6 Manliest Religions

When it comes to religion there are many options out there. However, if you want a truly kick-
a$@ religion, with a God that eats fire and picks his teeth with lightning bolts, you should look
at the ancient cults; the ones filled with monstrous demons and insanely cool deities. And if you
want more something more than some awesome mythology you should look at this list of
religions that want you to be a bad-a$@ just to apply for membership.

1.Mithraism

This is a religion where the main god was born out of stone only so he could kill a bull and dance
in the beast’s blood.

Does your god kill bulls? We didn't think so.

Even better no one has any clue where the religion originated from, or if it had any prophets or
saints. It just appeared out of nowhere in the second century AD. One day it’s not there, the next
it was spread all over the Roman Empire with almost every other soldier a member. Oh did we
forget to mention that being a soldier was a prerequisite? No women were part of the cult and
aside from a few emperors and other politicians, who presumably gained power because of their
close ties to the army, the whole church was composed of soldiers.

However, being a soldier in one of the most brutal periods of history was not enough, you also
had to be initiated into the church and there were seven levels before you were considered a full-
fledged member. The initiation process was found engraved on several drinking cups where we
can see what looks like a higher level Mithrian pointing a bow at a recruit. Think about it this
way, instead of a welcome packet to a new church you get shot in the face with an arrow; and
then you have six more levels to go.

2.Greek Orthodox

Let’s face it, Christianity is not the most manly religion around. While Vikings have “fight to the
death” as a way to get into heaven, Christians are more or less focused on love and turning the
other cheek. There isn’t much room for secret initiations and badassery in a religion that advises
everyone to love thy neighbor. Then there are the kinds of Christians that will go out of their way
to be amazing.
Meet the Greek Orthodox monks from Meteora. These are men who decided to find the most
remote and God forsaken peaks in all of Greece and then live in stone cracks, barely the size of
their bodies. At first the only way to reach the caves where these monks lived was by climbing
hundreds of meters of sheer rock, praying to God that the trip was worth it. When the monks
eventually decided to create whole monasteries up there they used ladders and pulleys made out
of ropes which they replaced “only when the Lord let them break.” If you were the unlucky guy
in the rope basket when the Lord decided it was time to let gravity win…well you had a lot of
time to think about your life before you hit the rocky bottom.

Nowadays the monasteries are mostly tourist attractions, but you can still find dedicated Greek
Orthodox monks on Mt. Athos, where not only did they survive centuries of pirate attacks, but
they still grow some of the most awesome breads in the world.
3.Tengriism

What do Genghis Khan, the Turkish Empire and the Bulgarians that conquered Asia Minor and
much of Eastern Europe have in common? Besides having a culture built around horses and
being incredibly efficient at killing Christians they also shared one of the most bad-a$@
religions around.
The tengriists believed that the gods of sky and earth gave the power of the wolf to those that
followed their teachings, under the condition that they did the actions that praised their name.
Like what? Well, here is an example right out of their traditional stories: “after defeating all one
thousand guards of the enemy warlord [he] wound rose-faced Sangum in a cheek.” They are
talking about one of the greatest tengriist hero, and is it just us or does he sound like the story of
300?
300 or Tengriist way of life? Hard to tell.

But the tengriist faith is not all about war and killing, one of the most important festivals
involved all men climb a hill where they would gather around a sacred Birch tree (incidentally if
there was no Birch tree on the hill, they would dig one up and transplant it from miles away)
where they would sacrifice sheep. Which doesn’t sound cool until you find out that they
sacrificed the sheep by ripping its heart, straight out of its chest, bear handed.

As if that was not enough as a leader of the Turkic or Mongolian tribes it was your god given
purpose to gather all the tribes under your rule and like a pack of “wolves” attack the christian
“sheep”. If you failed to rise to this task you were a bad leader and your people were permitted to
kill you. That must have certainly put some pressure on most leaders.

4.Thuggee

Remember the second Indian Jones movie, not the screaming chick or the pointless sidekick.
Think about the insane, skull worshiping Indians. It turns out they were pretty real and if that
hadn’t been Hollywood magic they would have killed professor Jones three times before he
could have said one single cool one-liner.
The Thuggee were an ancient Indian cult who prayed to Kali, the goddess of insanity and every
kind of violence you can imagine. They were also the first to create an organized crime cartel
that used complex props, paramilitary techniques and misinformation in order to kill more than
30,000 travelers; but they didn’t kill because they were mean, it was just the proper way to give
sacrifice to Kali. You had to kill at night with a yellow scarf, twisted into a noose and you were
never supposed to spill blood. Also you could not kill a relatively long list of people including
lepers. Turns out Kali doesn’t like lepers.
Kali at her best

The society was so secret and well organized that it took the British government almost 200
years to figure out that something was wrong and another 50 to break the organization apart. The
cult was so powerful that the word “Thug” entered the dictionary because of them.

5.Sikhism

You always wanted to grow a bad-a$@ beard and a sweet handlebar mustache but never found
the right reason? How about joining a religion where you must look as manly as possible at all
times? Oh and as a bonus you get a dagger when you’re first baptized; a sharp implement of
death which you must carry with you at all times. What would you do with said dagger? You
fight anyone who dares oppress you such as the Mongols, the Muslims or the British. Being
outnumbered just makes the whole fighting more fun for everybody. And because no other
martial art was intense enough the sikhs also invented their own fighting style, named Gatka
Still not convinced that the Sikh religion is bad-$@? During the First and Second World War the
Sikh battalions won a record amount of medals and in the words of a British general they
regularly entered battle “during shell fire, with no other protection but the turban, the symbol of
their faith.”

Heck even Winston Churchill mentioned their bravery “In the war, they fought and died for us,
wearing the turbans.”… hmm that turban comment might have been a bit racist Sir. Churchill,
but we’ll let it fly on account of keeping Britain Nazi free.

But since a handful of medals is not enough the Sikh also have also fought in what is generally
accepted as the “the greatest stories of collective bravery in human history,” namely the Battle of
Saragarhi where 21 Sikh soldiers chose to fight against 10,000 Afghan soldiers.

It all comes with the beard…

6.Shaolin Monks

We covered a lot of cool religions so far, but maybe growing large beards and carrying daggers
is not really your style. If you’d prefer to shave your head and you want to turn your hands into
deadly fighting tools, have you considered the Shaolin Monks?
The Shoaolin monks have trained themselves to ignore such minor inconveniences like sharp
spears or swords and they can hang around in nooses without such issues, like dying. Even more,
almost every martial art in the world seems to be connected in one way or another to the Shaolin
temple and these bad-a$@ monks that spend most of their time breaking stuff with their heads.

Need even more proof of how awesome the Shaolin are? How about the fact that in order to
defeat them in 1732 the Chinese emperor imported Tibetan Lamas (we assume they used the
holly men not the animal) who had knowledge of a secret flying weapon.Yep, the emperor of
China had to use helicopters to defeat the Shaolin. However, despite being burned down
repeatedly, the monastery was always rebuilt and is still there today, accepting new members.