Capitol.

Michael Cassidy, 35, was arrested for tearing down the Iowa Satanic Temple’s Baphomet display on Thursday morning, Iowa State Police confirmed to DailyMail.com. 

The display featured a statue of Baphomet – a goat-headed figure used to represent Satan along with the seven tenets of Satanism, Satanic symbols and candles. 

Cassidy was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief after he allegedly ripped the head off Baphomet.

The passionate Christian confirmed his act of destruction in a text to Fox News, saying he tore down the statue because ‘it was extremely anti-Christian.’

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