#apocryphal antithesis

[sburbian-sage]

I've got a bit of an odd situation. See, we picked up a Rage Player between sessions. Quiet guy, bit of an asshole at times, really his short swords. He keeps talking about his dream self doing paperwork on derse? And being surrounded by windows? And some overarching conspiracy to murder nobility or something? Our new Sage of Time, they were a Prince last game, said something about how the newbie had ecto-biological data from some "SS" entity in-game. I guess I'm supposed to fuck up our new player's ecto-biological cloning or something. I'm not happy about it, nobody's happy about it, this has not been a good time. All I know is, is that I don't think we're prepared to face off against a glitch dream-self that may or may not be a derse carpacian or something. ( How do you even god-tier that? I don't know, and our Thief of Rage is, well, raging about it. ) Do you have any advice? ... Also is it bad to be a Bard twice in a row? I don't mind being the Bard. But, if it consists of getting lost on the battlefield twice, and potentially missing the final boss battle (again), I'm going to be very annoyed.

Wear your codpiece with pride, soldier. And invest in a map.

Also I think I'm connecting the pieces. The "SS entity" is probably Spades Slick, the Scurrilous Straggler, the Sovereign Slayer. Jack Noir. Which would explain the player's dreamself 1) being confined to Derse, which is where Jack Noir lives 2) being confined to bureaucracy in an office, which is what Jack Noir does 3) doing weird murderous conspiracies, which is what Jack Noir does when he's not handling bureaucracy. Also wait hold on a fucking second, are you implying your Thief of Rage is like, The Son of Jack Noir. Did I read that correctly. Are you telling me your player shares DNA with Jack Fucking Noir. These asks are gonna drive me to drink one day.

I choose not to believe that your Thief of Rage is the secret lovechild of Jack Noir because briefly considering it caused me to curl up into a ball involuntarily for several hours. It was like an instinct.

In the event that your Thief of Rage is the secret lovechild of Jack Noir, I really wish that SBURB's coding didn't disable suicide, and also I legitimately don't know how his ectobiological code mixes with a player's in such a manner that their dreamself becomes him(???) but not the actual player. This is all bullshit, if this is true then good luck. You broke me, congratulations.

The much more likely possibility is Apocryphal Antithesis. Essentially, your Thief of Rage is missing a sleep ratio stat, and so their Dreamself is a distinct entity with its own agenda. I imagine that it's co-ordinating with Jack Noir to murder all of you, because that's typically what happens with Apocryphal Antithesis (the murder part, not the Jack collab itself). The good news is, if you're in a position to God Tier, just do it. Your Thief of Rage can't, y'know, by himself, but if one of you takes him behind the shack and onto his Quest Bed, his dreamself will automatically merge with him as he ascends. Indeed, even if it isn't Apocryphal Antithesis (I refuse to believe the other option), this might fix it anyway. If there's anything weird about your Dreamself, god-tiering is the "turn it on and off again" of solutions. Highly effective and simple and everyone should try resorting to that immediately.

[homestuckmusicbracket]

Savior of the Dreaming Dead - Apocryphal Antithesis

[committeeof100]

Diagnosis Regime

I will never not love this quote. Lemme say this. The collective is first between the individual and the collective- when an individual is born, the collective gets the first punch- it is the thesis. However, some intangible thing, call it brain chemistry, call it a soul, call it whatever you’d like, serves as the antithesis, a truly unique thing melds together with societal expectations and adds its own unique flourishes- it reaches synthesis until the next go around. Certainly I use the autistic label to define myself and my actions, but that label is still an imposed one, I am ultimately alone in the world, but so is everyone. To quote Nixon in Secret Honor, who himself is quoting an apocryphal line from the Great Helmsman: “I am alone, with the People behind me.” And so, the Marxian ideal applies here also- by creating endless diagnoses and labels, whatever it is you’d like to call it, that is to say, the oppressor class and their minions in psychology, psychiatry, policing, etc., create their own ruin, eventually we all shall realize our humanity, the arc of history bending at last towards justice, and the crude individualism imposed by the bourgeoise will topple in favor of that of a truly human collecto-individuality.

[daily-homestuck-song]

Today's Homestuck song is Apocryphal Antithesis!

By Clark Powell, from The Felt.

[gnu-paint]

All the stuff I've read

A list of all the MSPA and MSPFA I've read, approximately in order of when I read them

Feel free to ask me about any of them, this list will be light on commentary/reviews as its more of a log book

Up to date on mean that this work is still updating/unfinished but I have read to the most recent update and am keeping up with updates as they are released

Anyways the list

Homestuck : In middle school I read up to the gigapause, but it was on a tablet that didn't run flash and I was also afraid of the pesterlogs and didn't read anything until dialogue boxes showed up so a very incomplete read but still sort of my first dive into homestuck so I'm putting it here

Be the Sea dweller Lowblood (forever unfinished): Read it here (this is a link to any archive as it was at some point deleted from MSPFA)

Heinous Stuck (forever unfinished) : Read it here (massive Content warning for Body Horror)

Vast Error : Up to date on - Read it Here

HackBent : Up to date on - Read it here

Sovereignstuck : Up to date on - one of the newest works on this list, not very long so far but promising - Read it here

Problem Sleuth : Started Dec. 12 2023 - Finished (including extras) Dec. 13 2023 - Read it Here

Midnight Sleuth : Started Dec. 13 2023 - Finished Dec. 13 2023 - Read it here

Dead Shuffle : Started Dec. 13 2023 - Finished Dec. 13 2023 - Read it here

Apocryphal Antithesis : Started Dec. 13 2023 - Finished Dec. 14 2023 - Read it Here

Matrydom (on hiatus) : Started Dec. 14 2023 - up to latest update Dec 14 2023 - Read it Here

HSETAU (On Hiatus) : Started Dec. 14 2023 -

SlickStuck (On Hiatus?): Started Dec. 16 2023 - Finished Dec. 16 2023 - Read it here

[elisaenglish]

“Wearing nothing but snakeskin boots, I blazed a footpath, the first radical road out of that old kingdom toward a new unknown. When I came to those great flaming gates of burning gold, I stood alone in terror at the threshold between Paradise and Earth. There I heard a mysterious echo: my own voice singing to me from across the forbidden side. I shook awake— at once alive in a blaze of green fire.

Let it be known: I did not fall from grace.

I leapt to freedom.”

-Ansel Elkins, Autobiography of Eve-

My wonder as to seasons in the light may not chime with yours. This should not surprise you. Nor do I think that sophistry alone can explain the apocryphal thread that anchors her to me, and her to your subconscious. She was, so I am. That’s how it goes. That’s how it feels. That’s how it is, lest you stoop to static lines or circumvention; stoicism wrapped like it’s a whole new package—and it’s really fucking not.

Glance here, gaze back. Look already. After all, the out means nothing if you don’t have the in. Psychological strata feeds the philosophical deep, and nothing happens in a vacuum. Take a minute, work your way around that one. Then breathe.

Oh, and don’t fetishise your adverbs. What matters, matters—it needs no validation. And yes, if you’re perched there on a different page, you’ll likely want to wait it out. But, God, to ask: What’s the point? Who’s the point? One me, one you, a collective we, an ulterior voice? Or passion? I hear it’s what we live for. But does it make you want to come, as myth dissolves to truth?

Sex, desire, rebellion. Even the list beats like a pulse. Then there’s the conceptual diversity of fall, falling, fallen... And of course, its reversal. Not that a suffix denied was ever the plan. Yet, as Milton writes in Paradise Lost, it is our core humanity—to be separate but united, apart and a part in simultaneity, simply to be, loved in hopeful paradox or at least to hover there in maybes.

Recounting the first moments of her life, for example, Milton’s Eve is alive with awe:

“That day I oft remember, when from sleep I first awak’t, and found my self repos’d Under a shade on flours, much wondring where And what I was, whence thither brought, and how. Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound Of waters issu’d from a Cave and spread Into a liquid Plain, then stood unmov’d Pure as th’ expanse of Heav’n; I thither went With unexperienc’t thought, and laid me downe On the green bank, to look into the cleer Smooth Lake, that to me seem’d another Skie.”

Here, at the sensual apex of birth, images commingle and bathe us in an overwhelming liquidity. In direct antithesis to the virulent vanity so frequently used to mischaracterise her literal genesis, she is unaware that the reflection in the water is her own. Instead, she explains:

“As I bent down to look, just opposite, A Shape within the wat’ry gleam appeer’d Bending to look on me, I started back, It started back, but pleas’d I soon return’d, Pleas’d it return’d as soon with answering looks Of sympathie and love.”

Innocence lingers in the childlike gesture; this visual cat-and-mouse with the surface flicker she identifies only as her nature produces genuine fascination—not via a remote eye but with a cohesive perception of self and other. Something neither objective nor subjective but, rather, both. This mirroring process possesses of itself a charming veneer and, albeit flawed, speaks of connection with the decorative substance of her surroundings. However, soon filtered through the divine perspective of paternal authority, she becomes transformed, distorted—the archetypal sinner ripe for an allegorical picking:

                                   “there I had fixt Mine eyes till now, and pin’d with vain desire, Had not a voice thus warn’d me, What thou seest, What there thou seest fair Creature is thy self, With thee it came and goes: but follow me, And I will bring thee where no shadow staies Thy coming, and thy soft imbraces, hee Whose image thou art, him thou shall enjoy Inseparablie thine, to him shalt beare Multitudes like thy self, and thence be call’d Mother of human Race: what could I doe, But follow strait, invisibly thus led? Till I espi’d thee, fair indeed and tall, Under a Platan, yet methought less faire, Less winning soft, less amiablie milde, Then that smooth wat’ry image; back I turn’d.”

Framed in this way, she sees herself in retrospect, a narcissist forced to obey this godly call despite her abject longings. In his mouth, her aesthetic form is subverted to a “shadow” and, hence, she is stripped of agency, ordered to bear Adam’s primordial everything, without fear, without question. Even in language, she must be an echo of his discourse, a stagnant facsimile of his ideas alone. Rather to be alone, one is inclined to feel. Rather anything than this.

As for him, Adam cries:

                                             “Return fair Eve, Whom fli’st thou? whom thou fli’st, of him thou art, His flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent Out of my side to thee, neerest my heart Substantial Life, to have thee by my side Henceforth an individual solace dear; Part of my Soul I seek thee, and thee claim My other half.”

Thus unfolds his uncritical stance, solidified and maintained in the essence of his dominion yet as weak as the unformed clay from which he was reputedly forged to rule. Eve, in her turn, is a lost thing. Autonomy hangs in the peripherals of memory but cannot transfigure itself from abstract to singularity whilst his foundational condition must, by decree, invalidate hers.

Not that she rejects him; there’s no tangible reference to refusal. In fact, she accepts their interrelatedness, recalls his “gentle hand” and “[h]ow beauty is excell’d by manly grace/ And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.” Some might even call this love, here complicit on a precipice surrendered of its right to be unshackled.

Unchatteled, perchance?

And so with Eve, we discern the seed that asks as much, demands those raw permissions just to burn. But not with him so much as a spell of sole potential:

                                                     “with eyes Of conjugal attraction unreprov’d, And meek surrender, half imbracing lean’d On our first Father, half her swelling Breast Naked met his.”

Sexual only so far as a fraction of the whole, his only so deep as a cursory caress purports to know one’s flesh, she is artfully detached. Still, yearning pervades her cognitive fervour—the sacred interior surfaced, this time, “half” in dream. At night, liberated from Adam’s mediating presence, she marvels at her Edenic idyll:

“With this her solemn Bird and this fair Moon, And these the Gemms of Heav’n, her starrie train: But neither breath of Morn when she ascends With charm of earliest Birds, nor rising Sun On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, floure, Glistring with dew, nor fragrance after showers, Nor grateful Evening mild, nor silent Night With this her solemn Bird, nor walk by Moon, Or glittering Starr-light without thee is sweet. But wherfore all night long shine these, for whom This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?”

Vivid, vital, imagination roams this landscape that in slumber may be hers—discrete from him, unbridled. Subject to the female gaze—or, more broadly, to that of an individual unencumbered by blind faith or fealty—nature shines in harmony with an experiential wealth defined by independence. Concomitant with her own desires, she henceforth evolves.

Of course, a less forgiving interpretation might classify this—and her dream in its entirety—as a crude gateway to darkness, division. Even she weeps at first, fearing both the sheer possibility and prospective isolation of her solitude. Consequently, she returns to the bower with Adam seated protectively “[at] the door,” though it can be but a temporary retreat when her intimate communion with “bud and bloom” exemplifies a deeper drive for sovereign selfhood and the natural complements of the extrinsic realm.

As Milton writes:

“Was I to have never parted from thy side? As good have grown there still a liveless Rib.”

What, and what of me?—she exclaims. The rudimentary extension of him as her no longer holds despite the grief of a fractured union. Can she be blamed, excoriated for such? Is this not so much the devil in the details as a human set to live as if by heart? Fallible, perhaps—but true. And not unfelt, just preferred. Counter to senses long deprived and any masculine equivocations to their impoverished worth.

And yes, you can argue that none of this comes to pass without Satan’s machinations. But weak wills be damned. If Eve’s condemned to wear this anachronistic albatross around her neck, it will be by her choice not that of the petulant serpent beneath. She fled a dyadic construct, after all—fuck ladening her with more of the symbolic same, either then or in perpetuity.

Instead, Milton highlights distinctions as a prevailing theme and it is Satan’s precise appeal to them that forms the principal seduction. As he asserts:

“In this enclosure wild, these Beasts among, Beholders rude, and shallow to discerne Half what in thee is fair, one man except, Who sees thee? (and what is one?) who shouldst be seen A Goddess among Gods, ador’d and serv’d By Angels numberless, thy daily Train.”

Hence it seeps from innate psyche to elemental being, fecundity thrust through her own stricken blood and eased into a servile state no more. Is it vanity? Lust? Superficially, perhaps. But right there at its seeded crux, that apple proffers “reason”.

Still, once consumed, knowledge brings renewed remorse. Eve’s lament that “I extinct/ A death to think,” compels her to veer back to Adam for:

“So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.”

Recognised at last, affection swells. And Adam, for his part, emulates her in quite the same devotional vein:

“So forcible within my heart I feel The Bond of Nature draw me to my owne, My own in thee, for what thou art is mine; Our State cannot be sever’d, we are one, One Flesh; to loose thee were to loose my self.”

Fusion, however, is not to be. Once rent, they are sentenced to be exiled forth. Nonetheless, Milton presents Eve as resolved in her constituent parts. An otherness unbound, sapience to displace shame, poised for extrapolation. In feminist terms, she is a sin transposed, piety in pursuit of self, the “narrow circuit” to be gone.

Does that make her like me, in me? Does it hell, or maybe heaven—who knows? Hermeneutics has its place, but honestly? She bequeaths an inheritance either way. Epistemologically, existentially. Unleashed from the standard tropes, pretensions. Free, and so because...

She thought—and fielded us tenacity to question.

[tietaejae]

deletion

i sift through the labyrinthian coral of my interwoven memories and dreams

the mixing tides of foreign seas

rivers that knot in rapid rushed untying

i’m looking for the key, a silver slender treasure, weighty block of black iron, black plastic usb

the wisdom buried amid my apocryphal flotsam

the small antagonist, furtive magnetised Achilles’ heel, terminal moksha realisation

how to terminate your being

drape you in wet rotting black leaves and dirt

unhinge your jaw, gently tearing it like a hangnail along your spasming neck

how to halt, silence you in amicable speech

catalyse your antithesis

end your advance of thought

deter you from my sliver of our social hemisphere

[13lack-cat]

been listening to The Felt album while writing an essay tonight. just confusedly rifled through the tracks after i realised I hadn’t heard one of my favourites, before eventually realising that the tune I was looking for was in fact, one of the tracks played backwards

[iamthescalesofjustice]

it is a crime that apocryphal antithesis is only three minutes long. like none of the other tracks in the felt even carry the same feel. hello i need no less than one entire motion picture soundtrack worth of songs composed by extrapolating from apocryphal antithesis and i need it by yesterday. 

[utopianparadoxist]

This time we dig into Gamzee's recurring links to the masks of Comedy and Tragedy, historical worship of the Greek god of Theatre, Dionysus, and what all of this tells us about Gamzee's arc and, potentially, even the Rage aspect.

Today's question is: Can you think of other trolls with strong ties to figures in Greecoroman/Egyptian/Judeo-Christian mythologies?

You can find links to sources & support the project at: https://www.patreon.com/optimisticDuelist

Find the music on bandcamp! Purple Bard: https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/... Apocryphal Antithesis: https://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/... Entangled with the Void: https://spellmynamewithabang.bandcamp...

Fanart source: Ikimaru http://ikimaru.tumblr.com

More on Theater @ Crash Course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeTeK...

[demonologist-in-denim]

A is for Assbutt

A is for Assbutt #37-41

For all the Supernatural fanfiction writers out there.

Antecedent; noun

The ancestor of an existing product or idea.

The boy’s method of researching and hunting is an antecedent of the Men of Letters before the purge in the 1950’s by Abbadon.

  Antidisestablishmentarianism; noun

A movement or protest against an established institution or authority.

Both Heaven and Hell suffered quite a bit of antidisestablishmentarianism after the failed apocalypse: no angel could command full control, and the demons seemed in constant rebellion against their King. 

(Will you ever use this word in a fanfic? Unlikely. But it is an absolutely wonderful word!)

  Antithesis; noun

The exact opposite.

Humanity is antithesis to demons.

  Aphorism; noun

A proverb.

We all know the aphorism, “Saving people, hunting things; the family business.”

  Apocryphal; adjective

An event, story, legend or rumor that has been told so often, and so long after the fact that one has good reason to doubt its authenticity.

Among future generations of hunters, the story of the Winchesters will make quite the apocryphal tale, and no one will know exactly what was true and what was exaggerated.

So close to the end of the As.

[sburbian-sage]

Any tips and/or tricks for taking down a god tier Ward of Flow? The clouds showed me a vision of him seemingly doing his very best to kill me (Scout of Breath, not GT yet but I had the jammies in the vision). I’m hoping it was just a very intense sparring session or something but like… I’m not betting my life on sburb being nicer than anticipated.

Most specifically, is it true that Flow players are immune to heat-based damage? Like, the vision had us RIGHT next to the Forge, and I'm not sure whether to consider chucking him in there a non-lethal option or an everything's-gone-to-shit option.

I think Flow Players are immune to their own heat-based abilities, but not fire in general. Then again, Doom players can drink poison and come out fine, and there was that one Sand player report I got (but he might have just been built different). In any case, I think lava hurts, and you might want to live by the ancient words of wisdom, "don't throw anything into a volcano that you aren't willing to destroy".

As far as the combat capabilities of a Ward of Flow, obviously expect Fire. Your Breath abilities should be equal to his in terms of destructive capability, and you might have the edge in terms of elemental rock-paper-scissors "wind extinguishes fire". Not to imply that SBURB actually has an element system, just that magic wind will probably beat magic fire unless you do something stupid and fan the flames. His being a Ward is a huge advantage, seeing as how his Aspect more or less is going to try and directly protect him, and because Inheritors generally have success handed to them. At the same time, as a Breath Player but especially as a Scout, your movement abilities are unparalleled. The prophecy seems to indicate that you're going to take a bit of a beating, but escaping with your life is entirely possible. Basically, prioritize speed and magic over physical offense/defense and you might be able to wing this one. In addition to such other gems as "alchemize better equipment and gadgets" and "have more people on your side".

We should never forget the most simple advice, which is "consider maybe talking about this". Prophecies are prophecies, but the "why" is just as important as the "what". If he genuinely is planning on killing you, then he probably won't immediately try (or at least can't succeed) until the confrontation on the Forge. If he doesn't, and you voice your concern, then maybe it will indeed just be a rough sparring session, and you get your ass kicked but survive (the good ending). Maybe it's something more stupid, like you have a fashionista player who makes replica versions of your god hoodies before you actually god tier, and you undergo an Apocryphal Antithesis so now your evil dreamself wearing a disguise tries to kill the Ward of Flow, and it's a good thing if the guy-that-looks-like-you gets killed or beaten. You can laugh at that last bit, but shit stupider than that has happened before. You can't break a prophecy, but it sure as hell can be bent into looking like some wacky out-of-context stuff. If you've seen JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, you'll understand.

[floralived]

         words  have  never  come  easy  to  her,  even  after  teaching  own  tongue  to  speak  them.    what,  then,  is  a  warrior  of  beloved  light  to  say  in  face  of  darkness  incarnate,  the  antithesis  of  her  very  being ?   what  could  she  possibly  want  to  hear  from  a  creature  of  evil ?   her  blood  boils  at  the  mere  mention  of  conversing  in  lieu  of  a  confrontation  that  would  pit  light  against  darkness.   do  as  she  always  has  :  vanquish  the  wicked.    ( no  time,  no  time  —  nonsense !  )   how  often  has  he  stood  within  reach  of  blade  and  spell  alike ?   let  her  suffocate  the  hesitation  festering  ‘neath  a  heart  begging  to  give  esteemed  paragon  the  same  benefit  of  the  doubt  she  does  everyone  else.  

holy  keeper  of  peace   /   weapon  forged  in  blessed  blood  :  a  champion  divine !   what  need  have  you  of  compromise ?   o’  child  of  mother  moon,  betrayal  is  as  much  a  companion  as  death.  would  you  have  this  one  betray  you  as  well ?   take  not  a  hand  offered  by  the  darkness,  it  will  only  end  in  tragedy.  

        though  unrest  is  writ  clear  ‘pon  subtle  furrow  of  her  brows  and  the  continuous  sway  of  sharp — edged  tail,  deeper  still  it  runs  in  the  most  subtle  ways,  carved  into  marrow  of  a  straightened  spine  and  the  fingers  tightened  ‘round  staff.   mistake  not  her  serenity  for  peace.   long  has  it  ceased  to  reside  in  a  heart  made  to  bleed  time  and  again,  settling  instead  amidst  high — strung  nerves,  ready  to  carve  a  righteous  path  through  whomsoever  would  make  themselves  an  obstacle.   the  firstblessed  wears  serenity  as  a  liar  would  their  mask :  to  hide  the  ugly  truth.  

          a  gentle  sigh,  then,  easing  neither  her  shoulders  nor  mind,  yet  still  softening  the  edges  of  sharp  glint  ‘neath  moonlit  eyes.   ❛ storyteller, ❜   confident  but  airy,  as  though  spoken  to  herself,  yet  clearly  addressing  enigmatic  paragon.   lightest  tilt  of  qestir’s  head  and  knuckles  of  a  hand  brush  scaled  chin.  a  daunting  task,  to  speak.   but  the  thought  of  beloved  silence  being  read  by  such  a  creature ?   revolting.   ❛ ‘tis  a  fanciful  tale,  the  yarn  you  spin, ❜   and  though  lacking  in  disbelief,  it  gracefully  dances  ‘pon  edge  betwixt  condescension  and  curiosity  —  her  eyes  tell :  she  knows.   and  this  she  allows  an  adversery  to  read  ‘pon  deceptively  calm  facade,  a  challenge  unspoken,  not  of  blade  and  spell,  but  of  truth  and  belief.    ❛ apocryphal. ❜

˗ˋˏ * ✿ ˖°  STARTER  /  @klymenos​​​​ .

[smokeybrand]

Exodus

Listening to church people talk about why so many people are leaving the church is kind of amazing. I can only speak from my experience as to why i bailed, but I've spoken to other people who decided to walk away and there's no one answer. Losing one's faith is as personal as finding it but there is a common thruway among all of our journeys away from Christ; The answers weren't there. No one just wakes up and decides "F*ck Jesus from now on." Like with anything you devote yourself to, there is a period of extreme crisis when face with it's end. If you leave a job after twenty years, there's apprehension of what comes next. Now, imagine what that's like for someone who is questioning a core piece of themselves which they use a defining aspect. People interchange who they are with their faith all the time. It's as automatic as breathing in a lot of cases. But then, all of a sudden, you are aware of your breath and you have no idea if you're doing it right or if you're doing it at all. That's what it's like to have a spiritual crisis. You don't want to question these things that literally give you life but you can't stop once you start. You search for reasons to maintain, to stay. You want, so desperately, for that one thing to flip the switch again but it never comes. This period of searching can last years. For me, it was watching my grandma pass. That took around a year. By the time she breathed her last, i was out. A cat i went to school with started questioning his own faith around the same time i did, probably about eleven or twelve years old, but it took him a decade to actually feel comfortable enough to walk away, all the while doing what i did when i was a teenager; searching for answers that made sense, that made faith, worth.

No one just bails on their faith without a strong period of study, introspection, or inward journey. It's never taken lightly but, once you start down that road, you rarely deviate from the path. Once the scales fall from your eyes, you can't put them back. It's been about twenty-five years since i stopped believing and never once have i wanted to come back to the church or regretted my decision to walk away. In that time, I've learned so much more about my former faith, the context of it's construction, it's historical merit, and the way it's weaponized by bad actors as a means of domination or control. The more i learned, the more problematic faith became. The better i understand the motivations behind the Word, the less i could hear it. The thing that really solidified my defection came in a philosophy book I read my sophomore year of high school. It wasn't something difficult to understand or an unknowable theory. When i was fifteen, i came across the Epicurus God Paradox. You can google that to find out the exact wording but reading those eight simple lines, really put into perspective what i had felt for about three years up to that point. I went from questioning myself, to questioning the religion, itself. I didn't get any answers. The questions weren't hard and the answers given made more sense than anything I read in the Bible, but no one else who championed the Good Book, had a satisfactory rebuttal. No one could give me the answers i needed to sate my curiosity which led me to believe there are no answers to be had. There is no endgame, there is no wisdom to be had, there is nothing but the promise. It's a carrot on the end of a stick. We were being lead around in circles by men two thousand years in the grave.

That didn't make any sense to me so i began to dig deeper. If the faith, itself couldn't answer my query, then maybe the historical evidence they tout as proof, would hold at least some answers. Once again, all I got was ore questions. studied the genesis of Jewish faith, i looked into how the creation myths tied to other, non-Christian, religions. I learned about the apocryphal texts like The Book of Judas, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Book of Enoch, and The Book of Thomas. The Dead Sea scrolls are apocryphal texts, too, so why are those accepted and these others denied? Who chose to canonize these books and why? That led me to the Council of Nicaea which immediately, in my mind, invalidated every interpretation of the Word from that moment on. The Council convened in 325 AD, two hundred and ninety-two years after Christ died. Everything in that bible was decided upon, by a bunch of rich, learned, white dudes, headed by Constantine I, three hundred years a after Jesus died as a tool to consolidate his power. The Bible is a propaganda tool created to pacify the ignorant masses. That really wasn't the answer I was looking for and definitely something no one taught when I was in the Church. More than any that, i saw the building blocks of the Jesus figure, going as far back as the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians. Those civilizations are thousands of years older than Jesus so how could he exists back then? If you're messiah is a facsimile, an amalgamation of other Chosen, what does that make his Word? All of these things, coincidences or not, informed my understanding that it's all just kind of made up. It's an interpretation of sh*t that came long before. It's all a game of telephone so who's to say what we're hearing at the end of that millennia upon millennia long line of whispers, is what was actually said in the first place?

How do we know the Word is actually the Word? The only answer i ever got was faith. You can't understand the word if you don't have faith. You need faith to paste over the glaring inaccuracy or logical fallacies that riddle the holy tenets. That's not enough for me, not when there is this overwhelming evidence otherwise. I can read about The Tower of Babel and cross check that information with historical fact, which repudiates the Biblical narrative. I can read the story of Noah's Flood and then point out the similarities between that and the Babylonian myth of The Great Deluge, which was written centuries before. I can even go a step further and note that, at the time time the Deluge myth was being told in Babylon, that the people who would become the Jews as we know them today, were a serf class among the Babylonians. Who's to say that Noah's Flood wasn't simply an appropriation from the higher social caste? There's even evidence that the Deluge myth was being told long before Babylon. I learned all of this after stumbling across Epicurus' paradox so long ago. How can you stay faithful to a religion that can be dismantled so simply by four questions asked by a man who lived thousands of years ago? How do you have no rebuttal for the tangible and factual evidence that can deconstruct the fulcrum of your entire belief system, and expect people to just ignore that? That's why people leave the church. The catalyst is always different but the resolution is always the same. It's not that we want to sin or that youth programs are too fun or that college leads the way to secularism, or whatever else. No, it's that faith isn't enough to cover those glaring holes in religious narrative. We are not afraid of the dark or eclipses or sacrificing maidens to sate the rage of a f*cking volcano anymore. We understand why those things are. We know that an earthquake isn’t a giant catfish throwing a tantrum or that the Oracles in Delphi weren’t having visions but were probably just really f*cking high. We got the answers we needed. Religion doesn't have tangible, rational, answers. It's all faith and belief, smoke and mirrors. It's all a big game of telephone and we all know how those games ended, right?

That said, I do find it hilarious that church folk think college is a primary issue for the exodus of faith among the youth. Like, you get to college, get around other opinions or perspectives, have a dialogue with people from completely different backgrounds or experiences, have access to a plethora of information you'd never had before and, all of a sudden, you question your faith? Really? That's the line of logic we really want to follow because it gets real problematic, bud. Kind of sounds a little bit like education is the antithesis to faith. Kind of makes it sound like you have to be ignorant and gullible to be buy into the Word. Kind of sounds like God wants to keep you barefoot and naked in the kitchen, so to speak which, interestingly enough, is kind of the the theme to Genesis? I don't know, man. It's said we got kicked out of Paradise for eating the Fruit of Knowledge, not for f*cking so... I'm not saying I believe that, I know folks who are super-religious and are incredibly intelligent, I'm saying that other church people seem to imply that with their aggressive biases toward higher education. “Keep your faith by not asking questions or learning yourself good” isn't the best pitch for people grasping at straws for a reason to continue believing. Like, it's really f*cking weird to me that Christians refer to themselves as sheep when, in any other context, that sh*t is not something in which to be proud.

[smokeybrandcompositions]

Exodus

Listening to church people talk about why so many people are leaving the church is kind of amazing. I can only speak from my experience as to why i bailed, but I've spoken to other people who decided to walk away and there's no one answer. Losing one's faith is as personal as finding it but there is a common thruway among all of our journeys away from Christ; The answers weren't there. No one just wakes up and decides "F*ck Jesus from now on." Like with anything you devote yourself to, there is a period of extreme crisis when face with it's end. If you leave a job after twenty years, there's apprehension of what comes next. Now, imagine what that's like for someone who is questioning a core piece of themselves which they use a defining aspect. People interchange who they are with their faith all the time. It's as automatic as breathing in a lot of cases. But then, all of a sudden, you are aware of your breath and you have no idea if you're doing it right or if you're doing it at all. That's what it's like to have a spiritual crisis. You don't want to question these things that literally give you life but you can't stop once you start. You search for reasons to maintain, to stay. You want, so desperately, for that one thing to flip the switch again but it never comes. This period of searching can last years. For me, it was watching my grandma pass. That took around a year. By the time she breathed her last, i was out. A cat i went to school with started questioning his own faith around the same time i did, probably about eleven or twelve years old, but it took him a decade to actually feel comfortable enough to walk away, all the while doing what i did when i was a teenager; searching for answers that made sense, that made faith, worth.

No one just bails on their faith without a strong period of study, introspection, or inward journey. It's never taken lightly but, once you start down that road, you rarely deviate from the path. Once the scales fall from your eyes, you can't put them back. It's been about twenty-five years since i stopped believing and never once have i wanted to come back to the church or regretted my decision to walk away. In that time, I've learned so much more about my former faith, the context of it's construction, it's historical merit, and the way it's weaponized by bad actors as a means of domination or control. The more i learned, the more problematic faith became. The better i understand the motivations behind the Word, the less i could hear it. The thing that really solidified my defection came in a philosophy book I read my sophomore year of high school. It wasn't something difficult to understand or an unknowable theory. When i was fifteen, i came across the Epicurus God Paradox. You can google that to find out the exact wording but reading those eight simple lines, really put into perspective what i had felt for about three years up to that point. I went from questioning myself, to questioning the religion, itself. I didn't get any answers. The questions weren't hard and the answers given made more sense than anything I read in the Bible, but no one else who championed the Good Book, had a satisfactory rebuttal. No one could give me the answers i needed to sate my curiosity which led me to believe there are no answers to be had. There is no endgame, there is no wisdom to be had, there is nothing but the promise. It's a carrot on the end of a stick. We were being lead around in circles by men two thousand years in the grave.

That didn't make any sense to me so i began to dig deeper. If the faith, itself couldn't answer my query, then maybe the historical evidence they tout as proof, would hold at least some answers. Once again, all I got was ore questions. studied the genesis of Jewish faith, i looked into how the creation myths tied to other, non-Christian, religions. I learned about the apocryphal texts like The Book of Judas, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Book of Enoch, and The Book of Thomas. The Dead Sea scrolls are apocryphal texts, too, so why are those accepted and these others denied? Who chose to canonize these books and why? That led me to the Council of Nicaea which immediately, in my mind, invalidated every interpretation of the Word from that moment on. The Council convened in 325 AD, two hundred and ninety-two years after Christ died. Everything in that bible was decided upon, by a bunch of rich, learned, white dudes, headed by Constantine I, three hundred years a after Jesus died as a tool to consolidate his power. The Bible is a propaganda tool created to pacify the ignorant masses. That really wasn't the answer I was looking for and definitely something no one taught when I was in the Church. More than any that, i saw the building blocks of the Jesus figure, going as far back as the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians. Those civilizations are thousands of years older than Jesus so how could he exists back then? If you're messiah is a facsimile, an amalgamation of other Chosen, what does that make his Word? All of these things, coincidences or not, informed my understanding that it's all just kind of made up. It's an interpretation of sh*t that came long before. It's all a game of telephone so who's to say what we're hearing at the end of that millennia upon millennia long line of whispers, is what was actually said in the first place?

How do we know the Word is actually the Word? The only answer i ever got was faith. You can't understand the word if you don't have faith. You need faith to paste over the glaring inaccuracy or logical fallacies that riddle the holy tenets. That's not enough for me, not when there is this overwhelming evidence otherwise. I can read about The Tower of Babel and cross check that information with historical fact, which repudiates the Biblical narrative. I can read the story of Noah's Flood and then point out the similarities between that and the Babylonian myth of The Great Deluge, which was written centuries before. I can even go a step further and note that, at the time time the Deluge myth was being told in Babylon, that the people who would become the Jews as we know them today, were a serf class among the Babylonians. Who's to say that Noah's Flood wasn't simply an appropriation from the higher social caste? There's even evidence that the Deluge myth was being told long before Babylon. I learned all of this after stumbling across Epicurus' paradox so long ago. How can you stay faithful to a religion that can be dismantled so simply by four questions asked by a man who lived thousands of years ago? How do you have no rebuttal for the tangible and factual evidence that can deconstruct the fulcrum of your entire belief system, and expect people to just ignore that? That's why people leave the church. The catalyst is always different but the resolution is always the same. It's not that we want to sin or that youth programs are too fun or that college leads the way to secularism, or whatever else. No, it's that faith isn't enough to cover those glaring holes in religious narrative. We are not afraid of the dark or eclipses or sacrificing maidens to sate the rage of a f*cking volcano anymore. We understand why those things are. We know that an earthquake isn’t a giant catfish throwing a tantrum or that the Oracles in Delphi weren’t having visions but were probably just really f*cking high. We got the answers we needed. Religion doesn't have tangible, rational, answers. It's all faith and belief, smoke and mirrors. It's all a big game of telephone and we all know how those games ended, right?

That said, I do find it hilarious that church folk think college is a primary issue for the exodus of faith among the youth. Like, you get to college, get around other opinions or perspectives, have a dialogue with people from completely different backgrounds or experiences, have access to a plethora of information you'd never had before and, all of a sudden, you question your faith? Really? That's the line of logic we really want to follow because it gets real problematic, bud. Kind of sounds a little bit like education is the antithesis to faith. Kind of makes it sound like you have to be ignorant and gullible to buy into the Word. Kind of sounds like God wants to keep you barefoot and naked in the kitchen, so to speak which, interestingly enough, is kind of the the theme to Genesis? I don't know, man. It's said we got kicked out of Paradise for eating the Fruit of Knowledge, not for f*cking so... I'm not saying I believe that, I know folks who are super-religious and are incredibly intelligent, I'm saying that other church people seem to imply that with their aggressive biases toward higher education. “Keep your faith by not asking questions or learning yourself good” isn't the best pitch for people grasping at straws for a reason to continue believing. Like, it's really f*cking weird to me that Christians refer to themselves as sheep when, in any other context, that sh*t is not something in which to be proud.

[selanpike]

i just read midnight sleuth, dead shuffle, and apocryphal antithesis all within the last 5 hours heLP ME

there is no help, only feels about dudes in hats