Browsing: March 26

A Brief History On March 26, 1997, 39 members of the “Heaven’s Gate” cult were found to have committed suicide with the intention of being picked up by an alien spacecraft and taken somewhere into outer space where they presumably would find eternal happiness.  Cults have been around about as long as there has been religion, starting as a splinter group that goes against conventional beliefs, sometimes growing into a mainstream religion and sometimes never achieving anything more than sideshow status.  Here are 10 cults that are well known for their extreme beliefs, suicidal tendencies, or celebrity involvement. Digging Deeper…

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A Brief History On March 26, 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate awaited transport for their souls to a waiting UFO with $5.75 in each person’s pants pocket to pay for tolls! Digging Deeper Digging deeper, we find Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles heading up a religious cult founded by Applewhite after a “near death” experience in the 1970’s when he had a heart attack. Claiming to be descended directly from Jesus Christ, Applewhite also claimed that he and his nurse, Bonnie Nettles, were spoken of in the Book of Revelation part of the Bible that mentions “The Two.”…

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A Brief History On at least four separate occasions electronic book burners known as “deletionists” tried to rid Wikipedia of its coverage of the internet phenomenon known as “creepypastas”.  Deletionists are a group of bullies who focus their efforts on trying to remove anything and everything they merely do not like from Wikipedia.  They typically, out of ignorance, refer to articles concerning topics they are unfamiliar with as “not notable”. Digging Deeper: A Timeline 26 March 2008: Allen3 nominated the article titled “Creepypasta” for deletion from Wikipedia.  After a brief discussion in which only five random user accounts voted to delete the article,…

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A Brief History On March 26, 1999, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, alias “Dr. Death,” was convicted of second-degree murder in Michigan for giving a terminally ill man a lethal injection at the man’s request.  The 52-year-old man was succumbing to Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), a particularly dreadful way to die. Digging Deeper Kevorkian had previously championed the right of dying people to end their own suffering with medical assistance and had devised machines that allowed the patient to kill themselves by either adding a lethal drip to an IV or by inhaling lethal gas through a mask they put on themselves.  He had already been tried…

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