#literalist

[exvangelicalrage]

What Is Crooked Cannot Be Straightened

5/29/23

When I started going to therapy for religious trauma, my therapist directed me to Abraham Piper, a rather famous exvangelical and son of John Piper, a famous evangelical fundamentalist. Abraham Piper's TikTok account was interesting, philosophical, and entertaining all at the same time, and many of his ideas hit home with me, as someone who was floundering with the idea of religious trauma, despite it having been nearly 8 years after my Exit. 

One of the tags he used was #abusurdism which I'd never heard of before, and being a curious type of person, I googled it. 

"What is absurdism?"

Of course, as you might expect, I found dozens of articles and reddit threads discussing Albert Camus, existentialism, and meaninglessness.

I was hooked. 

Meaninglessness had been an appealing concept to me since the first time I read Ecclesiastes, the only book of the bible I ever really liked. 

Even now, if you asked me what my favorite book of the bible was, I'd still say Ecclesiastes. When I was young, my reason was that it was beautiful poetry written by a clearly intelligent person who understood the futility of life, and which ended by directing you to trust god. 

Now my reason is because Ecclesiastes breaks christianity. It's like a computer virus. As soon as you run ecclesiastes.exe, blue screen.

In Ecclesiastes, the writer concludes that everything is meaningless, therefore, your best bet is to fear god and follow his commandments (cough *philosophical suicide* cough). The ending offers an easy "skip" button. 

"Fear god!" christian you might think. "Great, that's all I need to know. I was gonna do that anyway."

This answer is good enough until you read that verse in Romans about how you're supposed to study the scriptures. And then you do study them.

As soon as you really begin to look deeply into Ecclesiastes, one key thing leaps out: if everything is meaningless... so is following god and his commandments. That solution the Teacher offers? Just as meaningless as any other solution.

All of christianity centers around one foundational element: the meaning of everything is god.

But if there is no meaning to everything, if god is not the meaning after all... what does that mean for the entirety of the christian religion? 

If you take Ecclesiastes literally, then making the choice to "obey god" is just as meaningless as making a different choice. Even if you choose to "follow god," the method for doing so is meaningless. You could choose to follow the old testament god or the new testament god, you could follow Thor or Allah, you could rename the universe "god" and call it a day—and you get to make up your own "rules" about what following god looks like, and at least philosophically speaking, you're good to go.

Most christians would argue that therefore you must follow the christian scripture, because obviously the bible doesn't contradict itself, because it says so. heh

But this doesn't work. Literally no one follows the scriptures literally. Not even literalists. Because it's impossible. Because the bible doesn't agree with itself about anything.

And even if you find ways to look past all the other contradictions, Ecclesiastes undermines everything else. It puts questions where They don't want questions. It adds flexibility where They don't want flexibility. It adds meaninglessness where They want meaning.

And They can't get rid of Ecclesiastes. Because if They do that, then they're picking and choosing what scripture to follow. And if you can cut and paste Ecclesiastes, then it follows you can cut and paste the rest of the bible, in which case you might as well just throw the whole thing in the trash and start over. 

As far as I can tell, the "best" argument against my interpretation of Ecclesiastes is "no, you're misinterpreting it" which... isn't an argument. The very fact that Ecclesiastes demands interpretation in order to "fit" with the rest of christianity, means that I can interpret it however the hell I want.

And I choose to interpret it as an exploration of the meaninglessness of everything that ultimately undermines the whole of christianity.

When faced with ultimate meaninglessness, some people choose to avail themselves of the pleasures of life. Some people choose to work. Some people choose to find meaning in the mundane. Some people create their own meaning. Some people (like Solomon) choose to follow god and obey the king. And some people simply... accept meaninglessness.

And this is the heart of absurdism: choosing to accept meaninglessness as a fact of life, rather than fighting against it, trying to fix it, or trying to solve it.

Everything is meaningless. Utterly meaningless.

Including Ecclesiastes.

Everything is meaningless and that’s okay. Not only is it okay, it's good. Because acceptance often brings peace, freedom, and joy where there was only cognitive dissonance before.

[iscariotapologist]

life is so interesting because there are some facts that are very obvious to me such as that god from the bible is good in bed and yet 70% of the tumblr opinion is otherwise

[asthedeathoflight]

Maybe this is just a natural consequence of the differences between ghosts and vampires but it is kinda funny to me how people get so pearl clutching over the cat king and edwin because edwins 16 when like. Girl hes over one hundred years old. Or at least hes like fifty years old if you dont count hell. Like how come vampire teenagers arent really teenagers but Edwin is really a teenager. Also how old are you assuming the cat king is for this argument. He seems to be kind of functionally immortal but also hes fundamentally still a cat. Im not sure how that translates into human ages.

And don't come quoting Lukas Gage's age at me because George Rexstrew is fully 26 years old.

I'm not saying the cat king isn't a little predatory - hes a CAT he's SUPPOSED TO BE - but like. You guys sound so fucking goofy trying to make it about age. If there's going to be media about old-but-young supernatural creatures the ages are going to be weird. You just need to accept that and move on.

[queenlucythevaliant]

How do you believe Theistic Evolution interacts with other aspects of Christian morality and tradition? I mean, obviously the commands of God are the commands of God - but what new perspective do you think a Theistic Evolutionary viewpoint gives?

Oh my goodness, so many things! Broadly, though, I'd divide the implications into two groups: God's character and the unity of creation.

God's character

Theistic evolution is (I contend) the only framework for understanding creation that has an equally high regard for both Scripture and scientific empiricism; thus, it makes a very profound statement about God's trustworthiness, and about our confidence in him as the arbiter of Truth.

Seeing God's fingerprints in the creative process over the course of millions of years gives us a real sense of his patience and tirelessness. As Chesterton might say, he never gets tired of saying to the replicating cell, "do it again."

We also get a beautiful picture of God's sovereignty over creation: he is the God that knew, from the first time two organic molecules crashed together, that he was creating Man to glorify and enjoy him forever.

In the story of creation through evolution, we see a God who transcends time, but also works within it to bring about his sovereign will; who is endlessly patient, who is clever and inventive, who has an eye for beauty and a love for tangents and (ostensible) dead ends. What does it tell you about God that he spent millions of years creating the platypus? That he created dinosaurs at all? Through theistic evolution, we see a creator who plays across the vast landscape of time, creating endless forms most beautiful. Most importantly, we see a God whose wonderful works are faithfully recounted not just in the pages of Scripture, but in the very substance of the world he created.

Unity of creation

Knowledge of evolutionary history pushes us to think about our own embodied nature, our creatureliness, and our place within creation/the biosphere. We are united in lineage with all other creatures, both living and dead. We are embodied in the same carbon as every other living thing, deliberately, beautifully. This pushes back hard against the strains of "flesh bad" gnostic dualism that have run through our faith for pretty much its whole history. Heaven is not our "real home"; our destiny is the New Earth. God has woven us into its fabric.

Jesus stepped not just into the human lineage, but the lineage of the whole earth! In becoming flesh, he took on our place in the tree of life. Jesus shared DNA with Mary and her family, yes, but also with bacteria and brachiosaurs and banana slugs. While Christ died for the sins of humanity in particular, His stepping into the unity of life points to a future in which all living things are to be redeemed.

We must take the Biblical call to environmental stewardship very seriously then, if the rest of the biosphere is not merely our dominion but something of which we are an inextricable part. Evolutionary theory calls us to reconnect our theology and the created universe. In the same way that Scripture calls us to care for the world God created, evolution tells us of our direct relationship with the rest of creation, which implies a duty of care.

[mswyrr]

Reminder that the book age gap could easily be a mistake/confusion that entered the historical memory of Westeros. It is entirely supportable for the show to present a narrative where Rhaenyra and Alicent are close in age, based in how historical records for early periods work. And it is certainly supportable for them to explore this as an example of queer people being erased from historical memory.

"Fire & Blood" is fundamentally different from the main books of the series. Those are written from the pov of characters directly experiencing events. "Fire & Blood" is a series of biased, largely secondhand accounts mashed together long after events by someone who wasn't there. The text itself tells you it's biased and confused in stunning moments like this:

--"Fire and Blood," page 502

We don't even know if Rhaenyra wept or SMILED at the sight of her little nephew's decapitated head! How can you look at a text like that and try to say there's a firm "canon" there that the show or other fans have to rigidly obey? It's intentionally written in such a way where there is no such thing, and the tv writers have leaned into the potential of that.

In our own world--as I've discussed before here--the ages of historical figures can become confused, especially from earlier periods. As a moot pointed out to me, even someone as famous as Anne Boleyn's age is a matter of debate:

I think people should be able to explore the text multiple ways and play with different interpretations, but the (so often repeated) argument that the tv show's approach is "breaking with canon" (as if such an idea even applies to an intentionally biased/conflicted set of narratives as the one we get in Fire & Blood!) is trying to fashion the text into a weapon in a way that it is ill suited to.

[catinafigtree]

i’ve been called a “progressive muslim” so many times and i am very much not.

i’m just not a Qur’an literalist and have a deep seated mistrust in religious leaders so i actually study my religion and ask questions.

it takes so much effort to sort through the strange and misguided opinions of the “ulema”.

[mai-komagata]

canon

look when i say canon aint no thing i dont mean there isnt a shared. body of work from which we do interpretation, fanfic, fanart, whatnot.

what i mean is that text doesnt exist free from interpretation. these things didnt actually happen. art only exists insofar it is interpreted by subjects. is a author interview canon? that is a tricky question. authorial intent can inform our interpretation of media. but it doesn’t have to. so things that are extra textual can inform our interpretation and they also can not.

even limiting our selves to the things on the page, was that decision from set design an indication that the machine actually works this way, in a technical sense, or was it a limitation of budget, and is actually grander? or is it only symbolically that way, to evoke mystery, but doesnt mean future writers cant change it?

did an actor make a particular choice bc that is unchanging characteristic of the character? did they have a bad day, or was the scriptwriter that day wonky? and if they are part of the text are they valid?

i guess what im saying is that the audience is part of the general machine of understanding art. it isnt static. what brings you the most in depth understanding of the world, the most enjoyment, the most potential to tell more stories? i dont like the word canon bc it somehow mixes the idea of the text of the story and the interpretation of the story in a weird way so there can only be one.

I can tell you very clearly what the text is and what is extra textual, for sure. but i dont think that is the same as what people imply when they say canon… i feel what they mean when they say it is that only a strict literalist reading of the text is canon, and like… im not a fundamentalist in real life, why would i think that way about fun happy art?

because the implication is that if something is not canon it is just a headcanon… and like, no? that is the paradigm i think is not useful. there are things that are extra textual and subtextual that totally help in media interpretation. and contradictory things can coexist. but also, if they arent helpful then ignore them.

[shatar-aethelwynn]

I like to think that if the Patriarchal narratives did take place at the time the texts claim, that it means the possibly anachronistic camels have figured out time travel and are deliberately keeping it from us out of spite in retaliation for domestication. Which would probably be a very camel thing to do.

[somewhat-insane]

I did another "Y/N committing acts of violence on Nightmare," because y'all seem to like that.

Calamari.

[bibleofficial]

this is dumb as shit do they rly think they’re going to sentence a SITTING president ?

[femme-objet]

theres the debate about whether the old testament god is more wrathful or whatever than the new testament god, which isn't one i'm particularly interested in litigating.

but in defense of old testament god, hes being written in large parts by people in a kingdom vassal to assyria. and assyria had the strategy of bragging about committing all sorts of atrocities to scare vassals into obedience. i wouldnt be surprised if there were some stylistic influences on that front.

[inversionimpulse]

there's something funny about how in movies the reason the bad guys beat the legal system is usually loopholes and corrupt lawyers

which certainly is how the cops would tell it

but my (mostly second-hand) experience has been that it's mostly because the cops go "the laws that are meant to protect innocent people from us don't apply this time because we know this person's guilty!" and then they commit a bunch of crimes to get evidence that then can't be used. Because they committed a bunch of crimes to get it. Or they just didn't get any useful evidence at all and think that they can convince a judge/jury that someone's guilty because, uh, they were walking around at night or something - and when the prosecutors inevitably discard the whole thing because there's no case, the cops convince themselves that it's corruption.

[deathbringer]

thinking about "Against Pollution" as a Percy song again. ultimate song about how sometimes you have to do things to survive that make you feel so so bad. and sometimes they are quite objectively bad as well. but the only way out is through, for better and worse. and then you have to look at yourself and go "only so much guilt will help. and only so much guilt is possible before it becomes despair. I have to accept that I'm going to move on, and maybe someday I'll be in a world where there's meaning out of what happened and everything will be okay." AND THEN MAYBE YOU DO. AND MAYBE IT IS!!!!!

and that's Percy's redemption journey.

[festivalinhell]

I'm glad I stopped interacting a lot on Reddit for a while. Probably going to do it again tbh... Like you post one thing thats like "I don't let myself be boxed into gender standards made up by cis het dudes. I see being genderfuild-genderfucky as an act of rebellion and you should too (with the implied caveat of "if thats your gender identity of course") and got deleted for being "Truscum" like fuckin what?

The whole post is about how there is literally no right or wrong way to be trans. That we should be free to be ourselves rebelliously. But my meme-y "and you should too!" PSA style title is all that matters to reductive internet denizens.

Anyway, Tumblr is better, hairy trans women with big hogs and no HRT, and non-OP transmen are shaking hands and having hella affirming fuck sessions while not letting the patriarchal chains hold em back. Just the shackles on the headboard they built together.

[silvermarmoset]

6

ack sorry! #6 was asking what my favorite horror movie was—I'm not a big fan of actual horror (ie wimp) but I love movies that have a grotesque, whimsical horror vibe—heavy on practical effects and dark fantasism—ie anything with that tone of like, the Italian Pinocchio movie from 2019 or that vibe from the 90s Alice in Wonderland where this is a children's movie this is a fairytale there is no blood so why is it horrifying!!