Raelians

The Raelian Movement

The Raelians follow a prophet who calls himself Rael. Obviously simplifying quite unfairly due to room constraints, Rael was a French journalist who met with some aliens one morning. These extra terrestial beings explained to Rael, among other things, that scientists from another planet created all life on Earth using DNA and that he was to set up an Embassy to welcome our creators back to Earth.

Sound a little far-fetched? Well currently, according to the official Raelian Revolution web page, they have over 55,000 members worldwide and enough money to build the Embassy if it wasn't for all the religious wars in the Middle East preventing them from buying prime real estate in Jerusalem.

It gets worse! Their philosophy or value system is all the good religious stuff without all the little nasties. Very basically, they believe in responsibility and absolute respect of life. They teach love and self respect and believe in World Peace, non-violence, sharing and Democracy. Not so sure about the last one, but that goes to an argument on what Democracy really means. Of course, the current movement supports human cloning and lots of science that some people can't stomach, but basically they seem like alright kind of people. Before you rush out and join, in 1997, the Raelians announced the formation of Valiant Venture Ltd. This company aims to offer a service to infertile and homosexual couples to clone a child from one partner's DNA. Believe it or not, this got them some news coverage and heard outcrys from the ethicists and certain religious groups, but to my knowledge, at this time, they have not successfully cloned any kiddies.

Okay, maybe I just liked the pictures!!!!

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