Questions tagged [religion]
Use this tag for questions about religious practices. Do not ask questions about religious beliefs, though. Those are off-topic and there is no tag to use.
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Is this the Oath to become a Master Mason?
In Freemasonry, the third degree that one may obtain is called Master Mason. I found a book claiming to contain the rituals and oath that the Mason has to perform. The book is called "Duncan's ...
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Did a Father save his son after digging for 38 hours after the Armenian earthquake?
There's an inspirational story that is very popular on God based websites. Here is the version I am familiar with that was forwarded to me on Whatsapp many times before Yom Kippur:
This story is true ...
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Did the body of Saint Bernadette remain intact after 50 years, despite the conditions it was in?
According to this 2019 article in the National Catholic Register, The Marvelous Preservation of St. Bernadette, the body of Saint Bernadette had limited decay, despite:
given the close examinations, ...
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Did Bertrand Russell say, "Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, ..."?
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence,
it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
—Bertrand Russell
Many books and websites attribute this ...
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Do people have visions of religious figures from other religions (outside of Jesus)?
New Testament scholars Bart Ehrman and Justin Bass had a debate about the historicity of Jesus. At the 1:09:02 mark Justin Bass makes a claim:
Justin Bass: People, of their own religions, do have ...
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Did Yitzhak Kaduri leave a note implying the Jewish Messiah is named Yehoshua?
Yitzhak Kaduri was a renown rabbi who died in 2006.
As explained in the above Wikipedia page, there are claims that he left a note to be opened after his death. The note, when decoded as an acrostic, ...
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Is the Greek Orthodox church worth 700 billion Euros?
This Wikipedia list puts the Greek Orthodox church's net worth at 700B Euros in 2011 (about 974B USD), above any branch of the Catholic church or other religion. Its source is France 24, but I am not ...
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Have 25% of all Christian Ex-Muslim converts received dreams or visions as a major factor in their conversion?
In an 2009 article, Why do Muslims come to Christ? Five case studies that underline the key factors as Living God in Christ, the living Word, and the living Body of Christ. by Salaam Corniche, there ...
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Was the 1755 Cape Ann earthquake widely ascribed to Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod?
Andrew Dickinson White’s book “A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom” contains the following anecdote
In America the earthquake of 1755 was widely ascribed, especially in ...
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Are the mathematical constants e and π encoded in the Bible?
Some numerologists claim that the mathematical constants e and π are encoded in the Bible via gematria.
For example, blogger Joe Vasta argues that Genesis 1:1 encodes 3.141554508×1017.
The value of π ...
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Noah's Ark found in Turkey [duplicate]
Claim: The site designated by the Turkish government in Ararat is the actual Noah's Ark from the bible.
I recently viewed a documentary about how Noah's Ark was discovered in Turkey in the 60's ...
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Is this picture and voice recording of Daniel Radcliffe speaking Hebrew authentic?
This 2010 YouTube video purports to show a picture of actor Daniel Radcliffe wearing tefillin and speaking on Israeli radio about it in Hebrew.
This picture has been picked up on a number of not-so-...
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Does this medical study prove that wearing gold is harmful? [closed]
So I have this article that was sent to me by a friend of mine and it pertains to a ruling in the Quran (that declares that silk and gold are forbidden for men to wear). So the article claims that ...
user59726
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Did China destroy a Guanyin statue in Hebei province?
From Mongolia live:
It was not the Taliban who exploded the stone carvings, but the Chinese Communist Party
A 57.9-meter-tall cliff stone-carved vertical Guanyin statue in Pingshan County, ...
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Did Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni hand the national flag to intercessors in 1997 in the midst of a Christian revival?
World Trumpet Mission, an international revivalist ministry founded in 1988 in the Republic of Uganda by John Mulinde, presents the following historical timeline on their website (emphasis mine):
In ...
user56618
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Are people receiving spontaneous gold dental prostheses without dentist intervention?
Claims of unexpected and spontaneous fillings or full restorations of teeth with gold are not unheard of in many faith healing services and other religious gatherings. For example, in a video recorded ...
user56618
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Was Alberto Rivera formerly a Jesuit priest?
"Chick tracts" are a series of comic books by cartoonist Jack Chick. The publisher estimates that is has printed over 800 million tracts since its founding.
An issue in this series from 1981,...
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Muslim couple provocatively pictured on beach — true holiday photo or fake (i.e. staged/set up)? [closed]
Recently I found a very provocative picture circulating in anti-Islam communities. It shows a presumably Muslim man, who is wearing a very small bathing suit and is standing next to a fully clothed ...
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Do dramatic cases of body shaking and trembling in religious settings have supernatural causes? [closed]
There are many examples of people experiencing dramatic body shaking and trembling in religious settings, such as the ones below:
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6
Example 7
...
user56618
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Was Pierre Teilhard de Chardin a defender of eugenics? [closed]
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French philosopher and Jesuit Catholic priest who was mentioned in the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Dangerous Tendencies of Cosmic Theology: The ...
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Do church congregations attract sex offenders?
On page 34 of their 2008 report Licensed to Hug: How Child Protection Policies Are Poisoning the Relationship Between the Generations and Damaging the Voluntary Sector, authors Frank Furedi & ...
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Could the Ark of the Covenant have killed by acting as a capacitor?
In the biblical account of Uzzah, he touches the Ark of the Covenant on the road from Gibeah to Jerusalem; this irks the god of Israel, who knocks him out on the spot.
A 2014 Gizmodo article quotes ...
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Must churchgoers be registered with the government in Kansas City?
According to this article and to this Reddit thread, linking the article in fact:
Kansas City, Missouri, officials are now requiring every church to submit a list of members and attendees along ...
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Did Ohio pass a law granting students the right to give scientifically wrong answers consistent with their religious beliefs?
The Patheos blog and WKRC local12 report:
The Ohio House on Wednesday passed the "Student Religious Liberties Act." Under the law, students can't be penalized if their work is scientifically wrong ...
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Was Tulsi Gabbard in a "cult"?
As late as 2015, Tulsi Gabbard considered Chris Butler (Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa) to be her guru. Numerous people claim that Butler's group is a cult, while others say it isn't.
Does the ...
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Is the pope's headgear adopted directly from a Mesopotamian hat, symbol of worshipping Dagon, as seen in his fish mouth looking mitre?
The Roman bishop of the Catholic church is often wearing a mitre. Countless sites, 'that really know the hidden truth and tell it', make the connection of 'fish mouth' and 'Dagon priest', claiming ...
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Is this cow urine study published in NCBI valid? [duplicate]
The cow is regarded as a sacred animal in Hinduism, and as expected, there are a lot of people in India (including very prominent religious leaders and politicians) who want to show that even its ...
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Did the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, wear a hijab?
This claim (apparently) appeared on billboards in February 2018 on Interstate 55 and the Tri-State Tollway outside Chicago:
(Which, yes, does not literally and explicity make the claim "the Virgin ...
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Is this picture from the flooded cave rescue in Thailand?
I came across the following post on Facebook (original text is on Portuguese, translation and emphasis by me):
BOYS MEDITATING WHILE WAIT FOR RESCUE INSIDE CAVE IN THAILAND
The former Buddhist monk ...
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Will the new Royal Adelaide Hospital have a Muslim-only prayer room while other religions share?
This meme is making the rounds:
The new Royal Adelaide Hospital will have an exclusive Muslim prayer room, while all other religions will have to use a common area.
Share if you think this is ...
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Is "Islamic fasting" healthy?
I live in a mostly Muslim country (Morocco). Now we are in the month of Ramadan.
First, I had to define Ramadan:
Is 30 days (or 29) where practicing Muslims can neither eat or drink or having sex, ...
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Did Theodor Herzl adhere to Spinozism?
The following are found among a list of Theodor Herzl quotes on the Web site of the World Zionist Organisation:
When I say God I do not mean to offend the freethinkers. For my part
they can say ...
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Was Theodor Herzl a self-confessed atheist? [closed]
I'm watching a Youtube video that explains the Israel-Palestine situation, and at this point the journalist/narrator says that Theodor Herzl, known as the father of Zionism or at least a chief ...
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Did Abraham Isaac Kook say that Gentiles have different souls than Jews?
Wikipedia claims that a Jewish yeshiva teaches that Jews have different souls than Gentiles. To support the claim, wikipedia says that one of their teachers quoted Abraham Isaac Kook as following:
...
tim♦
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Are 4 out of 5 people persecuted for their religion, Christians?
A CitizenGo petition for aiding persecuted Christians claims that
Christians are the most persecuted people in the world, with 4 out of
5 persecuted people identifying as Christians
Are there ...
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Is there historical evidence for Christ's resurrection? [duplicate]
Numerous Christian sources claim that the raising from dead by Jesus Christ is “historically proven”. A claim that is formed this way clearly goes beyond the scope of faith alone. Therefore I believe ...
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Marriage never mentioned at UN world conference on family?
The Mormon church claims,
They had a world conference on the family sponsored by the United
Nations in Beijing, China. We sent representatives. It was not
pleasant what they heard. They called ...
user41350
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1
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Was Jan Dzierżoń harassed for his work on parthenogenesis?
Rev. Jan Dzierżoń was a roman-catholic priest from Silesia, that did some important contributions to biology and beekeeping with his research. I.a. he is crediting with the discovery, that drones are ...
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Did all of Germany's Muslim MPs vote in favor of same-sex marriage?
I saw the following claim on The Independent's web-site:
All six of Germany's Muslim members of parliament voted in favour of same-sex marriage as Angela Merkel faced criticism for opposing the ...
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Are half of the donations to Democratic Party from Jewish sources?
I've encountered this claim in a number of sources, both respectable and not, but ultimately seems to stem from an article in Jerusalem Post attributing it to Gil Troy:
The reason for such intense ...
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Do certain religious traditions believe that Eve had sex with the Serpent?
On p.169 of my edition of de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, she includes a footnote remarking
The moon is a source of fertility; it is seen as the "master of women"; it is often believed that the moon, ...
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Is this an old church being destroyed in France?
I saw this video on Facebook this morning:
2800 churches could be destroyed in France in the next 10 years according to current trends.
Catholicism is weakened from inside and outside, islam is ...
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Does the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights consider Christians a hate group "threat"?
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) called in to Glenn Beck's radio show, and made this claim, among others:
[T]he U.S Commission on Civil Rights says that Christians are the
biggest hate group threat in ...
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Does the Talmud say, "The Jews are called human beings, but the non-Jews are not humans. They are beasts."?
According to the Radioislam.org (pro-Palestinian site) page Jewish Racism towards Non-Jews as expressed in the Talmud, the Talmud contains the following verse:
"The Jews are called human beings, ...
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Do 75% of new Muslim converts in the US leave Islam within a few years?
From the Islam-critical site WikiIslam:
However, most individuals who convert rarely choose to study Islam objectively before making such an important decision. Instead they choose to be taken in by ...
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Do more than half of Ontario residents believe that "mainstream" Islamic doctrines promote violence?
In its article about the recent shootings in Quebec City, the New York Times reported that:
A survey in Ontario last summer found that while there was widespread support for accepting the refugees, ...
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Was it harder for Syrian Christians to immigrate to the US than Muslims?
As a justification for his intention to prioritise Christian refugees over Muslim refugees, President Trump said:
Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, at least very tough,...
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Is this Buddha portrait genuine?
Is this actually a portrait of Buddha, drawn by one of his disciples?
Here is a link saying:
One of Buddha's disciple draw it secretly, while Buddha was teaching.
Yes, Sakyamuni Buddha is ...
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Was a "new world religion" memorandum signed in Strasbourg in June 2014?
There is a document which is shared on the internet these days. I saw it in Romanian language and then searching a bit, I found it in English as well: it refers to a "memorandum" signed in ...
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Is Muhammad (pbuh) mentioned only four times in the Quran and in three of those instances could be used as a title the praised one or chosen one? [closed]
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/36111/32459 says:
The name Muhammad actually appears in the Qur'an only four times, and in three of those instances it could be used as a title – the "praised ...
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