What are weird non-biblical rules you've heard some religious people make up and follow?

”...And thou shalt not play green skinned fantasy characters in multi-player roleplaying games, for they are abominations unto the Lord.”

I thought Jesus was at the Expert Level in “Masters of the Universe”

Women shouldnt drive cars.

So the Alliance are “the good guys”? I’m assuming then that the Alliance are the various forms of Christianity then. That must be why the Alliance can still be “the good guys” even when Veressa and Jaina were leading the ethnic cleansing of Dalaran.

A watched pot never boils.

Thou shalt not masturbate.

@keobooks It’s tough and takes courage, you should congratulate him on standing up for his beliefs.

Some sects are very hard on women, like not wearing pants, or speaking up in church, not allowed to be preachers or deacons or any power roles.

Girls shouldn’t wear patent leather shoes because they could reflect what was under the girl’s skirt. Who knows what nun in a catholic girls’ school made up that one.

If you’ve got a mind to forbid something, it’s not too hard to find some bible verse that you can put to use.

I’ve had Jehovah’s Witnesses tell me that in Psalm 91:5, 6 (“You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.”), the “plague that destroys at midday” refers to secular philosophies.

Don’t want your kid reading Kierkegaard? Then plug that into this nice, generic piece of poetry.

No rock and roll! It’s the devil’s music! I’m surprised no one mentioned this yet. :)

@glacial Stryper’s ‘To Hell With The Devil’ was a huge Christian rock band, some of it’s pretty mainstream now, the modern stuff.

“God Helps Those Who Help Themselves” – this verse is found NO-WHERE in the “Christian” Bible, but this ‘verse’ is used all the time by the conservative Christians who have ‘Demonized’ the Americans who have fallen below the poverty line.

All the Amish stuff about no buttons or machines or cars. I never understood why the Bible would allow anything manufactured up until 1825 but not beyond that.

It is only unheathly if you let it influence you in an unhealthy manner. I suppose some people need limits. Like if you are a drug addict sometimes it is better to avoid temptation. Maybe it is a personal lesson more than a religious or godly one.

@zenvelo – for that matter, how about the hasidic jews who (in the year 2013) are still wearing the same of clothing that they wore in Lithuania in the early 1800s?

Or sabbath elevators which stop at every floor, so they don’t need to push a button that would cause electricity to flow (which is seen as causing a fire, which is forbidden on sabbath according to their belief)

@Linda_Owl Oh yeah, we use that one all the time, but I’ve never heard anyone thought it was biblical or referenced God.

No reading of illustrated books on the Sabbath.

No music (and no dancing) at wedding receptions held at the church. My cousin’s wedding reception was deathly boring because of this weird rule.

Also, the idea that bare shoulders are ‘immodest”. Is that really in the bible?

Rules I’ve seen implemented from warped interpretations of the Bible:

1 Corinthians 11:15 (KJV) reads: “But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.”
Because of this verse many evangelical Christians believe that women should either a) not cut their hair or b) have very long hair and/or c) wear a head covering over their long hair.

And don’t even get me started on those “Full Quiver” (or Quiverfull) people. <sigh> They take an Old Testament verse and warp it to mean that people who use birth control are sinning. Love that one. (NOT!)

And third, but most personal to me is: James 1:17 – “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
I grew up unable to listen to any secular music because it was “of the devil” and was “shifting shadows”. Anything that didn’t “glorify the Lord” wasn’t fit to see, watch or read.

Do not eat cow meat…
Do not buy toys…
I got to say I find this very entertaining, the weirdest thing were my mothers neighbor’s who are Indians from some part of India that forbids you to eat cow meat. They believe that their god is within the cow. Once a year they wash themselves with cow urine.
Than there’s the other dudes from Mecca who I managed to insult them with out even knowing it, my ex wife and I were invited to an Islamic birthday party a few years ago and the Telletubbies, it were four little things with television antennas on their heads and they were a hit on back then and we were not aware that they were declared as evil omens by the Islamic community, it’s safe to say that we were never invited into another Islamic home.

@antimatter Finally, something that fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians can agree on.

Priests cannot be married

Interpretation of scripture is an artform, lol. It’s like 9th grade poetry class. What did the poet mean? What is the symbolism??? So, I guess, what I’m saying is, what difference does it make whether it’s directly biblical, inferred biblical, “misinterpreted” biblical etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinitum….???? I don’t see it as “made-up”. It’s a matter of stretching the meaning, interpreting the meaning, and trying to make it into actual practice. Religion is philosophy, but it’s also practice. So the words need to be understood and translated into practice and this is most often how they get distorted and falsified into something unintended. That is the influence and fallibility of humanity. Ah, the learning curve! Unfortunately we tend to cling to some of the things that do us, as a society, the most harm.

We are always in the position of deciding what is good for humanity and what is bad. And yet, ironically, we are ill-equipped to be the judges of what is moral, and we are unaware of our ignorance, and we are like blind men always seeking for answers.

Ok, sorry, now that I got that out of my system…maybe I can answer your question, lol.

The bible is pretty vast and expansive and open to interpretation. I haven’t witnessed or known of any truly unrelated to the bible injunctions that influenced people in strange ways. I have witnessed things that I feel were misinterpreted from bible injunctions. One ofthe things I hate the most is the whole idea that dancing is sinful. Apparently, “Jesus loves everything” except dancing according to this schmo and others like him.

@Earthgirl now that you mention it I went to a church where they believed woman must cover their heads and were not allowed to talk in church. They believed that dancing is a sin.

OK, this now tops my list.

@thorninmud WOW. Ok, two thoughts spring to mind: 1) how was it determined that “ritual impurity” could not penetrate plastic, and 2) even if it couldn’t, he can’t have sealed the bag completely (or he wouldn’t be able to breathe), so can’t the impurities find their way through the air holes?

@glacial Not to mention that the airplane itself is a hermetically sealed container.

@thorninmud Ah! You are right; in fact it is probably better sealed than his plastic bag.

My thoughts on the pic were that if we could seal that bag just a little tighter maybe that would be one less goofball that we would have to be concerned with.