Also check out the Urban Myths website to become familiar with other non-Christian related urban myths, (you will be surprised on what truths are actually myths).  Please use discernment when using this site as any religious related articles have an atheist bias to them.

URBAN MYTHS WITHIN THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

The next time someone presses your outrage button by telling you such & such appeared on a talk show saying something outrageous, ask for a transcript--especially before passing on the information. And if those rumors involve the names of Procter & Gamble, Janet Reno or Liz Claiborne, you are out of luck: There are no such transcripts. These individuals never appeared on the talk shows identified in common rumors continuing to spread among Christians and other conservatives.

THE PROCTER & GAMBLE RUMORS

The latest wave of rumors is the resurrection of an old one mentioning Procter & Gamble's president. This prompted Procter & Gamble in late July to add yet another Web site posting--this time a 7/27/99 letter from the executive producer of the Sally Jessy Raphael Show, Maurice Tunick.

Tunick writes:
"It seems impossible that the rumor of an appearance by the President of Procter & Gamble on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show is still circulating after more than a decade. There is absolutely nothing to this rumor. The president of P&G has never appeared on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show, nor has any other P&G executive. Anyone who claims to have seen such a broadcast is either mistaken or lying. It never happened!"

Tunick's letter joins a parade of similar letters on the Web site squelching the rumor--letters from Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Paige Patterson of the Southern Baptist Convention, Thomas Trask of the General Council of the Assemblies of God, and the Most Rev. Daniel E. Pilarczyck, Archbishop of Cincinnati.

Since one of the original rumors pinpointed the Phil Donahue Show as being the talk show--not Sally Jessy Raphael--Procter & Gamble's Web site also includes a 1995 letter signed by Phil Donahue with the near-exact same language as the Tunick letter.

Through the years, the Procter & Gamble rumors have ranged from baseless rumors proclaiming that the corporation's logo is Satanic to numerous twists regarding the Donahue show. In circulated rumors re: the alleged Donahue appearance, the year would be revised as to when the airing occurred, however in each instance, the date of March 1 would be given.

Procter & Gamble maintains that the moon and stars in its logo represents a picture of the "man in the moon looking at the stars, which represents the original 13 colonies," according to a 1982 Los Angeles Times article.

To access Procter & Gamble's Web site, go to www.pg.com/rumor/index.html

JANET RENO RUMOR

Family Research Council attempted to put this rumor to bed in 1995, when it reported on p. 2 of its May 1, 1995 Washington Watch the following:

"Justice department spokesman Carl Stern has debunked rumors that Attorney General Janet Reno appeared on CBS's 60 Minutes and defined 'cult' as 'one who has a strong belief in the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ.' Stern traced the rumor to an Illinois-based newsletter. Since then, the false story has enjoyed a life of its own. According to Stern, the newsletter editor printed a retraction and, in fact, Reno avoids using the words 'cult' and 'cultist' and has never defined them publicly."

The "life of its own" status of the rumor seemed to take on broader circulation in 1998 when it made the rounds via the online community. The Office of Legislative Affairs issued a statement in early 1995 that up until that time, Janet Reno had never even appeared on 60 Minutes.

LIZ CLAIBORNE RUMOR

Recent e-mails to Focus on the Family not only address a revival of old Procter & Gamble rumors, but some have attached a resurrected Liz Claiborne rumor as well. Focus on the Family has previously checked with other ministries knowledgeable in this area, confirming that Liz Claiborne had yet to appear on any talk show either to discuss personal connections with occultism--or for any purpose.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Barbara Cloud likewise looked into the rumor when she was working at another Pittsburgh publication:

"I did look into it, and this is what I found out: Claiborne...never appeared as a guest on the [Oprah Winfrey] show. I had called both Claiborne and Winfrey, and they vehemently denied the circulating rumor. I wrote about it. I thought it would be put to rest. Certain rumors, however, refuse to die. The Claiborne rumor popped up again a year or two after the first incident...'Liz Claiborne has never been on our show,' said Oprah's spokesperson. And the Claiborne front office was just as adamant."

To access this column by Barbara Cloud, go to: http://post-gazette.com/columnists/19990221cloud.asp

MADALYN MURRAY O'HAIR RUMORS

This rumor is the granddaddy of them all, having been in circulation for over 20 years. In fact, the written rumor itself reveals its age since it claims that Madalyn Murray O'Hair took prayer out of school "15 years ago." Since the court decisions affecting school prayer occurred in 1961 and 1962, simple math shows that the nameless source(s) who started this rumor set this in motion a few years after two California men--not Madalyn Murray O'Hair--sent a petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Apparently, these men asked for an investigation into the operation procedures of non-commercial broadcasting stations, including those licensed to religious and educational organizations. The FCC routinely assigned this petition the number RM-2493. On August 1, 1975, the FCC denied this petition, saying that it had no authority to promote or inhibit religious broadcasting on the airwaves according to an article in The Lutheran Witness ("Two Rumors That Refuse to Die" by Eldon K. Winker, 12/92, p. 8).

Nevertheless, the rumor persisted to the point that the FCC had installed a special phone number for handling thousands of calls it was receiving concerning this rumor. The number has since been disconnected. The Focus on the Family Citizen Magazine reported that by the mid-1990s, the FCC was receiving nearly 1.5 million written protests and another 4,000 calls per year on this subject, continuing to cause "unnecessary fear--and embarrassment--in the Christian community."

The National Religious Broadcasters and the FCC have maintained that Madalyn Murray O'Hair never concocted any plan to dismantle religious broadcasting via the FCC. In fact, O'Hair, along with her son and adopted daughter, disappeared in 1995. The trio were recently declared dead by authorities.

On a lighter note, the following story is a montage of several of the urban myths currently floating around cyberspace. This anonymous email is being passed around under the heading, "It Must be True, I Saw it on the Internet."

I was on my way to the post office to pick up my case of free M&M's (sent to me because I forwarded an e-mail to five other people, celebrating the fact that the year 2000 is "MM" in Roman numerals), when I ran into a friend whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (which is predictable, since as everyone knows, there's no actual chicken in Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is why the government made them change their name to KFC).

Anyway, one day this guy went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over and when he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEY HAD BEEN STOLEN.He saw a note on his mirror that said "Call 911!" but he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an e-mail entitled "Join the crew!"

He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $250.00 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates. (It's true - I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.)

The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but a voice on the line first asked him to press #90, which unwittingly gave the bandit full access to the phone line at the guy's expense.  Then reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped a note that said, "Welcome to the world of AIDS."

Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital - the one where that little boy who is dying of cancer is, the one whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives. I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of x's and o's in the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to more than 10 people, you will have good luck but for only 10 people you will only have OK luck and if you send it to fewer than 10 people you will have BAD LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS).

So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation.

Send THIS to all the friends who send you their mail and you will receive 4 green M&Ms -- if you don't, the owner of Proctor and Gamble will report you to his Satanist friends and you will have more bad luck: you will get sick from the Sodium Laureth Sulfate in your shampoo, your spouse will develop a skin rash from using the antiperspirant which clogs the pores under your arms, and the U.S. government will put a tax on your e-mails forever.

I know this is all true 'cause I read it on the Internet.
Author unknown