Weird and Religious
In ancient Mesopotamia, people carried small clay statues of gods in their homes, but if disaster struck they sometimes punished the statue, even throwing it away, as though the god had failed in its duty. The relationship with the divine could be treated like a contract.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
1095 onward, Iberian Peninsula. Christian kingdoms waged the Reconquista against Muslim ruled territories. Warfare, expulsions, and forced conversions were justified as reclaiming Christian land, restoring churches, and fulfilling divine mandate to remove Islamic rule from historically Christian regions.
Fact
In Christianity, worship often takes place in community, and Christianity gathers believers for teaching, prayer, singing, and shared rituals.
Looking for Agents
One of the brain’s most powerful features is agency detection. Early humans who assumed that movement or noise was caused by something alive had a better chance of survival than those who waited for proof. Mistaking the wind for a predator was safer than mistaking a predator for the wind, so the brain learned to err on the side of intention. This instinct never switched off. Humans still look for agents behind events, even when none exist. Storms become angry, illness becomes punishment, and fortune becomes reward. Once agency is assumed, the leap to invisible agents is small, and gods slip neatly into the gap.
Quote of the day
“Men would never be superstitious if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune.” Baruch Spinoza.
Ask the right question
Why do religious taboos often focus on private behaviour while ignoring large scale social harm?
Religious Crooks
Asaram Bapu is an Indian Hindu guru who built a large following and network of ashrams and was later convicted of raping a minor, with courts finding that his spiritual authority was used to exploit a devotee.
For more information, google the name.
Almost all of the crooks appearing in this section have their own wikipedia page.Every country in the world has its fair share of spiritual crooks.
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.