Weird and Religious
The ancient Maya performed bloodletting rituals on themselves, including piercing tongues or genitals, because blood was thought to feed the gods and open portals to the spirit world. Pain was treated as a communication tool with the divine.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
1947, Punjab and Bengal during the Partition of India. Mass killings, abductions, and forced migration accompanied the creation of India and Pakistan. Mobs and militias justified attacks as defending Sikh, Hindu, or Muslim communities, avenging wrongs, and securing territory for their religious group.
Fact
In Sikhism, members of the Khalsa maintain five visible symbols, and Sikhism links these to identity, discipline, and commitment.
Agency by default
Early humans had no concept of natural processes operating without intention, and the idea that things could happen for no reason, or for reasons that did not involve choice, was alien to them. Agency was the default assumption, for if something occurred, someone must have made it occur. Gods became the universal answer precisely because they could be applied universally. They were flexible enough to explain anything and invisible enough to avoid contradiction, and when one explanation failed, another divine motive could always be added without disturbing the underlying belief.
Quote of the day
“Religion has actually convinced people that there is an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do.” George Carlin.
Ask the right question
If religious law is timeless, why do believers quietly ignore many old rules while insisting others remain binding?
Religious Crooks
Shin Ok-ju led the Grace Road Church movement linked to Fiji, presenting prophetic authority and was later convicted in South Korea for abuse of followers, with reports including coercion and mistreatment within a closed religious setting.
For more information, google the name.
Almost all of the crooks appearing in this section have their own wikipedia page.
Today we took a look at yet another religious crook but there are hundreds of thousands of them. You could spend a lifetime researching the topic.