Category:
Religion
Religion
Smell of the Apocalypse
A fragrance recently released by Thomson & Craighead is described as "a complex fragrance based on olfactory materials detailed in The Book of Revelation as it appears in the King James Bible first published in 1611."Some of those materials:
Thunder, blood, hail and fire, the creatures of the sea that have died, wormwood, a rod of iron, the opened earth, a grievous sore, the blood of a dead man, every living soul [who has] died in the sea, plagues, wine of her fornication, animal horns, filthiness of her fornication, blood of the martyrs of Jesus, flesh burned with fire, [and] a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.
Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 18, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Armageddon and Apocalypses, Religion, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents
The Recording Rosary
Damon Doherty invented the "Recording Rosary" so that people could pray the Rosary while driving. As a traveling jewelry salesman he found that "Rosary beads sometimes became tangled in the gear shift as he prayed his way from city to city." So he invented a solution (Design Patent 167,827).I'm not Catholic, and know very little about praying the Rosary, but I've got a few questions about his invention.
First, is it considered okay to multitask while praying the Rosary? So it's okay to pray the Rosary while driving a car?
Second, the second article below notes that his Recording Rosary was "an actual Rosary of legitimate material." What are the 'legitimate' materials that Rosary beads can be made out of?
Boston Globe - Feb 22, 1953
Omaha Our Sunday Visitor - Mar 15, 1953
Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 14, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Religion, Patents, 1950s, Cars
They Needed a Songbird in Heaven, So God Took Caruso Away
Never a good look for God, when He selfishly abducts entertainers for Heaven's Variety Show.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jan 02, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Death, Music, Religion, 1920s
Pudsey Treacle Mines
Aug 1975: The Rev. Paul Needle attempted to convince 150 British children to embrace the Christian faith with the argument that if the Pudsey treacle mines don't really exist, then Jesus must.The Rev. Paul Needle, the curate at the parish church, who organised the search, said: "When you realise that most people are prepared to half-believe in the Pudsey treacle mines, it gives a ray of hope that the much more reliable facts about Jesus may be considered and proved true.
The Guardian - Aug 21, 1975
Of course, the flaw in his argument was that the treacle mines are quite real, as explained by Don Gillan:
Natural treacle is formed over millenia in much the same way as petroleum. The whole area where Pudsey now stands was once a 'savannah' of sugar beet. Grazing dinosaurs cropped off the exposed greenery of the plants leaving the sugar rich beets lying untouched below the ground. Centuries upon centuries of this occurence led to the ground becoming saturated with monosaccharides as the decaying beets released their simple natural sugars. These filtered down through the ground until they encountered a barrier of impervious rock, where they pooled, and over the centuries under heat from the Earth's core below and pressure from the weight of the ground bearing down from on top were transformed into pure raw treacle, which was then absorbed into layers of porous rock.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Dec 23, 2023 -
Comments (3)
Category: Religion, Candy, 1970s
Miracle at Syracuse, NY
Not a "Christmas Miracle," but we'll take what we can get.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Dec 22, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Religion, Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal, 1940s
Bishop in Space
Nov 1957: Lord Alastair Graham offered a solution for declining church attendance. Launch a bishop into space inside a sputnik.For context, the Soviets had just a few days before (Nov 3, 1957) launched Sputnik 2 which carried the first living creature into space, a small dog named Laika. Graham's remark was evidently a reference to this.
However, while the Soviets had succeeded in getting Laika into space, they had made no plans for getting her back alive. It was a one-way trip. It's not clear that Graham realized this, but it definitely puts a different spin on his suggestion.
The Guardian - Nov 13, 1957
Posted By: Alex - Mon Nov 20, 2023 -
Comments (0)
Category: Religion, Spaceflight, Astronautics, and Astronomy, 1950s
If God loves me, why can’t I get my locker open?
A profound theological puzzle. First published in 1980.Lorraine Peterson is also the author of Why Isn't God Giving Cash Prizes?.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Nov 09, 2023 -
Comments (3)
Category: Religion, Books, 1980s
Robert Quillen’s Monument to Eve
Robert Quillen was once a well-known humorist, but is nigh-forgotten today. However, still standing is one of his pranks. A whimsical statue dedicated to "the first woman."Official South Carolina page on Quillen here.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Oct 20, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Humor, Newspapers, Regionalism, Religion, Statues and Monuments, Historical Figure
DeVere Baker, Mormon Raftmaker
His page at a Mormon Wiki.He had the goal of sailing ocean currents in order to prove the voyages spoken of in the Book of Mormon were possible.... His failures were many, and often embarrassing, so embarrassing that the press and Mormons in general began to look the other way, rather than report on his adventures.... Nor were Baker’s dreams confined to the ocean. In a unique combination of science-fiction and Mormon theology, he authored several stories focused on a beautiful alien girl named ‘Quetara.’ A human scientist is kidnapped by her crew and falls in love with her, learning in the process how God came to be, billions of years previously, and how evolution allowed the endless variation of species to develop on each world in a grand, perpetual Cosmic experiment overseen and controlled by Deity. A subtext of this was ostensibly good latter-day doctrine – that countless other worlds, including, of course, the wise and alluring Quetara’s own planet, were inhabited by people just like us.
Read a long essay here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jul 19, 2023 -
Comments (5)
Category: Eccentrics, Explorers, Frontiersmen, and Conquerors, Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, Religion, Twentieth Century
The Reserved Embrace Theory
A fringe theological theory, advanced by Rev. Robert Kirsch, holding that a Catholic priest could have sex without violating his vows as long as the sex was passionless. The church rejected his theory.
Albuquerque Journal - Nov 18, 1992 (click to enlarge)
Kirsch died in 2005. According to his obituary, the lawsuit described above never went to trial.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jun 20, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Religion, 1990s, Sex
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |