#Catholic discourse

[ceciliathecabinwitch]

One of my favorite things about catholic v protestant discourse is when people refuse to admit the idea that there could be like…overlap? Like not even just in general doctrine or w/e but like I see posts that are like

“Protestants don’t do Lent” (it depends on the church/person ofc, and typically there are different rules than the Catholics have, but absolutely it’s still a thing)

“Protestants don’t care about saints” (although most don’t particularly pray to the saints or whatever, I have known Many protestants who definitely care, including some who have iconography of certain saints or find other ways to connect with them. They dont necessarily hold the same status as they do with catholics but that doesn’t mean all protestants completely ignore their existence)

“Catholic churches are the ones with stained glass windows” (ik this is usually a joke but it still irks me a little every time I see it lol. Like yes if you walk into a church and there are no stained glass windows it is probably more likely to be protestant than catholic but I have seen catholic churches without stained glass and I’ve seen many protestant churches with it)

“Catholics drink wine and Protestants drink juice for communion” (semi true but an over simplification. Can’t speak too much on the catholic side of this one. Also, if you’re in specifically a Methodist church it will almost definitely be grape juice. Other protestant churches, it’s really kind of a crapshoot for what you’ll get. Also, the reason for this is because “grape juice” (at the time it was actually non alcoholic wine) was popularized for communion by doctor and Methodist minister Thomas Welch. Quite a few Methodists I know are actively annoyed by other protestants using grape juice for communion bc they think it’s a methodist thing. (That’s also dumb, but a different kind of dumb). Also, yes, if you’re familiar with Welch’s Grape Juice, it comes from the same guy)

[patron-saint-of-lesbeans]

Please pray for the bitter and the jaded, for those whose only joy in life is making others as miserable as they are.

[marietheran]

See, the vibe I unfortunately get from a large part of the American Protestant online space is far too many people unaware of their obvious scrupulousity positioning themselves as moral authorities, and it's frankly – dangerous.

[cervinae-canine]

okay im kinda stupid but I don't think selfshipping with Judge Claude fucking Frollo from Hunchback of Notre Dame, is a good idea

[blessedbetherug]

I wanted to give some BT support on Insta but I had to read in the comment section with my own 2 eyes that BT is apparently settling for "bare minimum representation" (!!!?!!?!!) compared to the other ship

And I don't think I can stand exposing myself to some of these people

They are completely insane, they literally say the wildest shit that comes across their mind

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

No. Next question.

[underwaterspiderbird]

you know it, i know it, your pet rock knows it, your kyber crystal knows it, we all know it.

[fellthemarvelous]

Invisible scars

(TW: religious trauma)

Looking at me, you wouldn't know that I've survived religious trauma. The marks of religious trauma are seldom visible. In fact, I had no idea for the longest time that I had religious trauma (I thought it was a thing that happened to other people). I simply spent decades questioning the reasons I felt like I was so broken on in the inside. I kept trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and why I never felt happy or like I was never able to connect to anyone. I had no idea that my experience with the church as a small child is what shaped me into the anxiety-ridden, majorly depressed disaster creature I am today.

I spent 12 years learning inside of Catholic schools. It has taken me more than 20 years to process and deconstruct, and I am always going to be a work in progress. I was brainwashed into believing the very worst about myself, and I was always just beyond saving because I had the misfortune of being a woman in a church that taught us that women experience pain during childbirth as a natural consequence of Eve eating the apple, which is why they enjoy making us suffer in the first place. They taught us that Adam ate the apple because Eve seduced him, so even though Adam also ate the apple, his sin still wasn't as bad as Eve's because she did it first and used sex to get him to do the same. They placed the blame for Original Sin squarely on Eve and thus onto every single girl who entered the church. If a boy did something to me that I didn't like, it's probably because I did something to provoke him first.

Do you know what I learned to do at a very young age just to be able to cope with that?

I learned to use humor to deflect when I was struggling. I smile when I don't want people to know I'm sad. I laugh at inappropriate times, especially when I'm uncomfortable. I learned to bottle up all of my emotions because expressing anything other than happiness is bad. I learned to compartmentalize. I taught myself how to pull out the right emotion for the right occasion because I was always striving to be who I thought everyone else wanted me to be. It was exhausting.

In the midst of all of this, I'm trying to figure out which parts of me are really me and which parts of me are things that were put into my head. If you've experienced indoctrination, you know what I'm talking about. They pulled us apart as small children and placed us in specific boxes and told us that deviating from the norm was bad.

Crowley is a fallen angel. His change from angel to demon is drastic on the outside.

You know he fell and that his wings turned black and he ended up in a pool of boiling sulfur. It's the reason Crowley is so easy to sympathize with. He suffered unfairly because of arbitrary rules that deemed him unforgivable. He's accepted that part of himself. He's clever and creative and it has helped him find ways to get out of doing his job for centuries. Hell doesn't care how jobs get done just as long as someone does them, and at this point humanity is doing more to damn themselves than the demons are able to keep up with. They're tired and overworked. Hell is overpopulated even though it should be infinite in size. Crowley wants no part of that system because he sees it for what it is, just as he sees Heaven for what it is. He has the marks to prove that he is one of the damned, but that has given him all the perspective he needs to see that both sides are fucked up and toxic and "irredeemable" (just like him). He has yet to fully let go of the hold Heaven has over him because of how badly he got hurt.

Aziraphale is still an angel.

He never fell, and he doesn't know why. He has lied to God. He has lied to Gabriel repeatedly. He lies to protect Crowley. He lies to protect humanity.

Remember, Crowley and Aziraphale started off in the same place.

They both started off as angels who were created to do God's bidding. Aziraphale is the one who told Crowley what he'd heard about everything shutting down in 6,000 years. He was simply trying to make conversation. He didn't think it was something Crowley would object to. Angels were just supposed to go along with God's plans, but Crowley had a different opinion and was vocal about it. Where did Aziraphale get his information in the first place? Why does nobody ever ask this question?

Aziraphale knows Heaven is toxic. He's not blind. We need to move past this idea that because he still has love for God that he doesn't know Heaven is fucked up. He never fell, and it's something he still fears because who the hell doesn't fear the thought of eternal torment, especially if you know it's real? God has never cast him out of Heaven though and he doesn't know why. It's probably something that hangs over his head like the Sword of Damocles.

Letting go is not an easy task. Aziraphale has always been an angel. He didn't have his identity ripped from him the same way that Crowley did. Crowley had to adapt to a brand new way of existing because he was cast out of Heaven.

Crowley's trauma is evident on the outside. Aziraphale's trauma is hidden on the inside. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Crowley was an angel and then he was a demon, but he doesn't want to be labeled as either.

Aziraphale has only ever known how to be an angel. He's only ever known the ways of Heaven.

I'm only in my early 40s. It has taken me 20+ years to undo 12 years of religious abuse. Aziraphale is immortal. He and Crowley have abandoned their jobs, but four years in the space of millions isn't a lot. No one overcomes indoctrination in four years. Especially when you had millions of years of blind obedience indoctrinated into you. It simply does not work that way no matter how much you want to believe it can.

It has taken me more than two decades to learn how to stop hating myself. I still have no idea how to love myself, but it's something I'm trying to learn.

My entire identity was wrapped up in what the church told me it would be. Once I fully denounced it and all organized religion, I found out I had no idea who I was. No one had prepared me for a life outside of this one very specific identity and role that I was expected to fill based on a very specific box I was placed into.

I still struggle with black and white concepts. It's hard to unlearn when you have no other basis for comparison, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. It means that these changes do not and will not ever happen overnight.

The fall didn't just affect the demons though. It affected the angels as well. Look at how tightly wound the angels are. They're always trying to do the good thing, but they have no idea what that actually means, and you realize this when Uriel asks The Metatron if they had done something wrong. They are scared of making mistakes, but none of them know what they are supposed to be doing since Gabriel disrupted the status quo. You can see they are unsure of themselves and of each other. The concept of free will is so foreign to them, but Aziraphale showed all of them that it was in their grasp when he allowed Gabriel and Beelzebub to decide where to go so they could be together.

It takes a lot of audacity (and sheer ignorance) to dismiss Aziraphale as power-hungry and abusive.

Aziraphale did nothing to punish Gabriel and Beelzebub. He allowed them to leave because they were in love with each other, and he knows what that feels like. He thought he was about to get the same fate with Crowley until The Metatron showed up and refused to take no for an answer.

He doesn't want to fix Heaven because he thinks it's perfect. If he thought it was perfect he wouldn't want to fix it.

Aziraphale is going back into the Lion's Den. He knows what he's going up against. He's been humiliated and belittled and abused by Heaven for thousands of years.

His scars are there even though you can't see them, and he hides his pain with humor and silliness.

When I see people advocating for Aziraphale to suffer even more because they don't think he has suffered enough, I find myself sitting back in one of those classrooms in Catholic school being told that I deserve the bad things that happen to me because I somehow failed to measure up to some impossible metric. The cruelty of that mindset aimed at Aziraphale is kinda the reason Crowley hates Heaven in the first place because he's been there too.

And as someone who is processing religious trauma, it's disheartening to see people say that because Aziraphale has yet to fully let go of Heaven that he deserves harsher treatment. Crowley would definitely not agree with that sentiment.

[mekaqct]

bunny if he was a tumblr user

[saintcolumbiformes]

happy pride remember the sacred heart of Jesus beats for all lgbt people, too

[fictionadventurer]

St. John Henry Newman in the main text of Apologia Pro Vita Sua: I'm not going to address all of Mr. Kingsley's accusations. I'm just going to tell the full story of how my theological opinions developed over time, so I can refute the main charge that I was dishonest about my beliefs.

Newman in the appendix: I'm taking every one of those accusations and I am explaining in detail every single way he lacks reading comprehension. I am pulling quotes. I am keeping score.

[edwardseymour]

"Given the marathon that Jane’s uterus had just been through, it’s likely that her uterus would have a reduced capacity to contract and effectively expel the after-birth contents of her uterus; lengthy labours tend to shred the membranes, especially if, like Jane, her membranes had ruptured early in her labour. I believe that here is where the best intentions again contributed to disastrous consequences. Wanting to ensure the best possible outcome, Henry bucked confinement tradition by inviting male physicians into Jane’s lying-in chamber. While we might see a physician’s help as a good thing, please keep in mind that Tudor era physicians weren’t trained in obstetrics. Had Jane’s immediate postpartum been similar to the above description, a physician would likely not have been well-versed in how to manage it. Had the midwives noticed retained tissue, they probably would have known to remove the offending product, manually if necessary, causing Jane further discomfort. To a Tudor physician, this would have been appalling, and protocol dictated that the physicians had seniority. Had they forbade an intervention, it would not have occurred."

— Dayna Goodchild, Jane Seymour and the Birth of Edward VI: A Midwife's Opinion

[loopylivy]

Has anyone on here read Villette by Charlotte Brontë ???

I read this book last year with my parents (sometimes we do read-alouds while the others crochet or something) and it was simultaneously kinda boring and BONKERS??? Like I understand why Jane Eyre is the more famous book, but this one had some jewels in it. And I've never heard anyone talk about it before. So I'm curious if I can find my people on here. Has anyone read it, and if so/ what did you think??

[hyperlexichypatia]

**Cracks knuckles and wades into The Discourse**

"Can atheists be culturally Christian?" is entirely the wrong question.

Of course they can! Plenty of people don't believe in the religious doctrines of Christianity, but still do things like celebrate Christmas or Easter, have church weddings, and other culturally Christian activities. Take for example, me -- I'm a Deist who is also culturally Christian. Christianity is the religious lens I understand best, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

Plenty of atheists and broadly-secular people who live in majority-culturally-Christian places, like most of the U.S., also are often oblivious to the Christian basis of their cultural practices, and may think of culturally Christian practices are "universal" or "secular" or "for everyone." This comes up every time someone brings up the inappropriateness of public schools/places celebrating Christmas, when people come out of the woodwork to insist that of course Christmas isn't religious, they know plenty of secular people who celebrate it! (Note: This is often blamed on ex-Evangelicals, but I don't think that's fair. Ex-Evangelicals know what Christianity is. This is something I see more from people from secular families in mostly-secular areas who don't think about religious diversity because it's not relevant to their lives.) (Additional Note: Do not @ me with "WELL, ACTUALLY, Christmas is PAGAN--" No. Your history is oversimplified and bad. You are not celebrating Yule. You are not celebrating Saturnalia. You are celebrating Christmas, a heavily secularized Christian holiday with some cultural influences from European Pagan traditions.)

Additionally, many atheists/secularists/non-religious-people whose primary reference point for religion is Christianity (whether because they're ex-Christians themselves, or just because that's what they know from cultural osmosis) make broad, inaccurate assumptions about All Religion based on their projected understanding of Christianity, e.g. "I'm not religious because I don't believe that an omnipotent God controls everything in the universe and rewards or punishes people when they die." Okay, cool, but not all religions teach that, not all religious people believe that, not even all Christians believe that.

So, of course atheists can be culturally Christian, maybe without realizing it or thinking about it. Anyone who says they can't isn't paying attention! And that's why "Can atheists be culturally Christian?" is entirely the wrong question.

The right questions are "Is it reasonable to assume by default that anyone who lists their religion as 'atheist' or 'none' must actually be culturally Christian?" and "Is it reasonable to blame anything you don't like on 'cultural Christianity'?" and no! It's not!

Sometimes simply does not have a religious affiliation. And that's okay! There is a tendency to interpret "none of the above" as "Oh, so, the default thing, but a milder version of it," and that is... not accurate.

There's this vague sense that non-religious people aren't really a religious minority, that they're really just play-acting at being religiously marginalized, because after all, they're actually just non-devout Christians. Discrimination against non-religious people doesn't necessarily look the same as discrimination against religious people (like, there aren't atheist holidays that people are being denied time off work for), but it's still very real, and falls the hardest on non-religious people with the fewest cultural ties to Christianity, the very people erased by "Atheists are just cultural Christians" discourse.

Furthermore, the traits and beliefs and ideologies and biases that get called "culturally Christian" are often not actually unique to Christianity at all. Certain concepts, like an emphasis on redemption through death, are culturally Christian (although even that one is sometimes found in other religions), but to hear the people calling everything "culturally Christian" tell it, no other religion, culture, or philosophy on Earth has ever believed in virtue ethics, valued hard work and stigmatized "laziness", or been judgmental about petty infractions. Nor, I can't believe I have to say, is "Christians do it, so it's bad" a good argument against things like freedom of conscience or disability rights (neither of which are even especially popular among Christians).

The problem with way people are talking about "cultural Christians" isn't that atheists or other non-Christians can't be culturally Christian (of course they can) or that Christianity doesn't have pervasive influence in majority-Christian societies (of course it does). The problem is that people are using "culturally Christian" in inaccurate and nonsensical ways.

[mikakuna]

catholic jason would love mother mary like wdym there's another woman he can have a complicated parental relationship with

[ray-talks-all-day-long]

This is such a pet-peeve of mine but

The point of the concept of hell is the SAME as the point of the concept of karma. People who were wronged can let go of their anger because the person who wronged them will get what they deserve.