Worthless Widows??

A painting depicting Sati in the ancient Far East

Sati is the unusual practice of women burning themselves on the funeral pyre of their husband. It occurs mainly in India however; let’s get a few facts straight first. The practice is officially banned in India and is relatively rare. However, it is embedded within the culture and that is why Sati sometimes occurs. 

This article excellently explains that there are different reasons why women burn themselves. The article shows that some women feel forced to do it, by their community. Supposedly, some perform Sati because they really want to. Others feel that life without a husband would be too much of a struggle. 

Whatever the reason for me no community should allow Sati, whether the woman wants to or not. Even worse, women should never be or feel forced by their community to kill themselves. Why should they? For me, it is also terrible that some communities feel that women can’t support themselves without a husband. Perhaps I am naïve but surely there could at least be a place where all widows can live together?! Sati, just does not seem a valid option.  

Whilst doing the research for this post I came across this  online news article. It describes an 18 year old girl committing Sati because she was forced to by her family. She had been married for only 8 months. However, this was in 1987, so as I read about this girl I thought, 1987 is a relatively long time ago. The world has advanced a lot since then and we are now in the 21^st century. Yet, I was still shocked to discover that as recent as 2006 was when a woman last performed Sati. The article does state that the woman did it out of free choice. (However, how one would know this is beyond me!) I do respect people making their own choices, however, don’t you think that women in these areas should be educated and understand that Sati is not their only way out?

Westboro Weirdos!

The activities of the Westboro Baptist Church have fascinated me for a while. When I decided that my blog was going to be about religious extremities I immediately thought of the Westboro Baptist Church.



Protest signs held by a child of the WBC.



The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) claims that they are the one true religion of the world and everyone should practice what they preach. If we were to attach them to a religion it would be Christianity, however most Christians, in fact most of man-kind are loathed to be represented by them. The church is based in Kansas, however they spread their word through protests all over the USA at the funerals of dead soldiers. They hate gays, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, and basically anyone that does not believe in what they believe.

For me, the people of the WBC are very disturbing. In this clip –  we can see how extreme the people of this church are. They have no compassion for outsiders. What is most puzzling is that they do this in the name of ‘god’. Isn’t god supposed to be all loving and forgiving to others? Jesus forgave prostitutes and sinners, so it becomes quite difficult to understand the WBC’s logic of American soldiers and gays burning in hell due to the 'wrath of god'. I understand that some religions are opposed to homosexuality, yet it is inconceivable that they would persecute gays in the way that the WBC do.



The WBC promotes the religion through their website. You can be taken to their website content through a number of web links such as http://www.godhatesfags.com/ or http://www.priestsrapeboys.com/. The names themselves take offensive to a whole new level. Some countries have seen them as so offensive that they have banned the WBC from entering their country. Click here for this article. . Do you think that it is right that this group has been banned or do you think its members should be given freedom of speech? Do you think that this group cowers behind the word ‘religion’ and is really a hate group?

My First Blog – An Introduction! 

I wanted to blog about something that was really going to interest both me and my audience (hopefully I will have an audience!). So here it goes….. 

I’ve decided to write about the extremes of both religions and cults. Basically anything that I feel barely resembles its “mainstream religion” that it claims to be, or something that professes to be a religion but considered an extreme cult in the eyes of society. This theme will run through all of my blog posts. I’m going to explore all areas of the Internet and will post relevant articles and YouTube clips. 

I understand that some of the topics and issues that will be dealt with need to be done in a sensitive manner, but please do comment on my posts with any feedback, ideas or challenges that you may have and I will respond to you. 

Now let’s get down to some actual blogging business….

While doing some initial research on extreme religions I came across this website , which as you can see documents some of the world’s extreme religions. Some of them are quite humorous such as the religion of “Diego Maradona” but others appear more radical such as “2 – Nation of Yahweh, Black people are the true Jews”. It will be interesting to explore such an array of not-so-normal religions and see what they all practice. Do you think that religions such as these will turn out to be some harmless crackpot ideas put forward by a bunch of nutters or something that could turn more sinister?