I stumbled across this page. It seems somebody thinks we (my family) may be a cult! ROFLMAO

The author is more or less self-revealed, but I won't say who it is. Suffice it to say the author had a bizarre bone to pick with us a couple years ago--something that actually had nothing to do with us. We were even "threatened" with a lawsuit if we didn't take down a particular webpage to which the author supposedly objected. (Not even a self-loathing, stupid lawyer would have taken that case!) In any case, I think it's pretty darn funny we were thought to be (by this one person) a possible cult.

As for the gunpowder reference the author makes, we do indeed have a couple pages on black powder recipes (this is a far cry from modern gunpowder, though): here and here. Mostly it's my own curiosity--I'd love to make some one of these days. (Yes, it's legal in small amounts.) I also believe in fighting government censorship, even of information that can be abused. Were such information censored some 230 years ago, America wouldn't even be.

The author made reference to an "Email Jail" that is no longer on my website. It was a simple CGI script that generated pseudo-random web pages with bogus links and bogus email addresses. It was no "code" as the author suggests. The bogus links all led back to the same script and when clicked would generate yet another bogus page. The idea was to trap certain types of web spiders (automated computer programs that visit web pages and steal email addresses it finds) and make them fill up with bogus email addresses and eventually crash. This was an old, unsophisticated attempt to protect our family's email addresses from being swiped by spammers. It's been removed because it's not particularly effective at preventing spam. Instead, I prefer server-side filtering.

As for the "cult" status of which the author accuses us, I can only surmise it is the explicitly Christian nature of our website (and our lives, for that matter). Yes, we're very serious about our Lord and serving Him. I suppose this makes us freaks in today's hedonistic culture. We even created an order of knighthood as a means of describing a kind of personal holiness (being set apart for God's purposes) to which we aspire. However, our God is not unique to us, as the false gods are in cults. Our God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel, the Father of the Messiah ישוע (Jesus) (Jesus), the God of the Bible. Our doctrine is in plain sight for all to see. We have no corner on the market of Christianity. In fact, we're not even an organization at all. We're just a family seeking to live righteously, growing ever closer to our Maker and Savior. We've already raised two children and sent them on their merry way to adulthood--evidence that we don't restrict our "members" from leaving--and we have one more child eager to grow up and serve the Lord according to her calling like her older brother and sister. Membership in our "organization"--family--is not really open to others, per sé, as it was put together by Providence. All this to say we hardly fit any trait of cults, other than our devotion to a Deity--the Deity, Adonai Elohim, the Lord God Almighty, יהוה (the LORD).

Perhaps I should rename this website from TuscanyCircle (originally named for the street on which we live, BTW) to "The TuscanyCircle Cult" in honor of this person's bizarre suspicions. In keeping with our new cult-like philosophy, anybody who visits this website is immediately forced into lifetime membership and they may never leave the website. You must sell all your belongings and give the money to me. You must give up all your other friends and be friends only with us. And we'll just sit around all day collecting email addresses and making black powder. (Ouch! I think I split my side laughing so darn hard!)