₦airaland Forum

I have been dating a girl for 2 years. Everything is great, we love each other, want to get married when we graduate etc etc... However, she has outright expressed that she would not marry me if I wasn’t a Christian (I’m atheist). We have had some tough talks and we both aren’t willing to compromise on the issue. She wants to wait it out and see if God will talk to me or if I will change my outlook. I tell her it is probably not going to happen as I have wrestled with religion growing up and have come to my terms with it. Like I said, everything else is fantastic in our relationship, but I have been feeling like it will all be for naught. We truly believe that we want to marry each other. I try to explain to her that I think it could work with us not believing in the same thing but she does not. What should I do in this situation?

TL;DR Christian girl wants me to be a Christian before marriage, I probably won’t be. We both love each other dearly. Should we continue on?

prinsam30:
for Android users send COM to 399 on Etisalat network #1000 for 3gb, ur phone must be rooted and change the imei number to BB's, come here and thank me later

Do I only need to change Imei? or is there anything else to do? please help

wolfenstein:
sowi o baba legibility, but is it written anywhere dt d fone is illegible?

I believe you know what legibility means, you wrote something meaningful but made people strain their eyes to read it. I almost just skipped it like I usually do.

youmour:
Glo is a nigerian telecomm company yet na Nigerians dey suffer her pass,over here in Ghana i load 30gb glo for approximately 7k monthly.something is really wrong with Nigeria

Just imagine!, I believe this is the result of the high cost of doing business in Nigeria, I don't even blame them.

wolfenstein:
JųŞŧ ŋơŧıĆɛɖ ıŧ ŧơ ơ, I'm ųŞıŋɠ ą ŧɛĆɧŋơ ɧ5 Şɧąřıŋɠ ɖ ıŋŧɛřŋɛŧ ŧơ ąŋơɖą קɧơŋɛ ąŋɖ ɖıŞ ıŞ ɯąŧ I ʝųŞŧ ŋơŧıĆɛɖ ŧơ. Sɧơɯıŋɠ mɛ ɧą۷ɛ ŧɛŧɧɛřɛɖ 15.16ɠც ცųŧ ơŋ mყ ɠٳơɧıŞ ıŧŞ Şɧơɯıŋɠ mɛ 20.2ɠც. Wɧɛřɛ ɖ ɧɛٳٳ ɖıɖ ɖ řɛmąıŋıŋɠ GB ɠơ??

What's wrong with you? Use a legible font jare.

Na the new way advertise olosho be this? no wahala, op how much for two nights? e get some white men wey dey enter town tomorrow and dey need nyash to pipe.

I love these

RobinHez:
That thing can NEVER fly. Ask any aeronautic Engineer to explain why...

You don't need an engineer to tell you that the only way that thing is flying anywhere is as a passenger in an actual aircraft.

dunkem21:

My guy this is sad, not funny.

If you drive a Vboot and someone driving Range Rover Evoque came to borrow from you how would you look at that person?

I agree with him on this, whatever your opinion is of this man, you can't help but realize how stupid it all looks. #Budgetcommonsense

"Are Nigerians aware the British PM only gets an annual grant of £30,000 for upkeep of his official living quarters?‪#‎BudgetCommonsense‬

How does Nigeria looks when we seek to borrow from UK to fund 2016 budget yet our expenses are higher than theirs? #BudgetCommonsense

I said except the President, we should all use personal cars because we look like fools if we spend more than our creditors #BudgetCommonsense

If the 2016 budget is passed as is, we will borrow ₦5 Billion daily. It will be irresponsible to spend debt on luxuries #BudgetCommonsense

Isn't it embarrassing to fly a Presidential jet to a country we want to borrow from and whose own leaders have none? #BudgetCommonsense

I practice what I preach. In chambers and publicly, I call for reduction in pay. I share my allowance with my Constituents #BudgetCommonsense

My name is Ben Murray-Bruce and I just want to make Commonsense!"

By Kristin Wong of Lifehacker.

We spend a lot of energy looking for shortcuts to save time, and sure, those shortcuts add up. But when I look back, my biggest time regrets aren’t spending too much time on Twitter or mismanaging my daily tasks. Those are bad habits, but there are bigger, more systematic time wasters that have really gotten in the way. Fixing these will free up a massive amount of time and energy.

Not Asking for Help

My first week on my first job out of college, my boss handed me a huge spreadsheet. He told me to organize it in a way that made zero sense to me. Being a quiet, timid person, I simply nodded, walked back to my desk, and stared at that spreadsheet for like an hour, hoping to make some sense of it (yep, just like George Costanza and the Penske file ).

Finally, my coworker came in, and I confessed I had no idea what to do. He broke it down for me, then dropped some advice that’s stuck with me ever since: “You might feel dumb asking questions, but you look dumber when you don’t get it because you failed to ask.”

It was harsh, but true. And not only did I look like an ass, I could’ve also saved a fair amount of time that day by simply asking my boss what he meant. It made me wonder how much time I’d wasted by not asking for help over the years. As dumb as you might feel asking questions, it’s the fastest way to get an answer.

Similarly, asking for help is a great way to, well, get help. This is why networking and finding a mentor are hugely valuable. If you feel stuck in your career or need to learn new skills and have no idea how to get started, talking to other people in your field will go a long way. Even if it’s just shooting someone a short email, asking for help is like a shortcut for your career. Try Leo Widrich’s formula for asking for help via email:

2-3 sentences of honest appreciation. There is a reason you are asking someone for help. They have a lot of experience in that field, worked on a startup/idea related to what you are working on or else. If you do this, it shows them you have thought about why picking them out to ask for help.
1 sentence that states a single, focused question people can give you an answer to. Here is one that worked very well when I asked Noah:
“What was the single, most valuable user acquisition

Here’s another way to look at it: if you’re not asking for help,
you’re probably not challenging yourself enough. If you have all the answers, you’re not learning new skills, trying new things, or moving forward and out of your comfort zone. There are a handful of reasons we don’t ask for help, but it’s usually because we’re too proud or scared, and that’s a huge waste of time, because it keeps you from moving forward.

Trying to Make Bad Relationships Work

Relationships require maintenance, but there’s a difference between maintaining a good relationship and trying to force a bad one that doesn’t make much sense to begin with.

There’s a lot of emotion in romance and friendships, so sometimes it’s hard to tell when you should keep trying or you should just call it quits . Like a lot of people, I made some common bad decisions that wasted both my time and the time of the person I was with. For example:

-Thinking I have more in common with the person I’m dating than I actually do

-Being in a relationship just to avoid loneliness

-Staying in a relationship only out of fear of losing the person

There are good reasons for wanting to make a relationship work, but those aren’t good ones. They cloud your judgment, prolong your unhappiness, and distract you from things that matter to you most. At the same time, it’s hard to say all bad relationships are a total waste of time, because you learn a lot about yourself from them. That’s a valid silver lining, but still, the sooner you learn those lessons, the better.

Similarly, not dealing with the emotional impact of a breakup is also a big waste of time. When a relationship ends, we usually go through the typical stages of grief associated with loss. It’s easy to get comfortable with denial and convince ourselves we don’t really care and we’re fine. In reality, ignoring the pain only prolongs it. Our work suffers ; the rest of our relationships suffer.

Dwelling on Your Mistakes and Shortcomings

Learning from your mistakes is one thing. Dwelling on them wastes your time, diminishes your confidence, and keeps you from getting on with your life.
Dwelling also makes you more apt to repeat your mistakes . In a recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, researchers asked subjects to spend money during an imaginary trip to the mall. Before “shopping,” some subjects were asked to recall a past financial mistake. They found those subjects were more likely to incur debt. A press release for the study concluded:

Perhaps the most surprising, Haws said, is that searching through the past can negatively affect behavior, depending on the ease of recall, even when past examples are positive...Instead of dwelling on the past, Haws said, her research into behavior suggests that setting goals for the future can positively change present behavior...In short, if we want to have better self-control, “Look forward,” Haws says. “Don’t look back.”

When you think about your own experiences, it probably makes sense. Dwelling makes you feel like a failure. When I feel like a failure, it’s easy to tell myself there’s no point in trying, because I already suck. (Hence, getting further into debt when you already feel like an overspender.)

Of course, you don’t want to skip over your mistakes and ignore them either. The goal is to glean something from them, then release the failure. I like Emilie Wapnick’s process for doing this:

In order to let the past go, you must forgive yourself officially.

Feel the embarrassment or shame one final time. Really feel it throughout your body. Next, tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes and you know you that that outcome was not your intention. It was an accident. Finally, make the decision to forgive yourself and do it. It helps to even say it out loud.

From now on, it’s okay. You are forgiven.

Every time the thought comes back, simply remind yourself that you have already been forgiven, so there’s no reason to feel bad anymore. Then push the thought away.

One of my other big time regrets is not allowing myself to fail out of fear of my own shortcomings.

For years, I stayed in a comfortable place and didn’t try to do things I wanted to do. I wanted to travel after high school, but I went to college close to home instead, because I was too shy to meet new people, and I was afraid I couldn’t make it in another city. After college, I wanted to be a freelance writer, but I decided to find a more stable, accessible job instead, because that was easier. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live a stable, comfortable life, but I was doing it for the wrong reasons: because I was afraid to fail.

Eventually, I got tired of this. I decided to find work I actually enjoyed, travel more, and live somewhere else. I made a ton of mistakes along the way, and even when I did succeed, I felt like an imposter . Still, I think the bigger mistake was not trying sooner. Even if I failed, I would’ve learned from my mistakes much sooner.

Worrying Too Much About Other People

It’s easy to waste time worrying about other people, too. Don’t get me wrong—your friends and loved ones mean a lot to you, and you want to spend time nurturing them. But we also spend a lot of time fretting over problems that don’t matter in the long run.

For example, I spent years getting annoyed with people who undermine me . I complained about them, tried to understand them, wondered what was wrong with me that I inspired that kind of behavior. Those habits always lead to a dead end, because they didn’t involve action. The older I got, the less tolerant I became of this behavior, and I learned to nip it in the bud.

I also indulged another time wasting emotion: jealousy . I compared myself to everyone, wanted what they had, and felt inadequate. Like most negative, destructive feelings, the first (and biggest) step to overcoming it is understanding it.

I paid attention to my jealousy and what triggered it, then learned that it was less about the other person and more about my own feelings of inadequacy. In short, I embraced that jealousy. Envy is a bit different, but it often comes from the same place, and here’s what writer Trent Hamm suggests in dealing with your envy:

The question is, why do you want it in your life? I like to use the “five whys” when handling a question like this. Whenever I’m trying to answer a “why” question, I repeat it five times, asking it of the answer I come up with for each question. When you identify a particular strong desire that you have, step back for a moment and break it down into small pieces. Then, see if there isn’t a way for you to address those smaller pieces in your own life. Again, let’s take that international trip. What elements am I desiring when it comes to that trip? I want to expose my children to different cultures…. The thing is, when I start breaking that trip down into small pieces, I start seeing pieces that I can easily incorporate into my own life.

Once you understand why you feel jealous or envious, you can take action to take care of the problem, whether that means processing the emotions or coming up with goals for yourself. Either way, that’s a lot more productive.

Most of us are probably guilty of all of these at some point, and really, they’re human nature. Regret is another big waste of time, so there’s no point in beating yourself up over these. The sooner you learn from them, though, the sooner you can free up your time and energy to live the life you want.

Source: [url=lifehacker.com/the-biggest-wastes-of-time-we-regret-when-we-get-older-1755526646?utm_campaign=socialflow_lifehacker_facebook&utm_source=lifehacker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow]Lifehacker[/url]

#2. Basilosaurus , the Giant Whale
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/3/185193_v1.jpg
OK, yes -- today's whales are plenty huge. We're aware of this; we're also aware that they used to be a lot bigger. And meaner.
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/7/185197.jpg
And toothier

That's the Basilosaurus , otherwise known as the Joker's favorite fish. At over 80 feet long, it dwarfed the killer whales of today, which only average 25 feet or so in length. So yeah, you'd need three Shamus, plus your terrified, piss-stained ass, to equal the Basilosaurus in stature.

When its remains were discovered in Louisiana in 1832, it was mistakenly identified as a sea monster, and given a name that literally translates to "king of the reptiles." They forgot to tell people that this thing went extinct quite a while ago, and so local fishermen shat themselves over the thought of a gigantic monster lurking in the same waters they used to find ingredients for catfish gumbo.
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/9/185199.jpg
They wanted 25 cents to see that thing? What a ripoff. Wasn't that like the price of a house back then?

Luckily for them, Basilosaurus doesn't exist anymore; if it did, the fishermen would be the gumbo. That jawline would make Basilosaurus a top predator in any time period. Set the time machine forward 20 million years, and it would be duking it out with Livyatan melvillei and Megalodon, no slouches themselves. Another 15 million years, and it would be chewing up Jaws like Jaws would chew up a mackerel.

Even today, it would take one look at the 100-foot, 170-ton blue whale , realize it's just a big teddy bear unless you're, say, a piece of plankton, and swim off all smug-like, knowing the delicious dishes of the sea are still available, and still all for him.
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/8/185198.jpg
"Mmmm. After-dinner mint."

#3. Megalania prisca , the Giant Lizard
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/4/185194.jpg
Komodo dragons of today are not to be messed with, reaching 10 feet in length and weighing up to 150 pounds. Also, they're quite poisonous and can very much kill you . Now take one of those things and double its size. Then make it anywhere from five to 30 times as heavy. That's the Megalania, aka the giant ripper lizard. And us modern-day humans just missed them .
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/2/0/0/185200_v1.jpg
What a shame; they looked playful.

As recently as 40,000 years ago, Megalania patrolled the Australian Outback, living up to its "ripper" name with little difficulty. And while anyone who knows their history laughs at the idea of humans and dinosaurs walking the Earth at the same time, your Australian ancestors experienced something pretty damned close -- it's likely the earliest human settlers in the area ran into these monsters , and then promptly ran away. As well they should have.

And unlike today's Komodo dragons, whose saliva may or may not be somewhat poisonous, Megalania were absolutely venomous, and it was potent as hell. If the soft marsupials of the time ever questioned who ruled the roost, Megalania and its toxic spit was more than happy to remind them. Again and again, if need be.
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/5/185195.jpg

Now remember: All of this occurred 40,000 measly years ago. As far as history is concerned, we crashed the party a mere millisecond after these gigantic Bleep-yous from Mother Nature stepped out for a smoke. They were here so recently, in fact, that some people think they still exist . Those people better hope to God that they're wrong. With the seemingly infinite number of murderous creatures that Australia currently sports, do we really need a real-life poisonous Smaug making some grand return to ensure our final days on Earth are completely unpleasant?

#4. Giant Birds of Prey
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/1/185191.jpg
One thing we rarely have to worry about today is giant birds of prey swooping down and flying away with our children. That's mainly because there are no Haast's eagles around. But that is a very recent development.
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/8/1/185181_v1.jpg

The average Haast's eagle had a 10-foot wingspan. Its gigantic claws would impale, rip, and tear anything it deemed delicious; that something was usually quite big and meaty, like the moa bird. If the below picture doesn't look impressive to you, try to keep in mind that the moa it's about to munch on are 10 to 12 feet tall:
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/8/3/185183.jpg
My God, it's already eaten their arms off!

What else did it eat? Apparently, us. The Haast's eagle definitely lived among humans, up until 1400 or so. So yes, a mere 600 years ago, these things roamed the skies, snatching our babies, and maybe even our mommies and daddies. Here's a comparison between the Haast's talons and a modern eagle, if you want to imagine them clamping down on your neck:
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/8/4/185184_v1.jpg

New Zealand folk tales speak in hushed whispers of giant man-eating birds ruling the land, and these stories have all but been proven to be about Haast's eagle. It was only after the Maori tribe hunted its primary food source -- the moa -- to extinction that Haast's eagle met its own demise.

Of course, if you keep rewinding the clock by millions of years, you find murderous birds getting bigger, and stranger. You could, for instance, step out of your time machine and find yourself running from Gastornis :
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/8/8/185188_v1.jpg
Or finding a way to kill it, because just one hot wing from that bastard would feed a whole Super Bowl party.

That ridiculous dinosaur/dodo hybrid stood over 6 feet tall, could in no way fly with those stupid little stump wings, and had a keen taste for meat.

Giant birds like these were among the Earth's top predators after the extinction of the dinosaurs, gulping down our poor mammalian ancestors in the forests of Europe some 50 million years ago. If they'd tried bringing one of these bastards back to life in Jurassic Park, the audience would have been laughing their asses off, right up until this Gastornis severed Jeff Goldblum's head with one effortless snap of its beak.
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/8/6/185186.jpg
OK, we'd still be laughing, but in a horrified sort of way.

As we've pointed out before, a lot of the animals we see today used to be much larger in olden times. Like, a LOT larger. Also, a lot meaner, hungrier, and ripped-straight-from-our-nightmares-ier. So, in case you've been sleeping well these past few months, here's a brand-new set of prehistoric colossi to help you stare at the ceiling all night, being thankful that mankind showed up so late in the evolutionary parade. Otherwise you could unexpectedly run into ...

#5. Megapiranha paranensis , the Giant Piranha
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/2/185192_v1.jpg

Modern piranhas are scary enough in their own right. If you have no sense of self-preservation and decide to swim in one of their rivers, these bastards will teach you never to do so again, at the not-unreasonable cost of toes, genitals, or whatever other chunks of flesh look appetizing. But
not all that many people have actually died at the hands of the tiny, modern version of these ravenous machines.

That's why the idea of taking these little balls of hate and turning them into humongous slimy chainsaws with bites powerful enough to crush bone is a popular trope among direct-to-video horror movies. Which is funny, because nature beat us to the punch a good long time ago. Behold:
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/8/7/185187.jpg
We can't be the only ones who insert the sound of angels singing when we see a big scary mouth open like that.

That is Megapiranha , which lived 8 to 10 million years ago in the rivers of South America and grew to a meter in length, four times that of the cow skeletonizers of today. And if it ever finds out we gave it a lazy-ass name like "megapiranha," it'll find a way to revive itself and tear us to shreds in one or two bites.
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/8/9/185189_v1.jpg
Pretty sure this diagram is mistaken on the whole "swimming with man-eaters" thing.

See, not only was Megapiranha huge, but its bite was among the strongest in history, with a force-to-body-weight ratio unmatched by even the mightiest dinosaur. Whereas modern-day piranhas peak at a bite force of 70 pounds, a Megapiranha is estimated to have bitten with a force of 1,000 pounds.

To further illustrate how insane that is, a T. rex could deliver a bite force of just over 3,000 pounds, roughly three times that of a Megapiranha . Only thing is, the T. rex weighed seven tons. The Megapiranha ? Twenty pounds , maybe 25 if it started slacking off at the gym. If it were as big as T. rex , it probably could've chewed up an Apatosaurus and swallowed it whole, while barely breaking a sweat.

And here's our friend's bite when compared to other feared creatures of the sea:
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/1/9/6/185196.jpg
There were 47 more entries, but the Megapiranha ate them all.

See how no other fish comes close? Precisely. It's a damn good thing humans hadn't been invented yet, because we probably wouldn't have lasted two years before evolving into steaming chunks of piranha shit.

#1. Satan, The Lone Enemy Of God
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/2/6/392826_v2.jpg

This is where we hit maximum controversy -- according to traditional Christian lore, Satan was one of the first angels and originally one of God's favorites, until he rebelled and was cast down to Earth, where he became not only the Prince Of Darkness and mankind's primary antagonist but the yin to God's yang and the guy everyone blames when things go wrong. Everyone who has attended even a single Sunday school session knows about Satan's war against everything that's good and his ultimate war against God and Heaven, so you assume he has a significant role in the Bible.

Well ... yes and no. Like your Facebook status with your on-again-off-again friend-with-benefits, God's relationship with Satan is complicated.

https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/0/6/392806_v2.jpg
"Should I like his vacation pics? No, stay strong!"

We've already talked about how Satan's popular appearance as a goat-horned, trident-wielding dude with red skin is just a product of pop culture, but that only scratches the surface. First of all, most of the Bible's references to the critter we think of as Satan are actually, probably, referring to completely different entities.

For example, the snake in the Garden Of Eden who convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit was probably referring to an actual talking snake rather than a shape-shifting devil, as evidenced by God cursing it to crawl on its belly for eternity. That wasn't Satan; it was just a snake who happened to be an asshole.

https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/1/4/392814_v1.jpg
"Well, I am shaped like a colon."

Then later in the Old Testament, the word "Satan" is just used to mean "adversary" -- the way "antichrist" was used to refer to anyone who hated Christians.

Strangest of all, in one of the very few times that Satan actually appears with a speaking role in the Bible, he's kind of God's adviser on human relations. In the story of Job, Satan is one of many angels who attend when God holds court in his heavenly kingdom. Job is God's favorite human due to his righteousness, but Satan suggests that maybe Job wouldn't be so righteous if God took away his wealth and family, so God decides he has a point and proceeds to do so. That's right -- God gets advice from Satan, decides it's a good idea, and follows through with it.

Then, someone refers to Lucifer in another book, commonly believed to be the Devil's real name. That turned out to be a simple misunderstanding -- the author of Isaiah 14 was taking the mickey out of a Babylonian king by comparing him to the descent of the planet Venus (it translates roughly to "bright morning star". Later translators got mixed up and decided that this, too, was a reference to a single demonic being behind everything.

https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/1/2/392812_v1.jpg
"Maybe we should be more precise."
"It's fine; it's not like people are gonna kill each other over this."

Finally, the character of Satan as the general in a great battle against God comes together in the Book Of Revelation, which says this:

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

That's right: "The great dragon." After going the whole book with no physical description of Satan (no horns, no red pajamas, no pitchfork), suddenly at the very end they just mention in passing that, oh yeah, he's a giant dragon. Holy shit, guys. It seems like you kind of buried the lede there.

Source: Cracked

#2. The Prostitute Mary Magdalene
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/7/8/392878_v1.jpg

Mary Magdalene is one of the most famous female characters in the Bible, yet only the second-most famous Mary. She was Jesus' only female disciple, overshadowed by 12 much more famous dudes. She was a prostitute whom Jesus forgave, and she proceeded to follow him around, washing his feet and redeeming herself from a life of sinful whoring. Some have speculated that she was secretly Christ's favorite, leading to conspiracy theories about the church covering up the fact that they got married and had kids (which obviously is what The Da Vinci Code is about).

But, according to the Bible, basically none of the above paragraph is true.

https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/7/9/0/392790_v1.jpg
For example, there's no fucking way we're ever actually reading this thing.

Sure, Mary Magdalene does appear in the gospels as a disciple of Jesus, but that's about it. She wasn't a prostitute and wasn't even the only female in his entourage -- Luke Chapter 8 lists his disciples , which include Magdalene; Joanna, wife of Chuza; and somebody named Susanna. Jesus was actually pretty popular with the ladies.

https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/7/9/2/392792_v1.jpg
Probably had something to do with Hov getting VIP at Jerusalem's hottest clubs.

Basically, the myths surrounding Magdalene's life came about when people started confusing her with other people, on account of the fact that there are just too damn many women in the Bible named Mary. In fact, there are two other characters who have been lumped in with Magdalene just for sharing what was probably the most popular woman's name of the era --
Mary of Bethany , the sister of Lazarus, who cooked Jesus dinner because it seemed the polite thing to do after he resurrected her brother, and a woman "who lived a sinful life" who may or may not also have been named Mary, and whom Jesus forgives to the confusion of his apostles who are aghast that he let her filthy mitts touch him.

Both of the other Marys greet Jesus by dumping perfume on his feet and wiping it off with their hair, which was apparently just a thing people did back then (nobody in the story seems to think it's odd). But the medieval Catholic Church, presumably deciding that there were just way too many characters in the Bible and that people were likely to get confused by all these Marys, made an official decree that all three women were the same person. Just like future generations might simplify history by conflating Jennifer Lawrence and Jennifer Aniston.

The church retracted the claim in 1969, but because most people don't keep themselves up to date on the minutiae of Catholic dogma, the myth remains that Mary Magdalene is the "sinful woman" who scrubbed Jesus' feet with her hair. And even then, the Bible doesn't specify that "sinful" means she was a prostitute -- that much comes down to pure gossip. Though it's telling that people immediately made that leap.

And speaking of figures that are in reality mash-ups of unrelated characters ...

#3 Purgatory
https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/8/2/2/392822_v1.jpg

Purgatory is supposed to be the place that you go to if you're not wicked enough to deserve Hell, but also not quite holy enough to ascend to Heaven. It's kind of like an airport boarding lounge on your way toward salvation -- if God's not quite confident that you're not packing a shoe-bomb full of sin, then you need to get a full pat-down by the TSA of righteousness before you board that flight to eternal happiness.

In reality, purgatory isn't something that the Bible literally describes; it's more something that Catholic doctrine suggests must exist in order to solve the problem of where people go after they die if they haven't fulfilled the entry requirements of either Heaven or Hell. According to official Catholic doctrine, the existence of purgatory was decided upon during the Council Of Florence in 1431, because the Bible didn't specify its terms clearly enough.

https://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/7/7/8/392778.jpg
Don't worry, we're sure God was cool with them editing his word as they went along.

But theologians soon discovered another problem with scripture: Where do babies go when they die before they have a chance to be baptized? And what happened to the righteous who lived and died before Jesus was born?

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"Also, how hard specifically are we allowed to beat slaves? Oh, that's already in there?"

Regular Catholic lore suggested that they went straight to Hell without collecting $200, but those who figured that God wouldn't be so cruel conceived of the concept of limbo, which, as distinct from purgatory, was the temporary holding cell of souls for those who deserved to go to Heaven but either died before Jesus' crucifixion or were too dumb (e.g. babies) to realize that they were born into sin.

And given that the concepts of purgatory and limbo were invented after the Bible was written, they never entered into the popular discourse until ... Dante wrote about them. Shit, at this point we're willing to suggest that Dante invented more of Christianity than Jesus did.

#4. The Seven Deadly Sins
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You probably learned the "seven deadly sins" from the movie Se7en , even if you've never set foot in a church. These are supposedly the seven worst sins that you can commit: gluttony, pride, lust, greed, wrath, sloth, and envy. If you're flipping through your Bible looking for them, you'd maybe expect to find them right after the Ten Commandments (the part where the Bible has all the rules listed, right?). But flip all you want; they're not in there. If somebody had just told that to Kevin Spacey's character at the start, it would have saved him months of work.

If you really think about it, these seven sins seem awfully broad, almost like pretty much any kind of wrongdoing that you can think of falls into one category or another. And, in fact, that's exactly the point -- the seven sins, officially known as the cardinal sins, aren't a list of rules taken from the Bible, like the Ten Commandments. They were actually formulated by the medieval Church as an easy way to categorize all sins.

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"Where should I put 'Letting Your Bastard Spawn Stomp Around Upstairs On A Weeknight'?"

Rather than a simple how-to guide dictated by God, they were intended more as a kind of Cliff's Notes for the Bible to make its 10-billion-strong list of rules a little more digestible for the general public, almost none of whom owned an actual copy . Remember, the idea of everyone actually having a copy of the Bible only goes back a few hundred years -- before that, books were painstakingly inked out by hand, one at a time. They had to have a way to boil things down, verbally.

So, the cardinal sins were first dictated in the sixth century by Pope Gregory I, whose intention was to come up with a short list of basic sin elements, kind of like the Periodic Table Of Pissing Off God. Then, as with a whole bunch of stuff you wrongly assumed came straight out of God's holy ink well, the seven deadly sins made the transition from obscure mythology to Bible canon when Dante wrote his epic poem The Divine Comedy, best known for its most popular and most metal chapter, "Inferno." It divides Hell into seven circles based on which of the seven deadly sins the damned fell afoul of. Those seven circles, of course, are also nowhere to be found in the Bible.

Considering the fact that the Christian Bible is the most popular book in human history , it's surprising how little people know about what's actually in it. Or maybe not -- it's a complicated text compiled over thousands of years, and it's as long as the first five Harry Potter novels combined. Even for an expert, there's a lot in there to process ... and a vast ocean of stuff that isn't in there.

You see, as we've discussed, a whole lot of the stories and characters people associate with the Bible were actually cobbled together from centuries of pop culture and garbled readings of the original. Go grab a Bible from your bookshelf or your nearest hotel nightstand, and you won't find ...

#5. Sodom And Gomorrah Getting Destroyed For Homosexuality
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If you ask someone to point out a part of the Bible where God specifically condemns homosexuality, they're likely to refer you to Genesis 19, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the San Franciscos of the ancient world. The popular story is that God destroyed these two cities due to rampant homosexuality (in fact, that's where the word "sodomy" as we know it today comes from) and sent two angels like a heavenly SEAL team to extract Lot, the only non-gay citizen, and his family before the wrath came down.

This is why, for instance, you'll hear preachers today insist that hurricanes target cities that hold Gay Pride parades.

The only problem is that there is absolutely no reference in the Bible to anyone in Sodom being gay, and even if they were, that's never given as one of the reasons God wanted to wipe the place out. If anything, the biggest sin of the people of Sodom was that they really hated foreigners.

In the story, God sends two angels in human form into Sodom to visit Lot's house and inform him that he might want to pack his bags because some serious Old Testament shit was scheduled to happen the next day. This was because the people of Sodom were "wicked" and their sins were "grievous" -- they didn't get more specific than that. But when Lot's neighbors caught wind of the fact that he had out-of-town visitors, they gathered their torches and pitchforks and paid him a visit, demanding to be given a chance to give the foreigners some old-fashioned Sodom hospitality (read: beating and raping them).

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"Oh, y'all must have lost your me-damn minds!"

Now, it is true that the Sodom lynch mob issues a clear rape threat against Lot's (male) visitors. The quote from the King James Bible is, "Bring them out unto us, that we may know them." In Bible talk, "knowing" someone doesn't exactly mean meeting them over coffee. Many interpret this as evidence of how crazy they all were about gay sex, that the very fact that there were dudes in their city who they hadn't sexed up yet drove them to violent insanity.

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"Hark! There is one among us who has yet to experience the earthly pleasures of butt stuff!"

But one rape threat against anyone doesn't make someone gay so much as an asshole (see: any prison) and that one line is the only reference to any kind of sexual activity in the whole story. When the Bible clarifies later what Sodom had done to piss off God, it says it was the fact that people of Sodom were lazy, arrogant, and uncharitable. Here's the quote from the King James version:

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: Therefore I took them away as I saw good.


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Yet pizza shops haven't been too keen on denying service to lazy people.

Whether or not he thought too many people were doing it in the butt isn't given so much as a footnote in the list of God's grievances. But the only thing anyone remembers about the sins of Sodom is that one guy who shouted out that he wanted to pork some angels -- to the point that this is how "sodomy" wound up in modern language. So here's a fun exercise: The next time your Christian friend refuses to give money to a poor person, say, "Hey, you just sodomized that guy!"

lalasticlala which of them don influence your decisions most?

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The human brain is capable of 10^16 processes per second , which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence. But that doesn't mean our brains don't have major limitations. The lowly calculator can do math thousands of times better than we can, and our memories are often less than useless — plus, we're subject to cognitive biases, those annoying glitches in our thinking that cause us to make questionable decisions and reach erroneous conclusions. Here are a dozen of the most common and pernicious cognitive biases that you need to know about.

Before we start, it's important to distinguish between cognitive biases and logical fallacies. A logical fallacy is an error in logical argumentation (e.g. ad hominem attacks, slippery slopes, circular arguments, appeal to force, etc.). A cognitive bias, on the other hand, is a genuine deficiency or limitation in our thinking — a flaw in judgment that arises from errors of memory, social attribution, and miscalculations (such as statistical errors or a false sense of probability).

Some social psychologists believe our cognitive biases help us process information more efficiently, especially in dangerous situations. Still, they lead us to make grave mistakes. We may be prone to such errors in judgment, but at least we can be aware of them. Here are some important ones to keep in mind.

Confirmation Bias
We love to agree with people who agree with us. It's why we only visit websites that express our political opinions, and why we mostly hang around people who hold similar views and tastes. We tend to be put off by individuals, groups, and news sources that make us feel uncomfortable or insecure about our views — what the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner called cognitive dissonance. It's this preferential mode of behavior that leads to the confirmation bias — the often unconscious act of referencing only those perspectives that fuel our pre-existing views, while at the same time ignoring or dismissing opinions — no matter how valid — that threaten our world view. And paradoxically, the internet has only made this tendency even worse.

Ingroup Bias
Somewhat similar to the confirmation bias is the ingroup bias, a manifestation of our innate tribalistic tendencies. And strangely, much of this effect may have to do with oxytocin — the so-called "love molecule." This neurotransmitter, while helping us to forge tighter bonds with people in our ingroup, performs the exact opposite function for those on the outside — it makes us suspicious, fearful, and even disdainful of others. Ultimately, the ingroup bias causes us to overestimate the abilities and value of our immediate group at the expense of people we don't really know.

Gambler's Fallacy
It's called a fallacy, but it's more a glitch in our thinking. We tend to put a tremendous amount of weight on previous events, believing that they'll somehow influence future outcomes. The classic example is coin-tossing. After flipping heads, say, five consecutive times, our inclination is to predict an increase in likelihood that the next coin toss will be tails — that the odds must certainly be in the favor of heads. But in reality, the odds are still 50/50. As statisticians say, the outcomes in different tosses are statistically independent and the probability of any outcome is still 50%.

Relatedly, there's also the positive expectation bias — which often fuels gambling addictions . It's the sense that our luck has to eventually change and that good fortune is on the way. It also contribues to the "hot hand" misconception. Similarly, it's the same feeling we get when we start a new relationship that leads us to believe it will be better than the last one.

Post-Purchase Rationalization
Remember that time you bought something totally unnecessary, faulty, or overly expense, and then you rationalized the purchase to such an extent that you convinced yourself it was a great idea all along? Yeah, that's post-purchase rationalization in action — a kind of built-in mechanism that makes us feel better after we make crappy decisions, especially at the cash register.

Also known as Buyer's Stockholm Syndrome, it's a way of subconsciously justifying our purchases — especially expensive ones. Social psychologists say it stems from the principle of commitment, our psychological desire to stay consistent and avoid a state of cognitive dissonance.

Neglecting Probability
Very few of us have a problem getting into a car and going for a drive, but many of us experience great trepidation about stepping inside an airplane and flying at 35,000 feet. Flying, quite obviously, is a wholly unnatural and seemingly hazardous activity. Yet virtually all of us know and acknowledge the fact that the probability of dying in an auto accident is significantly greater than getting killed in a plane crash — but our brains won't release us from this crystal clear logic ( statistically, we have a 1 in 84 chance of dying in a vehicular accident, as compared to a 1 in 5,000 chance of dying in an plane crash [other sources indicate odds as high as 1 in 20,000 ]). It's the same phenomenon that makes us worry about getting killed in an act of terrorism as opposed to something far more probable, like falling down the stairs or accidental poisoning.

This is what the social psychologist Cass Sunstein calls probability neglect — our inability to properly grasp a proper sense of peril and risk — which often leads us to overstate the risks of relatively harmless activities, while forcing us to overrate more dangerous ones.

Observational Selection Bias
This is that effect of suddenly noticing things we didn't notice that much before — but we wrongly assume that the frequency has increased. A perfect example is what happens after we buy a new car and we inexplicably start to see the same car virtually everywhere. A similar effect happens to pregnant women who suddenly notice a lot of other pregnant women around them. Or it could be a unique number or song. It's not that these things are appearing more frequently, it's that we've (for whatever reason) selected the item in our mind, and in turn, are noticing it more often. Trouble is, most people don't recognize this as a selectional bias, and actually believe these items or events are happening with increased frequency — which can be a very disconcerting feeling. It's also a cognitive bias that contributes to the feeling that the appearance of certain things or events couldn't possibly be a coincidence (even though it is).

Status-Quo Bias
We humans tend to be apprehensive of change, which often leads us to make choices that guarantee that things remain the same, or change as little as possible. Needless to say, this has ramifications in everything from politics to economics. We like to stick to our routines, political parties, and our favorite meals at restaurants. Part of the perniciousness of this bias is the unwarranted assumption that another choice will be inferior or make things worse. The status-quo bias can be summed with the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" — an adage that fuels our conservative tendencies. And in fact, some commentators say this is why the U.S. hasn't been able to enact universal health care , despite the fact that most individuals support the idea of reform.

Negativity Bias
People tend to pay more attention to bad news — and it's not just because we're morbid. Social scientists theorize that it's on account of our selective attention and that, given the choice, we perceive negative news as being more important or profound. We also tend to give more credibility to bad news, perhaps because we're suspicious (or bored) of proclamations to the contrary. More evolutionarily, heeding bad news may be more adaptive than ignoring good news (e.g. "saber tooth tigers suck" vs. "this berry tastes good". Today, we run the risk of dwelling on negativity at the expense of genuinely good news. Steven Pinker, in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, argues that crime, violence, war, and other injustices are steadily declining, yet most people would argue that things are getting worse — what is a perfect example of the negativity bias at work.

Bandwagon Effect
Though we're often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd. When the masses start to pick a winner or a favorite, that's when our individualized brains start to shut down and enter into a kind of "groupthink" or hivemind mentality. But it doesn't have to be a large crowd or the whims of an entire nation; it can include small groups, like a family or even a small group of office co-workers. The bandwagon effect is what often causes behaviors, social norms, and memes to propagate among groups of individuals — regardless of the evidence or motives in support. This is why opinion polls are often maligned, as they can steer the perspectives of individuals accordingly. Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform, as famously demonstrated by the Asch Conformity Experiments.

Projection Bias
As individuals trapped inside our own minds 24/7, it's often difficult for us to project outside the bounds of our own consciousness and preferences. We tend to assume that most people think just like us — though there may be no justification for it. This cognitive shortcoming often leads to a related effect known as the false consensus bias where we tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It's a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none. Moreover, it can also create the effect where the members of a radical or fringe group assume that more people on the outside agree with them than is the case. Or the exaggerated confidence one has when predicting the winner of an election or sports match.

The Current Moment Bias
We humans have a really hard time imagining ourselves in the future and altering our behaviors and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure in the current moment, while leaving the pain for later. This is a bias that is of particular concern to economists (i.e. our unwillingness to not overspend and save money) and health practitioners. Indeed, a 1998 study showed that, when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit. But when the food choice was for the current day, 70% chose chocolate.

Anchoring Effect
Also known as the relativity trap, this is the tendency we have to compare and contrast only a limited set of items. It's called the anchoring effect because we tend to fixate on a value or number that in turn gets compared to everything else. The classic example is an item at the store that's on sale; we tend to see (and value) the difference in price, but not the overall price itself. This is why some restaurant menus feature very expensive entrees, while also including more (apparently) reasonably priced ones. It's also why, when given a choice, we tend to pick the middle option — not too expensive, and not too cheap.

Source: [url=io9.gizmodo.com/5974468/the-most-common-cognitive-biases-that-prevent-you-from-being-rational]Gizmodo[/url]

Trial will offer some of the first human data on microbe transplants and weight.

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‘The freeze-dried poop method’ might not sound like a weight-loss strategy that would catch on, but—as some researchers are now testing—it may be an effective way to slim down.

In a randomized, controlled clinical trial starting this year, researchers will test out such a fecal formula for the treatment of obesity. They’ll also try to glean critical details about the human microbiome and its role in our health and metabolism. The trial, led by Elaine Yu, an assistant professor and clinical researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, will involve taking fecal samples from lean, healthy donors then freeze-drying the stool, putting a gram or two into capsules, and giving them to 20 obese patients.

Such poop-packed pills, which are designed to replace a person’s intestinal microbes with those from a donor via their feces, have proven effective at treating tenacious gut infections . This has led researchers to ponder whether the transplants could remedy other health problems, including obesity and metabolic disorders. A few animal studies and some anecdotal data in humans suggests the answer is yes—and Yu hopes to get a final answer with the upcoming trial.

At the moment, “we have no idea what the result will be,” Yu told Ars. But she and colleagues are cautiously optimistic.

A few years ago, researchers took the gut microbes from a set of twins —one lean, one obese—and transplanted them into two sets of microbe-free mice. Even though all the mice were on the same diet, the rodents that received the obese twin’s microbes became chubby. The mice that got the lean twin’s mix stayed slim, suggesting that the microbes were calling the shots when it came to the animals’ weight.

In line with those results, another study on lean and obese twins’ microbes suggested that obesity is linked to having altered mixes and lower diversity of gut microbes.

There was also a concerning case last year in which microbes seemed to hijack a woman’s weight after a fecal matter transplant (FMT). She underwent the FMT to treat a recurring intestinal infection from Clostridium difficile . The fecal donor was the woman’s daughter, who was overweight but otherwise healthy. After the transplant, the woman was cured of her infection, but inexplicably gained weight.

There’s a lot that scientists don’t know about the microbes in our bodies and what they do, Yu said, “which is highly unsatisfying.” And it makes trials of microbe swapping risky. For that reason, Yu and colleagues are using extreme caution in selecting healthy fecal donors—screening for infections, metabolic disorders, and other health complications. They’re beginning to screen donors now and start transplants later this year.

Patients will receive weekly poop doses for six weeks, then researchers will track their weight and health at three, six, 12 months, and possibly beyond depending on how the trial goes. During that time, researchers will ask the transplant recipients to maintain their normal eating and health habits.

In the future, Yu hopes that microbe treatments could go hand-in-hand with dietary interventions to treat obesity and metabolic disorders. She cautions it’s too early to make such predictions for now.

Scientists are just in the early stages of microbiome work, she said. With this microbe-swapping trial, Yu and her colleagues will for the first time try to definitely prove that microbes can cause weight changes. If that’s really the case, she said, then “we can do all of the detail-oriented work to try to figure out which microbial communities are being affected to give more information for targeted treatments in the future.”

This post originated on [url=arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/01/freeze-dried-poop-pills-being-tested-for-obesity-treatment/]Ars Technica[/url]

bamirotola:
This is ridiculous..what is d essence of having sex when I cannot cum? Moreover It cld cause damage to d delicate vas deference with d continuos switching off an on of d implant... Wc man go even get tym to switch off when he wan cum? Na den e dey swt pass

It doesn't stop you from cumming, it stops sperm from coming out when you do like someone that's had a vasectomy.

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photo credit: The Bimek SLV is implanted into the testicles and controls the flow of sperm. Vimeo/Bimek SLV

A German carpenter has spent the past 20 years developing an idea for a male contraceptive consisting of a switch that sits inside the testicles, in order to control the flow of sperm through the urethra. Having already attained a patent for the product and created a working prototype, inventor Clemens Bimek is now awaiting the start of an upcoming clinical trial on his product.

Made from PEEK-OPTIMA – a polymer that is regularly used to manufacture implants – the so-called Bimek SLV is surgically inserted into the spermatic ducts during a half-hour operation. Once implanted, the switch can be felt through the skin of the scrotum and physically flipped in order to open or close the flow of sperm.

The device is inserted into the vas deferens as a blockade of sorts. When the switch is in the open position, sperm is able to pass through the vas deferens – the duct that conveys sperm from the testicle to the urethra – before exiting the penis via the urethra. However, when the switch is flicked to the closed position, sperm is blocked from passing through, therefore eliminating the possibility of pregnancy arising from sexual intercourse.

According to the manufacturer’s website, the Bimek SLV is preferable to other contraceptive techniques, such as having a vasectomy, wearing a condom or using the female pill, since it offers a solution to many of the drawbacks pertaining to these options. For instance, it provides greater flexibility than a vasectomy, enabling users to control their own ability to impregnate their partner rather than permanently disabling this. Also, unlike condoms or pills, it cannot be forgotten, since it is constantly present within the user.

The device itself is 18 millimeters long (0.7 inches) and weighs just 2 grams (0.07 ounces), with Bimek himself having already become the first person to receive the implant. A clinical trial involving 25 volunteers is now set to begin, in order to test the safety and efficacy of the product.

According to the Telegraph , some experts have raised concerns over the use of the implant for contraceptive purposes. For instance, Wolfgang Buhmann, spokesperson for the Professional Association of German Urologists, has explained that “the valve could cause scarring where it meets the vas deferens,” which could then block the flow of sperm even when the switch is open.

Source

lalasticlala

#1. Space Burial

What Is It?

Space burial is obviously a fairly modern death ritual, unless there was some ancient, burly fellow who could throw things really fucking high. But it is no less insane, especially seeing as it costs about the equivalent of a small Eastern European nation's GDP to perform.

Yes, You can purchase your own space burial , though the cost depends on just how far out into space you want to end up. You can have your ashes sent into low orbit for a while for as low as $695, but getting a spot on a deep space Gemini Module can run up to $60,000.

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Above: A $60,000 plaque that says "You're Dead and in Space."

The first one of these was performed back in 1997, from an aircraft carrying a modified Pegasus rocket, which contained ashes of 22 people (including Timothy Leary and Gene Roddenberry). The rocket blasted into orbit 11 kilometers above the Canary Islands, of all places, whereupon it will remain aloft in the heavens for eternity.

Oh, wait, no. It re-entered the atmosphere in 2002 and was immediately burned to a crisp.

Dear God, Why?

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This has been a symbolic gesture for deceased who had an interest or career in space (though an expensive symbolic gesture, especially considering you still have to have the body cremated ahead of time). But in Timothy Leary's case, he actually requested it, possibly out of a simple desire to make disposal of his remains as absolutely inconvenient for the world as possible.

Though we do have to give credit to Clyde Tombaugh (the man who for 70 years successfully hoodwinked the world into believing Pluto was a real planet) because his space burial will let him go down as having traveled further than any other human. A bit of his remains were stuck aboard the New Horizons spacecraft, launched by NASA in 2006 and headed for the "planet" Pluto.

Tombaugh is somewhere around Saturn by now, and will make it to Pluto in the summer of 2015. At that point the craft will likely be intercepted by an alien life form, who will likely interpret the inclusion of a dead person's ashes as a symbolic declaration of war.

Source: Cracked

#2. Aboriginal Body Exposure

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What Is It?

Australian Aboriginal beliefs are very diverse, and as such, there are many traditional methods of dealing with corpses, such as burial, cremation, mummification and cannibalism, though the latter is hotly disputed. Probably because all the evidence has been eaten.

Exposure on raised platforms, however, was one of the more common rituals, particularly in the North. There are two main burial stages. The first is to leave the corpse on a raised platform and cover it with leaves and branches until the flesh has rotted away, a process which can take months.

Next they retrieve the bones from the platform and paint them with red ochre. The bones are then either placed in a cave until they become dust or are placed inside a hollowed out log. Or, in some cases they are carried around by relatives for up to a year, which we're guessing makes for some awkward first dates.

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This is sometimes followed by a total destruction or abandonment of the deceased's property, and for a time no one is allowed to say the name of the deceased.

Dear God, Why?

Aboriginals do believe in the human soul, though they consider the soul to have two sections. The rituals are dealing with the fact that one of those parts (the ego) tends to come back and haunt the living, and as every horror movie has taught us, ghosts are dicks. The destruction of the deceased's home and refusal to acknowledge him is their way of telling the ghost to Bleep off.

Now you'd think the part about carrying around the actual bones of the dead person would increase the chances of a haunting, but this is a culture that was never exposed to the movie Poltergeist and who thus does not know any better.

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#3. Tibetan Buddhist Sky Burial

https://www.cracked.com/articleimages/dan/death/sky_burial.jpg

What Is It?

We can thank the Buddhists for this one as well. Tibetan Sky Burial is a form of human dissection practiced in Delaware. No, we're kidding. It's from Tibet.

A corpse is sliced up, usually atop a mountain, and left for the birds. Tibetans call the practice jhator, which means giving alms to the birds. And also legs, torsos and heads as well.The bodies, wrapped in white cloth, are bought to the burial site, where the monks have enticed vultures and other airborne scavengers. Monks unwrap the bodies, a process that probably isn't all that pleasant considering they've been left alone for three days (per Tibetan custom).

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One or more monks then set about the body with axes and, according to witnesses, are very casual and sometimes laughing and joking as they do it. This underlines the fact that Tibetans consider the body merely a vessel, and not that the guy they're dismembering was just a total dick when he was alive.

When the body is dismembered, the vultures swoop in and squabble over the chunks of carcass. The bones are then smashed to bits with mallets, mixed with flour, then fed to smaller birds.

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Dear God, Why?

Since they believe in reincarnation, they see no need to preserve the body, as it's just an empty vessel. So why not just let the birds eat it? And subsequently poop out onto the landscape for hundreds of miles around?
They've been doing sky burial since at least the 12th century, according to the Tibetan Book Of The Dead (yes, it's a real book and no, it you can't use it to raise zombies. We checked).

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It should be noted that where this is practiced, there isn't a lot of timber available for funeral pyres and the hard rocky soil makes digging graves difficult. So we're thinking the whole ritual started with one guy saying, "Ah, Bleep it. Just leave 'em here for the birds." Then later somebody gave a fancy name to it.