Many religious cults are based on apocalypticism, the belief that the world is going to end. Check out ten such beliefs, their founders, and followers. One such cult is the Panacea Society.
There are nine other cults profiled at Ty.rannosaur.us. Link
In 1792, part-time fortune teller Joanna Southcott started collecting “divine revelations” and had them sealed in a box with strict instructions to open it only for Jesus. Her followers called themselves Southcottians and were mostly early-19th century Spiritualists. Southcott dramatically announced that she was pregnant with the messiah, Shiloh, whose birth would kill all but her followers. However, Southcott was a 64-year-old virgin who showed no signs of pregnancy. To Southcott’s credit, she began doubting her beliefs when she failed to give birth but died before she was able to do anything about it. The sudden power vacuum among the Southcottians brought out all sorts of leadership, all of whom claimed they could psychically communicate with Southcott’s box, and transformed the Southcottians into a bizarre cult that refused to bury Southcott’s corpse, believing that she would be resurrected. They renamed themselves the Panacea Society under the belief that they had healing powers, and still believe that Shiloh will descend from heaven to reboot the world at a later date.
There are nine other cults profiled at Ty.rannosaur.us. Link
October 7th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I can go to just about any Christian church around here and find myself among apocalyptic cultists."
Ding.
FTA: "Jesus will return to heaven with the most righteous 144,000 souls."
This actually is taken from Christian Dogma, with some branches of Christianity also believing that the 144,000 number is the tally of those who get to ascend to heaven.
All religions are cults. The most popular ones are the only ones who have enough people to shout back saying theirs is not one.
You don't even have to be an atheist to see this. I know many agnostic and "spiritual but not religious" people who simply accept there can and may be a higher power and the best thing to do is just to live an honourable life. Can't argue with that.