The anti-Islam film ‘ Fitna ' by far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders has been pulled from the internet after the website company which posted it received threats. British-based Liveleak.com said it pulled down the video, which can still be seen on other websites, including youtube.com. The film was posted to the internet on Friday. “Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove ‘Fitna’ from our servers,” the site said in a statement. Fitna — Part 1/2 “This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else,” the online statement said. Wilders said it was “terrible that these threats deal a serious blow to freedom of expression,” but he told Dutch news agency ANP that he understood the decision to withdraw the...

Oregon City couple are charged with second-degree manslaughter in the death of their daughter An Oregon City couple whose 15-month-old daughter died this month of medically treatable conditions surrendered to police Friday night hours after a Clackamas County grand jury indicted them. They are at the heart of a case testing a state law that bars faith healing when it could endanger a child's life. Based on the jury's findings, arrest warrants were issued for Carl Brent Worthington, 28, and Raylene Worthington, 25, on charges of second-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal mistreatment in the March 2 death of their daughter, Ava. At 8:30 p.m., the pair voluntarily surrendered at the Clackamas County Jail, said Detective Jim Strovink, a sheriff's office spokesman. They were held on $250,000 bail each. Television reporters soon descended on the jail's entrance, reacting to a tip that the husband and wife would post the $25,000 apiece needed to avoid spending the...

Madeline Kara Neumann is shown working on chalk art last summer during downtown Wausau's Chalk Fest. WESTON, Wis. — An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday. Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said Madeline Neumann died Sunday. "She got sicker and sicker until she was dead," he said. Vergin said an autopsy determined the girl died from diabetic ketoacidosis , an ailment that left her with too little insulin in her body, and she had probably been ill for about 30 days, suffering symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness. The girl's parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, attributed the death to "apparently they didn't have enough faith," the police chief said. They believed the key to healing "was it was better to keep praying. Call more people to help pray," he said. The mother believes the girl could s...

Randy Baldridge is the pastor of a church in Galena, Kansas , and is charged with forging a $100,000 check. Authorities say the name he put on the check is Nancy Sarduck. Sarduck was at one time one of Baldridge's parishioners. He also presided over her husband's funeral in July. Baldridge is the pastor of 6th Street Baptist Church in Galena, Kansas. He allegedly made a check out to Assembly of God Financial Solutions for an investment program based in Springfield, Missouri. Sarduck says she received a letter in the mail thanking her for the investment. She told the company she never wrote the check. Court documents say the check was from a closed Commerce Bank account originally opened by Baldridge. The sheriff's department says they do not know what the motive was behind this alleged act. But Sarduck says she feels betrayed by the man who laid her husband to rest. "I think that he thought I was grieving so much, that he though he would get by with it," Sarduck...

A youth pastor had sex with a teenage girl in his offices at the Berea Baptist Church over a span of two years, police said today. Jeremy Workman, 32, was charged last week with unlawful sexual contact with a minor and possession of criminal tools. He is being held on $250,000 bond. Workman resigned from the church in January. The girl was 15 and in the youth group when the two began their sexual relationship. She is now 19 and pregnant with his child, police said. Workman served as the church's youth pastor since 2000. "This kind of evil behavior takes place frequently in secular venues, but when it occurs in a holy setting like God's House, it is especially grevious," Pastor Kenneth Spink said in a statement. Workman also worked part time in the weight room of the Berea Recreation Center , said police Chief Mark Schultz. No work-related problems were ever reported. Workman resigned from his job at the church in January, weeks after he learned that the girl was pre...

Scott Martin Weisser , who is listed as pastor of First Baptist Church of Salt Lake on its Web site, has been charged with trying to sexually assault a woman in his Midvale home despite her repeated refusals. Weisser reportedly resigned as pastor of the church. A message left with the church office's voice mail was not returned Friday. Weisser, 52, is facing charges of first-degree felony attempted rape and class B misdemeanor assault in connection with the March 16 incident. Third District Judge Royal Hansen on Friday deemed Weisser indigent, appointed a legal defender to represent him and issued a no-contact order for any victims, witnesses and/or co-defendants in the case. The judge also asked for an evaluation from pretrial services before Weisser is released from jail. Bail has been set at $150,000. Weisser entered a not guilty plea, and a roll call hearing was set for April 3. Court documents state that a female was in a bedroom of the house, Weisser entered it and "be...

Here is an article that is currently in the news in Australia. I attended one of these "Mercy Houses" when I was a Christian and was told prior to talking to the girls all the rules that they had to follow. The rules were quite severe. One girl I met there was in purely because she was a lesbian -- something her parents felt warranted "counselling". I have to say that many of the girls seemed listless and unhappy. I know of a number of girls who "relapsed" soon after "graduation", most likely because all the care they had received was bullshit. -- Korrine THEY call themselves the Mercy Girls. And after years of searching they have found each other. Bound by separate, damaging experiences at the hands of an American-style ministry operating in Sydney and the Sunshine Coast, these young women have clawed their way back to begin a semblance of a life again. Desperate for help, they had turned to Mercy Ministries suffering mental illness, drug add...

Dennis Christner was raised in a Lutheran home so devout he was not permitted to join the secular Boy Scouts. As an adult tennis pro, he left Michigan for California and began exploring. "I really got disenchanted with being told what to do and what to believe," the American Canyon resident said. He eventually discovered the Church of Religious Science . He does not attend services but said he believes the teachings. "It just felt so comfortable," said Christner, 55. "It makes sense, it fits. It's like a manual on how it is, not how you should be." Christner belongs to one of the largest and fastest growing groups identified in a February survey of the American religious life . This multifaceted band includes lapsed believers, nonbelievers, those who believe but don't belong to a congregation and those whose convictions don't conform to any faith. They account for as much as one quarter of all adults in the western United States. Most of them ...

From Marina WASHINGTON – Sen. Max Baucus , chairman of the Committee on Finance , and Sen. Chuck Grassley , ranking member, have written to four ministries to urge cooperation with an earlier information request from Grassley. Baucus and Grassley lead the committee with exclusive Senate jurisdiction over tax policy; the ministry inquiry that Grassley launched last November is meant to gauge the effectiveness of certain tax-exempt policies. "This ought to clear up any misunderstanding about our interest and the committee’s role," Grassley said. "We have an obligation to oversee how the tax laws are working for both tax-exempt organizations and taxpayers. Just like with reviews of other tax-exempt organizations in recent years, I look forward to the cooperation of these ministries in the weeks and months ahead." Grassley wrote to six ministries on Nov. 5, 2007, asking a series of questions on the non-profit organizations’ expenses, treatment of donations and business ...

Click Here to View Pastor Ross' Indictment. A jury has found Pastor Onslow Ross guilty of 54 counts of bank fraud, money laundering and various other illegal transactions. On the most serious charge, bank fraud, he could be sentenced to as much as 30 years in prison and be fined up to $1 million. According to 13WMAZ's Yenu Wodajo, reporting from U.S. District Court in Macon , the jury returned its verdict just before 2 p.m. She reports that members of Ross's Reaching Souls Cathedral of Praise Apostolic Church began crying, and Ross shook his head in disbelief. Outside in the hallway, Ross told church members and his family, "I lost my dad four months ago, and I just lost my life....Unbelieveable." Federal Judge Ashley Royal said sentencing would be held within four to six weeks and released Ross to put his affairs in order and spend time with his family. Court officers said some members of the jury had expressed concerned about their safety after the verdict. Jud...

A Delaware County pastor accused of raping a 15-year-old member of his congregation on Friday was released from jail today after posting bond. Brian L. Williams, 45, of 3159 Berlin Station Rd., is a pastor with Sunbury Grace Brethren Church . He was arrested and charged with one count of rape, a first-degree felony, in Delaware Municipal Court. Authorities say the rape took place at the church, located on Perfect Drive in Sunbury, court records show. Williams is accused of forcing the girl to perform oral sex before removing her clothes and assaulting her. STORY LINK

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The cave that 35 members of a Russian doomsday sect have been holed up in since the fall of 2007 is not currently at risk from flooding, a local emergency services official said on Thursday. The sect went underground in the central Russian Penza Region order to “save themselves during the time of the apocalypse ,” which they say will come in May this year. This video is a Nov, 2007 report by Russia Today . They have threatened to set fire to themselves if any attempt is made to force them to come to the surface. The group includes four children. Russian emergency services officials said at the end of February they were ready to launch an operation to rescue the sect members in the event of the cave being submerged by underground waters in the spring thaw. “Right now we are experiencing a temporary cold spell in the region,” said Dmitry Eskin, going on to say that, “The temperature is below zero. Dangers could be posed by underground waters, but given that the temperature has f...

A United Methodist pastor from Crawford County is in jail, charged with sending sexually explicit Web videos of himself to someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl. Instead, the Rev. Steven Richard McGuigan was in a Yahoo! Messenger chat room with special agent David Frattare of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Child Predator Unit. The Rev. McGuigan, 39, was arrested Wednesday at Valley United Methodist Church in Conneautville , which he served along with nearby Hickernell United Methodist Church . Yesterday he was still jailed on charges of unlawful contact with minors and criminal use of a communication facility, in lieu of $35,000 bail. He faces up to 28 years in prison and $60,000 in fines. He was immediately removed from all pastoral duties pending outcome of the criminal case and a church investigation, United Methodist Bishop Thomas Bickerton said. The Rev. McGuigan was appointed to the Conneautville churches in 2004, but was not fully ordained until 2006, according ...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Police arrested the senior pastor at St. Luke's Lutheran church in Dilworth after a sting at Park Road Park where they say Robert Graff tried to solicit an undercover male police officer for sex. "He's a great man, he's a wonderful man. I'm shocked,” said one church member. The 58-year-old Graff is married and has been the pastor at St. Luke’s for the past four years. The business administrator at the church told us there would be no comment except that members were, “sorting it all out.” Graff was charged and released with a promise to appear in court. He came to his church for a Wednesday night supper, where members closed ranks, and supported their senior pastor. "Can you tell us what he's like as a pastor?," WCNC asked another church member arriving at St. Luke's Wednesday night. “Great,” she answered. STORY LINK

A leading scientist accuses creationists of peddling the lie that there is no fossil evidence of evolution. Some Christians claim there is a lack of "missing link" fossils, halfway between two major groups of creatures. They say this proves Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is a fallacy and that God created each living species from nothing. But, in an essay published in the magazine New Scientist today , geologist Donald Prothero claims that reports of "huge gaps" in the fossil records have been greatly exaggerated. Dr Prothero, a professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles , said: "Life does not progress up a hierarchical ladder from 'low' to 'high' but is a branching bush with numerous lineages splitting apart and coexisting simultaneously. "For example, apes and humans split from a common ancestor seven million years ago and both lineages are still around. "For this reason the concept of 'missing link'...

Study suggests Israelites may have eaten hallucinogens, but scholars scoff JERUSALEM - When Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, he may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor. Writing in the British philosophy journal Time and Mind , Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared. The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a people in an “altered state of awareness,” Shanon hypothesized. “In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation, the seeing of light is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings,” Shanon wrote. “On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing the light, one is encountering the ground of all Being...

A former church pastor is accused of having sex with two teenage boys. Joseph Edmund Conger was pastor at New Life Baptist Church in Cole Camp and at Faith Baptist Church in Climax Springs . The 44-year-old faces five counts of statutory sodomy from incidents that allegedly happened in 2003. Conger was a pastor in Cole camp for about two years and in Climax Springs for about six years. STORY LINK

Americans' faiths in flux as more reject their given religions Amherst, New York (March 3, 2008)—The most detailed estimates to date of Americans' religious affiliations reports that a significant portion of U.S. citizens claim "none of the above," placing the unaffiliated second only to Roman Catholics in number. Monday's release of the 35,000-respondent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that 16.1 percent of Americans have no particular religion at all, while 23.9 percent identify themselves as Catholic. The next largest "belief group" is Evangelical Baptist at 10.8 percent. All other denominational groupings show in the single digits or less. The study also shows the number of Americans who identify as atheist or agnostic has risen from 3.2 percent to 4 percent, while a "remarkably high" 44 percent have rejected the religion placed on them in childhood. "People are finding out that...

By Jim G It is disappointing to read opinions by misinformed individuals on the theory of evolution, or it might just be an expression of the paranoia some have for anything that they perceive threatens their little world. First the theory is not politically based. Like all scientific theory, it is based on observation of data. It is not a Faith or Belief. These are based on an acceptance of a Truth which requires no evidence for support. All theories require empirical evidence, and most well-educated people are quite aware of the evidence and understand the validity of the theory, and, like most educated people, they also know theories are subject to adjustment as more information comes in. And the information coming in reinforces the theory. In evolution a random mutation results in a change that is either detrimental, useless or beneficial to the organism. If it is not beneficial, it is eliminated very quickly. If beneficial then it becomes a new starting point. Dog, horse, plant an...

A former Oneida County pastor found guilty of sexually abusing a child is sentenced Friday. William Procanick will spend three years in prison followed by five years post-release supervision for sexual abuse. He was also sentenced to one year in Oneida County Jail for endangering the welfare of a child. Procanick is the former pastor of Resurrection Assembly of God church in Clinton . Back in January he was found guilty of touching a seven-year-old girl who slept over his house regularly with he and his wife. In addition to time served Prochanick will also have a permanent order of protection against him. STORY LINK Related Stories 1/22/2008 Former pastor found guilty of sex abuse 8/7/2007 Pastor charged with sex abuse pleads not guilty 7/31/2007 Pastor faces sex abuse charges