This is what happens when people take Chuck Palahniuk too seriously.
Posted on 03/31/2008 11:31:29 AM PDT by marthemaria
NIKOLSKOE, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian doomsday cult sheltering in a bunker say credit cards and food packaging bar codes are satanic, the official negotiating the release of children from the group said on Monday.
Around 30 followers, including four children, from across Russia and neighboring Belarus met last October and barricaded themselves into a hillside to escape an apocalypse their preacher says is looming in either April or May.
"For us right now, what's most important is the children," said Alexander Yelatontsev, an official from Russia's Penza Oblast region, who has been the chief point of contact for the cult since the siege began.
"They have burned their passports and say that all plastic (credit) cards and strip codes on food packaging are the work of Satan," he told reporters.
Yelatontsev said the people underground were in contact with him regularly, and would accept food only if it had not been processed with modern factory equipment.
"Right now they are asking for a cow so that they can have fresh, boiled milk that is not processed," he said.
He said progress was slow but local authorities were negotiating with the group to leave their refuge.
"In as much as their beliefs have been formed over a long period of time, convincing them to come out is not going to happen quickly," he said
On Friday the entrance to the bunker partially collapsed after rain and melting snow soaked the muddy hillside and the ground gave way.
Seven women were isolated from the rest of the group by the mudslide, and had to emerge from their shelter and seek refuge in a nearby home. The bunker is near the village of Nikolskoe, 750 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow.
Russian authorities said the splinter sect of the Russian Orthodox church was formed by preacher Pyotr Kuznetsov, who convinced members the world would end in April.
Kuznetsov did not join his followers underground, saying God had given him different tasks. He was arrested but psychiatrists determined he was unfit to stand trial.
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“...credit cards and food packaging bar codes are satanic...,”
They’re right!
This explains why my husband’s head spins like Linda Blair every time the MasterCard bill arrives.
;^)
As I’m cutting my credit cards up, I’m inclined to agree.
I can agree that credit cards are possessed by the devil.
Oh wait, that was my ex wife who possessed them.
I think they’re evil, but it has nothing to do with the bar code.
They have Bank of America in Russia?
My credit card was stolen. When I got the next statement, the thief charged a lot less than my wife, so I let him keep it.
“Kuznetsov did not join his followers underground, saying God had given him different tasks.”
Not to be suspicious but I wonder if those other tasks involve testing PINs at ATMs or dining on donated prepackaged foods.
Well, it used to be the Bank of Italy before it was BofA, why not Russia next?
how did our kooks manage to get all the way to Russia??
I thought we were the only ones who had the black helicopter crowd. Hmm. Maybe Russia really is becoming a true democracy.
Nor should the credit card companies discriminate against the unemployed. They should be required to give them cards and a shredder machine so they can cut them up free of charge.
LOL,You might be on to something there
This is what happens when people take Chuck Palahniuk too seriously.
The cards get it from associating while in your pocket with the evil guns, which spontaneously go on shooting rampages, killing innocent yoots who was never involved in gangs before.
Mount Carmel II?
I agree with the credit card part.
I find it sad that they are asking for a cow from the authorities so they can have milk, too bad that they are against modern food otherwise could have sent them in a box of Oreos too.
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