CultNEWS101 Articles: 10/8/2025
Patrick Ryan
Have you ever wondered why some people believe in things that aren't exactly true, and even share those things widely? Well, it's all about understanding the psychological phenomena that make us prone to believing and spreading misinformation, the clever tactics used by its creators, and how our media and political landscape today help it go viral.
The good news? Psychological scientists have come up with smart ways to tackle and debunk this misinformation. "Mind Over Misinformation" is a series of short online modules packed with the methods they've developed and tested to help stop misinformation in its tracks.
These modules will help you:
- Identify potential misinformation
- Recognize your own biases and how they might affect your judgment
- Evaluate emotional content more objectively
- Apply your cognitive skills, education, and experience to fact-checking
- Approach different media sources with appropriate skepticism
In today's digital age, misinformation can shape opinions, influence decisions, and even impact elections. Understanding how and why it spreads empowers you to think critically and make informed choices.
"Numerous discussions of the similarities between the LDS temple endowment and Masonic rites exist, which give the impression that the two overlap considerably. Rather than focus on the similarities themselves, this paper seeks to quantify how much the two rites overlap by performing a textual analysis. In the first section, the named entities, clothing, props, and participants in the ceremonies are compared. In the second section a line-by-line comparison identifies similar wording, structure, and meaning in the text, which results in a 10% to 17% overlap between the texts. The third section involves comparing sequences of one to five words in the text. For this task, three additional texts were included for comparison: portions of the Pearl of Great Price, the Odd Fellows rite, and the mystagogical catechesis (an initiation into mysteries). In some instances, comparisons indicate more similarity between the Masonic and Odd Fellows ceremonies than between the LDS endowment and the Masonic rite."
"Russell M. Nelson, the oldest-ever president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died Saturday night (Sept. 27) at the age of 101, church officials announced.
Nelson died at his home in Salt Lake City, church spokesperson Candice Madsen said in a statement.
Nelson, a former heart surgeon, spent four decades in the highest levels of church leadership after he was selected in 1984 to join a top church governing body called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He ascended to the presidency in January 2018 when Thomas S. Monson died and in 2024 became the first president of the faith to hit the century mark."
" ... The former heart surgeon had a vibrant and transformative tenure, especially in 2018, his first year, when he made a surprising announcement calling on people to stop using the shorthand names “Mormon” and “LDS” as substitutes for the full name of the religion, a sharp shift after previous church leaders spent millions to promote the moniker over decades.
Nelson also made headlines the next year when he repealed rules that banned baptisms for children of gay parents and labeled same-sex couples as sinners eligible for expulsion. Those 2015 policies had generated widespread backlash.
But even though Nelson’s administration was gentler and more welcoming to LGBTQ+ people than those of previous presidents, the church stance on same-sex marriage didn’t change. His administration also sharpened rules limiting the participation of members who pursue gender-affirming medical procedures or change their names, pronouns or how they dress, leading to criticism that it would marginalize transgender members."
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