Examples of 'odd' beliefs

[ruby sparks]

A thread where posters offer up examples of beliefs (and perhaps the practices that go along with them) which they consider.....odd (or silly or just plain unusual or uncommon). I'm thinking mainly of small-ish individual belief/practice examples rather than whole belief systems.

What started me thinking of this was coming across a very early 'nudist' version of Christianity, namely The Adamites, which also re-surfaced in medieval Europe and was deemed heretical by the RC establishment. They also believed in free love (as in not holding to marriage, not as in the having of multiple partners).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamites

That one is perhaps a mild example, and mainly only 'odd' because of how it contrasted with 'mainstream' christianity.

Examples from more mainstream or established religious institutions are not excluded, imo. I am reminded of the scene in "Father Ted' where it strikes Father Dougal that there are some 'very odd cults out there', including one, he says, in which the practicoiners dress up in black and drink blood, but Father Ted reminds him that that's the RCC, the one they belong to.

I suppose I'm mainly doing religion (of any sort) and/or perhaps superstitions generally, but I'm ok with the definition of religion, for example, being widened to 'worldview' so that theists, for example, can if they want to, mention examples from atheism.

The only criteria for 'oddness' is that the poster considers something to be that. 'Belief' would just be something believed, for whatever reason.

I definitely don't intend the thread to become an arguing match, I'd prefer it to be more of a collection of shared anecdotes, ideally lesser well-known or 'fringe' ones I suppose, to highlight the potential quirkiness or weirdness of the human mind when it comes to such things, but I guess I can't stop anyone taking umbrage or disagreeing and wanting to debate. In fact, I suppose that if I want the thread to thrive and continue, I should perhaps encourage arguing. So on that basis, I will.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I thought it odd some years ago that a bunch of apparently sane people would kill themselves to escape to their mother ship which was somewhere in the tail of a comet. But that is also an example of natural selection, that the really crazies don't live long enough to breed in large numbers.

Heaven's Gate

 

[Cycad]

Chene a clous.
Or oak with nails. When sick, you touch the diseased part of the body with a rag and nail it in a specific tree. Tree will take over the illness.
Still very much alive in Europe.

Same practice to be found in Katmandu, Georgia-Caucasus, animist Bali, Senegal and Congo and probably in many other countries.

 

[Cycad]

I thought it odd some years ago that a bunch of apparently sane people would kill themselves to escape to their mother ship which was somewhere in the tail of a comet. But that is also an example of natural selection, that the really crazies don't live long enough to breed in large numbers.

Heaven's Gate

Jonestown

 

[Angry Floof]

Um... scientology.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOdF_3RIXJ4[/YOUTUBE]

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

My niece wasn't having any luck selling her house. So her mother, my sister - and devout catholic - told her she'd have better luck if she buried a statue of Saint Joseph in the front yard. But she would have to bury it upside down, standing on its head. My niece not being religious didn't do it so my sister bought a little plastic statue and buried it in her yard.

 

[Angry Floof]

My niece wasn't having any luck selling her house. So her mother, my sister - and devout catholic - told her she'd have better luck if she buried a statue of Saint Joseph in the front yard. But she would have to bury it upside down, standing on its head. My niece not being religious didn't do it so my sister bought a little plastic statue and buried it in her yard.

Your sister buried it in her own yard or your niece's?

 

[Politesse]

Did the house sell?

 

[Keith&Co.]

My LPO on my first boat considered himself a Catholic Wizard. To him, casting a spell is asking nameless forces of the universe to intervene on your behalf, prayer is the same thing, but naming the force.

He eventually went 'conscientious objector' while standing watch in the Missile Control Center... Insisted that he could fully perform the job, right up until anyone asked him to launch missiles...
So, mire words he didn't understand the meaning of...

 

[Keith&Co.]

Also on that boat was the guy who had strong opinions about how evil Tarot cards are... but only if you oaint you own cards. "They only work if you paint your own deck. The bookstore stuff is as innocent as a Ouija board!"

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Mormons wear magic underwear.

Also, Scientologists believe in Scientology. That’s odd.

 

[Politesse]

My own beliefs are routinely described as odd, peculiar, or various less friendly terms. I've never really understood why this is supposed to be such a problem, but then maybe that is why I have odd beliefs. Wait, maybe the belief that its okay to have odd beliefs is itself an odd belief...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

My niece wasn't having any luck selling her house. So her mother, my sister - and devout catholic - told her she'd have better luck if she buried a statue of Saint Joseph in the front yard. But she would have to bury it upside down, standing on its head. My niece not being religious didn't do it so my sister bought a little plastic statue and buried it in her yard.

Your sister buried it in her own yard or your niece's?

It had to be buried in the yard of the house that is for sale.

And yes, it did eventually sell but I am not convinced it was because of the statue.

I don't know if she ever went and recovered the statue or if it's still there. Will have to inquire one day.

 

[Angry Floof]

My niece wasn't having any luck selling her house. So her mother, my sister - and devout catholic - told her she'd have better luck if she buried a statue of Saint Joseph in the front yard. But she would have to bury it upside down, standing on its head. My niece not being religious didn't do it so my sister bought a little plastic statue and buried it in her yard.

Your sister buried it in her own yard or your niece's?

It had to be buried in the yard of the house that is for sale.

And yes, it did eventually sell but I am not convinced it was because of the statue.

I don't know if she ever went and recovered the statue or if it's still there. Will have to inquire one day.

I would leave it for some future digger, a water works guy or something, to find and freak out.

 

[bilby]

It had to be buried in the yard of the house that is for sale.

And yes, it did eventually sell but I am not convinced it was because of the statue.

I don't know if she ever went and recovered the statue or if it's still there. Will have to inquire one day.

I would leave it for some future digger, a water works guy or something, to find and freak out.

Whenever archaeologists find something that is completely crazy, and makes no apparent sense, they ascribe it to 'ritual'; Ritual is archaeological shorthand for 'apparently pointless or unreasonable behaviour'.

That says a lot about modern religious practices. But it's considered rude to discuss the fact.

Other people's religious practices, once all of the practitioners are dead, are crazy. While any of them are still alive, we must, of course, be deeply respectful of the insane and bizarre pious and devout things they do.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

My favourite is still the Eucharist. I recall visiting my ex-girlfriend's catholic church and witnessing the preacher lovingly sing to a cracker, and then promptly eat it. What a display.

My understanding is that when the Lord Jesus was put up on the cross he said the holy words while gazing at the mob lovingly "Bite me!".

 

[Cycad]

My favourite is still the Eucharist. I recall visiting my ex-girlfriend's catholic church and witnessing the preacher lovingly sing to a cracker, and then promptly eat it. What a display.

My understanding is that when the Lord Jesus was put up on the cross he said the holy words while gazing at the mob lovingly "Bite me!".

Transsubstantiation

Catholics are supposed to believe that the wafer is literally changing in meat and the wine literally in blood.
Which is raising the question : can a vegan be catholic

 

[Politesse]

It had to be buried in the yard of the house that is for sale.

And yes, it did eventually sell but I am not convinced it was because of the statue.

I don't know if she ever went and recovered the statue or if it's still there. Will have to inquire one day.

I would leave it for some future digger, a water works guy or something, to find and freak out.

Whenever archaeologists find something that is completely crazy, and makes no apparent sense, they ascribe it to 'ritual'; Ritual is archaeological shorthand for 'apparently pointless or unreasonable behaviour'.

That says a lot about modern religious practices. But it's considered rude to discuss the fact.

Other people's religious practices, once all of the practitioners are dead, are crazy. While any of them are still alive, we must, of course, be deeply respectful of the insane and bizarre pious and devout things they do.

As a former archaeologist, I would point out that we do not mean "odd" when we talk about ritual; odd is relative to the observer. Ritual to an archaeologist is more a non-literal practice than an irrational one per se, one in which the material representation of the act (which is all we have left in the record) is clearly connected to ideas we no longer have unmediated access to. We know that ritual objects are what they are partly from context, and partly the same way we recognize that a written inscription is in a different language: it is crafted with some symbols we can't interpret without help, help that may not be forthcoming if the site is old enough. That says nothing to the value of the content of the message or ritual, only a natural shortcoming of symbolic language when the interpretive context for it has been lost.

 

[4321lynx]

My favourite is still the Eucharist. I recall visiting my ex-girlfriend's catholic church and witnessing the preacher lovingly sing to a cracker, and then promptly eat it. What a display.

My understanding is that when the Lord Jesus was put up on the cross he said the holy words while gazing at the mob lovingly "Bite me!".

Must have been using no incense, or not enough, or the wrong kind of incense. That magic does not work without incense.

And Cycad only the priests get wine in RC rites, the plebs have to dissolve their Host in their mouths, Anyway that's how it is in Canada. Eh?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It had to be buried in the yard of the house that is for sale.

And yes, it did eventually sell but I am not convinced it was because of the statue.

I don't know if she ever went and recovered the statue or if it's still there. Will have to inquire one day.

I would leave it for some future digger, a water works guy or something, to find and freak out.

What I want to know is that if it's still there, does the magic still work when the new owners want to sell their house or is it only a one off spell and they'd need to bury their own statue?