#And Catholics calling Protestants not real Christians

[natura-est-sacellum]

Actually, getting tired of seeing religious debates on my dash

#I know I'm probably in the minority there #But I'm getting sick of Protestants calling Catholics pagans #And Catholics calling Protestants not real Christians #And both accusing the other of not understanding the Bible or Jesus Christ or God #Getting tired of feminists calling Christianity a patriarchal religion... #And some types of Christians taking the bait and kinda sorta affirming aspects of its patriarchalness #Nobody agrees on anything anymore and trying to convince other people you're right isn't Godly #Sorry not sorry #Especially when you drag name-calling and accusative behavior into your ''arguments'' #Honestly kind of getting me jaded with organized religion as a whole

[apocrypals]

Question, what's with so many books being added and removed depending on what flavoured christian you are? I thought removing and adding stuff to the bible was basically shitting on everyone's laundry?

There's actually not THAT much of that going around. The primary distinction is that the Catholic and Orthodox churches have a collection of books that are not in most Protestant Bibles. These books were written in the historic period between when the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament were written, but they were included in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

When Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, he included those books that were in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew canon in a separate section called the Apocrypha, which is how they are categorized in most English Bibles that include them at all. He didn't condemn them, he thought they were of value, he just didn't think they were divinely inspired like the rest.

While it's tempting to assume that Protestant Bibles dropped the Apocrypha section for dogmatic or doctrinal reasons, the real for real honest to God truth is that it got cut to reduce printing costs on mass printed Bibles. So if you grew up Protestant, know that it was capitalism that took an exploding dragon from you. Capitalism took a flying army of the dead from you. Capitalism took the only biblical mention of cats from you.

On the other hand, the Ethiopic canon just follows a completely different tradition more or less disconnected from what was going on in Europe and Southwest Asia, so they have a bunch of books that other churches never even considered.

[sukunasbabygirl]

Despite not fixating in the Owl House much, It’s only natural for me to occasionally think about the Wittebane story because I am in fact a nerd.

I also realise that there’s been stuff on twitter again about how it’s immoral to like Philip’s character which… that’s a story for another day, but trying to understand his character is nowhere close to condoning his actions, and when it comes to the witch trials, we have real events we can analyse to try and understand where the roots of Philip come from. I know they likely weren’t allowed to go so far in the Owl House’ case, but I would love if media in general explored the mania surrounding witches in a more nuanced way than how it’s usually portrayed, this being in regards to the New England Witch Trials mainly, but it would be interesting to see other witch crazes explored and what not.

Back to Philip Wittebane though, I think what people fail to understand about the mania surrounding witches, is that at the time the threat was very real, and there’s typically a disconnect between these events and now due to the centuries of difference. We often villainise and even dehumanise the accusers without realising that this is a phenomenon that still occurs today - on the internet no less. People accuse and create false evidence and then we turn our backs on people, even when the evidence doesn’t always make sense. That is, in a simple manner of speaking, what the trials were, bouts of paranoia and false accusations leading to more and more deaths and imprisonments and fear amongst the masses, and this nature would be highly influential on children who can’t yet grasp what’s really happening.

It’s hard to understand Philip when we can’t connect to what he went through, but if you think of it as something you’re familiar with, it does become easier. He’s still a terrible and vile person, but when he was a child, he grew desensitised to the death around him, and even associated it with being accepted. As we know Gravesfield was a dangerously paranoid town, and a child is going to be influenced by the adults around them, and family too, gestures to Caleb. And if you want to call young Philip a heartless murderer, then I’m afraid you’d have to do the same for Caleb, because we see in the Hollow Mind portraits that Caleb joined in and encouraged the deaths of supposed witches. The difference between him and his brother is that he changed, and Philip did not, but that is a discussion for another day.

And it’s always worth noting the fact they grew up in a strictly Christian environment, and even though I was a Catholic not Protestant, the same principles apply when it comes to Christianity messing you up, and lord above, it can really mess you up. Top ten reasons why he’s like me. Seriously though, Christianity was a focus point in a Puritan’s life, and they would keep journals and devote their lives to God for the most part. The fear of damnation was very real and these pacts with the devil even moreso, and when things went wrong, it would be so much easier to blame the devil and his servants than to believe in the cruelty of God or in the idea that they themselves were doing something wrong to anger him.

And that’s exactly what Philip does later down the line. He blames a servant of the devil for his brother’s fall rather than believe that he’s in the wrong, and that his brother has strayed from the right path. While this isn’t explicitly said, it’s again something we can infer from historical context and vague hints in the show, I mean Philip does call the Isles another word for hell. Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to question the fact he’s in a place that is essentially hell, and instead takes it as a mission to rescue his brother and cleanse hell.

Side note on that actually, I’d have to double check but this purging of a hell-like place reminds me vaguely of the Book of Revelations and how when Jesus rises again, Hell will be like a second death and those who have not accepted salvation will cease to exist or be cast into a lake or sulfur… I’d have to double check that though. It’s definitely not an intentional thing, but you know, it may be something running through Philip’s mind. Also it paints him again as similar to the anti-christ or the false prophet, taking the place of Jesus as saviour but really leading them all to damnation.

Before you ask, yes I am reading way too much into this and finding things that probably weren’t even the point but you know.

I guess in summary: it’s hard to understand Philip’s character without the historical context, and it’s even harder when you twist the historical context to be black and white, in this case the witch trials and Puritan society. Understanding his character will never be condoning his actions. I find his character fascinating because he is a display of what would happen if you put a devote Puritan man into the modern world. Did I think it was done well? Not really. Did I still enjoy seeing his character unfold? Yes! He’s a despicable man, but it’s completely acceptable to look at a despicable fictional character and wonder ‘what made you this way’?

There’s also a whole other discussion about how his control over the Isles reflects colonialism and how he converted people with their own beliefs and culture to what is essentially Christianity, using a belief they already had (The Titan) to spearhead this, something I’ve touched on before a few times but an in depth analysis would be interesting. The show touches on this directly once I think? And there are clear differences is the isles before and after, so I believe this was very much the intention.

I’m starting to get off track now, so I’ll end it here, but hello again Wittebane fandom, I make my brief return and now I won’t exist again for five thousand years.

#the owl house #toh #toh analysis #emperor belos #philip wittebane #wittebane brothers

[catholic-character-tournament]

Hello, it's me from catholic-character-tournament 💋 Make sure to vote for Catholicism tomorrow~

I'm here to evangelize 🙏🏼🤌🏼 (aka make propaganda for @christian-denominations-poll)

Folk/Ethnic Catholic Practices

The spicy 🤌🏼 the flavor 😌 The Vatican hates us but we love our cultural practices

3. We have Mom. Protestants are freaks for not revering her

2. Saints!!! Other denominations hate us because we're "praying to dead people" but y'all are just boring. "Just pray to Jesus" I could??? Or I could ask his mom to tell him to watch over me??

3. Best Holidays 🥂🍹 We all know Christmas and Easter and whatever(well, we know. JWs certainly don't) but I'm pretty sure we're the only ones that celebrate or at least go this HARD for Carnaval/Mardi Gras. The basic idea is to sin extra and eat all your good food because the start of Lent

Fun fact :D My parents got married in Jan and my dad lost his wedding band only a couple weeks later in a carnival festival

4. Best Weapon Against Demon

Have you seen a movie??? Like be for real, if your daughter is crawling on your ceiling are you going to call Paster Jeff!??? The guy who preaches in JEANS!? BFFR.

#misc #other brackets #id send this as ask but you cant include images on anon :(

[freemindedspirit]

Hi miaro... I wanted to ask you about witch craft...

I was reading a book on feminism recently, I read something on how women where harmed in the europe during medieval times as "witches and evil" And beaten up and killed by a mob, and how even in these days especially in South Asian countries people harm women and kill them calling they are "witches" And harm people and stuff...

But the book tried to dismantle it by saying how due to extreme poverty and food shortages and climatic conditions, people were not capable of providing themselves and their families basic necessities and in order to reduce the competition they used to target women esp who are old and single, widowed, sick by calling them witches and by spreading fake news about how they harm others....

The book didn't focus on the witch craft but only on exploitation of women...

So who are these "witch" Like what's their true identity like? You have mentioned in your bio that you are training so i thought you would be a better person to answer??

Most likwly these witches were never witches. If you take England for example, King James had a huge thing agaisnt witches, to the point of altering the bibles translation.

Just as the book said, they were likely harming widowed, older women or spinsters. Especially if those were of a different religion (think catholics vs protestants, folklore believers etc).

I dont know about South Asia, but currently in Madagascar , there is quite an ambivalence about witchcraft. There are thee types of witches (healers, astrologers/divinatory, maleficient) in our folk beliefs. But with colonization, poverty etc opinions have shifted towards a more Christian one, so people can become more and more reluctant to follow their traditions of asking a witch to check the the ghosts of your ancestors are okay withvyou moving in for example. There is a real fear about witchcraft.

There is a lot of misinformation about the subject in general, as it has been altered a lot by white witches, terf witches etc.

I think @breelandwalker must know more about this ?

[nappingpaperclip]

sorry to pop y’all’s white liberal bubbles but even if every white liberal to centrist in the US votes blue, I genuinely don’t think Biden is gonna win due to the amount of voters he has lost in his handling of this genocide.

Do you all genuinely think he has a chance when he has disillusioned not just Palestinian-Americans and the people who care about them, but also Christian and Muslim Arabs, non-Arab Muslims, climate activists, and anyone who cares about immigrants or the fact that he’s bombing other countries??

Like listen to me: when you ask people to vote blue no matter who, who are you asking? Are you asking people who look and think like you?

Can you imagine asking that of an immigrant whose still at risk of being sent to a detention center? A Palestinian-American who has lost family in the genocide? A Christian who sees how Palestinian Christians are being killed in their Holy Land? Muslims who see the violence towards other Muslims both at home and in Palestine? Catholics who see even the Pope calling for a ceasefire but not their own Catholic president?

Can you imagine asking that of a Syrian refugee? Someone who’s family or friends live in Iraq or Yemen or Lebanon or Palestine? A climate activist whose friend got 10+ years in prison on RICO charges for protesting the Willow Project? Climate activists who saw their friend be shot and killed while protesting Cop City? 18 year trans high-schoolers who have to go to school and face the threat of bullying and corrective rape and murder every day? Indigenous people whose stolen land you’re living on, whose land is shrinking thanks to pipelines Biden personally approved?

Can you imagine asking that of women who need abortions because they are at risk of dying but who can’t get them anymore, because Biden held codeification hostage for blue Congressional votes? 18-20 something’s who wake up every day and see the mutilated bodies of children on their timelines? Black people who fear for their lives at every traffic stop, now more than ever knowing that the IDF trains our police? A person living on the streets because they lost their partner to COVID and can’t find work?

Would y’all say it to their faces? Would y’all hear yourselves while you did it? Would you get mad at them for reacting however they react?

These are people who exist btw, in and out of your communities. These are real people with real experiences. Would you still ask that of them, knowing what they’ve been through?

Did you know that Biden has former BlackRock leaders in his cabinet? Yknow, the largest investment company, which invests BILLIONS of dollars every year into private prisons (which includes immigration detention centers), oil companies, deforestation, arms manufacturing, etc. ? Look it up! Remember how Biden promised to address climate change? How he promised to let those kids out of cages? Did y’all forget about them?

Sorry but I just don’t see him winning with the amount of support he has lost, which is why saying “a vote for third party is a vote for Trump” is a fuckin joke. That’s not how the electoral college system even works, and also people voting third party are people who would rather not vote. Trying to organized disillusioned voters to vote for third party rather than not voting is not “gonna make trump win.” Biden’s own actions is going to make Trump win, if anything.

Stop blaming other people who are actually affected by these issues for Biden’s loss of support or if he loses to Trump. STOP BLAMING MARGINALIZED PEOPLE. BLAME BIDEN FOR HIS OWN ACTIONS

#.txt #vote blue #vote blue no matter who #Joe Biden #us politics

[beardedmrbean]

Just say a post saying Islam and Judaism never cause as much damage as Christianity did….

This person never looked up what the Hindus history with Islam was. For they will put out the mess the Catholic Church cause to their country.

From what I read, the conflicts between Muslims and Hindus make the ones between Protestants and Catholics look tame when it comes to hatred.

It's a thing in western education, we focus on the western world and not much else.

Most everything I learned in school that involved Islam was the Crusades and honestly there was very little about them other than that they happened.

I learned the Ottoman Empire existed and then after WWI it didn't anymore, Barbary pirates were a thing and one of the big reasons that the US decided to have a full time navy.

I didn't learn about the arabization of Persia when the Muslims swept in and displaced a bunch of the native population of what is now Iran and managed to take a indigenous religion that at it's peak had 40-50 million followers and well.

Persecution of Zoroastrians

Persia was Assyria btw, they and Rome didn't get along on general principal and Christians weren't so nice to them either, not to the extent the Muslims were but still not nice, fair amount of fighting.

Jews managed to avoid annihilation because there were lots of them elsewhere, Babylon had seen to that, Assyria let many of them go home but not all, then came Greece and Rome who decided that last rebellion was the last straw and scattered them again, which lasted like 1800 years.

Here's some ways you might have heard of it too,

History of slavery in the Muslim world

This shit, I didn't learn anything about.

There's zero doubt that Christianity has a big body count attached to it, also managed to almost or completely wipe out so nobody is innocent there.

Judaism has never been big enough to cause a large amount of trouble, that strip of land called Israel is not quite all of their ancient territory that was stolen from them, some stuff on the other side of sea of Galilee and what not but not a terribly numerous people at an point so I don't think they could square even with Christianity or Islam.

But saying Islam isn't at the same level or worse than Christianity when it comes down to it is ridiculously ignorant, hell earlier this century Islam was causing damage with isis destroying priceless artifacts and trying to erase the history of the territory that they had claimed for their caliph and please don't say they're not real Muslims, it's a cop out and they'd say the same about the faithful in Morocco.

#anonymous

[nashaalya]

so i often find msyelf wishing more 'academics' and online pseuds alike had the integrity to actually be batshit crackpots, right, instead of gerrymandering language in such a way they simply appear to hold crackpot ideas while having the intellectual creativity and whimsy of a hardtack—but then i remember the appeal of being a 'crackpot' is analogous to the enduring appeal of occultism. no, mister, i'm no charlatan, i'm a Real Wizard, it's just that i Feel 'magic' to be not the abrogation of natural law that would allow me to raise the dead and split mountains, but rather a kind of magical worldview that lets me recognise whimsy even in natural law itself. didn't you know magnetism, too, is a kind of magic?

anyway. if you think 'catharism wasn't real' is intuitively understood not as 'catharism was fake in the same sense the satanic panic or charges of jewish blood libel were fake', but as 'anti-cathar polemicists had a habit of misidentifying practicing catholics as cathars, and a substantial amount of 'cathars' most likely thought of themselves as catholics a claim that is historically dubious. but whatever', i fear you might simply be retarded. actually if your definition of 'fake' could apply to nazi anti-semitism (for a subtantial amount of so-called 'jews' perseucted by nazis were in fact german-speaking christians) and the protestant reformation (for luther evidently thought of himself as a roman catholic until worms), maybe you should cease w all pretensions of being a historian entirely

#stop putting cryptotheism on my dash

[performativezippers]

If going by the reasoning that NCIS Hawai'i takes place more or less at the time of year when the episodes air, Lucy and Kate were in their secretly dating-phase during last christmas & new years. (Between eps 9 and 10). Do you think they hung out, or was one or both of them away visiting family?

Things are going well at this point. sort of suspiciously well, for how kind of fucked up the situation is. still hiding from everyone, lucy pretending like her coworkers don't know about their relationship when they all do. whistler pretending to be her old self in front of everyone else, and trying not to completely melt in front of lucy, both of which are only moderately successful. lucy likes whistler unabashedly, which makes whistler feel both incredibly flattered and loved, and also deeply ashamed of herself.

but it's going well.

and then it's christmas time. "the holidays" what bs, it's christmas that people are talking about. lucy's mom is catholic and her dad is muslim, so they always did christmas but underneath the frowning disapproval of her father. too american, too christian, not nearly arab enough for him. lucy always felt kind of weird about the holiday, like if she truly loved it then she'd be betraying her dad or her arabness or something.

whistler loves christmas, with all of the unthinking delight of a white girl raised in protestant-white-person-middle-america. she always goes back to minnesota for it, just for a few days, usually. it's hard, without noah, but it's better than trying to make it through the holiday without going back, without her parents, without running her fingers over the ornaments he made when he was a kid, pressing her fingertips into the tiny indentations of his toddler-sized palm. proof he existed, that he was alive and corporeal and real.

whistler is leaving on the 23rd and coming back on the 27th. because it takes so long to get to and from honolulu, she'll really only have 3 days at her parents' house, which is just the right amount.

lucy isn't going anywhere.

they don't talk about it, other than to share their plans. it feels too soon to say anything about it, really. what's there to say? i'll miss you? sure. that's fine. but whistler isn't going to invite lucy to go with her, and lucy isn't going to ask her to stay. that's way too clingy, too needy, too much for whatever this is that they haven't defined. like, sure, they spend a hell of a lot of time together and they're not seeing other people or anything, but i want to spend christmas with you? no, that's years away at best.

on the 22nd, lucy brings take out over to whistler's apartment, and they're quieter than usual that night. whistler wants to suggest watching a christmas movie, but she's worried it'll bring up a conversation she's not ready for, so she doesn't. lucy spends the night, and when she leaves in the morning, she pretends it's nothing. see you in a few days, she says, kissing whistler goodbye. it's more of a peck than a kiss, and she says it so casual, it's like she's saying see you tonight.

whistler calls once, and texts while she's gone. she sends lucy a couple pictures, and lucy does the same, but it's like they're tiptoeing around what's happening. like if neither of them mentions that it's christmas, it won't be weird that they're essentially girlfriends pretending it's the middle of october so they don't have to have The Conversation.

the, what is this to you, conversation. the, where do you see this going, conversation. the, hey are you ever going to be willing to be seen in public with me and tell my friends that we're dating, conversation. the, hey so i may not have successfully broken up with my ex, conversation.

whistler comes back to honolulu, and she hugs lucy for longer than usual, and lucy feels so small in her arms. lucy digs her fingers into whistler's back, hard, her breaths heavy in whistler's ear. they don't talk about it, but they spend the next three days together, not even twenty minutes apart.

they both go to tennant's for new year's eve. everyone is there, so they pretend to be single, like always, but whistler is doing a worse job than usual. she can't keep her eyes off lucy, and the rest of the team is taking bets about when they'll finally come out, if they'll kiss at midnight, if it's a joke at this point that they aren't out.

they don't kiss at midnight, but they lock eyes from across the room and everyone who isn't kissing someone is watching them watch each other.

lucy takes whistler home and kisses her until she forgets her own name.

next year, lucy thinks. next year i'll ask her to stay.

next year, whistler thinks. next year i'll bring her with me.

next year, ernie thinks. next year this will be a funny story, a funny thing to say, hey remember when you guys used to pretend you weren't dating but you eye fucked for all of new year's eve?

next year, cara thinks. next year, she'll remember to call on christmas.

#kacy #kate whistler #lucy tara #ncis hawaii #ncis hawai'i #ask zipps

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

New Rule: Atheists Day | Real Time with Bill Maher

New rule: You shouldn't be able to talk about DEI anymore in America - DEI, that's diversity, equity and inclusion - without including atheists.

Atheists. We're approaching a third of the population now, I shouldn't have to beg for this, for God's sake. it's outrageous there are this many of us and there are still zero representation in government

Congress has 535 members and only a handful will even sheepishly admit they're "religiously unaffiliated."

The Supreme Court is two Protestants, one Jew, and six people more Catholic than the Pope.

And even intellectual presidents like Obama who admit to being secular humanists have to pretend to be religious. No one has been able to admit their shameful secret: "I don't believe in ghosts."

Next Sunday is Easter, so enjoy. Enjoy, if that's your thing, bunny rabbits that shit eggs to celebrate the Son of God. Whatever floats your Ark.

But it's not fair that people who belong to one of the big religions, they all get this cosmic personal day, where the world revolves around them. I mean, here we are in the middle of the great egg shortage, and yet next Sunday we're going to take the few eggs we have and hide them in the yard?

There's also now a movement for schools to officially recognize Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, and I'm all for it or anything that gets our fat kids to eat less.

But while approximately three million Americans celebrate Ramadan, 100 million say they have no religion at all. What the fuck? Where's our day?

Is that really so much to ask that this many people get one day a year when we recommit ourselves to observable reality? One day with no atonement, no corpse reanimation, no fasting, no tree in your house, no big rock to circle, no dirt on your forehead, no candles to light and, please God, no fruitcakes.

Just a yearly three-day weekend to celebrate your deeply held belief that with Monday off you can drink on Sunday night. And get to sleep in because there is no place to gather to affirm we all believe the same shit, we know what we believe and what we don't believe. We don't need to rub elbows with other people who don't believe it too.

And we don't need to commercialize our holiday like all the other religions do. Atheist Day is about not buying something. Like virgin birth. I'm not buying it.

We have the numbers. We can do this. The fastest growing religious group in the United States are nones. No not the kind who used to beat you with a ruler for being left-handed. I mean people who, when asked how much they want to be involved with a religion, say none.

The unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular, has risen from five percent in 1972, to 15 percent in 2005, to 32 percent today. You're welcome.

And lest you think it's only young educated white liberals, no. Just about everybody is losing their religion. Or as I call it, holy ghosting.

The average age of a none is 43. A third are people of color. A quarter voted for Trump. 70 percent don't have a four-year college degree. Millennials are the first generation that are less than a majority Christian. Their idea of hell is a coffee shop with no Wi-Fi.

When asked how often they go to church, 34 percent of younger Millennials answered "seldom/never" or "don't know." Don't know? Hey kids, going to church is like having an orgasm. If you didn't know you did, you didn't.

And that's another great thing about Atheist Day. You don't have to fake it. You don't even have to be an atheist to enjoy it, just like you don't have to be Christian to enjoy Christmas, I still love Christmas.

You don't have to be an atheist to celebrate Atheist Day. I'd like it to be the one day a year that the devout can get a little taste of what it's like to live your life without some mythical daddy figure judging and condemning you for being the exact person he made you.

Atheist Day should be a day for believers to stop and ask yourselves, why? Why? Why make up a being who's constantly disappointed in you? Yyou don't need it - you've got your wife. And your parents, your siblings, your co-workers, your trainer when you don't give a hundred and ten percent. There are plenty of people right here on Earth who will gladly make you feel like a lame, incompetent fuck up. Why make up one more? It's like adding an extra mother-in-law.

Why always be tormented? I better not make Baby Jesus cry. Why? Is he sitting behind you on a plane?

Wouldn't you like one day, one goddamn day in the year when, for 24 hours, you can tell your God to climb down off your ass? Because trying to please a man who's not there sets you up for a lifetime of misery. Just ask Tiffany Trump.

#Bill Maher #Real Time with Bill Maher #Atheist Day #atheism #rise of the nones #leaving religion #decline of religion #religion #christianity #Easter #Easter eggs #egg shortage #diversity equity and inclusion #diversity #equity #inclusion #religion is a mental illness

[moonssugar]

im actually very pretentious about fantasy religions if ur gonna make a fantasy christianity please combine aspects of existing groups and get weird and sexy and insane wit it and please make up your own shit that has never existed and could theoretically but also dont mix up things that are theologically inconsistent or call x group another when theyre clearly closer to y group bc i will know and i will not be pleased that you didnt do basic wikipedia research. you dont have to exaggerate the bad things churches do the real life horrors are way more compelling to explore and need to see the light of day. if i see you taking obvious insp from one denomination and putting it on another with no consideration with how they actually work im suing you for medical damage. cant tell anyone how churches differ theologically? go back to square one. there are no marian statues in a baptist church. no anglicans are not the same church as the catholic one. yes lutherans and methodists are different. no orthodoxy and catholicism arent the same. no most protestant churches dont have priests. no you dont have to copy and paste the cultish aspects of mormonism into your mainline protestant or evangelical church i promise you its already weird enough you just need to look deeper. but please do go apeshit on mormonism though. they all have specific psychological effects and theyre not the same effects literally ask the people that left. the flavors of trauma will differ ex christians are like baskin robins ice cream. and finally if youre critiquing a religion and your critique isnt vague enough to apply to all of it — get specific. dont just throw spaghetti at the wall, talk your shit but talk it well. i should know exactly what bitch youre talking about so dont be afraid to name drop. much to be said about fantasy christian based cults in media but thats another post

#this is about philip pullman #he cant decide is his evil church is anglican anglo catholic roman catholic eastern orthodox or what #this is directed at other stories as well #now some people who grew up in specific church and write about it know what theyre talking about. the rest of you? no <3 #dont be lazy about it. spend hours and hours on wikipedia and websites and download catechisms onto your laptop as reference #basically when stories are all over the place in this aspect its suuuuuper annoying as cringe to me sorry #authors that execute their fantasy christianity well are andrew joseph white. that man knows what’s up #other authors not so much. you can tell who escaped the death cult and who is just complaining #writing #fantasy religion #fantasy catholicism

[perpetualspiritualconfusion]

@princessofthemosthigh

You made a public blog. It's not private. You made it public, so anyone can see and comment. You're not special enough to be immune to commentary and criticism. I can comment on anything and on anyone I want. And so can you! Freedom of speech is wonderful, isn't it?

Maybe we could have had a normal conversation, but you decided that you're too good to have criticism on your posts about how "oppressed" you are (likely in a country dominated by Christian religion and culture) and blocked any comments and reblogs.

You might call yourself God's princess, but unfortunately, I'm God's argumentative b*tch, and They gave me a little too much attitude, so if I see something that is morally reprehensible, such as being homophobic, transphobic, or using Christian privilege to argue that you're oppressed and people only mock Christians, I'm going to say something about it.

Appropriating language from marginalized communities by creating a (not real) problem of "Christianphobia" is, frankly, disgusting and I'm going to call it out. Christians in the West are some of the most privileged and catered to group of people out there. Unless you live in the Middle East, North Korea, or somewhere else that has actual legislation against Christianity, you're not being oppressed. If anything you're being spoiled. And I'm going to call it out. Being Christian does not exclude you from criticism, which there is a lot to criticize about our faith.

Do not ever be presumptuous about my spiritual life. My confusion has nothing to do with you, and it's between me and God where and what my confusion is. For all you know, my confusion could be if I count as Catholic or Protestant, because I have a little bit of both. Do not presume to know my conversations with God and what I'm confused about.

"God bless you" and "praying for your delusion" is such as sick perversion of what prayer is supposed to be. I'm from the South. I know what backhanded compliments look and the subterfuge of "bless your heart." When you don't mean it, it's disgusting. It's not compassionate or caring, and definitely not Christ-like. The only delusion I had was thinking you could take criticism.

I believe that homophobia in Christianity stems less from what is written in the bible and more to do with the homophobic and patriarchal culture of pre-Christian Rome. Scriptures that discuss or elude to homosexuality were written at a time when ancient peoples were anxious about family lines and distribution of property through families. We no longer live in that kind of culture and should not be treating the LGBTQ+ community, of which I am a part of, with the indignity, lack of compassion, and hate that Christians often give us. I'm Christian, I'm gay, and I'm certain that God is okay with that. To call it a "delusion", is so disrespectful and the opposite of what Jesus would want. #sorry not sorry.

I say humble yourself because you call yourself oppressed when you are not. If you knew me, you would probably figure out that I am God's little jester. I am fool. I get angry. I'm argumentative and long-winded. I talk back to God like a petulant child. I wouldn't say I'm "humbled," but I would say that I frequently and sincerely think about that I am less than worthy to have God's love and compassion. I am not a good example of Christian behavior. I swear, I drink, I start arguments. But at least I know who I am. I'm not nearly as presumptuous or spoiled enough to think that I'm oppressed because of my religion. That's why I said to humble yourself because you're acting like the government banned the Christian bible or rounding up Christians to put in camps. So, once more with feeling, humble yourself. You're not oppressed. You just want to be catered to.

"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow.

For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; for he that shall lose his life, for my sake, shall save it.

For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, and cast away himself?

For he that shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed when he shall come in his majesty, and that of his Father, and of the holy angels." Luke 9:23-26

"And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words; going forth out of the house or city shake off the dust from your feet." Matthew 10:14

I will no longer respond to you after this.

[queenlucythevaliant]

What are the differences between the branches of Christianity (Jesus club)? I honestly don't know, I just go to church.

Yoooo okay. What a fun question for Reformation Day. I don’t really know how much information you want, so I’m going to just infodump until I feel like stopping and hopefully that will be okay. I'm sure you'll already know a lot of this, but idk how to do any better without more information about your background. (Do you realize what a big question this is???)

Bias disclosure: I’m Presbyterian. Protestant. I’ve had some exposure to various other traditions and denominations (through friends and through reading and whatnot), but I’ve got plenty of substantial blind spots.

OKAY SO, super broad strokes, you’ve got three Christian traditions: Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant. Christianity originally spread across the Roman Empire, became its official religion with the Edict of Thessalonica, but eventually as the result of some political drama, the Great Schism of 1054 occurs when Rome and Constantinople excommunicate each other, basically. I’m a bit rusty on all the specifics, but that’s where you get the Catholic church (based in Rome) and the Orthodox church (based in Constantinople). Following this, the two traditions will develop in different directions.

The Catholic church is the dominant force in Western Europe for five hundred years and then the Pope wants to build a new basilica. He sends a guy named Johann (John) Tetzel to sell indulgences in Germany in order to raise the money (along with a bunch of other guys in other places), which ticks off Martin Luther for a whole bunch of reasons, chiefly: can you imagine haggling over the monetary worth of blood of the Christ? But that's a big digression and I bet you already know at least the basics. Hit me up if not. Luther writes the 95 Theses and famously posts them on the church door at Wittenberg, not originally intending to alienate the Catholic church but just to start a discussion and maybe try to reform it from within. However, the Catholic church doesn’t really take the Theses in the spirit they were intended and they want Luther to recant. He won’t do it and bam, the Reformation begins and Protestantism is born.

The Orthodox and Catholic churches are very hierarchical, but the Protestant church, by design, is not. As a result, it’s broken into a whole bunch of different denominations over the course of its 505-year history. Broadly, in order to classify a Protestant denomination, you should ask:

(a) What led to its formation historically? (Usually some kind of doctrinal dispute, but not always)

(b) What are their stances on the Sacraments? (Baptism and Communion)

(c) How is the church governed? (Denominational structure, Elders and Deacons, church membership, etc.)

(d) What are its theological distinctives? (Creeds and confessions, soteriology, Calvinist vs. Arminian are good places to start)

Complicating things a bit further, most Denominations (writ large) are actually several denominations on paper as the result of various schisms and splits over the years. So like for example, American Presbyterianism has PCUSA, EPC, PCA, and a whole bunch of other smaller guys. PCUSA is the oldest (originally called PCUS), but EPC broke with them in the 80s because PCUSA was becoming increasingly theologically liberal in its doctrine and using the fact that it owned all local church properties to force them to toe the line. PCA broke off from PCUSA in the 70s over a whole bunch of stuff including opposition to a denominational merger and increasingly liberal doctrine. All this to say, there can be a lot of subdivisions within a writ-large Denomination.

Here's a chart I threw together real quick to try and compare/contrast a little bit, as I realize that was probably the main thrust of the question. I couldn’t justify spending much time researching it, so if you catch an error please let me know. This is heavily off the top of my head with some pretty fast googling.

Hope that helps! Like I said above, others feel free to chime in. I like to think I know my church history and structure pretty well, but I'm far from being any kind of expert.

Edit: It was brought to my attention by @walkingthroughthisworld that even though I acknowledge right at the end that there are both Calvinist and Arminian Baptists, I otherwise focused just on the Arminian ones. (All the Baptists I know are Arminian 😂) Calvinist Baptists have Calvinist soteriology and a more Reformed view of Communion. The creeds I listed for Baptists are just the historic American creeds; different Baptist denominations will affirm additional creeds in accordance with their specific theology.

Also, I forgot to list it, but Presbyterians do very much use the Ecumenical Creeds as well!

#i am genuinely flattered that you asked me though #ask me hard questions #the unquenchable fire #for the edit: lmk if any of this is wrong and do feel free to write you own additional information please!

[sadsongsandwaltzes]

Did you grow up Lutheran, or did something about the Lutheran church draw you in?

Both! I grew up ELCA then AFLC so it was kind of a weird hodge podge of Lutheranism combined with evangelicalism.

As a kid in the ELCA, we had strict Lutheran liturgy (confessions, creeds, call and response, etc) but simultaneously very progressive theology

Then we went to the AFLC which varies so much church by church, but basically it was very evangelical type church except we still baptize babies for some reason. So a lot of the core tenets of Lutheranism were kinda fallen from and I didn’t understand them or like them. And I couldn’t understand why I was expected to believe the answers in the catechism when the general attitude of the entire congregation was that communion wasn’t more than memorialism etc. it left me in an intellectual rut cuz I could see a clear hypocrisy. People Lutheran in name only but not giving their own self professed beliefs the reverence they deserved. I think this played a great deal into my teenage agnosticism — people clearly didn’t believe what they said I should believe.

Then when I became Christian at 18, it was baptist ministers who reached me tbh. So I had done away with Lutheranism entirely. And for whatever faults Baptist theology has, I have to hand it to them that they are better evangelists than anybody, and that they do have a very sincere love for the Bible.

As it goes, diving so deep in the Word is exactly what made me no longer able to hold to baptist theology, however lol. I found myself in a state of cognitive dissonance. And I eventually came across pastors like hans fiene who slowly chipped away at my theology. And it was a Bryan Wolfmueller video that finally made things start clicking in my brain. And beyond that, Lutheran sermons are so much more edifying than baptist sermons. Lutherans have a better law/gospel distinction than anybody. Starting to listen to truth Lutheran sermons absolutely changed my world. I had never heard these distinctions made so clearly. And Lutheranism is the most straight forward way of reading the Bible. Which is why people who come from stronger theological systems have a distaste for it. Because where things don’t make sense to us theologically, we’re content saying “it’s a mystery.” It’s a phrase that comes up often when discussing Lutheran theology.

I also found myself missing the liturgy. For however off track I got as a teen, I never fell into false trinitarian beliefs or anything like that and I 100% attribute that to saying the creeds every Sunday as a kid. The liturgy exists for a reason. It has its place. And it is good.

Not to mention that the more you study history, it’s pretty much impossible to deny some form of baptismal regeneration and real presence and honor towards tradition (not in the Catholic sense obviously) These are all historical Protestant beliefs.

#am not here to debate theology #pretty much what I’ve said here is just facts #I’m not making the case for exactly how to understand real presence or if you should be Lutheran or Presbyterian #just saying truths lol #fight somewhere else

[whatyourusherthinks]

Cabrini Review

Ah fuck, it's my first Angel Studios movie. Never heard of them? Well, they are a Mormon faith-based movie company that uses crowd-funding to produce their movies. Naturally it's CEOs and film makers are all God-fearing, alt-right, dog whistle-spouting, propaganda-spreading Neo-Nazis. They're most famous for a movie that came out last year called Sound of Freedom, the "true" story about a guy who tried to end child trafficking by child trafficking. And then one of the film's funders got arrested for child trafficking. Can't fucking make that shit up. The only reason the theater I work at shows these movies is because the company and a distribution deal with Angel, the only people who come to see them are decrepit old bags who only watch to have their worst presuppositions confirmed and masochists who've lost their riding crops like myself.

TO BE FAIR, I was morbidly curious to see After Death, their documentary about proving the existence of the after life. (But it left the theaters before I had a chance to watch it.) And the premise of telling a story about a real life nun I've never heard of isn't a bad one. Glancing at Wikipedia it seems like the real life Cabrini wasn't caught grifting sick patients or stealing babies like certain other nuns. So maybe the movie is a decent retelling of the person's life. We shall see.

What's The Movie About?

This is a biopic of Francis Xavier Cabrini, an Italian nun who was the first Catholic saint from the US. The movie specifically follows a mission to New York City building an orphanage and then a hospital.

What I Like.

Cabrini was a good character in the movie. She was driven and stubborn, generally wise, kind to those less fortunate but didn't allow anyone to take advantage of her. Her plans to fund her various projects and protect her wards were pretty inspiring, not gonna lie. And I liked that they let her cry in a couple scenes and didn't give her shit for it (Even what she was crying over was kinda weird). I also like her friend Victoria, a prostitute who murdered her pimp is self defense then works with Cabrini. I was concerned that the movie makers were taking the piss releasing this on International Women's Day, but no the women characters are good. John Lithgow plays the corrupt mayor of New York who is cartoonishly evil and I kinda loved it. The set design and costuming was also pretty good. I liked all the top hats and cigars. There's some pretty neat scene transitions as well. Also the movie didn't try to pass off any reprehensible behavior as righteous, so it cleared the minimum requirement.

What I Didn't Like.

So Cabrini is a fine character in the movie, but she also has absolutely no flaws. I mean she's sickly, but that never really plays into anything in the plot or prevents her from doing anything. Actually I lied, the one part of the plot that is played into by the being chronically sick thing is she meets a doctor she becomes friends with, so her one flaw is a net positive. She's also followed around by 5 or 6 other nuns who get absolutely no characterization. I think they said one of their names once but I can't remember what it was. I also find it a bit funny that this Christian movie about a Catholic nun makes the Catholic Church a secondary antagonist. But they also try to present the story for being a bit morally grey, yet everything Cabrini does is entirely righteous and everyone trying to stop her is either racist, corrupt, or both. There was one scene where the editing made me entirely confused about where characters were, and the fact the shit started exploding didn't help. The message of the movie was "Start the Mission, God will provide the means." Not only is that just not how the world works, but the main conflict in the movie is Cabrini not having enough money to do any of the mission work she wants to do and has to convince other people to donate. "But Roan," Joe Buggknutz protests, "The means God provided were the donations from the people." But not only did Cabrini basically have to beg for all of the money, (which maybe you can argue is part of the mission but she's already taking care of orphans and supervising building places for sick and injured to go, which was her stated mission's purpose so it seems churlish to demand that she does more) but half the people she asks don't give her a cent! Thanks for coming through there God! "But- but the Lord works in mysterious ways!" Stop making excuses for your favorite imaginary friend you cuc-

Final Summation.

Cabrini is fine. If you can stomach the idea of making a glowing biopic of a missionary, you can watch this movie with no problems. I'm still not recommending it because fuck Angel Studios. But if your crazy relative sends you one of their free tickets that they try to unload on their audience, there are worse ways to spend two and a half hours.

#Cabrini #Rejected Movies

[littlehideawaysblog]

With creating this new blog about my progress in my faith and spirituality I figured an overview was in order.

Early Life:

I was raised in a protestant Christian household where my mom was protestant and my dad was catholic. My siblings and I were raised protestant. This was my only form of identity for many years leading to an existential crisis and breakdown when my newly developing sense of self collided with my preexisting persona.

The sign of the end:

In 4th grade I realized I was a boy and no one else could see me that way. Everyone else would only see a little girl. I did not have the language to describe the feeling so it stayed hidden until 6th grade when the terms gay, lesbian, and trans, finally made it into my perception. With the advent of new words and identities I labeled myself for the first time, transgender. However within the week I had lost so many of my ‘friends’. Being raised in a fundamentalist church means all of your friends are also your faith. So when I figured myself out they turned on me believing I was choosing to sin just to spite God. In that time I had lost the support of friends, family, and my church. This led to a mental health collapse and several inpatient stays.

While in ward during one such stay I met a girl who was a hellenistic polytheist. I had some passing interest in the hellenistic pantheon and so we became friends. I began to research the greek and norse pantheons however due to restrictive homelife and a volatile environment I was not open about practicing or researching.

“Theistic Satanism”:

At some point in the 8th or 9th grade I stumbled upon a website that had been recommended through a tumblr page at that time. The website was, Joys of Satan. I need to take the time here to state. I was unaware of their shitty behavior and racism back then. I would not recommend going to their page for information as much of it is tainted by their background in racism.

I took a quick interest into what I would call Theistic Satanism. I devoted quite a lot of time towards reading any texts I could get a hold of. I would not say I’ve been practicing all these years, instead I’d say I’ve been learning all these years.

Around a year into that interest I hit my first major roadblock. My mother found my journal that had slowly become more of a book of shadows for me. She felt it was her job to keep me from ‘sinning’ in her house and threw everything that could even be remotely related out. No more scented or unscented candles, no incense, no personal journal. She combed through my sketchbooks and school notebooks removing anything she though was ‘devil worship’ For a few months this went so far as to ban both the Harry Potter books and the Percy Jackson books. I'd continue to read and learn in secret, this time extra careful to not be caught.

My first patron:

Late 9th grade I began going out with an older guy. My first real relationship. I honestly thought I loved him, and maybe I did but in the end he wasn’t healthy for me. I will not go into details of what all occurred however long story very short, I needed out he wouldn’t let me leave. I didn’t feel strong enough to leave, because if I did, who would love me?

During this time I would have vivid disturbing nightmares about him and things he had done. In several of these nightmares they’d be interrupted by a masculine force, though I was not able to place who or what it was. On occasion that feeling would return to me in the waking world as well. I decided to slowly brute force figuring out who or what the feeling was. So name by name I went. Starting with the Greeks, then Romans, then Norse. Eventually making it to the Goetics and finally to Glasya-Labolas to which I felt incredibly strong towards.

I do not know for certain why or how that had ended up but I became very grateful to him for his presence. One evening I finally had enough. We had been working on self sufficiency and getting past the need to be loved, and useful. That my worth was not tied to how useful I was to someone else. I believe he helped me realize I was allowed to say no and leave instead of saying no but staying because I didn’t want to make him mad.

Soon after leaving that situation I stopped feeling the presence altogether, I grew up and moved on.

Throughout high school I continued to try to find reading materials on demons however due to a hawkeyed mom I had to be very careful. I decided senior year that when I moved to college I wouldn’t need to hide my study so much and I’d finally be free to really learn. I was both right and wrong. University libraries gave me access to book loan systems that could get me new books on the topic but my dorm mate would intentionally play loud christian music when I would meditate. Win and lose some I guess.

By the end of that first year of college I had learned of a new name to call the faith I had been working through, Demonolatry. Under the new name I had so many more books to read and authors to look up. Though I began to feel dejected, I was angry with the early highschool version of myself for not maintaining the work I had been doing with Glasya-Labolas. I decided to reach out again, to no response. For a few months I gave up. Summer was back, It meant I was back in my parent’s house and their watchful eyes.

Returning to school I decided to try again. My new roommate was fine with the idea of paganism but was afraid of demonolatry. Which I believe is fair considering her catholic upbringing.

At some point in this time I began to reach out more broadly to anyone who was willing to work with me in order to help guide my studies. For a while I felt nothing, in fact for a whole year. By junior year of college I finally felt it, well smelled it. A sudden intense cinnamon scent. This meant absolutely nothing to me. Once Again as my high schooler self did before, brute force.

This eventually led me to King Paimon and a lot of things started to make sense. I am still working with King Paimon as of this time however I have reached out to others as in my personal beliefs working with a demon does not need to always be this major lifetime commitment of monogamy.

I’m happy to answer questions about my personal experience but because I am still figuring out my own beliefs I will warn you to take answers about faiths with a grain of salt.

I've been learning about forms of demonolatry for about 8 years though I’ve only really been practicing for about 1.5 years.

Your faith and practice are going to be different from other peoples. I think that is the most important thing to learn, no one needs to understand your faith but you and the beings you work with.

#demonolatry #paganism #pagan #theistic luciferianism #luciferianism #luciferianist #glasyalabolas #king paimon #demonology #theistic satanism #satanism