Astraea's Web: Religious Information Mount Carmel Center The home page of the branch Davidian SeventhDay Adventists,with full information about the cult Scares and Religious Intolerance http://www.astraeasweb.net/religion/
Extractions: Click here for Islam Basics Spirituality We see spirituality and religion as two different but related things. Religion is organized, outward. Spirituality is related to how one feels inwardly about God and spiritual things. Interlude Meditations and spiritual expressions from many faiths. Very peaceful. Links to Religious Sites Well-Known Faiths African Methodist Episcopal Bahai Buddhism Catholicism ... Wicca: The Witches' Voice A very large and beautiful resource site. Latest news and views, and basics on what Wicca really is to clear up misunderstandings.
Branch Davidian WACO Jokes Short Books The branch Davidian guide to putting out fires The FBI/BATF guide negotiations with religious cults and fanatics The original (waco) acronym http://www.runningpage.com/drears/humor/waco.html
CNN Interactive: Video Almanac - 1993 A compound occupied by a religious cult burns to the ground in what is described Eightysix cult members, including branch Davidian leader David Koresh, http://www.cnn.com/resources/video.almanac/1993/
Extractions: The World Trade Center is rocked by a bomb, injuring 1,000. A long, tense standoff between federal officials and the Branch Davidian cult near Waco, Texas ends violently. And an infamous moment comes in a bad marriage: Lorena Bobbit cuts her husband John's penis off with a knife as he sleeps. Gays in the military World Trade Center bombing Waco compound burns Bobbitt vs. Bobbitt ... NAFTA becomes law White House officials say President Clinton will order the military to stop its policy of discriminating against gays in the military. The issue gained little attention during the campaign, but incites heated opposition and debate after its announcement. Clinton outlines the directive: 2.8M QuickTime Movie (160x120) 5.6M QuickTime Movie (320x240) BACK TO TOP A huge bomb explodes in the garage below New York's World Trade Center, killing five people and forcing a hectic evacuation of some 50,000 people from the massive twin tower complex. More than 1,000 people are treated for injuries, most from smoke inhalation. Mohammed A. Salameh is later arrested in connection with the bombing as he tries to claim a refund on a rented van believed to have carried the explosion. CNN coverage: 1.5M QuickTime Movie (160x120)
Waco: The Rules Of Engagement - Los Angeles Times (waco) The Rules of Engagement. The cults of centuries past are today saccepted religions by virtue of longevity and adaptability. http://www.waco93.com/latimes7_29_95.htm
Extractions: Rights: Some say government targeted Davidians with such firepower because agents viewed them as a cult.; By: From The Washington Post Congressional hearings on the Branch Davidian siege are raising thorny questions about whether the government owes unconventional and insular religious sects as much religious freedom as that granted more mainstream faiths. Many religion scholars see the Waco case as a colossal government failure to balance a group's 1st Amendment rights to practice its faith freely with the government's imperative to intervene when it suspects laws are being broken. At Waco, law enforcement officials saw sect leader David Koresh as a criminal. But his followers saw a prophet whose penchant for stocking guns and taking multiple, mostly teen-age "wives" was biblically justified. Where the FBI saw hostages, the Branch Davidians saw themselves as willing disciples graced by God. "Religious freedom and religious liberty do not mean that any group is exempt from obeying laws that are already on the books," said J. Phillip Arnold, a scholar at the Reunion Institute in Houston. "But the government doesn't have a right to oppress people because their religious faith is different from the mainstream."
