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Permalink Reply by Akshay Bist on April 23, 2011 at 8:13am

Aw man! just thought of a better title for the discussion - Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the nuttiest of them all?

Why couldn't I have thought of this before :/p>

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Permalink Reply by Robert Karp on April 23, 2011 at 8:22am

http://www.scribd.com/doc/458944/Bizarre-Religions-and-Cults

 

Check out number three. Raelism - That would be my vote!

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Permalink Reply by Akshay Bist on April 23, 2011 at 8:26am

wow, I've never heard about any of these cults/religions except Aum Shinrikyo.

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Permalink Reply by Akshay Bist on April 23, 2011 at 8:28am

OMFG! just realized that in my favorite SF trilogy - The Void trilogy, one of the more prominent alien races is called Rael! I wonder if this is where Peter F. Hamilton got the name from

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Permalink Reply by jim on April 23, 2011 at 9:46am

cannibalistic guys in drag gets my vote.

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Permalink Reply by Apple on April 23, 2011 at 11:13am

Fundamentalist Islam (Islamism) is the nuttiest as it aspires to world domination through violence and has a huge recruiting pool of "moderate" Muslim youth.  More Muslim youths are recruited to Islamism every day than all peace seeking cooperative volunteer organizations combined.

 

Some forms of Buddhism (such as Zen) would be the least nutty to me.  There are no gods or higher powers.  Karma can been seen simply as laws of cause and effect.  The teachings focus on calming one's mind and being present in the moment. 

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Permalink Reply by Robert Karp on April 23, 2011 at 11:30am

Yeah but Buddhism lost me when it started talking about ghosts.

http://www.angelsghosts.com/ghosts_buddhism

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Apple on April 23, 2011 at 11:57am

There are many different types of Buddhism and Buddhists in the world.  There are all kinds of contradictory ideas all fall under "Buddhism."  For every article you can link about a Buddhist belief in literal hungry ghosts, I can link one that says the opposite:  http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=8,4175,0,0,1,0

 

One thing is certain, and that is that historically Buddhism has been very flexable.  For example, someone can be both a Buddhist and another religion at the same time.  Many local cultural animism elements have been adapted into the Buddhism of those regions.  Now that same adaptability has come full circle.  Where the core of Buddhism takes no sides in god belief, allowing practitioners to either follow gods or to not follow them, it takes no sides in rational thinking either.  That is to say, Buddhism can be fully practiced by rationalists as easily as it can be practiced by Hindus.

 

A samurai once asked Zen Master Hakuin where he would go after he died. Hakuin answered ‘How am I supposed to know?’
‘How do you not know? You’re a Zen master!’ exclaimed the samurai.
‘Yes, but not a dead one,’ Hakuin answered.

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