An introduction to cognitive dissonance theory and an overview of current perspectives on the theory.

Harmon-Jones, Eddie Mills, Judson

APA PsycNet

Citation

Harmon-Jones, E., & Mills, J. (2019). An introduction to cognitive dissonance theory and an overview of current perspectives on the theory. In E. Harmon-Jones (Ed.), Cognitive dissonance: Reexamining a pivotal theory in psychology (pp. 3–24). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000135-001

---

Abstract
A little more than 60 years ago, Leon Festinger published A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (1957). Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance has been one of the most influential theories in social psychology. It has generated hundreds and hundreds of studies, from which much has been learned about the determinants of attitudes and beliefs, the internalization of values, the consequences of decisions, the effects of disagreement among persons, and other important psychological processes. This introductory chapter presents an introduction to cognitive dissonance theory, followed by an overview of current perspectives and research on the theory. It provides a brief description on research paradigms in dissonance research and alternative accounts of dissonance phenomena. The chapter also provides a brief description about the book and its subsequent chapters. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-11198-001

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/7/2022 (False Memories, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, LGBTQ, David Lynch Foundation)

False Memories, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, LGBTQ, David Lynch Foundation

Neuroscience News: An Element of Surprise Is the Recipe for Creating False Memories

"Summary: Memory editing occurs on the fly, leaving the brain susceptible to creating memories that may not be accurate.

You're starting to tell that old story to a couple of new friends, and suddenly another person who was there says 'no, it wasn't like that!' Without a video recording to settle the dispute, it's pretty hard to know who has the real memory and who has an adapted version.

"Perhaps it's no big deal to 'misremember' like this in a social setting, but it's quite another in a courtroom or classroom.

It turns out that human memory can be edited on the fly, creating memories that are nowhere near set in stone. A team of researchers has figured out how that happens and proved it by making people misremember.

"I think a lot of people have the misconception that memory works like a video camera: We record something and then we can play it back," said Allie Sinclair, a Ph.D. candidate in Duke's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, who started the research as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto.

Alas, it's not that simple or reliable. "When you recall a memory, your brain reconstructs that experience and sometimes, it edits the memory in the process," Sinclair said.

Memory editing is mostly a good thing, as it enables us to learn from our mistakes and integrate new information with old experiences. But the ability to edit leaves open the possibility of creating false memories as well."

LGBTQ Nation: Utah billionaire leaves Mormon church with blistering accusation it is actively harming the world

The state's richest native will give $600,000 to an LGBTQ group to assist any queer students at the church's Brigham Young University who might be forced to leave.

"Jeff T. Green, Utah's richest native, has announced he is leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In a blistering letter to LDS President Russell Nelson, Green accused the Mormon church of "actively and currently doing harm in the world."

Fantastically wealthy, the church has funded some of the most vicious anti-LGBTQ initiatives, including California's ballot initiative to overturn marriage equality, and has a racist history of banning people of color."

" ... 'The church leadership is not honest about its history, its finances, and its advocacy," he said in the 900-word letter. "I believe the Mormon church has hindered global progress in women's rights, civil rights and racial equality, and LGBTQ+ rights.'"

NY Post: Leonardo DiCaprio's old NYC bachelor pad price chopped to $7.5M

" ... The three-bedroom, 2½-bathroom pad is 3,663 square feet. It's located at 66 E. 11th St., the Green Delos Building, which was once marketed as the city's original "health and wellness" luxury condo, with more than 50 built-in wellness amenities.

If you're wondering, they're everything from vitamin C-infused showers to purified air and water, herbariums in the open chefs' kitchens, posture-supportive floors, bio-based sound insulation, in-duct aromatherapy and "dawn simulation" from "proprietary" circadian lighting.

DiCaprio was so into it that he even joined the board of Delos Living, a nonprofit promoting wellness in real estate. (Delos developed the building.) Spirit guru Deepak Chopra also bought a unit and joined the board.

Other board members include Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, politician Dick Gephardt, former secretary of the US Department of Veteran Affairs David Shulkin, SR Capital's Scott Resnick and golfer Greg Norman."

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Marshall fire investigation spotlights Twelve Tribes religious sect

Boulder County sheriff's investigators still executing a search warrant at group's property near on Eldorado Springs Drive

SHELLY BRADBURY | sbradbury@denverpost.co
Canon City Daily Record
January 6, 2022

The mishmash of houses occupied by the Twelve Tribes religious sect remains a focus of the investigation into the origin of the Marshall fire, as Boulder County sheriff’s officials confirmed Thursday they’re still in the process of executing a search warrant on the property.

Authorities have seized control of the property south of Boulder as the investigation continues. The search at the compound has been complicated by weather and will take some time to complete, the sheriff’s office said, adding that authorities can keep Twelve Tribe members from returning until the search is finished.

Boulder County sheriff’s officials are investigating whether the Marshall fire, which ignited a week ago and burned more than 1,000 homes as it blasted into Louisville and Superior on hurricane-force winds, might have started on the religious sect’s property along Eldorado Springs Drive.

A person driving in the area the morning the Marshall fire started filmed a now-viral video of a shed burning on the Twelve Tribes property. Investigators have not yet pinpointed the cause of the wildfire or determined its exact origin point, although Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said the blaze began in that neighborhood off Colo. 93 and Marshall Road.

The entire Twelve Tribes property has been fenced off since Sunday, and law enforcement kept guard around the fencing this week, shooing off passers-by who wandered too close. Scorched metal and debris can be seen in one corner of the compound; some houses inside the fence appear unscathed by flames. A hand-painted welcome sign that features mountains, meadows and stars greets visitors out front.

“We’re just in the same boat as everyone else is in, we’re waiting on the authorities to conduct an investigation and we’re cooperating,” said a Twelve Tribes member reached by The Denver Post who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak on behalf of the group. “We would like to find out where it started like everyone else. We’re obviously part of that community… our hearts and prayers are with everyone.”

The possibility that Colorado’s most destructive wildfire started on property occupied by a religious sect that was previously known by many in the area simply for its bohemian Boulder restaurant — the Yellow Deli, which has temporarily closed — put a renewed focus on the usually low-profile group this week.

“For the outside community, it might be a good thing for people to learn more about this group,” said Janja Lalich, a sociologist and a longtime expert on cults.

The Twelve Tribes was founded in 1972 by Eugene Spriggs in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as a new sect of Christianity that blended Spriggs’ personal beliefs with elements of both Christianity and Judaism.

The group, estimated to have a few thousand members worldwide with communities in Boulder County and Manitou Springs, is no stranger to controversy. Some of their teachings are considered to be misogynistic and racist, but over the years they’ve been criticized most consistently for their treatment of children.

Spriggs, who died in January 2020 at age 83, believed children should be disciplined with wooden rods. Adults in the Twelve Tribes have been reported to regularly spank and hit the group’s children for misbehaving, Lalich said.

Some ex-members described enduring severe, sometimes hours-long beatings for minor misbehavior as children. The Twelve Tribes’ members have steadfastly defended the use of physical discipline and disputed that the practice constitutes abuse.

In 1984, police and social workers in Vermont raided a Twelve Tribes complex and took 112 children into protective custody over reports of child abuse — but were forced to return the children hours later when a judge found the raid was unconstitutional. The raid, featured on the front page of The New York Times, was a seminal moment for the group.

On the 16th anniversary of the raid, the Twelve Tribes marked the event by inviting media and community members to its Vermont community, where children who were taken in the raid — by then adults — spoke in defense of their parents’ discipline practices and said they were not abused, according to coverage in The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.

Another defining characteristic of the Twelve Tribes is how many businesses the group operates, said Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta. The group runs restaurants, like the Yellow Deli in Boulder, as well as bakeries, a construction business, soap-making factories and more. The businesses are staffed by Twelve Tribes members, who have been known to work without pay.

The Twelve Tribes faced legal action in California in 2008 after authorities there found its businesses violated the state’s minimum wage laws because workers were not paid, according to the San Diego Reader. At the time, the Twelve Tribes described all of its workers as “volunteers,” the story said. People who join the Twelve Tribes must give up all their possessions.

Lalich said the group should be considered a cult.

“A cult is a group that has a charismatic, authoritarian leader, it has an extremist ideology, an all-or-nothing ideology or belief system, and it uses manipulative and coercive methods of influencing control to exploit the members in one way or another — money, sex, whatever,” she said. “So (the Twelve Tribes) definitely fits that profile.”

The Twelve Tribes’ teachings call slavery a “marvelous opportunity” for Black people, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Black members are considered to be subservient to white people. The group also shuns gay people and requires women to be submissive to men, according to the center.

Some of the Twelve Tribes’ literature discusses fire, and, in particular, fire as a force of God, but the group isn’t known to be particularly fire-focused, Kent said.

“It’s not likely that a group like the Twelve Tribes would destroy its own facility,” he said, adding that some religious groups have purposely set fires. One particular group in Canada that believed fire was a cleansing force would periodically burn down their own homes, he said.

“(They’d) take off their clothes and throw their clothes in the fire and march naked across the Canadian prairies waiting for Jesus to return,” Kent said.

But he said there is no indication that the Twelve Tribes uses fire that way.

“As much as I am not a fan of Twelve Tribes, it’s unfair, bordering on dangerous, to make pre-evidential suggestions and determinations of intentions and cause before we have the evidence,” he said.

Neighbors said the group members generally kept to themselves, and estimated 20 or 30 people lived at the multi-building compound on Eldorado Springs Drive. The group was known to burn with some frequency on the property, neighbors said, sometimes in barrels.

“Whatever work they are doing over there, something has triggered a couple (of fires in the past),” said Dave Maggio, who owns a house beside the Twelve Tribes compound and believes the Marshall fire likely started on the group’s property. “This one, my guess is it wasn’t vindictive, it wasn’t on purpose.”

Boulder County sheriff’s officials have refused to release any prior records related to the Twelve Tribes property, and have declined to say whether any fires previously have been reported at their address. All outdoor burning was prohibited the day the Marshall fire started due to high winds and dry conditions.

Another neighbor described seeing Twelve Tribes members taking walks through the neighborhood, kids and strollers in tow.

Sometimes, group members would put up a large white tent, and the sounds of their singing would waft through the neighborhood.

https://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/2022/01/06/twelve-tribes-marshall-fire-investigation/

A surge of evangelicals in Spain, fueled by Latin Americans

The numbers reflect huge surges in Spain's migrant population and are producing profound changes in in a country long dominated by the Catholic church.

Alberto Arce
Religion News Service
January 4, 2022

SALAMANCA, Spain (AP) — When Kent Albright, a Baptist pastor from the United States, arrived as a missionary to Spain in 1996, he was unprepared for the insults and threats, or the fines from the police for handing out Protestant leaflets on the streets of Salamanca.

“Social animosity was big — they had never seen a Protestant in their life,” said Albright, recalling one woman who whispered, “Be thankful we don’t throw stones at you.”

He couldn’t have imagined that 25 years later, he would be pastoring an evangelical congregation of 120 and count about two dozen other thriving Protestant churches in the northwestern city. And there’s a distinctive feature to the worshippers: Most of them are not Spanish-born — they’re immigrants from Latin America, including about 80% of Albright’s congregation.

The numbers reflect huge surges in Spain’s migrant population and evangelical population in recent decades, producing profound changes in how faith is practiced in a country long dominated by the Catholic church.

“The Bible says there are no ethnicities, there are no races. I don’t go down the street asking, nor do I ask for passports at the church door.” Albright said. He marvels that in a course he teaches for deacons, his six students include one each from Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.

One of the newest members of his congregation is Luis Perozo, 31, a former police officer from Maracaibo, Venezuela who arrived in Spain in February 2020 and applied for asylum with his wife, Narbic Escalante, 35.

While the couple wait for their status to be resolved, Perozo works in the laundry of a hotel. His wife does nursing in a retirement home.

“I was a lifelong Catholic,” says Escalante. “When I arrived in Salamanca, I entered the church, looked everywhere, said hello, and they ignored me. I went to several churches — I felt absolutely nothing.”

Perozo and Escalante soon visited Albright´s church — one of Perozo´s uncles had emigrated earlier and was already a member.

“The next day, Pastor Albright was helping us find a house, appliances and kitchenware. He moved us with his van,” Escalante said.

She commended Albright’s approach to pastoring, including services with lively music and less emphasis on repetitive prayer.

“I definitely feel better here than in the Catholic Church,” she says. “It allows me to live more freely, with less inhibitions.”

Before she and her husband were baptized at Albright’s church, she visited a Catholic priest. She recalls him responding, “If it makes you feel at peace with yourself, go. You’re not committing any sin.”

Albright sees similar reactions among other Latin American immigrants.

When they go to a Catholic church, he says, “they don’t feel that their problems are understood.”

“Latinos generally have a desire to participate in worship,” he added. “They need to have an active part in the celebration. The Catholic church feels static to them.”

___

With the arrival of the euro currency two decades ago, Spain experienced an economic boom that fueled migration. In 2000, there were 471,465 legally registered migrants in Spain; there are now about 7.2 million.

Albright was so intrigued by this phenomenon that he wrote a Ph.D. thesis about it at the University of Salamanca. He estimated that 20% of the migrants are evangelicals.

The last official census conducted by the Justice Ministry’s Observatory of Religious Pluralism found 1.96% of Spain’s population was Protestant in 2018 — more than 900,000 people. That’s up from 96,000 tallied in 1998.

The steady growth of the Protestant population coincides with a steady drop in the number of churchgoing Catholics. According to the Sociological Research Center, a public institute, 62% of Spaniards define themselves as Catholics, down from 85% in 2000 and 98% in 1975. Only about a third of those Catholics say they’re actively practicing the faith.

It’s a striking development in a country where Catholicism, for centuries, was identified with near-absolute power — from the long, often brutal era of the Spanish Inquisition to the 36-year dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, who called his regime National-Catholic, in the 20th century.

Of the 23,000 Catholic parishes in Spain at present, more than 6,000 have no full-time priest. Some churches had to close when a priest died or retired, or be grouped together with other churches served by traveling priests who minister to multiple parishes.

The church’s challenges are evident in the province of Zamora, just north of Salamanca, which has lost 16% of its population since 2000. There are 304 parishes and only about 130 priests serving them.

One of the traveling priests, the Rev. Francisco Ortega, manages six parishes — trying to adapt as the number of churchgoers steadily declines. At age 40, he has been active on YouTube since the pandemic began, and is now back on the streets trying to stay up to date with his parishioners.

It’s a hectic agenda, but Ortega recently received some help — Rev. Edgardo Rivera, a 42-year-old missionary from El Salvador, joined him in November. It’s a reversal of the pattern several centuries ago, when hundreds of Catholic missionaries embarked for Latin America from Spain.

“Now it is the other way around,” Rivera said. “I saw the need for priests in Spain and I thought of offering myself. I never liked easy things.”

Overall, about 10% of the Catholic priests now serving in Spain were born elsewhere. The influx is welcome, given that the average age for a priest in Spain today is about 65.

How is it difficult for Rivera? “I am a missionary priest announcing the Gospel in a place that is not my culture,” he said. “I have to learn.”

He and Ortega strive to be good teammates. While Ortega blessed parishioners during one recent celebration, Rivera managed the church’s sound system via Bluetooth and changed the music tracks and volume from his phone.

They’ve both gone dancing with some residents of Morales del Vino, a small town where Ortega is the parish priest, winning praise from one of the revelers, 23-year-old lawyer Juan Manuel Pedrón.

“If the church wants to support us it has to be normal, it has to be with us, with the young people and do what we do,” Pedrón says.

His girlfriend, Tania Rey, 27, was on her first visit to Morales del Vino.

“In my town, the priest circulates with old ladies,” she said. “I am very shocked to see these two priests like this.”

She and Pedrón teased Rivera, saying he dances better than they do.

The next day, after Sunday Mass, Rivera organized a gathering at the community center where he officiated. The official church building, 300 years old, is falling down.

“The walls of the church are giving way inward, the roof is in danger. We need to see what the strategy is for repair,” he says, explaining that gifts from parishioners will be needed to supplement the diocese’s repair budget.

The group then heads to the village bar; Rivera orders a glass of chilled white wine and sits with some of the parishioners.

His challenges are varied, he says. “I have to see how to ask for help to repair the church … and get used to coming to the bar.”

He couldn’t imagine drinking a beer at a bar in his Salvadoran hometown after Mass. “But if this is where people gather and how people socialize here, this is where I have to be too.”

___

But the momentum — in terms of church attendance and energy — is going in the other direction, toward the burgeoning ranks of Pentecostal and other evangelical congregations.

Many of those congregations rent space in industrial buildings on the outskirts of cities and towns — often filling them with zealous worshippers even as many large, centuries-old Catholic churches empty out.

One such Pentecostal venue in Salamanca has as neighbors a large carpentry shop and another evangelical church. On a recent Friday night, it hosted a rite of passage for Melanie Villalobos to celebrate her turning 13.

Two of her friends escorted her in a slow dance to a wall where a video was projected. There, her father appeared from Venezuela, wishing her a happy transition into adolescence. Onlookers from Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Brazil, seated at tables, were moved to tears.

Pastor Nedyt Lescano, 62, who came from Argentina in 2000, was mostly silent during the ceremony, but invited everyone to meet again Sunday morning.

Among those greeting the faithful was Roberto Siqueira, 32, a Brazilian who works in a cheese factory on the outskirts of Salamanca. On Sundays, he plays guitar and sings in a Christian rock band that performs dance-inducing songs in the Pentecostal church.

“This life is worth very little and the relationship with God is worth everything,” goes one of the lyrics.

It’s a bit like karaoke. The lyrics are projected on the wall, people sing along, gesturing and gyrating to the rhythm. Some seem in a trance, others cry out with emotion.

About 50 people are on hand, trying to comply with coronavirus social-distancing restrictions.

Lescano doesn’t say much during the ceremony, letting the worshippers testify about challenges they faced and prayers that were answered.

In Lescano’s services, there’s a moving moment when she asks for help in paying the rent for the premises, along with other expenses, and the faithful, one by one, put an envelope in a cloth bag.

“Unlike the Catholic church, we don’t receive any subsidies. We do it all by our own efforts here,” Lescano says.

Indeed, Spain’s Catholic church — though no longer recognized as the official national faith — received 301 million euros (about $340 million) in 2020 under an agreement with the government. Spain’s evangelicals — though now accounting for more than 4,500 registered places of worship — received a symbolic 462,000 euros (about $523,000).

Lescano often feels like a psychologist, as well as a pastor, for those flocking to the makeshift church.

“Immigrants feel lonely and isolated, in a strange country, and here they receive love and hugs,” she said. “Here they come and share, take pounds of weight and anxiety off their bodies and minds.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.





https://religionnews.com/2022/01/04/a-surge-of-evangelicals-in-spain-fueled-by-latin-americans/

Weeks before govt's FCRA move, Missionaries of Charity nuns booked for 'forcible conversion'

Police has resisted the anticipatory bail plea by the nuns while alleging that a woman was "forcefully converted" in the institution, that the girls in the shelter were being served "non-vegetarian food" and were being to read books on Christianity.




Aditi Raja
The Indian Express
January 4, 2022

Almost two weeks before the Union Ministry of Home Affairs refused to renew the FCRA (Foreign Contribution Regulation Act) status of the Kolkata-based Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, the Vadodara city police had booked a case against the NGO under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act for allegedly “hurting Hindu religious sentiments” and “luring towards Christianity young girls” in the shelter home run by the organisation.

On Friday, a Vadodara court adjourned for the third time the anticipatory bail plea filed by two nuns of the Home for Girls, with the court directing the city police to ‘clarify’ the use of Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, whose application had been stayed by the Gujarat High Court in August.

Section 3 of the Act prohibits conversion “by use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or by getting a person married or by aiding a person to get married” while Section 4 prescribes the penal provisions.

District Government Pleader (DGP) Anil Desai, who appeared for the Vadodara city police in the case, informed Additional Sessions Judge R T Panchal that an intimation from the office of the government pleader in the High Court was awaited.

Police has resisted the anticipatory bail plea by the nuns while alleging that a woman was “forcefully converted” in the institution, that the girls in the shelter were being served “non-vegetarian food” and were being to read books on Christianity, according to Desai.

The Vadodara police FIR, lodged on December 12, is based on a complaint by District Social Defence Officer Mayank Trivedi, who had visited the Home for Girls run by the Missionaries of Charity in Makarpura area of the city along with the Chairman of the district Child Welfare Committee on December 9.

According to the complaint, Trivedi found that the girls inside the Home were being alleged ‘forced’ to read Christian religious texts and participate in prayers of Christian faith, with the intention of “steering them into Christianity”.

A release from the Vadodara city police on December 13 said, “Between February 10, 2021, and December 9, 2021, the institution has been involved in activities to hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus intentionally and with bitterness (towards Hindu religion). The girls inside the Home for Girls are being lured to adopt Christianity by making them wear the cross around their neck and also placing the Bible on the table of the storeroom used by the girls, in order to compel them to read the Bible… It is an attempted crime to force religious conversion upon the girls.”

The Vadodara Police are also investigating a specific case of a Hindu woman from Punjab, who was allegedly married into a Christian family by the organisation after being allegedly forced to convert to Christianity.

Meanwhile, the woman, named in the police FIR as being a ‘victim’ of the forceful conversion, has filed an affidavit stating that she had “not been forcefully converted” and that the police case has “caused damage to her image in the society” as her interfaith marriage was with “her will and consent”.

DGP Desai told this newspaper, “The woman filed her affidavit before the court and has denied the police case but the investigation is ongoing… the police has opposed the anticipatory bail on various grounds, including the forced conversion of the woman as well as serving non-vegetarian food to the girls living in the shelter. The police have also told the court that the organisation has forced the girls to read books of the Christian faith and that books of no other faith were found in the organisation. That the girls living in the shelter are being forced to wear a holy cross pendant — a symbol of Christian faith — in order to lure them towards the religion, is also a ground for opposing the bail plea.”

Vadodara Commissioner of Police Shamsher Singh told The Indian Express, “The woman, who was converted for marriage, has not yet recorded her statement with the police. The police have been trying to establish contact with her. The other investigation is ongoing. We have handed over the case to the Crime Branch.”

Advocate Jahangir Shaikh, counsel for MoC in Vadodara told The Indian Express, “Our first argument before the court has been that the Vadodara Police should not have booked the case under the sections of the amended Act, which have been stayed by the HC in August. Secondly, they have named this Punjabi girl as a victim in the case. The fact is that in her affidavit she has told the court that she has never been converted and continues to follow Sikhism… So, the question of forceful conversion for marriage does not arise. Moreover, the wedding took place in 2012 and it has been brought into this case in 2021, which in itself is dubious as the girl has not voluntarily complained to anyone.”

Besides sections of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, the institution has been booked under IPC Sections 295(A) and 298, which are related to insulting religious belief.

The Gujarat government, in June last year, effected the amended 2003 Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act that adds forcible conversion by marriage, among others, to Section 3, which provides for ‘Prohibition of forcible conversion’. Section 4 of the Act prescribes punishment for forcible conversion with a term of three years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000; in case of a minor being the ‘victim of forceful conversion’, imprisonment of four years and a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh.

On August 20, this year, the division bench of Chief Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Biren Vaishnav, hearing two petitions opposing the Act, had stayed the operation of certain sections of the Act, including 3 and 4, and observed, “Prima-facie inter-faith marriages between two consenting adults by operation of the provisions of Section 3 of the 2003 Act interferes with the intricacies of marriage including the right to the choice of an individual, thereby infringing on Article 21 of the Constitution Of India.”

DGP Desai said, “The court, during the hearing of the anticipatory bail, had asked us to discuss with the Advocate General the scope of the stay order issued by the Gujarat High Court in regard with Section 3 and 4 of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act. The HC has issued the stay order for the sections specified in the context of forceful conversion through interfaith marriage… The rest of the grounds of forceful conversion laid down in the section have not been stayed and so the police case is on sound ground. We will discuss the applicability of the section in this case with the counsel of the government in the HC and file our reply before the court when we receive the intimation.”



https://indianexpress.com/article/india/missionaries-of-charity-gujarat-fir-fcra-7703510/

Flat-Smacked - Inside the Mind of a Flat-Earther ~ with ALEX OLSHANSKY

Talk Beliefs
July 31, 2021

What would make anyone think the earth is flat? What is at the core of the conspiracy mindset? ALEX OLSHANSKY, M.A., is a Doctoral Candidate in the College of Media and Communication at Texas Tech University. Alex examines how people cognitively process science misinformation and conspiracy theories, with a special interest in Flat Earth conspiracies.

MARK from Talk Belief delves into Alex's amazing research, research which took him and his colleagues to Flat Earth conferences and to dedicated Flat Earthers themselves. But what is the psychology behind it all? What makes a Flat Earther tick?

South Texas ranch once owned by Rev. Moon hits the market at $13.5 million

The more than 6,000-square-foot centerpiece hacienda has three bedrooms and five baths,.


Steve Brown
Dallas Morning News

January 5, 2022



A South Texas spread that’s just hit the market features a sprawling Spanish-style home and a history as a show horse ranch.

The more than 3,000-acre Crawford Ranch in Dimmit County is near the town of Carrizo Springs.

Priced at $13.5 million, the ranch sits on the Nueces River about two hours from San Antonio. It’s north of Laredo and not far from the border with Mexico.

The more than 6,000-square-foot centerpiece hacienda has three bedrooms and five baths and a huge outdoor living area with a swimming pool, water fountains and terraces.

“The property is rounded off with a manager’s home, office, two guest houses and multiple barns and pens,” property agent Hall and Hall says in its pitch for the sale. “The property has the components for a true South Texas legacy; many generations to come will forever speak of the grandeur and times spent on the Crawford Ranch.”

Over the years, the ranch has hosted dignitaries, celebrities and politicians from around the world, according to the brokers.

The ranch house and buildings were said to cost more than $30 million when they were built in the early 1980s.

And for a time, the Crawford Ranch was owned by a company that represented the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church, according to press reports. Moon used it as a family retreat.

Steve Brown, Real Estate Editor. Steve covers commercial and residential real estate in Dallas-Fort Worth.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2022/01/05/south-texas-ranch-with-huge-home-will-cost-you-135-million/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/5/2022 (Anne Hamilton-Byrne, Legal, Australia, Nazi, Social Media Echo Chambers)

Anne Hamilton-Byrne, Legal, Australia, Nazi, Social Media Echo Chambers

The Age: Cult survivors seeking proceeds from Olinda house sale

"Survivors of the cult The Family are seeking proceeds from the sale of a property in the Dandenong Ranges that was once home to the group's leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne.

A legal caveat has been put on the title of the 12-bedroom house and grounds at 1445 Mount Dandenong Road, close to Olinda village in Melbourne's east, that has recently been up for sale.

The caveat was placed on the property by Leeanne Creese, a former resident of the house and a survivor of the cult.

She is the lead plaintiff in a class action brought by cult survivors against a Hamilton-Byrne-linked company and the executors of her estate.

Ms Creese declined to comment, but The Age understands the caveat relates to a financial interest in a share of the proceeds of sale that the survivors are seeking."

East Idaho News: Man pleads guilty to killing roommate he thought was starting Nazi cult

"An Idaho Falls man who reportedly killed his roommate because he felt he was starting a Nazi cult has pleaded guilty to murder.

Douglass Taylor entered the plea to the first-degree murder charge Wednesday before District Judge Bruce Pickett. Taylor pleaded guilty as part of a plea agreement that stipulates Bonneville County prosecutors will recommend no more than a 25-years-to-life sentence, and defense attorneys will recommend no less than 15 years to life.

The Idaho Falls Police Department arrested Taylor on March 10, 2020, after finding the body of his 51-year-old roommate, Hermann Hans Woerrlein. Originally from Germany, Woerrlien had moved into the sober home for those with mental illnesses on the corner of Higbee Avenue and 17th Street, where Taylor and others lived."

" ... During questioning, Taylor reportedly said he killed Woerrlein because the man was trying to start a new cult with Nazi German mythology, and he did not tolerate proselytizing."

Study Finds: Social media 'echo chambers' radicalize people, make them more likely to turn violent

"Social media echo" chambers" can be an ideologically reinforcing place for some, since their morals match everyone else's in the group. However, a new study finds these places online also lead to radicalization.

Researchers from the University of Southern California say members of online communities whose views constantly receive positive reinforcement from others are also more likely to become violent. Understanding how some people become radicalized online has become a priority for security services, especially since the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Now, scientists have narrowed down what kind of language people who are at risk of becoming radicalized use in their posts, some of whom may be willing to die defending their group's values.

"In our research, we find that the more people are in morally homogeneous environments, the more likely they are to resort to radical means to defend themselves and their values," says study author Dr. Mohammad Atari in a media release.

Examining incels in the 'bubble'

The researchers examined more than 25 million internet posts on Gab, a social media network which typically attracts far-right users, including voices like Richard Spencer and Alex Jones. They found users were more likely to use derogatory language against other groups if their posts aligned with others on Gab.

In another study, the team analyzed 900,000 posts from an online community on Reddit, created for people who identify as "involuntary celibates." Incels are people who are generally unable to attract a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one and frequently post hateful or violent comments about the opposite sex."

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CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/4/2022 (Marjoe Goetner, Religious Research, Mormons, QAnon)

Marjoe Goetner, Religious Research, Mormons, QAnon

The story of Marjoe Goetner: Trained as a child to be an "evangelist" , without even being a Born Again Christian!!

"He used church goers to gain money and fame and only stopped when bothered by his conscience. He filmed this picture at the end of his scam, in order to demonstrate to his MANY followers his true nature, and even today, some of them do not believe he was a False Prophet."

RNS: How religious are Gen Z Mormons in the US? The results are mixed.

"A new study of Americans ages 13 to 25 shows teenage and young adult Latter-day Saints to be traditionally religious . . . and also not. And in that, they are similar to other Americans who still consider themselves religious but are in many ways disengaged from their faith traditions.

"The State of Religion and Young People 2021: Navigating Uncertainty," conducted throughout 2021 by the Springtide Research Institute, argues that "for a large and growing segment of young people, religiosity is increasingly decoupled from institutions, even as they express high levels of religious belief, practice, and identity."

Over the course of the year, more than 10,000 young people were surveyed, including a total of 470 who self-identified as Latter-day Saints or Mormons. Of that group, 134 also received an additional set of questions about their experiences and views.

So, as always when interpreting data about Mormons, keep in mind that when the sample size is small, the margin of error is high. For each finding discussed below, I'll indicate the n, or sample size, for that particular question.

Let's start with the positive findings — what many stalwart members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would consider to be good news.


Mormons reported the highest participation rate in what the study called "youth group" activities, at 43%.

This indicates that even in a time when many young people are disengaging from organized religion, programs like Young Men and Young Women, seminary, and Institute are still a factor in the lives of many young Latter-day Saints."

The Daily Beast: Dallas QAnon 'Cult' Is Now Drinking Terrifying Chemical Cocktail, Family Says

"QAnon acolytes in Dallas are now drinking toxic chemicals from a communal punch bowl, according to the family of a woman who joined the Texas "cult" that's waiting for the supposed resurrection of President John F. Kennedy and his late son, JFK Jr.

Numerous members of the Leek family told the Dallas Observer that the woman, who reportedly abandoned her husband and children in Delaware last month to follow Trump-supporting QAnon leader Michael Brian Protzman to Dallas, has been quaffing a mixture containing chlorine dioxide—industrial bleach—which she apparently distributes among the group.

"She was proud to tell us that she was the one mixing it up and giving it to everybody," one of her relatives told the outlet.

The woman got into the QAnon movement back in 2018, said her son, Sean Leek, who was unable to be reached by The Daily Beast on Monday. While the family didn't specify why the group was drinking the potent chemical mixture, they said their relative is an ardent anti-vaxxer.

"She's always been into, you know, natural remedies, getting aluminum out of deodorant, things like that," Leek said in a Dec. 10 interview. "But that led to anti-vaxxing, and anti-vaxxing led to QAnon."

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), chlorine dioxide has "not been shown to be safe and effective for any use, including COVID-19, but these products continue to be sold as a remedy for treating autism, cancer, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and flu, among other conditions, despite their harmful effects."

It is sold online under various names, including "Miracle Mineral Solution," "Miracle Mineral Supplement," "Master Mineral Solution," and "Chlorine Dioxide Protocol." Ingestion can lead to respiratory failure, potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms, life-threateningly low blood pressure, acute liver failure, and the rapid destruction of red blood cells. Members of a Florida family hawking chlorine dioxide through their Genesis II Church of Health and Healing in Bradenton were arrested by federal agents in 2020. They reportedly earned more than $1 million from sales of their "miracle" elixir."

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CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/3/2022 (Transcendental Meditation, Podcast, Shincheonji Church of Jesus, Legal, Korea, Jehovah's Witnesses, Kyrgyzstan)

Transcendental Meditation, Podcast, Shincheonji Church of Jesus, Legal, Korea, Jehovah's Witnesses, Kyrgyzstan

A Little Bit CULTY: Episode Eleven - Master of the Cultiverse: Patrick Ryan on Transcendental Meditation

"What do Pete Rose, Grandma Walton, skin boys, Dear Prudence, Brooks Brothers suits, David Lynch, Mary Tyler Moore, Merv Griffin, Mary Tyler Moore, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Margaret Singer have in common? They're all mentioned in this episode, and you'll have to listen to find out why. There's just not enough room in these show notes to tell you. But don't worry, you'll be glad you listened, because Patrick Ryan can tell a culty oral history with the best of them. He joins Sarah and Nippy for the penultimate episode of Season 2, and it's a doozy that just might make you take a second look at your meditation practice. As Stefon on SNL would say, "This one has something for everyone: Yogic flying, off-brand incense, and fake CIA operatives." It's been a batshit year, kids, so enjoy 2021's last A Little Bit Culty episode drop.

More about today's guest: Patrick Ryan is a graduate of Maharishi International University. He has been a cult intervention specialist since 1984. He's the co-founder of TM-EX, the organization of ex-members of Transcendental Meditation, established ICSA's online resource (1995-2013), and has presented 50 programs about hypnosis, inner-experience, trance-induction techniques, communicating with cult members, conversion, cult intervention, exit counseling, intervention assessment, mediation, religious conflict resolution, thought reform consultation, eastern groups, transcendental meditation and workshops for educators, families, former members and mental health professionals at ICSA workshops/conferences. Mr. Ryan received the AFF Achievement Award (1997) from AFF, the Leo J. Ryan Foundation, and a Lifetime Achievement Award (2011) from ICSA. Along with fellow intervention specialist Joseph Kelly, Patrick publishes several cult news sites that are an indispensable resource for all things cult-related."

Yonhap News Agency: Appellate court upholds acquittal of Shincheonji leader

"An appellate court on Tuesday upheld a lower court's ruling and acquitted a religious sect leader of charges that he obstructed the government's response to COVID-19 outbreaks last year.

Lee Man-hee, the 90-year-old founder of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, was indicted last year for allegedly underreporting the number of Shincheonji followers and church locations to the government when the virus was fast spreading among the followers.

However, both the district and the appellate courts found that submission of such information pertains to the data acquisition process, not the government's epidemiological investigation process, concluding Lee's act is not punishable under the infectious disease prevention act.

"It is also difficult to conclude the accused deliberately omitted requested data," the Suwon High Court said, noting that the church later submitted all requested data to the government.

The court, however, found Lee partly guilty of charges of embezzling 5.6 billion won (US$4.7 million) from church funds to build a new church facility and holding unauthorized religious events at local government facilities from 2015 to 2019.

RFE/RL: Kyrgyz Court Refuses To Recognize Books Used By Jehovah's Witnesses As 'Extremist'

"A court in Bishkek has refused to deem publications from the Jehovah's Witnesses as extremist, rejecting a step by authorities toward completely outlawing the religious group.

The Birinchi Mai district court in the Kyrgyz capital on December 3 rejected a request by the Prosecutor-General's Office to recognize 11 books, two brochures, and six videotapes belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses in Kyrgyzstan as extremist.

The materials in question were confiscated in 2019 from the religious group, which has operated in the Central Asian nation for more than 23 years, by the State Committee for National Security (UKMK)."

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