The idea being passed on through proselytizing, instead of through the gene line.

He also questioned the widespread perception that the sect was a cult, saying

Police made plans to simultaneously raid cult facilities across Japan in March 1995.

It was in fact the revolution that brought all Syrians together, regardless of class, culture and sect.

The Iraqi youth are fed up with the occupation ,are fed up by the division whether sectarian or ethnic and want to restore back the united independent Iraq.

I didn't know that depending on which sect they belong to, priests don't necessarily have to shave their head.

Hindus, Ahmadiyyas, and tribal people in the Chittagong hills, fearful for their safety, have been leaving the country in droves.

In Saudi Arabia, it is difficult even for Muslims who don t adhere to the ultra orthodox Wahhabi sect Shiites, for example, routinely face discrimination.

(b) The release in April 2005 of four Jehovah's Witnesses who had made conscientious objections to undertaking military service

The blogger expressed concern about the way the members of the sect may have been treated while detained and wondered why they had chosen Trinidad as their in transit point.

Foreign reporters are under constant surveillance and risk compromising their contacts. That means one begins to avoid tough subjects, like the repression of Falun Gong and its followers.

That means one begins to avoid tough subjects, like the repression of Falun Gong and its followers.

Cults, as Tom Wolfe succinctly put it, are religions without political power and that is obviously not a description of Judaism.

He repeatedly spoke of building a robust civil society, arguing that political parties will degenerate into sects if they are closed to influence from below.

In Syria, what started as peaceful pro democracy demonstrations deteriorated quickly into an armed insurrection of the Sunni majority against the hegemony of the Alawite sect, led by the Assad family.

All the terrible events since then the Tiananmen Square massacre, persecution of Falun Gong, and repression of civic activists are the evil fruit of that un cleansed original sin.

Now in its third year, the civil war pits the primarily Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government and its security forces, which are stacked with members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The 100,000 members of this Muslim sect, which believes that Muhammad was not the last prophet, have been declared infidels, and the government outlawed their publications until the ban was reversed by the Bangladeshi High Court.

When, in April 1999, ten thousand members of the Falun Gong sect appeared mysteriously in front of Zhongnanhai, the compound of the Chinese Communist Party s leadership, to be arrested en masse, observers found it hard to explain what was going on. The overseas press corps in Beijing was used to explaining political dissidents, student protesters, disgruntled workers and disenfranchised members of the floating population.

The 100,000 members of this Muslim sect, which believes that Muhammad was not the last prophet, have been declared infidels, and the government outlawed their publications until the ban was reversed by the Bangladeshi High Court.

Explosions in Maiduguri, a large city in the northeast where Boko Haram, a violent Muslim sect, remains a threatening presence despite a 2009 government crackdown, forced many voters to stay home.

When, in April 1999, ten thousand members of the Falun Gong sect appeared mysteriously in front of Zhongnanhai, the compound of the Chinese Communist Party s leadership, to be arrested en masse, observers found it hard to explain what was going on.

Most notably, on the night of 27 June 1994, the cult carried out a chemical weapons attack against civilians when they released sarin in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto, Nagano.

Their opinions range from far fetched conspiracies in which Islamic sects other than the one they belong to are plotting their downfall to the belief that America hates Muslims, that its support of Israel is evidence of this, further proven by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Meanwhile, in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, internet and mobile services were shut down for several days surrounding the announcement of the court verdict in a criminal case against Gurmeet Ram Rahim, the controversial leader of the hugely popular Dera Sacha Sauda sect.