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Interesting Facts about Different Religions

 
 
 
R

rousseau

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Setting the militancy aside for a moment, I thought it'd be interesting to get a thread going about religion from a purely anthropological perspective. That is: religion as a thing that human beings do and all that this has entailed throughout history.

  • What are some unique religions or sects?
  • What interesting or unique beliefs have arisen amongst the brunt of religions out there?
  • What are some obscure, and lesser known religions?

etc

And GO
 
Well these are ideas, not necessarily facts - we have zero evidence of God, Heaven, Hell or Reincarnation
So, we have different ideas - basically on life and what happens after death. None of us want to die, none of us want to accept that after we die, we cease to exist, there is no more & that opened the door to religions and their promises of the afterlife

The 4 major religions can be put into two buckets

1. Two religions - Christianity and Islam offer a paradise in the afterlife - life will be easy and good. Two other faiths - Hinduism & Buddhism & their offshoots like Sikhism are basically agreeing with Science when they preach Reincarnation - that this is it. This is all there is - hence the stress on coming back, Reincarnation. Buddhism, especially, stresses how to better our lives here and now. I don't think the Buddha ever talked about the afterlife and i would like some Buddhists to chime in and expand our knowledge further on this

2. The Abrahamic God is a King/Master - one must submit, obey and beg for his mercy to be allowed into his Kingdom. Buddhism does not preach a God but we see the Buddha as a Teacher. Hinduism also sees God as a guide, a Teacher. The concept of forgiveness is not there in either of these two religions - it would be akin to asking the Teacher to change an F to a D - as we know no student should ask for it and no Teacher would allow that to happen. Whereas a King is free to pardon anyone he wants, regardless of their qualifications

3. In the Abrahamic religions the operative word is Give - God will give you the good life in heaven - what you did in life does not matter, the only qualification is religion it seems. In Hinduism and Buddhism the operative word is Earn - actions(karmas) matter in fact, those are the only things that matter - one is defined (not judged, a Teacher does not judge) by one's actions (Karmas). Moksha is always earned, never given. So we see that Heaven has mainly to do with the flesh - pleasures of the flesh - with money a person can buy all the pleasures of the flesh - food, sex, a roof over his head - money can be given, whereas Moksha is all about the mind - if one wants to become a physician, Scientist or the next Mozart - such skills have to be Earned, they cannot be given
 
A few months back I spent some time studying indigenous beliefs (both African, and North American), and one re-occurring aspect of their belief systems that I found interesting was the 'trickster' character. That is, there were characters built into their mythology which reinforced the importance of following social norms.

This type of thinking would have been critical in a world where an unsuccessful hunt, or other minor quibbles could quite literally mean the difference between life and death.
 
He asked for Interesting facts, Ramaraksha, not yet another rehashing of your dumb ideas. Your system only works if you ignore large religions from neither family, as well as all the fusion religions out there. Indeed, every religion is nothing more than a synthesis of previously existing ideas. Categorizing them as you do is overly simplistic, and not really all that interesting.

On topic: Over the millenia, Confucianism and Taoism have formed a symbiotic relationship: a single person, over the course of his life, may move from Confucianism when he is younger and raising a family, to Taoism as he gets older, retires and becomes more concerned with spiritual issues.

Mormons do not allow non-Mormons into their holy places. No pictures of these places exist.

The Golden Temple of Amritsar is both the holiest place for the Sikh religion, and the world's largest charity kitchen, serving more than 10,000 meals per day.

There is a cave in the himalayas where a huge icicle is revered as a lingam of Siva, but recently the priests have been limiting the number of pilgrims allowed as they worried the body heat was causing it to melt.

The Church of the Savior on Blood was erected on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. A nihilist had thrown a grenade at the Tsar's carriage. The Tsar then came out to yell at the guy, and a second attacker threw another grenade, killing him. The church was erected as a memorial, and is the only "Russian Style" church in downtown St Petersburg, which is a predominantly Dutch-classical revival city, based on Tsar Peter's wishes. Since Tsar Alexander was killed on the street, the church is built on what used to be a major road, causing a bit of a detour.

The native hawaiians of the island of Molokai worshipped a 'Poison Goddess.' The idol of this goddess was allegedly carved from a poisonous tree-hundreds were said to have died in the effort.
 
Sarpedon said:
The Golden Temple of Amritsar is both the holiest place for the Sikh religion, and the world's largest charity kitchen, serving more than 10,000 meals per day.
Click to expand...

And it isn't just that temple either. The Sikhs actually opens many (possibly all?) of their temples to give free food to all. And it isn't even necessarily considered charity. You may go and eat there and they will not turn you away even if you are wealthy. It is part of their religious practice, and isn't done for virtue signaling and they won't preach at you or seek to convert you if you go there. It is actually a pleasant experience.

Sikhs also have bracelets they have to wear, and even the less religious ones who don't wear turbans and who shave their beards wear these bracelets.

- - - Updated - - -

Elixir said:
Holy Mormon underwear.
Click to expand...

Mormons have some crazy anti-masturbation tools too.
 
For a while I was fascinated with the Kogi people and Kogi Mamas. I suppose it was part of my environmental awakening.

What I found fascinating was the training they devoted to their Mamas, which was nothing short of visual deprivation. Visually deprive someone for an extended period, then walk them out into a rain forest or mountaintop explaining how their deity made all this for them and expects them to steward it. I suppose for a juvenile it could be quite dramatic, if not traumatic, not to mention indoctrinating.

An there was that incessant use of those items they kept licking and rolling. Just a fascinating glimpse into our stone age past.

The Kogi are kinda like the Navi in Avatar.
 
Sarpedon said:
He asked for Interesting facts, Ramaraksha, not yet another rehashing of your dumb ideas. Your system only works if you ignore large religions from neither family, as well as all the fusion religions out there. Indeed, every religion is nothing more than a synthesis of previously existing ideas. Categorizing them as you do is overly simplistic, and not really all that interesting.

On topic: Over the millenia, Confucianism and Taoism have formed a symbiotic relationship: a single person, over the course of his life, may move from Confucianism when he is younger and raising a family, to Taoism as he gets older, retires and becomes more concerned with spiritual issues.

Mormons do not allow non-Mormons into their holy places. No pictures of these places exist.

The Golden Temple of Amritsar is both the holiest place for the Sikh religion, and the world's largest charity kitchen, serving more than 10,000 meals per day.

There is a cave in the himalayas where a huge icicle is revered as a lingam of Siva, but recently the priests have been limiting the number of pilgrims allowed as they worried the body heat was causing it to melt.

The Church of the Savior on Blood was erected on the site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. A nihilist had thrown a grenade at the Tsar's carriage. The Tsar then came out to yell at the guy, and a second attacker threw another grenade, killing him. The church was erected as a memorial, and is the only "Russian Style" church in downtown St Petersburg, which is a predominantly Dutch-classical revival city, based on Tsar Peter's wishes. Since Tsar Alexander was killed on the street, the church is built on what used to be a major road, causing a bit of a detour.

The native hawaiians of the island of Molokai worshipped a 'Poison Goddess.' The idol of this goddess was allegedly carved from a poisonous tree-hundreds were said to have died in the effort.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you know a lot about this kind of stuff.

Is it all via self-study?
 
Yeah, basically. Right now I am reading a book about the mythology and folklore of Hawai'i by one of its kings. I noticed the poison goddess of Molokai is not mentioned on Wikipedia. (I wanted to look up her name)
 
Sarpedon said:
Yeah, basically. Right now I am reading a book about the mythology and folklore of Hawai'i by one of its kings. I noticed the poison goddess of Molokai is not mentioned on Wikipedia. (I wanted to look up her name)
Click to expand...

I never had the intention of 'studying religion' but going where the wind took me had me pick up a lot of books on religion in the past few years.

Oddly enough, it was both the essentialism of indigenous life, as well as Peter Berger's 'Social Construction of Reality' which really gave me a look at what religion is all about.

On the first point, I look at the index of one of my books on indigenous culture and you see the basic aspects of life pop out at you: family, marriage, hunting, housing, entertainment, crafts, narcotics etc. A person who was less studied might think there is something mystical about the indigenous, or early Christians, but really they were just people in certain circumstances acting out common behavioral patterns that their environment necessitated.

Berger's book kind of takes the outsider's view on human culture. If you were a fly looking inward, how is it that human's act in the world, how do their behavioral patterns emerge, and how do they learn about the world around them. The take home is really that lack of knowledge is the default, and one can only understand their surroundings based on the inputs they receive. And so in 200 AD, Christianity would have made total sense to some people. There was nothing overly delusional about it, it was just the ontology that emerged due to lack of better information.
 
I find the little known religious practices of prehistory fascinating - But also deeply frustrating. In most cases, all we know is that the archaeological evidence shows that people were doing all kinds of things that make no apparent sense (such as destroying valuable goods, or building complex structures that must have taken vast effort to complete, but which serve no obvious purpose). Of course, some of these may, in fact, be non-ritual activities with a valuable purpose that we simply don't recognize; But is says a LOT about the value of religion in general that whenever an archaeologist discovers that people were doing something utterly nonsensical, it is ascribed to religion (albeit under the euphemism 'ritual').

A neat overlap between 'ritual' and 'non-ritual' activities that I find interesting is the mid-20th century cargo cults of the Pacific Islands, where great riches and wondrous foods, drinks and artifacts were brought to the islands for a brief period between December 1941 and August 1945, by men who arrived on boats, cleared a long strip of jungle, raised some cabins with strange aerials on the roof, and sat inside these cabins, talking to a metal stand while wearing an odd headdress over their ears. This caused great metallic birds to appear from the sky and disgorge these fantastic objects in huge quantities. Attempts to repeat these rituals (using local materials) proved surprisingly ineffective.

Tangentially related to these beliefs are the John Frum legend, which appear to revere a generic US military figure (John from America), who brought great and fantastic artifacts, and who will return to bestow these upon his followers at some unspecified future date (a 'second coming' if you would); and the Prince Phillip cult, whereby a strongly patriarchal tribe in Vanuatu, on discovering that the Queen of England was the ruler of a large fraction of the entire world, concluded that her husband could only be a God, in order to have higher status than his bride.

Religion appears to consist entirely of the inexplicable and nonsensical things that people do, in response to that which they do not understand, in an attempt to change their lives for the better.
 
Mormons are the touchstone for a lot of my thinking on religion, too. I'm addicted to the subject -- have owned and read about 70 books on the subject, including most of the works of Sandra & Jared Tanner, who left the church and then wrote about it from the perspective of born-again Christians. They also unearthed and republished many early Mormon documents and anti-Mormon writings. At the outset, I wanted to find out how a new religion, with no historical roots in antiquity, could possibly come into existence. How, for instance, could it survive the scrutiny of post-Enlightenment philosophers and historians? There the Mormons don't let you down -- they have the most squirrelly origin story you ever saw, with a backwoods character (and convicted con man) claiming to have visitations from angels and to have dug a set of golden plates out of a hilltop. All about the Native Americans being descendants of one of the tribes of Israel... about a pre-Columbian region of Central America (maybe) or Mexico (could be) or northern South America (who knows) which featured stone palaces for New World Jewish kings...and coins...and steel implements...and of course, inscriptions, because the Jewish culture values writing. Only you can't see those palaces or coins or inscriptions or implements or those pesky golden plates. Because archaeology and historical research can show you in an hour or two of focused reading that the Mormon narrative is fictional. Yet it has millions of adherents in this country and a healthy growing presence worldwide. Religion has nothing to do with the rational side of our brains.
I love the holy Mormon underwear, too, but I think it is exceeded in strangeness by the eye-witness accounts of how Joseph Smith actually "translated" the "reformed Egyptian" that ancient Jews (!!) had used on those old plates -- he put a small brown peep-stone, which he had previously used to locate treasure, into a hat and put it up to his face. Then the words magically appeared to him, in English. Homines quis credunt. (People will believe anything.)
 
bilby said:
I find the little known religious practices of prehistory fascinating - But also deeply frustrating. In most cases, all we know is that the archaeological evidence shows that people were doing all kinds of things that make no apparent sense (such as destroying valuable goods, or building complex structures that must have taken vast effort to complete, but which serve no obvious purpose). Of course, some of these may, in fact, be non-ritual activities with a valuable purpose that we simply don't recognize; But is says a LOT about the value of religion in general that whenever an archaeologist discovers that people were doing something utterly nonsensical, it is ascribed to religion (albeit under the euphemism 'ritual').

A neat overlap between 'ritual' and 'non-ritual' activities that I find interesting is the mid-20th century cargo cults of the Pacific Islands, where great riches and wondrous foods, drinks and artifacts were brought to the islands for a brief period between December 1941 and August 1945, by men who arrived on boats, cleared a long strip of jungle, raised some cabins with strange aerials on the roof, and sat inside these cabins, talking to a metal stand while wearing an odd headdress over their ears. This caused great metallic birds to appear from the sky and disgorge these fantastic objects in huge quantities. Attempts to repeat these rituals (using local materials) proved surprisingly ineffective.

Tangentially related to these beliefs are the John Frum legend, which appear to revere a generic US military figure (John from America), who brought great and fantastic artifacts, and who will return to bestow these upon his followers at some unspecified future date (a 'second coming' if you would); and the Prince Phillip cult, whereby a strongly patriarchal tribe in Vanuatu, on discovering that the Queen of England was the ruler of a large fraction of the entire world, concluded that her husband could only be a God, in order to have higher status than his bride.

Religion appears to consist entirely of the inexplicable and nonsensical things that people do, in response to that which they do not understand, in an attempt to change their lives for the better.
Click to expand...

Agreed and I think the bolded is a big part of it.

It's interesting to think about being an indigenous person living 10 000 years ago, taking a couple hours at night to rest, and thinking what is even happening here. The drive to explain existence must be the primary driver of religion. Without some sense of the divine, living in a world like that would surely seem utterly inane and pointless.

Makes one wonder about how human psychology is changing now that materialism/physicalism is taking over. It's only been a couple hundred years where we've been able to legitimately explain our existence. One would think that this would lead to greater humanism, but so far all it seems to be doing is leading to more effective and rational exploitation of each other.
 
Since nobody has mentioned the Baha'i Faith, let me throw that in for consideration. My first husband was a Baha'i and considering I was only 19 when I met him and had just left Christianity, I was very attracted to that religion for awhile. A Baha'i will claim that their prophet was just the latest in a long series of prophets, each one bringing a new message as humanity advanced. The religion started in Iran, then Persia, in about 1844. The things I liked about it were the following,

1. Equality of the sexes
1. Racial harmony and equality were strongly emphasized
3. The belief that world peace would come around the year 2000 as long as people worked toward it, followed by what was called, "the most great peace"
4. One must be at least 15 before they could join the religion
5. The principle of independent investigation of truth. ( I'm not sure that most actually practiced this but the idea was not to indoctrinate your children in the religion
6.No belief in hell and the afterlife was pretty vaque

The things I didn't like were

1. Despite the belief in equality of the sexes, only men were permitted to serve on what was called, "The Universal House of Justice" It was a world wide governing body, sort of like SCOTUS in a way.
2. You needed parental permission to marry
3 ETOH and other recreational drugs were forbidden
4.They fasted for a lunar month in the spring
5 Probably lots of other little things that I don't remember anymore
6. A lot of it was extremely idealistic

In retrospect, I've come to the conclusion that the Faith, was an attempt to modernize Islam by being more inclusive, and less punishing. Even if you didn't obey the rules, there was no earthly punishment, as there sometimes is in Islam. They accepted that there was truth in all religions, but their religion was the right one for the contemporary times for the next 1000 years.

Unfortunately, those who followed this religion in Iran were harshly persecuted and remained in the minority. Many of them left Iran and moved to the US during the early 20th Century. My ex was raised by Baha'i parents, although they were not of Iranian descent.

I was never able to accept the woo in the religion and was conflicted by some of the mixed messages. It was the lasts religion I considered before becoming an atheist, about two years before I divorced the ex in 1979. These people really believed that eventually their faith would be the one true religion, ushering in permanent world peace. It sounds ludicrous now, but to a 19 year old girl in the late 60s, it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

One more thing. There was a trinity of sorts. There was the Bap, the forerunner of the religion, Baha'ullah, the founder of the religion, and Abdul Baja, the son of the founder.
 
Jolly_Penguin said:
Sarpedon said:
The Golden Temple of Amritsar is both the holiest place for the Sikh religion, and the world's largest charity kitchen, serving more than 10,000 meals per day.
Click to expand...
And it isn't just that temple either. The Sikhs actually opens many (possibly all?) of their temples to give free food to all. And it isn't even necessarily considered charity. You may go and eat there and they will not turn you away even if you are wealthy. It is part of their religious practice, and isn't done for virtue signaling and they won't preach at you or seek to convert you if you go there. It is actually a pleasant experience.

Sikhs also have bracelets they have to wear, and even the less religious ones who don't wear turbans and who shave their beards wear these bracelets.
- - - Updated - - -
Click to expand...

My opinion of the Sikh religion went up several notches when i read that they actually promote Reincarnation - most Hindus talk it down as something that must be done, not something that is looked forward to. Reincarnation is basically saying that Life is a Gift, that THIS IS ALL THERE IS. There are no other worlds except this one. That God created this one world for us to live in.

Most people do not like this world - having to have to work to make a living, everything being so hard - they want the easy life and religions have come up with fantasy lands with Sugar Daddy Gods in the sky where billions are sitting around right now doing nothing - a useless existence for eternity

How this makes any sense, i do not know
 
To me the most interesting fact about religion is the collective brainwashing - the lack of questioning by both the followers as well as Atheists

How come no one has ever asked what one DOES in Heaven? Does one just float around like zombies?

No one ever questions God's forgiveness - even those who study morals and ethics - is it not unethical for God to forgive? It is like a Judge forgiving the criminal - a judge can't even forgive a debt even if the debtor is under dire circumstances - only the creditor has the right to forgive such debts, only the victim or victims have the right to forgive what a criminal did to them. Clearly, God's forgiveness is the sneaky way out for the criminal to avoid punishment by society - death-bed confessions, confessing in the dark - all to avoid paying back the debt, coming forward to society as a criminal thereby invoking societal censure and punishment. So clear yet so few speak up
 
rousseau said:
bilby said:
I find the little known religious practices of prehistory fascinating - But also deeply frustrating. In most cases, all we know is that the archaeological evidence shows that people were doing all kinds of things that make no apparent sense (such as destroying valuable goods, or building complex structures that must have taken vast effort to complete, but which serve no obvious purpose). Of course, some of these may, in fact, be non-ritual activities with a valuable purpose that we simply don't recognize; But is says a LOT about the value of religion in general that whenever an archaeologist discovers that people were doing something utterly nonsensical, it is ascribed to religion (albeit under the euphemism 'ritual').

A neat overlap between 'ritual' and 'non-ritual' activities that I find interesting is the mid-20th century cargo cults of the Pacific Islands, where great riches and wondrous foods, drinks and artifacts were brought to the islands for a brief period between December 1941 and August 1945, by men who arrived on boats, cleared a long strip of jungle, raised some cabins with strange aerials on the roof, and sat inside these cabins, talking to a metal stand while wearing an odd headdress over their ears. This caused great metallic birds to appear from the sky and disgorge these fantastic objects in huge quantities. Attempts to repeat these rituals (using local materials) proved surprisingly ineffective.

Tangentially related to these beliefs are the John Frum legend, which appear to revere a generic US military figure (John from America), who brought great and fantastic artifacts, and who will return to bestow these upon his followers at some unspecified future date (a 'second coming' if you would); and the Prince Phillip cult, whereby a strongly patriarchal tribe in Vanuatu, on discovering that the Queen of England was the ruler of a large fraction of the entire world, concluded that her husband could only be a God, in order to have higher status than his bride.

Religion appears to consist entirely of the inexplicable and nonsensical things that people do, in response to that which they do not understand, in an attempt to change their lives for the better.
Click to expand...

Agreed and I think the bolded is a big part of it.

It's interesting to think about being an indigenous person living 10 000 years ago, taking a couple hours at night to rest, and thinking what is even happening here. The drive to explain existence must be the primary driver of religion. Without some sense of the divine, living in a world like that would surely seem utterly inane and pointless.

Makes one wonder about how human psychology is changing now that materialism/physicalism is taking over. It's only been a couple hundred years where we've been able to legitimately explain our existence. One would think that this would lead to greater humanism, but so far all it seems to be doing is leading to more effective and rational exploitation of each other.
Click to expand...

The book I'm reading right now (The Intelligence Paradox) actually made the argument that the origin of religion was due to our agency-detecting mechanism. That is, our brain's tendency to attribute agency to events for survival.
 
Ok, I'll try. Let's see, Wiccan has nothing to do with witches/devil/dark magic. Several religions were created as a joke, farce or money making scheme - the most well known is Scientology.
 
Playball40 said:
Ok, I'll try. Let's see, Wiccan has nothing to do with witches/devil/dark magic. Several religions were created as a joke, farce or money making scheme - the most well known is Scientology.
Click to expand...

It's a cult, joke, farce etc until it gains enough members and then it is a religion
 
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