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Comment by jmwilson | Hacker News Reader

Title should be clarified to match the article. Not everyone associated with the cult has perished. Several ex-members are alive and some remained close to the cult in a way that's hard to describe, and took on the maintenance of the website.

HBO's series, Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults, is highly recommended. It is a fascinating, tragic, and ultimately humanizing look at the cult, through the eyes of observers and several ex-members.

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As an atheist Heaven's Gate claims are as legitimate (and outlandish) as those of Christians or Buddhists, whose to say they aren't reborn on an alien planet? So let's call it "assumed perished".

Catholicism strictly forbids suicide, I grew up being taught you could go to hell if you commit suicide. I assume it is similar for the other mainstream branches of Christianity. I'm no longer religious, and I understand where you are coming from questioning what ought to qualify as a cult versus a religion, because there are some cases where the difference isn't too clear (besides membership numbers). But any belief system that is actively encouraging suicide has clearly crossed a line.

> But any belief system that is actively encouraging suicide has clearly crossed a line.

Does "handle these venomous snakes, God will protect you" count?

"Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death". So not quite, but I see your point. Thanks for the laugh (sincerely).

I tip my fedora to you good sir.

Thanks for this comment. I was initially impressed that the site stated up that long with no human maintenance.

Also, now I want to watch that documentary

It wouldn't surprise me too much. My completely embarrassing website from the 90s has been running on the same host and subdomain with zero work done by me to keep it running: http://boglin.iwarp.com

I think I edited the HTML once since 1999 to add a Google Analytics tag because I was curious if anyone ever visited it.

Looking forward to your next update. And I didn’t sign the guestbook.

Best be sleeping with one eye open then

Your ICQ number is lower than mine by a little bit, jealous.

My ICQ is even lower (1508789) but I envy his old skool website.

1303789 (the wierdest flex).

It's wild that that number is wedged so deeply into my brain, like a lot of things that were on my mind as a teenager. Makes me want to make sure my kids are doing something worthwhile when they're that age (which I know is futile of course).

Isn't that more about iwarp, who are presumably still alive and running a business and paying bills?

Me too, and I wondered how long they paid the server and domain name cost in advance.

Right. I didn’t realize they were tech trailblazers back in the day until that documentary.

I think there's a decent chance they inspired Cowboy Bebop's episode about the tech cult SCRATCH: https://cowboybebop.fandom.com/wiki/Brain_Scratch

...although Japan has had several really wacky cults that also could have inspired the story.

I took a sociology class on "alternative religions" from Rob Balch in college—he's one of the recurring experts in that series. I enjoyed the HBO series, as it went more into the various individuals' stories than is really on topic for a sociology class.

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