Weird and Religious
During the European witch trials, animals called “familiars” were believed to be demons in disguise helping witches. A pet cat, toad, or even a fly could be presented in court as evidence of a pact with the Devil.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
2014, Syria and Iraq under Islamic State expansion. The group massacred Shia Muslims, Christians, and others, destroying shrines and churches. It justified killings and enslavement through extremist interpretations of Islam, claiming divine command to eliminate unbelief and establish a caliphate.
Fact
In Buddhism, dependent origination explains how experiences arise through causes and conditions, and Buddhism uses this idea to show that nothing exists independently.
Centuries of inequality
Religion insists that its gender rules are sacred, yet they are not. They are historical artefacts frozen into dogma. Their persistence does not demonstrate truth but endurance. When belief protects inequality from criticism, it stops being belief and becomes domination.
The treatment of women is not a marginal flaw in religion but its clearest diagnostic feature. It exposes who wrote the rules, who benefited from them, and who suffered their cost. A divine moral authority would not require half of humanity to submit in silence. A human one does. Religion did not receive its view of women from god. It imposed its view of women onto god and then demanded obedience in his name. The result has been centuries of inequality justified as holiness, defended not as custom or law but as destiny. Once this is recognised, the sacred mask falls away, and what remains is what it has always been: patriarchy, speaking with divine confidence.
Quote of the day
“Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.” Thomas Paine.
Ask the right question
If divine justice is perfect, why does it resemble ancient human legal systems with rewards and punishments?
Religious Crooks
Marcial Maciel was the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a Catholic religious order, and was later found by Vatican investigations to have sexually abused minors and seminarians over many years while using his religious status to avoid scrutiny.
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.