#religious insanity

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://quranx.com/hadith/AbuDawud/DarusSalam/Hadith-4158/

Narrated AbuHurayrah:

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: Gabriel (ﷺ) came to me and said: I came to you last night and was prevented from entering simply because there were images at the door, for there was a decorated curtain with images on it in the house, and there was a dog in the house. So order the head of the image which is in the house to be cut off so that it resembles the form of a tree; order the curtain to be cut up and made into two cushions spread out on which people may tread; and order the dog to be turned out. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) then did so. The dog belonged to al-Hasan or al-Husayn and was under their couch. So he ordered it to be turned out. Abu Dawud said: Al-Nadd means a thing on which clothes are placed like a couch.

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-3/Book-34/Hadith-318/

Narrated Aisha:

(mother of the faithful believers) I bought a cushion with pictures on it. When Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) saw it, he kept standing at the door and did not enter the house. I noticed the sign of disgust on his face, so I said, "O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)! I repent to Allah and His Apostle. (Please let me know) what sin I have done." Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "What about this cushion?" I replied, "I bought it for you to sit and recline on." Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "The painters (i.e. owners) of these pictures will be punished on the Day of Resurrection. It will be said to them, 'Put life in what you have created (i.e. painted).' " The Prophet (ﷺ) added, "The angels do not enter a house where there are pictures."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-7/Book-72/Hadith-834/

Narrated Muslim:

We were with Masruq at the house of Yasar bin Numair. Masruq saw pictures on his terrace and said, "I heard `Abdullah saying that he heard the Prophet (ﷺ) saying, "The people who will receive the severest punishment from Allah will be the picture makers.'"

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-7/Book-72/Hadith-835/

Narrated `Abdullah bin `Umar:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Those who make these pictures will be punished on the Day of Resurrection, and it will be said to them. 'Make alive what you have created.'"

December is Ex-Muslim Awareness Month.

[unholyhymns]

still one of my favorite bits i ever got to commit was pretending not to know who jesus is when a street preacher was evangelizing to me. he was like "do you know who jesus is?" and i had so much time before my next bus and i wanted to know what would happen so i said no. and you know what. he had clearly never been told no to that question before because if i hadn't actually known who jesus was, his baffled and fumbling attempt sure wouldn't have told me. literally reversed the roles. now you get to stand here feeling very uncomfortable and wishing you could be somewhere else because guess what buddy, this is my bus stop, im early (and can catch like five other buses from this exact stop), and im now thoroughly invested in hearing about this mysterious jesus figure. you're locked in here with me. im eating the key as we speak. i will kill us both before i let you out of here.

very highly recommend this bit if you can pull it off and if you have time to kill

[reuna]

You know what actually baffles me to no end? The zionist attempt to make you seem antisemitic with questions like "Do you think Jews deserve a national homeland? If not, then think hard about why Jews are the only people who don't." What is that assumption that I believe any other ethnic-religious group would "deserve" a national homeland? What world are these people living in? Like... What other ethnicity/religious group has been given land (by people whose land it wasn't even to give) to make their "national homeland"? Seriously? What other ethnostates are there and who would think that is a moral concept to begin with?

People have always migrated and mingled. Even my country, which is a small and rather homogeneous one on an international scale, consists of many different peoples living together.

Nationalists are weird.

[hussyknee]

I know some dickheads have now decided that Judaism is the "bad, violent, terrorist religion" and Islam is the "good, peaceful" one, which is only to be expected of white people, but how much of an issue is it currently? Like I've seen some USAmericans sharing how the Islamic faith shapes Gazans values and perseverance (good) except with that distinct white hippie "I'm about to imprint on this like the world's most racist duck" vibe (bad), but I didn't think they're already turning on Judaism in numbers.

Do they realize that Christianity is also the same kind of comfort to Christian minorities in Asia and Africa? That it was Buddhists that genocided the Rohingyas in Myanmar and Tamils in Sri Lanka? That Hindu fundamentalists are even now trying to ethnically cleanse Muslims in India? How Hindus and Christians are terrorized and persecuted in Pakistan? That Muslims have a history of persecuting and ethnically cleansing Jews too?

Really tired of asking y'all to be normal about people's religions man. There's no religion that's inherently violent or exceptionally peaceful. It's just like any other ideology that becomes a weapon in the hands of ethnic power. Interrogate power, not religion, and respect people's belief systems insofar as they aren't in your business.

Edit: I've amended the "long history" of Muslim persecution of Jews because it might be misleading in the current political climate. Zionism and antisemitic Arab nationalism are twin births resulting directly from Christian colonization, and Islamic empires tended to actually be more tolerant of other religions compared to Christianity, especially Judaism, which was considered a sibling religion. Antisemitism wasn't ideologically entrenched in Islamic tradition. It's simply that ethno-religious power will lead to ethno religious domination and intermittent cleansing of minorities, and Islam is no exception. Humans be humaning always.

[wolfythewitch]

Thinking about this constantly I hope you know

[frejyayamato]

Christian Fundies whenever secular society calls them out on their hypocrisy:

[bathroomtrapped]

sacred heart

[foldingfittedsheets]

One of my earlier jobs in life was at a little pizza place. I worked there when it was first starting up. It’s the only job I’ve ever been fired from and it was because a new manager came in and cleaned house. Because my state requires a reason to be fired he said I used too much pepperoni. So now on job applications I get to write that I was fired for “excessive use of pepperoni.” Never fails to get a laugh.

Anyway! For this story to make sense I’ve first got to set the stage. This pizza place started out as the Wild West of management but one of the original investors was super committed to work programs through the prison. We hired a ton of ex convicts and they were all, to a one, super hyped on Christianity. Like born again for the sole purpose of lauding Christ with their every breath.

I hadn’t been working there long but I’d definitely noticed the Jesus bug had gone around, and as I’ve never been religious at all I tried to steer clear of the topic for my own safety.

The day our story takes place, I was folding boxes. Anyone whose ever worked pizza can attest, there’s so much box folding. It’s something that happens at every lull, the pizza machine demands box folding on a grand and epic scale.

On my right folding his stack of boxes was a guy wider than he was tall, made of pure muscle, Corey. He was newer on staff, and due to a stutter he didn’t talk much. All I knew about him was that he got hired through the rehabilitation program and had done time.

On my left folding was a tall middle-aged woman who loved to yell at me, Cindy. She and I rubbed each other the wrong way and had nothing in common, leading to a tense working relationship.

We folded boxes in silence. This was really my best case scenario as a quiet Cindy was a Cindy not riding my ass, and Corey intimidated me.

But the weight of the silence grew too much for Cindy, who finally said, “I really want to go to bible school.”

I folded a box. I had less than no idea what bible school even was and I didn’t want to get sucked into a religious topic.

On my right Corey said, “W-why, Cindy?”

“Well, cause I believe what’s in the Bible, but I just don’t know it all.”

He nodded sagely to this.

Cindy continued, “And every time I sit down to read the Bible I get real sleepy. And I know it’s the devil.”

It’s so hard to convey her tone in written format. It was delivered with the emphasis and exasperation of an inevitable inconvenience. Like, I just know it’s the squirrels eating the bird seed.

I froze in place at this pronouncement. My only exposure to Lucifer was Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics and I was trying to mentally twist into a frame of mind where The Morningstar cared enough about this one middle aged lady expanding her knowledge of the Bible that he followed her around cursing her with sleepiness when she picked it up.

I think I expected Corey to say, “Well that’s silly,” or something to acknowledge what a bizarre thing Cindy had just said.

Instead he said, “Yeah!” In a tone of complete agreement.

I didn’t look up. I tried to keep my face neutral at this development.

But something must have shown. Corey said, “You don’t believe in God?”

I shrugged casually and said, “If I did I wouldn’t talk about it at work.”

“C-cause it’s t-true. If y-you t-ry to r-read the B-bible on unsanctif-fied gr-round the d-devil m-makes you s-sleepy!”

I made a noncommittal sound and fled into the back room.

Over the next week it drove me crazy though. The logic of it wouldn’t leave me alone so finally one day when it was just Corey and I in front, and the restaurant was empty, I said, “Hey man, I have a question.”

He shrugged and listened.

“I really don’t mean this with any disrespect, I just genuinely want to know about the logistics-“

“J-ust ask.”

“Okay, so if Cindy gets tired when she reads any book, is it only the devil making her tired when it’s the Bible?”

His face went purple with fury and he yelled, “F-fuck you!” at my retreating back as I fled once more into the back room.

It will forever remain a mystery.

[papirfecni]

ive successfully been infected with the ada wong illness

[ennas-aesthetic]

What the fuck is Jesus up to in Good Omens season 3?

This is a question I've been thinking long and hard these past couple of days and I have some THOUGHTS SO. Buckle up.

Aziraphale and Crowley watching the Crucifixion (Good Omens, 2019)

First off. The answer to the question posited is relatively simple. What is Jesus up to in GO3? With s2's ending in mind and with the hints we've gotten for 668: Neighbor of the Beast over the years, we know he's descending to Earth to initiate the Second Coming. And that Aziraphale would probably make that happen - or do everything that he can as Supreme Archangel to sabotage it.

But I wanted to examine on how Jesus might fit into Good Omens' overall narratives and established themes - about morality and humanism and free will, and. I'm just saying, there are A LOT of fascinating routes they could do for his character.

(Disclaimer as usual: this is a theory that I obsessed over when I was stuck at the cemetery during All Souls' Day and must be treated as such. In no way am I insisting this should be how canon events must happen. I am just doing this for the funsies.)

The THING about Jesus if you situate him in the world of Good Omens (with the assumption that most of the pop culture Christology mythos associated with him remain intact) is that in this context he very quickly becomes: 1. Adam Young's narrative foil; and 2. an Aziraphale parallel.

Now, the first one is obvious. Of COURSE he is Adam Young's foil, duh. Adam isn't called the ANTICHRIST for nothing. Brought into the world just for the sole purpose of ending it. However, when the time comes for him to fulfill the Will of his Satanic Father, Adam flat out REFUSES.

Both the book and the show attribute this to Adam's human upbringing. He was raised as a human, and because of that he has the trait that the book uses to DEFINE human beings: free will. At the end, Adam had the AGENCY to reject the destiny planned out for him.

'Adam stood smiling at the two of them, a small figure perfectly poised exactly between Heaven and Hell.

Crowley grabbed Aziraphale's arm. "You know what happened?" he hissed excitedly. "He was left alone! He grew up human! He's not Evil Incarnate or Good Incarnate, he's just… a human incarnate—"'

- (Good Omens, 1990)

That is NOT what happened to Jesus.

Adam Bond as Jesus in Good Omens (2019)

Like Adam, he was raised as a human -- being a human incarnate was his WHOLE DEAL in Christology. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us... yada yada yada.

UNLIKE, Adam, though, Jesus wasn't able to REJECT his Destiny of Dying Really Horribly and Painfully on the Cross. Narratives in the Bible also made it clear that the Crucifixion was NOT his Will, but that of God's. Like... him begging to be spared from torment but ultimately following God's Will is such an important event entire devotional practices are made out of it.

"39 And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."

- (Matthew 26: 39, KJV)

We get a glimpse of that in s1ep3 of Good Omens, too:

"JESUS

(muttering through the pain)

Father, please . . . you have to forgive them . . . they don’t know what they are doing . . .

Crowley, in black, comes up next to Aziraphale.

CROWLEY

You’ve come to smirk at the poor bugger, have you?

AZIRAPHALE

Smirk? Me?

CROWLEY

Well, your lot put him on there.

AZIRAPHALE

I am not consulted on policy decisions, Crawley."

- (The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book, 2018)

SO. Here we have the character of the Christ whose free will and agency had been STRIPPED from him in the guise of a "noble sacrifice." He comes back again on this Earth to fulfill another "inescapable destiny."

Aziraphale and Crowley need to stop him. The solution the Good Omens narrative offers to "inescapable destinies and systems" (both in s1 and s2) is for the character to realize they have the freedom to choose their own fates. It happened with Adam, and it happened with Gabriel, and perhaps it will happen to Jesus.

(At this point my sister frowned and said: "Are you telling me you think Aziraphale and Crowley are going to help Jesus realize he has agency and that him Dying on the Cross for the 'Great Plan' was kinda fucked up actually?" which sounds crazy when you put it like that BUT NEVER SAY NEVER BABIE.)

Because that brings me to my second point: if this all happens, Jesus becomes an AZIRAPHALE parallel.

In the same way Anathema is an Aziraphale parallel and Sergeant Shadwell is an Aziraphale parallel. Here is a character stuck in a suffocating status quo. To save the world, he needs to know he can escape that status quo and decide for himself. In the same way Anathema has to learn how to stop being a descendant or Shadwell to stop being a Witchfinder, or Gabriel to stop being an Archangel, and Adam to stop being an Antichrist, perhaps Jesus has to learn he can stop being... Well, the Christ, as well.

And this, of course, supplements Aziraphale's journey of letting go of the idea of being an idealized vessel of God, so he could finally enjoy the freedom of personhood and choice on Earth, with Crowley.

Or they could turn Jesus into a cackling villain who Aziraphale and Crowley need to kill in season 3, and I'd probably eat that up, too.

[clockwards]

truly genuinely fascinating watching s3ep20 House Training with the Wilson stuff. He really is just like that. Hes genuine. He takes women to lunch and plays and museums and does it with a smile on his face and not an ounce of bad intent. And he does it again. And they fall in love because he's so affably kind and senselessly caring and he blinks those big brown eyes at them and lets it happen. He lets it happen. He does know what he's doing. Because he is all about other people's love, other people's pleasure, and just like House he finds some eternal, niggling curiosity about /why/. So he figures it out, he follows this new woman's footsteps and lays out the red carpet until theres nothing left but a thread.

There is one red thread Wilson pulls to make everything and it is connected straight to House. Tug of war, babey.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“Faith is the drug that fuels the insanity of religion.”

-- CJ Anderson

[fructidors]

i've thought about this a lot and if i had to explain recorded sound to a ghost or a time traveler or an alien i would play them the recording of california song from this tmg show. the quiet simplicity. the person in the audience who shouts "i love you". the way after two lines, john leaves his mic and all you hear is the crowd, but it's small enough that you can pick out individual voices. the person with high voice who hits every note and you can hear their smile. the way the quiet of the first verse turns into a emphatic chant of "i've got joy, joy, joy in my soul tonight". the guy who sings the song the regular way while the rest of the crowd holds a note, and ends up being the only person singing in the audience for a moment. the way the john and the crowd keep singing "you really got a hold on me" until it's just peter's bass and everyone snapping along. the little improvised lines john sings before he says "thank you very much" and the crowd erupts. humanity at its absolute finest for real

[mask131]

The amount of actual antisemitism on this website is frightening.

It might not be obvious given Tumblr has a new algorithm that only shows you what you want to see, and yes there's maybe a whole discourse about the fighting of antisemitic views and blogs about criticizing antisemitic medias and remembering what genocidal antisemitic political group like the Nazis did. And when you look at this part of Tumblr you think "Alright, it's okay, it's cool."

Problem is that it is a really tiny fragment, and when you look at the other side of Tumblr, at the mass of things Tumblr doesn't show you, you'll find tons of antisemitic posts and tons of blogs praying for all Jews to die. Literaly I saw people here simply write "All Jews must die".

I shouldn't be surprised given the rise, return and multiplication of actual antisemitic political and social movements IRL in numerous countries... But it's still sad to see this website is just as corrupted as any others. I guess it is less visible because often antisemitic views tend to use political, religious or social arguments and subjects as "covers" (the current news is an especially good "shield") but always remember to check deeper and to carefully look at what people are writing - because you need to be able to read between the lines, to see if someone is actually involved in said topics or if they just use a superficial knowledge of it to promote a new genocide of the Jews as a whole.

[alexxuun]

I just want to say- whatever brain altering chemistry they put into this type of pairing? Compels me.

[sbeana]

got bored on the plane and i drew these mock covers for gtn and my dad made me stop drawing because he was like "thats an awful lot of red. thats a lottttt of red"