Sabbath Mode?

There's nothing that prevents a religion having irrational or fantastical belief structures either, they evolve them over time as a distraction, and a measure to control their victims behaviours.

As very small kids some of us would query religious vocabulary and innocently ask the nuns what unknown words in prayers and hymns meant. What was this 'virgin' that Mary was. If we were told she was made of smoke inside, we'd have believed it. It was all magic after all. Someone asked the meaning of 'conceived (without sin)' in the hymn. The answer was that Mary didn't know any men. Except poor old Joe, but she didn't 'know' him either. Mad stuff when you're six or seven, and with much more to follow and swallow as the years went by. Only the children and gullible were innocent believers though, the masters of these religious arts were as guilty as sin, to use a popular expression of that era.

You need military equipment nowadays to impose religious practice it seems. Nuns with guns in Iran, or maybe they're blokes under the burkas. In the more moderate west, with fridgligion, it's just a software option, which is so of our time.

Can you receive a sacrament (sister, sister, what's a 'sacrament'?) over the phone these days? Like confessing your sins, or maybe 'making' your confirmation. What was that about?, apart from a cash cow and a first pair of long trousers for some? We'd had jeans sent from England by aunties since we were small, but some rural lads were in shorts until confirmation day. Held only every three years in the sticks, I can recall walking down to the church with my best friend at the time, he was six months shy of thirteen, and a strong hulk of a lad. He'd stop every few yards to look down at his now covered long legs, almost in disbelief. 'Confirmation is great' he declared, his short pants embarrassment finally over.

Footnote. Once over pints with a long deceased 'English' uncle, we discussed this short pants thing. He smiled and remarked cryptically, in his lifetime acquired cockney, 'Coo, the old fiddlers back then, they liked the old shorts, din'n they?'. Amen.