“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” — Pascal
Religion
Low Mass
What is it with salt miners? Apparently inspired by Poland’s Wieliczka mine, which features a salty Last Supper, Colombia has built an entire salt cathedral, complete with 14 chapels representing the stations of the cross. Don’t they have work to do?
In the Beginning
The first chapter of Genesis, written on an egg.
From the Jerusalem Museum.
“Old Joke Versified”
Says Tom to Bill, pray tell me, sir,
Why is it that the devil,
In spite of all his naughty ways,
Can never be uncivil?
Says Bill to Tom, the answer’s plain
To any mind that’s bright:
Because the imp of darkness, sir,
Can ne’er be imp o’ light.
— Charles Carroll Bombaugh, Gleanings for the Curious From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, 1890
Unbelievers
Modern atheists:
- Douglas Adams
- Woody Allen
- Isaac Asimov
- Dave Barry
- Ricky Gervais
- Paul Giamatti
- Nadine Gordimer
- Katharine Hepburn
- Billy Joel
- Ian McEwan
- Ian McKellen
- Harold Pinter
- Kurt Vonnegut
“Atheism,” said George Carlin, “is a non-prophet organization.”
Scandal
In 1394, a pig was hanged at Mortaign for having sacrilegiously eaten a consecrated wafer; and in a case of infanticide, it is expressly stated in the plaintiff’s declaration that the pig killed the child and ate of its flesh, “although it was Friday,” and this violation of the jejunium sextae, prescribed by the Church, was urged by the prosecuting attorney and accepted by the court as a serious aggravation of the porker’s offence.
— E.P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, 1906
Miraculous
Curiously, St. Teresa of Ãvila died on the same night that the Catholic world switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.
The switch occasioned a 10-day correction — so Teresa died on Thursday, Oct. 4, 1582, and the next day was Friday, Oct. 15.
A Biblical Pangram
Ezra 7:21 contains every letter except J:
And I, even I, Artaxerxes the king, do make a decree to all the treasurers which are beyond the river, that whatsoever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, shall require of you, it be done speedily.
Low Profile
If you were an early Christian fleeing Roman persecution, Turkey offered more than 200 underground cities, 40 of which contain three levels or more. The largest found so far, in Derinkuyu, has eight floors and extends to a depth of 85 meters, covering as much as 7,000 square feet (some floors haven’t yet been excavated).
It wasn’t a bad life: The larger complexes had rooms for food storage, kitchens, churches, stables, wine and oil presses, and shafts for ventilation. At its height, the city at Derinkuyu could accommodate 50,000 people.
Just Deserts
The image of a man playing chess with the devil for possession of his soul has appeared in many pieces of fiction, notably Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal (and later Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey). In one interesting twist that appears in some folk stories, the devil takes black (naturally), and play goes like this:
1. … Nd4+ 2. Kd6 Qxd7+ 3. Nxd7 Rxd5+ 4. Nxd5 Re6
“Mate!” cries the fiend — but then he takes a second look at the board and disappears with a scream:
