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| Daily Mail: The Grim Reaper, apparently. Can one rationally, seriously for the sake of spiritual worship, imagine taking a friend or relative here for a church service? This sort of dark death celebration is not spiritually beneficial. 'Sure Grandma, I can take you to my church on Sunday'. I can understand attending critically as a religious scholar and philosopher but as a serious adherent bringing others into the fold...hardly. But the world is full of those that do not take religion and philosophy very rationally. One can understand why critics within naturalism do sometimes generalize religious people as irrational idiots. Of course one can have a reasonable, rational, religious faith and worldview. |
Daily Mail December 9, 2014
By Oriana Gonzalez and Alasdair Baverstock In Mexico City
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'Back-street exorcisms, tequila, bullets and Breaking Bad: Inside the Our Lady of Death cult the world's 'fastest growing religion' - which the Vatican brands 'infernal''
On what documentation is it the world's fastest growing religion?
Which experts?
I found this article on my Facebook 'Home' page while at work Tuesday evening. I had not heard or read of the movement previously and therefore my opine shall be limited.
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Cult first grew out of Mexican criminal underworld - drug gangsters pray to 'White Lady' for the 'chance of a good death' in a world where life is cheap
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Made famous by episode of Breaking Bad - where Cousins worship shrine Practices based on Catholicism but Vatican brands it 'sinister and infernal'
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'I had paid the equivalent of £10 for an 'exorcism' with a witch of the Santa Muerte - or Our Lady of Death - which is the fastest growing religion in the world, according to some experts.
It was born out of the Mexican criminal underworld, where the violent wars between rival drugs cartels has made the murder rate soar and the value of life plummet. Here criminals will unthinkingly take your life for less than the value of a new pair of shoes. Followers began building shrines hidden in their homes to pray to her for protection, help and the 'gift' in this violent society of the chance to die a peaceful and 'holy' death without judgement.'
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'The first Western exposure came in an episode of Breaking Bad, the hit series about Walter White, a teacher-turned meth dealer in New Mexico. When twin brothers, the Cousins supposedly belonging to the brutal Sinaloa cartel, are sent to wipe out White, they are seen praying to a shrine covered with candles surrounding a statue of Santa Muerte. They crawl on their hands and knees to reach her altar and make offerings, just as her real-life adherents in Mexico City do. But Santa Muerte cannot be dismissed as fiction, it's lure has become very real. The Santa Muerte cult now has an estimated ten million followers from Buenos Aires, Los Angeles to Japan and Australia.'
'The rate of its growth is staggering in the seventeen years since the first church was publicly established in Mexico's capital. The exorcism which I was undergoing is said to help people filled with sadness or negativity; a shamanistic ritual which purport to purify the soul, ridding it of destructive spirits which have taken hold within.'
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'The Vatican is very keen to distance itself from the cult, calling it 'sinister and infernal'. 'Even if this cult is bringing people disillusioned with religion closer to God, it still uses witchcraft and belief in dark magic in its ceremonies,' said Monsignor Enrique Glennie, the rector of the Virgin of Guadelupe Basilica in Mexico City, one of Latin America's most popular catholic pilgrimage sites. 'Santa Muerte does not represent Christian values'. 'The White Lady doesn't judge me for what I do', says Alejandro Herrera, who robs people at gunpoint throughout Mexico City.'
Respectfully, I would state the Vatican response is inadequate.
If the cult according to the Vatican and Roman Catholic Church is quote 'sinister and infernal', it is satanic and is of the sinful human nature.
The Holy Spirit is not guiding this cult.
Theologically, therefore, it is not of God and at least directly does not bring disillusioned persons closer to God.
If the cult uses witchcraft and dark magic, it is of the occult and not of God.
Indirectly, some could turn to the triune God of the Bible in Christ, after experiencing such evil.
However, if so, that would be an indirect result and would not make the Our Lady Of Death Cult 'good'.
Satanic power is definitely spiritual and can be experienced by humanity, for example, Biblically Jesus Christ was tempted by Satan for forty days in the Gospels. Christ rebuked the satanic power behind the temptation as not being of God, as an inferior, finite, sinful source.
The Scripture is God's revealed religious history and word, inspired by the Holy Spirit and inerrant in the original autographs that provides spiritual guidance through surviving copies.
The Our Lady Of Death Cult as documented appears to be an occultic, movement borrowing from Roman Catholic traditions. The movement being in drastic contrast theologically and philosophically from Biblical Christianity.
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'In addition to exorcisms, the church also holds sacrificial masses on the first day of each month, when pigeons and farm animals are slaughtered on the saint's altar. Every Friday at midday sees a 'prisoner mass', when family members of individuals who are languishing in prison pray for Santa Muerte to 'release the locks' of their cells. 'If Santa Muerte has attracted a large following, many of whom are dedicated to crime and witchcraft, it is because she is not a judgmental saint', says Monsignor Ávila. 'She accepts you for who you are'.'
Vocativ 12/23/13
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'Inside Santa Muerte, Mexico’s Fast-Growing Death Cult Roman Catholicism is still by far the dominant religion in Mexico, but the Santa Muerte is quickly gaining followers. And not everyone is happy about it'
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| Gulf of Mexico-trekearth |
