I Can t Believe this F#+king Guy!!

Pastor with 666 tattoo claims to be divine
POSTED: 2:08 p.m. EST, February 19, 2007
By John Zarrella and Patrick Oppmann
CNN
Story Highlights
• Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, a minister, says he is God
• De Jesus preaches that there is no devil and no sin
• His church claims thousands of members in more than 30 countries

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MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The minister has the number
666 tattooed on his arm.

But Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical
minister. De Jesus, or "Daddy" as his thousands of
followers call him, does not merely pray to God: He
says he is God.

"The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was
in Jesus of Nazareth," de Jesus says.

De Jesus' claims of divinity have angered Christian
leaders, who say he is a fake. Religious experts say
he may be something much more dangerous, a cult leader
who really believes he is God. (Watch followers get
666 tattoos for their leader )

"He's in their heads, he's inside the heads of those
people," says Prof. Daniel Alvarez, a religion expert
at Florida International University who has debated
some of de Jesus' followers.

"De Jesus speaks with a kind of conviction that makes
me consider him more like David Koresh or Jim Jones."

Is de Jesus really a cult leader like David Koresh,
who died with more than 70 of his Branch Davidian
followers in a fiery end to a standoff with federal
authorities, or Jim Jones, the founder of the Peoples
Temple who committed mass suicide with 900 followers
in 1978?

Prophets 'spoke to me'
De Jesus and his believers say their church --
"Creciendo en Gracia," Spanish for "Growing in grace"
-- is misunderstood. Followers of the movement say
they have proof that their minister is divine and that
their church will one day soon be a major faith in the
world.

But even de Jesus concedes that he is an unlikely
leader of a church that claims thousands of members in
more than 30 countries.

De Jesus, 61, grew up poor in Puerto Rico. He says he
served stints in prison there for petty theft and says
he was a heroin addict.

De Jesus says he learned he was Jesus reincarnate when
he was visited in a dream by angels.

"The prophets, they spoke about me. It took me time to
learn that, but I am what they were expecting, what
they have been expecting for 2,000 years," de Jesus
says.

The church that he began building 20 years ago in
Miami resembles no other:


Followers have protested Christian churches in Miami
and Latin America, disrupting services and smashing
crosses and statues of Jesus.


De Jesus preaches there is no devil and no sin. His
followers, he says, literally can do no wrong in God's
eyes.


The church calls itself the "Government of God on
Earth" and uses a seal similar to the United States.

Doing God's work with a Lexus and Rolex
If Creciendo en Gracia is an atypical religious group,
de Jesus also does not fit the mold of the average
church leader. De Jesus flouts traditional vows of
poverty.

He says he has a church-paid salary of $136,000 but
lives more lavishly than that. During an interview, he
showed off a diamond-encrusted Rolex to a CNN crew and
said he has three just like them. He travels in
armored Lexuses and BMWs, he says, for his safety. All
are gifts from his devoted followers.

And what about the tattoo of 666 on his arm?

Although it's a number usually associated with Satan,
not the son of God, de Jesus says that 666 and the
Antichrist are, like him, misunderstood.

The Antichrist is not the devil, de Jesus tells his
congregation; he's the being who replaces Jesus on
Earth.

"Antichrist is the best person in the world," he says.
"Antichrist means don't put your eyes on Jesus because
Jesus of Nazareth wasn't a Christian. Antichrist means
do not put your eyes on Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Put
it on Jesus after the cross."

And de Jesus says that means him.

So far, de Jesus says that his flock hasn't been
scared off by his claims of being the Antichrist. In a
show of the sway he holds over the group, 30 members
of his congregation Tuesday went to a tattoo parlor to
have 666 also permanently etched onto their skin.

He may wield influence over them, but his followers
say don't expect them to go the way of people who
believed in David Koresh and Jim Jones. Just by
finding de Jesus, they say, they have achieved their
purpose.

"If somebody tells us drink some Kool-Aid and we'll go
to heaven, that's not true. We are already in heavenly
places," follower Martita Roca told CNN after having
666 tattooed onto her ankle.

I said:

yeah, i heard about this guy 10 days ago, and i think that the best thing for all concerned is that this guy catches multiple bullets being fired from automatic weapons at close range with his face. all self-delusional assholes that somehow acquire this much power should be eliminated immediately and wiped off the face of the earth, no questions asked. especially with his ineffalibility doctrine and political agenda, one of the worst of all human combinations. if we pray to jesus hard enough, hopefully, we'll be reading about his demise before anybody involved really gets hurt.

Sara replied:

most people are self delusional to a point, and more people think of themselves as infallible than we really want to admit. the thing is that we are usually seeing them in political circles. now you see a self delusional person in a religious context and your thought is kill him? just because you don;t agree with what he preaches or says? one of the main things we DON'T like is the intollerance between religions, and now, because you come across one who is not mainstream you say kill him. and while i don;t agree with him, and i think his followers are nucking futz, he has the right to preach what he wants(just like ANY OTHER church or religious leader out there) and his followers have the right to follow him. If i was into killing people who i thought were self delusional and had a god complex there would be no jerry falwells or other "christians" who preach hate left and the 700 club would be banned from air time on my tv. but jerry falwell has the right to be a self delusi onal asshole and the 700 club has just as much right to be on tv as any other infomercial. and these people have the right to have 666 tattooed anywhere they want and follow someone who is crazy. your response to this really disapointed me

I replied:

your argument fails because your analogy doesn't apply to this case. you state that 'most people are self delusional to a point,' and although that may be correct, that is different enough from this case as not to apply. this guy is much more than self-delusional to a point, he may be the most extreme form of self-delusion and that is dangerous, both to himself and others. also, you state that 'more people think of themselves as infallible than we really want to admit' and although this may be true, again, it doesn't apply to this case because there's a difference between privately thinking your infallible and maybe being arrogant to friends and family and preaching your the infallible God of Christianity to thousands of your followers.

and it's not just my disagreement with his doctrine or his politics or the fact that he's not mainstream, that is totally to miss the crux of my argument, which I should have explained better to clear up any confusion and didn't really touch on my previous response. (i actually wrote 6 pages about this last night with what i really thought, but didn't want to send it for obvious reasons) i have no problem with muslims, hindus, mormons, catholics, atheists, etc., etc., that's fine with me.

my point is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and this guy is preaching a doctrine that will lead to him having absolute power over his followers and that is what i don't like. it is extremely dangerous for one man, especially a man like this, to have that much power. how many examples of men throughout history do we need to prove this. George Bush, Osama bin Laden, Stalin, Hitler, and the religious right people in our own country. how many people have died, murdered by followers of these people because it was their master's will? and although the followers of falwell and robertson are more level headed than these other follower's they have still killed people because they disagreed with their master, like abortion doctors and gay people. if these religious right people start preaching this guy's doctrine the carnage will be even greater.

you also right about his and their's freedom of speech and religion and tatooing, i totally agree with that. but this is going to lead to a situation like i stated above, i see only bad consequences following this guy and his followers, so like i said before, why not just end things now before anybody gets hurt. also, if christianity is correct and this guy really is the christ or the anti-christ, then killing him would be a good thing. the reason that is is because if he's the anti-christ, then after he's dead, satan will resurrect him and armageddon will start which will eventually lead to heaven on earth. if he is really christ, then he'll obviously be able to prevent himself from being killed and the attack will start the war of armageddon and eventaully lead to heaven on earth. either one's a winning combination. so if this guy really is one of these two people, why doesn't he put his money where his mouth is and start the war of armagedon. a bullet coming his way would just fulfill chrisitan and his own personal destiny. if not, one more looney is off the face of the earth. like i said before, either way, it's a winning combination