Weird and Religious
Islamic lore includes detailed descriptions of hell where people’s skins are repeatedly burned off and replaced so that punishment can continue. The body is portrayed as being constantly renewed in order to experience ongoing sensation, which gives the afterlife a graphic physical dimension.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
2020, France, Nice. An Islamist extremist killed worshippers in a church. The attacker framed the act as revenge for perceived insults to Islam and justified killing civilians as part of a religious struggle against unbelievers.
Fact
In Islam, the global community of believers is called the ummah, and Islam teaches a sense of shared identity and responsibility that goes beyond nationality or ethnicity.
Divine reactions
The idea that god is unchanging while also responding to human behaviour creates problems. If god never changes, then god cannot react, regret, forgive, or become angry, yet scriptures are filled with divine reactions. If god does change, then god is not perfect, because perfection does not require revision, but both positions are asserted without acknowledgement of the contradiction.
Quote of the day
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil, but for good people to do evil, that takes religion.” Steven Weinberg.
Ask the right question
If divine truth is timeless, why does religious language reflect ancient cosmology and geography?
Religious Crooks
Uriel da Costa style historical critics exist, but a clearer modern example is Paul Mackenzie of Kenya, a preacher who urged followers to starve in order to meet Jesus, leading to mass deaths and investigations into how religious control over believers was used in a closed community setting.
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.
History tells us that wherever fools gathered, there was always a religious crook to take advantage of them. The best way to stop the crooks is not to be a fool.