#religious theory

[boymanmaletheshequel]

One facet of Hellenistic and Roman, /Greco Roman paganism that I’ve always found extremely interesting to me, is how inherently human and relatable it’s gods, and their correlating counterparts are, especially when compared to deities in other ancient religions. They are divine, of course, this is made clear enough, but they all have aspects and traits to them that are inherently human. Rage, lust, joy, love, conflict. They represent, if nothing else, key elements of humanity and the human condition, which is something that no other ancient religion I’ve studied quite compares to in the same way. And not only that, but their relationship to people and humans as gods is clearly very symbiotic. They rely on their subjects for their fulfillment, interact with them directly on a regular basis, and often times even respect and revere them as not necessarily always equals, but as at the very least, creatures worthy of their consideration and respect, sometimes even falling in love with, and baring children with them. This is something that doesn’t really happen in any other ancient religion I’ve seen, sure, there are aspects of it in them, but not nearly are they portrayed as objectively or centrally as they are in Hellenism and Roman paganism. Each god represents some aspect of humanity in ways that are inherently non-Devine, Aphrodite is a lover, sometimes desperate to a vulnerable degree you wouldn’t expect a god to be. Dionysus is regularly consumed by madness as a result of his addiction and mental illness, and falls into spirals of depravity that are hauntingly ungodly. Artemis hunts even though she doesn’t need to, she respects her body as a goddess woman just as much as any human woman would, and fights back just as violently as well. Apollo finds much of his joy and happiness through the humans he falls in love with, and faces much of his suffering and sadness through them as well. Persephone fucking dies. maybe not literally in the sense of human, medical death, but absolutely metaphorically, and the grief her mother Demeter experiences is so inherently human, and so shockingly, gut wrenchingly tragic, that it is pretty obvious that this is what her story is meant to represent: a divine allegory for death and grief, an element that so many religions completely separate from their deities. Even Zeus, the primary deity, is a father figure who’s connection and relativity to fatherhood as seen in human men is almost identical. and if it weren’t for the pre-established lore and status of him as a an extremely powerful deity, there are moments in his Mythos where you might even forget that he’s a god, an all powerful, all divine, objectively non human god to begin with. I think it’s what makes Hellenism so emotional and so drawing to me, and to many other pagans, it’s a relationship that is mutual, and relatable, which is an element that is lacking in so many religions, even the major ones like Christianity and Islam. Yes, there are still elements of this in those religions, but it always feels like the stories constantly hammer in the fact that they are divine, so divine, so utterly unrelatable, so inherently disconnected from their subjects and their plights as a superior enitity, that there’s a limit to how connected one can feel to them. In hellenismos, this limit doesn’t seem to exist, and that’s something that makes it so much more personal and fascinating to me than any other religion I’ve studied. The gods are us, and we are the gods. At the end of the day, I think that’s what all religions should be about, and ultimately, are about, wether we realize it or not.

[palominodragon]

So I was arguing with an anti-theist in a comment thread about a little pet hypothesis of mine. The hypothesis is that, just maybe, because of how wonky its wiring is, the human brain is naturally inclined toward spirituality and some form of religion is unavoidable at our current stage of evolution. As evidence, I talked about how easy and common it is for people to grasp for comfort fantasies and to use confirmation bias to convince themselves, whether that "comfort fantasy" is a religion or a superstition or a conspiracy theory. I even tossed in a mention of otherkin and fictionkin.

Mind you, I'm a science-leaning agnostic but I was making a point to argue from an atheist stance for this discussion because I figured it was the only way this person would give me any credibility at all.

Anti-theist kept saying my science was bad (the old "I'll listen to you when you write and publish a paper!" and "I shouldn't need to give you any evidence! You need to give me evidence!"), then finally gave up on me when I pointed out that I'd already listed my observational evidence... because, and I quote: "Evidence comes from experimentation and measurement".

So bro who won't stop insulting my intelligence doesn't even know the definition of "observational evidence", as in the kind you'd use to study wildlife or sociology when lab-style tests and organized trials would be unethical or throw off the data.

Called me a liar and a child and blocked me because they didn't know what observational evidence is.

Yall I'm just fucking laughing.

[piniatafullofblood]

oh god fucking exactly I’m gonna sob

First Day in Heaven (page 1-7)

Last panel heavily inspired by this beautiful stained glass design:

https://www.stainedglassinc.com/window/2466-white-lily-angel/

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Persuasive – but mostly nutty – theories about economics, religion, class and gender drove poor and working women from the country and into the sweatshops of the early factories in the middle of the eighteenth century.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[pencildragons]

[rolls over to face you at the sleepover] bro do you think any of the lyctors ever used AD (alecto's dead) as a way to reference the passage of time and nearly gave john an honest to god heart attack because he thought they'd suddenly somehow remembered the christian calendar system. no hey wait stop pretending to be asleep this is important dude

[vulpixelates]

i know it will never happen but i so desperately desire an origins-type playable backstory thing in all games but especially veilguard. i feel like it added so much depth to origins and made you feel instantly connected to your character in a way that gets lost in games like inquisition where you fill in the blanks as you go except for the bare basics. like, i do enjoy the freedom to willy nilly decide where a character was before the events of the story from a creative perspective, but the playable origins were just so good! especially when you go back to where your warden is from and can engage differently with the arcs there

[xesnox]

@illwilledomen had pitched this idea to me on insta a little while back, so here’s my personal interpretation on some of the Enderlings! The concept art for this isn’t the best but I think people would see the vision.

Lore, warning badly written, I’ll get back to it later.

The endermen were the first, and therefore act as a kind of umbrella species to the other end-humanoids.

The enderlings are a subcategory of what is known as a secondary enderman. A secondary enderman is a humanoid that did not originate from a human person, meaning they were born an enderman, not made one. Even if they originally appeared human, they were always biologically intended to appear the way they do now, were born in the end, and have completely adjusted to the environment within the dimension. Meaning they can for an example sustain high radiation levels without any long term damage.

There are different types of secondary endermen, but the enderlings specifically mark a time within history where thought to have been long lost gods returned to their people.

The hosts eventually grew bored of watching their creations. No longer did they start wars or build funny creatures, they just sat around doing nothing. Sometimes one or two of them would break down, but such a thing wasn’t interesting.

The Testificates were unlike the artisans had been. They didn't start wars, the people of the cult tried to, sometimes, but their most powerful people preferred to reside within mansions too far from civilization to cause any real trouble. And they had no plans on letting the old artisans out of their celestial time out corner just yet.

So they decided to see what would happen to the increasingly desperate becoming, hopelessly religious grouping of former protectors would they give them children that were, to them, objectively disturbing to look at. The concept had been funny to them.

They were gods, they didn't understand the concept of human suffering, or the moral and ethical implications of splitting the human race into multiples whilst they believed they were living through their darkest hour, it was all just play. Like watching a show that had gotten so boring overtime they wished for conflict.

Atleast that’s what scholars think.

The enderlings are deformed humans, biologically. It might’ve been radiation, it might’ve been some Devine beings doing, whatever one chooses to believe. They’re a hypothetical species that hasn’t been sighted in over two millennia, we only have verbal accounts to go off of.

I hadn’t thought of the enderlings much in terms of Ancient Ruins before so this interpretation was a little harder than usual. The species is now largely extinct, but other secondary Endermen still exist, I also feel it is important to mention that there are different types of endersent! This isn’t every single one, it’s just the one that fits this biological niche.

If you have any questions ask me, I’ll try my best to answer.

[thirdwheelravi]

Oliver said Buck is going to talk about something ludicrous with Maddie

🗣️🗣️ HE IS JOINING THAT MEGACHURCH

[beatsheetromanroy]

EVANGELICALS, FANATICS, AND ZEALOTS, OH MY!

[fazfuri]

I wonder if Bill and Brutus' relationship could have been toxic, both from Brutus and Bill. Brutus could have not spoken to Bill for weeks and then completely locked him away with a ritual, but Bill constantly showed that he was superior because he was God, I didn't quite get it because I don't understand English very well, but Bill penetrated Brutus' "personal space", even rebuilding his body. Even when Bill was locked up he was yelling at Brutus to let him out. Brutus was someone he thought would help him achieve his goals. Bill probably doesn't realize he can hurt Brutus, but he can. I just don't know, we're looking at it from Bill's perspective, maybe there was some toxicity there, maybe not.

I mean... put two egotistical characters together and see what happens

You're the first (outside my server) to point that out actually

[marzipanandminutiae]

me, at random times as a full-grown adult: no but what the hell even was Under the Cat's Eye actually

[bunnieswithknives]

hey in ur peri animatic: (https://youtu.be/OCqlRuDaXYU?si=K52WDu_vw9rg7chz) that I have been permanently obsessed over since today and have watched about 20 times by now so much that I have drawn & posted stuff based on it what was that partial bug form peri had?

I haven’t watched either of the show btw so if it’s explained in the show please tell me plsssss

OK, SO the bug thing is not technically canon to the series. It's based on my own headcanons for fairy biology, but i do have justifications for it!! Fairies have very strong shape-shifting abilities, so it would make sense that the form they show to humans isn't necessarily their true form(not to mention extreme that mimicry is very common in insects). And you want to know the visible traits almost every fairy has in common? Being very small with Insect-like wings.

The fact that their humanoid form isn't their true form in actually confirmed in the show! Cosmo and Wanda are revealed to look like biblically accurate pseudo-angels in the museum episode. (I say pseudo angels because the Flaming Sword of Eden is only debatably sentient and I don't think is considered an angel. Ophanim are also debatably not angels because they don't have wings (sorry for the angel tangent I like angels))

So wouldn't their true forms be angelic then? Well, yes. But I like bugs so. Also I have more headcanons to justify myself. I like to think that they have both a true-true form (incomprehensible to the human brain, probably exists mostly in a dimension invisible to us, that looks how we imagine biblically accurate angels), and a fairy form (which is visible to humans but is naturally very insect like and tends to scare people). So, in order to interact with humans, they have to learn to shapeshift into a humanoid form but will occasionally slip if they get too relaxed/aren't careful, hence the mandibles coming out when he yawns!

The reason they struggle so much more with human forms than the animals or objects they typically turn into is that, well, they aren't trying to convince those animals or objects. The more human they try to look, the harder it is to keep up convincingly. If you turn into a really uncanny squirrel, only other squirrels will notice. If you turn into a really uncanny human, they form a lynch mob and burn you at the stake.

[unethicalpeacemonger]

I kept on seeing people interpreting Alucard and Anderson's final confrontation as Good (Anderson's cross) and Bad (Alucard's reverse cross). God and The Devil, Heaven and Hell. But I think we're missing out from the idea that theyre really just Jesus and Peter.

Anderson, like Jesus, felt that its God's will for him to go through horrifyingly cruel act for the sake of the people and for God's name. Meanwhile, Alucard, like Peter, adored Jesus and wanted nothing bad to ever happen to Him. The same way that Peter wanted to save Jesus from His capture by cutting off the ear of a servant, Alucard wanted to save Anderson from his turning and much like in The Bible, Jesus disapproved Peter's doing because He believed that this is a path He must go through, the same way that Anderson denied Alucard's attempt to stop him from turning into a monster because he believed that it is God's will. Basically trying to save someone who doesn't wanna be saved because they're so driven by Faith.

I fucking hate (love) them.

[creature-wizard]

PSA: If you're searching out resources to help cult survivors, check their citations and look out for these names - and if you see them, leave immediately - because these people are all far right conspiracy theorists:

Svali

Cisco Wheeler

Fritz Springmeier

Cathy O'Brien

Mark Philips

Lawrence Pazder

Michelle Smith/Pazder

Lauren Stratford

Texe Marrs

Bill Schnoebelen

Rebecca Brown

Mike Warnke

Literally all of these people were (or in some cases, still are) pushing far right conspiracy theories derived from early modern witch panic, blood libel, and The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Literally do not trust anyone or anything that cites them.

[abybweisse]

Thanks to @kuroposting I got around to making this comment (keep reading that comment thread) on one of their posts.

So, yeah....

Elic Phantomhive

I have even more reason now to stick with this name for our earl, at least for now.

ciEL <- -> ELic

The "c" and "i" are properly mirrored, while the "el" is moved into the mirrored position but preserved in meaning. In that way, those names are anagrams but also "mirrors" of each other, without needing to spell it Leic (which would work with Irish roots -- see links further down as examples -- but would remove the "El" aspect).

Even though Ciel is thought of as a French name, with Latin origins... it works well with Hebrew, just like Rachel is Hebrew in origin. We've previously been explaining "Ciel" in terms of "sky blue, sky, heaven", but WHY would this be a word for Heaven, and not just sky? Because of "el". Is it literally the "ci" of "El"?

I found meanings for Ciel that define it as "a divine blessing from heaven".

But I wanted to find something specifically connecting Ciel to Hebrew, and I found this: just as Ciel, cieling, ceiling, celing, ceal, cael, coel -- and all those other variations in Old English, French, and Latin -- speak of coverings, concealing something, such important words used in architecture and interior design (and biology)... these are also used for translations of the Hebrew Bible when speaking of covering things, specifically when it's not just to protect but also to hide from God's sight. There was also mention of a Hebrew word that can be translated as sailor:

And שָׂחִיף can be translated as wainscoting or thin paneling, but is also slang for thin, as in "skinny". Thin barriers used to protect but also hide... and then a reference to sailors?

Uh. Are sea and ci the same thing? Like... the Genesis account of dividing "the waters" above and below? So the sea/ci is the water below, while Ciel is the waters above?

Ciel is the "sea of god"... the sky protecting/covering Earth and hiding Heaven from human view. It's "heaven" in the sense that it's the closest anyone on the earthly plane can "see" of Heaven.

Let's not forget I'd explained (in numerous posts and comments, like big time here, slightly here, and here) that Elic is a variant of Alex, meaning "protection/protector" (also commented here), and Ciel also means protection, in the form of covering or hiding.

Mother3 theory hasn't let me down yet. Why would the mirror twins' naming scheme be any different?

Now back to Layla and Al/Alyal in Arabic... the dark cover of night.... heh 😏