Religion Is Weird

5:20 pm EST February 25th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 15 Comments

As I write this, millions of people around the world have a charcoal cross scratched across their foreheads, and everybody who doesn’t have one on will walk past these people and act as if everything is normal.

Religion, you are weird.

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15 Responses to “Religion Is Weird”

  1. lou baye says:
    February 25, 2009 at 6:34 pm

    Being from OK, I’d never seen this before. Now I go to school in St. Louis and was seriously confused until the guy I sit next to looked up Ash Wednesday on Wikipedia. I got used to it, but walking by the neighborhood Catholic school on my way home when school had just ended and seeing a group of kids and their parents with ash smeared on their heads was still weird.

  2. Duros62 says:
    February 25, 2009 at 7:42 pm

    “Hey buddy, you got a little schmootz right there.”

  3. ed says:
    February 25, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    Weirder than Bunnypants saying that God told him to invade Iraq?

  4. Wareq says:
    February 25, 2009 at 9:06 pm

    Or, if you live around a large Indian community, you can see the Hindu analogue almost every week.

  5. roo roo says:
    February 26, 2009 at 4:57 am

    Saw one on pundit TV today. Very freaking weird. I got it. You’re devout. Show-offs.

  6. fafaroo says:
    February 26, 2009 at 9:41 am

    Certainly it’s no weirder than this:
    http://www.nypost.com/photos/galleries/sports/pp_20090201_super_bowl_fans/photo04.jpg

  7. Andrew says:
    February 26, 2009 at 10:36 am

    Yes we are! Participated in an Ash Wednesday service myself last night.

    For we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

  8. Parthenon says:
    February 26, 2009 at 12:08 pm

    I’m not all that religious, but secular cosmology’s pretty weird too. Supposedly, according to closed-universe geometry, if you go far enough in one direction, you’ll end up back where you started. You tell me there’s nothing religious about believing we live in a pacman universe.

  9. Jack J. says:
    February 26, 2009 at 12:26 pm

    alas, being human definitely has it’s downside.

  10. Southern Quaker says:
    February 26, 2009 at 9:48 pm

    Rituals create community. It’s a form of comfort.

  11. Duros62 says:
    February 27, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    Rituals create community. It’s a form of comfort.

    Yeah, I guess. So is hot chocolate and chicken soup.

  12. Andrew says:
    February 27, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    A shout-out to the ugly side of things:

    SCENE: Late Middle Ages

    Two men are talking in front of a stake prepared for execution.

    FIRST MAN: What is going on? Who is being executed.

    SECOND MAN: I myself saw to the condemnation of the witch! She heard supernatural voices and did what they told her to do.

    FIRST MAN: So why are you burning her at the stake.

    SECOND MAN: God told me to.

  13. noodles says:
    February 27, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    I think special clothing or garments are weirder. An invisible supernatural consciousness told me to wear goofy underwear (mormon), or wear a funny turban (sikh), or wear a headscarf (islam), or wear a wig if you are married (jewish).

  14. I’m As Powerful As Ted Turner* | Oliver Willis says:
    March 2, 2009 at 12:11 am

    [...] I get compared to the founder of CNN. The proud know-nothings at Newsbusters are up in arms over this post I made on Ash Wednesday. In the twisted mind of Ken Shepherd, the post was somehow mocking of the [...]

  15. B.BarNavi says:
    March 3, 2009 at 9:20 pm

    So glad putting a black cross on my forehead is not in my religion. Instead, I get to spend one week not eating any bread, cookies, or drinking any grain alcohol. Go figure.