#(the Gnosticism is showing)

[allottavabassa]

Wait a minute, is Norea du Noc named after Norea, the enlightened character from Sethian gnostic texts?

see Roelf van den Broek, Gnostic Religion in Antiquity, p. 68…

Norea is known as the daughter of Eve and the wife of Seth or as the wife of Noah, but she assumes here the features of the fallen Sophia

Jesus Christ, Sunrise

[blood-orange-juice]

@yokelish reminded me and I can't stop thinking about it again

The Snow Queen's most loyal knight, a boy with a shard of troll's mirror in his eye.

Except that there's no Gerda. There never was a Gerda and there never will be a Gerda. No one will come. And also the troll's mirror might be showing the truth this time.

Or maybe all the Harbingers are like that.

"Perhaps it is fair to say that only those who possess an obsession close to or even exceeding the level of delusion might be willing to join this group."

(from the Funerary Mask description. I do think the mirror stands for something Khaenri'ahn though)

[the-octic-scribe]

Thoughts like that are why we have daffodills by the lake. Your sweet echo is dying to know , if she repeats your wisdom- will you finally see her? Or is it when you see her logos° that you might finally turn to her. Why must she become the sun for you to see her grace. Cast your ego aside for just one moment, oh dear narrssicus , and look at the moon.

°ration/words (philisophical reading) or emination of the divine (gnostic reading)

[gaykarstaagforever]

I was going to forego the rest of the stupid Book of Mormon now and read Pistis Sophia, because at least that is someone earnestly writing a crazy book in the 3rd century about Jesus being the Ultimate Wizard. Plus it apparently also throws shade at both Valentinian and Sethian Gnosticism, because when you're into heretical doctrine about Jesus being a wizard, you need to argue about the details with other Greco-Egyptian goths.

But guess what? Guess what happened? GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME??

I feel like these people are spiritually haunting me.

First of all, best of luck using Gnostic scriptures to "prove" your goofy cult. Most of them are lists of angels you have to memorize or you won't get reincarnated. This is like using a witch's cookbook to try and prove how chemtrails are real.

Second of all, the Jesus in the Gnostic scriptures is sarcastic and probably a ghost, and spends most of the time trying to tell everyone how God is in fact the devil and that's why the whole Old Testament doesn't matter. How the hell is that consistent with "he loves the kind of Jews who are now white people the most"?

Plus if you are a Mormon and you are aware of Gnosticism...just become a goddamn gnostic. It has the same amount of exclusionary mystery rituals and wacky mythology, but at least isn't inherently racist or sexist or centered around a very profitable grift.

But aye, there is the rub!

...Can't even enjoy Wizard Jesus without Utah ruining my fun.

If Joseph Smith had known about Gnosticism, he would have hated it. A decentralized personal faith that usually centers on a feminine creative force and is largely pro-celibacy? He would have thrown up unto his hat!

[daz4i]

i likely won't get into genshin but it's probably for the best. bc from what i know abt the lore and world etc i will become the most annoying person in the world if i did

[cruelsister-moved2]

I think people have confused the fact that it's definitely possible to go "look this magical guy told me these are the rules so now you all have to obey" with believing that religion is intrinsically just that. and it's like they just discount the possibility that anyone has ever earnestly believed in a higher authority or genuinely had a mystical experience or whatever. the thing is if you actually observe how religious people behave, especially if you look outside of like evangelical megachurch pastors who are clearly just grifting, it immediately becomes pretty hard to ignore that.

for every example of religion maintaining inequality u have muslim charities successfully preventing FGM by informing muslim communities who perpetrate it that it's haram, sikhs opposing casteism, early christians fighting gender inequality etc etc etc + on an individual level literally countless people who have fought against poverty and oppression on the basis of religious belief. like... IS it really something specific about religion or is it the fact that hegemony will naturally pick up and spread whatever supports it and suppress whatever doesn't?because the same can also be said of like... music... so are u going to say music is just a tool of the elite or whatever? bc it definitely can be. but it's equally a tool for resisting oppression and also just a significant part of the human experience.

aren't we meant to be postmodernists now like i think maybe things sometimes do just happen sometimes. what Society does with it after the fact is another question, but if you look at the history of religion I'm surprised if you don't come away with some awareness that genuine belief in some sort of authority or mechanism which is outside of human control can be something very transformative. like the fundamental innovation of the torah was to say that every human life is equal to every other human life in opposition to the code of hammurabi which said that some people's life = other people's pocket change. only a power which comes from somewhere outside human society would be able to ensure that law was applied fairly and equally to all rather than manipulated on the whim of the human with the most power to enforce it. if the "abrahamic" religions can be said to have anything in common at all, it's probably a call to humbleness and the value of every human being. much to think about!!!!

[magical-xirl-4]

Thinking about Rukkhadevata’s design again in Genshin and how fucking bleak it is. It makes me upset because after Nahida was leaked, I thought the ORIGINAL Dendro Archon was going to look completely different and take actual inspiration from SWANA, because to me she was the TRUE Dendro Archon. I was looking forward to her so much, only to be dismayed when I realised Nahida is the actual Archon, and especially broken up about how Rukkhadevata looked. She is just… nothing. She’s beautiful, sure. But she’s just. Nothing.

She didn’t even have to be that pale!! Nahida/Kusanali (can’t remember which name) is said to be very pale in mythology which, okay fine, make her pale, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ORIGINAL AND HER PREDECESSOR? SHE DIDN’T NEED TO LOOK LIKE A GROWN VERSION OF HER OMG.

[albedid]

so fascinating to me that the gods viewed staying human for eternity to be a greater punishment than loosing most of your sentience and being turned into a monster

[twixtandshout]

Have you ever seen the show Revolutionary Girl Utena, and if so, thoughts?

Hmmm, funny you should mention that. I haven't seen it and don't plan to – it's got a few too many squicks for me – but I've read some meta. I don't think I can say I know it well enough to really talk about, though.

[thanatoseyes]

I think in some demiurge strains we could use the concept of the malevolent demiurge as a narrative tool. if you take into consideration that if you are inherently evil and this place is inherently evil then why? Why should you take care of yourself and why should you take care of the earth? It places humanity in a sort of vaccum of centricism. Where one of the end goals could be to be better than you were before.

[foone]

I woke up with this idea for a cosmology that I might could write about:

God is a plagiarist

A little like the gnostic idea of there being a hidden God and a malevolent God , but it's the the hidden God that made everything, and the malevolent God is the one that's been hanging around humanity the last dozen millenia.

Hidden God made the universe, created the stars and the darkness, the land and the sea, the plants, animals, and humans. The celestial spheres where set in motion by them, and then they went away. To create more elsewhere? Maybe, probably. But they're not around anymore. They left our plant and species to fend for ourselves, knowing we'd manage with the gifts* they gave us.

And then another God showed up to the unsupervised earth and started yelling at prophets, telling them He made the universe and everybody needs to worship him. He's the one who came up with the garden of eden story, who wrote the 10 commandments, who eventually sent Jesus to bring salvation to humanity.

But he lied. He didn't make us. He may be a God with all the powers that implies, but he just showed up to a bunch of hairless apes who were wondering where they came from and yelled "oh I did it. I'm your daddy, I made you all!"

I dunno what to do with this story idea. I'm not sure where it could go at the moment. I'll have to let it stew a while.

* the unique gifts of Homo Sapiens Sapiens are not "intelligence" and "wisdom" as some might assume, but are canonically "cooking", "baseball", and "walking for a long time**"

** my phone wanted to say the third one is "butt boy". No...

[toskarin]

most people's knowledge of gnosticism on here is reverse-engineered from hearing shitposts about how its often the basis for jrpg worldbuilding and that kinda shows in how they only talk about the jrpg-y bits

[tanadrin]

Revised version of "polytheism vs elaborateness" religion chart. I started with a list of around 150 religions, sects, denominations, philosophies, and spiritual tendencies, whittled down to 100 based on what I could find information on and what meaningful differences would actually show up in a chart like this. Dark blue is Christianity and Christian-derived tendencies; light blue is Judaism and Jewish-derived tendencies; green is Islam and Islam-influenced tendencies; purple is ancient Mediterranean polytheism and related schools of thought; red is Dharmic/Hindu-influenced schools of thought; tan is Chinese religion and philosophy; orange is new religious movements; black is other, unaffiliated religions and movements.

Obviously, "what is a religion" is a complicated topic. Some of the things on this chart might strike you more as philosophical schools (Carvaka, Stoicism), epistemological approaches (Unitarian Universalism), or different ways of slicing the same tradition. The scholarly definition of "religion" is sort of fundamentally circular, and that's not something I'm interested in trying to untangle for this entirely non-scientific exercise.

Religions etc. are scored on two axis: polytheism vs elaborateness of practice. Polytheism is a rank from zero to 11, thus:

0. Strict atheist and materialist, denying the possibility of both gods and the supernatural, e.g., Carvaka.

1. Atheist. Denies the existence of significant supernatural agents worthy of worship, but may not deny all supernatural (or psychic, paranormal, etc.) beings and phenomena (e.g., Mimamsa).

2. Agnostic. This religion makes no dogmatic claims about the existence of supernatural beings worthy of worship, and it may not matter for this religion if such beings exist (e.g., Unitarian Universalists). It does not preclude--and may actually incorporate--other supernatural, psychic, or paranormal phenomena (e.g., Scientology).

3. Deist. This religion acknowledges at least one god or Supreme Being, but rejects this being's active intervention in the world after its creation (e.g., Christian Deism). Deism is marked with a gray line on the chart, in case you want to distinguish religions that specifically care about all this God business from ones that don't.

4. Tawhid monotheist. This religion acknowledges only a single transcendent god above all other natural or supernatural beings, who is usually the creator of the universe and the ground of being, and is without parts, division, or internal distinction (e.g., Islam).

5. Formal monotheism. This religion acknowledges a single god, usually transcendent above all other natural or supernatural beings, but who may have aspects, hypostases, or distinct parts (e.g., Trinitarian Christianity). Pantheism may be considered a special case of formal monotheism that identifies the universe and its many discrete phenomena with a single god or divine force.

6. Dualism. This religion acknowledges a single god worthy of worship, alongside a second inferior, often malevolent being that nevertheless wields great power in or over the world (e.g., Zoroastrianism or Gnosticism).

7. Monolatrist. This religion or practice acknowledges the existence of many gods or divine beings worthy of worship, but focuses on, or happens to be devoted to only one of them (e.g., ancient mystery cults; pre-exilic Judaism).

8. Oligotheist. This religion worships a small group of divine beings, who may function for devotional or rhetorical purposes as a single entity (e.g., Mormonism, Smartism).

9. Monogenic polytheism/Henotheism. This religion worships many gods, which it sees as proceeding from or owing their existence to, a single underlying or overarching force or supreme god (e.g., many forms of Hinduism).

10. Heterogenic polytheism. This religion worships many gods, who have diverse origins and/or natures. Though the number of gods is in practical terms probably unlimited, gods are discrete entities or personalities, i.e., they are "countably infinite" (e.g., many polytheistic traditions).

11. Animism. This religion worships many gods which may or may not be discrete entities, and which may or may not be innumerable even in principle, i.e., they are "uncountably infinite" (e.g., many animist traditions).

What counts as a god is naturally a bit of a judgement call, as is exactly where a religion falls on this scale.

Elaborateness of practice is based on assigning one point per feature from the following list of features:

Uses vs forbids accompanied music in worship

Saints or intermediary beings accept prayers/devotion

Liturgical calendar with specific rituals or festivals

Practices monasticism

Venerates relics or holy objects

Clerics have special, elaborate clothing

Clerics have special qualificiations, e.g., must be celibate or must go through elaborate initiation/training

Elaborate sacred art or architecture used in places of worship

Sites of pilgrimage, or other form of cult centralization

Sophisticated religious hierarchy beyond the congregational level

Mandatory periods of fasting and/or complex dietary rules

Specific clothing requirements for laypeople

Specific body modifications either required or forbidden for laypeople

Liturgical language

Complex ritual purity rules

Performs sacrifice

Performs human sacrifice (or cannibalism)

Uses entheogens

Uses meditation or engages in mystical practice

Additionally, a point is taken away for austerity for each of the following features:

Forbids secular music outside worship

Claims sola scriptura tradition

Practices pacifism or ahimsa

Requires vegetarianism of all adherents

These scores are probably pretty inexact, since I am not a scholar of world religion.

This chart is not scientific, it's just a goof based on that @apricops post.

Other fun dimensions along which to chart religions might be:

Orthodoxy vs orthopraxy

Authoritarianism/control of members. This would add some much needed distinctions to Christian sects in particular, and to the new religious movements.

Elaborateness of cosmological claims. Some religions (looking at you, Buddhism) really go hog-wild here.

Social egalitarianism. Even within the same framework/tradition/philosophy, some practices differ radically on how egalitarian they are.

[a-queer-seminarian]

I made these charts to provide an easy reference guide for comparing the four Gospels! Feel free to share around wherever.

I think tumblr's crunching up these images so visit here for crisper versions (plus they're table format instead of png format).

Alt text version is under the readmore, necessarily formatted slightly differently but with all the same info.

TEXT ONLY / NON CHART VERSION:

Images show two charts, each credited to Avery Arden with a note that the material largely derives from the abridged version of Raymond E. Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament.

Chart 1: Comparing the Gospels, Part 1 – historical context

Mark

When: 

Late 60s/early 70s

Who:

Jewish

Multi-lingual — peppers Aramaic into the Greek

Where:

Rome or Syria (clearly unfamiliar with Palestinian geography)

To whom:

Mainly to Gentiles new to Christianity who were experiencing persecution

Priorities:

Encourage audience and show them how their suffering fit into Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God

Matthew:

When: 

Late 70s/80s

Who: 

Jewish 

Also multi-lingual, with Aramaic phrases;

Greek more polished than Mark’s

Where:

Probably in or near Antioch (in Syria); possibly Galilee

To Whom: 

Mainly to well-educated Jews who were debating internally about how Jewish tradition fit into following Jesus

Priorities: 

Promote Messiah Jesus who fulfills audience’s Jewish scriptures

inform church life and structure

Luke

When:

mid-to-late-80s

Who:

Gentile (possibly Jewish convert)

Educated Greek “historian” familiar with Septuagint; no use of Aramaic; expert use of Greek

Where:

Probably Greece; possibly Syria; also unfamiliar with Palestine

To whom:

Mainly to wealthy Gentiles influenced by Paul’s mission; living in an urban setting

Priorities:

Promote Isaiah-like Jesus; challenge audience to live out faith more actively (e.g., by redistributing wealth)

John

When: 

90s / as late as 110

Who:

Jewish 

Student(s) of “the Beloved Disciple” (the “Johannine school”)

Where:

Traditionally Ephesus; possibly Syria

To whom:

To a mixed crowd of Jews & Gentiles, at a time when tensions between Jews who did & didn’t follow Jesus had reached an all-time high

Priorities:

Promote Jesus’s divinity; strengthen unity in a group increasingly defining itself as separate from Jewish ones

Chart 2: Comparing the Gospels, Part 2 — Thematic Content

Mark

Emphasizes Jesus as:

Jesus as miracle-worker / healer; human being 

Unafraid to depict human limitations & emotions in Jesus

Other defining attributes / content:

Focuses on Jesus’s actions, e.g., his miracles; as well as on his suffering and death

Originally ended with the empty tomb & fear; no resurrection relief

The disciples often fail to understand Jesus; Jesus is frequently secretive about his identity

Matthew

Emphasizes Jesus as:

A Moses figure, Messiah, Son of God; teacher

Removes descriptions that make Jesus seem limited, naïve

Other defining attributes / content:

Beatitudes (ch. 5); judgment of the “sheep and goats” (ch. 25); 

Instructions for intracommunal relationships; forgiveness; “Great Commission” (ch. 28)

Polishes Mark’s depiction of the disciples to present them more favorably (esp. Peter as the “rock” of the church)

Luke

Emphasizes Jesus as:

Self-aware Son of God; prophet of the poor

Removes descriptions that make Jesus seem emotional, harsh, or weak

Other defining attributes / content:

Beatitudes (ch. 6) — with added “woes”; frequent warnings about risks of wealth

Also depicts disciples more favorably

Favorable depictions of tax collectors as sinners on the way to redemption; 

negative views of Pharisees as rejectors of Jesus, juxtaposed with stories of Gentiles who express faith

John

Emphasizes Jesus as:

Divine, the Word / “I Am” made flesh; lamb of God

Often misunderstood by disciples & crowds due to his use of figurative language

Other defining attributes / content:

Poetic format, full of symbolism; similarities to Gnostic texts that arose in the same era

Lots of “testimony” and “signs”

Despite Jesus & his disciples being Jewish, John depicts “the Jews” as being against Jesus; his Jesus says things like “It is written in your law…”

[anim-ttrpgs]

I was looking over the itch.io page for Eureka, and surprised that Blood (1997) was listed as an inspiration. That’s the build era shooter right? If so, I’m curious how the Blood inspiration shows up in Eureka (either mechanics or lore). I’m a huge fan of that game!

Oh yes, that Blood, the best build engine game.

We put Blood on the list of inspirations both because the unpublished novel that Eureka gets a lot of its world building from takes a lot of inspiration from Blood, and also because we want Eureka combat to feel a bit like Blood when the heavy-hitter monsters like vampires get involved.

The unpublished novel gets a lot from the ludonarrative of Blood in its first part. In Blood, a powerful cultist guy, Caleb, is betrayed and killed by the demon he worships, but rises from the grave and fights his way through the whole rest of the cult on a quest for vengeance. Though he isn’t exactly a vampire, he is undead, and can take a few more bullets than your average guy, but he isn’t invincible. A hail of gunfire can drop his HP to zero real fast.

The unpublished novel bears some similarity to this in that it is about a vampire that goes on a gun-slinging rampage in revenge against a powerful cult, though this ends up focusing a lot more on her own self-acceptance and learning to embrace being a vampire and the selfishness that necessarily comes with that rather than making herself as unintrusive to the lives of others as possible to the point of starvation. The antagonists, a sort of gnostic-inspired sect that consider the world a prison designed to inflict maximal suffering, and humanity to be both the wardens and the prisoners of it, purport that the death of all humanity is the only moral course of action. This mirrors the vampire’s own struggle with and eventual rejection of the idea that, as a vampire that can only exist by draining others of life, suicide is the only moral course of action.

And also, like Caleb, she’s undead but she’s not invincible. Normal bullets can put her down for a while in a high enough volume, so success in these shootouts becomes about making the most clever use of vampiric powers that she has thus far in her unlife felt too ashamed to utilize under any circumstances.

As for Eureka, we also just kinda want Eureka gunfighting combat to feel like Blood combat. Bullets can put Caleb or a Eureka investigator down quick, even if they’re a vampire. The guns in Blood are “hitscan”, so instead of there being a physical projectile represented in the game engine, when it is pointed at Caleb there is basically a dice roll as to whether he gets hit or not representing the aim of the enemies. In most games of that era that had “hitscan” enemies, there was nothing the player could do to avoid it or reduce the chance of being hit short of breaking line-of-sight completely. However, in Blood, moving fast, jumping, diving, crouching, etc. actually *do* reduce the enemy’s accuracy. This encourages a fast, high-energy style of combat. So surviving a gunfight in both games is about doing everything one can, from cover, ducking, running, etc. to reduce the chances of dying from a hail of bullets - or just throwing a stick of dynamite into the room.

Eureka is a very intentionally realistic game, but it works a lot with ‘heightened reality,’ meaning, like, the most interesting things that still fall within the realm of possibility. Normal mortal characters are still usually best served by keeping their heads down, but characters like vampires who can take a few extra bullets, and don’t die permanently when they go down, can really push their luck with bold, aggressive maneuvers more reminiscent of John Woo films like Hard Boiled, or the gameplay of Blood.

[balkanradfem]

So... I'm about to write something messed up, that I learned today and I'm freaking out. If you're from balkan and you knew this please message me and explain how.

I was on wikipedia, reading the page 'Human' because I was curious what it said, and honestly that article is unhinged and sounds copied from an alien textbook. It goes over the history of human development and at one point starts going over slavery and I accidentally clicked on 'atlantic slave trade'. Since the page was open, I thought, why not learn more about this, always good to know about history of slavery since it set the world up into what it is today.

So I am reading, and it explains how big empires relied on slaves to produce sugar, cotton, and other commodities, and at first trafficked and sold people from Africa for this, but then also incorporated religion as a judgment of who can be a slave. So they weren't supposed to enslave people of their own religion, but could enslave someone they believed to be a heretic. Catholics were enslaving orthodox christians and muslims could enslave shia muslims.

I am reading this and thinking how religion is even more evil than I originally thought and this is disgusting and then I read the words 'balkan slave trade' and I'm just ????. Like what do you mean. I know I havent paid attention in history but come on. That I would surely remember?

So I click it, and find out. In 14th century, balkans were pagans, and there was also 'Bogomilism' religion which meant 'dear to god' and it was anti church, gnostic practice that went against christian hierarchy. Since balkan was on the religious borders of christianity and islam, they were allowed to be taken slaves and were trafficked via port in Dubrovnik. The pagan religion of balkan was the confirmation of their slave status, and Bosnians were most aggressively targeted. Women were trafficked to be house help in Italy, while males were turned Egyptian soldiers. The practice stopped when Ottoman empire claimed balkan in 15th century at which point the slave trade was absorbed into the ottoman slave trade.

I've never even heard of any of that before. I'be been mad about destructiom of pagan religion for years but they actually enslaved and trafficked pagans? I didn't know. 

Then I wondered why I didn't know, and asked wikipedia to show me the same article in croatian language. It didn't exist. In fact, the article only existed in english language. I then googled 'balkan slave trade' in croatian. Zero results. Nothing. It wasn't that I didn't pay attention, there are no sources about this written in my language!

We just DON'T TALK ABOUT THIS??!!

Was the only way for me to find out a miniscule chance I stumble on it accidentally on wikipedia? I need more info. Who knew about this and why is it hidden. I need to know everything. I want to understand why things are the way they are.