Word: sects
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...enter Comet Hale-Bopp. In an otherwise orderly and predictable cosmos, where the movement of stars was charted confidently by Egyptians and Druids, the appearance of a comet, an astronomical oddity, has long been an opportunity for panic. When Halley's comet returned in 1910, an Oklahoma religious sect, the Select Followers, had to be stopped by the police from sacrificing a virgin. In the case of Hale-Bopp, for months the theory that it might be a shield for an approaching ufo has roiled the excitable on talk radio and in Internet chat rooms like--what else?--alt.conspiracy...
...determine when a "cult" becomes a religion, especially in a land where freedom of religion is sacrosanct? My Random House unabridged dictionary defines cult as "a particular system of religious worship" and then, seven lines later, as "a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox or extremist." A cult, in other words, is a religion and isn't one, depending on who's looking...
Third, legitimate religious sects are referred to by the term Orthodox, whereas the word fundamentalist has negative connotations. Obviously, this is why Orthodox Jews take offense when called fundamentalist. In their literal sense, the terms "fundamentalist" and "Orthodox" refer to very similar ideas. The word fundamentalist means someone who is very devout and believes that every word of their holy text is true. The term Orthodox refers to a religious sect of Judaism that closely follows the laws of the Torah, Both words have a very similar literal meaning. However, they have very different connotations. "Orthodox" connotes a legitimate religious...
...defense. "You must respect his office. How can he solve America's problems if he is distracted? He's in debt. He's a suspect. This is terrible." She knows what it feels like to be investigated: the Taiwan government is looking into alleged "fund-raising improprieties" by her sect, including the transfer of $2 million out of the country...
...Taiwan she reportedly has 300,000 followers. However, when the government closed down her headquarters (it had been constructed without a license), the sect produced a membership list of only 804 names. That belies the 6,000 who appeared in Taiwan on Ching Hai Day in October 1995. At that ceremony, she wore queenly robes ("under orders from God," she says), riding a sedan chair carried by eight bearers to the cheers of "your royal majesty." Those followers are keeping faithfully silent as investigators go through the sect's records. One admitted, though, that "believers are not allowed to speak...