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Questions tagged [religion]

Use this tag for questions about religious practices. Do not ask questions about religious beliefs, though. Those are off-topic and there is no tag to use.

Religion is a cultural system that creates powerful and long-lasting meaning by establishing symbols that relate humanity to beliefs and values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.

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Does going to church add up to 3 years of life expectancy?

According to the New York Times: ONE of the most striking scientific discoveries about religion in recent years is that going to church weekly is good for you. Religious attendance — at least, religiosity — boosts the immune system and decreases…
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Were beavers once classified as fish for religious reasons?

Starting from a comment on this ELL question, it appears to be a fairly common internet fact. The most famous case involving beavers began when Francois de Laval, the first Bishop of Quebec, wrote to theologians at the Sorbonne (not the…
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Did witchcraft testing inevitably result in death by either drowning or execution?

From a speech by Australian politician David Leyonhjelm, but I've heard it elsewhere many times: The senator borrowed other stories from history in the speech, opening with details of the old practice of using ducking stools to detect …
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Did Muslim immigrants rape over 300 Swedish children in seven months of 2013?

From Top Conservative News: Muslim immigrants raped over 300 Swedish children in seven months of 2013 In the first seven months of 2013, over 1,000 Swedish women reported being raped by Muslim immigrants. Over 300 of those were under the age of…
user4951
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Does the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights consider Christians a hate group "threat"?

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) called in to Glenn Beck's radio show, and made this claim, among others: [T]he U.S Commission on Civil Rights says that Christians are the biggest hate group threat in America, in essence... Video via Right Wing…
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Did Krishna live?

Rudolf Otto claimed: That Krishna himself was a historical figure is indeed quite indubitable. [Source] Despite this, much of modern Western discourse ignores (or displays skepticism towards) a historical Krishna, while Indian discourse maintains…
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Did a banned treatise claim Leonardo da Vinci converted to Islam?

I found this to be strange, if not absurd: Morteza Khalaj Amirhosseini, the author of the book "Leonardo Da Vinci's Drawings", went on to say that the book presents a complete biography of Da Vinci in which he has proved based on first-hand sources…
Carlo Alterego
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Are there no camels in the Qur'an?

It seems to be an often-repeated saying that "there are no camels in the Koran". But I just repeated this factoid in the presence of a guy from Syria who insisted it's not true and that there is a sura about camels in the holy book of Islam. So I…
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Has the Catholic Church ever retracted an "ex cathedra" statement?

Question: Has the Catholic Church ever made a proclamation ex cathedra (as in, one which it declares is infallible) that it later retracted? This could literally be any form of the following: Some statement X was made, intended to be…
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Cause of Catholic clergy sexual abuse is the attitude of the 60's and 70's

Is there corroborating evidence to support the arguments put forward in a recent study by the U.S. Conference of Bishops that neither celibacy nor homosexuality can be blamed for the clerical abuse scandal within the U.S. Catholic…
Brian M. Hunt
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Was Jan Dzierżoń harassed for his work on parthenogenesis?

Rev. Jan Dzierżoń was a roman-catholic priest from Silesia, that did some important contributions to biology and beekeeping with his research. I.a. he is crediting with the discovery, that drones are a product of parthenogenesis. Dzierżoń came into…
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Did Christian soldiers commit the first recorded suicide bombing?

According to this Sky News article: The first recorded suicide bombing came from Christian soldiers during the Crusades to free The Holy City of Jerusalem from the control of Muslim armies. During the Crusades, the Knights Templar destroyed…
Sakib Arifin
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Did thousands of people claim to witness a strange solar phenomena ("dancing sun") at Fatima?

Let me clarify, I'm not asking if a miracle happened, or for a scientific explanation for why the sun might appear to do what was claimed. I'm asking about the actual numbers... if there is any verification for the claims that "thousands" of people…
Andrew Whatever
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Are atheists more generous than Christians?

This Metro article reports: Are atheists more generous than Christians? This homeless man’s experiment seems to suggest so. Some religions may say change comes from within, but this homeless man has come up with an ingenious way of determining…
Franck Dernoncourt
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Did Christians burn the Great Library of Alexandria?

The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the wonders of ancient civilisation having collected many thousands of scrolls containing knowledge and literature from across the known world. The 2009 movie Agora is partially about its destruction and…
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