 October 10, 2014 - 5:15pm | http://listverse.com/2009/09/10/10-extremely-weird-religions/ Jedism made this list: http://whatculture.com/offbeat/8-incredibly-strange-religions-around-world.php Couldn't find the link to see the other 4 but the first 3 on this list were interesting http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/7-really-weird-religions-you-havent-heard-of/ Man I like Pana-Wave from this list: http://www.smosh.com/smosh-pit/articles/worlds-10-weirdest-religions Note I've not posted links to websites that have a list without something new on it. also of note there have been numerous cults with sexual wierdness going on and yet none of them made the lists above. from free love to church sanctioned pedophilia by religious leaders and so on... This might have more to do with the cultural shift toward all forms of sexuality being legitimate. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 10, 2014 - 10:51pm | Where was Elvis? The osakar would definitely go for an Elvis themed religion. Also a Stooges themed religion. -iggy |
 October 11, 2014 - 1:05am | Cue the Family Guy "Church of Fonzie". |
 October 11, 2014 - 1:39am | On the face of it, all religions are weird so pretty much any religious construct is up for grabs, I'd say  |
October 11, 2014 - 3:48am | Cue the somewhat rotund dralasite singer with the bell bottomed jump suit and cape who died before his time and now is seen all over the frontier and has a legion of impersonators. His name was Evo. I may have to draw this picture. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 11, 2014 - 5:43am | The Prince Philip Movement is a neat one, as it relates to the South Pacific Cargo Cults — a religion that stemmed form contact with the western world. The funny things is that Star Trek's Prime Directive was created as a plot device to keep Kirk and crew form overpowering some primitives in an episode, but in retrospect, it is a great rule to keep the Federation form causing cultural contamination, and this was explored in a great episode of ST:TNG. As it is, the "Mobster Planet" in TOS, was a culture that takes to cargo cults like children to a candy store, and once the Enterprise left the system, Fizbin become their national pass time. On a Mutant Future Wiki I made, I posted some examples of Gamma World-styled Cryptic Alliances called "religions." One of the most common religions one sees in fiction, and the weirdest ones you'll find in real life, are the ones that are built round a fictional character or celebratory, often with some ironic twist. So, instead of listing a bunch of "Pop-Cults", I wrote this:
As for sex-cults, I always stick one or more in any fantasy setting I run, even if it is an established settings with no gods or temples related to sex or futility — especially the D&D settings, as their pantheons are usually way too player-character-centric. The rational for sex-cults and Temple Prostitutes is that they used to be common in old religions. As for an example of a modern sex-cult, there is the infamous Hellfire Club. It used to be a Gentleman's Club that trafficked in vice — a common thing for the time — but it became the most famous among them. The legend of the Hellfire Club inspired an old episode of The Avengers, which in turn inspired the same organization in the Uncanny X-Men, and lets not forget Eyes Wide Shut... err... Scratch that, forget it ever happened! (How can anyone make a two-and-a-half-hour-long sex orgy so boring?) |
 October 13, 2014 - 8:32am | My last Gamma World game started the players out in a walled off human city/state where the whole of the culture was made up from corporate organizational structure. The area was seperated into discipline specific departments (like villages) and all the people were corporate assets (not citizens or employees since they were basically slaves -- everybody was slaves to the whole). Also thier external military and internal militant police were called External Auditors and Internal Auditors respectively. It was a big walled off area with farmland and everything inside. ----------------------------------------------- |
 October 13, 2014 - 3:09pm | Okay, how would a UFO cult survive in a melting pot space frontier. I suppose the Tetrarchs would have several such cults, one for each dominant speculation about the Tetrarchs, and maybe a few for the roll-your-eyes types of speculations. The Sathar might even have worshipers. But what about all the "they live among us" and "they are watching us in invisible craft" and "they are watching from outside the frontier" speculations? View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 13, 2014 - 3:37pm | Okay, how would a UFO cult survive in a melting pot space frontier. I suppose the Tetrarchs would have several such cults, one for each dominant speculation about the Tetrarchs, and maybe a few for the roll-your-eyes types of speculations. The Sathar might even have worshipers. But what about all the "they live among us" and "they are watching us in invisible craft" and "they are watching from outside the frontier" speculations? You might say that the sathar do have their worshipers: The Frontier Peace Organization http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/4560 Any UFO cult would latch onto the tetrarchs for sure but also the wypongs? from Layover at Lossend article - they are semi-intelligent, have religeous beliefs, and able to communicate through a polyvox, and use tools ie primitive weapons No doubt someone will connect them to the tetrarchs or something Conspiracy theorist should have a heyday with the tetrarchs i would think. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 October 15, 2014 - 4:33am | But what about all the "they live among us" and "they are watching us in invisible craft" and "they are watching from outside the frontier" speculations? Yes, why not? If or when humans on Earth branch out - that stigma will probabbly be present on new colonies. "Bob, did you see those lights over the shuttle bay?" "yeah, it was a shuttle, Charlie..." "You sure? I think it may be some aliens!" "Charlie, why do aliens want to come to some poor colony on Titan when they can go screw with Earth!" |
October 15, 2014 - 9:27pm | or the precieved tech level might be so much higher than the frontier as to be magical... like dimension traveling aliens. ----------------------------------------------- |
 October 24, 2014 - 6:08pm | Nuwaubianism is by far the freakiest one on that list. - Everyone has 7 clones somewhere in the world. - There is an army of semi-aborted fetuses living in the sewers, who intend to take over the world. - Satan's son was raised by Richard Nixon. Real life is stranger than fiction. |
October 25, 2014 - 2:30am | They also believe one of the devil's names is Sam, and they believe Uncle Sam is the Devil, and so is Dr. Seuss (whom they specifically cite by name). Acording to them, Green Eggs & Ham is a satanic text wherein the devil chants, "Sam I Am". They believe the Rapture involves the return of Velociraptors. The T-Rex evolved from Greys. Their belief system describes several different kinds of UFOs and aliens, so that fits in nicely with SF. Several of their religious beliefs involve the Star Wars films, for example Yoda is actually Judah. According to them, the hula hoop is of alien origin. The lost goes on and on. I think they are they best ones to adapt as a weird Osakar religion (with a little tweaking). |
October 25, 2014 - 2:47am | Sometimes I am just dumbfounded at the extent of stupidity of some cults and their followers. But meeting them is even wierder. I just can't understand how they even manage to put on their clothes properly. No doubt their underwear often ends up inside out and backwards...on their heads. It must simply be that a chemical imbalance in their brains keeps them ultra-gullible. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 25, 2014 - 3:34am | I often hear people making jokes about Jehovah's Witnesses & Mormons, who admittedly do have a few wacky ideas of their own, but my question is this: how are they really any different than the mainstream religions? If you'd never heard of Christianity or Islam, and someone tried to describe them to you (as in these articles), wouldn't they sound just as kooky? Think about it. They only seem normal to us because we're used to them. |
 October 25, 2014 - 5:37am | Bossmoss has a point. Look up what a Muslim is supposed to do while on the Hajj and you might question Islam. Christianity has thousands of different sects. Some of these sects are far stranger than anything on the above list. Of course since the symbol of Christianity is a torture and execuetion device which can be very strange to those outside the religion. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
October 25, 2014 - 6:16am | I often hear people making jokes about Jehovah's Witnesses & Mormons, who admittedly do have a few wacky ideas of their own, but my question is this: how are they really any different than the mainstream religions? If you'd never heard of Christianity or Islam, and someone tried to describe them to you (as in these articles), wouldn't they sound just as kooky? Think about it. They only seem normal to us because we're used to them. I know what the whacky stuff about Mormons is, (underwear, spectacles, and the like,) but what are the whacky things of Jehovah's Witnesses you refer to?Regarding rattraveler's statement, I find Catholics particularly wierd with transubstantiation, idols for every saint, moving pedophile priests from perish to perish instead of just allowing them to marry and hating on everyone with a different viewpoint. Also the sign-wielding, hate-spewing, Bible-thumping (not reading) Westboro Baptist church. That said, I have no doubt such things would be very common even 300 years in the future. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 27, 2014 - 4:10pm | From another viewpoint so many diverse religions share common beliefs and doctrines that it makes one wander about the great apostacy and wether or not there have been continual cycles of apostasy and restoration throughout all history. There are so many common beliefs that osakar could easily move through many religions in their lives and become experts on religious history and origins. -iggy |
October 28, 2014 - 7:00am | ...but what are the whacky things of Jehovah's Witnesses you refer to? Lets narrow this down about a bit:
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October 28, 2014 - 9:11am | Not the place to go into it, but I did ask for it. Unfortunately, much of what you sight is either unverified claims or special treatment by their opposers and most of those are not really doctrinal.
None of these are actual contradictions to the scriptures they profess, which, while contradicting their own scripture is commonplace among most religions, it is still strange given that their scriptures are supposed to be their rulebooks. Here's what should be highlighted as strange about JW's, only because it is different than most Christian sects:
All of those are extremely strange ideas to those raised in other Christian churches and to just about everyone else. Here is what can be considered strange about most Christian sects:
Perhaps these can prompt some intersting ideas. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 28, 2014 - 10:53am | Indulgences, you mention about catholics I believe was basically a corruption of the church in the middle ages to raise money. I don't think there is any actual basis in the religion for them. They are not a practice outside of the dark ages. SNL had a skit or two about indulgences. ----------------------------------------------- |
October 28, 2014 - 11:56am | Actually I have seen reproductions of actual pages from the Watch Tower magazine where they named a particular day in a particular year that was the "end". They have done this twice in the watch tower which is touted as being authoritative mouth piece for god on earth. One has to wonder about that authority when something is predicted like that and it doesn't come true. They also announced a cure for cancer once. These are historic facts but you have to have access to old copies of the magazine to demonstrate them and typically the Watch Tower denies these things out of hand to their sheep and go on with the fleecing. I beleive one of the explanations given at the time was that Jesus returned spiritually or I could be confusing that with someone esle who made a similar prediction. I kind of like the old Testament standard for predictive prophecy (note only the minority of prophesy in the bible is predictive) If some predicted something and it did not come to pass the community was to take the obviously false prophet outside the city and stone them to death for the presumption of having spoken on god's behalf when he never told them to. Jehovah Witnesses would be better off today if the leadership of the Watch Tower and Tract Society had gotten a good old fashioned old testament stoning. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 28, 2014 - 12:31pm | Good one, Abub. I read all the articles about dates, jedion and yes specific dates were mentioned. I did not say they weren't, but they were only twice spoken of as definitive by the article writer. The statements in those articles were not approved by the governing body prior to publication. His name was Raymond Franz, brother of governing body member Frederick Franz. Fred Franz came up with the date, but he was never definitive. He simply calculated 6,000 years from the creation of Adam and wrote that it would be appropriate if Armageddon came in that year, but he did not say it would certainly come in that year. Raymond, who was the lead editor at the time, clung to it and declared it definitive in two later articles. He was eventually removed from the editorial staff for his questionable behavior as an editor. Sour grapes led to Ray going his own way on scriptural matters, even starting a Bible study group to corrupt. He was eventually removed from his position for apostasy and subsequently left the organization. He then railed against the governing body for the rest of his life, never accepting responsibility for his own pride and self-promotion. He spent the rest of his life picking apart every little thing he could knit-pick about the official operations of the headquarters and Jehovah's Witnesses teachings, always making it sound like he had no part in forming those operational procedures or in those articles he wrote about the dates. After the two articles in question, a fourth article, not specifically mentioning the date, years before the date came around, said that they should not be depending on such dates. The organization steadily improved its article-writing, editing and approval process until now no errors of that type will be found and whatever errors do occur are immediately corrected. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 28, 2014 - 12:35pm | Good one. Not sure why you posted this? Indulgences are actually the fullest development of a slavation based on good works. Money represents labor therefor why not give money in place of doing good works? Donation of money is a good work- giving it to St Jude's or a Children's Hospital today is considered a good work but somehow people giving it to the Catholic church is questionable. Indulgences, though repudiated now, was fully in keeping with Catholic theology of the time. Of course indulgences were one of the things that deeply bothered Martin Luther and led to the 95 thesies being posted on the Cathedral door. I would point out that Martin Luther was not being the rabble rouser he's made out to be by this act as he posted it in latin, which only the the limited educated class could read, his act equated to posting a noticed on the university bulletin board to spark some "coffee shop" theology. What turned Luther into the herald of the reformation was other theology students reading it, becoming inflamed with it, translating it into German and having it run off at Gutenburgh's new fangled printing press thingy and circulating it in the vulgar tongue such that it became the talk of the water cooler and not a theological discussion amoung academics at university. And the rest was history... There were other factors besides theology that contributed to the reformation. Like rulers realizing that having their own state religion that they were the head of instead of the Pope could be a good thing and the current level of corruption at the Vatican which had fluctuated over the centuries was pretty rampant at that time. still in the larger scheme of things it was easier to justify the reformation based on bashing the Catholic church for indulgences when it really was a normal expression of its theology. Wow, that was weird, was I just defending the Catholic Church? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
October 28, 2014 - 12:56pm | I sense that this is about a war of religions. Good day, jedion. Peace. For the record, I highlighted more peculiarites of Jehovah's Witnesses beliefs than Catholics or other religions. Let's not get so personal. jedion. I did not write the article. I merely posted it, and it is accurate. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 28, 2014 - 1:00pm | I kind of like the old Testament standard for predictive prophecy (note only the minority of prophesy in the bible is predictive) If some predicted something and it did not come to pass the community was to take the obviously false prophet outside the city and stone them to death for the presumption of having spoken on god's behalf when he never told them to. Jehovah Witnesses would be better off today if the leadership of the Watch Tower and Tract Society had gotten a good old fashioned old testament stoning. This seems a bit over the top and not appropriate to these forums. It constitutes hate speech.View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 28, 2014 - 6:38pm | So do osakar get into fights over the religions they adopt or just compare and trade them around over time as they mingle? -iggy |
October 28, 2014 - 9:58pm | I suspect Osakar compare & trade. They probably treat it the same as their ideas about fashion. |
October 29, 2014 - 6:20am | Vestments. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
October 29, 2014 - 9:03am |
Most (if not all) Christian churches (Christian not meaning Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Protestant, etc) do not have a cross displayed anywhere. Nor do any of the Morman church/temples. On the other hand, Catholic churches --- in addition to a crucifix --- typically have numerous paintings/reliefs/statues of saints and the virgin Mary etc on display that their congregation often kneel and pray before. |
