"Christian Conservatives...."

xposto

remember, the main reason WHY christian and conservative are so closely connoted nowadays is because certain conservatives spent the last 3 decades doing whatever they could to frame their religion as always being the same as their political bent.

One of the lecturers at the local arts college's belief in Christianity is so strong that even my granny what goes to church and says a rosary everyday is taken aback by it. At the same time the guy can say with a perfectly clear conscience that he supports stem-cell research and the right to choose re: abortion.

The attitude behind the first post does my fucking head in coz it reflects a tendency among more than a few ppl on this board to go for stereotypes & ad-hominem attacks instead of engaging with their opponents are actually saying when it comes to religion and a lot of other issues as well.

Although I'm not religious myself, I have great respect for the Scottish Christian Socialist tradition. It produced Kier Hardy after all.
It's all the uptight bigoted assholes who ignore the sensible stuff in the bible about love, respect, tolerance, charity, sharing etc and dig up obscure chapters in Ezekial to bash gays, women, the medical profession etc. Man those fuckers can go spin.

Yeah, like Xianity or the Bible are never used by their exponents to promote homophobia, are they? Maybe all those 'uptight bigoted assholes' with God Hates Fags placards are just taking the piss?

No worries, I could have constructed that paragraph better. Obviously the christian socialists are not the bigoted assholes who can go spin. If that's what you mean.

Even in Britain, which has a pretty liberal Christian tradition, the forces of reaction are really making inroads. Blair might say he's not doing religion in politics, but there's little doubt christian groups have his ear.
Sikh and Christian groups have been protesting at plays they believe are blasphemous. In the former case, the playwrite had to go into hiding as she was receiving death threats. She was a sikh, her play was about abuse going on in temples. Something worth discussing, rather than pretending it doesn't happen by accusing it of blasphemy.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in Scotland have said Catholic state schools shouldn't employ openly gay teachers because their lifestyles go against Catholic social teaching. Then what about all the non-Catholic staff who keep these schools running? It's madness.
It's deeply depressing that a religion that is supposed to be about love has been hijacked by screaming reactionaries and bigots. Nothing new admittedly (Crusades, Spanish Inquisition etc)but I just can't understand how Evangelicals can square their Christianity with the corruption, greed, lies and murderousness of the Bush regime.

Sure as it chaps my ass when someone says "An atheist, huh, well STALIN was an atheist, too!"

Luckily, the election and everything that's followed has made it FUN FUN FUN again. I could qualify my distaste for these "let Terri live!" freaks by adding that not all Christians are like that, not all Conservatives, etc. But to be honest, if they're going to act like idiots, I get to call them idiots.

JESUS SUCKS CHRISTIANITY'S GHEY ETC ETC ETC

(Extreme example, I know. But the point is there.)

If you're going to subscribe to a specific religion, why not just go with the oldest and therefore most likely to be correct? Makes sense to me. Paganism needs a non-dorky resurgence in popularity, methinks.

JESUS SUCKS CHRISTIANITY'S GHEY

Overwhelming respect for their right to believe there - and nicely unsubtle bit of "let's associate them with pedlos" thrown in for good measure.

Wow. Just...wow.

I also thought this was amusing because — hello? Read much news about the Catholic Church lately?

Also, it would be quite difficult to introduce you both to something called "sacrasm," rather than "sarcasm." Muh bad.

christian liberal/progressive.

but... hello?
These are not the only ones in the world. Some child abusers DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN GOD! Amazing but true - the Catholic Church doesn't have a monopoly on sick fucks.

Seriously, I agree. There is no monopoly on sick fuckery.

Sorry dood, but I've gotta admit this particular sentence made me roffle.

Some child abusers DON'T EVEN BELIEVE IN GOD!
The same can be said of right wing conservatives. Make of that what you will...

i believe in got.

What sounds point to the existence of a merciful god?

I love this question, I assume it's a typo, but I'm also a Christian and for me sound itself but also many individual sounds point to the existence of a kind and merciful God

Yeah see, I was going to respond to that question with "early period Van Morrison"

"What sounds point to the existence of a merciful god?"

John Coltrane.

I too came back into the fold recently.

I've been wondering who self-identifies as "Christian" on dating apps in 2024.

Seeking mature woman into pegging, improv comedy, and T.D. Jakes

i know that's a joke, but the taboo against men bottoming in patriarchal christian culture, the _shame_ directed at men who bottom, that shit is real and it's fucking painful to see. cishet guys who bottom, to me, that's one of the clearest examples of "patriarchy hurts men too"

I’m not really joking or shaming anyone. Christianity creates guilt and self-hatred. It’s stunning to me that people would embrace a faith that revolves around a man who likely never existed in the first place

a man who likely never existed in the first place

Worth noting that this is a very fringe view among scholars.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it became more widely adopted. All signs point to him basically being a composite of multiple people

I love this question, I assume it's a typo

Wait what is the assumed typo? I read it as asking what holiday music was playing at the bar, I feel so dense

“Signs” instead of “sounds”

on the question of "did the historical jesus exist"

i'm neither a biblical scholar nor a professional historian so i can't speak to things from that perspective

having said that, i will point out a couple of things

first, there is little evidence for the existence of a historical jesus. having said that, there is little evidence for the existence of _most people_ in ancient history. second, jesus in his lifetime _simply was not as important_ as christians make him out to be. i remember once seeing a striking christian billboard - the text said "WHO SPLIT TIME?" and there was, i recall a lightning bolt. jesus didn't _actually_ split time. in his day, time was measured in different ways. so yes, there's little evidence of the historical jesus, but there's no reason there _should_ be.

i will also say - this is my personal belief - the question of whether or not a historical jesus existed is just not that important to me. i know that not everybody believes that. when i was young, i went to mass, and father brendan got up and gave the homily and said that if it could be proven that jesus did not bodily rise from the dead, he would kill himself. that was the moment i stopped being a catholic. father brendan was not right in the head.

i also know that there are a large number of people who insist they believe that the bible, every word of it, is literally true. these people are mistake. any clever bastard can point that out, can say "oh yeah, what about fabrics made of two different fibers", "what about where the bible says this particular animal chews its cud when it factually doesn't", "what about the bits that contradict other bits". no. they don't literally believe the bible is empirically true in every respect, no matter what they say. i don't think those people are _lying_. i just think they're mistaken.

i feel like... i feel like i grew up in an empiricist age, one that says that nothing is true unless it is supported by objective, empirical evidence. and to me, there are... different kinds of true. i don't think that christianity is true in the same way that physics is true. the jesus who matters to me isn't the historical jesus, isn't the jesus who is _real_ in the same way that my ex-girlfriend is. there are just... things that are important to me that there isn't evidence for.

my go-to on this... it's controversial, but i feel it's less controversial than talking about jesus. there's this question that transphobes will ask a lot - "what is a woman"? they want certitudes, they want empirical evidence, they want _facts_. i talk to other trans people about it, and they do think that they're the gender they are in the same way that cows give milk. i know some people who badly want there to be evidence. they want to have a "gay gene".

and if you ask me "what is a woman?" i'll shrug and say "someone who says they're a woman". why am i a woman? because i say i am. i mean, so what if i'm not a woman? maybe i'm "actually" a man, maybe i'm just a man who feels a lot better, a lot happier, a lot more _alive_, being treated by the world as a woman and seeing myself as a woman.

that's kind of how i feel about jesus. christianity, i feel like it's as much of a social construct as gender. that doesn't mean it isn't _real_, that people who are inspired to do good, that people who find meaning and solace and purpose in it are fools. i have problems with institutional christianity, problems serious enough that i can't in good conscience call myself a christian. believing that the literal historical paul wrote letters which, in objective terms, he didn't write, which, in objective terms, are what's known as "pseudepigraphia"... that's not one of those problems.

“Signs” instead of “sounds”

The thrill and ecstasy of spontaneous subjective experience, in that case?

Honestly it's kinda why I don't call myself a "Christian" myself, even though my beliefs and views are very strongly inspired by Christianity, just because, like, what that means in the world at large is so different from what my personal beliefs and views are.

Do you feel like telling a bit about your personal understanding of Christianity and how it’s influenced your values, worldview or beliefs? By any chance.

After years of defending Christianity on the understanding that, as you say, there are so many different kinds, I’ve recently turned more hostile. Not from an empiricist perspective, of course, but an animist one (it helps to be reminded that people find meaning and solace and purpose in it).

Do you feel like telling a bit about your personal understanding of Christianity and how it’s influenced your values, worldview or beliefs? By any chance.

After years of defending Christianity on the understanding that, as you say, there are so many different kinds, I’ve recently turned more hostile. Not from an empiricist perspective, of course, but an animist one (it helps to be reminded that people find meaning and solace and purpose in it).

― Deflatormouse

hmmm. complicated question.

i did genuinely wonder, for a long time, why i was even born, what possible purpose there was to it. my life sucked and i didn't particularly find any value in being alive. religion was the only thing that really tried to answer that question. i was raised catholic, liberal catholic (not sure there's still such a thing, but there was then), and that was the lens through which i tried to answer the question. and i heard the scriptues, i went to church every sunday, and some of them stuck with me. "the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone", that's one that stuck with me a lot. i never really felt like i fit in, like i belonged anywhere. and to me, christianity was made for people who didn't fit in, the outcasts, the weirdos, the freaks.

i also thought the message of christianity, what it said in the gospels, that there was a lot of good stuff in there. the basic message of the gospel, as i understood it, was love god and love other people. i never really saw a problem with that. mostly i was confused that so many christians were so bad at that. i also looked at the scriptures to try and figure out what it means to be human. because people change so much over time. what's true today isn't necessarily what was true yesterday. so i could look at these ancient texts, and even though there was a lot about them i didn't really understand, i could look at things that people believed thousands of years ago, things i believed today, and that was important to me. that said something important to me about what it means to be human.

around 17, i left the catholic church because they taught a bunch of things that were harmful lies, because they were hypocrites, because i couldn't respect them. and i went through a bunch of other beliefs. i was an atheist for a spell as well. around the age of, i don't know, 36 i came back around to christianity. i was looking for something stable, something that had purpose and meaning, a place where i could find community. and since i lived in indiana, that meant finding a church. a mainline protestant church. very accepting. one of the clergy there was a lesbian, though she didn't talk about it much because a lot of people in the congregation would be upset if they knew.

this time around i connected with the concept of god's unconditional love. i struggled (and struggle) a lot with low self-esteem. being able to say that the most powerful being in the universe loves me, finds me to be valuable, wants me to be happy... well, who was i to argue with that? it was a good church, but it was dying. a lot of the mainline protestant churches have been dying for a long time. and just like with the catholics, there were a lot of things they didn't talk about. the person who was a lesbian didn't talk about being a lesbian. they didn't talk about where they got their money from. they didn't talk about why the person leaving the choir suddenly left, except to say that what they did "wasn't illegal".

more than that, they talked about being open to anyone, but it seemed to be more and more that being "open to everyone" wasn't really possible. i wasn't out at the time, but i had a hard time thinking of people who preached hatred and bigotry in god's name as my "brothers and sisters in Christ". what could i do, though? tell them they were wrong, that jesus didn't say that? on whose authority? who would listen to me?

i figured, you know, if god let people say these things, do these things in his name, and did nothing... well, he's responsible for that. whatever my values, whatever my beliefs, i couldn't in good conscience call myself a christian. because so much of christianity is also about the promise of justice. if injustice is being done in god's name, and god doesn't stop it, and i don't have power to stop it... that promise is empty. whatever i believe... as a catholic, i was taught that faith without works was empty. i knew the scripture that said of christians "by their deeds you will know them". (i think that's a scripture.) the good that christians do - people can do those things with or without belief in christ. the evil they do - a lot of that seems very specific to christians.

a lot of who i am, what i believe, is rooted in what i have learned from christian teachings. christianity, though, is not a belief to me - it is first and foremost a _community_. it's not a community where i belong. i seek community elsewhere.

this is fascinating to me!! how literally do y'all take this? like full on son of god, died for our sins, rose from the dead? or more like taking inspiration from jesus as righteous proto-hippie, respecting sex workers and yeeting money changers out the temple?

does your faith come up a lot in your daily lives, or is it more to help when huge terrible things happen?

how does it affect your behavior, your thoughts, your emotions? for the recent converts, has it changed how you live?

if any of you would be comfortable talking about exactly what the tipping point was for you (if there even was one; maybe it was a gradual revelation?) i am so curious to know!

i grew up lackadaisical presbyterian/episcopalian but don't remember actually believing in any of it. i very clearly recall sulking on one of those plastic fisher-price rocking horses in sunday school while the other kids gathered to hear bible stories and eat graham crackers, and feeling terribly scornful of their credulity. i was a bit of an asshole at the time. maybe bible stories would have helped!

after reading antonia white's novels i briefly thought tormented catholicism might be cool, but it didn't take

then i tried reading the bible for its literary merit and when i reached the part in genesis where God Himself tells women to fuck off and die i basically threw the whole canon in the trash.

cal do you still squish mice with bookshelves or do you just bean them with the new testament these days

i have to admit my first thought was that cal's super random doozy of a bookshelf with the miami vice vhs tapes and the photos of kowloon etc as pictured in the relevant thread now has the urantia book on it too

I’m not really joking or shaming anyone. Christianity creates guilt and self-hatred. It’s stunning to me that people would embrace a faith that revolves around a man who likely never existed in the first place

― beamish13, Sunday, November 3, 2024 12:16 PM bookmarkflaglink

this last part is just wrong - there is definitely historical record of a Jesus who was put to death by Pilate for insurrection. not much else was written about him, but even secular Bible scholars that are not of the faith have conceded he existed. the rest is the debate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus#:~:text=Biblical%20scholar%20Bart%20D.,%2C%20sometime%20during%20Tiberius's%20reign.%22

That is correct, Tacitus mentions the execution and Pilate specifically in the Annals.

Jesus and John the Baptist are also mentioned by Josephus. And there were kind of a lot of Messianic Jews around that time! It just seems like it would be unnecessary to completely make one up

xps sorry if this is a little rushed, since I might have to ghost the entire internet for weeks or months: thanks for taking the time to respond Kate! it's not the most reassuring response, on the whole. idk what I was expecting.

i never really felt like i fit in, like i belonged anywhere. and to me, christianity was made for people who didn't fit in, the outcasts, the weirdos, the freaks.

this part really surprised me. I had no idea anyone thought or felt this about Christianity, I was kind of astonished. But it makes sense! "God loves you" - that tracks

I was also really surprised to hear that the communities have changed so much in our lifetime, I wasn't really under the impression that things were better in living memory, or maybe ever.

i feel like... i feel like i grew up in an empiricist age, one that says that nothing is true unless it is supported by objective, empirical evidence. and to me, there are... different kinds of true. i don't think that christianity is true in the same way that physics is true. the jesus who matters to me isn't the historical jesus, isn't the jesus who is _real_ in the same way that my ex-girlfriend is. there are just... things that are important to me that there isn't evidence for.

tbh i can only see faith and science as two sides of the same coin, and Christian doctrine as deeply intertwined with the Greek psyche/body, matter/spirit dualities that regard the bodily world as a mechanical prison.

tbh i can only see faith and science as two sides of the same coin, and Christian doctrine as deeply intertwined with the Greek psyche/body, matter/spirit dualities that regard the bodily world as a mechanical prison.

― Deflatormouse

i fucked around with gnosticism afer reading dick when i was younger... the thing is that i never really bought into the idea of a mind/body split, which is impressive considering at the time i was suffering from severe gender dysphoria giving me persistent dissociation and depersonalization (meaning that i didn't feel like my body was my "me", that it was a meat sack i carried around with me). i just couldn't with dualism, which is kinda weird considering how given i am to all or nothing thinking haha

this is fascinating to me!! how literally do y'all take this? like full on son of god, died for our sins, rose from the dead? or more like taking inspiration from jesus as righteous proto-hippie, respecting sex workers and yeeting money changers out the temple?

does your faith come up a lot in your daily lives, or is it more to help when huge terrible things happen?

― twenteeth dentury (cat)

i don't take it literally at all! one of the reasons i don't call myself a christian is that my actual beliefs are well into the realm of what would be called heretical by most christians. i struggle to even talk about it because it makes me sound quite insane. i do suffer from severe mental illness but i'm not out of touch with reality.

i guess what i'll say is... when i'm trying to figure things out in my life, when i'm struggling with questions of right and wrong... i have this kind of image in my head of jesus, i can imagine really well what jesus would say, kind of like, what i've been taught about jesus, what i've read, my understanding of jesus in my head. like, nothing supernatural is going on. i don't believe the immortal son of a judean carpenter (or a roman soldier named pantera or whatever) from 2000 years ago is manifesting himself to me. i honestly don't believe in god or jesus at all, in a factual sense. who i am, the society in which i live... christianity has been so important in my life, so important in the lives of so many people in america, that i can't make sense of the world around me without recourse to it.

i will sometimes have these conversations that i think of as "conversations with jesus", not in some kind of prophetic or divine sense. religion is _ordinary_ to me, it's kind of an ordinary presence in my life. my favorite part of the church year was what they called "ordinary time". i'm a big fan of ordinary time. so for instance... this is something i get frustrated with a lot, when i get frustrated about christians i'll sort of talk to jesus about it. i complain to jesus a lot about him not doing enough smiting. i mean i guess he's a "proto-hippie" in the same way that, like, billy jack is. "i come to bring not peace, but a sword", cursing trees to never again bear fruit because it didn't have a pomegranate when he wanted one. shit like that. anyway i say jesus, why aren't you doing more smiting, and jesus comes back and says "kate, you know that's not how i do things". i mean he's right, if jesus did happen to be real it's not like he'd send a lightning bolt from the heavens to strike down rick warren and say "YOU HAVE MADE MY TEMPLE INTO A CHARNEL HOUSE" or something like that. i mean that seems a little out of character for him.

but it's not like... i mean, christianity is really complicated and doesn't make sense, it's often contradictory, it means so many things to so many people, it means so many contradictory things to _me_. i do think about things like meaning, purpose, right, wrong, i think about this stuff a lot. and sometimes religion can help me make sense of them, and sometimes religion can kinda stop me from overthinking.

my beliefs are honestly syncretic. there's some stuff from buddhism that i practice, there's... it's kinda weird. i don't think of myself as a practicing witch, i just feel like i'm culturally a witch. like one day a couple years into transition i woke up and realized "huh, i guess i'm a witch now". i kinda think of transition as some magical ritual i did. not, like, that it's literally magic. i mean it's basically science, or at least it would be IF THEY WOULD DO SOME MORE FUCKING STUDIES ON THIS STUFF, sigh. it's more the experience of becoming something i thought was impossible. like yeah i _could_ describe it entirely in empirical terms but i feel like that kinda falls short, it doesn't really do justice to how weird the whole thing actually is, the ways in which i've actually changed, even if none of it is actually supernatural. that's kinda how i feel about any of my "spiritual beliefs" or what have you.

ultimately though i do think there are just, basically, different ways of looking at the world. the empirical, evidence based way of looking at things, that's the only one that's real in a, like, concrete sense, but that doesn't mean there's not value or meaning to me in looking at things from other perspectives. and i haven't really read the lotus sutra. i haven't read, i don't know, starhawk or whatever. if i'm gonna view the world through a lens, christianity is going to be the main focus, because i've lived all my life in north america, because i've grown up under certain circumstances. job on suffering, ecclesiastes on, i don't know, philosophical pessimism, revelation on batshit crazy, the pauline epistles on how to live in radical community. bill fay and and johnny cash and dave bixby and the texas-jerusalem crossroads. jorge ben singing "brother". the uncanny sound of sacred harp singing. it's just... everywhere, all around me, whether i like it or not.

i guess if there's one thing that encapsulates christianity more than anything else for me it's psalm 137. it's probably the second most famous psalm, after the 23rd psalm. psalm 137 is "by the waters of babylon..." that one. the melodians, of course, but so many people have done settings of it. well. of the first two stanzas. the third stanza... that's where it turns brutal and vicious, where the psalm praises as "blessed" anyone who murders babylonian children. it's shocking and brutal. you go from this elegiac, beautiful song of loss and yearning to, well, _that_. it confounds me. it confounds me that these two things can exist in the same song. but that's the world i grew up in, that's the faith i grew up in. that's christianity, in a nutshell, right there.

(i know that's not a christian scripture but i've only ever read it in a christian context. judaism looks at those scriptures differently than christians do, from what i've seen. i can't really judge or evaluate psalm 137 from that perspective.)

anyway i say jesus, why aren't you doing more smiting, and jesus comes back and says "kate, you know that's not how i do things". i mean he's right, if jesus did happen to be real it's not like he'd send a lightning bolt from the heavens to strike down rick warren and say "YOU HAVE MADE MY TEMPLE INTO A CHARNEL HOUSE" or something like that. i mean that seems a little out of character for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewTnjqV_hxA

Misread that as “Rick wakeman”, uhh, multiple times :D

anyway, there's a lot in this post I can relate to. this is much more what I was asking about wrt your personal understanding of Christianity, thx

i don't think of myself as a practicing witch, i just feel like i'm culturally a witch. like one day a couple years into transition i woke up and realized "huh, i guess i'm a witch now". i kinda think of transition as some magical ritual i did.

I loved this!! technically, I've been initiated into a Gardnerian coven forever ago, but i don't think of myself as a witch. except that I find it very easy, and perfectly *normal* to shift between different, uh, "dimensions" I guess. I relate v much to what you said about "ordinary time". I looked it up. this stuff, to me is totally banal. I *certainly* don't consider myself a Wiccan or pagan- if I was going to label my "spiritual beliefs *or what have you*" (and I like the "what have you" a lot), then I consider myself a bioregional animist. I would stress, though, that most people who *do* self-identify as witches don't believe there is a supernatural aspect to magic or spirituality, but I def think they would recognize transition, and your mobilization of will out of necessity, as a textbook magical act.

And I suspect, though I haven't researched this thoroughly or anything, that the concept of "supernatural" is largely a Christian construct based on the remote/disembodied spirit. I don't believe in anything supernatural, I just don't think actual nature is prosaic, predictable, mute, or unconscious. The "unconscious" part in particular is where I find myself most at odds with what I know about the Christian world view (and, if I'm honest, ilx. lol)

lol at calstars' complete absence since bumping this thread

'i like carols in the bar now'

'can't wait to anger my relatives at thanksgiving!'

'i can shit on people i hate and you can't gainsay me because jesus'

darling Deflatormouse, keep your head up sweetheart

thank you for your response, Kate! ima try to type up a proper [synonym for response] but if i get too lost in my words and end up posting nothing i want to at least express my appreciation. you are a rad witch for christ, and one of the best posters to grace this borad imo

otm

cat, I'm feeling pretty good! actually I am soaring these last few days.
I hope you type up that synonym, because I always look forward to reading your words when you and they show up here.

calstars at 3:44 2 Nov 24

Well I read this book “urantia” and it really spoke to me.

did a little googling and this seems like some crazy bullshit

certainly reading it hasn't made him reconsider being an unfunny drunk guy

Why should he be different than any other Christian?

thank you for your response, Kate! ima try to type up a proper [synonym for response] but if i get too lost in my words and end up posting nothing i want to at least express my appreciation. you are a rad witch for christ, and one of the best posters to grace this borad imo

― twenteeth dentury (cat)

aww, thanks so much :)

re: urantia - i was in a ufo cul-- "new religious movement" back in the '90s and i learned about a lot of... less mainstream religious traditions - i think that's where i picked up on the urantia book. i remember it as being said to be a "channeled" text, written unconsciously. kinda similar to the 1882 book "oahspe" produced by an american dentist. anyway, the urantia book, sun ra got into it for a while and passed out pages of it to people. bernard paganotti, former bassist of magma, seems to have been into it as well. there's this amazing jam called "une parcelle d'urantia" on his 1995 "paga" album, originally written for weidorje's never-completed second album. can't recommend it strongly enough.

i'm, honestly, not inclined to judge people solely on the grounds of their cosmological beliefs. i think all of this stuff happens within a certain context. i mean i grew up catholic, being taught that when i take communion i am literally eating the flesh and drinking the blood of jesus christ. on paper that's kind of weird, but a lot of people do it and don't seem to be any worse for doing it. again, i got issues with roman catholicism as an institution, but the doctrine of transubstantiation isn't one of them. did i ever believe that i was literally eating the body and drinking the blood of jesus? quite honestly, no. couldn't muster the suspension of disbelief necessary to buy that. did it _personally inspire me_, the doctrine that something can look like something to all appearances, seem to be something by every measurable scientific standard, and be something else entirely? yes. yes, it absolutely did. i was never one of those "wrong body" type of people, but the idea of change as a holy act - transfiguration, transubstantiation, _transness_ as sacred - yeah that's a pretty core part of my belief system!

And I suspect, though I haven't researched this thoroughly or anything, that the concept of "supernatural" is largely a Christian construct based on the remote/disembodied spirit. I don't believe in anything supernatural, I just don't think actual nature is prosaic, predictable, mute, or unconscious. The "unconscious" part in particular is where I find myself most at odds with what I know about the Christian world view (and, if I'm honest, ilx. lol)

― Deflatormouse

i definitely learned about the gaia hypothesis growing up... it's easy for me to get into the weeds on, i don't know, the nature of consciousness or sentience or whatever. i did hear once... i don't know if it's true... but that pre-christian paganism didn't require _belief_ the way christianity does. that it's more about performing the appropriate rituals. it's possible to see "transition" as, you know, me taking estrogen and growing boobs or whatever. in an empirical sense, that's what estrogen is, it's a drug that had certain physiological effects on my body. or i could look at it as a reagent, part of a larger magical ritual. honestly i don't know shit about reagents except that i used to play ultima vi. so i don't know if my understanding has anything to do with gardnerian theory. because the essential nature of how i changed isn't physical, wasn't physical. i don't think it's cosmological either. the stock line i have about transition is that at it's heart it's just learning to value who you are over who other people would like you to be. anything else that happens is, i don't know, a happy accident, perhaps.

that's what estrogen is, it's a drug that had certain physiological effects on my body.

not even a drug, actually, a hormone, like, idk, melatonin or insulin or something.

the Gaia hypothesis for me is kinda like what Christianity is for you in some ways- i don't think it's demonstrably, empirically "true", and some of the implications have another kind of relevance to me, but i still feel a need to distance myself from it somewhat.

i haven't heard the term "reagent" often or recently, but we have used uh, various "stuff" (notably some "fun" topicals)

christianity has been so important in my life, so important in the lives of so many people in america, that i can't make sense of the world around me without recourse to it.

meant to say that's a very good and important point, it's kinda the inverse of what i used to say to skeptical divination clients: "it doesn't matter if it's true as long as it's real". it is certainly an entity, something that unavoidably has to be reckoned with

okay, time to unplug for a while

basically me, except replace the cup w/ abrahamic religions

https://i.imgur.com/IbGN6xX.jpeg

i thought the cat's mouth was a loaf of bread and i was confused

i hear you on the abrahamic religions though. i have arguments with friends sometimes where they'll say "the root cause is capitalism" and i'll say "the root cause is patriarchy, and the prime mover behind patriarchy in america comes is christianity" and then they'll say "yeah but capitalism has colonized christianity" and i'll say "not irrevocably" and i'll say "yes irrevocably" and then they bring us our dinner and it is DELICIOUS

Kate mention of Psalm 137 upthread reminds me that my pastor has discussed that same paradox (the sorrow, and the beauty, and the infant murder of it all) in her most recent book, which I was just flipping through a few days ago.

https://www.mennomedia.org/9781513808130/how-to-have-an-enemy/

We are having a post-election worship and reflection service tonight that I am very sad to have to miss; but I'm so glad I have this community in my life.

the eerie thing about the new paramilitary Trump right is it is an extreme version of why I left the faith. Now, I wasn't exactly a believer from a literal standpoint, anyway, which is a problem in a "biblical inerrancy" believing Fundie church. but I didn't mind going anyway as I felt the message was good, and I could tolerate the people around me. To their credit, though this church did preach toxic messages about the evils of homosexuality, abortion, etc, like you would expect of a Fundie church, they did approach things with much more empathy than you often see in some of the more unhinged churches.

But as I got older and grew up in the church, I started to realize the people that were attending, many of them were shitty people! Like toxic, emotional bullies, who'd do things like creepily catcall the 15-year old actress in one of our cheesy church plays, express unhinged racism or misogyny, belittle their significant others. It was starting to bother me and I'd look for excuses not to attend. Yet every time I would think these people were there because they were forced to be, any time it was time to worship, they got into it! They could answer the questions during Bible discussion, they seemed invested when singing the songs, like the dichotomy was weird to me.

one night, we had a guest speaker, a Messianic Jew that had converted from Orthodox Judaism. This was a guy whose level of knowledge surpassed everybody in the room, including my own church's preachers.

But he delivered one uncomfortable message - "I often see people leaving church all giggles and smiles, like every worry has washed off of of you. and I have to say, I don't understand that. I don't begrudge happiness, we should all seek it when we can. but living up to Jesus's message takes a lot of work, and no matter how much work we put in, and how hard we try to live up to it, we will always fall short. and despite that, He continues to forgive us through his mercy, even though we are not worthy of it. Hearing that message and having that knowledge, I would expect us to leave worship a lot more humble, thoughtful and focused on doing the work we need to do. It is a heavy message - it should weigh on you!"

I realized this applied to a lot of the shitty people I was talking about. They somehow would turn on a dime from acting like shitheads to being invested while worshipping and then went right back to being giggling schoolyard shitheads right afterward. I thought about it that weekend and it kind of clarified for my 18-year old naive self that for a lot of these people, their religion was simply vanity, a means to alleviate their guilt for being a shitty person without any accountability or repercussions. It didn't even require going into a Confessional booth and doing work afterwards, just simply going to the church and saying the right words was enough to legitimize everything they did, and nobody could make them feel bad for it because their religion was their shield.

as bad as these assholes were, many of them were a far cry from the armed-to-the-teeth Christofascist cult we have in America now. At least they could give lip service to understanding their religion, even if they themselves weren't demonstrating it, whereas we have MAGA "Christians" publicly lamenting that Christians 'turn the other cheek' too much, as if they don't know where that phrase originated. but similar motivation - I'm part of the secret club, and as long as I say the password, I get to live forever and you don't. They value the 'dogma' over the underlying message, and then don't even get the 'dogma' right to begin with.

that's just my personal experience, and I have utmost respect for the identified Christians itt.

sorry xxxxxxposts

very sorry didn't mean to bull in china shop with that. had meant to post this earlier in week

No it's good I like it. I agree with your guest speaker, and with Jesus's disciples when they said: "This is a hard teaching, who can accept it"

Good post neando

i deem thy post good, Neando. some helpful inside perspective.

Kate mention of Psalm 137 upthread reminds me that my pastor has discussed that same paradox (the sorrow, and the beauty, and the infant murder of it all) in her most recent book, which I was just flipping through a few days ago.

https://www.mennomedia.org/9781513808130/how-to-have-an-enemy/

We are having a post-election worship and reflection service tonight that I am very sad to have to miss; but I'm so glad I have this community in my life.

― You're supposed to go to Heaven, ideally not Las Vegas (bernard snowy)

how to have an enemy! haven't read the book, but i like the title. it's times like these that i turn most of all to my faith. one of the things that i struggle with is that i _do_ have anger, i do have _hatred_. i do reject the call for vengeance of psalm 137. i used to have a lot of... i'll call it malediction. i understand malediction very well. my most violent impulses are only ever turned on myself (this is the fundamental reason for my nonviolence), but as recently as a few years ago i did wish suffering upon those who hurt me. i wanted them to be hurt as they hurt me. i understand the desires within psalm 137. i understand that righteous anger. i've felt it, very often.

to me, that anger is not sacred. is not holy. the question is always: where would i stop? me personally? i wouldn't. that rage is _omnicidal_ in extent. in my darkest moments, given the opportunity, i genuinely believe i would choose to kill every single person on this planet.

i turn to the faith tradition i was raised in, i turn to christianity, to try and make sense of these feelings. how else can i make sense of them? how else can i make sense of _having_ enemies? before transition, when i thought of myself as a white cishet man, i thought it was _possible_ to live a life without enemies. if i was somebody's enemy, it could only truly be for what i had _done_, rather than who i _was_.

christianity, in america (and probably in many other places), is full of people who, apparently genuinely, believe me to an abomination against god. not because of anything i have done. simply for my existence. i "disfigure the face of man and woman", or something. this is the same god who i was taught loves me and wants me to be happy, and i mean...

this is the biggest challenge i face right now. in christianity there's this idea of a "calling", and that can be a vocation like the priesthood, that's how it's used sometimes, but one can be called to anything. i do feel called. i feel called by god, whatever _that's_ supposed to mean, to be happy. i fucking hate that. i hate that so much. i'm not called to martyrdom, or to fight my enemies, or even _to inspire others_. no. out of all the things to be called to, i'm called to _be happy_.

that's the hardest fucking thing i can imagine, and the god i believe in _knows_ that, and is calling me to do that anyway. that dirty motherfucker.

thinking about it, it isn't actually that hard for me to have enemies, these days. i've learned a lot. i don't hate my enemies. i don't wish harm on them. I don't ask god to forgive them, for their hearts to be hardened or softened. i guess if i had an attitude towards my enemies, it's that... i have hope for them. i recognize that they _choose_ to be my enemy, and that they can choose otherwise. i don't expect them to, ever. i just know that any of them could. at any time. in the meantime, all i can do is try to keep myself and the people i am in community with safe from them.

i guess the challenge, when it comes to the people who are my enemies, is just... explaining to other people what that _means_. it just means that i perceive them fundamentally as a _threat_, irrespective of any emotions i might have towards them.

i'm pretty good at having enemies. i'm not very good at having friends. that's the bigger challenge, for me.

great post btw neando, <3