The Chittagong Hill Tracts rarely make the Western news, unless they’re being invaded by wave after wave of hungry rodents. But there is a great deal of conflict in that remote corner of southeastern Bangladesh, an area traditionally inhabited by tribes that are ethnically distinct from the nation’s Bengali majority. As settlers have moved into […]
The Amish generally prefer not to mess with the American legal system, but the Wisconsin left them no choice. Badger State authorities decided to make the Amish comply with regulations that made the registration of “livestock premises” mandatory. One farmer, Emanuel Miller, decided to fight back, claiming that the program infringed on his religious freedom. […]
For the umpteenth year in a row, we failed to take advantage of our Atlah locale and check out the annual Phagwah parade in Richmond Hill, Queens. But we got our Guyanese festival kick by checking out these shots, which amply demonstrate the splattery fun that was had by all. More great photos of Phagwah […]
Tags:Guyana·Hinduism·immigration·New York City·Phagwah·religion
While we’ve always been vaguely aware of the Mormon film industry, we never realized that its history could be traced back to the very dawn of popular cinema. Nor were we particularly familiar with the brief silent-era vogue for movies that cast Mormons as archvillains, which BYU film historian Gideon Burton identifies as part of […]
The long spell of political violence that rocked the Solomon Islands last decade, commonly referred to as “The Tensions,” is an episode we know far too little about. We were thus delighted to stumble across this excellent post-mortem from New Zealand’s Sunday Star-Times, which details how the conflict’s aftermath still lingers in a major way. […]
Tags:Liberia·religion·Solomon Islands·The Bulletproof Project
Having spent some time in Alberta’s northern climes, we’ve taken an unusually keen interest in the arrest of Wiebo Ludwig, a religious patriarch with a Luddite streak a mile wide. Having served time for vandalizing oil-industry equipment in the past, Ludwig recently presented himself as man capable of coaxing a fellow pipeline bomber into giving […]
Tags:Alberta·alcohol·Canada·cults·energy·religion·Wiebo Ludwig·wine
The way that Civil War history is written, you’d think that the conflict was confined to the easternmost quarter of the nation. But though few significant battles took place on the western frontier, the region wasn’t exactly unscathed. In the vast area known then simply as “Indian Country,” for example, tribes split along factional lines—many […]
Tags:Civil War·drugs·Kansas·Native Americans·peyote·religion·The Bulletproof Project·The New York Times
For reasons too drab to mention, we recently stumbled across this sordid 1982 tale about a self-described “mountain man” who turned murderous. We were struck not so much by the brutality of Henry Burton Merrill’s crimes, but rather by the media’s insistence on referring to him as a “hermit.” And that got us thinking, naturally, […]
Tags:California·crime·divorce·eremitism·Herman the Hermit·Los Angeles·religion
For anyone with even a passing interest in cult psychology, San Diego State University’s Jonestown Archive is well worth a thorough gander. Our favorite section, of course, is a compendium of primary sources that date back to Jim Jones’s earliest days in Indiana. Among the choice morsels contained therein is a petition that all members […]
Tags:cults·Guyana·Jim Jones·Jonestown·Peoples Temple·psychology·religion·Soviet Union
Upon recently hearing the classic Super Cat track “Scalp Dem” on WeFunk, we were reminded of a curious incident in dancehall history: Super Cat’s resurrection from the dead. Okay, perhaps it wasn’t quite as dramatic as alll that. But back in May of 1997, the wire services ran a story stating that Super Cat had […]
Tags:Cambodia·dancehall·Kate Webb·Michael Apted·music·religion·Super Cat·Vietnam War
Our semi-regular Bulletproof Project today takes us to the southern Philippines, specifically the perpetually conflict-addled island of Mindanao. It is there that a family of quasi-Christian cults collectively known as the Tadtad (“Chop Chop”) flourish, and occasionally wreak bloody havoc on the unfortunate populace. The Tadtad remind us a bit of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, […]
We’re diehard Indianapolis Colts fans, and thus tend to hate the Denver Broncos with a fiery passion normally reserved for plague rats, ex post facto laws, and Jean-Bédel Bokassa. But we’re eternally fascinated by sports fans who undergo tremendous physical discomfort in the name of supporting their side—there is something beautifully transcendent about the practice, […]
Tags:Barrel Man·football·religion·sports
The Danes are not alone in their ability to infuriate pious Muslims with drawings. A Bangladeshi cartoonist has just been sentenced to six months in prison for a work deemed blasphemous. The original kerfuffle occurred two years ago, when Arifur Rahman’s cartoon sparked riots in Dhaka. The offending artwork can be glimpsed here. The translation […]
Tags:Arifur Rahman·Bangladesh·blasphemy·cartoons·Islam·religion
No Bad Movie Friday this week, as The Tubes yielded up precious few usable clips from Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. Instead, we’re gonna hit you with a special treat—rare archival footage from the heyday of Father Divine, taken during his prosperous Harlem phase. It’s best viewed in tandem with this 1953 Life spread, […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Father Divine·Harlem·nuclear power·religion
Yesterday’s quick mention of religious snake handling set us off on a minor research tangent. We’re accustomed to witnessing the practice via cheesy TV segments, which have always struck us as a tad too overproduced to convey the emotional appeal of grasping serpents in the name of the Lord. Fortunately, The Tubes now contain a […]
Tags:Holy Ghost People·Jimmy Swaggert·movies·religion·reptiles·snake handling·snakes
Upon reading this morning’s news that the Feds have moved against the Pagan Motorcycle Club, we cracked via Twitter that two-wheeled outlaws would do well to choose less obviously evil names. It doesn’t take a genius to wonder whether the Pagans might be up to no good; might the cops be less likely to bat […]
Tags:Bikers for Christ·crime·Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs·Pagans·religion
The first big magazine feature we ever wrote was about near-death experiences (NDEs). We have vivid memories of taking a prop plane from Washington D.C. to Charlottesville, Virginia, in order to interview a pair of psychologists who specialize in studying the effects of NDEs. What struck us most about their research was how the whole […]
Tags:aviation·Jaswant Basuta·medical science·NDEs·Pan Am Flight 103·religion·terrorism
On his way out of town, our pal Oken was sharp enough to snap the church sign to the right, which stands a mere block away from Microkhan world headquarters. This particular church, which gained some infamy during last year’s election, is evidently none too fond of the man currently occupying the White House. Oh, […]
Tags:Atlah·Barack Obama·birthers·conspiracy theories·James David Manning·politics·religion
Given the rapid growth of Catholicism in Africa, it’s certain that the continent’s clergymen are set to play an increasingly large role at the Vatican. (Cardinal Francis Arinze, for example, has already been mentioned as a possible future pope.) But while the majority of Africa’s priests and bishops hew closely to Chruch orthodoxy, there are […]
Tags:Catholicism·cults·Emmanuel Milingo·Married Priests Now·religion·Unification Church
Though the practice of seppuku is virtually synonmous with ritual suicide, it’s worth noting that feudal Japan hardly had a monopoly on ceremonial self-slaughter. The Mayans were also enthusiasts, though the details of their process obviously differed from those of their peers across the Pacific. As this fascinating paper makes clear, the Mayan method involved […]
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the murder of Father Bernard Darke, a Jesuit priest who worked as a photographer for a Catholic newspaper in Guyana. Darke was beaten to death while snapping pictures of an anti-government protest. His assailants were all members of one of the most curious quasi-religious groups to ever grace the […]
Tags:cults·Guyana·House of Israel·Rabbi Edward Washington·religion
Our ongoing First Contact series continues with a look at the initial encounter between the Aztecs and the Spanish. Rather than rehashing the conquistadors’ standard accounts of Tenochtitlan‘s grandeur and the horrors of human sacrifice, we thought we’d focus on the Aztecs’ point of view—specifically their mistaken belief that Hernando Cortes and his soldiers were […]
Tags:Aztecs·First Contact·Hernando Cortes·Mexico·religion·Spain
A couple of weeks ago, Microkhan delved into the apparent link between literacy and suicide—the more literate a nation’s population, it appears, the likelier it is to have a high suicide rate. This theory might explain in part why so many post-Soviet nations have serious suicide problems—their citizens are well-educated, but also struggling economically (at […]
Tags:religion·Soviet Union·suicide
About a year ago, I started following the tragic case of an Alaskan charter flight that crashed near Kodiak, killing six. What caught my attention was the fact that the starcrossed passengers were said to be members of an “Old Believer” community near the remote hamlet of Homer. The victims were flying back home to […]
The perfect end-of-day time waster: A Zen koan generator. Keep refreshing ’til you get one that applies. It took me three spins to reach “Gutei’s Finger,” which is equal parts cruel and wise. I, for one, would certainly swap a digit for eternal bliss.
With the 30th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution upon us, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is back in the news. How does a run-of-the-mill cleric become an ayatollah in the first place? Here’s the scoop, which I unearthed during my days as Slate‘s “Explainer” columnist. Two key tips: Study hard, and work on your rep.
