6 Holy Hoaxes

Religion has caused many feuds in recent and less recent history. The church, Jesus, and God play a big role in many peoples lives. Today we take a look at 6 holy hoaxes.

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-- is based on faith. That's the very essence of religion, and it's what it requires to work, for people to step out on faith and proclaim something is real when there's no hard evidence to support it... and you know what? Good for them, it takes guts to do something like that, but it's easy to just accept the status quo and what's observable. So just know going into the this list that we really do respect religion... But what we don't respect are frauds and con-artists who take advantage of people's faith for their own benefit. So here we go, the top [X] holy hoaxes.

Number 6. Holy Foreskins

Circumcision has been around for a long, loooong time. It involves taking a dude's foreskin and snipping that sucker right off. And yes, that is as painful as it sounds, and that's why people do it to babies...

Number 5. Prester John

Presbyter Johannes, better known by fans of Catholic mythology as Prester John, was a hoax perpetuated by a letter sent to Emperor Manuel Comnenus in 1165. The letter came from a man calling himself "Prester John".

Number 4. Newwark Holy Stones

Throw on your fedora, and wind up your bullwhip, cause we're going hunting for ancient artifacts! Yay! Oh wait, they're a hoax? ... Can I at least still keep the hat and whip? I can? Sweeet.... The Newark Holy Stones were discovered by David Wyrick in 1860 in Newark, Ohio.

Number 3. Madonna of Civitavecchia

This one really doesn't need much introduction. Statues of the Madonna have been "crying" for years and years now, but in 1995, one crying statue caused even the most skeptical people take notice, at least for a few minutes of fame.

Number 2. The Boy Who Went to Heaven

Here's a more recent one: Alex Malarkey was a 6 year old who was in a terrible car accident that hospitalized him. When he woke up, he told of his adventures in Heaven, saying that he had died and went up to see the big guy. With his dad's help, Alex wrote the book "The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven", which sold a lot of copies, becoming a bestseller among Christians.

Honorable Mentions:

The Book of Veles was made of 42 pieces of birchwood that was found in a Ukrainian castle. The language is what some people call "Proto-slavic". The text is about Veles (shocker) who's the Slavic god of agriculture and cattle.

So way, waaay back in 2009, a Hong Kong-based team "found" Noah's ark in Turkey. They found wooden beams, and places built for animals to live in... but then again, they found the same ark in 2007 soooo... I mean, that doesn't mean the Ark's a hoax, right? No, what do you think this is, a list of Holy non-hoaxes? C'mon. A couple of archaeologists went up to the mountain to check it out, and they both found it to be completely fabricated.

Number 1. Peter Popoff

WHEEEEEEW BOY, here we go! Peter Popoff was a very popular televangelist, who seemed to work miracles... for a fee. Popoff operated out of Upland, California, and would tell people to throw away their medicine onto the stage, as well as making people "rise up" from their wheelchairs. The people he rose from their wheelchairs were actually on his payroll.