Cult

A pastor supporting Rick Perry calls Mormonism a "cult. " Is that untrue? Well, what's the difference between a "cult" and a "religion"? Not easy to say. Many people think they know the difference when they see it. Scientology and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church are cults - aren't they? And Judaism and Christianity are surely religions. But in fact, early Christianity was considered just a cult by both Jews and Romans; Islam was long considered just a cult by medieval Christians; and, of course, many Protestant groups, from the Baptists to the Quakers, were considered cults by other Christians.

Is 2012 the year 90s post-grunge bands come back? Seems like so, judging from a couple of recent concert announcements. SHUDDER. Creed will be performing at the Warner Theater in Washington April 24, it was announced Tuesday. The band will be performing "Human Clay," their insanely successful second album, in its entirety, front to back, according to the press release. Tickets, starting $45, go on sale Friday. Save for Scott Stapp's pukey rendition of the national anthem at a Florida Marlins game two years ago, Creed has mainly stayed quiet in recent years.

Her daughter disowned her as a devil-worshiping witch. Police didn't believe her allegations of brainwashing. And social services said they weren't equipped to deal with a cult. But Seeta Newton still would not let her grandson Javon go. Her dreams pushed her to hold on. In one, the infant boy clings to Newton's neck while his mother, Ria, floats toward them, her arms spread wide, gown sleeves hanging like angel wings. Javon whispers insistently in Newton's ear: I want to come live where you live.

As a picky grammarian, I have to point out that the episode name should be “Cult-Like” unless they're trying to say that they like cults. So this will be the episode where Cochran finds out whether betraying Savaii was worth it, or whether he just got himself voted out seventh instead of sixth. And now that there are no more Savaii members left (except Cochran) the paranoia sets in. They've come to the point where they have to start betraying each other, since there are only members of the alliance left.

A woman who once lived with three people accused of leading a cult testified Thursday that they committed her to a mental hospital to keep her quiet about a toddler's starvation death. Danielle Smith, 26, said she tried to alert neighbors to the boy's death but couldn't because she was not left alone with outsiders. The three defendants - Toni Sloan, who's known in court as Queen Antoinette, 41; her daughter, Trevia Williams, 22; and acquaintance Marcus Cobbs, 23 - have pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

JUDGE JAMES Dudley, welcome to the '90s.Dudley, a Howard County Circuit Court judge, apparently doesn't understand the rules yet. The 1990s are the Age of the Victim. When talking about victims, you don't dare blame them. You don't dare utter a sentence that might imply a thing such as personal responsibility still exists.Yesterday, Sun reporter Caitlin Francke had a story about the most recent controversy surrounding Dudley. The judge sentenced Chester Walker to a five-year prison term for raping his then live-in girlfriend.

Blue Oyster Cult was a rock band from an era that also produced acts named Kiss and Alice Cooper. They're not to be confused with a veritable new oyster cult that has sprung up among Anne Arundel waterfront residents who have decided that one way to save Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries is to cultivate oysters.The Amberley Community Association recently voted to spend $500 to start a reef on a tenth of an acre at the juncture of White hall and Ridout creeks, west of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

DOES ANYONE else find it odd that the government has looked into the Moonies and Scientologists and Hare Krishnas -- as well as every two-bit devil-worshiping, goat-slaughtering sect in this country -- and yet does nothing about the largest and most brazen cult operating today?I speak here of the Nintendo People, who clearly fit the definition of a cult:1 -- Members exhibit blind devotion to a single cause (i.e. the safe passage of cartoon geek Super Mario through a graphics nether world of predators)

TOKYO -- In a controversial move pitting public safety against religious freedom, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama yesterday approved the use of a Cold War law to disband Aum Supreme Truth, the religious cult accused of launching a deadly poisonous gas attack on Tokyo subways.The approval by Mr. Murayama -- whose Socialist Party has long opposed the anti-subversive law as a danger to democratic freedoms -- gave police the go-ahead to seize the cult's assets and forbid members from practicing their religion.

A woman who lived with reputed cult leader Scott Caruthers admitted yesterday conspiring with him to try to have her ex-husband murdered. Dulsa Naedek also entered a guilty plea to a second murder conspiracy charge, this one involving a former business associate of Caruthers. Under a plea agreement, Naedek would serve 18 months of a 15-year prison term. She has been held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Carroll County Detention Center since her arrest October 2001, meaning that she likely will have served her time by her sentencing, scheduled for May 22. One point of contention at yesterday's hearing in Carroll County Circuit Court involved the prosecution's proposal that Naedek be required to be "deprogrammed" as a condition of her probation.

Michael Ian Black facetiously named his stand-up special "Very Famous" — but it's true, depending on whom you ask. Black, the snarky comedian best known for his pop-culture takedowns on VH1, is a cult-hero for his work on MTV's '90s sketch-comedy show "The State," playing McKinley in "Wet Hot American Summer" and as a strange bowling alley manager on the NBC show "Ed. " He's currently headlining his "Black is White" comedy tour (which stops...

A pastor supporting Rick Perry calls Mormonism a "cult. " Is that untrue? Well, what's the difference between a "cult" and a "religion"? Not easy to say. Many people think they know the difference when they see it. Scientology and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church are cults - aren't they? And Judaism and Christianity are surely religions. But in fact, early Christianity was considered just a cult by both Jews and Romans; Islam was long considered just a cult by medieval Christians; and, of course, many Protestant groups, from the Baptists to the Quakers, were considered cults by other Christians.

If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be Mormon, would you vote for that person? Earlier this year, Gallup pollsters asked that exact question, and 76 percent of those who responded said yes, they would. That may sound like the American people are ready for a president who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but maybe not. In the same poll, the public was given other hypothetical candidates: Would you vote for a black, Catholic, Baptist, Jew or Hispanic?

Apparently, part of the Republican Party in Washington has been taken over by a religious cult. This cult is righteous, dogmatic, disciplined, intolerant and dictatorial. It is quite willing to hijack the legislative process to ensure that its demands are met. As demonstrated in the last few days, its members are willing to become suicide bombers, threatening the entire U.S. economy if they don't get their way. These people are the American Taliban. Our domestic Taliban adheres to several fundamental beliefs: •No new taxes for anybody, anytime, whatever the circumstances.

He has skin like an armadillo . He keeps wrestling championship belts in his locker . He poses for photos with dead animals . He has had a rocket arm since he was an infant . His mullet has become legendary . Former Ravens third-stringer John Beck is suddenly the most interesting quarterback in Washington. Beck, whom the Ravens traded to the Redskins last summer for some cornerback named Doug Dutch , has become a cult hero down in D.C. -- thanks in large part to Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post -- after Beck said in an interview last week that he is “thinking I’m the starter” for the Redskins in 2011.

Baltimore County police say they've been stymied in investigating injuries to a teenage girl at a Pikesville house that is owned by a suspected religious cult leader from Wisconsin. The 18-year-old is not providing many details about the Tuesday incident that has left her hospitalized, and neither are witnesses, according to police. That doesn't surprise some people familiar with the Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology, whose leader owns the house where the incident occurred.

WASHINGTON -- Senior officials of the agency that conducted the botched raid on a cult near Waco, Texas, in February were "too detached" from the operation, leaving the main decisions to agents who had no training in large paramilitary missions, internal investigators reviewing the operation have found.The findings, part of a review to be made public in mid-September, cast new doubt on the future of Stephen E. Higgins, the longtime director of the agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a division of the Treasury Department.

WASHINGTON -- The head of the federal agency that conducted a raid on a cult near Waco, Texas, on Feb. 28 yesterday revised his earlier descriptions of the operation in which four agents were killed and conceded it might have been flawed."

Three accused cult members, convicted of starving a toddler to death in the name of religion, were sentenced Tuesday to a collective 150 years in prison. Toni Sloan, 41, who claimed God had christened her "Queen Antoinette," received a 50-year sentence composed of two consecutive 25-year terms, one for second-degree murder and the other for first-degree child abuse. Sloan said she was "not sorry" for the toddler's death. Trevia Williams, 22, and Marcus Cobbs, 23 received the same sentence, with all but 15 years suspended for each.

It's time for Baltimore to claim William Lindsay Gresham as one of the city's literary native sons and a proper heir to Edgar Allan Poe — and not just because he was born here in 1909. He fits the funk-art aspect of this town as well as James M. Cain or John Waters. In the mid-1940s, he wrote his best book, "Nightmare Alley," about the rise of a ruthless mentalist from carnival hand to spiritual guru, and his fall back to the worst possible sideshow. It was so compelling, original and successful that one of the biggest Hollywood stars of his day, Tyrone Power, begged for the lead role and pushed his studio to produce it. Later audiences would get to know the novel either from that potent, underrated film or from a gaudy, cheap paperback featuring a voluptuous blonde in a two-piece scarlet costume.