religion

Blessed be he, the Grimace.

That’s right. Grimace, Fry Guy, and Ronald McDonald are opening up shop right next to the Pope in downtown Vatican City, catering to the some six-millions tourists that pass through those hollowed grounds every year.

Not everyone’s looking to give the Hamburglar forgiveness, though. Only God may judge the Hamburglar.

via Geek

According to Vice, the new McDonald’s is "at the corner Borgo Pio and Via del Mascherino, a mere block and a half—about 100 yards—from the famous St Peter’s Square. While neighbors already displeased by vendors hawking knickknacks in the area have complained that the McDonald’s would be a 'decisive blow on an already wounded animal,' at least one Cardinal is also saying leasing Vatican real estate to Ronald McDonald isn’t in keeping with the Church’s mission.”

Vice recieved an official response from McDonald’s, which stated they are occupying “a popular tourist area outside the Vatican that already has many other restaurants, bars, and retail shops… As is the case whenever McDonald’s operates near historic sites anywhere in Italy, this restaurant has been fully adapted with respect to the historical environment.”

McDonald’s isn’t the only chain that’s coming to the Vatican. Hard Rock Cafe is coming to Via della Conciliazione, answering the prayers of millions who want yet another Hard Rock Cafe, apparently.

Enjoy the Vatican, tourists, it’s yours now!

via YouTube

Close to 65,500 Aussies consider The Force their official religion. That's close to all the Sikhs and more than the Seven Day Adventists, Salvation Army, most Orthodox churches in Australia.

Guess which group is the most upset about the Rise of the Force Followers? Yep, the Atheist Foundation Of Australia! Oh, the irony... Atheist Foundation Of Australia!

(IMAGE: GETTY/MASHABLE)

Human-shaped spirit caught on camera, or just another sh*tty, potentially photoshopped picture? These are some of the reactions via Lex 18's Facebook page so far:







NBC's Lex18 reports, 

"The crash occurred 5:30 Tuesday afternoon on Highway 15 near Stanton. Officials tell LEX 18 the person on the motorcycle was the only person involved and he was taken to a hospital where he later died.

Saul Vazquez, the man who took the photo, posted it on Facebook and said he took it from the cab of his truck. It has since been shared over 16,000 times in just 10 hours.

Lots of people are drawing their own conclusions about the photo, but either way it’s causing a huge conversation on social media. LEX 18 reached out to Vazquez, all he would he would say is that the photo has not been altered."

Bentley Yoder was born with the odds stacked against him-- born with a brain outside his skull. Bentley's parents, Sierra and Dustin were told by doctors that discovered Bentley's rare condition called cranium bifidum, that Bentley was simply 'incompatible with life.' 



Bentley's parents refused to quit on him though, and decided to go through with the pregnancy, 'just to see him before saying goodbye.' To everyone's surprise Bentley came kicking and screaming into this world on time, on October 31, 2015. He went on to develop normally, save for the critical parts of his brain on top his head, and left nearly all doctors at a mere loss for words over how this could be so. 

Fast forward four months, and Bentley's parents were actively seeking out the nation's foremost leading authorities on the brain surgery front, with hopes to find a team capable of performing the surgery necessary to relocate parts of Bentley's brain back inside his skull.

They found Dr. John Meara at Boston Children's Hospital, who planned and practiced the pending procedure using 3D-printed models. On May 24th the surgery commenced, and finished with success six hours later. 



A month after the surgery Bentley shows all signs of being just fine, but only time will tell whether things like his vision were impaired for the long run. 

New Zealanders can now be married by a 'ministeroni' of the Pastafarian religion. Karen Martyn is the country's first, and so far only, legally recognized marriage celebrant for The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  


via Stuff

This means that a wedding performed by Martyn with all the trappings of Pastafarianism (which includes pirate costumes and, obviously, spaghetti) will be legally binding. 

If you're wondering what a Pastafarian wedding would be like, this is a great example:

According to medieval artist/scientist, Richard Neave, Jesus is not the white, long-haired, skinny face you've been seeing throughout your entire life.

Using the powers of science, Neave found three skulls from Israeli archaeological sites and used computerized tomography to construct the best shape for Jesus's face. From his findings, Neave created a black Jesus, with a much broader nose and a new hairdo.

This version of Jesus makes a lot more sense for the region in which Jesus lived. One might think the writers of the Bible would have pointed out the fact that White Jesus may have stood out in the crowd. Maybe not...

So, since there have never been any actual drawings of Jesus discovered, scientists are calling Richard Neave's rendition the most realistic drawing of Jesus ever created.

A lot of the Western world operates under the assumption that the Quran is a violent text, but is it really any worse than the Christian Bible, or are we just being prejudiced? 

Dit Is Normaal decided to test this assumption, and read a few select passages of the Bible to passers-by on the street. People were appalled by the content and had some very critical things to say about its source. The only problem is that they thought they were hearing passages from the Quran. All of the participants were shocked when they found out the truth, and many were unaware of how violent the Bible can be. One man commented, "It's all just prejudice really, I always try not to be prejudiced myself but apparently I already am."

Do you suffer that same prejudice?

What if God was one of us?

Well, he probably wouldn't believe in himself if he was under the age of 30.

According Pew Research Center's 2014 Religious Landscape Study, only half of adults under the age of 30 say they believe in God and overall belief in God is dropping rapidly.

A large majority of Americans still believe in God (89 percent), but there is evidence that absolute certainty of God's existence is falling. It has fallen to 63 percent, down 8 points from 2007.

While there is a trend toward unaffiliation with God and religion, belief in God for certain groups has remained constant.

Evangelical Protestants, members of the historically black Protestant tradition and Muslims all still have high rates of absolute belief in God.

Our world still has hope of not turning into a Godless wasteland where horned creatures and demons roam the streets!

Actress Leah Remini is here to tell us all that Scientology is weird as hell.

Thanks for telling us something literally everyone already knew?

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Remini recounts her over 30 years with the cult and her decision to leave the Church of Scientology.

"The decision to leave is you giving up everything you've worked for your whole life...As time goes on, you start to lose touch with the real world," she says in a preview of the interview.

She is also critical of actor Tom Cruise, one of the most notable Scientologists.

The full interview will air on 20/20on Friday, October 30 at 10 p.m., ET

Remini should probably be careful, though. There's an OT level XVIII SUPREME BEING on the loose.

A 23-year-old woman in Sydney, Australia has won over the world after standing up to a hateful train passenger who was accusing a Muslim woman of being part of ISIS.

Stacey Eden overheard the passenger harassing her for about 10 minutes before deciding to intervene and film their conversation.

At one point the lady mocks the Muslim woman for wearing a hijab.

“Why do you wear it for a man that marries a six year-old girl?” she asks.

“She wears it for herself, ok?” Eden replies. “She wears it because she wants to be modest with her body.”

The Islamaphobic woman then brings up recent terror attacks and beheadings, to which Eden says “that’s not her doing it. That’s a minority of people.”

She posted the video of the confrontation to her Facebook page on Wednesday encouraging everyone to love on another regardless of religion.

“People like this make me sick,” she wrote in a Facebook post with the video. “People who are so ignorant and disrespectful to other people who were clearly sitting there minding their own business. ”

She’s received lots of support from people online about the incident, including the Muslim woman’s husband Hafeez Ahmed Bhatti who posted the video to his own page thanking her.

“God bless Stacey Eden,” he wrote.

One grandmother apparently gave ISIS quite an earful.

In the video above which surfaced last week, an old woman in Syria gets right up in the face of some ISIS militants (according to the uploader) telling them that what they are doing is wrong.

“Oh you devils, turn back to God,” she says, “It’s all forbidden. I swear nothing what you have done was in the way of God.”

She argues against the unnecessary slaughter of innocents and warns them that their group is cursed.

“Neither of you will win,” she says. “Nor will anybody, you only will keep killing each other like donkeys.”

The men laugh and make fun of her, telling her to go away.

There isn’t much more information on the origins of this video, and the BBC wonders if the men are in fact ISIS as the uploader claims them to be. Some commenters are pointing out that if it really were ISIS, they would have killed the woman on the spot.

Over the weekend, U.S. led forced conducted a number of air strikes against ISIS targets in both Syria and Iraq.

Thursday was Texas Muslim Capitol Day in Austin, and a bunch of anti-Muslim protesters and a Texas lawmaker made things really weird.

The event is held every 2 years and is organized by the Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations as an opportunity for the Muslim community the meet with lawmakers.

This is the first year that protesters have showed up, according to the Texas Tribune, and one woman took things to a whole new level of crazy when she pulled a Kanye on one of the speakers.

“I proclaim the name of the Lord Jesus Christ over the Capitol of Texas,” she said. “I stand against Islam and the false prophet Mohammad. Islam will never dominate the United States and by the grace of God, it will not dominate Texas.”

State Rep. Molly White also created a stir with a Facebook post about the event in which she requested that Muslims visiting her office publicly pledge allegiance to the U.S.

“I did leave an Israeli flag on the reception desk in my office with instructions to staff to ask representatives from the Muslim community to renounce Islamic terrorist groups and publicly announce allegiance to America and our laws,” she wrote. “We will see how long they stay in my office.”

Of course, people online aren’t taking this very well.

From Facebook:

“On behalf of my fellow Christians, I renounce Molly White.” – Joe Alvarado


“I was born and raised here in Texas, and I was also raised Muslim. I didn’t realize that 15 years of pledging allegiance to America in public school wasn’t enough to solidify my American identity. Plz let me know how your Israeli flag will help me become a better American, and also how I can avoid becoming a terrorist. Thank you.” – Laila Khalili

 

 

 

 

 

Speaker of the House Joe Straus issued a statement afterwards commenting on White’s mandatory oath.

“The Texas Capitol belongs to all the people of this state, and legislators have a responsibility to treat all visitors just as we expect to be treated — with dignity and respect,” he said. “Anything else reflects poorly on the entire body and distracts from the very important work in front of us.”

CEO of News Corp Rupert Murdoch (aka the "Lord Voldemort" of media moguls) posted a very controversial message on Friday, saying that all Muslims should be held responsible for the actions of Islamic extremists.

He also added that "political correctness makes for denial and hypocrisy."

His tweets come just a few days after the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Needless to say, this statement did not go over well with people online, especially the 23 percent of the world's population whom he just accused of terrorism.

But over the weekend, "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling came to their defense, firing back at Murdoch with this absolutely perfect Tweet.



She also took responsibility for the Spanish Inquisition, all Christian fundamentalist violence and televangelist Jim Bakker.

New Jersey Pastor Eric Dammann is using his fist to force God's will upon his people.

In a sermon that reportedly dates back to July but has recently gone viral, Damann says he met a kid named Ben in Calgary who was a "smart aleck."

He wasn't taking the Lord seriously, so he did what any peaceful man of God would do and knocked him to the ground.

"So I walked over to him and went, Bam! Punched him in the chest as hard as I could," he said. "I crumpled the kid. I just crumpled him."

He later apologized saying the clip was out of context.

"I do not endorse child abuse or the punching of children," he told The NY Daily News. "My intention in the sermon was to make a point of how God can use our mistakes. The viral clip does not show the whole sermon, where I say what I did was wrong."

Good news for your dearly departed Fluffy.

At a recent appearance in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis consoled a young boy whose dog had died saying: "Paradise is open to all of God's creatures."

This is contradictory to traditional Roman Catholic beliefs that animals don't have souls as well as the views of the previous pope, Pope Benedict XVI.

Benedict gave a sermon in 2008 in which he said that after an animal dies, it "just means the end of existence on earth."

The Humane Society is praising the comments, and PETA thinks this might now turn everyone into a vegan.

As an animal lover, Pope Francis (whose name comes from the patron saint of animals, St. Francis of Assisi) also received two donkeys as an early Christmas present this year.

VICE is confused why everyone is just now reading their 4-month-old old article about Andrew Keegan starting his own religion. [Facebook]

While the Obama girls are all smiles this Christmas after frowning their way through a boring turkey pardon, former first daughter Jenna Bush revealed there was some "hanky panky" in the White House. [WaPo]

Unfortunately for hate-watchers looking to spread snark, "Peter Pan Live!" was just… "fine." [LA Times]

A chicken farmer is crying "fowl" against Perdue, opening up his farm to cameras and the sad truth of animal abuse. [NYT]

TGIF! A "Boy Meets World" reunion is happening… on "Girl Meets World." [Hollywood Life]