trillian

I was reading an article last week about how Mexicans, to adhere to the Lenten rule of fish on Fridays, kill 35,000 endangered sea turtles during this period because they consider them fish and are soooo delicious!! Conservationists appealed to the Pope to clear things up.

I thought ...wow...how funny that a religious law which intended that people should eat more like poor people may result in the extinction of the poor turtles. Human nature always finds the loopholes!

A few more "unintended consequences" I've come across:

- In Saudi Arabia, the segreagation laws of the sexes are so strict that homosexuality runs rampant among males at least until they are married. Bet they didn't figure on that. Many unmarried women there have only anal sex, thinking that it preserves their virginity. Whole lotta anal goin on over there!

-In the Bible belt where marriage is preferred to "sinful fornication" and conservatism is at its strongest, the divorce rate is 50% above the national average.

I'm sure there are many many more. Got any?

christ-on-a-stick

IIRC correctly the teen pregnancy rate is *higher* among those who receive only "abstinence only" education.

christ-on-a-stick

Ah yes...

I'll have to google the country as a whole tomorrow, but in Texas at least: - From a recent Washington Post article

keyser_soze

That's hardly news...If you'll recall, they were told that this would happen, and even given warnings that it would get far worse if they did not change their position within a few years of enacting this B.S. And it will. I read an article a couple of weeks ago that aids deaths were increasing in Texas, and that they expected it to outpace every other state within the decade. You gotta wonder where these addle brained fools are spending their time that they don't realize what's happening.

christ-on-a-stick

True keyser, but it's funny (in a sad/frustrating way) that the fundies will STILL not admit that it DOESN'T WORK.

Argh...

Jinto

I think it has to do with the fact that if these guys ever started discarding theories that didn't work, the Babble would be the first thing out the window.

trillian

Am I evil for finding most of these humorous?

FAITH WORKS?
In May 1993; ten Tanzanian Seventh-Day Adventists drowned trying to walk on water as a test of faith near Dar Es Salaam.

HOLY HEALING WATERS!
Two doctors, writing in a December 1992 issue of the British Medical Journal, reported that a teenager, hospitalized after a fall from an apartment building, came down with a severe bacterial infection. The doctors traced the infection to holy water sprinkled on him by his aunt, who was trying to help him survive the injuries from his fall.

NAKED PENIS PILGRIMS
In 1996, at least 113 Hindu pilgrims, nude and smeared with ash, died in a snowstorm in the Himalayas as they were en route to worship a stalagmite believed to be the phallus of the god Shiva.

STONING KILLS:
In the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia, dozens (sometimes hundreds!) of muslims are trampled to death every year as the crowds rush to "stone the pillars of the devil". Said Sudanese pilgrim Abdel-Hadi Mohammed, 45, who is performing the Hajj for the fifth time. "I am afraid to die, but this is a ritual that has to be performed," he said.

(First 3 of these taken from positiveatheism)

Amie

yes I think so...

Calzaer

Then again, you're Catholic. We're ALL evil, no matter WHAT we find humerous. Damn that apple!

Amie

I know...damn apple!