#and dont even start with me about religion

[icewindandboringhorror]

examining a seemingly normal image only to slowly realize the clear signs of AI generated art.... i know what you are... you cannot hide your true nature from me... go back where you came from... out of my sight with haste, wretched and vile husk

[meme-loving-stuck]

i remember being brought up christian like, almost concerned that i never felt a connection to any of the shit they were talkin about,

and when i was younger i was like "oh no! am i bad for not feeling connected to god?? is it bad i feel like my dead mom doesnt talk to me or watch over me?? am i horrible for pretending?????"

but turns out i just had Autism Powers that made me immune to it and i was able to completely sever myself from the idea of being Christian at the ripe old age of like 13. and it was such a HUGE comfort to see that there were all these other beliefs and spiritual sort of things that other people chose to believe in and didnt necessarily treat their beliefs as COLD HARD UNDENIABLE FACT the way christians treat the existence of god & heaven & hell

like now that i am older i know i was in fact traumatized by the culturally catholic beliefs my family held & forced on us all, but i am really immensely grateful that my child self looked at all the other aspects of christianity that would horrify most other children into behaving/conforming, and basically just went, "okay, source?"

and that was the end of that

[magioffire]

Cis occultists be like: i dig the imagery of baphomet and the divine rebis and the immaculate androgynous and use it all the time in my practice, but if I saw a trans person's pre op body I would throw up

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

My mom just sent a message to the family group chat suggesting that my siblings download the 'For the Strength of Youth' magazine on their Gospel Library app and talked about how much the youth magazines helped her testimony growing up and like, cool. Fine. Don't know why the 'sending random spiritual thoughts in the gc' thing started out of nowhere when it hadn't been a thing for a decade but this is just another one of those, and you're ofc allowed to talk about things that are significant in your life.

I don't think sending the 'What I Did When Someone Close to Me Challenged My Faith' article right afterwards was strictly necessary though 🙃

[br1ghtestlight]

i love worldbuilding so much. i love thinking about how various cartoons deal with concepts like death or religion and how different it is for everyone. how differently things developed like steven universe never developed religion has a human society (at least not in the way that we did) so they dont celebrate holidays like halloween or christmas bcuz the root origins of those holidays never happened and they dont say things like heaven or hell bcuz those concepts dont exist and the formation of the earth is COMPLETELY different all because of an alien invasion 10000 years ago. and adventure time has worldbuilding stuff too. i love when they use different words to refer to god or religion like oh my glob bcuz its different i love analyzing the history of worlds and why they are that way and how small things lead to big historical changes and wars omg.... thats what its all about babyy

[bitegore]

HUH. i think i just got, like attempted-converted but i did not notice LMFAO

[tragicomedys]

i really do wonder how lgbt muslims do it.

[transcendentaleclipse]

"Hazbin Hotel mocks Christianity!"

Y'all really don't want artists to have fun these days, do you?

[bubblebassfatass]

Trying to get back into witchcraft is hard, everyone wants to scam you, or they are wiccan. Which isn't just plain old witchcraft. Or both.

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[cruelsister-moved2]

sc below:

i hate this post wheneveri see it sorry lol i can smell the supersessionism. ‘there’s an old jewish story’ yep because judaism is just a quirky abstract reminiscence to help u fix the brokenness of ur own religion and not like a completely different religion with its own theology and philosophy unrelated to urs. there are no people it belongs to or thinkers it produces there is simply an ‘old story’ which you can now insert ur own very specific cultural understandings and theological baggage onto without wondering what the person who said that actually meant by it and if theywould enjoy u using it 2 talk about the guy who invented antisemitism n was forced down their throats for the next 2000 years 

[pantestudines]

"American Civil Religion" is grossly fascinating as a concept to me. Its shitty. It's fascist. I was raised in it. It still holds power over me in ways I hate. But It's inherently goofy... the only people really inducted Into it are like boy scouts and kids who were made to do student government in elementary school. Despite being obviously Christian the adherence to the first ammendment has turned it almost secular and, I think I could say, nontrinitarian? Like there's really only the One God in American Civil religion and as long as you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise Very Monotheistic its okay to worship him however you want. "jesus" isn't really a factor in it, just "God". Being an Athiest, however, even a culturally Christian one, is less acceptable. The flag is a holy icon, one with an intricate series of Rituals only rrally enforced by the initiated. Native Americans are treated like wise sages whose wisdom was passed on directly to the founding fathers (and I should note my absolute distaste in this practice here-- American Civil Religion really is awful in most cases but this one always makes my skin crawl). The military might as well be priests, because all of the "rituals" in American Civil Religion are directly tied to military practice. But that only really extends to officers and the ones in ritual... out of costume soldiers or those in normal combat gear aren't sanctified in the same way. Any career path is lauded, however, at least as Long as you are both upper middle class and providing a direct service to the country. Weirdly it almost sees businessmen as outsiders-- sometimes trustworthy, but the private citizen who isn't involved in the Scouts or VFWs or something are taught to be almost like sheep that one must protect. That's the point of the religion, to protect and serve "America's citizens". Or, more accurately, the state itself, but thats obvious. Actual conservatives and especially rural ones have a much different idea of Patriotism, I think. They don't trust the state, only the soldiers and the land they stole. They also want everyone to be conservatives. They value individual freedoms (as long as you use them to be an evangelical gun toting farmer). Meanwhile in American Civil Religion... you can be a Democrat, you can live in cities. They don't mind, and often do, appeal to the capital L "Liberals". They just want you to respect and revere the senate and capital buildings as places of worship. A different kind of patriotism. The only laws or religious observances seem to be the laws of the federal government itself, and perhaps whatever someone who outranks you tells you to do. I wonder how many people even really grew up with it as their only religious Influence, like I did? Is this what the elite politicians are raised to believe by their elite politician parents? Or do they just grimly control the strings, donating to ROTC programs and performing flag burnings for 90 year old veterans to boost vote numbers? Or is this religion purely for shitheads named Eric whose parents were rich and who could never understand why his attitudes towards money and race and politics were off-putting to his poorer friends? (And the friends who in turn didn't realize yet why Eric's money and spoiledness off-put them so much?) Hopefully the whole damn thing gets dismantled soon enough I will never have to find out, but until that day I will remain distantly intrigued.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[oasisofgalaxies]

worldbuilding is hard, kids

[cute-chamomile]

The thing about the ultra religious greek orthodoxs i used to know is that they pose themselves and the entire orthodox christian establishment as the guardians of culture and tradition, but that is true ONLY IF the tradition is directly linked with orthodox christianism. Even some very benign traditions - like wearing a Marti bracelet as to not "get burned by the spring sun", is seen as dumb, God-defying, silly little thing that christians definitely shouldn't do, instead of a symbol of, just, spring finally coming back. A simple bracelet made out of two red and white strings wrapped together, usually made by grandma for the entire family, that you're supposed to wear until easter or until you see the first swallow of the year.

[diyvampyrism]

researching bible questions as someone who isn't really religious anymore is so frustrating because all the first sources on google are like faithlove, lifeandhope, or churchy mcchurchface whose main goal isn't to give you just the facts but something "to think about" or "pray on"