#religious imperialism

[hurgablurg]

Palestine and it's armed resistance isn't a homogeneous blob. Are there inslamic fundamentalists and antisemitic right-wingers in there? Definitely. But outnumbering them in the active fight at this very moment (right wingers prefer to have their battles fought by other people before swooping in as "heroes") are socialists, anarchists, and the 'politically neutral' who are just tired of being pushed around, people who have hit their breaking point.

This website was all for Ukraine's resistance against Russia's imperialism, but within those battle lines were nationalists, fascists, and hate groups. Does their involvement mean that Ukrainians' fight is illegitimate?

Their "innocent Israeli" opponents just beyond the apartheid fences are veterans of the IDF who after their "tour of duty" were told to go settle other people's land.

And yeah, that's the problem with having compulsory military service and then giving them all guns - your "civilians" are all reserve combatants and are therefore legitimate military targets. The only people who cried for the white nationalist freaks being ousted from their failed state within Zimbabwe through the 50's-70's were other white nationalists. You can't claim innocence when the established government is telling everyone over a young age threshold to go kill the "rebels and terrorists".

The only innocent Israelis are the ones far back beyond the frontlines who've been blasted with propaganda since before they were born and excused from military service (and even then, only the people who aren't selling arms or penning policy, as part of that oppressive system). Those children writing mocking messages for Palestinians on missiles didn't do that because "jews are naturally inclined to evil and cruelty" or some antisemitic bullshit like that. Their government encouraged them to do that. They need to be deprogrammed like anyone else raised in an environment like that.

Violence is a neutral force. Violence is how things are accomplished and colonialist tyranny is overthrown and established systems of power are challenged and threatened. It's who commits that violence and how that matters.

#right wing degeneracy #fascism #theism #religious imperialism #gaza #israel #palestine #violence

[newnitz]

I don't really see people talking about how cultural Christianity is applied to Jews.

In Christianity, Jews are the people who rejected and betrayed Jesus and are punished with statelessness and destitution, whose only redemption is accepting the Messiah and the Son of God. This is the basis of several antisemitic tropes, most prominently deception, religious supercessionism and the Wandering Jew.

In cultural Christianity, these tropes are considered tenants of Judaism rather than Christianity, as Judaism is considered Christianity without Jesus.

Christians see themselves as tortured saints, persecuted for spreading the truth of Jesus and God across the globe. Missionaries who go to non-Christian lands to try and get the people to convert by fearmongering with damnation to Hell see themselves as victims when they're rebuffed and asked to stop.

Cultural Christian non-Christians are usually atheists and adherents of folk religion revivalist movements who have suffered religious abuse, as many sects of Christianity normalize emotional abuse by instilling inherent guilt in the Original Sin and even physical abuse in "Spare the rod; spoil the child". These cultural Christians see the millennia of antisemitism and roll their eyes, to them we're just another sect of delusional religious people with a persecution complex.

To become a Christian all you need to do is accept the Father Son and Holy Spirit, to affirm your beliefs and confess your sins. To become a Jew you are either born a Jew, or you learn the Jewish culture and religion for months on end and must live half a year under the strictest restrictions of the Jewish lifestyle to show commitment. That is the difference between a universal religion and an ethnoreligion.

In a Culturally Christian world there is no room for ethnoreligions, and they do not exist. All religions are about your faith and which God(s) you believe in. So in a Cultural Christian's eyes, a country of Jews is a country that holds one faith supreme above all others and conditions rights with conversion, as that's how Christian countries have historically been.

Christianity's common ground with Jews comes from the Roman Empire appropriating the religion from the Cult of Jesus, and making it more appealing to the masses by introducing Greco-Roman and Germanic folk religion aspects into it. Xmas is Yule but with Jesus, Easter is a fertility holiday but with Jesus and so on. In the eyes of the Cultural Christian, Christianity and Judaism are two once-antagonistic sects of the same religion, no different than Catholics and Protestants.

Cultural Christianity erases and appropriates Judaism and is as inherently hateful of Jews as religious Christianity.

Now, when it comes to the elephant in the room: Islam.

Islam, like Christianity, is a universal religion. You must believe in Allah and accept the prophets, which include both Jesus and Muhammad. It is no more inherently violent than Christianity, though it's no less. In the Christian's eyes, Islam is the competitor, the enemy. The Muslims conquered Christian lands and converted them, and they've fought holy wars against one another throughout the Middle Ages.

To become a Muslim the Cultural Christian doesn't need to unlearn any of the core tenets of their culture. They can simply apply it to Islam.

Which is why many Cultural Christians, damaged by Christianity, are sympathetic to Islam. And since Muslims and Jews are no longer on good terms, they use this sympathy to give themselves a free pass to be antisemitic. Whether Muslims check their converts for bigotry, allow it or are powerless to stop them, that's another issue.

Jews are not diet Christians. We have less in common with you than you have with Muslims. Unlearn Christian cultural appropriation.

And no, I don't care that it's "offensive" to associate you with Christianity due to the religious abuse you endured. You still see the world through a Christian lens.

#cultural christianity #christian supremacy #Christian imperialism #religious supercessionism #wandering jew #wandering Jew trope #christian antisemitism #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism

[sky-daddy-hates-me]

How delusional do you have to be to think that the religion that has forcibly invaded and converted multiple countries throughout the centuries has preserved languages and cultures.

Old norse was only converted to the Latin alphabet because of Christianity, almost destroying the runic alphabet.

Christians forced indigenous children in North America and Canada to attend schools that stripped them of their culture and abuse them into Christianity. There are still Christian organisations who are dedicated to preaching to the native tribes on the North American continent.

How many mythological/folklore/fairytale figures have been diluted down to make it more christian friendly? How many have been demonised because they went against christian values?

How many historical artifacts or culturally significant items have been stolen or destroyed because of Christianity?

It genuinely breaks my heart to think of all the pain and suffering and death Christianity has caused to numerous countries, and the historical knowledge we might have lost in the process.

#ex jw #ex jehovah's witness #jehovah's witnesses #religious trauma #exjw #cult survivor #ex christian #ex cult #apostate #possible tw #culture #culturalheritage #christianity #imperialism #conversion #languages

[g1deonthefirst]

i just think if we're going to talk about harrow being a "fundamentally religious" character we also need to talk about the way religion in the nine houses is depicted as a tool of violence and oppression both within and outside of the nine houses.

like clearly jod uses his position as god and worship of him to induce characters to murder the people they love, thereby isolating them so that they love and worship him alone and uphold his empire. in htn we literally see how he isolates harrow (by ordering g1deon to kill her) and takes advantage of the faith this deeply vulnerable teenage girl has in him.

religion on the ninth is also used to justify the murder of 200 children and the extreme abuse gideon endures growing up. but i think most importantly, worship of john throughout the nine houses is used to justify the imperialist conquest and destruction of planets outside the nine houses, in a way that clearly intentionally parallels european imperialism. so, yes, harrow in htn is fundamentally religious — and because of her religion, she also functions as a tool of a violent imperialist empire.

#tlt #harrow #meta #sorry i just think it's really funny to see queer christians in particular act as if harrow is great queer religious representation #because i mean #gestures at christian imperialism

[randomnameless]

Genuine question, not trying to start a fight, why do you get so upset about gods and churches being presented in a negative light in fictional works?

No pbs!

I guess it's a mix of being too common, too forced and having, in general, the cast use common tropish arguments to fight /defeat them.

I rant a lot about this game, but take TS where we have three sort of factions opposing each other, and each are supposed to suck. Who is the faction who never receives any "positive traits" or "pet the dog" moment?

The game force fed us a scene where an Aesfroti soldier - when Aesfrost is depicted as a highly militarised nation with a cult of personality towards their current ruler, that invaded the protag's home and slaughtered several civilians and NPCs in the process - say goodbye to his wife and kids before going to "war" to defend his land against, well, the protags who are invading it to kill their warmongering leader.

As force-fed as this scene was, it, I believe at least, tried to tell us that even the Aesfrosti who pillaged villages and killed their inhabitants are humans, and care about their loved ones, sure it's corny, but it's all about not deshumanising any party.

When we attack Hyzante? Niet, zilch, nothing. No similar scene where random soldiers, or NPCs, worry about what is going on and if they're going to die when their wall has been breached. They just, don't exist in this context.

I think the cherry on the cake is the Golden Route scene, where, apparently, nationalists Aesfrosti decide to turn back against their ultra charismatic leader because, uh, he "lied" when he declared the war and used a false pretense, so the soldiers and people who were butchering babies and invading a city where people were preparing a marriage apparently now have morals and rebel.

There's no similar scene for Hyzante when the cast reveals that the teachings of their Goddess were made up and salt wasn't exclusively given to them by divine intervention, because rock salt exists everywhere. Sure it would be a bit weird and forced that people thinking they're chosen ones and looking down on everyone else suddenly, hm, don't break down when their entire system of belief is shattered, but hey, if the Aesfrostian Gregor can have morals after washing his hands of all this Glenbrookian blood, why shouldn't religious npc #55 not make the same heel face turn?

And then, we have the slavery/human experimentation plot - in general, when TS tries to give nuance, they more or less explain/justify why something that "sucks" is done, it's basically Silvio's character.

Aesfrost' Gustadolph manages to push his "freedom" mentality because his land is a harsh place where people are desperate to survive, salt smuggling is reprehensible, but it's the only way to give some to the ones who cannot afford it. Of course is everyone is free, no one is because, as Gustadolph puts it, they're basically free to die for his ambitions.

Hyzante? Follows a racist creed where Rozellians have to pay for some great sin, and are slaved away in a lake to recover salt until they die. It's, later, justified by Hyzante wanting to keep its salt monopoly else they don't have anything, and wanting to curb down the Rozelle people because they know about the exitence of rock salt (and I guess getting free workers to harvest salt from the lake + having state enemies make his own population docile/not willing to rebel ?).

And then, we have the human experimentations, that are just done for, uhh, Idore's lol. When Hyzante is known for its "advanced medicine" and we could have had the usual dilemna of, idk, having those humans experimentations used to develop this medicine that is reknown in the world (idk, sacrificing a Rozellian to save someone else's life?) - it's not the angle the devs picked. Rozellians are sacrificed to power up an idol, Idore wants to control the world through his idol and soft power (compared to Gustadolph's hard power) and manipulates his people (just like Gustadolph) to do so.

The two are very similar, but who is the final boss? Complete with a transformation in an eldritch monster? The war-mongering imperialist or the jaded old man who is leading de facto a religion?

Hopefully there's the entire "human experimentations for no other purpose than the lols" to settle them apart.

---

I recently watched Dune, and even if I have some issues with the adaptation, the Bene Gesserit isn't portrayed as "comically" evil-er than the Harkonen Empire, I reckon the comparison isn't adequate, because Dune is multi book series when I'm mostly talking about video games.

Symphonia's church of Martel is a font for the Big Bad (tm) to put in motion his nefarious plans, and yet, through the game, we see how random clergymen use their, uh, religious buildings to help people around. Ultimately Martel herself is reincarnated through plot device and tells the big bad to stop being an ass and the story is less about "church and gods evil" but "big bad distorts Martel/church's teachings and role for his plans because he has a tragic backstory"

(but then Symphonia ends with the biggest whitewashing from every Tales I've played for its big bad so I'll stop talking about it because otherwise I'm going to be salty).

Abyss' church is more or less the same thing - the Church is supposed to help people deal with the fact their verse has "predestination stones" where the future is already written, and in the course of the game, we see how it has several factions and one opposes the group (who has the pope as a NPC!) - but it's not a story about "gods bad church BaD".

I remember playing Suikoden Tierkreis a long time ago, and while the game seemed to go through familiar "church bad gods bad" route and we end with defeating a god-like entity... I pretty much loved the twist that, in a game that relied on alternate dimensions/universe, the god-like entity was actually the protag if he made different choices!

In those games, if you fight a religious body and someone pretending to be a God or what not - it's not because people fight against an eldritch creature who wants world domination and to erase puny insects, or is the reason why everything goes wrong, but because, at the end, the conflict/fight is ultimately caused by someone, generally a human or at least a non "god like" entity, wanting to destroy the world.

I don't remember if FE was my first JRPG series or not, but I always liked the idea that if the world is doomed in those games and the heroes must prevent said doom, it's not because a god-like being wants to destroy the world, but because people, humans/randoms are the most shitty ones out there.

---

As for the "tropes" often used to deride fictional churchs and religious people, well, I will again point to TS - which did a splendid job in the Benedict Route where you smash Hyzante after allying with Aesfrost.

There's one battle where out protags diss Hyzantese because they worship a goddess and have no free will, listening to Her teachings and Her says (the traditional "religious people have no free will and listen to their churches who tell them how to think!") - which is immediately countered by one of those Hyzantese characters asking Serenor if he's not the same, but instead of blindly listening to a Goddess, blindly follows Benedict. And it ends with the final chapter title referencing automatons/puppets : who is that title talking about ? The fake "idol" Idore created, or the fake "king" Benedict created?

Anyways, the usual "religions people have no free will because their church/religion tells them how to think" trope reeks of r/atheism and the double standard - bar in this route of TS, but I guess, in TS itself in the Roland route! - is never called out, blindly following a charismatic leader is okay, as long as charismatic leader isn't religious?

Regardless of my IRL thoughts about religion, usually those tropes are presented as a "gotcha!" when they are... not at all, but the games/books leave it at that and we're supposed to roll with it.

I'd say it's lazy writing or, as we saw in Naruto, a quick way to end a story without having to dwelve in characters and their motivations : "you're a god/alien/other being and you're bad, so let us do what we want!" - end of the story.

Hopefully some fillers and to an extent, Boruto gave her more meat bar being the 11 hour villain we had to defeat quick and who manipulated the previous sad'n'lonely antagonists - but it still felt rich from Naruto, known for his famous "talk no jutsu" and trying to understand people he's fighting against, to drop the ball with Kaguya, calling her pure malice and ending with some "let us live the way we want" to wrap up the plot so he can wrestle with his boyfriend later on.

In the end, we often end up with "religion bad bcs the big bad manipulates people through it", as if those mangas/animes/vg never have other examples of charismatic people not using religion to manipulate their randoms/people or "gods bad they should let humans do what they want" when we've read/seen/played through various, uh, really fucked-up shit humans did - but on their own! and ultimately, but it's more in fandom spaces, with have Projection 101.

TLDR : church/religion/gods are too often used in those works as the ultimate scapegoat to either wrap up a story in a rushed ending or to pretend to have "nuance" but still have a common enemy where all the "nuanced" characters can grow/be whitewashed and side together against that "common enemy".

Just like in all things I guess, I prefer when something isn't painted as purely negative and all of the positive traits are erased because there is a need for a perfect scapegoat - sure, bring out too much "nuance" and writing/designing a game/manga/anime becomes harder because there's no "clear cut" antagonist, and yet, the one who always gets fucked in this scenario is the religious/church side.

Want a generic stock villain who will destroy the world so the heroes have to fight against them? Just create a "religion" in your setting, and have the big bad either hell bent on resurrecting Chtullu to destroy the world because Chtullu BaD, or have them be the most corrupt piece of shit who manipulate everything in the shadows, so the rest of the world, even the ones who slaughter others bcs they feel like they must start a war, can be whitewashed at the end.

I mean, there's a saying about diverting attention from a fire by starting a bigger one near, or a trope of "aliens made them do it" : who cares if Madara started a continental war and targeted a village full of random civilians he swore to protect because he lost the elections? Did y'know he was manipulated by a woman, I mean, an eldritch thing created by a woman, regarded as a God, who ultimately wanted to get out of her fridge to kill everyone?

Roland must get over his hatred for Aesfrost for barging in his kindgom and killing hundred of his people while they were preparing for a wedding, because hey, Idore is evil and plans on ruling the world through his sham religion!

I'll forever be salty at TS for not giving Kamsell the occasion to rise against Idore, or not even have minor NPCs get the same treatment as Sycras suddenly going all "u lied to me gustadolph so i won't listen to u anymore + sad goodbyes to my wife'n'kids".

Extremism of all kinds can lead to wars/tragedy/fucked up shit - Sure I don't want to get my History lessons in video game medium when I play lol, but what I really don't like is how it feels like depicting "they're extremists because they're religious" feels like the default/easy answer : want a bunch of brainwashed people the heroes must fight against and can't talk no justu their way out of this fight/will fight without looking too BaD? Depict those people as "misguided" members of a corrupt church/believers of a religion, no one will givea fig. If they are instead supporters of a charismatic leader who throws them through the meatgrinder to further their goals? Well, there's no automatic loyalty so either you have to show/depict it on screen, else it can be challenged at key points to demonstrate how those people - who follow the charismatic leader - aren't completely "mindlessly listening to their leader" or how their leader "isn't that bad after all".

#idk if it makes sense anon #replies #anon #i'm not tackling the fandom projected takes anon this is another can of worms #I'm not immune to it far from that #Having grown up in a post 2000s world with some people lit being asked how dare they be religious and all #'religion is the only reason why people do those horrible things' dude are you serious? Did you open a book recently? #TS was really mind boggling about the duality between 'regular' imperialism and 'religious' one #and how one faction got way more care than the other to make a clear cut villain #Also blaming everything on Gods/evil cults etc etc imo is often used to remove agency from people X or Y who start shit #That's why I really liked Fe Jugdral #sure we have nutjobs going to say everything BaD happens because of Loptyr #But DiMaggio seducing Aidean? Danan turning Isaach in a giant brothel? Slavery in the Thracian peninsula? #Dragons in this opus are sitting on the sidelines and only itnervening when one of them starts shit #but otherwise? Humans are allowed to be shitty without blaming 'Gods' for behaving like they did #and they receive their due #From the Tales I've played they mostly avoid this general religion BaD #even if iirc it's one of the plot points in Berseria? who would have guessed lol #I guess I'd say I'm not seriously upset whenever a game/manga ends up with 'akshually the religious faction was the big BaD' #it's just the same canned ravioli again and again #but whenever games/manga/anime try to give some grey morality to antagonists #the ones who always are wrecked are the religious/god-like entities #Is there any room for nuance when one faction has no other reason for doing the things they do bar 'for the lols/bcs i was told to?' #fandom woes

[thepeopleinpower]

Capitalism and colonialism took community away from us and I want it back. I’ve heard about it from my grandparents and in books and articles online. All throughout history and still today in some parts of the world. People looking out for each other. Regularly. Relentlessly. Neighbors watching each others children, having enough food to share and actually sharing it, being invested in each others lives because everyone has different strengths.

Today community has been strategically painted as a weakness and something to be skeptical of because it is a threat to the very foundations of capitalism. And that’s a real fucking shame because in reality, growing up with community and still having that through adulthood would probably make most people generally happier and less perpetually tired and stressed. It is renewable resilient versatile adaptable self-sustaining and kind of the Ultimate Resource.

#I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy #fuck capitalism #global community #local community #communities #community #fuck colonialism #fuck western media #settler colonialism #land back #indigenous liberation #indigenous communities #indigenous culture #human rights #renewable resources #sustainability #intersectional social justice #disability advocacy #social reformer #racial justice #wealth redistribution #healthcare reform #economic justic #environmental justice #generational healing #ancestral healing #industrialization #anti imperialism #religious tolerance #coexistence

[hussyknee]

sad how these "freedom for..." posts never include xinjiang because people aren't willing to take a stand against islam the way they are christianity. uygurs are facing genocide on two fronts - from the ccp and from islamists. there's only one uygur temple still standing - all the others have been demolished by muslim extremists. abrahamic religions colonising the world and brutally oppressing native religions and cultures is a tale as old as time, but people are stuck in the weird mindset that abrahamic religions are deserving of respect.

Idk what temples you're talking about, but "Uyghurs are actually a multi-faith society that was forcibly converted to Islam" is CCP propaganda to lie about the fact that they're genociding the Uyghurs for being Turkic Muslims and destroying their mosques and shrines.

I'm just going to lay aside the world-ending irony of accusing "Islamists" (whatever the fuck that is) of colonizing and forcibly converting a people...who live on top of China. I mean I tried to figure out which stage of Chinese history you're trying to erase to get here, but the answer can only be "all of it". China apparently both exists and doesn't exist for you. But Schroedinger's geo-politics or not, I can't let the "Abrahamic religions" bit stand because this horseshit is gaining way too much traction in South Asia.

Judaism, the world's oldest religion, being an upstart colonizing force is a frankly wild thing to say. I even tried to find mention of any colonization by Jews before Palestine and only found a couple of dynasties and vassal states under Ancient Rome. If you're talking about the Khazars in the sixth century, the rulers converted to Judaism voluntarily and there's no evidence it was either imposed or predominant among the rest of the population. Otoh, Jews have been repeatedly expelled, colonized and subjugated by Christians and Muslims (which is why most of their holidays are just "Yay We Didn't All Die"), and Muslims have suffered under Christian colonization for the last two hundred years along with the rest of us, and a lot longer in Europe. Islamic Empires rarely forced conversions (and in fact didn't like having too many Muslim subjects because non-Muslims were made to pay them taxes) and because of that were generally more tolerant than Christian ones, especially of Jews and Christians whom they considered "People of the Book". I mean persecution and ethnic cleansings did happen, depending on who was in charge (the Almohad Empire was particularly awful, which maybe explains the Catholic violence of Spain and Portugal), but in general, mass conversion wasn't the point of colonization. Among the Turkic peoples especially it was trade that spread Islam, not war or colonization, unlike shit-ass Portuguese traders who said, "We come in search of Christians and spices" and proceeded to kill and colonize everyone and torture them into converting. No fucking way you're lumping all of them in one "Abrahamic" colonial basket.

And the Christian legacies that endure in colonized societies are still as legitimate and integral part of their cultural identities. Once something is absorbed into a culture, the way it's shaped and used is unique to that society. Culture is a living, growing thing, like tree roots. It absorbs, merges, winds itself around generational traumas and obstacles and evolves in new trajectories. Whether or not you approve of the contortions of its survival and whether it looks different at the tip than at the root, it's still the same tree. That's why all religions deserve respect. You can't extricate or pathologize them apart from the individuality of the billions of human beings they shape. And all human beings share the same capacity for violence. Ideology has always been a rationalization for the violence we already want to commit. What motivates violence is power, not ideology, which is why we say "history repeats itself"—the dynamics of power are universal and consistent throughout history.

All our civilizations and cultures are as shaped by violent contact as by peaceful ones; ascribing the violence and impact of colonization only to Christian and Islamic empires completely erases thousands of years of histories all over the world (you know, like Imperial China???) Religions don't grow out of the ground; they were always evolved and spread among peoples along the lines of trade, migration, war, annexation, assimilation and resistance. Considering the religious identities of some people (always minorities too—isn't that weird?) inferior or illegitimate because they were "external impositions", and advocating a "return" to a "pure and untouched" past that never existed is the rhetoric of ethnosupremacy, colonization and manifest destiny—in short the language of genocide. I should know, I hear this crap out of fundamentalist Hindus and Buddhists in South Asia all the time. That's why I'm protective of Muslims. Because they're vulnerable to pieces of racist shit like you.

#islamphobia #racism #uyghur genocide #colonization #antisemitism #ethnic cleansing #palestinian genocide #religious tolerance #chinese imperialism #world politics #history #ethnofascism #ethnosupremacy #asks #anon #knee of huss

[aeaeaexxzd]

Timothy Beal on visiting Cross Garden in Alabama

#religion #cross garden #alabama #rural #rural gothic #rural america #rural religion #christianity #christian imperialism #jesus #timothy k beal #Timothy Beal #theology #religious art #outsider religion #cross #christian imagery #religious symbols #symbolism #crucifix #text #my scan #bookblr #my post

[empirearchives]

Napoleon as the black angel and Tsar Alexander the white angel

This is in an excerpt about Madame de Krüdener, a religious mystic during the Napoleonic era, from the memoir of Leon Dembowski, Moje Wspomnienia, Volume 1. (Source)

A bit about her career:

“Her literary activity was followed by various writings and pamphlets about humanity, in which she plunged into mysticism and presented herself as a prophetess. From 1806 to 1814, despite poor health and exhausted strength, she began to walk through Russia, northern Germany, the Netherlands and France, gathering listeners around her, handing out money and pamphlets.”

Her teachings:

“The principles of her teaching, both repeated in writings and disseminated by living words, consisted in implementing the principles of the early Christian Church and abandoning battles and wars. Moreover, the abolition of the death penalty, the return of freedom to subjugated nationalities and the strict exercise of Christian mercy completed this philanthropic system.”

In which she finds her ideas to be at odds with greater geopolitical events and social currents of her time:

“These sublime and beautiful thoughts, which probably once prevailed in beliefs, had few supporters in the era of Mme de Krüdener’s activity. All Europe seemed to be one camp, and Napoleon, on the one hand, and English intrigues, on the other, were completely destroying it. Everyone was thinking about the marshal’s baton, principalities, subsidies that Napoleon lavished, and while some were longing for constant conquests, others were thinking about how to break Napoleon’s yoke. Therefore, her apostolate, which could only reach places where the French eagles had not reached, did not really reach her convictions. Seeing that the path of persuasion would not reach her goal, she began to prophesy and predict the fall of the black angel (Napoleon), who would be struck down by the white angel (Alexander).”

What’s interesting is that the duel between Britain and France is diagnosed as the source of Madame de Krüdener’s problems, so she turns to a third party (Russia) to be the savior.

Her influence over Tsar Alexander I:

“As a result, Alexander wanted to know her, and it must be admitted that this partly corresponded to his inclination towards mysterious things, because many similar examples can be cited in the life of this monarch. […] Throughout all these years, Mme de Krüdener constantly worked on Emperor Alexander, having established influence mainly over his mind, pushing him towards mysticism, religiosity and abandonment of liberal principles.”

The author makes note that Madame de Krüdener and Tsar Alexander died around the same time.

Bold letters by me.

Pages 180-182

#Madame de Krüdener #Krüdener #Barbara von Krüdener #Leon Dembowski #Dembowski #Moje Wspomnienia #napoleonic era #napoleonic #Napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #religious history #first french empire #French empire #Russia #russian history #french history #19th century #france #history #imperial Russia #tsar Alexander I #tsar Alexander

[sorryiwasasleep]

Genuinely need everyone (in particular USAmericans) justifying what’s happening in Palestine and Gaza right now to listen to this and internalize it. Even if you aren’t a believer in Jesus. Because not all Americans are christian, but the USA is a Christian nation due to religious nationalism and a successful campaign to conflate Judeo-Christianity with democracy during the Red Scare (when “Under God” got added to the Pledge) and therefore ANY American, even if they do not believe in Jesus, justifying the genocide is based on a societal view built around Christian morals so you still need to listen.

(He also has two entire album on palestine ‘Notes from a Holocaust’ and ‘Bearing Witness’)

#Christianity #free palestine #free Gaza #jesus #israel is committing genocide #who would Jesus bomb? #I’m not religious but I did go to catholic school for 9 years #and i know the answer is fucking NO ONE #fuck imperialism #us imperialism #American imperialism #israel is an apartheid state #republicans #conservatives #(I’m not i want them to see this) #Christian #Christian beliefs #Spotify #i am also a usamerican #USA #America #American #American nationalism #United States of America #David rovics #notes from a holocaust

[unitedfrontvarietyhour]

Hasan Piker on why the Israeli/Palestinian "conflict" isn't about religion.

#united front #palestine #free palestine #imperialism #israel #apartheid #hasan piker #hasanabi #religion #religious extremism

[wisecrackingeric-2]

My Luis blog is so fun cuz I’ll find a topic that’ll look pretty simple on paper and I’ll be like Oh Yeah this won’t take much time at all!! And then it Does in fact take A Lot of time

#like a friend made the connection between umbrella and the windmills in don quixote and I was like oh yeah this’ll be simple #no it isn’t. who thought Spanish imperialism would be a complicated subject huh /j #or that one friend that asked about the connection between Luis and butterflies. I am now stuck in a rabbit hole of animals used in #rather horrifying #religious imagery ie wolves lambs fish etc

[onomatopiya]

anotha one. this time for lamplight! 

Show Summary: A runaway, an experiment, a prophet. Divine soldiers chosen by cruel, hungry gods find themselves at odds while serving in a world-splitting war.

Episode 1 - Behemoth: Arthur attends his going-away party, and Halcyon cuts through a ritual. Meanwhile, away from Celeons, Valiance signs her papers.

Episode 2- Open Wounds: Valiance goes under, but someone else wakes up on the table. Arthur adjusts to his circumstances and sends a message to his father.

Episode 3 - Birds: Haunted by prophetic visions, Halcyon seeks his mother's advice, and Astor makes a terrible mistake. Teresa keeps an eye on things.

Episode 4 - Well-Fed Beasts: Arthur's secret is bled out of him as his city watches, and Astor learns the truth about Halcyon's life before the church.

Episode 5 - Serpent Tongue: Valiance and Dove slip up before their research team, and Arthur's god offers him an escape. Halcyon is sent on a holy mission.

Playing Episode Transcript: You’ve got blood on your face, little bird.

#writeblr #writblr #writing #netflix edit #edit #bonus if you can figure out who's talking in the subtitle hehehe #actually fun fact lamplight DOES have an episodic format! sexy #it's sooo. i think about this wip. insanity #it's about the Religious Imperialism #lamplight

[oldtestleper]

big spoilers for new info as of tonight's episode but eye am soooooooo curious about the extent to which galicaea is still opposed to cassandra in some way. obviously in her high elven form she was trying to get kristen as a follower rather than have her continue to investigate the nightmare king and find cassandra, like she was NOT trying to put her thumb on the scale in that way. and from the sound of it she and sol basically respectively absorbed/dissolved the domains that once belonged to cassandra and ankarna through numerous calculated efforts of their clerics and evangelists, with sol and helio acquiring exclusive association with the sun and summer, and galicaea acquiring exclusive worship of the wood elves and becoming a goddess defined by certainty and eternity, driving away doubt. so is galicaea still playing the game even after being "restored" by wolfsong, trying to keep rage and doubt out of the world that is so well set up for her. was she ever really restored or was it doomed to be a cosmetic overhaul after the high elves got behind it again. like how christian fundamentalists dress like hipsters and open really trendy and successful coffee shops

#crazy plot twist the big bad this season is NOT capitalism! it is imperialism and religious fundamentalism #.txt #d20 spoilers #d20 #also lets be clear i definitely don't think galicaea's being like played or piggybacked by sol i think they go hand in hand #like i think sol stood the most to gain directly by destroying ankarna as the only other major sun diety. we haven't heard of other dieties #of night/the moon so much. darkness yes mystery etc sure but not those specific domains. so sol surely had a lot to gain out of this. #but i think she elevates herself by elevating her husband & their union as sun and moon. when the sun shines brighter so too does the moon! #anyway i think perhaps what we learn from this episode (besides the obvious) #is that the 'corrupted' versions of the gods don't disappear so easily. obviously ankarna is still surviving in some form. #the nightmare king is still an aspect of cassandra. galicaea's wolf aspect is still tempered and her sylvan aspect is elevated over it #also interesting that the form of cassandra that was defined by betrayal from her sister is associated with mirrors lol. #presumably galicaea changed a lot after her marriage to sol. and then she had cassandra and her partner wiped from knowledge. so. #also crazy to think about how old the worship of these gods are and how recent the supremacy of sol/galicaea is. #when kristen died during the cataclysm that created the nightmare king her bones were 850 years old. #the menhir commemorating cassandra's marriage is 3000 years old. AND obviously that was a place that was sacred to the pantheon if they hel #a wedding there. AND galicaea drove the evidence of that literally into the ground and claimed it as a place of exclusive worship. #AND on a historical scale that happened like two weeks ago. #just saying im not surprised the nightmare king is back. and if i were galicaea i'd be terrified of rage and doubt as well. #dimension 20

[rebelontherocks]

i think it's a little concerning that ppl watch dune 2 and don't realize that paul is a villain

#is it not obvious what he is when he makes the fremen attack the emperor under the atreides house banner? #the fremen just want to not have their planet exploited for a valuable natural resource and be able to terraform it as they wish #wtf do they care about paul's stupid egomaniacal war #he's not trying to destroy the empire he's becoming the emperor hello? #it's cleanly exposed in the first movie that the bene gesserit purposefully fomented religious myth about the 'messiah' so the fremen #would fall under the control of the kiswatz haderach which is a figure they created #i'm sorry i just lose my mind when people call dune a great movie (it's just good) and then seemingly don't even understand #what they're seeing #he's not even a well-intentioned 'white saviour' who's doomed to fail ala lawrence of arabia #(now that's a great movie and herbert's inspo for dune) #he's just using the fremen to achieve his goals which is control of the imperial machine #he's not liberating anyone lmao

[oddlyhale]

I still remember how I helped the Stormcloaks win the war years ago and how I didn't feel happy at all about it. It felt out of place.

Then I help the Imperials win the war and it somehow felt logical. Not the best option, as any situation wouldn't be, but it would help stop the Thalmor from overpowering the Nords. Imperial power just felt like it was more planned and organized, whereas the Stormcloaks was emotional. I understand why it was an emotional cause, but it also felt short-sighted.

I did see people say, "if the Redguards can fight against the Thalmor and win, why can't the Nords?" Truth is, I believe Redguards are far more capable than Nords. They just seem strategic, smarter and think farther ahead, plus better fighters imo. Nords don't fit that bill to me. It could be easy to dominate Nords.

Well, even though this means the Thalmor would lose Skyrim to the Imperials, it would be the better outcome.

#imperials vs stormcloaks #one of the long standing arguments of elder scrolls #“it's a religious matter” said a thalmor