The Vagrant Oddities Of The Religious Mind – Is There An Off-Switch Called ‘Religion’ In Our Brains?

Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!

(Hat tip to the Dribbleglass for these…stultifying glimpses into the religious mindscape.)

MUSLIMS RIOT OVER SANDAL
Riots in Bangladesh killed one and injured as many as two hundred when Muslims reacted violently in protest of a new sandal which carried a design that they said resembled the Arab script for Allah. Executives of the Canadian-based Bata Shoe Company were ordered into court to explain the design.

I’m guessing here, they don’t want to walk a few feet, let alone a mile, in those shoes…

RETRIBUTION
The Reverend W. N. Otwell, Texas gubernatorial candidate in 1990, declared that the floods and other natural disasters that had bedeviled Texas since 1986 were the Lord's retribution for all the attacks on Otwell. Said Otwell, "We've been keeping stats on this."

So…the imaginary sky daddy is focusing solely on some whackadoo in Texas, cataloguing all the ‘attacks’ on this guy, and besieging Texas? Can you say ‘narcissist’, boys and girls?

IRS USES 666
During 1980 and 1981 the Internal Revenue Service asked taxpayers to enter the number 666 as a code on a form reporting individual retirement accounts. The IRS said that the Social Security Administration chose the number because scanner could read it easily. After complaints from fundamentalist Christians, the IRS changed the number on 1992 forms to 555.

Bad news, fundies: IT’S JUST A NUMBER! And all that crap in Revelation? Pure fiction.

MAN CHANGES NAME TO GOD
Californian Enrique Silberg changed his name in 1985 to Ubiquitous Perpetuity God after a judge refused to allow him to change it to simply "God."

Yes, because the universe is all about YOU, Enrique…are you kidding?

KITTY DIES, END OF WORLD NEARS
Late in July of 1989 a kitten with eight legs and two tails was born in the village of Machala in Ecuador. Rejected by its mother, it died within hours. The devout Catholic population there saw it as a bad sign. "We are nearing the end of the world because people are so decadent," said one.

And yet the world persists, 21 years later…

CATHOLICS BRAWL OVER LATIN MASS
A fist-fight broke out when 60 traditionalist Roman Catholics tried to take over the main altar at Saint Maclou Cathedral near Paris so that they could celebrate the mass in Latin. The brawl lasted over an hour until a priest agreed to move to a side chapel for his Latin service.

Yeah, religion shore do improve pay-pul, dunnit?

FARRAKHAN SHARES WORD OF MOTHER WHEEL
Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, says he experienced a vision in which a UFO took him from a Mexico mountaintop to a "mother wheel" where the voice of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the religious sect, told him to tell the world that then-President Ronald Reagan was planning a war. Farrakhan said that the later air attack on Libya was partly foiled by the Mother Wheel. "The Wheel was, in fact, present and interfered with the highly sensitive electronic equipment of the aircraft carrier, forcing it to return to Florida for repairs."

Things like the paragraph above give me a conclussion – that is to say, when an otherwise intelligent and rational individual is exposed to an insane conclusion, it gives them a concussion.

BIBLE LESSONS TAKE SHOCKING TWIST
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baptist minister Dwight Rymer used electric shocks to help him teach the Bible to children. He asked for young volunteers to sit on a stool wired to a six-volt lantern battery in order to demonstrate that sometimes God "can shock you into hearing His word."

My question is: were there any volunteers at all?

MYSTIC NAILED FOR WORLD PEACE
On nationwide television in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, a mystic named Patrice Tamao had himself nailed to a cross "as a sacrifice for world peace and understanding." An unforeseen snag developed when Tamao's foot became infected the following day and physicians ordered him pried loose and taken down. His wife Marita then volunteered to be hammered up in his place.

Let’s see: world peace? No. And Marita – that’s your husband’s cross to bear.

The ability of the human mind to turn a blind eye to obvious idiocies still stuns me, after 51 years on this earth. I love humanity, but holy crap, are we dim or what?

I wonder, sadly, I wonder…

Till the next post, then.