RE: Stupid things religious people say
September 7, 2025 at 11:10 am
(This post was last modified: September 7, 2025 at 11:10 am by Fake Messiah.)
What would you wish for?
Quote:A lightning-struck ‘miracle tree’ said to fulfill wishes is drawing devotees to a Bolivian cemetery
La Paz, Bolivia - Struck by lightning during a roaring thunderstorm 10 years ago, an ancient pine tree in Bolivia’s capital of La Paz is thriving.
Known as the “miracle tree,” this giant conifer now draws devotees from across the country to La Paz’s largest public cemetery, founded two centuries ago on a pre-Columbian burial plot. Pilgrims stream through the alleys bearing offerings – coins, flowers, sweets, handwritten disclosures of secret wishes – to stuff into bark crevices.
“People ask for love, work, health, children, even to bring back their lost pet,” explained Javier Cordero, who leads funeral prayers at the cemetery. “If the person comes with a lot of faith, the tree will fulfill their wishes.”
Some of the devotees were young, having recently discovered the story of the tree on TikTok.
Others were regulars, older Bolivians long convinced of the tree’s sacred powers, like 79-year-old prayer leader Ricardo Quispe, who was taking refuge beneath the tree’s sheltering limbs when lightning struck on that stormy afternoon a decade ago. He claims the lightning bolt also gave him psychic powers.
Far from pulverizing the tree, the rogue bolt of lightning left a scar on its trunk that now oozes aromatic resin. The towering tree in the La Paz cemetery now appears healthier than ever.
“I know people who have been healed from illnesses, they are the most devout,” Cordero said, touching the trunk of the miracle tree with a copper wire to demonstrate its special energetic charge. Within moments, the wire began to rotate in response.
“The lightning transmits the vital energy of the cosmos,” he said.
The belief in the tree’s powers keeps many of its worshippers coming back.
Tania Arce, 60, approached the miracle tree with her arms full of tantalizing chocolates and flowers.
“He likes sweets,” she said, speaking about the tree as if it were her son. “He fulfilled the favor I asked of him, but I haven’t stopped visiting.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/05/ameri...intl-latam
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
