Weird and Religious
In medieval Christianity, pieces of saints’ bodies were treated as powerful objects. Churches claimed to possess multiple skulls or bones of the same saint, sometimes more body parts than one person could physically have had. Pilgrims still travelled long distances to see them.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
1995, Tokyo in Japan. Members of Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas in the subway, killing and injuring commuters. The cult blended apocalyptic beliefs and claimed spiritual necessity. Leaders justified violence as purifying the world, protecting followers, and fulfilling a divine end times mission.
Fact
In Sikhism, humility is praised, and Sikhism teaches avoiding pride and recognising dependence on the divine.
Faith or reality?
Religion romanticises faith as courage in the face of uncertainty, but that description is false. Courage faces uncertainty without inventing answers. Faith avoids uncertainty by declaring it solved. It replaces the discomfort of not knowing with the comfort of imagined certainty. That comfort is seductive, yet it destroys intellectual honesty. The unknown is not confronted. It is buried beneath conviction.
This does not mean that humans must live without meaning or conviction. It means that meaning and conviction should rest on reality, not retreat from it. Questioning does not corrode understanding. It creates it. Doubt is not decay but a sign that a belief deserves attention. Reason does not destroy truth. It destroys error.
Quote of the day
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” Karl Marx.
Ask the right question
Why do gods described as beyond time and space so often display very human emotions like anger, jealousy and regret?
Religious Crooks
Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga, built a global yoga movement with spiritual overtones and faced numerous lawsuits alleging sexual harassment and assault, with court judgments and settlements severely damaging his standing.
For more information, google the name.
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.