#do you even care about hinduism actually? or do you care more about bowing down to the western christians who support your nationalism?

[snekdood]

if same sex marriage is unnatural, why'd shiva and vishnu fuck hard and have a child?

[dwellordream]

“The most important thing to understand about most polytheistic belief systems is that they are fundamentally practical. They are not about moral belief, but about practical knowledge. Let’s start with an analogy:

Let’s say you are the leader of a small country, surrounded by a bunch – let’s say five – large neighbor countries, which never, ever change. Each of these big neighbors has their own culture and customs. Do you decide which one is morally best and side with that one? That might be nice for your new ally, but it will be bad for you – isolated and opposed by your other larger neighbors. Picking a side might work if you were a big country, but you’re not; getting in the middle is likely to get you crushed.

No. You will need to maintain the friendship of all of the countries at once (the somewhat amusing term for this in actual foreign policy is ‘Finlandization‘ – the art of bowing to the east without mooning the west, in Kari Suomalainen’s words). And that means mastering their customs. When you go to County B, you will speak their language, you wear their customary dress, and if they expect visiting dignitaries to bow five times and then do a dance, well then you bow five times and do a dance. And if Country C expects you to give a speech instead, then you arrive with the speech, drafted and printed. You do these things because these countries are powerful and will destroy you if you do not humor whatever their strange customs happen to be.

...Ah, but how will you know what kind of speech to write or what dance to do? Well, your country will learn by experience. You’ll have folks in your state department who were around the last time you visited County B, who can tell you what worked, and what didn’t. And if something works reliably, you should recreate that approach, exactly and without changing anything at all. Sure, there might be another method that works – maybe you dance a jig, but the small country on the other side of them dances the salsa, but why take the risk, why rock the boat? Stick with the proven method.

But whatever it is that these countries want, you need to do it. No matter how strange, how uncomfortable, how inconvenient, because they have the ability to absolutely ruin everything for you. So these displays of friendship or obedience – these rituals – must take place and they must be taken seriously and you must do them for all of these neighbors, without neglecting any (yes even that one you don’t like).

This is how these religions work. Not based on moral belief, but on practical knowledge (I should point out, this is not my novel formulation, but rather is rephrasing the central idea of Clifford Ando’s The Matter of the Gods (2008), but it is also everywhere in the ancient sources if you read them and know to look). Let’s break that down, starting with the concept of…

Knowledge. For the Roman (or most any ancient polytheist) there is never much question of if the gods exist. True atheism was extremely rare in the pre-modern world – the closest ancient philosophy gets to is Epicureanism, which posits that the gods absolutely do exist, but they simply do not care about you (the fancy theological term here is immanence (the state of being manifest in the material world). Epicureans believed the gods existed, but were not immanent, that they did not care about and were little involved with the daily functioning of the world we inhabit). But the existence of the gods was self-evident in the natural phenomena of the world. Belief was never at issue.

...This, of course, loops back to one of my favorite points about history: it is generally safe to assume that people in the past believed their own religion. Which is to say that polytheists genuinely believe there are many gods and that those gods have power over their lives, and act accordingly.

In many ways, polytheistic religions, both ancient and modern (by modern polytheisms, I mean long-standing traditional religious structures like Hinduism and Shinto, rather than various ‘New Age’ or ‘Neo-pagan’ systems, which often do not follow these principles), fall out quite logically from this conclusion. If the world is full of gods who possess great power, then it is necessary to be on their good side – quite regardless of it they are morally good, have appropriate life philosophies, or anything else. After all, such powerful beings can do you or your community great good or great harm, so it is necessary to be in their good graces or at the very least to not anger them.

Consequently, it does not matter if you do not particularly like one god or other. The Greeks quite clearly did not like Ares (the Romans were much more comfortable with Mars), but that doesn’t mean he stopped being powerful and thus needing to be appeased.

So if these polytheistic religions are about knowledge, then what do you need to know? There are two big things: first you need to know what gods exist who pertain to you, and second you need to know what those gods want.

Two things I want to pull out here. First: the exact nature and qualities of the gods do not really matter, because remember, the goal is practical results. Crops need to grow, ships need to sail, rain needs to fall and the precise length of Zeus’ beard is profoundly unimportant to those objectives, but getting Zeus to bring storms at the right times is indispensable. The nature of the gods largely does not matter – what matters is what you need to do to keep them happy.

Second, you may be saying – you keep ramming home the idea that you have to cultivate all of the gods – what is this ‘pertaining to you’ business? What I mean by this is that while the polytheist typically accepts the existence of vast numbers of gods (often vast beyond counting), typically only a subset of those gods might be immediately relevant. Some gods are tied to specific places, or specific families, or jobs, or problems – if you don’t live in that place, belong to that family, hold that job, etc., then you don’t need to develop a relationship with that god.

...Now, normally when you ask what the ancients knew of the gods and how they knew it, the immediate thought – quite intuitively – is to go read Greek and Roman philosophers discussing on the nature of man, the gods, the soul and so on. This is a mistake. Many of our religions work that way: they begin with a doctrine, a theory of how the divine works, and then construct ritual and practice with that doctrine as a foundation.

This is exactly backwards for how the ancients, practicing their practical knowledge, learn about the gods. The myths, philosophical discussions and well-written treatises are not the foundation of the religion’s understanding of the gods, but rather the foaming crest at the top of the wave. In practice, the ruminations of those philosophers often had little to do the religion of the populace at large; famously Socrates’ own philosophical take on the gods rather upset quite a lot of Athenians.

Instead of beginning with a theory of the divine and working forwards from that, the ancients begin with proven methods and work backwards from that. For most people, there’s no need to know why things work, only that they work. Essentially, this knowledge is generated by trial and error.

...I have found that students often find that this form of learning sounds very silly to them, at least at first glance. But we actually discover only a very few things theory-first, from first principles. Instead, we learn most of what we know this way. This is how you learned to farm, to cook, to work metal, to make crafts. This is how we learn most things in our daily lives – if not by trial and error directly by ourselves, then by benefiting from a chain of knowledge that eventually ends in someone else’s trial and error.

Crucially, for individuals living in a traditional, pre-modern society, this process of hard-won trial-and-error knowledge passed down through generations is how most of them know everything: how to do their jobs, live their lives, act on a daily basis, how the world works, all of it.”

- Bret Devereaux, “Practical Polytheism, Part I: Knowledge.”

[didanawisgi]

Is Yoga Kosher?

How a Modern Orthodox Jew struggled to reconcile her yogic practice with her Judaism by TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER, JANUARY 05, 2010

“A few years ago, freshly moved to Los Angeles, I started practicing yoga. I was feeling anxious and worried, and if I were still a New Yorker, I’d have gone on anti-depressants. But I’m a big believer in doing what the Romans do, and, as it turned out, yoga helped a lot. Now, in class, as I take my first bow—a stretch upward, followed by an open-armed dive to my toes—I am no longer thinking about survival. Instead, with room to breathe and think, I instead wonder about the implications of bowing, of doing yoga in the first place. Yoga, with its meditation, with its mysterious secrets and ties to Hinduism and Buddhism, isn’t just a physiological practice; it’s a spiritual one. And I am a Modern Orthodox Jew. By practicing yoga, I’m now forced to wonder, am I practicing a religion outside my own? Am I sinning before God?

When I first took up yoga, this question never occurred to me. I was dealing with a difficult time, but I had also abandoned my religious upbringing. I was at peace with a secular life that included some high-holiday observance and crippling guilt when I didn’t observe Passover. Now, married to a man who converted so that we could be together, I find myself running an Orthodox home. (You know the old joke: don’t date a non-Jew unless you want to end up really religious.) I’m surprisingly happy in my lifestyle, but I’m also realizing that a true immersion in yogic practice may very well be a violation of my Jewish one.

There is a statue of Ganesh, the Hindu diety, in the yoga studio I attend. At the end of the class, my instructor says, “Namaste,” and bows toward the class. In turn, we bow back. I am bowing toward the teacher, but also toward the statue. Namaste means, “The Divine in me salutes the Divine in you.” During many of the meditation sessions, we are asked to put our hands in “prayer position,” which is what it sounds like: hands joined together at the heart. The more I thought about it, the more I worried that yoga might be its own religion, and that I might be committing a sin—worshipping an idol, even—by practicing it.

This might seem like a niggling question of minutia, but Judaism, especially Orthodox Judaism, is a religion filled with niggling questions of minutiae—how an animal is slaughtered, at what angle, exactly, a mezuzah should be affixed to a door post. There are serious implications to committing idolatry, whether you do so accidentally or not. In the Talmud (Sanhedrin 74), it states that there are only three sins in which a person is commanded to die rather than commit the sin: the second and third are incest and murder. The first is idolatry.

That was the Lubavitch rebbe’s rationale when, in 1977, he forbade his followers from practicing yoga, transcendental meditation, and the like. “In as much as these movements involve certain rites and rituals, they have been rightly regarded by Rabbinic authorities as cults bordering on, and in some respects actual, avodah zarah,” he wrote, using the Hebrew term for idolatry. “Accordingly Rabbinic authorities everywhere…ruled that these cults come under all the strictures associated with avodah zarah, so that also their appurtenances come under strict prohibition.”

But, of course, I’m not a Lubavitcher. So I asked my yoga teacher at City Yoga in West Hollywood, Linda Eifer, a Conservative Jew, what she thought. “Yoga is not a religion,” she said, emphatically. “It’s a spiritual practice that combines the body, the mind, and the spirit. It’s based on an ancient Indian tradition that includes inspiration from statues, which are a mythology that combine human and divine characteristics.” But, aside from the statues, that’s pretty much what my religion is to me.

David Adelson, a Reform rabbi in New York who is enrolled at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, a two-year program that includes yoga retreats and text study, offered a distinction. “If I’m in a church around Christmastime, I sing and even say ‘Jesus’ in the hymns. I know that I am just singing because I like singing, and in no way praying, so it doesn’t worry me,” he said. “Yoga feels just a bit dicier because I am a full participant in the experience, not an observer. But I believe in general that to constitute avodah zarah, you probably need some kavana,” or intention.

Kavana is an interesting thing. Intuitively, it would seem that a religion demanding absolute morality would be concerned with intention. But, actually, that’s not really the case. If you eat bread on Passover, even accidentally, you have sinned. If you give charity but grudgingly, the charity still counts for the good. On Yom Kippur, we repent for sins we didn’t even know we did. And then there are Hannah’s sons—seven Jews who chose to die rather than bow to Antiochus, the Greek ruler who tried to forcibly convert Jews in 167 BCE. Bowing but not meaning it wasn’t an option. Judaism is concerned not just with your actions but also very much with how your actions appear to others. Bowing is the physical manifestation of idolatry, whatever your intention. “Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves,” says Leviticus 26:1, “and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it.”

But let’s ignore that for a second, and accept Adelson’s argument that intention does matter. Even so, don’t I intentionally practice yoga? And while Eifer, my yoga teacher, had said she doesn’t find yoga incompatible with Judaism because her status as a Jew isn’t compromised by her practice of yoga, I have a more literal view of Judaism and what it expects from me. I believe that I’m supposed to practice only Judaism. I don’t believe the practice of another religion makes me an adherent of that religion, but I do believe that I choose to only practice Judaism. The rituals and chanting that was expected of me in yoga seem like another religion to me—and practicing another religion is practicing another religion.

But Srinivasan, the senior teacher at the worldwide Shivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers, says I have it backwards. “Yoga is not a religion, but a science of religion,” he explained. “It applies to all religions. It’s not that yoga comes from Hinduism. Hinduism originates in yoga. Buddhism comes from yoga, too.” Srinivasan doesn’t see how spiritual yoga practice and Judaism are incompatible. “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach used to come to our Ashrams,” he said. “He understood we were talking about the same thing. Hasidic mysticism and Kabbalah are very much in line with yogic thought.”

I explain to Srinivasan that the approach may be similar—even some of the text and ideas may be similar—but that only proves my point that yoga is a religion. “There is yoga in every religion,” he responded. “Yoga means ‘union’ or ‘absolute consciousness’ with God. Don’t look at the differences; look at the similarities. Yoga is beyond words or institution. When you use the word ‘religion,’ people want to know what books you read, what language you speak.” He also says that though some sects of yoga won’t even use the word God, the tradition is similar to monotheism. “We’re all talking about the same God,” he said. To him, the statue of Ganesh at the front of many yoga studios is the same God to whom Jews pray. “Don’t confuse the map for the actual place,” he said. “God is everywhere. There is no conflict here. There is respect for that diversity. To explain God is to limit God.”

So could I just be bowing in front of this statue without bowing to the statue? I asked Pinchas Giller, an Orthodox rabbi who practices yoga at the same studio I do. “Many Hindus argue these days that their deities are just archetypal principles,” says Giller. “But any third-grader in Hebrew school will tell you that those are idols. Veneration and offerings are unacceptable. I avoid classes where the teacher is too into the mythos. It’s hard to escape the impression that if you take some of the practices too seriously then it could be avodah zarah.” Giller practices yoga for the exercise and only for the exercise, he’s careful to say.

Chanah Forster, a Hasid and yoga teacher in Brooklyn, may have found a solution. “Yoga absolutely is a religion,” she says. Before she became religious, Forster lived on an ashram, where she became certified to teach yoga. She still teaches it, but with an approach tailored to her current audience. There is no chanting in her class—not even Om, the vibrational sound recited at the start of most yoga classes. She describes poses, but won’t use their traditional Sanskrit names. She also won’t say their English translations, like Downward-Facing Dog. “Instead, I’ll say to raise your hips to the ceiling,” she explained to me. “The Sanskrit names have a spiritual meaning. If you don’t call these poses by their Sanskrit names, it’s just exercise.” Forster believes that when you do any of these things—chant, say Om, speak in Sanskrit—you are opening yourself up spiritually to outside influences. “These aren’t just words,” she said. “They have meanings and repercussions to your neshama”—your soul—“and they are at odds with Jewish spirituality.”

But despite all these things at odds with Judaism, yoga seems to have a strong pull on Jews. In the past few years, several yoga minyans, prayer services in which yoga stretches accompany liturgy, have gotten underway. At least half of the people who frequent my yoga studio, as well as many of its teachers, are Jewish. India is a hotbed of Israeli tourism and the great Hindu leader Ram Dass was born Richard Alpert, a nice Jewish boy. (The author Rodger Kamenetz wrote a whole book, The Jew in the Lotus, about Jews struggling to understand and relate to Eastern spirituality.) But though unresolved, it’s a debate that’s new to me and that has new urgency for me as I’ve returned to religious observance.) The Kabbalistic viewpoint asserts that we are born with a pintele yid, a Jewish spark always searching for spirituality. If you live in America in 2010, your pintele yid may be a little malnourished, and whether because of assimilation or a lack of Jewish practice, some Jews seek to feed this hunger outside of the synagogue.

And the question of yoga’s compatibility with Judaism might just be an unanswerable one. In Adelson’s Reform world, it’s the Jew’s intention that matters. But in the Judaism I know, the one I have chosen to participate in, intentions, or even wishes, are not the only things to consider. My Judaism is a Judaism that is preoccupied with my physical life as much as my spiritual one. It has laws for when I eat, what wear, how I wash my hands. The problem isn’t what yoga might ask me to think or believe; it’s what it asks me to do. And despite my physical flexibility—you should see my frog pose—I don’t have the same spiritual agility.

Further practice of Judaism has not, historically, helped me become more open-minded. But perhaps that is where yoga can be an asset, not a detriment, to my religious practice. Yes, yoga walks a fine line (verboten to some; certainly not to all). But maybe my uptight approach to religion requires yoga and its nuances of illicit practice to help me remain flexible in my spirit, as well as my body. Maybe having something that isn’t so easy to reconcile, a gray area, is good for me.”

Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a correspondent for GQ and a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine.

[ruffoverthinksthings]

God Loves You, Which Is Why You’ll Burn In Hell (Part 3): “The Spawn of Heathens, False Gods, and Unbelievers” - Religion for the VKs

Note: This document clocked in at 2,862 words, written in two hours straight.

I officially have a problem, and its name is Disney Descendants Headcanon and Analyses.

By the time most of the VKs have been born, religion has been discredited in favour of worshipping Maleficent, abandoned entirely for the massive Hell that was the Great Isle War (a headcanon of mine, for clarity), or was isolated in Temple Way (the concentrated district of religious establishments, sans the church above Dragon Hall, also a headcanon of mine), with their followers generally incredibly zealous believers, to put it politely.

Most of them have not even been introduced to the idea of religion, or it was only given as explanation as to why people generally stay away from Temple Way, why you should try your damndest to do much the same (no matter how good the potential loot), and why you should try not to associate or talk with the people from there.

As with anything from the Isle, a culture of scary stories to get their children to behave have risen around Temple Way, and the Wild Fae (malevolent gargoyles, chupacabras, actual devils and the like) are not very amused by this.

Before you ask, Maleficent is ambivalent towards religion, happy to have the population do whatever keeps them distracted, complacent, and above all, from thinking of ever trying to overthrow her. She doesn’t even need to keep spies, as “those fools are happy to shout everything they’re planning to do to anyone within earshot.”

She is wary of them since she had harnessed the power of religious extremism and xenophobia during the War to her advantage, but with the aging congregations and her unquestioned, unchallenged rule, “Zealot Watch” is largely dedicated to lieutenants and underlings like Mozenrath.

As I also mentioned, the Badlands (the non-concrete, dirt and grass jungle of the Isle of the Lost) have their own religious beliefs and system, so won’t be included here.

Back on topic: almost all of the VKs are atheists by ignorance, or by choice. There are only a few exceptions to this, with individual/group explanations and how it affects their lives below:

As mentioned in the previous post, Claudine Frollo used to be the most devout of the VKs until CJ set fire to her father’s convent while she was still in it. Before Auradon, she has completely lost her faith in religion and sees it largely as a means of controlling people with promises punishment from some unseen “Higher Being,” and false senses of security that they would protect them, care for them, and reward their piety, both relying largely on them believing that such a Higher Being actually exists on faith alone.

Her current opinion on Hell is that she doesn’t mind going there, as “it can’t be that far from the Isle, and I got used to it anyway, didn’t I?”

Richard “Rick” Ratcliffe is her opposite, still as devout a Christian as ever, though he wasn’t a very good one in the first place. Most of his beliefs and his “divinely inspired” actions involve him having an incredibly overinflated sense of self-worth and confidence, being on a “holy high horse” every time he interacts with pretty much anyone, particularly when he makes one of his infamous speeches, and stealing and robbing from others like the rest of the VKs, except with the justification of him “claiming it for the Church.”

(Which he is. After he takes a cut, because doesn’t a good servant of God deserve to treat himself every once in a while?)

Privately, he still takes comfort in his faith, especially the entirety of Jesus Christ’s life in the New Testament. He sees an idol in the Christian Messiah, as he was a great orator that was constantly attacked, ostracized, and even condemned and killed before people truly realized how great he was.

(Though, he does sincerely hope he can avoid the “foregone death sentence, and being nailed to a cross” bit.)

Mal didn’t have much of an interest in religion, seeing as Maleficent’s demands and “training” of her took up most of her time, and the ultimate goal was that the two of them would supplant the current deities and objects of worship, be the ones the masses are bowing down to and in fear of.

However, for the sake of curiosity (and of course, exploring “truths” outside of everything Maleficent has fed her), she has studied the various religions, mostly through the reading of whatever surviving holy texts and handwritten copies exist on the Isle, with a few oral accounts here and there.

She was a fan of the Torah and Judaism, if only because of the Yahweh that burned down entire cities and turned those that disobeyed Him into pillars of salt (Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot’s wife); brought massive, crippling, devastating plagues to the enemies of his followers (Moses and the Exodus from Egypt); and struck people dead where they stood if they did something as trivial as spill their semen on the ground (Onan).

She stopped being such a fan by the time she came to the Christian Bible, the New Testament, and Christianity, both because God had “gone soft,” and she wasn’t as big a fan of the idea of the Big Man Upstairs sending a Son to do all of His dirty work for Him, and the whole “Jesus getting humiliated, tortured, and ultimately crucified” being his Father’s will REALLY hit too close to home for her.

The real clincher was when she wasn’t sure if Maleficent would also go through the trouble of bringing her back to life after three days or so.

On a side note, she really liked the idea of having a close circle of twelve followers who obey you no matter what, but it soured when Judas turned on Jesus.

She stopped being such a fan of Allah by the time she was calling Him that as she studied the Quran and Islam (with Jay’s help for actually reading the texts, and why he attempted to convert—more on that in the next post), and saw all the conflicting orders and distinct cultures that had come up from who was ostensibly the same Supreme Deity.

She figured that if God/Allah/Yahweh couldn’t get His followers to agree on what exactly He said, and they had in fact been getting into constant conflict about who’s religion was the “True” religion, He wasn’t worth following.

“IT’S ALL HIS WORDS, YOU DUMBASSES! THIS IS THE SAME BIG GUY UPSTAIRS FOR ALL THREE BOOKS!” is how she put it.

As mighty as His powers of causing widespread suffering and instant death to those that disobeyed Him, that He can't keep house was a complete turn-off.

"Why do you think He's a He?" Maleficent commented. "Hmpf, Men."

She tried studying the other religions and was impressed with some such as Shiva from Hinduism, not so much Taoism with its focus on humility, and she stopped altogether after a brief study of Louisiana Vodoo with Dr. Facillier, and learning that the many, many, many other sects of Christianity she would have to read about in order to truly say that she “knew her enemies.”

At that point, she thought it’d just be much more practical to dedicate her time in learning how to subjugate the people by force than by subverting and abusing their religious practices and beliefs, as she and her mother will be the only thing they’ll be worshiping by the end, anyway.

Evie did very briefly entertain the idea of religion as a source of comfort, until the numerous patriarchal mutations and corruptions of the original traditions and practices made her realize she wouldn’t be able to maintain her current lifestyle, and lose a lot of her personal freedoms beside.

(“Modest and proper dress” was the most obvious deal breaker.)

After the elevator pitch, it was a firm “Fuck that noise!” into permanent atheism. Not even the more liberal and feminist Auradon practices can make her change her mind, though I suppose the stigma she has with the followers there doesn’t help.

Before you ask, a lot of the religious practitioners on the Isle do enforce plenty of incredibly restrictive rules and customs, all in the service of making some form of sanity and order within their communities, and making themselves distinct from the rest of the Isle that basically does as they please, so long as it doesn’t anger Maleficent too much.

Carlos did try to seek out religion as a means of relief in the day-to-day Hell that is being Cruella’s only child and personal unpaid servant, and a tentative form of escape into a better life. However, you could say his mistake/wise decision was talking to Frollo about converting, and after his admittedly rather appealing pitch to him, he opened up the floor for questions.

Carlos’ was this: “Why are some kids born into suffering like us, and others are born in a nice place like Auradon?”

“Child, God tests our faith all the time, to prove that we are worthy of His love, and our ultimate reward in Heaven; it is not something to hold against Him, but merely another part of His glorious, ineffable plan for us all,” Frollo replied.

“… So, like, how does He decide? Is there some sort of criteria about who gets born in a nice life, and who gets born in a bad life…?”

“Child, even the most faithful and Good of us all get tested, should He deem it necessary—just look at His only son, Jesus Christ, and how even with his unwavering faith in Our Father, He decided to push him to the very edge of renouncing his belief in Him all the same.”

“… So you’re basically saying that He just essentially decides on a whim who suffers and who doesn’t?”

Frollo frowned. “De Vil, it is NOT on a whim; to say that He would act in such a random manner is insulting to His greatness. He follows a Plan, known to Him and Him alone, and we are all to play our parts in it without question.”

Carlos nodded, then hopped off his chair. “Okay, that was all I had, thanks Father Frollo!” he said as he walked out of Frollo’s inner sanctum, and away from religion for the rest of his life.

Jay is interesting in that he does take a vested interest in Islam, as it is the one part of his Arabic heritage that Jafar refuses to indulge. The curiosity was first ignited with his adamant refusal to let him read the Quran even though it was one of the most easily acquired texts in Arabic, and Jafar’s incredibly hostile opinion of it.

Islam to him is just “the means for fools and weaklings to comfort themselves, lies that those in power feed to them with glee so they may selfishly keep that power, and the masses will even praise them for it.”

It doesn’t help that he tried to become a Supreme Being himself, and ultimately failed.

His foray into Islam, should he take it like @baby-prince-oppa theorizes he will, will be detailed in a future post. It’s a LOT of words, and this post is already massive, okay?

Freddie has an eclectic, limited education on Christianity and Voodoo, largely attributed to most of Dr. Facillier’s knowledge being in the darker arts as a bokor (a Vodoo Witch Doctor who plays with both good and evil, by definition). Most of it is also limited to strictly practical application such as potions, hexes, and of course the nature of the Shadow Cards.

The culture that had arisen around Louisiana Voodoo and “gris-gris” (charms) is mostly skipped over as Dr. Facillier was never interested in the “good” way to practice it, and they were too wary and knowledgeable of him to be victimized by him, so knowledge of it was largely useless to him. He also doesn’t encourage her to learn or follow the rituals and traditions, and especially not to attend Sunday church at Frollo’s, though this is mostly for safety concerns than religious ones.

(“Never deal with a man who always thinks himself on the right hand of God, sweet potato,” is how he phrases it.)

The only real takeaway she has from it is to be “very wary of the forces out there greater and wilier than mere mortals like ourselves.”

Before you ask, no, he does not encourage her to make deals with loa, his former “Friends from the Other Side.” This is because they are completely reliable; “you better believe they will do what they said when you pony up, and especially when you don’t.”

The Hook Kids (Harriet, Harry, and CJ) and the rest of the pirates/mostly seafaring Villain Kids such as those from the seedier parts of coastal China, all worship the Sea, seeing Her as their “Lady of Life, Bounty, and Death.”

This is even though their experiences with the sea are being beached for most of the year, being unable sail out or ply their trade past a certain distance off the coast where the alligators are especially active, and their (safely) being in water and enjoying themselves is in the underwater half of Serpent Prep, or in the flooded tomb “swimming pool” of Dragon Hall. (Both are headcanons of mine, for clarity.)

A lot of what you can call their religious acts and beliefs center around the vicious, man-eating crocodiles and how they avoid them like… well, vicious, man-eating crocodiles.

“Metaphors are rather twee when what you fear already has sharp teeth, massive mouths, and an insatiable hunger for flesh of any kind,” as Harriet would say.

Uma has been taught about the religious practices and beliefs Sea Witchcraft by Ursula, but she has largely focused on the matters of potion making and utmost respect for senior witches, as these were the ones that are most practical and shut her daughter up for most of the time.

Her knowledge on it is very incomplete because Ursula was a recluse, and she stops bothering with it altogether when she realizes that everything Ursula has her do is no different from the other VKs, just with different reasons behind it.

Even though Zevon has been born in a heavily polytheistic culture where it was an almost inescapable part of everyday living, he has no religion, as Yzma was never a big believer in deities or the emperors supposedly granted divine knowledge and right to rule by them.

(That she personally knows how much of a selfish, shallow, and greedy idiot Kuzco is contributed a lot to this.)

The only thing he can be said to worship is himself (and his mother), as Yzma has fed him many delusions of grandeur, and manipulative encouragements of all of his worst impulses, beliefs, and behaviours, all the traits that would best groom him as her ticket out of the Isle.

Even after infiltrating Auradon, and during his time being at-large, he does not change his mind, as by that point the brainwashing and propaganda Yzma had been feeding into him is so ingrained he sees all other religion as his “rivals,” whose followers he will steal, after he shows them that he is “The true Supreme Deity of all of Auradon!”

Or, as he pronounces it, “The true Super-eemee D-eighty of Auradon!”

The other Western European VKs, such as the Gaston brothers, LeFou Deux, Ginny Gothel, the Tremaines, the Mim Children and Grandchildren, Clay Clayton, Diego de Vil, Jace and Harry—are all atheists, and not likely to ever find or participate religion.

Aside from the fact that their respective universes did not seem to involve the dominant or possible religions at the time (likely because Disney was avoiding the massive kerfuffle that would come with portraying a canonically Catholic French Village while it’s not central to the story like Hunchback of Notre Dame), they generally come from people that put their faith in their names and reputations (de Vil and henchmen, Tremaine, Gaston), their abilities (Clayton, also Gaston), or their magic (Gothel, Mim).

The likes of Madam Mim and Mother Gothel probably know and have had contact with supreme beings and deities (such as the local Hades), but were likely not impressed by them back when they still had their powers, they still aren’t impressed with them now.

Speaking of Hades, his daughter Hadie believes in the existence of her various uncles and aunts, but does not worship them for very obvious reasons. She is a commonly seen figure at her father’s bar, “The Way Down Under,” (a headcanon of mine, for clarity) and has her own small following of loyal worshipers who frequently make tribute to her, though this is mostly because she’s smoking hot with a gift of seduction and a silver tongue.

With the exceptions of Claudine Frollo and Richard “Rick” Ratcliffe, their attitudes towards religion aren’t likely to change if they ever get to (legally) stay in Auradon.