Weird and Religious
Among the Shona of Zimbabwe, ancestral spirits called mhondoro are believed to protect the land and the people. Mediums can enter trance states in which these spirits speak through them, giving guidance on community matters and moral conduct.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
1991, Algeria civil conflict. Islamist groups targeted civilians, intellectuals, and foreigners during insurgency. Violence was justified as jihad to overthrow a secular state, enforce Islamic rule, and punish those seen as enemies of Islam.
Fact
In Hinduism, there is no single central authority that defines belief for everyone, which results in substantial diversity of ideas, practices, and regional traditions within the same religious framework.
Thrivng on a Weakness
The brain is a pattern-hungry machine that connects dots constantly, whether they belong together or not. This ability helped ancestors track animals, seasons, and threats, but it also causes humans to see meaning in coincidence and order in chaos. Faces appear in clouds, messages appear in random noise, and when two unrelated events occur close together, the brain often treats them as connected. Religion thrives on this weakness. A prayer followed by a positive outcome becomes evidence, and a ritual followed by survival becomes proof. Failed predictions are quietly ignored or reinterpreted, and the pattern survives because the brain wants it to.
Quote of the day
“Faith is the great cop out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.” Richard Dawkins.
Ask the right question
Why would a god reveal different and conflicting rules to different groups of people?
Religious Crooks
Theodore McCarrick was a high ranking Catholic cardinal who was laicised after church investigations concluded he had sexually abused adults and minors, with findings that his senior religious position enabled misconduct over decades.
For more information, google the name.
Almost all of the crooks appearing in this section have their own wikipedia page.
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.