#I think there is a difference between being an atheist

[randomnameless]

and of course the worse bit is that the leader of the religion is actually an Atheist cause God never answered his prayers.

If you played the game, that's not the worst Idore did lol

But bar the general implication that someone is using faith to push his own agenda that has totes none irl comparisons, there's the fact that Idore, in a way, manipulates his people and uses their trust to further his plans, getting rid of every Rozellian and ultimately seize control of Norzelia.

Then comes the game's "your religion is based on nothing!" very terrible take, and while the game doesn't spend a more seconds than necessary talking about post war Hyzante in the non Roland endings, how the fuck are we supposed to buy the "uh akshually they will be alright because Layla will develop medicine and they will continue on living!" nonsense?

To avoid dragging further irl events, I'd say this reminds me of the very emotional moment in FMA, when Bradley shits on Ishval's culture and beliefs, saying their God doesn't exist, since said God isn't striking him on the spot for leading an operation that basically consists or eradicating Ishvalians in Ishval.

Guess what happened after Bradley made Ishvalians realise their God "wasn't real" with the few survivors of this "war"?

That's why I love to think of future AUs in the Benedict ending, because it has all ingredients for darker gens - Gustadolf'n'Cornelia's kid notwithstanding, now you have Hyzantese who live in slums and are lower than trash being riled up by Idore out of all people, who also preaches to everyone left behind by Serenor/Benedict's joint rule, Roland is so going to be used as a rallying figure to gather all disatisfaction in the land by, maybe, Idore himself and give or less 15 years, the continent will be plunged in chaos, again.

a bit like eventual Jugdral 3rd gens AU

[mishkakagehishka]

Mika is religious⁉️⁉️

[stickandthorn]

I was thinking about that post about redemption I just reblogged, and I think it’s worth pointing out just how difficult and time consuming it would to de-radicalize or “redeem” Lilliana. And I think Essek’s redemption in campaign 2 is actually a really good example of what I’m talking about.

First of all, what the Nein did to redeem Essek was not slowly and politely talk him through why what he did was wrong. They didn’t even know he did anything wrong. What they did was continually reach out to him and give him a support system of friends he did not have before. Notably, friends who he could be comfortable sharing his worldview around: he was an atheist* in a theocratic society who had to hide his worldview in order to have any social, academic, or governmental standing. The mighty nein were probably the first people he could be himself around, and creating a change in his personal life is what led to a change in his ideology. Notably, he did most of the actual deconstructing of his ideology on his own, some before the big betrayal reveal and a lot after. The Nein helped with that directly a little, but the main thing they did was offer him a personal connection he had stakes in, and a people in his life with different world views he hadn’t seen up close before.

This is pretty true to life, in the real world, most people who leave radical or bigoted groups leave at least partially because of a change in their personal life. Even if they do leave because of someone directly challenging their worldview, it’s usually someone they care about who challenges them in a non-aggressive way. It’s still personal.

Secondly, this took a lot of time. I can’t remember exactly how long they spent in the Dynasty, but they befriended Essek over a really long period of in game and out of game time. The cast spent actual real world hours talking pretty much one on one with Essek, and the party spent weeks, maybe even months slowly getting to know him and bringing this support structure into his life. Essek spent even longer actually thinking through and deconstructing on his own. The change in his worldview between the ship and the outpost really shows this, he did a lot of the thinking that led him to change by himself over a lot of time we weren’t there for. They could not have gotten him to actually change his mindset, fully realize what he did was wrong of his own free will, in anything approaching a short amount of time. This was a time consuming process.

All this to say: this is the kind of effort it would take to legitimately de-radicalize Lilliana. She has been in the Vanguard for ~25 years, she most likely joined when she was in her early to mid 20s, and she gave up all personal connections, even her daughter and her husband to join. Not only has her entire ideology been built around this being the right thing to do, her entire personal life is contained within the Vanguard. It’s most likely where she gets any housing or money or really anything from. It is her whole life, and she believes wholeheartedly in it. The level of time and effort it took to get Essek to organically change his mind is most likely the level it would take to get Lilliana to change hers, if not more.

And they don’t have that time. Lilliana is actively doing harm now, she is helping the Vanguard release Predathos right now, they simply do not have the time to redeem her. It sucks, but pragmatically speaking, it is simply not worth the time and effort. Essek gave away the beacons in the past, but also, the Nein did not know he did that for their early friendship. If the Nein had known, they probably would not have put in all the work it took to get him to change. They probably couldn’t have. Lilliana might be able to be redeemed in theory, but so can a lot of people who do very bad things. Focusing on that redemption process is prioritizing Imogen’s complicated feelings over the harsh reality that this is a war, and Lilliana is a key figure in that war doing a great deal of harm. It sucks, but I do think it’s time to move on, and I think Imogen is now leaning that way.

*atheist is a loose term here, it’s hard to be an atheist in a world where gods are proven to exist, but it gets the point across

[nullusreimorio]

Degrees of Lewdity AU: Actor AU

Yes, you heard that right, folks! DoL:ActAU will now be a thing in my blog.

Re-reading this made my brain go BRRRR, because in my head a random person getting their costume's head off is that funny, and from there it all spiraled down.

The Whitney breaks Syd's glasses scene in particular is stuck in my head, because I imagine that at some point, right before Whit can grab the glasses, Syd would scream to wait, making Whit shit himself cuz dude what is happening. The director screams cut, of course. "I'm so sorry, these are my real glasses-" while laughing, and taking them off to give into custody before putting on the props, with Whitney just wheezing in the background.

The genderbent version of LIs would mostly be people that really resemble each other, except for the Kylar duo. They are twins who love to scare other people by just staring at them (it is a running inside joke on set).

Bailey is actually a sweet parental figure off-character, always making sure he didn't actually hurt the other actors (think Jason Isaac in Harry Potter as he switches between the cruel Lucius Malfoy and actually caring for Tom Felton, asking him if he's ok and apologizing when he did in fact hurt him by accident)

Another running gag on set is Harper just.. being there. Smiling at everyone with cold eyes, bombing pictures and selfies. Sometimes they stay in the background of the scene, looking directly at the camera. They say it's funnier to stay in character. Off-character they are very fun to be around, but they enjoy unsettling people. Them and the Kylars are sometimes banned from being in the studio if the scene doesn't need them.

GH got tangled up in the fly system. Everyone laughed and took pictures and videos, but promptly eliminated them at GH's request. They are shy.

The Averys enjoy their role very much. What they don't enjoy is having to drink grape juice or scented water instead of actual alcohol. They do get a nice glass of wine once off-set are over.

Whenever the Wrens are in the studio, F!Whit, M!Robin, the Wrens, F!BW, the Edens, F!Avery and the Baileys get a bit too much into playing cards. Blackjack, Durak, Scopa, Rummy, Machiavelli... the list could go on. They always manage to rope technicians to play with them as well.

Everyone hates the Kylars because their makeup doesn't need much time, while everyone else (ESPECIALLY GH, BW and IW) need enough time to always look polished/roughed up, depending on the situation.

M!Jordan is actually atheist, and whenever he has to talk like a true Christian guy, once his line is over he mocks himself. He enjoys wearing his costume off-set just for shits and giggles, and other actors often visit him in the confessional just to say "I'm sorry daddy, I've been naughty~" "Jail for a hundred years. NEXT"

F!Jordan and Ivory Wraith are actually cousins, and sometimes M!Jordan and Ivory Wraith swap costumes to see if there is any difference other than Jordan's massive tits.

Aaaand that's it, for now! As of now this is how far my brain thought while in the middle of exams, I will slowly add more into it. I don't know if it was already done, but thinking about these jackasses actually play-pretending makes me feel better ^^

[servantofthefates]

If life is an experiment, your Uranus is your laboratory.

Uranus in the First House: Your Body

You will likely go through various rebrandings in your life. From nerd to glam. From emo to CEO. It will take you a while to discover what you want your physical vessel to look like.

Uranus in the Second House: Your Wallet

You will likely go back and forth between having an excess of money and having none at all. It will take you a while to figure out the right ingredients for financial stability.

Uranus in the Third House: Your Words

You will likely go through various makeovers in how you speak. From punk to poet. From high street to high-end. It will take you a while to discover how to communicate your true self.

Uranus in the Fourth House: Your Home

You will likely experience an unstable home life. That could mean moving around a lot, or your family changing frequently (e.g., through marriage). It will take you a while to find home as it should be.

Uranus in the Fifth House: Your Joy

You will likely have changing hobbies and interests as you grow. Even to the point of being ashamed of what you previously liked (e.g., a band, a celebrity). It will take you a while to discover what your soul enjoys.

Uranus in the Sixth House: Your Lifestyle

You will likely have drastic changes in routines that relate to your identity. From vegan to carnivore. From fitness buff to couch potato. It will take you a while to realize how you want to experience life.

Uranus in the Seventh House: Your Relationships

Your taste in connections (romantic and more) will likely keep evolving. From light to burdened. From friendly to brooding. It will take you a while to realize what you want and need your people to be like.

Uranus in the Eighth House: Your Morals

You will likely have changing definitions of what is wrong. From seeing things like Satanism and death penalty as evil, to thinking they are good, for example. It will take you a while to define your principles.

Uranus in the Ninth House: Your Faith

You will likely have different beliefs throughout your life. You might keep switching from one religion to another and to none at all. It will take you a while to form a true connection with a higher power.

Uranus in the Tenth House: Your Reputation

You will likely have different ranks in society throughout your life. From pleb to socialite. From royalty to nobody. It will take you a while to decide how you want the world to see you in this lifetime.

Uranus in the Eleventh House: Your Community

You will likely be a part of vastly different groups throughout your life. From religious fanatics to agnostic intellectuals. From celebrities to nuns. It will take you a while to discover where you belong in life.

Uranus in the Twelfth House: Your Pain

You will likely have different ideas of what hurts. You could go from crying at the sight of war-torn countries to shrugging about their plight. It will take you a while to decide on what is fair and unfair in this life.

In Whole Sign Houses, my Uranus is in the Ninth. I was raised Catholic. But in truth, I was mostly agnostic. At a fairly young age, I discovered Greco-Roman paganism from my elders who practice it in semi-combination with Christianity. Then in college, I had to pretend to be an atheist around judgmental religious fanatics who hated witchcraft. Now I am a practicing pagan who follows my ancestors' writings over my living elders' teachings. Can you also feel your Uranus manifesting?

Related: If life is a battlefield, your Mars is your weapon.

[charlesoberonn]

just saw your cult post and i wanna add something a bit controversial? (probably not for this website tho but yk)

im from a religious country in the middle east, and until i was like 16 i hadnt heard the word "cult" and i had no idea what it was.

when i looked into it and read about it tho, i realized that islam (the religion of my country) IS a cult. and then i went around online asking my other ex-religious friends about what they think and some also told me that they think their religion was a cult too. and no im not talking about like obviously culty religions (mormons, evangelists, etc), im talking about whats considered the norm for a religion to be practiced. whether it be islam, christianity, or any other one.

i started wondering why not ALL religions count as cults when they literally fit the bill to a tea, and tbh the best explanation i found was that, they ARE cults but they are so old, have so many members, and are so entangled with our cultures that people just accept them.

i told this to someone who was an atheist herself and even she got defensive and said that its not okay to call peoples religions cults "if its not hurting anyone" so i dont say it to anyone because i dont want to be an asshole and i accept everyone no matter what religion yk?

but that all being said, i still wholeheartedly believe that ALL religions are cults (im talking about organized religions tho btw. like native people having their religions is a completely different thing that i cant comment on because i dont have enough information about those)

i think that if you are in any religion then you are in a cult and you should leave, i know its controversial, but it is what i think yk?

I see where you're coming from but I think this is dangerously reductive.

The problem is that you're thinking in terms of a 'cult-not cult' binary that doesn't work to describe the nuance of real life groups.

What makes a cult are the methods of control they use on their members. A cult, or high-control group, will use extreme and predatory methods to try to control their members as much as possible.

The difference between a religious cult (for there are non-religious cults) and religion is the level of control and the harmfulness of the methods the group utilizes.

I don't know about what religion is like in your country, but not all religious groups are high-control groups. Many of them don't try to control or exploit their members.

By equating all religions to cults you're not only making accusations of harm against groups that don't deserve it, you're also muddying the distinctions for people, allowing actually harmful groups to pass themselves off as harmless.

[dshksh]

Teen or adult christinaa..

Oh boy, anon, you asked for it.

Alright, so after Christina had her own "hunting trip" (I still haven't come up with an idea of what that event might have been for her. Would've been interesting if that happened between her and her mother instead of her father. Still have no idea, but she definitely had a major traumatic thing happen to her.) she, just like Orel, saw that her parents are (shocker), not decent people.

To cope with that, she becomes a bookworm and distances herself from everything happening around her, especially involving her parents. Her parents wouldn't notice that, since they were so caught up in their unpleasant marriage. She gets into psychology, reading a lot of books dedicated to it.

As for her and Orel, she would try to isolate herself emotionally and ignore her feelings for him. She knew that they wouldn't meet in years (due to living in different towns), so she tries to suppress her love and focuses on studying. College was an escape from her feelings and parents. Also, I think Christina's dad was really overprotective of her, which caused her to experiment a LOT in college. College was a big opportunity for her to not be as influenced and controlled by her parents as she was at home. She does end up having a few love affairs, but they don't last that long due to her being emotionally distant and still in love with Orel.

She finally meets Orel while she's still in college, almost accidentally. Orel is studying to become a teacher, and his college is doing a practice exchange of some sort with Christina's college (like sharing extra psychological knowledge with future teachers, so they would understand kids more). She doesn't recognize him at first, but when she does, they exchange numbers and talk a lot (mostly Orel, lol). At first, Christina is really cold towards him, but when she sees that he is still a good old-fashioned Christian and a nice guy in general, she grows fond of him.

As for her faith, when she first met Orel after so many years, she would be an atheist. But once she starts spending more and more time with Orel, she regains her faith.

Christina and Orel end up in a relationship with a lot of issues. They have unrealistic expectations of each other due to barely knowing one another and not having experience with emotional intimacy. Christina ends the relationship and focuses on graduating. Both are heartbroken.

She does graduate and ends up having a decent job as a psychologist. Her interest in psychology came from her wanting to understand her parents and the reason behind their actions.

They make up after a few years again, when Orel decides to go to therapy. Christina is there. She is the shrink that Orel visits. He bails and decides to cancel all the appointments.

Christina realizes that she is ready to confront her feelings and initiates the meeting with Orel. Orel gets extremely anxious and doesn't answer her message for weeks. When he has the courage, they meet and dot the i's. Finally have a meaningful conversation about their feelings and problems.

Orel was the one who insisted on her going to therapy. She ignored most of her feelings towards her own parents and childhood (towards Orel as well). Therapy helped her become more aware of her own emotions, yet she still remained her emotionally distant and cold appearance.

Orel gets a job in the town Christina lives and works in. They eventually make up and go to couple therapy. They still have a bunch of problems, but they cherish one another, and this love helps them to be better people.

[writingwithcolor]

Would it be problematic for me to have a black girl convert to sikhi over the course of the story with the assistance of her Sikh friend & the friend’s family and then get married to said friend in the future? I don’t want it to seem like she did it simply to be with her friend so I thought that maybe if I showed how she enjoys hearing things about the religion (for example how sikhi emphasizes treating everyone equally and also the protection of those facing injustice) from her friend that it could seem more natural but could that be seen as fetishizing? The black girl has been friends with the family for 10+ years (aka since she was 8) and also wasn’t raised following any religion (but not as an atheist either) so I feel the conversion would be somewhat easy for her but if any of what I’ve wrote is problematic I’ll change it! I’m still doing research so if I messed anything up I’m extremely sorry. Thank you in advance!

Black woman converts to become Sikh - Is this problematic?

If SK thinks these circumstances are okay from the Sikhism standpoint, then absolutely it is fine. Black people are all individual and different people throughout the diaspora. We are not some collective monolith with a build-in set of interests, beliefs and rules on what we can and cannot do! The real question to me is if someone can convert to Sikhism and if so, how being Black factors into the lifestyle.

On that note, I will hand the mic to SK and also welcome Black Sikh followers to chime in.

-Colette

Sikhi accept converts

Short answer: No, it is not problematic. Sikhi accepts converts. There’s nothing wrong with being drawn to a faith because of certain aspects and then looking deeper and choosing to convert.

Longer answer: Conversion into a completely new faith is rarely easy. I would say Sikhi is a harder faith to convert to because there are few resources in other languages and many Sikhs are unaccustomed to converts. As in most, if not all, religions, there is a gap between what is said and how it’s practiced.

Despite the messages about fighting injustice and treating others equally, many Sikh converts, especially Black Sikhs, deal with prejudice. This is not even unique to converts - Afghan & Kashmiri Sikhs have also faced ignorant comments from Punjabi Sikhs who aren’t aware of Sikh communities outside Punjab. The 1980’s-1990’s Sikh genocide disconnected many Sikhs in Punjab from the revolutionary messages of justice and equality laid out in Sikh holy texts.

A challenge unique to Black Sikhs is that the way kesdhari Sikhs take care of their hair and tie it in turbans can be a challenge for someone with Black hair. I would recommend Gurpreet Kaur’s writing.

Resources

Being Black & Sikh

Articles by Gurpreet Kaur

I would also suggest checking out The Black Sikh Collective on Tumblr, Instagram & Facebook for more perspectives of Black Sikhs.

-SK If this answer was helpful, SK accepts tips here: https://ko-fi.com/skaur | Venmo & Cashapp: skaur1699

[fictionadventurer]

I don't know why this feels like such a revelation, but after watching the latest Moffat episode of Doctor Who, it clicked for me that the core difference between RTD and Moffat Who is that to RTD, the Doctor is God (or a metaphorical substitute for God), while Moffat's Doctor is a man in need of God.

Like, it's obvious RTD deifies the Doctor. The imagery is not subtle. And Moffat's Doctor is obviously a much more fallible man. But I hadn't fully considered how this affects the kinds of stories they tell.

In RTD's Who, the Doctor is someone who comes into a mundane human existence and gives it meaning. An encounter with the Doctor changes your life forever. You would follow him to the end of the universe if he asked, because life with him is infinitely better than life without him. Humans who try to reach the Doctor's level are struck down, because mere mortals cannot rise to the level of godhood. From a Christian perspective, this offers valid storytelling possibilities ("Human Nature/The Family of Blood", with its musings upon the Incarnation, fits perfectly in this era), but it does have the Doctor standing in the place of God, which suggests that the universe of RTD's worldview doesn't have one and needs the Doctor to fill that gap.

In Moffat's Who, on the other hand, the Doctor is a wondrous, impossible, legendary being--but still just a man. He can guide you through some of the best or most terrifying moments of your life--but your life has meaning outside of him. His companions learn over and over again the perils of relying on him too completely. Ordinary people can be just as good--or better--than him, because the Doctor is just another man, growing and changing and trying to find his place in the universe.

Moffat's Doctor is extremely aware that he's in a story--and he is not the author. In "The Doctor Dances" he is aware of how death-filled his stories usually are, and is ecstatically grateful when he is permitted a story where everybody lives. In "Blink", he and Sally are both following a script--but neither one of them wrote it; though they have free will, this story came from outside of them. Of course, these are examples of Moffat's meta exploration of storytelling--but the fact remains that his Doctor exists in a world where there is a greater force that runs everything.

And the Doctor resists this. He remains skeptical, arrogant, independent--but he is always searching for something more.

All this crystallized when watching "Boom". There, the Doctor is facing soldiers in a religious war, and he sneers that they didn't notice anything fishy because they "had faith, which keeps you from ever having to think for yourself." Those are the brutal words of every hackneyed internet atheist, and since the soldiers were wrong to have faith in this war, it seems like the story's saying the Doctor's right, and religion's just the "opiate of the masses".

And yet.

The episode ends with the Doctor telling a little girl to hold onto faith, and when the religious character points out that the Doctor was stridently against faith, the Doctor replies, "Just because I don't like it doesn't mean I don't need it."

Isn't that the Christian experience in a nutshell? How many of us are tempted to think that life would be so much easier if we didn't follow God? And yet we can't leave it aside because we need God. We need meaning outside ourselves, and life with God is better than life without him.

But this isn't the Whedon-ish universe where it doesn't matter if it's true so long as believing does something good for you. There is objective truth, and the Doctor is aware of it. He is aware that love is the most powerful force in the universe. (God is love). He is aware that everyone and everything dies, yet knows that something lingers on. (God is stronger than death). The Doctor is in a world where God exists, and even if he (or his writer) doesn't know it, he needs him, is searching for him, and to some extent, believes in him, because he can't deny these truths that he's seen. And I cannot get over how many different ways Moffat has been exploring these themes all these years.

[seikilos-stele]

The misogyny from David and Ben bothered me in this latest episode of Evil — I do like when the show tackles real-world isms and explores the trio’s blind spots, but I think until now they’ve managed to do it while still maintaining the trio’s care for each other.

Kristen as a white woman is ignorant about what David and Ben go through a men of color with the police, and she benefits directly from her whiteness when the police cover for her re: LeRoux. But she’s also outraged by the police targeting her friends, she doesn’t think they deserve it. When Kristen points out that the church exorcises far more women than men, David defends the church’s misogyny in the abstract — but he never applies that misogyny to Kristen or claims that she’s more emotionally attuned to the world than he is, more susceptible to evil. Ben has to take a stand about the jinn exorcism and points out David’s and Kristen’s Catholic upbringing sometimes makes them prioritize Catholic beliefs over other religions — but the three of them find a compromise and develop more respect for each other. All of these episodes explore the characters’ blind spots in a realistic way while still maintaining that they all care for each other; Kristen is willing to learn, David needs to be challenged, but it’s clear his misogyny comes partly from defensive being the only believer in a group of atheists. Just a few episodes ago, we had that excellent moment where David has to explain what a Black bluff is to Ben, since the racism Ben experiences as an Indian man is sometimes very different from what David experiences as a Black man: David has to subvert expectations by being successful and respectable; Ben has to subvert them by being working-class and down-to-earth. Society expects Ben to be a doctor or a lawyer, not a blunt contractor who works with his hands. He listens to David and learns. Kristen is outraged by police treatment of men of color and then has to grapple with exploiting her status as a wealthy white woman anyway. David internally struggles with the racism and misogyny of the church he’s devoted himself to while also benefiting from the latter. These are clever, realistic depictions of societal oppressions and how they impact a friend group who are all very different from each other but care deeply about each other and don’t like seeing anyone among them hurt.

This episode felt different. Unpleasantly so. I don’t think I would have minded if events were tweaked somewhat … if Kristen learned that the professor had sexually harassed someone else, and the guys initially dismissed it, their judgment clouded by their admiration for him. But the professor sexually harassed their best friend and Ben just shrugged and suggested he was joking; David breezed past it as irrelevant to their investigation. The love and care between the trio seemed to instantly evaporate in favor of making a point about how in #MeToo cases, men can even dismiss accusations from people they know very well. An excellent point, but at the cost of degrading the main characters’ relationship and (imo) edging David and Ben into OOC territory.

[opbackgrounds]

To add to the discussion on the “wounds on the back are a swordsman’s shame” line, I’d argue that it’s a thesis statement of sorts about the purpose of swordsmanship ultimately being about protection. Pell, who is notably a swordsman, is the one of the first characters to outline that there’s a difference between fighting and protection. In that same arc, Zoro understanding what it means to “cut everything and nothing” occurs right after he reflects on how his friends are doing - connecting the event to protection. But I think the biggest piece of evidence is Wano, the country where this phrase likely originates in-universe, depicting the samurai as tattooing the emblem of the clan/lord they serve on their backs. Which, notably is a practice Whitebeard takes up after meeting Oden, whom the story makes a point to emphasize that his back (and in turn the jolly roger tattoo that symbolizes his family) are unmarked.

Which to me signifies that the original intent of the phrase was not some empty machismo, but because whatever the swordsman is protecting should be at their backs and therefore wounds on a swordsman’s back are shameful because they imply that the swordsman failed as a protector.

Which on a side note I think also makes it significant that Ace - who also has this theme of protecting things behind him - gets impaled through his Whitebeard tattoo back-first protecting Luffy.

I can’t entirely agree and do think it’s more strictly about honor. As far as I remember, the only character other than Zoro to be directly connected with the idea of wounds on their back is Whitebeard when he died, and though Whitebeard did fight with a legendary named blade he was in no way a swordsman. Whitebeard did die giving his crew a way to escape Marineford, but the big point of emphasis was his honorable behavior compared to Blackbeard’s dishonorable begging for his life before getting bailed out by his crew.

Even tattooed symbols are more about protecting the ideas those symbols represent. Which, yes, includes people, but to me it can also fall under the same category as Luffy protecting Dr. Hiliruk’s flag on Drum. The only thing he was protecting was Hiliruk’s legacy and memory, and in that moment that was the honorable thing to do.

There is a underlying current of honorable and shameful behavior in One Piece that is spread throughout the more martial characters, a “right” way one should do things, whether you be a swordsman, a pirate, or an Elbafian warrior. Brogy would probably agree with Zoro about wounds on the back being shameful for all that he uses an axe, but would connect it back to his religion, which is something the atheistic Zoro would never do. The Kuja also have a martial culture where honor and shame are very important, and the Boa sisters are terrified of their people finding out about their marks of subjugation on their backs despite them not being swordsmen.

So yeah, I personally think it’s broader than protection, although protecting others fits under the honorable behavior a swordsman should strive for.

[drbased]

i am highly spiritual, and yet we have almost identical beliefs about humanity, religion and its organization, etc. save for the conclusions it brings us to. just found this really interesting, honeslty.

In the nicest possible way: no, I don't think we have almost identical beliefs. Or rather, I think we have one primary difference in perception that changes the entire nature of our beliefs.

One of the accidental problems with language is that it can make connections and associations between concepts that aren't really real. For example, we have tras claiming that aspects of your personality, mannerisms, hairstyle etc. are all an expression of an internal sense of gender, which is retroactively justified as real through the existence of those characteristics. It's a tautology, but it's a potent one, because those characteristics can add up to something deeply personal and individual, which isn't communicated easily. One person's 'qu**r identity' can be entirely different from another person's 'qu**r identity', but due to the simple existence of the term they can find a percieved similarity of experience that wouldn't exist without it.

This relates to spirituality because I think what's happening here is that the word 'spiritual' is being used like the word 'gender'; that is, an extra layer of meaning is added to the human experience that is retroactively justified by the existence of those human experiences. In this case, the nature of spirituality seemingly being discussed is a sense of profundity and awe.

The primary dispute is one of perspective: as an atheist, I say that actually, the concept of 'profound' is an entirely human construction. Things aren't built with a natural sense of 'awe-inspiringness' that we as humans simply tap into - but rather, the emotion is generated inside us in response to the neutral things that are already there. It's a seemingly minor shift in approach, and many would feel is a nitpick, but I think it's accidentally become the crux of this whole argument.

This is why many spiritual people think that atheists 'hate humanity' and 'are cold and unfeeling' - they percieve the world to be inherently spiritual; that is, consisting of an inexorable quality that humans should be able to experience, so anyone not claiming to recognise this quality is simply denying their own humanity, their own senses, as well as denying the profundity of being: the two are inexorably interlinked. I can see where this argument comes from - we, as humans, tend to naturally feel 'cleaner' after a wash, we tend to fell happier after having laughed etc. etc. and if we don't feel these things, either there's something supposedly 'wrong' with us, or we're denying those feelings so we get to feel superior in some way. And don't get me wrong, the classic 'reddit atheist' is like this - the kind of guy who says that your pet cat don't feel love when they nuzzle you in the morning. There are definitely people (men especially) who want to feel above any and all sensory-based human emotional response.

But.

My primary argument is that things external to us (and some internal) do not have any inherent emotional quality; any emotions I generate in response to them are my own personal, fallible and fragile appreciation for them, generated within my brain in response to stimuli. This may sound less magical, and that's the point: laughter generates happiness because it's an evolutionarily important pro-social tool. Washing makes you feel 'cleaner' because it's evolutionarily important to avoid disease. There's no intrinsic nature to these things that we tap into; the emotions and subsequent meaning are generated by us. If someone managed to figure out what 'love' is in humans and found out that animals don't show 'love' as we know it - well, regardless of how much of an asshole he is, that atheist above would be right. But it shouldn't be earth-shattering because 'love' does not need to be some quality inherent to nature to have meaning and value - our version of 'love' is purely human, and whatever our pets do may not be 'love' by our standards, but something speciifc to them.

This argument is ultimately immaterial unless we can demonstrate for faith-based thinking can result in harm. And unfortunately, this is how people end up getting manipulated by churches and cults. The sense of awe you feel in a crowd of thousands of people listening to music and services doesn't exist in the ether - it's deliberately manufactured explicitly to generate that feeling inside you. So this isn't just an argument about correctness; this is an argument about harm.

Why do you think churches are built that way; it's easy to think of them as just inherently magnificent, but that is just the limitation of the way our language constructs adjectives - 'magnificent' is given the same linguistic weight as, say, 'squishy' or 'spiky'. But 'magnificent' is a value qualifier, not a neutral adjective; it's something that requires an internal sense of judgement - but due to the power of emotions it can feel real, perhaps more real than pricking your finger on a spiky thing. Religion has a tendency to place reality into a secondary level of importance; god/the universe is what's more 'real' than us. This is a hierachy; it places our subjective experiences and values as merely a conduit for something more real and meaningful than we could ever be, than we could ever imagine (and, if you think my argument is cold and male and misogynistic, then I like to remind you which of the sexes loves hierarchy). And this is hierarchy that is absolutely ripe for exploitation.

No, I do not think that spiritual/religious belief is a guarantee of exploitation, nor is it the only source of exploitation - but a tendency to see your emotions as merely a conduit for some universal truth means you will be much more easily persuaded to into believing things based on your emotional perception, and the kinds of people who want to persuade you are typical doing so to gain something; not always something sinister, but it certainly can be.

Too many spiritual people want to have their cake and eat it too: they want to skirt over arguments of correctness and harm and jump straight to accusing us of denying our senses - when what they actually mean is that by denying our senses we're denying reality. But when we claim that actually we're perfectly capable of listening to our senses, we just call these things 'awe' and 'profundity', they turn around and say 'that's just what spirituality is! you're just like us, just in denial!' When we say that our emotional experiences are not spiritual we mean it; this isn't 'agreeing on most things' - this is an entire shift in perception. My senses are mine, and the meaning I generate from them is mine. Those sense are a fallible product of evolution, and the meaning I generate from them is also a fallible product of evolution. But that also means that the profundity has a new origin, and this is ultimately less safe and comfortable than from some external source I can rely on; the profundity comes from the terrifying realisation that these things just are, with no invisible connective tissue outside the bare reality of cause-and-effect. That isn't inherently profound, but I make it so through my own human ability to generate meaning. And as that meaning is mine, therefore the responsibility for it is mine.

[catboybiologist]

Are you comfortable with questions about your journey to HRT?

Like, mentally how you took the leap of faith from femboy to needing something more / different. Asking for, uh, *a friend*, yeah 👀

Holy shit, this got long. This springboarded me into a massive writing about how my life influenced my personal gender philosophy, and is probably more than you bargained for. But I hope it's helpful in some way! I actually had a similar conversation recently with an NB, not on HRT friend of mine. What's the jump that makes you want to do HRT?

I don't think my experience parallels that of a lot of people's - everyone's is unique. But I do think there are good takeaways from my thoughts on this. Now that I have an Adderall prescription and my quarter is about to end, I've started writing some kind of more cited and developed essay or video essay, but that's random future stuff. This post itself is gonna be a little rambling, and a little personal. Sorry!

Vaguely, I think that the *push* to start HRT was a distinct force from tearing down the internal barriers associated with HRT, if that makes any sense. For many people, I think they have some sense of a mild preference of the gender they would "want" to be, but it doesn't bother them enough to actually break down the barriers to transition. For me, breaking those barriers, both internal and external, was as important as the motivations to transition themselves.

One of the major barriers in people's heads, often without them realizing it, is some kind of inherent belief in the "sanctity" of their body. For many people, "permanent changes" are terrifying, "unnatural", and even if they don't have medical risks, intrinsically *feel* like a medical risk they're taking on some level. It's an offshoot of purity culture in a weird way- it's the same root as a fear of psychiatric medicine making you "not you". Much of this is intrinsically religious, but a lot is actually not. I had a little bit of this growing up. Being raised atheist certainly helped in this regard, even though it was still a queerphobic slavic atheism.

The tiny bit of this I did have was sanctity of my mind, which internally, I still viewed as a separate entity from my body. This was 100% incited by crushing academic pressure, which influenced how I think and my own morality in a lot of unexpected ways. I grew up in a kind of infamously high pressure education area. It sounds unrelated, but it's really not. My mind, academics, and thinking kind of got put on a pedestal on my mind. My personal image of myself was basically a detached orb of thoughts and public speaking. I had 0 connection to my body. But since my mind was everything, both psychiatric medication and HRT were these vile things that could alter how I think and my mood! Gasp!

The final, crushing blow to both of these mentalities was studying biology. And WOW there's so much I could say about how studying biology has influenced how I think about this idea, which I want to talk about a lot more outside of the scope of just a tumblr post. But to summarize- it's not even about finding a biological "reason" for transness. It's about how I saw a living thing as a detailed, dynamic, intricate, constantly changing system that is as much a function of its environment as it is any intrinsic factors. And this includes the mind. So since I'm a shambling mass of chemicals anyways..... Why not be a shambling mass of slightly different chemicals?

The "detached orb" image isn't entirely accurate, though. Because, from an early age, I did have a self image that made me happy. And it was a female one. I shoved this deeply out of my mind in shame, leaving behind the "orb". This was my "push", as I called it before. In addition to a weird separation between my mind and my body, an additional factor contributed to my detachment- a growing distress around developing male traits during puberty, which coincided in the worst ways with academic pressure during teen and preteen years. Looking back, I now recognize this as dysphoria. I don't think my dysphoria was ever as extreme as many other people. But this is why I'm emphasizing taking down barriers as much as the weight of dysphoria itself. It has always been easy to distract from my dysphoria, but it's always been my "resting state" without realizing it.

Linked a bit to the second point is also how I felt shame about exploring any aspect of my life other than academic and professional achievement. Being raised in a high pressure environment means that any exploration of my queer identity felt like a distraction from the "real" things I should be focusing on. The final thing that tore this down, which I don't recommend for ANYONE, was an almost traumatic set of events during the pandemic/my masters degree that made me have a wake up call. I wasn't structuring anything in my life for my own happiness. Going through that made me realize I was going to continue being miserable unless I changed that. So... I started taking the idea of transitioning to actually work on my happiness very seriously.

Being a femboy was actually how I tried to reconcile these things in my head. It was my attempt to "compartmentalize"- allow myself to gently indulge in gender nonconformity and the happiness associated with it, while still not making the "commitment" to fully transition. It helps that most of my existence as a femboy was crossdressing during the height of the pandemic- spending hours on analysis and writing while living alone during my MS, wearing femme outfits while I did it. And of course, taking pics to kick off this whole online persona. I also kind of liked the idea of cis gender nonconformity as a concept, and still do. I love how femboys fuck with gender, and I wanted a slice of that for myself. It wasn't enough long term, and my new commitment to happiness overcame my desire to compartmentalize.

The final barriers were practical. By the end of my masters in 2022, I knew I wanted to transition, I just needed to get my social and financial shit together. Cue moving to my PhD university, becoming active in the queer community here, having an accepting professional environment... and yeah. Here I am. Still gotta socially transition outside of my queer circles, but now, I even have a plan for that. I still got a long way to go, but for the first time, I feel like I'm going in the right direction. And I'm very, very happy.

A lot of this is not applicable to everyone. It's mostly my personal experience. But if there is one thing that I think should apply to everyone here, it's this: kill bioessentialism in your mind. Kill the concept of complete sanctity of your mind and body. Break the barriers and then let yourself move freely across the new landscape you've opened up. At the very least, you'll come out with a more healthy relationship with your cis identity. And at best, you'll find a new part of you that needed to be found.

The other thing I think is broadly applicable is this: when initially figuring things out, stop thinking about what you "are", and start thinking about what you want. Would it make you happy to grow breasts, curves, have a femme face, estrogen regulated emotions, and other transfemme HRT changes? Because those are the actual, physical effects of HRT. If the answer is yes, start it. There's no reason not to. Your identity can come later. You deserve to be happy *for the explicit purpose of being happy*. You don't need to validate that desire through some other random factor.

This got WAAAYYYY too long, but if you have any questions, please, please ask!!!!

[max1461]

A lot of atheists, mostly those with a family history of Christianity, celebrate Christmas and Easter and engage in other Christian-derived cultural practices, without believing in Christian doctrine or identifying as Christian. A lot of atheists, mostly those with a family history of Shinto-Buddhism, celebrate Oshōgatsu and go to shrines and engage in other Shinto-Buddhist practices without believing in Shinto cosmology or Buddhist doctrine or identifying as Shinto or Buddhist. These two situations are not exactly analogous, due to the different relationship between belief and religious identity in the West and in Japan, but they are roughly analogous.

A very different phenomenon is secular Judaism, where people may be atheist in belief but do in fact identify as Jewish, and, very often, make holding to certain elements of Jewish practice a significant part of that identity. This is far less analogous to the above two situations.

For many people, the idea of being "culturally Jewish" was their first conscious exposure to the concept that people can engage in religious practices without endorsing the given religion's (usual) cosmological and ethical precepts. I think often, these people wrongly extrapolate that cultural Judaism is a type-case for this phenomenon, when in fact I think it's something of an outlier. That is to say: insofar as "cultural religiousity" is a coherent concept, you will not reason coherently about it if you assume that cultural Christianity and cultural Shinto-Buddhism work in much the same way as secular Judaism. They simply don't, and a large proportion of the bad arguments I see on this topic have as their central error the assumption that this is the case.

[shittygaypornmagazine]

Maybe atheists from your own religion can talk about it then

https://www.tumblr.com/sophia-epistemia/731237402894581760/avoiding-your-beliefs-real-weak-points

Okay here we go. The pissing on the poor reading comprehension of this website together with the antisemitism is at it again.

First of all, hello! I am a stranger on the internet, who you might know as being Jewish! You don't know shit about my experiences with Judaism, of course, or what kind of Judaism I practice, if I even do, and hence have no understanding of "my own religion", however.

Second, this is the og post:

From its contents you might see that I am requesting ex-christian atheists not to put their religious traumas and biases onto other religions, something which results in nothing but silencing the voices of the people practicing/who practiced said other religions, erasing their unique experiences and trauma, which has nothing to do with Jesus and his followers.

Now, lets examine what you said and the link you sent me.

"Maybe the atheists from your own religion can talk about it then"

You said it. And by it, well... I assume you meant religious trauma in general. Which is, of course, something people who practice/d Judaism can and should talk about. I talk about it! All the time!

But see, the difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying, is that I talk about religious trauma within Judaism. I want to talk about it, but I don't want to hear an ex-christian person's opinions or takes on it. I dont want to hear about how "every religion is a cult actually" from a person who was a part of the religion whose extensive opression and antisemitism shaped mine. They fundamentally will misunderstand me and everything I have to say, as do you. I dont want to have to go through piles of comparisons to Christianity and the trauma it brought people every single time I want to get to the stuff that is relatable to me. Hell, I have trauma from it and I'm not even Christian! So fuck yeah I know about it! What I want to know is my people's stories.

That's where your link comes into play.

It is an amazing post, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It is a true account and critique of Orthodox Judaism from a person that experienced it first hand and I absolutely support it. I wouldn't have a problem with you sending it to me if it was for purely educational reasons, but there is a sort of gotcha in your tone (which might be coming from the dismissive "your religion" remark that is interestingly close to the wording "your kind").

See, my issue is that you have no idea who I am. You don't know that I had my own shitload of experiences with Orthodox Judaism and that it is the reason I currently I am where I am, faith-wise. You don't know the misogyny, homophobia and transphobia I've experienced. You don't know that I am currently actively looking for a Reform Judaism synagogue in the town I am planning to move to because I want to cleanse my experience of Judaism from all those associations. You think that by virtue of me asking ex-christians to stop putting their hands into every single punch bowl at the party, I dismiss the flaws of my bowl and its recipe. And that, is what I have an issue with.

Every religion and a way of practicing it has flaws. What matters is your experience of them. The way people around you treat those flaws. I want to be able to enjoy being Jewish while acknowledging the shitload of stuff that is wrong with it. Me and my partner are writing a whole book whose main character, Leroy, is all about it! About wanting to be understood by the traditions you were brought up with, and the struggle of them potentially rejecting you. I want to hear Jewish voices when I ask about problems related to practicing Judaism. I want to hear Islamic voices when I ask about issues related to practicing Islam. And yes, I want to hear Christian voices when I ask about the issues with practicing Christianity!

What I don't want, however, is someone else's hands in my punch bowl.

And yes, sometimes cross-referencing is very helpful. Sometimes bringing an outsider perspective is very helpful. But the key-word is sometimes. It should be an option, but it should never be the default.

[starlightomatic]

Literally the entire discussion of "can atheist jews particiapte in jewish culture" isnt the point. Im a new york jew, its literally impossible for me in my home town to not engage with jewish culture. The question is are atheist jews looked down on? Are we told we are still in some way believers, because judaism isnt christianity and our made up fairytales are different somehow. Are atheist jews made to feel that being non believers in god is wrong? Are atheist jews constantly talked over by religious believers of any stripe, telling us what actually we are, when we try and say this? Looks like it...

All the "atheist" jews around jumblr talking about "god is everywhere" or "judaism is orthopraxy not hard religion" or some bullshit about agnosticism and trying to parse out a nonexistent difference between the superstitious fairy tale elements of judaism from christian fairy tales, completely missing the forest for the trees, proving my point.

No wonder so many of us identify more as atheists then even culturally jewish, cause all the "cultural jewish atheists" around somehow dont think their belief in superstitious religious practice based on the fairy stories makes them religious.

I mean they’re describing themselves and a lot of them do self-identify as religious