Weird and Religious
There are hadith in Islam that state a fly has disease on one wing and cure on the other, and that if it falls into a drink, it should be fully dipped before being removed. The idea treats a common insect as carrying both harm and remedy in a balanced way.
Religious image of the day.
In the name of religion
1975, Lebanon civil war phase. Christian and Muslim militias attacked civilian neighbourhoods in sectarian cleansing campaigns. Leaders justified operations as protecting their religious communities, defending holy identity, and preventing domination by rival faith based factions.
Fact
In Taoism, harmony with the Tao is the ideal, and Taoism encourages living in a way that flows naturally with the patterns of nature rather than forcing outcomes.
Free Speech in the West
Western democracies are not immune to the erosion of free speech. Laws that criminalise speech described as grossly offensive transfer authority from reason to sensitivity, and the question shifts from whether harm occurred to whether someone felt offended. Once offence becomes a legal standard, truth becomes negotiable and criticism becomes risky. The modern expansion of hate-speech concepts is often used not to prevent harm but to suppress unpopular ideas, and the boundary between protection and censorship is crossed quietly, always in the name of good intentions. Slowly, so-called free societies are restricting free speech to protect religion. The increase in its easily-offended Muslim population has seen the UK make a drastic U-turn from free speech to a totalitarian state where the police can knock at your door and arrest you over a Facebook comment.
Quote of the day
“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.” Bertrand Russell.
Ask the right question
Why do religious moral codes often lag behind secular ethical developments?
Religious Crooks
Victor Kusi Boateng is a Ghanaian pastor and political religious figure whose finances and identity details became the subject of investigation, with controversy over how religious status intersected with money and influence.
For more information, google the name.
Almost all of the crooks appearing in this section have their own wikipedia page.
Throughout history and still to this day, there has never been a shortage of religious leaders who were not always following their own spiritual advice.