Weird and Religious
Among the ancient Maya, human sacrifice was tied to astronomy and kingship. Captured rulers or nobles could be sacrificed during major calendar events. Blood was seen as sacred nourishment for the gods, linking political power, timekeeping, and violence in a single religious act.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
2016, Syria, sectarian militias. Various Shia and Sunni Muslim militias committed atrocities during the civil war. Fighters justified actions as defending their branch of Islam, protecting shrines, and fighting heretics or unbelievers.
Fact
In Buddhism, wisdom is developed through understanding reality as it is, and Buddhism links wisdom to seeing impermanence, suffering, and non self clearly.
Scaling religion
The movement from campfires to cathedrals is not a tale of enlightenment but of consolidation. Small, flexible beliefs suited intimate, mobile groups, while large, rigid faiths suited vast and stratified societies. As civilisation scaled, religion scaled with it, becoming more complex, more moralising, and more authoritarian because those traits benefited those who ruled.
Understanding this history strips religion of its illusion of divine direction. It was not leading humanity toward higher knowledge but responding to social pressure and political opportunity. The gods rose as states rose, merged as empires merged, and demanded obedience as authority demanded obedience. The architecture grew grander, the language more refined, yet the mechanism that sustained it remained the same.
Quote of the day
“Religion is the one area of our discourse in which it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about.” Sam Harris.
Ask the right question
Why would a perfect creator design a world that requires constant divine intervention through miracles?
Religious Crooks
Maria Devi Christos, born Marina Tsvigun, led the Great White Brotherhood movement in Ukraine, presenting apocalyptic religious claims while organising followers in ways authorities described as manipulative and financially exploitative.
For more information, google the name.
Almost all of the crooks appearing in this section have their own wikipedia page.
That was just a tiny case in a vast ocean of religious crooks.