#i’m not christian! i’m a hardcore atheist!

[inamindfarfaraway]

The Exorcists’ Masks of Virtue

The vast majority of Exorcists in Hazbin Hotel have a notable design element that other angels don’t: their masks are missing an eye. Specifically, the right eye.

I believe this is a reference to the Bible, Matthew 5:29. Jesus says, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

He’s being hyperbolic. Mr Free Healthcare was not pro-mutilation. What he means is that you have to be willing to make sacrifices to prevent sin. The context of the eye metaphor is him condemning adultery and warning that even something as easy, casual and small as a look full of lustful intent can lead to further, worse sin if you don’t notice your sin, hold yourself accountable for it and do the work to not let it influence your decisions. This will probably be hard. It could be very, very painful. Changing your perspective can feel as horrible as plucking out your eye, so many people can’t bring themselves to do it. But although it won’t feel that way in the moment, it’s healthier for our general wellbeing in the long run to abandon traits and behaviours that damage ourselves and/or others.

(You may notice that Jesus’s teaching that you can have sinned, redeem yourself by giving up sin and thus escape damnation is the founding principle of the Hazbin Hotel. You may also notice that it contradicts everything the Exorcists believe.)

The Exorcists seem to follow this idea of painfully excising badness for the sake of the greater good devoutly to the point of placing it above teachings like ‘Thou shalt not kill’, with their job being to remove sin, in the form of sinners, to protect Heaven. Hence the missing right eyes. They’re a declaration of moral righteousness and inability to stumble.

But the truth is that the Exorcists all have their right eyes. Their flawlessness is a facade. Underneath, they are untouched, think themselves morally untouchable and, as shown by their horror and outrage when even one of them is killed, would much rather be physically untouchable too. This perfectly represents their complete unwillingness to acknowledge their own faults, let alone improve. They are never the ones who sacrifice. They force the sinners to sacrifice and don’t compensate it with any salvation. They metaphorically rip out the sinners’ eyes, but still condemn their entire bodies as inherently, permanently sinful. So they’ll just have to do another Extermination to get the other eyes! And another one to cut off their right hands! And so on until there’s nothing left.

The only exception to the rule is Vaggie, both in appearance and character. Her mask has the left eye crossed out instead. Even before her expulsion, she’s set apart to the audience as an Exorcist who has the capacity to, shall we say, see a different side of things. Her mask having its ‘sinful’ right eye reflects her understanding that the Exorcist worldview is wrong.

When she almost kills a demon child, her hateful vision clears. She discards the part of herself that’s an unquestioning, merciless agent of death, terror and grief… and as punishment for what Lute perceives as treacherous weakness, gets her eye plucked out.

Of course Lute leaves her with only the ‘sinful’ eye. It brands Vaggie forever as the inversion, a perversion, of what the Exorcists are meant to be.

You know, all this talk of eye removal in the Bible reminds of another line - ‘an eye for an eye’. Adam directly quotes it in “Hell is Forever”. He uses it to frame the Exterminations as Old Testament-style punitive justice; the sinners did harm and so they receive it. But putting aside the debate about how ethical the concept of revenge is, the entire point of taking an eye for an eye is that it’s proportional. The punishment fits the crime. If someone cuts your eye out, you shouldn’t murder their whole family in front of them and then slowly disembowel them to death. That would be the sin of wrath. You should just make them pay without excessive pain or collateral damage. This is the fairest form of revenge.

The Exorcists don’t do that! The Exterminations aren’t proportional to the wrongs of all they hurt, nor was Vaggie’s brutal punishment equivalent to her extremely mild insubordination. Lute literally takes Vaggie’s eye, and more, after Vaggie does nothing to her! That’s the opposite of the phrase! Adam and his soldiers are wrathful and cruel, deriving satisfaction from others’ suffering. But they just can’t stop going on and on about how disgustingly evil the sinners are, in total hypocrisy… despite some of the sinners being far better people than the genocidal Exorcists are… it’s like they’re obsessed with specks of dust in the sinners’ eyes when they have massive logs stuck in their own. Oh hey, that’s in the Bible too!

#both emotionally and symbolically i am rooting for vaggie or charlie to take out one of lute’s eyes #i was like ‘cool vaggie’s missing the opposite eye to her former mask!’ #and then i went back and saw that her mask was also different #and then i went down a rabbit hole of biblical mentions of bad things happening to eyes #i know god and jesus (and the holy spirit) probably won’t appear in the show #at least not in person #but i do cherish the mental image of adam and his genocidal army hanging out #when jesus christ bursts in with a whip #and gets all ‘you have made my father’s house into a den of thieves’ on them but an order of magnitude more intense #because HE SAID LOVE ONE ANOTHER #WHERE IS THE LOVE #HE SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED IT #i’m not christian! i’m a hardcore atheist! #religion is just as fictious to me as egyptian mythology #however i am also autistic and have major special interests in mythology and folklore #so here i am fervently writing analysis of the sermon on the mount #hazbin hotel #hazbin vaggie #hazbin hotel vaggie #vaggie #hazbin hotel exorcists #hazbin exorcists #hazbin hotel analysis #hazbin analysis

[deerydear]

A few months ago... I was watching this video:

My thoughts kind of keep coming back to it.

Something that stands out to me is the sort of focus on 'internal perception': "Do you feel like you were bullied?" "Did you feel ostracized?" "Did you feel singled out?" Sort of a focus on negative emotions.

I think there's a process of rationalization which can effect memory. If I focused my attention in a particular way, I might be able to remember some occasions "in which other people were trying (or intending) to be rude assholes according to their own metric", but I was not affected by it. I have my own metric. I have my own senses. I'm a full person.

In my childhood I was more likely to become a bully than to 'be bullied'.

So I don't remember the sorts of behaviours that she describes.

My family were also atheist immigrants, so I already felt like most people were of an alien species (lol, christians). (I like to try to be impartial and inoffensive on my blog... but I thought it was funny. Sorry.) Culture has such a strong impact. If two people disagree on the fundamental organization and primacy of reality... then...?

So I really just avoided most people. I actually had assumed that devout christianity was more common than it really was in the area I grew up. I remember feeling afraid to be 'found out' to be atheist. There is a minority of crazy, nutso hardcore 'christians' who might wanna persecute someone for being areligious, or of a different religion. I really just did not want to draw untoward attention to my family. I got used to lying in certain situations (like impressing my friends' parents).

The 'stimming' thing is interesting. because I do often do stuff like that. hahaha, Sometimes the people around me will start copying my behaviour!

(the following comic is read right-to-left)

I feel kinship with birds and dogs. I often imagine the emotions of the individuals I grew up with, when I'm expressing myself. I think I had more dog friends than human friends... (statistically). but I did have many other human friends. I didn't lack it. Again... Atheist in a religious society. Why bother with people who will get angry over strange stuff?

I guess the tone I want to convey in my response is: "I don't feel judged, I'm judging you. (or not... Everything is situational.)"

She discusses 'being bothered by sounds, smells, senses', but... in my evaluation of myself, I have no baseline for an outside perspective, and I honestly do not want to take other people's opinions seriously. Different people can have wildly different opinions of what is normal, even just depending on how their family raised them. Different cultures have differing standards of polite behaviour. Something that would be considered incredibly rude in Japan, might be nothing to balk at in the USA. (Something still might be rude, but normal.)

I also just have a strong oppositional knee-jerk reaction to anyone attempting to give me any kind of label. (maybe not any kind...)

"Oh, you're not one of THOSE people, right?"

See also: discussion the "autistic kill-switch".

"Feelings like this make feel like I’m not actually autistic sometimes, and I was just a poorly-socialized, privileged brat when I was younger."

I feel the idea of an autism diagnosis is very... controversial. I remember reading a blog post written by a mother whose son could be considered autistic, but her psychiatrist said that he would be unable to give him a formal diagnosis because: "the diagnostic criteria are based on behaviours that someone begins to show when they have become traumatized by being socially ostracized". I'm paraphrasing. He went on to say: "if your son were showing these specific signs of being traumatized, I would be able to give him a formal diagnosis [which may be used to seek formal accomodations, such as in classes, etc.], but since he is happy and healthy, and you are raising him well, he does not meet the official metric for an autism diagnosis."

I remember a discussion which mentioned a family of people who could have been diagnosed 'autistic', but none of them had been. They all saw eachother as normal, (or perhaps that they had their own quirks as a family). No one was ostracized from the family for being 'weird' due to "[what some people refer to as ]'autistic behaviours'."

Aghhhhhhh...

Then I also have more questions.

Excerpt from an old blog post:

She was assuming I was autistic because I was "acting shy." She had no idea of my psychological makeup, my life in the past… anything. Just, "you're shy". Maybe it isn't "autism". Maybe it's the same thing that happens to dogs if they aren't properly socialized with other dogs and people, in their childhoods. They become 'gitchy'. They aren't sure how to react, because they lack experience in certain situations. Some dogs become aggressive. They may see their owner as 'the only safe person', and everyone else as a possible threat. I grew up being raised with puppies. I remember my mom telling me about this --- why it was so important to take the dogs out for walks, to meet new people and animals. Maybe it is possible to change. Maybe it's "getting used to a set of circumstances", which can be adjusted. Can old dogs learn new tricks? Is that up to you? I just... really don't like this idea of "innateness".

I had been doing a little bit of research into this question, a few months ago...

I feel like I don't have an objective perspective on myself. but who does. Anyone? Anyone at all?

Should I get my blood tested for melancholy, next?

I still think this is a very interesting article in reference to cultural ideas of psychological affliction. I feel like the principle might have bearing on the discussion of an autism diagnosis...

plus, the sort of 'effect of the researcher' upon the subject studied.

Does a researcher hold bias? Which way does it tend to go? Can a researcher influence the people? Such as through asking leading questions... or segregating an autistic child into a different type of school experience from the majority of other children. That experience itself can also influence a child in ways that I don't think should be ignored. I wouldn't say "cultural bias causes all behaviour that might be labelled autistic", probably not... but in some discussions of ASD behaviour, I notice that some diagnosed people's self-image and understanding of "their behaviour vs. other people's" has been deeply influenced by what other people have told them, especially doctors and other authority figures. I think that 'making a strong statement whenever one doesn't know something for certain' may cause problems down the line. I think that's the type of mistake that some doctors have made, in the past. "YOU'RE different, YOU'RE wrong, and no one is like you. You're different from all the other children." I imagine what that does to a vulnerable child's self-perception. I hear it in some people's narration.

I don't like to share many details about my family, but I never thought I was weird. I thought the outside world was weird... or I embraced being seen as weird, because I thought it was funny, pseudo-'humble', subversive... etc.

I still don't think I consider myself autistic, but I feel like my knee-jerk reaction is lessening. It's becoming more of a neutral subject.

"Would the man who works as the detective L personally consider himself to be autistic?"

Oooh, an incindiary question...

I think yelyahnaloj had said something on the subject like: "I want to understand the underlying mechanisms and themes of this, not to separate reality into discrete boxes". I would concur. I want to understand human psychology, how people think, and why we do certain things, and how we benefit and harm ourselves and eachother.

Paraphrase again. I remember the sentiment but not the exact words! xD

#long-ass post on personal grounds #Youtube

[katnissgirlsmakedo]

have to complain!!!!!! anyway so i have this friend who is like. severely deeply chronically online and doesn’t seem to know how to understand people who don’t either fit into that insane bubble or are drastically outside it. like for example, so i see myself as like. normal regular average when it comes to religion specifically christianity. like. raised christian, not super hardcore into the religion stuff, also not divorced from it, not an atheist not a dedicated churchgoer but rather a secret third thing that is not actually secret because this is the normal average regular standard of human beings that i know. right? let me know if that’s not standard i’d like to know. anyway so that’s my deal. SHE however is like. the somewhat annoying atheist type with a tattoo of a burning church and experience watching the cw’s supernatural and emogothwhatever aesthetic going on. and for some reason she thinks i’m super religious and am offended by her existence as an atheist or whatever. i have said nothing to make her think this other than telling her i was raised going to church with varied frequency (as literally the majority of american’s with christian parents are) and telling her not to make fun of the catholics on campus group because they are literally just trying to get people to join their club from a pool of people that mostly already align with their religious beliefs. we are in virginia half the people this club is talking to we’re raised going to church it’s not like. evil converting to advertise their club organization or whatever to them when they’re already christian. even you bestie are already christian in the way that matters to make this situation NOT problematic religious conversion. anyway i literally don’t know how from me having the most basic opinions on religion and not ever expressing them unless explicitly prompted made her believe that her existence somehow offends me. she’s so fucking ridiculous seriously like how do you approach life with the worldview that everyone is either a queer emo atheist communist with a nose ring like you or a republican christian traditionalist who hates you. and this is my FRIEND remember. who i met in gender studies class. where i’m minoring in hating men capitalism and white supremacy. and she still cannot conceptualize that i exist between this ridiculous dichotomy she’s concocted from repeated intense internet exposure and the fact she refuses to be friends with people that don’t fit her side of said dichotomy…..

#she’s friends with ME because we were partners on a class project and she HAD to talk to me #i don’t believe she would ever have spoken to me enough to become friends outside that context #i love her dearly i am not secretly hating my friend i just needed to complain about her to expel the annoyance from my soul #beth.txt

[vanderwoodlings]

Consider this an open invitation to expand on the topic of Georgina and religion 👀

Well, see, it’s less Georgina and religion and more the Sparks family and religion.

(And a note before we begin: to be clear, I’m not talking shit about any of these denominations as a whole, or about conversion as a whole, or Christianity as a whole. I’m talking about the experiences of characters who are clearly having not great times, and so I don’t focus on the good stuff, but Christianity does have lots of very, very good stuff in it. Unfortunately, it’s also got stuff like this.)

So here’s the thing. For Georgina to end up in her special little cult experience, her parents had to send her there. Which, like, I know we only get one scene of them but just personally I honestly would have pegged them for more like. Terrible Episcopalians than terrible Baptists

(My guess on the group Georgina was with’s background comes without having watched those episodes again, but A) focus on dressed down style, B) ‘no alcohol’ rule, and C) the whole thing with the tambourines.)

So. Georgina’s parents. They’d actually sent her to various rehabs pre-series, and other such things, and one of the more unfortunate habits of certain Christian denominations (especially your terrible Baptists) is their habit of hardcore proselytizing. Usually this functions to get their members rejected and to create a more defined in-group that feels a sense of persecution, but sometimes—especially when it happens to people under stress—it works.

I’d guess that this is happens sometime during season one.

Georgina’s relationship to religion after ‘the bitch is back’ goes a little all over the place—“i haven’t been this bored since I believed in Jesus” comes in between “Jesus and I have redefined our relationship” and “Jesus owes me one.” Probably because she’s doing a lot of redefining—she’s questioning, and she’s not sure how she feels about any of this stuff

And the thing is that Georgina, more than anything, just wants someone she loves to stay. Of course, wanting to burn everything down until she stops being bored is a very close second, but it happens. Still, one of the premises of Christianity—especially the kind you get on a worship retreat full of teenagers—is that Jesus loves the whole of humanity, unconditionally. And I figure that that’s why, despite her trouble with the whole ‘morals’ thing (and, like, all the legitimately fucked up shamed-based overly restrictive shit she probably got fed), Georgina can’t just decide she’s done.

I think that Milo probably grows up attending irregularly—Christmas and Easter with his grandparents, every year, but anything else depends on his mom. He doesn’t have a lot of positive associations with holidays—they’re high stress and he gets yelled at a lot—and spending an hour or two sitting in a pew (or a folding chair, seeing as these are Baptists) listening to some guy talk about salvation… doesn’t really help.

Someone probably asked about him getting baptized once he turned twelve, and didn’t take his uncomfortable shrug well, so he’s probably technically done that in a haze of fire and brimstone fear and adult talking loudly and aggressively obedience.

I think Dan’s somewhere on the line between agnostic and atheist—he’s a pretentious fucker, and if he thought religion mattered much at all to his life experience, we’d have heard about it. Serena isn’t really into the whole organized religion thing but she is a believer in spiritual somethings.

Dan probably kind of awkwardly brings it up when Milo first moves in, and Milo just says no, no, he’s good, and then again in December, and Milo hesitates a little more this time before deciding that he’d rather not. He keeps feeling weird about it for a good long time, though. It is what it is.

#georgina sparks #milo humphrey #georgina and milo #serena van der woodsen #dan humphrey #the sparks family #towgd au #asks #strideofpride #i also like. canon gives us secular xmas eps and thats. not my jam as someone for whom that’s a very religious holiday #so yknow. other reasons we’re doing new years instead #this is a meta tag

[marimboy404]

Hello, I’m Ameera a 23 years old Muslim lesbian who is trying to come out, I’ve been in the closet with my girlfriend for way too long, because of how dangerous and hard it is to come out as a lesbian to a religious Muslim family, but me and my girlfriend have decided to do whatever it takes and risk it all to come out, do you mind supporting and encouraging us?, we have the plan to go away which is why I have my donation campaign pinned on my profile, if I raise at least that goal I can start the process with my savings, I can’t come out until I’d gotten my apartment and I’m away from family, so please support by donating if you can and help reblog though I know we all have what we dealing with, so I’m not imposing we just need all the support and encouragement we can get, check my pinned post for more information on how you can support, if you are a Muslim queer and you are out, please help with tips on how to make it less complicated, any word of advice is also really needed, we really wanna come out but we need y’all 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ pride please come through for us, I believe pride is for all

Hiii Ameera!!!! i dont think i can help you im 16 and not able to work a job and dont have the money to help you but i can post this ask to bring it to the attention of someone who could help you!! im not muslim im an atheist but i have a mostly christian family and coming out as trans was really terrifying for me so i understand my grandparents are pretty supportive and theyre like hardcore christian but a lot of my family i havent been able to come out to at all so i get it!! and i wish you the best of luck and i really sincerely hope you can reach your goal!! <33 i hope you get the life you deserve and live happily with your girlfriend!! i cant really give much advice but i really really hope that everything works out for you !! <33333 sorry i cant donate any money

[grayintogreen]

I’d assume that you have very intense trauma related to Christianity, but that feels like low hanging fruit

I wouldn’t say intense but the problem with southern Christians is they are extremely hellfire and damnation and have no problems telling children they’re going to Hell if they’re not saved and I refused to fake it to get my “good Christian card” because I never felt anything at all during services. This caused MANY panic attacks, because I didn’t want to go to hell but I didn’t want to lie to God???

Also when I was in high school, there was a girl in drama club who was like an intense hardcore Christian who was always talking about how it was the End of Days and apocalypse scenarios outside of fiction give me extreme anxiety.

So like… yeah, definite trauma of the “people repeatedly exposed me to things that trigger me because obviously it wouldn’t have to scare me if I accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior.”

So anyway, I’m an atheist out of spite now.

#my asks

[pinkspiraling]

i was also raised religious but always believed in like magic (like hardcore) and wasn’t super sold on the religion thing but lately i don’t even really believe in anything anymore, i felt like believing in magic was maybe a little delusional/a trauma thing and now idk if i’m just growing up or i’m getting more cynical/depressed. because i really did believe very much in magic and i’ve had a lot of unexplainable things happen that i may or may not have caused myself. i’m also a born witch so there’s that as well.

i still believe there are things outside of our understanding and perception but i’m just so 🤷🏻‍♀️ about it now. i feel like me seeing things as signs was maybe more mental illness than reality and even tho it interests me i feel like it’s unhealthy to engage with it so i’m just like okay. and even tho my disbelief in the christian god started extremely early and i declared myself an athiest at like age 12 i still look at nature and the universe we live in and can’t help but think maybe there was a “divine creator” behind it all. when i look at the numbers thing with flower petals and all the coincidences it took for earth to be a paradise for life and the fibonacci sequence i think that’s maybe one thing christianity got right. and then i think well, maybe that’s just the best our puny human brains can come up with as an explanation since it’s all just so fantastical.

idk, religion/spirituality is complicated :’) thanks for listening to me ramble ily pink 🖤

i understand what you mean. don’t be too hard on yourself though, believing in magic doesn’t have to be a bad or good thing! it’s just what you thought at the time. i get you tho, i used to believe in a lot and i feel like my depression has taken so much belief away from me. i think the universe is soooo complicated and i’m open to the idea that there’s spiritual shit out there! but i know that in my lifetime i will never choose something to believe in something as being the real truth. so that’s why i consider myself an atheist! you’re so right tho that maybe that’s just all our human brains can come up with, that’s such a wise way to put it. tysm for sharing with me!!! <3

#pinky promise i’ll answer

[alethianightsong]

I have a confession...

I’ve NEVER been abused by the church. I have 0 religious trauma. So why am I against Christianity? Cuz I have empathy and as a black woman, I hate mindless bigotry. I don’t really think of it, but I don’t like emotionally hurting people unless I feel they deserve it in some tangible way like being a bully. The church said gay people are living in sin, but the one openly gay kid in my school in Hicktown, Arkansas was hardened & a bit of a jerk cuz he was surrounded by homophobes, forced to toughen up or he’d unalive himself or something like that. Once I realized he was an average guy, that opened the way for me to critique everything else. “If gays are just normal people, then what else am I being lied to about?” At the same time I was educating myself with secular sources, I also fought the deconstruction process. I ran across Darkmatter2525 on YouTube(his Adam and Eve video) and I clicked away before watching it later. I was taught that atheists= hate God therefore awful people. I also had self-loathing and hated my pubescent body(thank God my church never taught me that feeling negative emotions is sinful) and praying the feelings away did nothing. I also read a LOT of books(my Baptist mother read horror novels & never banned books in our house so Harry Potter all the way) and apparently, reading grows your empathy skill. By my late teens, I still went to church(and bible study when excuses didn’t work) but I hated it and the baptism I received when I was 9 suddenly felt fake. Life is very binary when you have a child’s ignorance and if you don’t shut your brain off as you get older, you realize things are more complicated that you previously thought. As a kid, I was pro life and wanted to have 5 babies, now I’m pro choice and want to have maybe 1 kid. I thought I would save my virginity for marriage, now I joke I lost my virginity to my bicycle and know how non-precious sex is. Hardcore Christians don’t think too deeply about what the Bible says, otherwise they’d have to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, what they were taught is not correct or at least it’s not absolute. Hardcore Christians are taught to turn away from critical thinking and that any bigotry is justified as long as it’s in the name of expanding God’s kingdom or helping someone find God. In some ways, “God’s light” has blinded them to humanity and having empathy

#christian #deconstructing christianity #homophobia #pro life #arkansas #bible belt

[scumgristle]

The sort of revelations that kill your childhood: So like a week ago I covered Columbine on the show. And part of the coverage centered around the myth of Cassie Bernall and the whole modern martyr "The Girl Who Said Yes" thing and how that sort of reshaped Gen. X American Evangelicalism into this..."edgy, post-grunge, faux-radicalism" about being "on fire" for Christ, and the whole preponderance of Dad Rock Youth Pastors. And I hadn't connected that in any real way to the sudden *explosion* of Christian hardcore and metal bands in the late 90s and early 00s. They were fucking ubiquitous for damn near a decade. Zao, No Innocent Victim, Project 86, As I Lay Dying, Norma Jean, Underoath, Thrice, Demon Hunter, Extol, Living Sacrifice...even bands like Evergreen Terrace and Hopesfall Started as Christian metal bands and shed the label early. But the hardcore/underground metal scene was fucking Inundated with kids who went to youth group and church and found metal records in their local Christian bookstore and started going to shows...and there's been an adjacent scene of kids who have NO connection to the sociopolitical or working class roots of hardcore whatsoever ever since. They came in after Columbine when the broader American Evangelical movement latched onto this New thing "the kids" were doing that had ties to skate culture and a million other places they wanted in to. And so you had bands...funded by Church projects...going on tour with Pastors...who handed out Bibles and tracts and did Altar calls at their merch tables. And NOW...24-25 years later? Hardcore is a bunch of spineless neo-conservative/libertarian chuds, who got into the scene through a crypto-grift by Christian propagandists in the music industry when they were kids. And it is *no* wonder I've been looking around thinking "when did everyone here turn into a Republican?" for the last 5 years. They didn't. They already were. And. If you FOLLOW this trajectory through the early 00s with the hardcore scene as essentially a stocked pond for the conservative movement astroturfed by megachurches (if you think I'm exaggerating go look up who half of Thrice worked for)...it explains deathcore and its tendencies towards misogyny and conspiracism. Because a lot of these guys hit their late teens and early 20s and discovered Alex Jones - who blew up in popularity after 9/11 - and the bits and pieces about kleptocracy, RFID chips, Reptilians, and a global shadow government popped up ALL over the place with bands like Molotov Solution, Job for a Cowboy and Pathology. This burgeoning RW recruitment space spun out, and the reaction was A.) A REALLY pissed off atheist sect B.) Guys with hangups carried over from the conservative spaces they came from...like rape culture, traditionalism, and a tendency toward the Fringe of political thought (the Alex Jones thing). Recognizing hardcore was coopted by the Christian Right sometime in 1999...the last 25 years of it make all the sense in the world all of a sudden.

Moxy O'Brien

[bisluthq]

i've actually seen the turkey subreddit and in my experience the people who aren't trolling are edgy teenage atheist kemalists who think turkey isn't a muslim country lol. in general I think a lot of people on the internet and irl lately use atheism/anti-religious views as a cover for racism and intense bigotry.

not lately lol BUT this was my issue with a lot of dudes in high school before I had the vocab for it. Hardcore atheism is not good. It’s NOT as bad as religious fundamentalism (and as I’ve said many times I’m not talking about Muslims as a separate grouping like I can give Christian and Jewish examples of it just being ~wrong) because it physically hurts fewer people but it’s… still wrong.

liberalism to me means let people do what they want and if they want to be religious (even very religious) so long as they’re not hurting anyone, how is it our business? And that’s my philosophy on that one like believe anything you want to so long as you don’t hurt people as a result.

[gabelish]

Leftist Bible Quotes

Kind of a shame what the Church has done because if you look at Jesus (and very early Christianity) with a historical lens with Jesus as a revolutionary resisting Roman occupation (also criticizing Rabbinical corruption at the time) and not as a religious figure that right-wing people claim to follow, he actually fucks hardcore. These are just a few of the quotes I found, though I’m sure there’s more.

Also slight disclaimer: I was raised atheist and I am still very agnostic and this post isn’t some weird way to attempt to convert anyone to anything. I just found some leftist Bible quotes and since thanksgiving is coming up I thought other people might want to put these into their back pocket if they want to argue with their relatives or copy/paste in Twitter replies to some asshole.

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (NRSV, Acts 2:43-47).

“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet” (NRSV, Acts 4:32-37).

“‘Ananias,’ Peter asked, ‘why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!’” (NRSV, Acts 5:3-4)

“When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me’” (NRSV, Luke 18:22).

“He answered, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’” (NRSV, Luke 10:27)

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (NRSV, Matthew 6:24).

“Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter” (NRSV, James 5:1-6).

“But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (NRSV, Luke 18:23-25).

“But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction” (NRSV, 1 Timothy 6:9).

“So he said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God’” (NRSV, Luke 16:15)

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead’” (NRSV, Luke 16:19-31).

#leftism #communism #anarchism #also Tolstoy was a Christian anarchist iirc? #yeah no gods no masters but anarchism has nothing against spirituality itself just the hierarchy of clergy and dogmatism

[automatismoateo]

My best friend told me evolution isnt real via /r/atheism

My best friend told me evolution isn’t real I’m a life long atheist with a best friend, who’s a hardcore Christian, and he denies evolution. For context, my friend was 17 at the time that he said this to me and is one of the most intelligent people I know and is very logically sound. He scored 99.9 in his atar (Australian equivalent of gcsc or whatever it is), meaning he’s in top 0.1% of scores in the country. How can someone so smart accept a claim without any evidence, yet deem another claim, with a ton of strong evidence, as bullshit when it contradicts it? This baffles me… it’s now 4 years later and still struggle with grasping why he believes such a thing. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Submitted September 20, 2023 at 03:00PM by Im_All_Urs (From Reddit https://ift.tt/4rV6dai)

#reddit

[steveskafte]

BEST POSSIBLE BOX There's a common temptation I've seen many succumb to – believing that all the best people believe what they do. I grew up in an intensely insular church environment where most of the members where related, and I often heard a version of this phrase: "Oh, and did you hear that he's a Christian, too?" They could have been talking about an actor, a plumber, or their favourite politician, but the same upside was implied – that person was better because he shared their beliefs. Even as a child, I constantly observed how easily manipulated this mindset could be. I saw teenagers get seduced by spouses they barely even liked, all because they got the right scriptures quoted to them. I've watched family members vote for folks who acted abhorrently, because the candidate pretended to follow their chosen deity. One woman once told me that she genuinely believed they'd be immediately struck dead if lying about their beliefs. So they must have been telling the truth. It's hardly isolated to one particular subset of society. I've spied it just as often at the ends of all possible extremes. People pick a hardcore mindset, and then slowly get nervous at imagining that they might be appreciating the work of someone who doesn't fit in their best possible box (or at least in one adjacent). Fundamentalists pray that I'm some flavour of Christian, and Atheists want to hear of my Agnostic tendencies. Carnivores hope that I'm a red-blooded boy, and vegans are optimistic that I'm at least giving vegetarianism a good think. Self-ascribed empaths keep trying to absorb me. Liberals read my writing on human understanding and see a comrade, then Conservatives hear my thoughts on Canadian history, and are certain I'm in their club. It'd be horrifying to think that I'm genuinely ill-fitting to most labels, but I'll admit to finding a certain pleasure in not telling too much about me. Obviously, a lot of my writing, and certainly the past two paragraphs, is perversely sarcastic and ironic. But my sense of humour comes from a place of universal kindness, an overwhelming desire to share all I can with strangers. I just want to be useful – and I've found that the most use a human can be is by belonging a little less. You see, there are things I think now that are opposite to things I thought fifteen years ago. It happened while making friends with folks from the far side of a great gulf, who said: "You don't have a clue what it's like living here, let me tell you all about it." I listened, and some I took in, some I let go. It can be quite distressing to join no group, but as a writer, I don't want a group speaking for me. Independent thought can be a slippery path to crazy talk, but I'm less easily radicalized since admitting I'm not the smartest. I've deferred to experts of applicable experience, and learned to let them speak. They made me better at being me. Well, that's the hope. March 17, 2023 Annapolis County, Nova Scotia Year 16, Day 5605 of my daily journal.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

What happened w the rationalist community, if you’re ok talking about it?

LONG REPLY TIME.

In my Wild Youth (tm) I was hardcore in the rationalist/skeptic/humanist community. You know, the New Atheist types (the vast majority of the community didn’t call themselves New Atheists, that was mostly American Dawkins fans, but we were those kinds of people, just less arrogant-PR about it). For people who don’t know, the core philosophy of this subculture basically comes down to: - humans are mostly good people, or try to be good people, and we should act in ways that are good for humanity, the environment, etc. - people with better or more accurate information about the world are capable of making better decisions - it is therefore vitally important that we view the world as accurately as possible. Truth is inherently important and valuable. We should do everything we can to make sure that our beliefs about the world are as accurate as possible. - your mind will lie to you. Cognitive biases have their social and evolutionary uses, but they result in bigotry and bad information. We should do everything we can to identify and compensate for these, and think as rationally as a human is capable of. - while it’s not perfect, science is the most effective tool we have for determining what is most likely to be true. Rationalism is therefore massively pro-science and pro-science education. (This isn’t a blind trust; most hardcore rationalists are scientists and fully aware of the limitations of the messy reality of how science is funded and published and the biases that introduces. These are taken into account. The other hardcore rationalists tend to be magicians/illusionists.)

All of this is perfectly fine and a hill I’m still perfectly willing to die on.

When you get a bunch of people together who are sincerely seeking truth and want the world to be a better place, there are some fairly obvious groups that they’re going to tangle with. Before my time, when we were just called skeptics, the main targets had been psychics and life-after-death spirit-communing con artists (this is where our magicians came from, the philosophical descendants of Houdini, one of the earliest voices in the movement, and later James Randi). But the big proponents of harm in my time were the healing crystals/essential oils/faith healing people, and the ‘Creation should be taught instead of evolution’ creationists. We spent a lot of time trying to stop people from selling oils that they said could cure cancer, and fighting against science education being replaced with religious belief inserted in science classes. (I spent a lot of my teenage years debating creationists on the internet. I can summarise this experience as a frustrating waste of time on both sides of the debate. Neither side was going to accomplish anything in these discussions.)

This is all perfectly fine. I won’t pretend I’m completely happy with everyone’s actions; it’s the internet, so of course there were subgroups doing things like mass trolling conservative religion forums and stuff, which had no purpose except to piss off people we happened not to like, but you get that. The problem with this is that it’s easy. People can believe what they want, but if you’re coming into a rational debate, every pro-Creation, anti-evolution argument is complete and utter bullshit, mostly demonstrating nothing beyond the fact that the creationist debater a) doesn’t understand the most fundamental things about biology or b) does understand and is willingly misleading the audience. Every pro healing crystal, pro astrology or pro telepathy argument is fatuous nonsense. Twelve-year-olds could walk into these discussions and completely shred every argument put forth by big-name “creation scientists” in minutes -- I know, I watched it happen regularly. I was on our conservative creationist Christian-owned community TV station for awhile doing a little ‘creation vs evolution!’ debate against the wealthy station owner’s son to fill air time, and I’d see him do a couple of hours of research for anti-evolution arguments every time we filmed, and it always pissed him off that I’d shred anything he said immediately, having done no research whatsoever, because even to me, a child, the giant drive-a-bus-through-this holes in his arguments were obvious. (Also, they were old hash; I’d read all the books by his idols before and checked the reasoning myself long before.)

Fresh voices in the community came from two main sources -- people who’d been pro-people and pro-reason/science for years finding others like them, and ex-creationists and magic healer victims who’d eventually found the holes in what they’d been taught. This second group, for obvious reasons, tended to be the most passionately pro-reason and pro-science people, and discussing different experiences in a place where people could feel safe being critical and actively celebrate doubt was great. But, inevitably, we got lazy.

A lot of the ‘laziness’ was perfectly reasonable and practical. Time and attention is always limited, and when you’ve dealt with six claims of “the eye is too complex to have evolved!” and explained the flaws in the irreducible complexity argument four times that fortnight, when someone walks in with “blood groups couldn’t possibly have evolved, therefore the earth must be 6,000 years old”, you just don’t fucking bother, and you shouldn’t fucking bother, there’s no value in that discussion.

That’s not the kind of laziness I’m talking about. I’m talking about the part where we got so used to ‘that sounds so fucking stupid’ leading directly being able to tear an argument to pieces,that it became normal to assume that anything that sounds stupid on the surface MUST be obviously wrong. Where ‘this is weird, let’s examine it and check for flaws’ became ‘that person disagrees with my preconceived notions, let’s double down and explain why they’re wrong, because I’m already assuming that they’re wrong’. At some point, “we want to be as rational and accurate as we can be, we call ourselves rationalist and work towards that” became “we’re rationalists, so we’re more accurate and rational than average and probably right”.

You might recognise that as in fact being *the exact opposite of the proported philosophy*. There were always some overenthusiastic idiots in any group, but watching it slowly become normal for rationalising to replace active rationalism and for the names of cognitive biases to be thrown around as gotcha buzzwords rather than things people were seriously considering in their own arguments was... concerning. (There were a lot of very smart people in the community, which unfortunately made it far more vulnerable to this particular kind of thing. Smarter people are better at fooling themselves; a person good at reason is also good at rationalising, and you can’t tell the difference between these things when you’re the one doing them.)

In practical terms, this doesn’t matter that much when you’re playing in the easy leagues of explaining to someone that the overpriced eucalyptus oil they bought from an MLM won’t protect them against chicken pox. The person who’s gotten lazy is shit at being a rationalist, but your reasoning skills don’t actually need to be all that impressive for this. You know what they do need to be impressive for? For when somebody says, “women are taken less seriously than men in science and biased against in hiring, payment and promotion”, and this hypothetical you, a male scientist who’s never noticed this and already knows that his profession is full of smart and reasonable people who wouldn’t do something stupid like that, thinks “that is fucking stupid” and automatically, without thinking about it, puts their energy into shouting down and dismissing alternate evidence. Or when somebody points out islamophobia in the community, or passive racism, or... you get the picture. Social issues can (and should) be examined and interrogated using rational philosophies, but it’s so much harder to do that than laugh at creationists who are sending you abusive messages about going to hell. And given the particular hot-button issues in the community, most of the people there were interested in biology, chemistry or physics and simply had no idea how to *do* social sciences, treating the parts that were familiar from their own specialities as valid and the rest as irrational nonsense. And now, you have prominent rationalists panicking about Sharia law, sneering at the made-up problems of feminism, and generally making fools of themselves... because they got lazy.

Because, like how it’s hard to be a liberal (American definition) but easy to be a conservative in a gay hat, it’s hard to be a rationalist, but easy to be an arsehole with a big vocabulary. And that’s why I can’t gush about how great Richard Dawkins’ early science books are without somebody bringing up his bullshit twitter opinions.

[samwisethewitch]

Polytheism

Most pagan religions are polytheistic in nature, meaning they believe in multiple divine beings. This is one of the hardest parts of paganism for outsiders to understand. In a culture where strict monotheism is treated as the norm, it can be difficult to wrap your head around the idea of worshiping more than one god.

Ironically, monotheism — the belief in a single, all-powerful creator deity — is a relatively new invention. Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion, is only about 4,000 years old. In the big scheme of things, that really is not a long time. Evidence for polytheistic religion dates back much, much farther (like, up to 40,000 years). We could argue that polytheism is the natural state of human spirituality.

Within pagan communities, polytheism is often described as a spectrum, with “hard polytheism” on one end and “soft polytheism” on the other. Hard polytheists believe that every deity is a distinct, separate, autonomous spiritual being. Soft polytheists believe that every deity is a part of a greater whole. As we’ve already discussed, extreme soft polytheism isn’t actually polytheism at all, but monism — the belief in a single divine source that manifests in different ways, including as different deities.

Hard polytheism is pretty straightforward. Norse paganism is an example of a hard polytheist system. Most Norse pagans believe that Odin is distinct from Thor, who is distinct from Freyja, who is distinct from Heimdall… you get the idea. Each of these gods has their own area of expertise over which they preside. If you’re dealing with a love matter, you’re probably going to seek out help from Freyja rather than Thor — unless you have a close, ongoing working relationship with Thor. (We’ll talk more about these types of close working relationships in a future post.)

Soft polytheism can be a little harder for people coming from a monotheist system to wrap their heads around. I think Jeremy Naydler describes it best in his book Temple of the Cosmos (here discussing Kemetic/Egyptian polytheism): “Shu and Tefnut are distinct essences dependent on Atum for their existence… The image often used in ancient Egyptian sacred texts concerning the gods in general is that they are the ‘limbs’ of the Godhead.” Shu and Tefnut, who are described in mythology as Atum’s children, are an extension of Atum’s creative power. However, they are also distinct beings with their own thoughts, feelings, and agendas. (It’s worth noting that we also have myths describing Atum’s birth. He is not a supreme being or a timeless force like the Abrahamic God.)

Monism is soft polytheism taken to its logical extreme. In her book, Wicca For Beginners, Thea Sabin describes it this way: “Think, for a moment, of a tree with a thick trunk that splits into two large branches. In turn, smaller branches grow from the large ones, and still smaller branches from the small ones, and so on. Deity is the trunk of the tree, and the God and Goddess are the two main branches. The smaller branches that fork off of the two big ones are the worlds gods and goddesses…”

If you’re not sure what the difference between soft polytheism and monism is, here’s a good litmus test: If you believe in the existence of a supreme divine force, you’re a monist. If not, you’re a polytheist.

Many pagans are somewhere in between hard and soft polytheism. For example, you may believe that Zeus and Jupiter are different versions of the same deity, filtered through the lens of Greek and Roman culture, respectively — but you believe that Thor is distinct and separate from Zeus/Jupiter, even though all three of them are gods of storms.

To make things even more complicated, there are some pagans (and some atheists, for that matter) who believe that the gods exist less as autonomous beings and more as archetypes within mankind’s collective consciousness. Their stories resonate with us because they serve as mirrors for different parts of ourselves. In this sense, we create the gods in our own image.

This belief is how we get “pop culture pantheons.” Some people work with fictional characters as archetypes in their spiritual practice. After all, if Sailor Moon is the ultimate representation of feminine power for you, what’s stopping you from putting her on your altar? Some pop culture pantheons have actually broken through into mainstream paganism — there are a lot of Wiccans who work with Merlin, believe me.

This interpretation is a bit different from polytheism, and could really be its own post (or several), so for the sake of keeping things short and sweet I’m not going to go any deeper into it. If this interests you, I recommend reading the work of Jungian psychologists like Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Robert A. Johnson. You may even want to check out The Satanic Bible by Anton LeVay for a particularly spicy take on the idea that we create our own gods and devils.

Just know that you can still practice paganism, even if you aren’t 100% sold on the idea that the gods literally exist.

Your take on polytheism doesn’t necessarily have to match up with the historical cultures you take inspiration from. For example, you may be a hardcore monist, but find that you’re drawn to work exclusively with the Norse gods. Or, you may be the hardest of hard polytheists, but find that the Kemetic gods are the ones who really speak to you. This is all totally okay! One of the benefits of paganism is that it allows for a lot of personalization.

Now that we’ve got the types of polytheism out of the way, let’s address the other big question that comes up when pagans discuss polytheism with monotheists: Does that mean you believe all those crazy myths are true? Once again, the answer depends on the pagan.

Just like some Christians are biblical literalists who believe that the Bible is a factual historical account, there are some pagans who believe that their mythology is factually true. However, many pagans accept that these stories have fantastical or exaggerated elements, but still convey a spiritual truth.

There are multiple Norse myths about men being transformed into dragons by their lust for riches, the most famous of which is probably the story of the dwarf-turned-dragon Fafnir. (Yes, Tolkien did steal that plot point from Norse mythology. Sorry.) These stories aren’t really about the dragons, though — they’re about the corrupting power of greed. The stories are true in that they teach a valuable life lesson that resonated deeply with ancient Norse culture. But did dragons really roam the earth in ancient times? Probably not.

This is one of the most important skills for any pagan: finding the spiritual truth in a myth or story. If you read a myth about Artemis transforming a man into a deer because he spied on her while she was bathing, what does that tell you about Artemis? Next time you read or listen to a myth or folk tale, try to find the message at the core of the story. You may be surprised by how this changes your understanding of the mythology.

If you’re interested in paganism but aren’t sure where to start, it might be helpful to gauge where you fall on the polytheism spectrum. Are you a hard polytheist, a soft polytheist, or somewhere in between? Are you a monist? Do you believe the gods function more as archetypes? Write it down so you can look back on it later.

When we talk about specific pagan traditions in future posts, I’ll point out where they fall on the polytheism spectrum. If you’re looking for a path that is compatible with your own beliefs, this is one thing to keep in mind.

Finally, know that your beliefs about the gods might change as you continue to learn and grow. That’s a natural part of religious exploration, so don’t try to fight it!

#paganism 101 #pagan #paganism #polytheism #deity work #wicca #wiccan #feri #reclaiming #goddess worship #goddess #hellenismos #hellenic polytheism #hellenic paganism #religio romana #roman polytheism #heathenry #norse paganism #kemetic polytheism #kemetic paganism #eclectic pagan #baby witch #witchblr #long post #my writing #mine #pop culture paganism #pop culture pantheon

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Being in an evangelical family is bizarre.

My sister and I went out for dinner tonight to celebrate our stimulus checks, and we got into a big argument. She told me she was applying for a job at a Christian school she wants her son to go to, and I told her I had qualms against it because it will be a conservative education. My sister is a Democrat, but she’s married to a redneck trump supporter, and they’re both hardcore Christians; she has been slipping further to the right since they got married. I fear she’s becoming a Stepford wife because she used to be so strong willed and independent, and now she just parrots whatever he husband says.

I didn’t say any of this, I just said it will be a conservative education. She looked at me confused and said that it’s not conservative if it’s true, saying that evolution and physics are bad and fake. She used to be a straight A student, she loved science, always asked questions, and now she looked me straight in the eyes and said that she wants her son to be a young earth creationist. She is staunchly anti-intellectual because it disagrees with her religion, and her husband never went to college because he thought it would poison his mind with liberals propaganda. I will bet you $100 that she votes for trump in 2024 because her husband convinces her that Democrats have been lying for years and that he’s actually a great guy and a model Christian.

My entire family thinks I’m some godless heathen because I don’t just accept “God did it” as the answer to every question I have about the universe. I’m not even an atheist! I believe in God, I like Jesus’ style, I just don’t buy into the right-wing bullshit of the modern church. The best way to describe my views on religion would be Deism; I believe God exists, but that he doesn’t interfere in our day-to-day lives. He set the ball rolling 14 billion years ago, and has been pretty hands off since. It’s more nuanced than that, but my point is that I have reasons for what I believe, but I don’t think it’s my duty to shove it down anybody else’s throat like my family members do.

My mom is a hardcore southern Baptist evangelical, and a diehard Hillary Clinton worshipper; she is pro-choice and believes in marriage equality, but thinks abortion and being gay are sins. She hates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders equally, and thinks Joe Biden should resign so Kamala Harris can be president. My sister has no political opinions whatsoever. She doesn’t care about anything, she’s totally unengaged, she just parroted my mom growing up and now she parrots her husband and his family

I feel like they’re all acting ignorant on purpose. They’re doubling down on their ignorance because they’ve decided that knowledge is evil. If they don’t already know something, then they never need to know it. It’s the Republican MO; they misunderstand stuff on purpose so they don’t have to think about refuting it. My sister thought she had the final word in our argument by saying “if we came from monkeys, why are their still monkeys? Checkmate.” When I started explaining that that’s not how it worked, and that the scientific explanation is internally consistent, she rolled her eyes and told me to stop talking because I sounded defensive. In her mind, if it takes more than one sentence to get your point across, it’s wrong and you’re just tying to save face by making stuff up. Because she doesn’t understand evolution, it must be non-understandable.

“Evolution is just a theory,” she says.

“Theories are not hypotheses,” I counter, “you don’t know what the word theory means.”

“Yeah, but it’s still just a theory,” she repeats, “you don’t know for sure.”

I believe the Bible is fallible. I believe it is just a book, written by biased humans trying to push political agendas throughout history. Why else would they keep translating and changing it? Christians are loosey goosey with translations, making the Bible say whatever they want it to say, they don’t think about historical context or metaphor. I don’t believe the universe was created in seven days, I don’t believe man was made of mud and woman from man’s rib, I don’t believe there was a global flood and an ark. I don’t believe the Old Testament is a literal history book, and for this my family thinks I’m going to hell.

I hate the south. I hate this culture. I hate how stubborn everyone down here is, how purposefully obtuse they are, how much pride they take in not knowing things. How can they be proud of being stupid? Why do they only care about what their book club tells them to care about? Why is this behavior rewarded?

#family troubles #argument #politics and religion #religion and politics #religion #politics #Stepford wife #fuck Republicans #fuck conservatives #my sister #sister #evangelicals #right wing nut jobs #religious right #the south #the deep south #Deep South #antiintellectual #antiintellectualism #anti intellectual #anti intellectualism #Christianity #Christians #creationism #young earth creationism