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Landmark isn't just "an offshoot", it's a full-blown cult in its own right. See:
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It's worse than that.

Why are you citing sources such as UPI when posting in Slashdot? I find it hard to believe that sources other than UPI didn't cover the topics covered in UPI's article.

UPI's integrity as a news covering agency has disintegrated years ago and noone buys news from them any more. Just because robots like Google go fetch their articles doesn't mean they are any good.

UPI's integrity and news covering reliability has diminished to zero when a cult bought it, which dates back as long as 2000 which was followed by Helen Thomas leavingleaving in protest (UPI's leading reporter for over 20 years).

Yeah, we have a term and laws for that hear too, it's called Treason. There is only one punishment for it under US law, death.

Ah, yes. I suppose that any disloyalty to the government and any attempt to replace it with something better should be met with death. Maybe we should've put the men who wrote that into law to the gallows for having rebelled against their government. Then again, I suppose you're saying that the law of any local government justifies any actions it takes against its populace as long as it acts within its own frame of law. Genocide, torture, and rape for political dissent and rebellion is all okay as long as that government says it is, right?

I was talking about his popularity rating, not the voting booth. Saddam [...] was EXTREMELY popular among his own people because he was reclaiming ancient land the lose of which had been a thorn to his people a very very long time.

Oh, so was Romania's Ceausescu to all outside observers until a few days before his deposition when a critical flashpoint event made his people finally snap. A man who was loudly and repeatedly praised everywhere he went was in the end executed by his own people after a quick day-and-a-half search for him. (Shades of Mussolini anyone?)

Successful dictators build cults of personality that make their people worship them no matter how awful they are to their populace. Stalin did it. Kim and his son did it. Franco did it, Hilter did it, and Saddam tried to do it too. There's a difference in how much the people actually believe in their leader in Iraq vs. these other countries. In in North Korea, it seems to be universal by all visitors' accounts. Saddam failed to engender love in his people, only fear of reprisal. In Iraq, support for him doesn't seem to be universal at all given just how many people sided with outside forces (like the aforementioned Kurds, Marsh Arabs, and Shiites) and given how many people are currently cheering his arrest there (though some feelings are mixed about the arrest).

Yes, the people mostly seem to have support the taking of Kuwait at the time from what we know from the outside, but it's really hard to gauge what the popular sentiment really was at the time based on the abrupt flipping of support now that repression isn't forcing people to pretend to love him and since Iraq's economy has severely soured in the wake of a decade of sanctions stemming from that action. If you can find me some supporting evidence that they liked it, I'd appreciate it, but I doubt that you can.

Killing and torturing traitors is a long time pastime in most nations these days.

Oh, well then -- I guess that means it's quite all right, then. Saddam's not a bad guy because other people use torture too. Well, what DO you consider a bad guy to be if you don't consider Saddam and his sons to be bad guys for torturing their people? Don't tell me that you're one of these types who actually believes that there is no such thing as right and wrong. If you didn't you wouldn't be protesting the war on Iraq so loudly, so tell us what it would take to be an evil person.

I didn't even bother looking at his website, but I'm pretty sure your comment of "He preaches about treating woman as objects, yet his religion promotes polygamy and child brides. Get real." is flawed. I'm certain he doesn't preach about treating woman as objects, and I know his religion doesn't promote polygamy.

The article from your "child bride" link cites a reference to a child being wed at 15 in Utah by polygamists. It does *not* cite a mormon child bride being wed at 15. Surprisingly, not every person in Utah is mormon, nor is every act in the state approved by the mormon church. The practicers of those acts aren't part of the LDS church nor do they claim to be, they are an extremely small and hidden portion of the population, and by no means are claimed by the LDS church as followers. I even lived in Salt Lake at the time of the news story you cite, and if you'd think about it for two seconds, if everyone is marrying off children and practicing polygamy, why would the Salt Lake Tribune break the story as shocking and concerning news? Even more, in all my years of living in Salt Lake, I never (knowingly) met a polygamist, and I knew one person who had been married under the age of 18. Yep, a girl from Tennessee who had been knocked up at 16 and married her boyfriend after pressure from her parents, *then* moved to Utah at which point I met her.

Now, before I get labeled as a defendant of "gods chosen ones", aka members of the LDS church, I am not mormon, I hate the church and its insane ideologies and the resulting harms on my idea of a healthy society.

In response to the grandparent "Out of curiosity, are you a fanatical religious moron?" YES HE IS.

In response to hendridm's misinformed rant that distracts from the true problems caused by the organization, and his citation from the world known, respected and trusted cultnews.com, why don't you try talking about something you know about? Comments such as yours damages truly informed individuals ability to discuss the real problems created by your target, the "polygamy practicin' child marryin' mormon church". Ok?

Nothing is more annoying than someone with a shred of hearsay knowledge and a big mouth.

I didn't even bother looking at his website, but I'm pretty sure your comment of "He preaches about treating woman as objects, yet his religion promotes polygamy and child brides. Get real." is flawed. I'm certain he doesn't preach about treating woman as objects, and I know his religion doesn't promote polygamy.

The article from your "child bride" link cites a reference to a child being wed at 15 in Utah by polygamists. It does *not* cite a mormon child bride being wed at 15. Surprisingly, not every person in Utah is mormon, nor is every act in the state approved by the mormon church. The practicers of those acts aren't part of the LDS church nor do they claim to be, they are an extremely small and hidden portion of the population, and by no means are claimed by the LDS church as followers. I even lived in Salt Lake at the time of the news story you cite, and if you'd think about it for two seconds, if everyone is marrying off children and practicing polygamy, why would the Salt Lake Tribune break the story as shocking and concerning news? Even more, in all my years of living in Salt Lake, I never (knowingly) met a polygamist, and I knew one person who had been married under the age of 18. Yep, a girl from Tennessee who had been knocked up at 16 and married her boyfriend after pressure from her parents, *then* moved to Utah at which point I met her.

Now, before I get labeled as a defendant of "gods chosen ones", aka members of the LDS church, I am not mormon, I hate the church and its insane ideologies and the resulting harms on my idea of a healthy society.

In response to the grandparent "Out of curiosity, are you a fanatical religious moron?" YES HE IS.

In response to hendridm's misinformed rant that distracts from the true problems caused by the organization, and his citation from the world known, respected and trusted cultnews.com, why don't you try talking about something you know about? Comments such as yours damages truly informed individuals ability to discuss the real problems created by your target, the "polygamy practicin' child marryin' mormon church". Ok?

Nothing is more annoying than someone with a shred of hearsay knowledge and a big mouth.

> Out of curiosity, are you a fanatical religious moron?

Well, according to his web site, he is a student at BYU (which I believe is "spiritually themed") and he "recently returned from a full-time mission in Serbia and Bulgaria for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

He preaches about treating woman as objects, yet his religion promotes polygamy and child brides. Get real.