Cult News 101 - CultNEWS101 Library: Ravi Zacharias

Showing posts with label Ravi Zacharias. Show all posts

Aug 7, 2021

CultNEWS101 Articles: 8/7-8/2021 (QAnon, Jehovah's Witnesses, Troubled Teen Industry, Zacharias)

QAnon, Jehovah's Witnesses, Troubled Teen Industry, Zacharias

Vice: QAnon's Queen of Canada Is Raising Serious Cash on GoFundMe

"A woman whose followers are convinced she's the current Queen of Canada waging a secret war against the elites pumped $50K into her campaign to raise money for wildfire victims.

The followers of a woman they believe to be the execution-happy secret Queen of Canada have donated over $50,000 to her campaign for wildfire victims.

Romana Didulo, the woman at the centre of a QAnon-adjacent conspiracy that revolves around her being secretly put in control of Canada by Donald Trump, has raised $54,040 of her $25,000,000 goal. The campaign only lists Didulo and does not indicate where exactly the money would be going.

Instead, it simply says, "Hi, I am Queen Romana of Canada. I am Fundraising to build Homes for Families in BC, Canada who lost their Homes to BC wildfire."

Didulo also made a video to confirm to her audience she's not receiving money. "It's not being used for other reasons, OK," she said in the video. "And no, our Telegram account has not been hacked."

A spokesperson for GoFundMe initially told VICE World News they were reviewing the campaign and had frozen the funds. Following the publication of the article, GoFundMe deleted the campaign.

"The fundraiser has been removed from the platform because it violated GoFundMe Terms of Service, and all donors will be fully refunded," a spokesperson said. "The organizer has also been banned from using the GoFundMe platform for any future fundraisers."

Didulo was thrust into prominence in the spring by several well-known QAnon figures who "confirmed" her status as Queen of Canada. They believe she is fighting a secret war against a pedophilic cabal currently controlling the country. She has a small but active fanbase, which has spent considerable time sending out cease and desist notices to businesses and people telling them to stop following all COVID-19 regulations or else they're contravening her rule; she's implied that those who break her law will be executed. (This reporter has received one of these cease and desist letters.)"

RNS: Three Jehovah's Witnesses sentenced to 6 or more years in Russian prison for their faith.

Since 2017, 14 Jehovah's Witnesses have been sentenced to 6 or more years of prison in Russia, where they are considered an extremist group.

"Three Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia were convicted and sentenced to prison for practicing their faith on Thursday (July 29). Vilen Avanesov, 68, was sentenced to six years, and his son Arsen Avanesov, 37, along with a third defendant, Aleksandr Parkov, 53, were both sentenced to six-and-a-half years. All three men have already spent more than two years in pretrial detention.

"These men should never, ever have had to spend a minute in prison, and yet they've been locked up for two years," said Rachel Denber, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "It is never too late for Russian authorities to stop these arrests, release Jehovah's witnesses who are behind bars, stop these criminal proceedings, and quash the convictions that have already taken place."

The three Jehovah's Witnesses were detained in Rostov-on-Don in May 2019 and accused of continuing the operations of a Jehovah's Witness organization that had been liquidated. All three were charged with organizing extremist activities. In January 2020, Arsen Avanesov was also accused of "financing extremist activities" by collecting donations to rent a room to meet with other Jehovah's Witnesses. Their trial was held at the Leninskiy District Court of Rostov-on-Don."

Stolen: A Memoir

"A gripping chronicle of psychological manipulation and abuse at a "therapeutic" boarding school for troubled teens, and how one young woman fought to heal in the aftermath."

Christian Headlines: Director and Dean of Zacharias Institute Resign to 'Deeply Grieve the Suffering'

"On Wednesday, two top officials announced that they will resign from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) following the sex abuse scandal that rocked the ministry earlier this year with its late founder and apologist Ravi Zacharias.

Vince and Joanna Vitale, who respectively serve as the director and dean of the Zacharias Institute, posted a joint statement to Facebook on Wednesday that they will be resigning from RZIM next week.

The couple shared that after the interim report of the investigation into RZIM was released last December, they had been convicted in a personal way ..."

" ... Another conviction, which they believe to be their "most pressing," was RZIM's

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May 19, 2020

CultNEWS101 Articles: 5/19/2020

Conspiracy Theories, Hate Speech, Terrorism, Censorship, Ravi Zacharias

Politico: 'Conspiracy Bingo': Trans-Atlantic Extremists Seize On The Pandemic

"The coronavirus is providing a global rallying cry for conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists on both sides of the Atlantic. People seizing on the pandemic range from white supremacists and anti-vaxxers in the U.S. to fascist and anti-refugee groups across Europe, according to a POLITICO review of thousands social media posts and interviews with misinformation experts tracking their online activities. They also include far-right populists on both continents who had previously tried to coordinate their efforts after the 2016 American presidential election. Not all online groups peddling messages on the pandemic have links to the far right, but those extremists have become especially vocal in using the outbreak to push their political agenda at a time of deepening public uncertainty and economic trauma. They are piggybacking on social media to promote coronavirus-related themes drawn from multiple sources — among them, Russian and Chinese disinformation campaigns, the Trump administration's musings about the coronavirus' origins and anti-Muslim themes from India's nationalist ruling party."

Reuters: Facebook Reports Spike In Takedowns Of Hate Speech, Terrorism

"Facebook Inc on Tuesday reported a sharp increase in the number of posts it removed for promoting violence and hate speech across its apps, which it attributed to technology improvements for automatically identifying text and images. The world's biggest social media company removed about 4.7 million posts connected to hate organizations on its flagship app in the first quarter, up from 1.6 million in the 2019 fourth quarter. It also deleted 9.6 million posts containing hate speech, compared with 5.7 million in the prior period. That marks a six-fold increase in hateful content removals since the second half of 2017, the earliest period for which Facebook discloses data. The company also said it put warning labels on about 50 million pieces of content related to COVID-19, after taking the unusually aggressive step of banning harmful misinformation about the new coronavirus at the start of the pandemic. "We have a good sense that these warning labels work. Ninety-five percent of the time that someone sees content with a label, they don't click through to view that content," Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told reporters on a press call."

Wikipedia: Conspiracy Theories

"Many conspiracy theories have drawn inspiration from the writings of ancient astronaut proponent Zecharia Sitchin, who declared that the Anunnaki from Sumerian mythology were actually a race of extraterrestrial beings who came to Earth around 500,000 years ago in order to mine gold.

In his 1994 book Humanity's Extraterrestrial Origins: ET Influences on Humankind's Biological and Cultural Evolution, Arthur Horn proposed that the Anunnaki were a race of blood-drinking, shape-shifting alien reptiles. This theory was adapted and elaborated on by British conspiracy theorist David Icke, who maintains that the Bush family, Margaret Thatcher, Bob Hope, and the British Royal Family, among others, are or were such creatures, or have been under their control. Icke's critics have suggested that 'reptilians' may be seen as an antisemitic code word; a charge he has denied.

Since at least the Middle Ages, antisemitism has featured elements of conspiracy theory. In medieval Europe it was widely believed that Jews poisoned wells, had been responsible for the death of Jesus, and ritually consumed the blood of Christians. The second half of the 19th century saw the emergence of notions that Jews and/or Freemasons were plotting to establish control over the world, a similar conspiracy theory relates to cultural Marxism. Forged evidence has been presented to spread the notion that Jews were responsible for the propagation of Communism, or the hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903) which outlines a supposed plot by Jews to control the world.

Such antisemitic conspiracy theories became central to the worldview of Adolf Hitler. Antisemitic theories persist today in notions concerning banking, Hollywood, the news media and a purported Zionist Occupation Government. These theories have a tyrannical worldview in common.

Holocaust denial is also considered an antisemitic conspiracy theory because of its position that the Holocaust is a hoax designed to advance the interests of Jews and justify the creation of the State of Israel. Holocaust deniers include former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad the convicted chemist Germar Rudolf and the discredited author David Irving."

Spiritual Sounding Board: Before Evangelicals Canonize Ravi Zacharias, will they learn from Jean Vanier and L'Arche?

"This is a guest blog post by Steve Baughman. While studying philosophy, he ran across the works of the highly respected Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias–and then Steve uncovered a colossal number of lies and cover-ups by him."