For the vast majority of people, the only religion they're familiar with is the one they were raised with. Even if your folks let you look into other faiths, chances are you only got a cursory look, and only at the biggest ones, and most of your opinions of all the others are informed by pop-cultural osmosis.
Sometimes, Hollywood -- shockingly -- doesn't do a great job of representing those other religions, usually boiling them down to a personality type or a few kooky ideas. They're either turned into the butt of some idiot's joke or made into the stars of some incredibly fake reality show. So let's look past the Hollywood B.S. to understand that ...
#4. Rastafari Aren't A Bunch Of Weed-Smoking College Dropouts
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More than likely, you've met exactly one Rasta in your life. It was in college, you talked to him once, assumed he just wanted an excuse to get stoned, and promptly forgot about him. That's the picture of Rastafari that most of us have -- either young, white stoners or old, Jamaican dudes.
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The modern face of Rasta. And trust-fund babies.
But Rastafari is a real, legitimate religion that largely gets ignored and mocked by people who don't know shit about it, assuming it's all about weed. (Racism probably has something to with it, too.) Marijuana is important to Rasta, the same way communion wine is important to Christians, because it's a sacrament, but it's far from being all that it's about.
Rastafari gets its name from Ras Tafari Makonnen (ras is a title, about the equivalent of duke). He was a real guy who ruled as Haile Selassie I, emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. This was in a time when most of Africa was ruled by white colonists, so having an actual African ruler was a big deal. He was even Time's Man of the Year.
Time Magazine
"For single-handedly inspiring decades of Reggae."
But a Jamaican man named Leonard Howell noticed something about the emperor: He actually fit several of the prophecies of the Second Coming of Christ laid out in the Bible. For one thing, the imperial line of Ethiopia is believed to be directly descended from King Solomon himself. Ethiopian folklore holds that Solomon hooked up with the queen of Sheba during a visit, and her children formed the Ethiopian imperial bloodline. For another, Haile Selassie literally translates to "power of the trinity" in Ge'ez, an ancient native language of Ethiopia.
So Howell started a religion based around the idea that Emperor Selassie was the return of Jesus in human form. And people were into it. Before long, several churches of Ras Tafari popped up all over Jamaica and began spreading to other countries around the world.
What's more, Emperor Selassie was aware of his followers and never seemed to get weirded out by it or try to take advantage of them. He never confirmed or denied his divinity because he didn't want to disturb their belief. That is a godly level of chill. Basically, Rastas worship The Dude.
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So, like, abide, man.
From there, the religion grew its own philosophy of rejecting Western ideals like capitalism and materialism (Rasta are super opposed to "-isms," which is why they don't like their religion to be called "Rastafarianism"), power structures they refer to as Babylon. Instead, they strive to bring humanity to what they call Zion -- a world where everyone is equal and lives together in harmony. So not that different from most other religions. Zion is also a physical place. It's located in Ethiopia, where mankind began. Rastas can just buy a plane ticket and fly to paradise. None of this waiting-'til-you-die crap that other religions make you go through.
And while pop culture would like us to believe that most of Jamaica is Rastafari and most Rastafari are Jamaican, less than 1 percent of Jamaicans identify as Rasta. The rest of the Rasta population is made up of white dudes named Teddy whose lives changed in college when they gave a thumbs-up to "Buffalo Soldier" on Pandora.
#3. Jehovah's Witnesses Are Dark As Hell
Jehovah's Witnesses are the people who knock on your door on Saturday afternoon to ask if you've heard The Good News, like they're going to tell you you just won the lottery. They're mostly harmless. They seem like pleasant enough people, even if they don't celebrate birthdays.
But beneath that skinny tie and loose-fit khakis lies one of the grimmest denominations of Christianity you'll find. Jehovah's Witnesses absolutely are not fucking around.
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Cue Slayer's "Reign in Blood."
First of all, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the world is in the process of ending right now. And it started ending just over a century ago. Witness scripture is kind of on a fast track. Apparently, Satan rebelled and got kicked out of heaven on Oct. 1, 1914, and it's all gone downhill since then. It's like the gritty reboot of Christianity.
They also don't believe in an afterlife. They believe that there are exactly 144,000 people in history that God will bring to heaven in their living bodies after Armageddon, and their hope is to be one of those people, which raises the question: Is there an undercurrent of bitter competition among Witnesses to be one of the few out of the many millions to secure a seat on God's bus to eternity? If you don't find yourself in that exclusive crowd, the best you can ask for is to be resurrected on Earth after the end times are over. If you don't fall into one of those two categories, you are just plain dead.
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Upside: no hell.
As mentioned, Jehovah's Witnesses are also opposed to holidays and birthdays, declaring them pagan. (Though they do encourage their followers to randomly give gifts to their kids to keep them from fleeing a religion free of gift-wrapped Ninja Turtle toys.) They're also opposed to military service, saluting the flag (which has caused some issues, as you can imagine), and singing national anthems. They're not big on depictions of the cross, either, because Witnesses believe that other churches' use of the cross is idolatry, and also that Jesus was killed on a single, upright post, instead of a traditional cross.
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Makes a crucifix look like a luxury.
Basically, it all sounds really depressing. Plus, they don't allow blood transfusions under any circumstances, even if it could save a life. And they have to knock on your door. Jehovah's Witnesses are required to be evangelical. Every month, they have to submit "field service reports" detailing their efforts to convert people. If they don't, they're deemed "irregular." If they go six months without submitting one, they're "inactive." And Jehovah help you if you ever leave, because then you're labeled "wicked." And if a Jehovah's Witness happens to disagree with any of the rules or scripture, they're immediately declared to be "mentally diseased." Did I mention they don't fuck around?
They have a super dark outlook on everyone else, too. They think the U.N. is evil and part of the Antichrist (which is weird because they very briefly joined them). They also believe all other religions are wrong and their followers will be destroyed when Jesus comes back. So, yeah, not extremely friendly to outsiders.
And things aren't just rough inside the faith, either. They've had plenty of stuff to deal with from the outside. Jehovah's Witnesses were also one of the targets of the Nazis during the Holocaust. Since they refused military service, Hitler rounded them up and put them in concentration camps along with the Jews, where they were marked with purple triangles.
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You can never again slam the door in their faces without feeling like a total asshole.
So next time you have them knocking on your door, just remember that they're actually Jesus' version of Kyle Reese, getting ready to unflinchingly fight a terrifying future war.
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