#(I think it varies by doctrine/denomination)

[blueish-bird]

I'll make the character as introspective and poetic as I want but I will respect that in canon they probably don't know what a whisk is

[saintmachina]

One million dollar question: is it true that the Bible condems homosexuality? I had a discussion with two conservatives who sent me some verses that seem to confirm that but i don't know much about the context although i know this is important too

Let’s start here: why is this the million dollar question? Why does it matter what the Bible has to say about sex, or love, or human relationships? At the end of the day, it’s just a book, right?

Oceans of ink (and blood) have been spilled over not only what the Bible says, but what it does, how it functions. The course of empires, nations, and families have been shaped by the contents of this book, and from a historical and cultural perspective, it holds a lot of weight. But you didn’t ask about the sociological, you asked about the theological, so let’s explore. 

Different Christian traditions vary in their approach to scripture. For example: some Protestant denominations believe that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. In this paradigm, God is the ultimate author of scripture working through human hands, and the resulting text is both without error and in no way deceptive or mistaken. Similarly, The Second Vatican Council decreed that “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.” When a member of the clergy is ordained into the Episcopal Church they swear that they “do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”

Can you see how many of these points of doctrine overlap yet seek to distinguish themselves from one another? Theologians have spent lifetimes arguing over definitions, and even when they manage to settle on solid teachings, the way that the teaching is interpreted by the clergy and incorporated into the lives of the laity varies WIDELY. As much as systematic theology may try, humans aren’t systematic beings. We’re highly contextual: we only exist in relation to others, to history, to circumstance, and to the divine. We simply cannot call up God to confirm church teaching, and I think a lot of people cling excessively to the Bible as a result of the ache (dare I even say trauma) of being separated from God via space and time in the way we currently are.

God is here, but God is not here. God is within us, God is within the beloved, God is within the sea and sky and land, and yet we cannot grasp God to our bodies in the way we long to. In this earthly lifetime, we are forever enmeshed in God, yet forever distinct, and that is our great joy and our great tragedy.

So barring a direct spiritual experience or the actual second coming, we're left to sort through these things ourselves. And because humans are flawed, our interpretations will always be flawed. Even with the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives guiding us.

When engaging with any sort of Biblical debate, it is essential that you have a strong understanding of what the Bible means to you, an an embodied individual living a brief little awful and wonderful life on Earth. Otherwise it's easy to get pushed around by other people’s convincing-sounding arguments and sound bites.

Here’s where I show my hand. As a confirmed Episcopalian I believe that reason, tradition, and scripture form the “three-legged stool” upon which the church stands, interdependent and interrelational to each other, but I’ve also like, lived a life outside of books. I’ve met God in grimy alleyways and frigid ocean waters and in bed with my lovers. So my stool is actually four-legged, because I think it’s essential to incorporate one’s personal experience of God into the mix as well. (I did not invent this: it’s called the Wesleyan quadrilateral, but the official Wesleyan quadrilateral insists that scripture must trump all other legs of the table in the case of a conflict which...*cynical noises*)

Please do not interpret this answer as me doing a hand-wavey "it's all vibes, man, we're all equally right and equally wrong", but I do absolutely think we have a responsibility as creatures to weigh the suffering and/or flourishing of our fellow creatures against teachings handed down through oral tradition, schisms, imperial takeover of faith, and translation and mistranslation. Do I believe the Bible is sacred, supernatural even, and that it contains all things necessary to find one's way to God, if that is the way God chooses to manifest to an individual in a given lifetime? Absolutely. Do I believe it is a priceless work of art and human achievement that captures ancient truths and the hopes of a people (as well as a record of their atrocities) through symbols, stories, and signs? Unto my death, I do.

However, I am wary of making an object of human creation, God-breathed though it may be, into an idol, and trapping God in its pages like God is some sort of exotic bug we can pin down with a sewing needle.

Finally, we have reached the homosexuality debate. One of my favorite sayings of Jesus is Matthew 5: 15-17: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit." In other words: look at what religious teachings have wrought in the world. When I look at homophobic interpretations of the Bible, I see destruction, abuse, suffering, neglect, alienation, spiritual decay, and death. When I look at theology that affirms the holiness of LGBTQ+ relationships, I see joy, laughter, community building, thoughtful care, blooming families, creativity, resilience, and compassion. I see the love of Christ at work in the world. I see the hands of a God who chose under no duress to take up residence in a human body, to drink wine with tax collectors and break bread with sex workers and carry urchin children around on his shoulders. That's my limited little pet interpretation, but hey, that's all any of us really have, at the end of the day.

So, I am absolutely happy to do a play-by-play breakdown of why those passages you were given (we queer Christians often call them "clobber passages" or "texts of terror") don't hold water in a theological, historical, and cultural context. We can talk about Jesus blessing the eunuch and the institution of Greek pederasty and Levitical purity laws and Paul because I've done that reading. I've spent my nights crying in self-hatred and leafing through doctrine books and arguing with my pastors and writing long grad school essays on the subjects. Send me the verses, if you can remember them, and I'll take a look. But it's worth noting that out of the entire Bible, I believe there are only six that explicitly condemn homosexuality AND I'm being generous and including Sodom and Gommorah here, which is a willful and ignorant misreading if I've ever seen one.

In the meantime, I recommend books by people smarter than me! Try Outside The Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith by Mihee Kim-Kort, or Does Jesus Really Love Me by Jeff Chu, or Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austen Hartke!

And take a breath, dear one. Breathe in God, in the droplets of water in the air and in the wind from the south. Breathe in the gift of life, and know that you are loved, now and unto the end of the age and even beyond then.

[whyyesiamachristian]

"Christianity is a death cult"

Ok, let's unpack that.

First, let's define a cult. A cult is an organized group whose purpose is to dominate cult members through psychological manipulation and pressure strategies.  Cults are usually headed by a powerful leader who isolates members from the rest of society. (Source) Usually, their purpose is for the leader(s) to gain power, sex, or money. Christianity as a whole does not fit this definition. For one, nobody gains anything by Christians going to church on Sunday. Nobody. Just spend a little time on indeed etc., and you will see that a pastor's salary is downright laughable. And although abuse can occur, it is still considered a heinous act. Something about millstones around someone's neck and a lake. (As an aside, children can also be abused in schools; does that make you anti-education?)

Furthermore, there is no set leader, and the doctrine even varies amongst different denominations. In a cult that would not slide. Any questioning of the doctrine would not be allowed. I've multiple times been told to do my own reading and talk to God about any questions I have. There are even people who have degrees in Christian theology. Such a method of learning and obeying a text is counter to what cults would want, because then you can come to your own conclusions (Gasp. A scandal).

So, the death part. Personally, I would argue that any religion or metaphysical view of the world would not be complete without an answer to what happens after death.

"But," you say, "your reward is only promised after death. That is a classic cult tactic, so I won't trust it."

And I would agree, it is wise to be mindful about manipulation. Except that that statement isn't actually true if you take a look at the bible. We are promised an unexplainable peace in God, as well as His council and love. I would say it's pretty neat to be unconditionally loved as a child of the perfect father on this side of heaven too. And He does give good things this side of heaven and promises to take care of us. We are promised just a small taste of what life was supposed to be like.

You might be asking yourself why Christians and the bible talk so much about death, then. It's because the main doctrine, the core point of Jesus' death, was that death was defeated. By dying, Jesus declared us to be His and forgave our sins, but also faced death head-on showed that it couldn't take Him (Here is a really cool video that can explain it better than I can). We talk about death so much because it seems like such an intrinsic part of the world we live in now, that it's kind of a big deal that it has no power.

I would like to add, I am not trying to attack anyone who hold this viewpoint. I am just trying to explain from a Christian point of view why I disagree with this idea. I know a lot of people who think this have experienced some form of religious trauma, so it's not a judgement on them at all. I just want to maybe make someone ask themselves, do they think this of Christianity itself, or the evangelical culture that wronged them.

-Peace out, God loves you.

[birchbow]

I am very autistic about theology and in particular, hotly debated theology and it is very Interesting that apparently that extends to clown religion 😅 all that to say, I am well And truly obsessed with the mirthful scripture, it is So Good

Do you have any tidbits or fun facts about clown church? Like, are there denominations? How often do the clowns on the blessed come to blows about scriptural interpretation(bc I went to a religious college and it sure did come close like, a lot of times) or anything else you want to share!

I was raised in religion but am in no way a scholar or active practitioner so I'm glad that my weird hybrid clown religion is passing muster lol. As somebody who's mostly going by the Vibes, uhhh, let's see.

I'd assume that yes, there are denominations in a sense, especially out on outpost ships that have little subsets of The Family that aren't directly connected to the main church fleet. We aren't likely to see as much of them in PoF because it's set essentially in the Clown Vatican. Considering this is a religion based on chaos and clownery, it seems reasonable to me that it's less that there are broad denominational categories and more that everybody's kind of doing their own thing. Sometimes there are groups of people who all believe similar things, but I don't know that most of them would be centralized or codified enough to have names like human religious denominations do!

Much like most things in troll society, it's a game of knowing what the people in power will let you get away with. Rakhem, the GHB before Kurloz, was a lot more strict about bloodcolor doctrine, and would actively cull non-purple quadrants of church members if he caught them on board--but he didn't much care about people asking what he considered wishy-washy bullshit philosophy questions about "what if the messiahs were people like us?". His concerns were about spies, traitors, adulteration of the church, etc, and he was incredibly concerned with how the Messiahs had blessed seadwellers with colder blood than him, and also with culling pretty much every lower blood he ran into. Kurloz doesn't comparatively give much of a shit about that! He considers the people who say off-color faithful are fine to be kind of weird and doesn't really agree with them but also doesn't consider their whole deal overtly sinful enough to be worth his notice as long as they're not, like, bringing lowbloods into the flagship chapel as equals right in front of him. But he gives a whole hell of a lot more shits about people who vocally question the divinity of the messiahs or deify trolls.

Anyway all this to say things have relatively settled down over the last several hundred sweeps but I do still think that compared to the religions humans are used to, Clown Church must be pretty constantly in wild flux, and vary a lot from person to person. Relatedly:

Yes there are definitely fights over religious doctrine and scripture interpretation, on a scale from "aggressive slam poetry" to "somebody just got mauled" depending on how mad both people are about it. Sometimes your deviation from the norm is dramatic enough it gets crushed in a bloody inquisition from the Grand Highblood, but sometimes it was just something you thought of that felt true, but when you brought it up in theological discussion you got your ass kicked multiple times over it. And either reconsidered, headed off to a more distant outpost ship where people gave less shits, or learned to keep your mouth shut haha.

[hashems-truth-matters]

Returning to God's Righteousness

With all of the denominational squabbles that have occurred over the centuries, some people have become engrossed in such "battles," attempting to determine which ones are right or more right than the others. Many distortions had grown in Judaism, which the Messiah had to correct at His first coming, as we have seen. Why would we think that we haven’t gotten anything wrong since then? Though well-intended, I believe much has grown out of the flesh, leading to a compromised church that lacks the anchor of the Torah to keep it on track. This is the wrong battleground; it is a distraction.

Our God, the God of Israel, YHVH, is only concerned with obedience to His Son, who taught and did only what the Father taught. 

“So Jesus answered them and said, “My teaching is not My own, but His who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God, or I am speaking from Myself. The one who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” (John 7: 16-18 NASB)

“Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their way of life, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever. Do not be misled by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.” (Hebrews 13:7-9 NASB)

Their doctrines are similar and not too difficult for us to understand.

Then the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in every work of your hand, in the children of your womb, the offspring of your cattle, and in the produce of your ground, for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers; if you obey the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul.

"For this commandment which I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it far away. It is not in heaven, that you could say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and get it for us, and proclaim it to us, so that we may follow it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you could say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us and get it for us and proclaim it to us, so that we may follow it?’ On the contrary, the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may follow it.” (Deuteronomy 30:9b-14 NASB)

Paul cautioned the followers of Yeshua/Jesus not to claim to be of Paul or Apollos. I would also add, not of Luther, Wesley, Moody, and so forth, but only of Yeshua/Jesus. He said that these distractions come from the flesh—from immature flesh at that. 

And I, brothers and sisters, could not speak to you as spiritual people, but only as fleshly, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to consume it. But even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like ordinary people? For when one person says, “I am with Paul,” and another, “I am with Apollos,” are you not ordinary people?” (1 Cor 3: 1-11 NASB)

Rather than following a particular denominational leader, the more crucial question is to renounce all carnal questions and humble yourself to become a child of God/YHVH first, and then grow up in Him. 

Putting aside disagreements over human interpretations and doctrines, returning to His righteousness means picking up the same kind of "battle" that was fought in the first century: who is Israel? What does joining the family of God, the family of YHVH, the God of Israel, entail for me? 

It is easy to forget that we were brought up in a Gentile environment that was opposed to God's ways and that we followed a lot of paganism because our fathers had done the same, which made the practices seem reasonable to us. In an attempt to appeal to the masses, many churches have changed their message to reflect worldly wisdom and worldly definitions of success—you could call it a religion of the people that works better for them. This is the fruit and root of the apostate church. "Christianizing" pagan rituals has become the standard for far too many people. 

As a result, when we are adopted into God's family, we DO need to humble ourselves, examine, and reevaluate everything we hold dear, bringing it all into line with the way that our God reveals truth in His entire Word. This is genuinely like being a child again—not childish, but child-like in wonder. Instead of disputing something because it deviates from our prior knowledge or does not make sense to us, we should learn what He says is right and wrong. The best defense against the devil's schemes to pull us away is complete surrender to Him.

This is not limited to once or twice-a-week worship sessions. In the midst of a perverse world, it is about our entire walk—the food we eat, the holidays we observe, the commandments we uphold, the time we spend in the Word and in prayer. The walk of a believer in the God of Israel is one of supernatural power, without getting sucked into unholy spiritual phenomena. He truly is beyond our power to accomplish in our flesh. It is essential to understand that Messiah was able to approach the Right Hand of the Father through His work on our behalf and that He extends an invitation to join Him there. (Ephesians 1:20-23; 2:1-7) But since He is not coming for a child bride, we must mature and let His sanctification process do its work in us. We cannot achieve that unless we begin at the beginning and give Him permission to renew our thoughts, will, and emotions in accordance with His ways—stepping OUT of worldly ways and fleshly convenience. We have nothing to fear because Messiah's blood has been shed to cover us; that is His portion. It is our responsibility to put Him first in everything, not just to sing "I Surrender All" when we only mean to surrender "I Surrender Some."

[lindajenni]

sep 6

our blessed hope

"looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." titus 2:13

the other day i heard someone refer to us pre-trib believers as a rapture cult. i readily admit to being a part of it, but i deny it is a homage of rapture but of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. certainly we all look forward to escaping the wrath of God that must be spent on evil, but much more than that, we all long to see our Lord. isn't that what it should be like for everyone. He is that pearl we all seek.

i know dark times have existed from the fall of man, and each generation enduring such times since our Lord's first coming must have been assured their "tribulating" time period was surely a pretext to His second coming. so exactly what differentiates our time from their's.

i have only one word to say - convergence. our time is having such a cluster of events happening simultaneously that only a willingly blind person could deny their significance. i'm not just considering the rebirth of israel, but all the signs active in the heavens, the earth and the geopolitical doctrines now trying to be implemented. between rampant lawlessness, self-deception, ufo's, artificial intelligence and everything else, i'm not sure the human race could continue much longer and still be considered "God's creation." it is becoming man's recreation. and now they are talking of depopulation as they prize the earth above the lives of it's inhabitants.

even the prophet daniel was able to discern from the scriptures when the time in babylon was complete. "in the first year of his reign i, daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem." dan 9:2

likewise, we should be able to determine from scripture that His arrival is imminent. "after two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight." hos 6:2 remember also this is the first year of a shemitah cycle and as if to top it all off, a jubilee year to boot. like it or not, God's appointed feast times were established in the torah of scripture. these are not just jewish feast days. they are God's feasts and to be honored by christians.

i don't believe in imminency the same way as a lot of christendom does; they believe He can come at any time. just as His first coming fulfilled an "appointed time" (a set feast), i believe His second coming will be a fulfillment of a "set time" as well. certainly in our eagerness and longing we have looked to dates that have come and gone without a fulfillment, but hope has not vanished with them.

we are told: "for the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." hab 2:3

Jesus and rescue is our blessed hope but i don't think it will be what everyone expects. it won't be the "socialism" kind of heaven everyone envisions now. there will be a bride and then there will be guests at the wedding feast. there will be rewards and regrets, rank and order maintained, with Jesus being the head of all. equity, all being equal, is man's vision of nirvana, not God's. i will not, nor would expect to stand in the same place of honor as abraham, moses, or other of the greats.

that's not to negate the joy, pleasure and magnificence of eternity with the Creator and if that's all you want or expect, you will be most satisfied. me, i want to stand as close to my Lord as i can get. i want to know that intimacy that is implied by the joining of marriage; the two becoming one. "'for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' this is a great mystery, but i speak concerning Christ and the church." eph 5:31-32

all of christendom and their denominations have varying beliefs; doctrines and traditions. none of us has it all right, just a fragment of the whole truth. i'm not really sure even the apostles knew it all. though they just wrote under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit, i believe some truths were hidden from them as well. God reserved what He wanted until revelation time arrives. do you think there would have been an exuberance to spread the gospel if people knew it would be two thousand years before His return? a sense of urgency needed to prevail.

now there is a real reason to feel the urgency. i can honestly say i have never before seen so many filled with so much hope of a rapture this year; and yes, possibly this month. what if you knew there was a rapture and that it would be this very year? "what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?" 2 pet 3:11 so, "let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." matt 5:16

yes, we have a hope. a blessed hope. right now it is causes many to almost salivate at the possibility of an impending rapture time. hope is something no one can take from you. it can only be relinquished. but what does our God tell us? "hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." rom 5:5

[psychmeout]

Searching for a pastor has renewed my excitement for the journey

Our church has been searching for a more permanent minister,and is on the cusp of (fingers crossed) hiring one our community has befriended, through having guest ministers in the pulpit.

Reading the most recent profile that came in, I think about what my own answers would be. When the time comes, how will I represent myself?

There are many questions on the profile to ponder. What are my experiences with ecumenicalism, for example? And what oportunities will there be to add to my experiences?

In a previous course, I had taken a liking to Stuart Matlins "How to be a Perfect Stranger: The Essential Religious Etiquette Handbook ". It helped me understand how to be mindful and respectful in other religious environments. For example, my own denomination is quite casual in dress- this wouldn't fly in all other churches or places of worship. Some churches expect a certain level of participation- others do not, from strangers. Customs and matters of how to show respect vary.

I have visited Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim places of worship. I know that the focus of ecumenicalism is usually to unite Christian denominations under common causesand doctrines, but I do not find myself so much doctrinally focused. Instead, I am focused on peace and unity, among all religious expressions (save for those that cause active harm to folks).

I think that crossing religious barriers in a friendly manner, working together and learning to understand one another is invaluable. We do not have to worship the same way to share spiritual experiences, and we all have more in common than not. My favorite experience was sitting down with the imam of a mosque. This was at a point where Islamaphobia was rearing its ugly head in our communities, as it often does over time. The imam, unfortunately, felt it necesary to explain to me (a college student at the time) that Islam is not a religion of hate. We should be promoting understanding and embracing the commonalities between us- so that no religious minority in our community feels that pressure.

As for Christianity, my own church has shared worship services with other churches in town. My favorite worship experience in another Christian denomination was at an American Baptist church. They had based a whole lenten sermon series on a book "Into the Dark Woods" (Eric Elnes). I had not read the book- but the sermon inspired me to, and it became a quick favorite!

At the heart of it, we're all there for the same reasons, grasping at our own conception of the Almighty. I have been to Methodist, Presbytarian, American Baptist and Catholic services. Congregational church services are such a melting pot of traditions that I recognized pieces of others in ourselves. I was at awe with ways of worship that I had not considered, and found meaning in. Yes... I think that the more we can gather together for a common cause or purpose, with people across the spiritual waters, the better off we are! Interreligious and interdenominational experiences will help us be more empathetic people.

[spiritualnaturalist]

Protestantism and Capitalism

Hi guys ! I hope you’ve been enjoying the blog so far ! Today we’re venturing into the realm of economics which is a bit out of my wheelhouse so bear with me. Nancy Fraser is a political philosopher from Baltimore. She is a critical theorist who is currently a professor of political science and philosophy at The New School. She has authored books such as Cannibal Capitalism and Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory. In this blog post we will be discussing her text Climates of Capital. 

As environmental catastrophe plague the world we are seeing now more than ever the economic and social effects that they have. Floods, Famines, Heat Waves, and Torrential weather have no conscious thought, they do not choose to target the rich or the poor. They do not decide where to land based on the community's ability to bounce back, they just land. We saw it with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, The Haiti Earthquake in 2010, The Afghanistan Blizzard in 2008, even the European heat wave in 2003; these are varying regions of the world with varying levels of economic stability, yet they have all been plagued in some way by environmental disasters.  What we see arising from this is just how deep the disparities are, the level of support and the speed of recuperation for the events in Europe were light years ahead of those for places like Haiti. 

As you all know by now, this blog is about religion. Assuming you didn’t read the title, what religion do you think we are going to be discussing today ? ……..that's right, Protestantism ! Protestantism is a branch of Christianity which was formed after the Protestant reformation in the 1500’s. It is composed of the religious groups in the faith of Christianity who do not subscribe to the Roman Catholic Church due to their different doctrines. But why are the Protestants relevant to Capitalism ? Why are they relevant to environmentalism ? We can tie the main ideals of the Protestant Ethic can be directly tied to the development of the Capitalist belief system. The main beliefs of the Protestant Ethic are the living of an Ascetic lifestyle, the dedication of long hand manual labor to give attributes to the glory of God, idleness is a sin, and money is to be valued and saved for oneself. Ideals have led to the conception of capitalist ideals such as the development of the workforce, the intrinsic value for productivity over ethics, and the compulsion to save money or hoard one's wealth. There is a clear tie in between Capitalism and Protestantism, and as Fraser will soon show us, that means a tie into the environment and the communities that are affected by it. 

One of the main structural arguments in Fraser’s work is that Capitalism harbors ecological contradiction at its very core. One is either on the planet's side, or the investors side. In Frasers writing she discusses that what an environmentalist would see nature as having intrinsic values, a capitalist would see nature as having extrinsic values as raw material or a disposal site. As we discussed in our anthropocentrism blog ( which also happened to discuss a closely related religious denomination) we saw the ideas that humans are responsible for generating value. As Fraser discusses, humans have taken that power and operated under the assumption that nature is self-replenishing and here for the disposal of those who have the technology to utilize it. Frasers implements this idea of the 4 D’s of Capitalism and how they relate to our interactions with the environment. 

Dependence - upon nature as a resource but also for general survival

Division - of human values , we are either economically oriented or sustainably oriented

Disavowal - of the costs and wastes of Capitalism , on top of this I would personally add a disavowal for human life. 

Destabilization - of ecosystems for capital gain and lack of regard for the effects of that 

Now I don’t want to drone on as this blog post could really be a novel on its own but I like to think I gave you guys something to ruminate on and think about ! Have  a great rest of your day and tune in next week for a discussion on Deep Ecology : ) 

[rotationalsymmetry]

A brief history of Unitarian Universalism (casual, with swears, have not fact checked as such but I think it’s correct): In New England back before US independence, there was Calvinism -- you know, that predestination thing, you’re already going to go to heaven or hell, but you should be good anyways so people will think you’re going to heaven, or something like that. Then there wasn’t. Then there was Congregationalism. Which was a lot more chill, but still very “fuck Catholicism”. And around this time, deism was on the rise: the idea that maybe God created the universe, then fucked off, and hasn’t been actively involved with anything since. Then, some people who were actually reading the Bible, because you can’t look down on Catholicism unless you actually read the Bible, were like... wait, maybe Jesus isn’t all that. You know -- the Savior, the Son of God, one third of the Trinity, all that. Maybe he was just, like... a prophet, or some guy who said some interesting things. A teacher. And other congregationalists were like: uh, what, no, Jesus has to be all that. If you don’t think Jesus is all that, how can you even call yourself a Christian? And they decided they couldn’t really be around each other any more. So the first group, which was mostly in Boston, started calling themselves Unitarians (because they rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and instead believed in a one part God), and incidentally at some point also stopped calling themselves Christians because the other guys had a point, and the others called themselves the United Church of Christ (UCC.) Emerson and Thorough -- sorry, Thoreau -- were both Unitarians, as were John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and pretty much everyone else from Boston in early US history. (We like to claim Jefferson, because his beliefs were kindasorta similar to Unitarian beliefs at the time, but as I understand it he was never actually part of a Unitarian congregation.) (Btw: if you’re lgbtq+ and Christian, they’re a pretty friendly denomination. If you’re lgbtq+ and Christian and you think the UCC is too liberal (in the religious sense) or you want a majority-lgbtq+ congregation, consider MCC, which is otherwise unconnected to all this. If you’re not Christian and are lgbtq+ -- atheist/agnostic, or maybe something else if you’re down with worshipping with people that aren’t specifically your thing -- Unitarian Universalism tends to be pretty good. As in: we have a bunch of gay/lesbian ministers and other religious leaders, and a few transgender ones. (Knowledge of less mainstream lgbtq+ identities can vary a lot between congregations and generations -- the younger generations tend to be more aware than the gen x’ers.) I’ve been involved with Church of the Larger Fellowship for most of the past year, which did zoom worship before it got cool and serves people around the world, and people like me who live a mile from a UU brick and mortar congregation but still can’t get their disabled ass over there anyways. Anyways, CLF has more POC on the worship team than most UU congregations (the denomination does tend to run pretty white), is very social justice oriented even by UU standards, and is somewhat more cool about general weirdness than most congregations, which again for UU congregations is saying something.) Then, at some point (sadly, I’m significantly more familiar with the history of the first U than the second) there was this other protestant denomination in the South (as in, the US South) where people decided that God was too nice to send people to hell for all eternity, so they started calling themselves the Universalists, as in Universal Salvation. All dogs go to heaven. Well, time passed, each denomination evolved in its own way. (In particular, Unitarianism caught humanism pretty hard -- the joke was the Unitarians believe in one God at most.) In the -- ok, I’ll look this one up -- in 1961, there was a big old merger, creating Unitarian Universalism, and in the process, everyone got together and was all...wait, so what are our official beliefs about God and stuff? Should we even have official beliefs about God? Maybe we can unify around some ideas around how people should treat each other instead. So they did: they drafted a set of Principles (broad-strokes guidelines on how people should act -- peace is good, truth is good, people have value, stuff like that) and a set of Sources (where UU’s get their ideas about God and morality and so on from, starting with direct experience) and left everything else up to the individual. And then a little while later, the tree-huggers got a seventh Principle and a sixth Source added in -- respect for the environment and Earth-centered religions, respectively -- so now the joke is that UU’s believe in one God, more or less. Currently there’s a movement on to add an 8th Principal that explicitly names racial equality and fighting oppression as something we value, since while the current Principles mention justice and equality, they don’t specifically name race, and the people of color who have stuck with the predominantly white denomination figure Unitarian Universalism can and should be doing better on that front. Unitarian Universalism runs religiously liberal (ie, decentralized, individualistic, non-authoritarian, non-dogmatic, inclined to believe science over the Bible) and politically progressive. Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to be very politically active and concerned with social justice, mostly in a well-educated middle class kind of way: committees, Robert’s Rules of Order, donating to non-profits, Get Out the Vote, inviting in speakers and asking “questions” that aren’t really questions, forming partnerships with other congregations and community organizations, etc. Many UU congregations have put a Black Lives Matter sign out (and when necessary keep putting it out when it gets torn down or vandalized), shown up for the protests, opposed the weird immigration BS that’s been going on in the US recently, etc. In addition to more charity style work, like food pantries and homeless shelters.

Point is: yeah it’s got flaws (don’t even get me started on Unitarian Universalism’s flaws) but if you’re a social justice person and want to meet other social justice people who are doing things, Unitarian Universalism can be a good place to look for that. You get more done in groups.

You’re less likely to burn out, too. With marginalization, it’s complicated, right? Again, for LGBTQ+ people, it’s going to be better than most religious organizations. For people a little bit on the autism spectrum, you probably won’t be the only one. (If you’re unmistakeably autistic, people might be weird/ableist; it might depend on the congregation.) If you’re from a working class background or are currently kinda broke, you might run into some frustrations or feel like you don’t fit in; if you’re a poc or if you’re disabled (or your kid is) or you want a lot of personal support, you might struggle more -- this really might vary a lot, but at least the congregations I’m used to tend to assume congregants can mostly stand on their own feet, metaphorically speaking, and have some extra time/money/skills/whatever that can be directed out into the wider world. It can be a good place for pagans and Buddhists and other people who don’t want a church but are having trouble finding a church-like religious community where you can hang out with people on the same spiritual path. (Uh, for a while UU congregations were emphatically not churches and some officially still aren’t; others gave up and were all “eh, it looks like a church, whatever, we’re just a weird church.) Some congregations are more atheist-dominated than others -- many avoid Jesus language most of the time, some avoid God language most of the time (UU’s who believe in God tend to believe in God in a relatively abstract/metaphorical way), some I hear are pagan-heavy, others do use Christian language a lot more. In all honesty you don’t have to go to Sunday worship if you don’t want to, and really a lot of UU’s don’t; if you want to be heavily involved in the congregation but don’t want to go to Sunday worship and don’t want to deal with pressure to, one way out is to teach RE (religious education -- basically “Sunday school”) the RE curricula are amazing, just absolutely astounding, and if you’re teaching it you get a ton of leeway with adjusting anything you don’t like. (Which could happen -- a lot of this stuff was developed before the idea that cultural appropriation is a big problem became mainstream in social justice circles.) What adult worship is like has basically zero correlation (perhaps negative correlation) to what RE is like. (Which sucks for young adults coming of age in a UU congregation, like I said don’t get me started on UU’s flaws.) Finally: for people who care about sex positivity and sex ed, Unitarian Universalists (in partnership with UCC) developed Our Whole Lives, a sex ed curriculum that, well, it’s not abstinence based education. You wouldn’t expect sex ed coming from a religious org to be better than the sex ed in schools, would you? And yet. Comprehensive sex ed that acknowledges gay bi and trans people and that disabled people have sex too and teaches about birth control and masturbation and abuse and consent and boundaries and bullying and internet safety and abortion. It’s good stuff. The course aimed at teens is most popular of course, but there’s actually (age-appropriate) OWL curricula for all stages of life: young kids, adults, older adults, everyone. And it’s versatile enough to be taught in secular contexts (after school programs etc). Given the direction that unfortunately a lot of school districts in the US have been going in in terms of sex ed, it’s a really important program.

[ayearinfaith]

𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟰𝟴: 𝗛𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗺

“When we think of the Hindu religion, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to define Hindu religion or even adequately describe it. Unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one God; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion of creed. It may broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more.”

-Supreme Court of India, from 1995 ruling on the minority religion status of Ramakrishnaism

Hinduism is an indigenous faith of the Indian subcontinent, currently practiced by over 15% of the global population and the world’s third largest religion. It is one of two surviving modern traditions to evolve directly from the historical Indo-European faith, the other being Zoroastrianism. The internal diversity of Hinduism is very high and has been likened by some to the use of “Abrahamic” as a single term for diverse traditions such as Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The word “Hinduism” was coined in the early 19th century and comes from the ethnic term “Hindu”, itself derived from the name of the Indus River, located in modern day Pakistan.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻

Like with Shinto or Old Norse religion, indigenous faiths of Japan and Scandinavia, pre-modern Hindus were unlikely to have perceived themselves as being members of a religion. What would become Hinduism was simply their culture. Developments in self-identification have largely developed alongside the development of and need to distinguish from other traditions in India, most notably Buddhism and Islam. One of the earliest possible identifiers would have been “Vaidika” or “Vaidika Dharma”: the “way of the Vedas”. The Vedas, whose name literally means “knowledge”, are a collection of ancient scripture, some dating back as far as 1500 BCE. Though the beliefs of the Vedas have significant differences with modern Hindu denominations, perception of the Vedas as a source of truth is generally considered to be the defining feature of Hinduism, distinguishing it from other indigenous Indian faiths such as Buddhism or Jainism. Because of this direct and still active connection to 2-3000+ year old texts, Hinduism has often been called the world’s “oldest religion”. That said, the faith of the ancient Vedic people was quite different from the modern traditions. Many of modern Hinduism’s most venerated deities, such as Shiva, Vishnu, or Ganesha, are either absent from the Vedas, exist as alternate names for other gods, or are quite minor deities. Most prominent are gods like the king of the gods, Indra, and the fire god Agni, all of whom are generally easy to relate to the deities of European pagans. Aside from the Vedas the most important and universal Hindu scripture are the Upanishads and the Puranas. The Upanishads are actually a part of the Vedas, albeit the final layer of them, written in the second half of the first millennium BCE, by which time more familiar versions of figures like Vishnu and Shiva had emerged. From these come many core Hindu concepts such as Ātman (eternal soul) and Brahman (universal consciousness). The Puranas are a hug and diverse body of literature from which most of the legends and genealogies of the gods and the universe are derived.

𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝘀

A significant difference between Hinduism and Buddhism is the belief in an eternal soul or Ātman. All living things have an Ātman, and when we die the Ātman is reincarnated in a new body. Escaping the cycle of reincarnation is seen as a type of salvation called Moksha. Though generally considered the ultimate “goal” of Hinduism, Moksha is only one of four concepts knows as Puruṣārtha, literally a “spiritual/human pursuit”. The other three are Dharma (righteous and ethical behavior, literally “path/way”), Artha (wealth, or means, also conceived of as purpose), and Kama (physical pleasures). Artha and Kama are seen as necessary for a fulfilling life, though they should never go against Dharma, and all is done in pursuit of Moksha. Karma, literally “deed” or “act”, is a concept of causality between reincarnations. Doing good deeds will cause someone to be reincarnated into a better life, while bad deeds have the opposite effect. One of the greater Hindu virtues is Ahimsa or non-violence and is applicable not just to humans, but animals and plants. This is the reason behind widespread vegetarianism in India, and also a source of conflict between Hindus and Muslims: the Islamic method of animal slaughter, Dhabīḥah, is seen as a slow and painful death in direct opposition to the Hindu method, Jhatka, which literally means “instantly”. In addition to the cycle of reincarnation, the concepts of illusion and truth are core to Hinduism. Truth in this context is Brahman, the universal consciousness and/or ultimate reality. Brahman is the supreme force in Hinduism, generally seen all pervasive and singular. The reality we perceive is ultimately an illusion, a concept called Maya. Enlightenment in Hinduism is the ability to perceive through Maya and into the true Brahman. The role of the gods in Hinduism is complex; sometimes they are supreme forces and sometimes they are just powerful superhuman entities. Often both is true, with the gods being emanations of each other and ultimately of Brahman itself. The Om, written in Devanagari as “ॐ” is one of Hinduism’s most recognizable symbols, and represents the primordial cosmic sound of the universe.

𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

As has already been stated in this post, Hinduism is incredibly diverse. Academics and philosophers, from within India and without, have made many valiant efforts to categorize the various threads. The most widely used currently differentiate by which god, or gods, have been elevated to supreme status. Though functional, use of these terms should not be thought of in the same vein as Christian denominations, like Methodist or Catholic, which have relatively clear and exclusionary division. A Hindu person may or may not identify with one, or multiple of these divisions, or may consider themselves of an altogether different traditions or prefer a different system of division altogether. The four major denominations are as follows:

𝗩𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗻𝗮𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗺

Vaishnavism is the largest Hindu denomination, and is estimated to cover 2/3rds of the Hindu population, though an exact number is impossible to gather. Vaishnavism is named for and elevates Vishnu, the preserver god, to the status of supreme consciousness. The doctrine of ten avatars is a core belief, and the epics 𝘔𝘢𝘩𝘢𝘣𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘢 and 𝘙𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘢𝘯𝘢 are important texts.

𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗺

Shaivism is the second most popular denomination and probably originated in Dravidian South India. Shaivism elevates the destroyer god Shiva. Shaivism is best known for its asceticism and Yoga. The aniconic Lingam is one of its most recognizable artifacts.

𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗸𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗺

Shaktism is the worship of the supreme feminine energy, Shakti. The varied Hindu goddesses, or Devi, are collectively worshiped as emanations of this supreme force, especially Parvati, Kali, and Durga. The Hindu esoteric and mystic tradition, Tantra, is most common in this denomination.

𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗺

Smartism is named for the Smriti texts, basically any scripture that is not the Vedas (or Upanishads). Smartism holds all gods in equivalents status, though generally portrays a council of five: Ganesha, Shiva, Vishnu, Shakti, and Surya. Smartism distinguishes the supreme consciousness, Brahman, into a Saguna Brahman, “Brahman with attributes”, and a Nirguna Brahman, “Brahman without attributes”. Put simply, the chosen deity is a face given to the universal consciousness as a means to understand it. Any deity can serve this function, and the more enlightened the practitioner becomes, the less they need this tutelary Saguna Brahman and can realize the true Nirguna Brahman. Smartism is seen as a syncretic tradition, developed as a means to bring disparate traditions together.

𝗔 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱

This has been one of the most difficult posts I have yet to write. Deciding what to include and what to omit was incredibly difficult. I wrote, deleted, and rewrote this several times. Doing research was difficult and as it turns out the internet is full of Hindu voices with a lot to say. Just to give an example, Wikipedia itself is full with meta-pages with editors striving against each other for what I would describe as the “least incorrect” version. In the end my aim was simply to give what I felt was as brief and general a post as I could write and still give an effective overview of the basic ideas and terminology one can expect to encounter when speaking about Hinduism. Even after all this, I feel like I have failed at that. However, at some point I have to stop writing this and move on for the sake of this series, and that point is now.

Image Credit: I could not determine the source, though I believe this is an Om encircled by the Om Nama Shivaya mantra. If you are able to find or know the source, please let me know.

[mattchase82]

THE ONE TRUE CHURCH By Fr. Arnold Damen S.J.

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I.

"He who believes and is baptized shall be saved,

but he who does not believe shall be condemned."

-Mark 16:16

My Dearly Beloved Christians: -- From these words of our Divine Savior, it has already been proved to you, that Faith is necessary for Salvation, and without Faith there is no salvation; without Faith there is eternal damnation. Read your own Protestant Bible, 16th verse of St. Mark, and you will find it stronger there than in the Catholic Bible.

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Now, then, what kind of Faith must a man have to be saved? Will any Faith do? Why, if any Faith will do, the devil himself will be saved, for the Bible says the devils believe and tremble.

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It is, therefore, not a matter of indifference what religion a man professes; he must profess the right and true religion, and without that there is no hope of salvation, for it stands to reason, my dear people, that if God reveals a thing or teaches a thing, He wants to be believed. Not to believe is to insult God. Doubting His word, or believing even with doubt and hesitating, is an insult to God, because it is doubting His Sacred Word. We must, therefore, believe without doubting, without hesitating.

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I have said, out of the Catholic Church there is not Divine Faith; there can be no Divine Faith out of that Church. Some of my Protestant friends will be shocked at this, to hear me say that out of the Catholic Church there is no Divine Faith, and that without Faith there is no salvation, but damnation. I will prove all I have said.

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I have said that out of the Church there can be no Divine Faith. What is Divine Faith? When we believe a thing upon the authority of God, and believe it without doubt, without hesitating. Now, all our separated brethren outside of the Catholic Church take the private interpretation of the Bible for their guide; but the private interpretation of the Bible can never give them Divine Faith.

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Let me, for instance, suppose for a moment, here is a Presbyterian; he reads his Bible; from the reading of his Bible he comes to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is God. Now, you know this is the most essential of all Christian doctrines, the foundation of all Christianity. From the reading of his Bible he comes to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is God; and he is a sensible man, an intelligent man, and not a presumptuous man. And he says: here is my Unitarian neighbor, who is just as reasonable and intelligent as I am, as honest, as learned, and as prayerful as I am, and, from the reading of the Bible, he comes to the conclusion that Christ is not God at all. "Now," says he, "to the best of my opinion and judgment, I am right, and my Unitarian neighbor is wrong; but, after all," says he, "I may be mistaken! Perhaps I have not the right meaning of the text, and if I am wrong, perhaps he is right, after all; but, to the best of my opinion and judgment, I am right and he is wrong."

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On what does he believe? On what authority? On his own opinion and judgment. And what is that? A human opinion, human testimony, and, therefore, a human faith. He cannot say positively, "I am sure, positively sure, as sure as there is a God in heaven, that this is the meaning of the text." Therefore, he has no other authority but his own opinion and judgment, and what his preacher tells him. But the preacher is a smart man. There are many smart Unitarian preachers, also, but that proves nothing; it is only human authority, and nothing else, and, therefore, only human faith. What is human faith? Believing a thing on the testimony of man. Divine Faith is believing on the testimony of God.

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II.

The Catholic has Divine Faith, and why? Because the Catholic says: "I believe in such and such a thing." Why? "Because the Church teaches me so." And why do you believe the Church? "Because God has commanded me to believe the teaching of the Church; and God has threatened me with damnation if I do not believe the Church, and we are taught by St. Peter, in his epistle, that there is no private prophecy or interpretation of the Scriptures, for the unlearned and unstable wrest the very Scriptures, the Bible, to their own damnation."

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That is strong language, my dear people, but that is the language of St. Peter, the head of the Apostles. The unlearned and unstable wrest the Bible to their own damnation! And yet, after all, the Bible is the book of God, the language of inspiration; at least, when you have a true Bible, as we Catholics have, and you Protestants have not.

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But, my dearly beloved Protestant friends, do not be offended at me for saying that. Your own most learned preachers and bishops tell you that, and some have written whole volumes in order to prove that the English translation, which you have, is a very faulty and false translation.

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Now, therefore, I say that the true Bible is as the Catholics have it, the Latin Vulgate; and the most learned among the Protestants themselves have agreed that the Latin Vulgate Bible, which the Catholic Church always makes use of, is the best in existence; and, therefore, it is, as you may have perceived, that when I preach I give the text in Latin, because the Latin text of the Vulgate is the best extant.

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III.

Now, they may say that Catholics acknowledge the Word of God, that it is the language of inspiration; and that, therefore, we are sure that we have the word of God; but, my dear people, the very best thing may be abused, the very best thing; and, therefore, our Divine Savior has given us a living teacher, that is to give us the true meaning of the Bible.

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And He has provided a teacher with infallibility; and this was absolutely necessary, for without this, without infallibility we could never be sure of our Faith. There must be an infallibility; and we see that in every well-ordered government, in every government; in England, in the United States, and in every country, empire and republic, there is a Constitution and a supreme law.

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But you are not at liberty to explain the Constitution and Supreme Law as you think proper, for then there would be no more law if every man were allowed to explain the law and Constitution as he should think proper.

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Therefore, in all governments there is a supreme judge and supreme court, and to the supreme judge is referred all different understandings of the law and the Constitution. By the decisions of the supreme judge all have to abide, and if they did not abide by that decision why, my dear people, there would be no law any more, but anarchy, disorder and confusion.

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Again, suppose for a moment that the Blessed Savior has been less wise than human governments, and that He had not provided for the understanding of His Constitution, and of His Law of the Church of God. If He had not, my dear people, it would never have stood as it has stood for the last eighteen hundred and fifty four years. He has then established a Supreme Court, a Supreme Judge in the Church of the Living God.

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IV.

It is admitted on all sides, by Protestants and Catholics alike acknowledged, that Christ has established a Church; and, strange to say, all our Protestant friends acknowledge, too, that He has established but one Church - but one Church - for whenever Christ speaks of His Church, it is always in the singular. Bible readers, remember that; my Protestant friends, pay attention. He says: Hear the Church, not "hear the churches" I have built My Church upon a rock", not My churches.

Whenever He speaks, whether in figures or parables of His Church, He always conveys to the mind a oneness, a union, a unity.

He speaks of His Church as a sheepfold, in which there is but one shepherd that is the head of all, and the sheep are made to follow his voice; "other sheep I have who are not of this fold." One fold, you see. He speaks of His Church as of a kingdom, in which there is but one king to rule all; speaks of His Church as a family in which there is but one father at the head; speaks of His Church as a tree, and all the branches of that tree are connected to the trunk, and the trunk with the roots; and Christ is the root, and the trunk is Peter and the Popes, and the large branches are the bishops, and the smaller branches the priests, and the fruit upon the tree are the faithful throughout the world; and the branch, says He, that is cut off from that tree shall wither away, produce no fruit, and is only fit to be cast into the fire, that is, damnation.

This is plain speaking, my dear people; but there is no use in covering the Truth. I want to speak the Truth to you, as the Apostles preached it in their time - no salvation out of the Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

V.

Now, which is that Church? There are now three hundred and fifty different Protestant churches in existence, and almost ever year one or two more are added; and besides this number there is the Roman Catholic Church.

Now, which of all these varied churches is the one Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? All claim to be the Church of Jesus.

But, my dear beloved people, it is evident no church can be the Church of Jesus except the one that was established by Jesus. And when did Jesus establish His Church? When? When He was here upon earth. And how long ago is it that Christ was on earth? You know our Christian era dates from Him. He was born many centuries ago. That is an historical fact admitted by all. He lived on earth thirty-three years. That was about nineteen centuries before our time. That is the time Christ established His Church on earth. Any Church, then, that has not existed thus long, is not the Church of Jesus Christ, but is the institution or invention of some man or other; not of God, not of Christ, but of man.

Now, where is the Church, and which is the Church that has existed thus long? All history informs you that it is the Catholic Church; She, and She only among all Christian denominations on the face of the earth, has existed so long. All history, I say, bears testimony to this; not only Catholic history, but Pagan history, Jewish history, and Protestant history, indirectly.

The history, then, of all nations, of all people, bears testimony that the Catholic Church is the oldest, the first; is the one established by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

If there be any Protestant preacher who can prove that the Catholic Church has come into existence since that time let him come to see me, and I will give him a thousand dollars. My dear preachers, here is the chance of making money; a thousand dollars for you.

Not only all history, but all the monuments of antiquity bear testimony to this, and all nations of the earth proclaim it. Call on one of your preachers and ask him which was the first church, the first Christian Church. Was it Presbyterian, the Episcopalian, the Church of England, the Methodist, the Universalist or the Unitarian? And they will answer you it was the Catholic Church.

But, my dear friend, if you admit that the Catholic Church is the first and oldest, the Church established by Christ, why are you not a Catholic? To this they answer that the Catholic Church has become corrupted; has fallen into error, and that, therefore, it was necessary to establish a new church. A new church, a new religion.

And to this we answer: that if the Catholic Church had been once the True Church, then She is True yet, and shall be the True Church of God to the end of time, or Jesus Christ has deceived us.

Hear me, Jesus, here what I say! I say that if the Catholic Church now, in the nineteenth century, is not the True Church of God as she was 1854 years ago, then I say, Jesus, Thou has deceived us, and Thou art an impostor! And if I do not speak the truth, Jesus, strike me dead in this pulpit, let me fall dead in this pulpit, for I do not want to be a preacher of a false religion!

VI.

I will prove what I have said. If the Catholic Church has been once the True Church of God, as is admitted by all, then She is the True Church yet, and shall be the True Church of God until the end of time, for Christ has promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. He says that He has built it upon a rock, and that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it.

Now, my dear people, if the Catholic Church has fallen into error, then the gates of hell have prevailed against her; and if the gates of hell have prevailed against her, the Christ has not kept His promise, then He has deceived us, and if He has deceived us, the He is an impostor! If He be an impostor, then He is not God, and if He be not God, then all Christianity is a cheat and in imposition.

Again, in St. Matthew, 28th chapter and verses 19 and 20, our Divine Savior says to His Apostles: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." "Lo," says He, "I, Jesus, the Son of the Living God, I, the Infinite Wisdom, the Eternal Truth, am with you all days, even until the end of the world."

Christ, then, solemnly swears that He shall be with His Church all days to the end of time, to the consummation of the world. But Christ cannot remain with the Church that teaches error, or falsehood, or corruption. If, therefore, the Catholic Church has fallen into error and corruption, as our Protestant friends say She has, then Christ must have abandoned Her; if so, He has broken His oath; if He has broken His oath He is a perjurer, and there is no Christianity at all. Again, our Divine Savior (St. John, 14th chapter), has promised that He would send to His Church the Spirit of truth, to abide with Her forever. If, then, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, teaches the Church all Truth, and teaches her all Truth forever, then there never has been, and never can be, one single error in the Church of God, for where there is all Truth, there is no error whatsoever.

Christ has solemnly promised that He will send to the Church the Spirit of Truth, who shall teach all Truth forever; therefore, there has never been a single error in the Church of God, or Christ has failed in His promise if there has.

Again, Christ commands us to hear and believe the teachings of the Church in all things; at all times and in all places. He does not say hear the Church for a thousand years or for fifteen hundred years, but hear the Church, without any limitation, without any reservation, or any restriction of time whatever. That is, at all times; in all things until the end of time, and he that does not hear the Church let him be unto thee, says Christ, as a heathen and as a publican. Therefore, Christ says that those who refuse to hear the Church must be looked upon as heathens; and what is a heathen? One that does not worship the True God; and a publican is a public sinner. This is strong language. Could Christ command me to believe the Church if the Church could have lead me astray could lead me into error? If the teaching of the Church be corrupt, could He, the God of Truth, command me without any restriction or limitation to hear and believe the teachings of the Church which He established?

Again: Our Divine Savior commands me to hear and believe the teachings of the Church in the same manner as if He Himself were to speak to us. "He that heareth you," says He, in His charge to the Apostles, "heareth Me, and he that despiseth you despiseth Me." So then, when I believe what the Church teaches I believe what God teaches.

If I refuse what the Church teaches I refuse what God teaches. So that Christ has made the Church the organ by which He speaks to man, and tells us positively that we must believe the teaching of the Church as if He Himself were to speak to us.

Therefore, says St. Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, "the Church is the ground", that is, the strong foundation "and pillar of the Truth." Take the ground or foundation of this edifice away, and it crumbles down; so with regard to these pillars upon which the roof rests; take them away and the roof will fall in; so St. Paul says, "The Church is the ground and the pillar of Truth," and the moment you take away the authority of the Church of God you induce all kinds of errors and blasphemous doctrines. Do we not see it?

VII.

In the sixteenth century Protestantism did away with the authority of the Church and constituted every man his own judge of the Bible, and what was the consequence? Religion upon religion, church upon church, sprang into existence, and has never stopped springing up new churches to this day. When I gave my mission in Flint, Michigan, I invited, as I have done here, my Protestant friends to come and see me. A good and intelligent man came to me and said:

"I will avail myself of this opportunity to converse with you."

"What Church do you belong to, my friend," said I.

"To the Church of the Twelve Apostles," said he.

"Ha! ha!" said I, "I belong to that Church, too. But, tell me, my friend, where was your Church started?"

"In Terre Haute, Indiana," says he.

"Who started the Church, and who were the Twelve Apostles, my friend?" said I.

"They were twelve farmers," said he; "we all belonged to the same Church, the Presbyterian, but we quarreled with our preacher, separated from him, and started a Church of our own."

"And that," said I, "is the Twelve Apostles you belonged to, twelve farmers of Indiana! The Church came into existence about thirty years ago."

A few years ago, When I was in Terre Haute, I asked to be shown the Church of the Twelve Apostles. I was taken to a window and it was pointed out to me, "but it is not in existence any more," said my informant, "it is used as a wagon maker's shop now."

Again, St. Paul, in his Epistles to the Galatians, says: "Though we Apostles, or even an angel of light were to come and preach to you a different Gospel from what we have preached, let him be anathema." That is the language of St. Paul, because, my dearly beloved people, religion must come from God, not from man. No man has a right to establish a religion; no man has a right to dictate to his fellow man what he shall believe and what he shall do to save his soul. Religion must come from God, and any religion that is not established by God is a false religion, and a human institution, and not an institution of God; and therefore did St. Paul say in his Epistles to the Galatians, "Though we Apostles, or even an angel of light were to come and preach to you a different Gospel from what we have preached, let him be anathema."

.

VIII.

You see, then, my dearly beloved people, from the text of the Scripture I have quoted that, if the Catholic Church has once been the True Church, then She is yet the True Church.

.

You have also seen from what I have said that the Catholic Church is the institution of God, and not of man, and this is a fact, a fact of history, and no fact of history is so well supported, so well proved, as that the Catholic Church is the first, the Church established by Jesus Christ.

.

So, in like manner, it is an historical fact that all the Protestant churches are the institutions of man, every one of them. And I will give you their dates, and the names of their founders or instituters.

.

In the year 1520, 368 years ago, the first Protestant came into the world. Before that one there was not a Protestant in the world, not one on the face of the whole earth; and that one, as all history tells us, was Martin Luther, who was a Catholic Priest, who fell away from the Church through pride, and married a nun. He was excommunicated from the Church, cut off, banished, and made a new religion of his own.

.

Before Martin Luther there was not a Protestant in the world; he was the first to raise the standard of rebellion and revolt against the Church of God. He said to his disciples that they should take the Bible for their guide, and they did so. But they soon quarreled with him, Zwingli, and a number of others, and every one of them started a new religion of his own.

.

After the disciples of Martin Luther came John Calvin, who in Geneva established the Presbyterian religion, and hence, almost all of those religions go by the name of their founder.

.

I ask the Protestant, "Why are you a Lutheran, my friend?"

.

"Well, says he, "because I believe in the doctrine of Martin Luther."

.

Hence, not of Christ, but of man, Martin Luther. And what kind of man was he? A man who had broken the solemn oath he had made at the altar of God, at his ordination, ever to lead a pure, single, and virginal life. He broke that solemn oath, and married a Sister Catherine, who had also taken the same oath of chastity and virtue. And this was the first founder of Protestantism in the world. The very name by which they are known tells you they came from Martin Luther.

.

So. The Presbyterians are sometimes called Calvinists because they come from, or profess to believe in, John Calvin.

.

IX.

After them came Henry VIII. He was a Catholic, and defended the Catholic religion; he wrote a book against Martin Luther in defense of the Catholic doctrine. That book I have myself seen in the library of the Vatican at Rome a few years ago. Henry VIII defended the religion, and for doing so was titled by the Pope "Defender of the Faith." It came down with his successors, and Queen Victoria inherits it today. He was married to Catherine of Aragon; but there was at his court a maid of honor to the Queen, named Ann Boleyn, who was a beautiful woman, and captivating in appearance. Henry was determined to have her. But he was a married man. He put in a petition to the Pope to be allowed to marry her; and a foolish petition it was, for the Pope had no power to grant the prayer of it. The Pope and all the bishops of the world cannot go against the will of God. Christ says: "If a man putteth away his wife and marrieth another, he committeth adultery, and he that marrieth her who is put away committeth adultery also."

.

As the Pope would not grant the prayer of Henry's petition he took Ann Boleyn anyhow, and was excommunicated from the Church.

.

After awhile there was another maid of honor prettier than the first, more beautiful and charming in the eyes of Henry, and he said he must have her, too. He took the third wife, and a fourth, fifth and sixth followed. Now this is the founder of the Anglican Church, the Church of England; and, therefore, it is that it goes by the name of the Church of England.

.

Our Episcopalian friends are making great efforts nowadays to call themselves Catholic, but they shall never come to it. They own that the name Catholic is a glorious one, and they would like to possess it. The Apostles said: "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church"; they never said, in the Anglican Church. The Anglicans deny their religion, for they say they believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church. Ask them if they are Catholics, and they say, "Yes, but not Roman Catholics; we are English Catholics." What is the meaning of the word Catholic? It comes from the Greek word Catholicus; universal, spread all over the earth, and everywhere the same. Now, first of all, the Anglican Church is not spread all over the earth; it only exists in a few countries, and chiefly only where the English language is spoken. Secondly, they are not the same all over the earth, for there are now four different Anglican churches; the Low Church, the High Church, the Ritualist Church and the Puseyite Church. Catholicus means more than this, not only spread all over the earth and everywhere the same, but it means, moreover, at all times the same, from Christ up to the present day. Now, then, they have not been in existence from the time of Christ. There never was an Episcopalian Church or an Anglican Church before Henry VIII. The Catholic Church had already existed fifteen hundred years before the Episcopal came into the world.

.

After Episcopalianism different other churches sprang up. Next came the Methodist, about one hundred and fifty years ago. It was started by John Wesley, who was at first a member of the Episcopalian Church; subsequently he joined the Moravian Brethren, but not liking them, he made a religion of his own, the Methodist Church.

.

After John Wesley several others sprang up; and finally came the Campbellites, about sixty years ago. This Church was established by Alexander Campbell, a Scotchman.

.

X.

Well, now, my dear beloved people, you may think that the act of the "twelve apostles" of Indiana was a ridiculous one, but they had as much right to establish a church as had Henry VIII, or Martin Luther, or John Calvin. They had no right at all, and neither had Henry VIII, or the rest of them any right whatsoever.

.

Christ had established His Church and given His solemn oath that His Church should stand to the end of time: He promised that He had built it upon a rock, and that the gates of hell should never prevail against it; hence, my dear people, all those different denominations of religion are the invention of man; and I ask you can a man save the soul of his fellow man by any institution he can make? Must not religion come from God?

.

And, therefore, my dearly beloved separated brethren, think over it seriously. You have a soul to be saved, and that soul must be saved or damned; either one or the other, it will dwell with God in heaven or with the devil in hell; therefore, seriously meditate upon it.

.

When I gave my Mission in Brooklyn several Protestants became Catholics. Among them there was a very highly educated and intelligent Virginian. He was a Presbyterian. After he had listened to my lecture he went to see his minister, and he asked him to be kind enough to explain a text of the Bible. The minister gave him the meaning. "Well, now," said the gentleman, "are you positive and sure that is the meaning of the text, for several other Protestants explain it differently?" "Why, my dear young man," says the preacher, "we never can be certain of our faith." "Well, then," says the young man, "good-bye to you: If I cannot be sure of my faith in the Protestant church, I will go where I can." And he became a Catholic.

.

We are sure of our Faith in the Catholic Church, and if our Faith is not true, Christ has deceived us. I would, therefore, beg you, my separated brethren, to procure for yourselves Catholic Books. You have read a great deal against the Catholic Church, now read something in favor of it. You can never pass an impartial sentence if you do not hear both sides of the question.

.

What would you think of a judge before whom a policeman would bring a poor offender, and who on the charge of the policeman, without hearing the prisoner, would order him to be hung? "Give me a hearing," says the poor man, "and I will prove my innocence. I am not guilty," says he. The policeman says he is guilty. "Well, hang him anyhow," says the judge. What would you say of that judge? Criminal judge! Unfair man; you are guilty of the blood of the innocent! Would not you say that? Of course you would.

.

Well now, my dearly beloved Protestant friends, that is what you have been doing all along; you have been hearing one side of the question and condemning us Catholics as a superstitious lot of people, going and telling their sins to the priest; and what, after all, is the priest more than any other man? My dear friends, have you examined the other side of the question?

.

No, you do not think it worth your while; but this is the way the Jews dealt with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; and this is the way the Pagans and Jews dealt with the Apostles, the ministers of the Church, and with the primitive Christians.

.

Allow me to tell you, my friends, that you have been treating us precisely in the same way the Jews and Pagans treated Jesus Christ and His Apostles. I have said this evening hard things, but if St. Paul were here tonight, in this pulpit, he would have said harder things still. I have said them, however, not through a spirit of unkindness, but through a spirit of love, and a spirit of charity, in the hope of opening your eyes that your souls my be saved. It is love for your salvation, my dearly beloved Protestant brethren, for which I would gladly give my heart's blood; my love for your salvation that has made me preach to you as I have done.

.

XI.

"Well," say my Protestant friends, "if a man thinks he is right would he not be right?" Let us suppose now a man in Ottawa, who wants to go to Chicago, but takes a car for New York; the conductor asks for his ticket; and he at once says: "You are in the wrong car; your ticket is for Chicago, but you are going to New York." "Well, what of that?" Says the passenger. "I mean well." "Your meaning will not go well with you in the end," says the conductor, "for you will come out at New York instead of Chicago."

.

You say you mean well, my dear friends; your meaning will not take you to heaven; you must do well also. "He that doeth the will of My Father," says Jesus, "he alone shall be saved." There are millions in hell who meant well. You must do well, and be sure you are doing well, to be saved.

[arcanenrok]

There’s a post going around that I have my thoughts on, but I felt like it’d be better to put them in their own post.

I have noticed even within Christianity, doctrine can vary quite drastically. Even the conception of god can vary quite a bit. In the religion I grew up in, god was literally a father figure, and very much a person with a body you could touch. However, I’ve learned in other denominations, god is said to be more like a disembodied universal force, and not so much like an individual.

I feel like this has a pretty big impact about how people feel about god. Most believers hear someone say they ‘hate god’ or that they want to kill him or something, and they picture the standard fedora fare. In the interpretation of god as more a force of nature, these people would seem like people who shake their fists at the clouds. For me, however, my resentment for that man is much more personal.

The brighamite mormon church preaches of a personal father god, and preaches that it has a living prophet. As a result, one in the church would come to feel that he is someone who is like a person, and someone who has tangible influence in the world via the church. However, upon realizing the cruelty of the church’s, or rather god’s doctrine, as it had been taught to me, in regards to many things, but for an example, in regards to lgbt, I felt betrayed, as the entity who was supposed to be benevolent and all knowing and like a father to me turned out to be cruel. His direct subordinates on earth had been actively pushing cultural and political agendas that directly hurt people.

That’s why I think I feel hatred for god in such a personal way. This isn’t me simply shaking my fists at the sky at the sorry state of the world, asking why god doesn’t fix everything, this is me resenting a man who had demonstratably acted cruel by directly ordering his servants to uphold harmful policies and ideologies.

Now of course, in the frame of mind of those who understand god to be something different than that, this would not seem justified to them. They wouldn’t believe that Russel M Nelson, as of the current moment, speaks for god. They may not percieve his actions on the basis of him being a person. However, in this mind, I would probably resent him in the way one resents the speed of light limiting our ability to travel through space; nothing personal, but something frustrating nonetheless.

[incarnateirony]

Hi, i’m doing a thing and i need to know more about alchemy and hermeticism for that, do you have some ressources for beginners ? Thank you for your time

Depends what you’re looking for! I’ve posted a few basic learning kit resources that vary from “wtf is this alchemy shit” (x) to compendium zips full of available books (x) though the books are going to be a bit difficult to navigate if you don’t know where to start. To give you better direction, I’d really need to know what you’re trying to do and what your current knowledge level at in the field is. I fully admit I just scrapped around trying to find anything that looks like a reputable “learning course” online (since I didn’t really learn online, as much as supplemented it with online resources) and I don’t know if I’m comfortable with any of them since I don’t KNOW them but this seems… okay? I haven’t really dug to see their curriculum yet. (x) 

I’m extremely cautious in referring people to sources like that so PLEASE take the last link with caution. Hermeticism and alchemy are eternally shifting arts that has had waves of invasive doctrine pushed into it over time, which is why there’s entire christianized branches of white guys cosplaying as jews and blasting misogyny and shit. It started out of ancient egypt, and bonded to a variety of neoplatonic thought that broke out into varied denominations and, like many things, got saturated by christian culture in parts of it so BE CAUTIOUS.

Is this starting to sound a lot like people glued christianity over someone else’s homework? Probably not that, then.  (On the other hand, please advise that jewish tradition is not the same as christian tradition, and there are large segments that honorably carry on aspects of jewish faith, be that Qabbalah or other elements. Because um, christianity kinda glued itself over judaism too. And people may get confused on that, please do not just disregard jewish incorporation unless you see it instilling messianic elements, though I HIGHLY suggest checking out DafYomi and related resources to tell what’s respectful, authentic judaic lines of thought, not christianized.)

Seriously y’all. DafYomi hubs are great. Wanna get past vagueblogged christianity thinking saturating your every day?

And that’s not even when they start to debating wild shit like if it’s a violation of law to have a dragon cook your dinner for you or some shit

[starbudspresents]

DGM 231 - Panthaleia’s Translation Notes

Hello, dear friends and fellow fans! We return to the rubble of Tumblr you with DGM 231, the first chapter of this new year. Thanks for sticking with us!

Please see below the cut for my translation notes and reactions, as per usual. If you have any questions, do feel free to come say hi on Discord at Panthaleia#9705. :3

The Novel I'm Not Writing About DGM & Buddhism

Oooooookay, first things first! The four bubbles across Allen's collar on the cover page say 生々流転 seiseiruten. When spelled 生生流転 (homophonous), it simply means "ever-changing," but when spelled the way it is here (fantastic catch, thank you so much @togaochi​ ♥), it's defined as "all things being in flux through the endless circle of birth, death, and rebirth; the circle of transmigration​."

That concept is much more succinctly described by the Sanskrit term saṃsāra. Now, to preclude confusion: yes, if you look up "samsara" in a Japanese dictionary, you'll get 輪廻 rin'ne rather than this. That said, this term is if anything more specific and descriptive than that one. See also 生死輪廻 seishirin'ne, which has the exact same definition as seiseiruten; think "cell" vs. “cellular phone” vs "mobile telephone." All words for the same thing, with varying degrees of descriptiveness. 

The concept of samsara shows up in several religions (notably Buddhism, Hindu, and Jainism). The one most relevant to DGM by far is Buddhism, and this is far from the first time I've run into it in search of answers.

Crash course on some Buddhist jargon for those of you who aren't familiar:

The word samsara, meaning "continuous flow," describes the beginningless and potentially endless cycle of life and existence, through birth and living and death to re-birth and so on. It could also easily be pictured as a helix, if you'd prefer, and that could in fact make some of DGM a little easier to understand.

(If I may take a moment to get super self-indulgent here: a very related philosophical concept is panta rhei, "everything flows", which is what my "panthaleia" handle is mostly based on. This chapter very nearly literally has my name written on it. IT'S A SIGN. Of.... something. Not sure what, exactly, but IT'S A SIGN.)

Every living thing is trapped within this cycle by its attachments and its ignorance of the truth, which causes great suffering and generates karma, which then affects the shape of one's next life. (Yes, Alma's second name is that for a reason.)

There are a number of branching denominations of Buddhism, much as there are of Christianity, and while they mostly share certain core tenets such as the Eightfold Path, they vary widely in ideals and practice. The influences I see on DGM mostly come from a Japanese variant called Shingon ("True Words") and its predecessors: Shingon is a descendant of Tibetan Vajrayana, which is in turn sometimes considered to be part of the broader East Asian Mahayana umbrella.  

I've talked a little bit about Shingon before, because all the chanted spells used throughout the series follow the pattern of Shingon mantras and Kanda's tattoo is written in Siddhaṃ (theorized to be the predecessor of both modern kana systems, by the way).

Shingon shares its overarching goal with its predecessors: rather than seeking to break the cycle just for one's own self and achieve individual escape from suffering (as in Theravada, for example), one should seek to become an enlightened being — a bodhisattva — and willingly continue to subject oneself to the cycle in order to help those who are struggling and thereby bring the whole world closer to moksha ("liberation") and subsequent/synonymous nirvana one step at a time.

Obviously, reincarnation and transmigration play a massive role in DGM. Let me list just a few of the ways in which this particular concept is a running theme throughout the story:

The Noah fragments being reincarnated into new bodies without also reincarnating the human souls they previously coexisted with;

The Earl's victims having their souls transmigrated in the bodies of their loved ones to rebirth them as Akuma;

The Third Exorcists, also transmigrated into new bodies to bring them back (Helix magic in general, really, including the Atuuda);

Nea's transmigration into Allen (not a rebirth, but an avoidance of death while waiting for a chance at rebirth), as well as Allen's regression to childhood via de-aging and memory loss;

The original Earl (Adam in my theories, fyi, in case I reference that later) deliberately rebirthing himself in smaller pieces for goals as yet unknown;

The Bookmen keeping records of each iteration of the repeating narrative, ever-changing but eternal themselves;

Even fukkin Komlin, lmao, constantly destroyed and improved and remade.

So many others? Soooo many others.

The eureka moment (for me): this chapter is subtitled "Curtain Rise," as in the beginning of a stage play when the curtain goes up. If you'll think all the way back to the very first chapters of the series, you may remember that the Earl's Scenario is meant to bring about curtain fall... on humanity.

Looking at that in the context of samsara, that whole thing suddenly looks very different. Our heroes assumed that the Earl's victory would result in the destruction of the world, the destruction of humanity, but I've never bought that idea from the very start. When the curtains finally close on samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth, humanity will not be "dead" in the tragic sense, but free. Nirvana =/= death. Nirvana is the peace of being one with all, knowing all, loving and being loved by all without the need for suffering. It isn't "heaven" in the Christian sense, but it is an end to suffering, without also being an end to existence.

Tragedy and suffering are the consequences of remaining bound to the cycle. Directly using the energy of them in order to break the cycle creating them, as the Earl claims to be doing with the Akuma, is a very very Vajrayana idea, and fits seamlessly into my existing suppositions as to what the Earl is doing and why. Here, have a relevant quote:

Negative mental factors such as desire, hatred, greed, pride are not rejected as in non-Tantric Buddhism, but are used as part of the path. As noted by French Indologist Madeleine Biardeau, tantric doctrine is "an attempt to place kama, desire, in every meaning of the word, in the service of liberation."

 And another, from the Hevajra tantra:

Those things by which evil men are bound, others turn into means and gain thereby release from the bonds of existence. By passion the world is bound, by passion too it is released.

One more, same source:

One knowing the nature of poison may dispel poison with poison.

Bluntly put, I think the (original) Earl was an enlightened soul — a bodhisattva — who voluntarily returned to the cycle via deliberate rebirth into multiple ignorant beings in order to help heal the struggling world of its suffering via bringing about enlightenment viiiaaaa SUFFERING HARDER. Good Plan™?

Here are a few more related meta posts from a few years ago, just so I can find them again when I inevitably decide to delve deeper into this:

Helix magic will be the key to the plot

It's all happened before

Destroyer of Time

2.) I'm so delighted to see Mana as he was when Allen knew him before, genteel and whimsical and delighted with Allen's existence. It's easy to understand why Allen would become so attached to him.

3.) Raws for the "Therefore I write many of them, as if God can see me doing so. / As if He might find me" lines: こうして神さまに見えるように沢山書くんです　／　見つけてもらえるように  These don’t sit well with me, so I’ll probably change them in the future. The gist is that he’s drawing them in order to draw God’s attention to him.

Raws for "Here I am": 私はここにいる。@togaochi and I concur that he uses watashi here instead of his own preferred boku because he's teaching it to Allen, and means it as a more general "I."

Anyway: hooooo boy, here's some more evidence for the Two Gods theory. And how!

It seems pretty safe to assume he's not calling out to the Order's God, since that god would pretty happily wipe him off the face of the earth. The Noah have called that god "false," though, and expressed their intent and desire to kill it, while still referring to a "God" entity of their own whom they regard as being on their side (or perhaps, they're on its side).

Mana calling out to the Noah god to come find him, without remembering why he wants that, is very interesting. I wonder if and how anyone answered him.

4.) I have a strong hunch that Mana's "secret alphabet" is also related to Siddhaṃ, but that language is written in such a complex way that it's actually impossible for me to be sure without just... learning it. Which! To be clear! I fucking well might. WATCH ME.

5.) This entire scene is so much to me. How furious they both are that the other won't just let themselves be saved/protected. Allen wanted to leave Kanda behind so he and the others would be safe from everything that's hunting him. Kanda wants Allen to stay put so they can save him from what he can't fight alone. All that rage and frustration, because they care.

Quick note: in the first draft we initially posted on Imgur via our Discord server, I had the subject wrong for one of Kanda's lines here, which I caught and fixed. Sorry for any confusion that may have caused!

5.5) ETA: Forgot to mention that I’m fairly sure the beautiful Grecian-style temple they’re hanging out in is referenced from St. Bernard’s Well, again in Edinburgh. Excuse me, “Edinston.”

Thanks to an enterprising anon, we have a much better match for that structure: the Dugald Stewart Monument! 

6.) "maybe I'll go sucker-hunting" CARD SHARK ALLEN LIIIIIVES, where's Tyki when you need him (to lose his shirt again)

7.) fjkldjlkagd the turnaround where Allen finally cracks and is like "fine!! you want in?? IN YOU GET. no take-backsies! happy now???" and Kanda's like "yep, here I am" and neither of them have ANY IDEA how to deal with ANY OF IT. Kanda struggling to pull Allen's story out of him without throwing up his hands and quitting. Allen baffled and twice as guarded as before, put off by Kanda's uncharacteristic interest.

So beautiful, it brings a tear to my eye. (Actually, many tears. So... so many tears.)

8.) That apology, which I never thought I'd get, for Allen having seen what Kanda would never have consented to show him. It wasn't his fault, and they both know that, but the fact still remains that it was a violation, and I've always always wished for that to be addressed somehow and HERE IT IS. RIGHT HERE.

I want to tattoo that look on Kanda's face onto my brain.

9.) And then they're FUCKING INTERRUPTED, AGAIN

But Allen's "ask me again when we're done dealing with this" was such a promise of trust that I can't even be that mad, augh.

Onward to the bitter end, I guess!! Haha!!!! · ͜͜  · - 

Thank you all so much for reading and following along! I’d like to tip my hat to Kougeki Scans, who love this series too and are helping us spoil the fandom rotten. :P  Again, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to either find us on Discord HERE, find me on Discord at Panthaleia#9705, or use the comment box on MangaDex! I’m always happy to geek out with fellow fans. <3

[torreygazette]

Meal, Manna, Medicine

“This is my body.”

“This is my blood.”

Churches have been dividing, morphing, and arguing over these words for the last few hundred years. Prior to that, almost everyone held to the general idea that “is” meant “is.”

Though now a Lutheran who affirms the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, I was raised Exclusive Plymouth Brethren. Though the denomination holds a roughly anabaptist doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, at the assembly I grew up in the Lord’s Supper was offered weekly. Bread, and usually wine (some assemblies chose to offer grape juice for those struggling with alcoholism), on a simple plate and in a simple cup. Since Plymouth Brethren do not recognize the office of pastor, any man in fellowship (i.e. not under discipline and a normal communing member or known visitor) could stand and approach the table, pray over the elements (what amounted to consecration), then pass them around.

Who communed? All members who had been received into fellowship, and again, any known visitors. Some “Exclusive” assemblies would require either a personal introduction from someone who knew you, or an introductory letter, in order for you to commune on any given Sunday morning. “Open” assemblies varied in their approach: some were “tight” (which functioned much like Exclusives) and some were “loose” (where you weren’t necessarily required to know anyone).

Children of members were expected to ask to “approach the table” (be received into fellowship) in their teens—about the age when traditions would offer confirmation. Since the average child or teenager was known to the entire assembly, I don’t believe there was normally any kind of formal examination —perhaps this would have been different in a larger assembly, or where a family was new. I did a lot of reading about communion practices when I was fourteen (the age I asked to commune). I was worried I wasn’t good enough, worried that I had to have all known sin in my life vanquished before I could commune. 

This was my life until I hit twenty-three. Our assembly shrunk to two families: my own and one other. If you’re in fellowship with other assemblies, those people may step in when interpersonal issues arise. But by that point, we were no longer in fellowship with other assemblies. So the assembly dissolved. There was no recourse, arbitration, or mediation. 

So I went from the only church I’d ever known to having nothing at all. In a knee-jerk response, I went to a nearby Baptist church (I had friends there) for a little over a year. It was not good. I did not commune there since they required re-baptism; I was confident my first one took. I left there and went nowhere for a couple of years other than occasional visits. It was bewildering. My faith suffered. I landed at a Calvary Chapel. At that point, my need to commune was so strong I would have done almost anything, and they didn’t require anything. I remember driving home from my first communion service in years and weeping from sheer thankfulness at the feeling of distance erased, of restoration.

Then came Lutheranism. I got flung into the deep end. Suffice it to say, while I wasn’t completely convinced on the doctrine of the Real Presence, it became immediately clear that I could not commune at both the Lutheran church and the Calvary Chapel, because they were offering two different things. This knowledge was not odious. In fact, at that point (and still!),  Real Presence felt like an upgrade, not just from my present church but from my entire upbringing. Why wouldn’t you want to go from something that was only symbolic to … the actual thing? Why just memorialize when you can have the real thing?

Some Protestants can’t distinguish the difference between the Roman Catholic view (transubstantiation) and the Lutheran view of the Eucharist. And while you may see the Lutheran view referred to as “in, with, and under” or “consubstantiation,” I warn you that both of those terms will make good Lutherans cranky. Neither of them quite fit. The simplest explanation I can give is that Rome believes nothing remains of the bread and wine except the visual appearance—the substance of the elements become 100% body and blood. Lutherans believe it is 100% body and blood while remaining 100% bread and wine. (That math shouldn’t be that difficult for people since we all believe that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man, and are comfortable with the tension.) Seventeenth-century Lutheran theology Johann Gerhard put it this way: 

“This presence is not an essential transmutation of the bread into the body, and of the wine into the blood of Christ, which they call transubstantiation, nor is it a local and permanent junction (or union) separate from the sacramental use, of the body with the bread and of the blood with the wine, nor is it a personal union of the bread and the body of Christ, such as is the union of the divine and the human nature in Christ; nor is it a local shutting up of the body in the bread; nor is it impanation, nor an incorporation into the bread; nor is it consubstantiation, whereby the bread coalesces with the body of Christ, and the wine with the blood into one physical mass; nor it is a natural existence of the body and blood in the bread and wine, nor a concealment of the body, in a diminutive form, under the bread, nor any such carnal and physical thing; but it is a sacramental presence and union, which is of such a nature, that with the bread, consecrated according to the institution of the Savior, the body of Christ is united, in both instances in a manner to us incomprehensible, so that together with that bread we receive and eat, by a sacramental manducation (eating) only, the body of Christ, and together with that wine we receive and drink, by a sacramental drinking only, the blood of Christ. In short, we hold that in the Sacred Supper there is, not absence, or existence within, nor consubstantiation, nor transubstantiation, but the real presence of the body and blood of Christ.”

Let a man examine himself

I remember taking 1st Corinthians 11 quite seriously even at an early age. Among the Plymouth Brethren, unrepentant sin of any kind was cause to be “put out of fellowship” until you repented and could be restored, even for children. I heard stories about younger children (under ten) who were allowed to commune, but had to be put out of fellowship for lying. So a parent, knowing about the sins of their child on a day-to-day basis, could request that communion be withheld, by bringing the sins to the attention of the “brothers” [functionally elders, but not called that] at the assembly. The solution most assemblies practiced was simply to encourage kids to wait on communing until they were a bit older, and better able to understand what was happening.

At that time, it wasn’t clear to me what constituted unworthy eating or drinking. Certainly, Sunday mornings were a time to reflect on our sins and shortcomings. Receiving soberly and joyfully was encouraged. But without any form of corporate confession and absolution, I often felt that I was risking God’s anger by having sinned during the week. Had I repented enough? What would happen when I invariably sinned again? When should I refrain from communing? It was symbolic. It was memorial. But the dangers of partaking unworthily were clear. How then could this symbolism, this memorialism, jibe with the warnings about the effects of partaking unworthily? It was hard to take it seriously enough, and I wanted to take it seriously!

Now a Lutheran, I consider it this way: what if examination was not about finding yourself sinless, but finding yourself sinful—thus more in need of the Real Presence of Christ’s body and blood? My conversion to Lutheranism coincided with my present church’s adult study of the Lutheran Confessions. Most of my questions about Lutheranism were answered immediately. After the class, my pastor checked if I had any lingering questions. I remember telling him, I wasn’t 100% convinced yet, but I was convinced enough. Thankfully he didn’t put any obstacles in the way of my communing—convinced of my sinfulness and that the doctrine of the Real Presence was scripturally faithful, I needed to commune in order to have my faith strengthened to believe.

I got shaky the first time I went up to receive it. I still do, sometimes. It is a powerful thing to encounter God thus. That sense of responsibility I felt as a teen remains, but I am strengthened now in a way I was not then—the reassurance of corporate confession and absolution, the knowledge that this is how we participate in God’s timeline, the awe-full grappling with the elements. We are not worthy, and yet God is for us. We are not worthy, and that is why we go to the table. 

A meal for sinners

I remain thankful for the understanding I’ve now arrived at. We commune with those in our pew, or at the rail with us, but we are partaking in something timeless. For this moment, we are outside our present timeline and participating in eternity, with all the saints, in a way that is completely different from the rest of our week. This is the high point, this is our feast meal, the foreshadowing of the wedding feast of the Lamb. Why would you not want this whenever it is made available to you? John Wesley, someone I am not often wont to quote, wrote in 1788:

“It is no wonder that men who have no fear of God should never think of doing this. But it is strange that it should be neglected by any that do fear God, and desire to save their souls; And yet nothing is more common. One reason why many neglect it is, they are so much afraid of ‘eating and drinking unworthily,’ that they never think how much greater the danger is when they do not eat or drink it at all.”

Wesley’s words inspire meditation on spiritual laxity, and how it correlates with not receiving communion regularly. (I do not speak of someone who desires it on a regular basis but finds themself in a situation where regular communion isn’t available. My heart aches for those people, and Luther addresses this dilemma at length in the Large Catechism.) I’m specifically thinking about people who don’t feel the need for it. Obviously there are different factors that influence how we feel about the Eucharist, and I think a more symbolic or memorialistic understanding of the sacraments can lead to more ambivalence about them. But even in traditions where the sacraments are viewed as a means of grace, it can be easy enough to grow disinterested.

Examination (which is good, right, and salutary!) should conclude with us acknowledging our need of Christ’s body and blood to nourish our own bodies and souls. My pastor spoke recently on our human inclination to rank sins, and about using this arbitrary ranking to bar other sinners from the table. [Not in a civil sense: we recognize that certain sins carry differing temporal penalties, but in the religious sense, in which all sin condemns us equally in God’s eyes.] He said: “This is a meal for sinners. If you have not sinned, you do not need to eat. If you have sinned, this meal is for you.”

Luther says in the Large Catechism:

“For Christ does not say, ‘If you believe or are worthy, you receive My body and blood.’ No, He says, ‘Take, eat and drink; this is My body and blood.’ Likewise, He says, ‘Do this’ (i.e., what I now do, institute, give, and ask you, take). That is like saying ‘No matter whether you are worthy or unworthy, you have here His body and blood by virtue of these words that are added to the bread and wine.’”

And yet: under what circumstances should you absent yourself from the table? Luther talks about those who find so much pleasure in sin, they prefer to remain in the life of this world, and so do not participate. We ought to pray for each other: that our hatred for our sin  would increase, and our hunger be stirred up only to be satisfied in Christ. As Luther wrote:

“But whoever would gladly receive grace and comfort should drive himself and allow no one to frighten him away. Say, ‘I, indeed, would like to be worthy. But I come, not upon any worthiness, but upon Your Word, because You have commanded it.’”

“But if you say, ‘What, then, shall I do if I cannot feel such distress or experience hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?’ Answer, For those who are of such a mind that they do not realize their condition I know no better counsel than that they put their hand into their shirt to check whether they have flesh and blood. And if you find that you do, then go, for you good, to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. Hear what sort of a fruit your flesh is:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. (Galatians 5:19-21)

Therefore, if you cannot discern this, at least believe the Scriptures. They will not lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you yourself.”

Most Sunday mornings I am, by God’s grace, to be found wobbling up to the rail with other sinners. Any doctrine of the Supper that requires I ascend into the heavenlies to feed there with Jesus is entirely too much to ask of me. I need God’s food—manna prepared to feed us in the desert, the medicine for the ills of our sins. I am thankful for a Jesus who came down to us in the flesh, who comes down to us in the Supper, and who will at the last raise us up to him, where we will feast forever.

[liesonthefloordramatically]

Annotations for “What the hell is a bodhisattva?”

Wow, can’t believe I’ve written more about Buddhism for this frickin’ JJBA fic than I have in seven years of graduate school in Japanese religion. Sometimes you want to make a joke that’s simultaneously so funny and so obscure that you have to write like 20k in order for people to understand it.

I’ve tried to write annotations only for things that aren’t explained sufficiently within the fic, otherwise we’d all be here for the rest of our lives.  Feel free to ask about anything that isn’t annotated or if you have further questions about things that are!  

(Link to the fic if you’ve somehow managed to accidentally stumble on this post.)

OVERALL:

The Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha - the Three Jewels, in which Buddhist practitioners are supposed to take refuge.  They refer to the Buddha (probably self-explanatory), the teachings of the Buddha, and the community of Buddhist practitioners respectively.  You may notice some parallels in chapter content.

CHAPTER ONE:

Jizō - a bodhisattva who is commonly depicted as the guardian of travelers and also the dead, especially dead children.  There are a lot of statues of him on roadsides in Japan, as well as on temple grounds.  Recurring motif in my SDC-related fics for hopefully obvious reasons.

Sōka Gakkai - a Buddhist new religious movement, (in)famous in the postwar period for their aggressive proselytization and conversion tactics.

Daikokuten - one of the seven gods of good fortune.  Frequently enshrined as a household deity.

Inari - a Shinto deity commonly associated with foxes.  It’s not uncommon for businesses (including family businesses) to have their own small Inari shrines.

sects of Buddhism - Buddhism in Japan is divided into sects (denominations of Christianity aren’t a bad comparison point)--the basic tenets are the same from sect to sect, but specific teachings, practices, or emphases may vary.  Most families in Japan are affiliated (due to complex historical factors that aren’t worth getting into here) with a particular temple (which in turn belongs to a sect), so they rely on the temple priests for any rites they may need and may have a plot for the family grave in the temple graveyard.  It is not uncommon for people to not know which sect they are affiliated with until a family member dies and they suddenly have to interact with the temple (see “funeral Buddhism”).  Kakyoin’s family is Shingon, which is an esoteric sect known for their complicated cosmology and rituals.  Jotaro’s family is Sōtō (he guessed wrong! Sorry, Jotaro!), a Zen sect that’s much more focused on gaining enlightenment through physical practices like meditation.  (“Zen” isn’t a sect in Japan--it actually refers to a group of sects that have some major teachings in common.  Buddhism: it’s complicated!)  Sōtō is a much later import to Japan than Shingon, and was also scoffed at a bit by established sects for being more populist and accessible.  Hopefully you see the joke here.

Senkōji - this sounds like a real temple name (there are temples called Senkōji), but is also a play on the fact that senkō is the Japanese word for incense and -ji is one of the endings for temples.  Kakyoin: Oh, so your family belongs to Incense Temple?  Jotaro: That sounds like it could be correct.

kōan - a story, dialogue, or question used to provoke doubt in Zen practitioners and test their progress toward enlightenment.  You could think of them as Buddhist riddles if you want to be really reductive.  (Yes, Kakyoin tests Jotaro’s knowledge of Buddhism by bringing up a thing used to test practitioners.  I warned you that these jokes were niche.)  Kōan are most commonly associated with the Rinzai sect in Japan, although other sects use them as well.  One of the most famous kōan, which Kakyoin references here, involves a student asking a master if the dog has a buddha-nature (more commonly referred to as the mu kōan).

“funeral Buddhism” - in Japan, the main thing people go to Buddhist temples for these days is funeral services or other rites of remembrance (grave visits, rites marking the anniversaries of the deaths of family members, etc.), which has led to Buddhism being identified pretty closely with death and mourning.  Thus, Buddhism in Japan is sometimes referred to as “funeral Buddhism,” although there’s a lot of debate among scholars about how helpful that term actually is.  Jotaro only associating Buddhism with funerals and death and knowing nothing about doctrine or cosmology is not unusual.

honji suijaku - a complicated medieval Buddhist theory identifying native/non-Buddhist Japanese deities with Buddhist deities by arguing that the non-Buddhist deities were actually Buddhist deities that had taken alternate forms as expedient means (see explanation of that below).  All of the combinations Kakyoin names are real combinations from the medieval period.  Enma is the king of hell and the judge of the dead, so Kakyoin thinks it’s a little strange for Jizō to be identified with him, since Jizō is supposed to save the dead from hell.  Jotaro was right--Amaterasu is a Shinto deity (the sun goddess, to be specific).  Dainichi is a celestial buddha who plays an important role in Shingon.  Honji suijaku is absolutely not common knowledge for most contemporary practitioners of Japanese Buddhism, so this is the point where Kakyoin starts really trolling Jotaro with his questions and showing off his weirdly specialized knowledge (not that Jotaro can tell).

Amida - a buddha known for his vow to save anyone who sincerely calls out to him for help (usually through the phrase “namu Amida butsu” which means “hail Amida buddha”).  The True Pure Land sect, which Jotaro’s neighbor, Mrs. Watanabe, belongs to, emphasizes the concept of “other power,” i.e. relying on something outside of yourself (Amida, in this case) for salvation.  Kakyoin’s scorn for Amida worship is hilarious and pretentious, since his opinions parallel those of established Buddhist groups (including Shingon) in the medieval period, who trash talked Pure Land Buddhism (focused on Amida worship) for being too populist and accessible.  Are you sensing a theme here?  Kakyoin is a Buddhist elitist with a lot of knowledge of medieval esoteric Buddhism specifically.

buddhas are(n’t) ghosts - Jotaro’s confusion comes from the fact that one way to refer to the spirits of the dead in Japanese is “buddhas” (仏; hotoke).  Additionally, although the historical Buddha (Shakyamuni) is the most famous, different sects of Buddhism imagine different numbers of buddhas--ranging from one (the historical buddha and no one else) to incalculable numbers of buddhas who have existed, do exist, and are yet to come.

Kannon - all Kannon facts offered by Kakyoin and Avdol are true!  Kannon really is the bodhisattva of compassion.  Avalokitesvara (Kannon’s name in Sanskrit) is male (as all bodhisattvas are), but bodhisattvas are frequently depicted as androgynous.  In China, Guanyin (Avalokitesvara’s name in Chinese) started being depicted not as androgynously feminine but as female, which has led to Guanyin being primarily depicted as female and Kannon as almost always depicted as female.  Kakyoin’s interpretation of Kannon makes sense/is supportable, but is definitely uncommon (people tend to focus on the compassion bit rather than the historical/social circumstances), thus Avdol’s reaction.  This is a common theme in Kakyoin’s Buddhism Opinions--he tends to latch on to historical/intellectual details rather than emotive/experiential ones.

expedient means - another complicated one, but basically the idea of using methods or techniques that fit the situation (rather than ones that are 100% “true” or “correct”) to gain enlightenment or guide others to enlightenment.  You could think of it as interim measures to get people farther along the path, or maybe an “ends justify the means” mentality.  Kakyoin is interpreting it as a sort of social flexibility, which is not an unheard of interpretation but definitely not the most common one.  Kakyoin’s interpretation comes from a number of stories in which bodhisattvas transform into/disguise themselves as different people in order to guide humans farther along the path--by becoming an old woman in need of assistance, for example, who teaches someone Buddhist values, or by manifesting as a known, geographically-specific deity who can better spread the teachings of the Buddha to suspicious locals (see honji suijaku).  In this fic, expedient means is leveraged in three ways: A. Kakyoin thinks of the way he engages with people as expedient means (becoming whatever he needs to be for the situation), B. you could technically count Kakyoin’s infodumping about Buddhism at Jotaro as expedient means (in the traditional sense of getting someone farther along the path) as he does manage to get him interested in learning more about Buddhism by doing it, and C. both Jotaro and Kakyoin are using Buddhism as expedient means (an interim measure) to get closer to each other.  Wow, Queenie, glad to see that you’re using your graduate education for good and not evil.

CHAPTER TWO:

Wisdom Kings - a type of guardian of the dharma (see explanation below).  Please imagine a post-credits scene in which Jotaro decides that Fudō Myōō is the best Wisdom King and Kakyoin is once more disappointed by how stereotypical his boyfriend is.

combinatory worship - practices that mix together what we now call “Shinto” practices and “Buddhist” practices.  The two religious strains were less distinct pre-1871.  See honji suijaku.  Again, this is not common knowledge for contemporary practitioners of Japanese Buddhism; Kakyoin has very clearly done a lot of reading on pre-modern Buddhism.

Kasuga Shrine - a famous shrine complex in Nara known for combinatory worship in the ancient and medieval periods.  It’s now a “pure” Shinto site, but did not used to be.  Here’s one of the famous Kasuga mandala, in which Buddhist deities are depicted floating in the sky over the shrine grounds (see honji suijaku).  Now mainly famous as a tourist destination in a park that is populated by wild deer (who are messengers of the god of Kasuga and thus are not allowed to be harmed).  The deer are a giant pain, since they’re not scared of people and will eat anything.

Four Noble Truths - extremely simplified: 1. Existence is suffering. 2. Suffering is caused by attachment. 3. However, you can escape by severing attachment.  4. You do that via Buddhist practice.  On one hand, it absolutely does not make sense to have a favorite of the Four Noble Truths (Kakyoin is trolling Jotaro real hard)--on the other hand, Kakyoin would absolutely have a favorite of the Four Noble Truths.  His favorite is the third, if you need a refresher.  (If you haven’t already figured it out, isolation and hope are the two big themes for Kakyoin’s Buddhism Opinions.)

a biography of the Buddha cannot save you - Buddhism has transformed so much in its spread throughout Asia that different traditions may look completely different--one of the most important sacred texts in East Asian Buddhism (The Lotus Sutra) is an apocryphal text that was probably written in China, for example, so it straight up doesn’t exist in Southeast Asian Buddhism.  Trying to understand Japanese Buddhism by reading a biography of the Buddha would be like trying to understand American megachurches by reading a biography of Jesus.

the six realms of existence - all facts offered by both Jotaro and Kakyoin are true!  The six realms are pretty self-explanatory, I think, other than the difference between the asuras (sometimes translated “demigods”) and the gods.  Jotaro isn’t wrong that the main difference between them is often summarized as the asura fighting all the time and being really mad while the gods just chill out and have a great time.  Being reborn as a human is often considered the best, because it’s the easiest realm to achieve enlightenment from, since you’re not being distracted by extreme suffering or what an orgiastically pleasant time you’re having.  All of the realms are still ultimately part of samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth), though, so you want to get out of them altogether, since even if you wind up being born as a god, eventually you’ll die and be reborn in another realm.  And, yes, knowing things about both Buddhism and the JJBA canon should make you feel fear in your heart.  (JJBA feels intensely cyclical to me in general, and samsara is a cycle by definition.)

CHAPTER THREE:

Kakyoin - Kakyoin really was the name of a Shugendō temple (located in Sendai) that was destroyed during the religious reforms in the 1870s.  Kakyoin the character is named after the neighborhood of Sendai, which is in turn named after the temple.  I assume that, due to geographical proximity, Kakyoin’s family is affiliated with (and Kakyoin’s great-grandfather went to work at) Jōzenji, which in real life was also destroyed in the 1870s but still exists as of 1999 in the JJBA canon.  Jōzenji, by the way, was a Shingon temple.  Please imagine me writing this fic with a massive conspiracy board, because that’s absolutely what happened.

Shugendō - a syncretic ascetic tradition that grew out of a combination of Buddhism, Shinto, and beliefs surrounding mountains as sacred sites.  It was suppressed by the Japanese government in the 1870s, as it “inappropriately” mixed Buddhism and Shinto and was seen as superstitious and backward.  Many of its temples were either destroyed (as in the case of Kakyoin) or repurposed into “pure” Shinto or Buddhist sites.  Kakyoin is correct that many Shugendō priests were given the option to become either Shinto or Buddhist priests or become lay people.  Shugendō has been revived in the post-war period as a religion separate from both Buddhism and Shinto (although it shares beliefs and practices with both of them).

How could Kakyoin’s great-grandfather be a Buddhist priest but also have a family? - starting in the 1870s, Buddhist clergy were officially allowed to eat meat and consume alcohol, grow their hair out, and get married.  (Some secretly--or not so secretly--had families before then, but it was technically illegal in all but one sect, although inconsistently persecuted.)  As a result, the majority of Buddhist clergy in contemporary Japan are not celibate (although some are), and many temples are operated by priests from the same familial lineage.  Shugendō has never had a celibacy requirement for its clergy.

guardian of the dharma (dharmapala) - a type of wrathful god that defends Buddhism from dangers.  They’re highly venerated in both Shingon and Shugendō, thus Kakyoin’s familiarity with them growing up.  Honestly?  This wasn’t a great guess on Kakyoin’s part, since the most famous of the dharmapala in Japan looks like this.  He was six at the time, though, so let’s not be too mean about it.

Kūkai (also known as Kōbō Daishi) - the founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism in Japan.  Naming in Buddhism is too complicated to get into here, but the second name is a posthumous honorific name.  He’s associated with a variety of sacred sites, including one of the most popular pilgrimage routes in Japan--the eighty-eight temple pilgrimage in Shikoku.  May or may not be pretty strong.

Buddhist robes - for your reference, here’s a portrait of Kūkai and here’s what a contemporary Shingon monk looks like.  Jotaro is picturing a Sōtō monk, who looks more like this.  Also here is a recent series of memes about Buddhist robes; this has nothing to do with the fic but they did make me laugh a lot.

Tenmei - this fic brought to you by me seeing Kakyoin Tenmei and shouting, “THAT SOUNDS LIKE THE NAME OF A BUDDHIST MONK; ARAKI, WHAT THE FRICK.”  Most names in Japanese are read with the kun’yomi (the “Japanese” reading) whereas Buddhist names are read with the on’yomi (the “Chinese” reading, used for compound words)--“Noriaki” is the kun’yomi of 典明 whereas “Tenmei” is the on’yomi.

shichi-go-san - a coming-of-age ritual (performed at Shinto shrines) for children age three, boys age five, and girls age seven.  The name is literally “seven-five-three.”

Maitreya - all facts offered by Kakyoin are true!  Maitreya (called Miroku in Japanese, but Kakyoin is being pretentious and using the Sanskrit) is the buddha to come.  We are currently in the last of the three ages, with each age being worse and more degenerate than the one before as the teachings of the Buddha become harder and harder to access, achieving enlightenment becomes increasingly impossible, and the world is visited by natural disasters.  By the Japanese count, the last age started in 1052 CE!  But the last age is supposed to go on for 10,000 years, so we’ve still got a while to go.  Maitreya is thus a figure of both great fear (his coming will be heralded by the end of the world) and great hope (he’ll bring an end to the last age and usher in a new age of prosperity), so he felt like a fitting choice for Kakyoin (and a fitting way to close out the fic).

Agyō and Ungyō - guardians of Buddhism who appear in sets of two (together they’re called the Niō), usually protecting temple gates.  Their names (literally “a-form” and “un-form”) come from the shapes of their mouths, one open (a) and one closed (un).  Image here.  Hopefully you see the joke here.