Weird and Religious
There have also been religions built around very recent figures. In parts of Melanesia in the twentieth century, “cargo cults” formed where people believed Western goods came from ancestral spirits. They built imitation airstrips and control towers from wood, performing rituals in the hope that planes full of supplies would return.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
2005 to 2014, northern Nigeria. Boko Haram carried out bombings, massacres, and mass kidnappings, including schoolgirls. The group justified violence as rejecting Western education, enforcing strict Islam, and punishing Muslims and Christians seen as collaborators, promising divine approval for warfare.
Fact
In Islam, the declaration of faith affirms belief in one God and in Muhammad as messenger, and Islam treats this statement as entry into the faith.
Religion and politics
The idea that religion stands apart from politics collapses as soon as it is tested. Religion is political by design, dictating behaviour, enforcing norms, and legitimising authority while presenting these functions as eternal truths rather than human arrangements. Once power is described as sacred, resisting it becomes dangerous even when it is unjust. Religion did not restrain tyranny. It perfected it. It gave rulers moral immunity and followers a reason to comply. It did not civilise power but sanctified it, and the suffering that resulted was not a tragic misuse of religion but the predictable outcome of merging authority with the absolute.
Quote of the day
“Religion can be defined as a belief in and reverence for a supernatural power, but it is also a system of control.” Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
Ask the right question
Why do creation stories from different religions contradict each other in basic details?
Religious Crooks
Michael Travesser, also known as Wayne Bent, led a small apocalyptic religious group and claimed prophetic status, exercising strict control over followers’ lives and resources, later convicted on charges involving abuse within the group.
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.