#Religious Politics

[pronoun-note]

in the omegaverse is there denominations of christianity that have different beliefs on whether or not jesus was an alpha or an omega?

[spawnartisticdirections]

The things I'd add to this point here are just the things I already brought up above. Chiefly, siding with the imperial European monarchies of previous centuries on legitimising an idea of treason by minority religious affiliation (and not from a "back then they believed..." perspective), is a kind of conservatism I really don't expect to encounter in the present day. I also think, even if your religious leaders have the worst possible designs on the world – if that or the state's response to it makes it unsafe to raise a family, getting out of there to some other country is actually a very reasonable thing to do.

[a-false-prophet]

my 2025 prediction is that a group of conservative Catholics will attempt to break away from the Catholic Church because Jesus is “to weak”, a minority, or “sounds like a homosexual”

[seraphimfall]

there is an insane amount of antisemitism floating around right now.

i just want to say:

this blog loves and supports jewish people.

this blog does NOT conflate the israeli government, or the atrocities it commits, with jewish people.

this blog is disgusted with those who use or express antisemitism.

this blog knows that if someone needs to invoke antisemitism, they do not actually care about helping palestine or the palestinian people.

this blog will do its best to ensure that it remains a safe space for all.

[cookinguptales]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[ashfly]

okay lol look up the display it's kinda adorable (it includes a ruffly wreath that makes a star, but also sorta looks like roses - idk if that's the intent or not but). Far as I recall, this is literally the purpose of TST (The Satanic Temple). They do various other campaigns (such as reproductive right), and marriage ceremonies, etc., but reminding folks how deep religious bias goes and forcing people to acknowledge it is pretty high up in their priorities.

I love this so much!

[spawnartisticdirections]

The funniest thought crossed my mind just now, to get participants on board from the most categorically obscure (lowest level of popular understanding) branches of international worshippers of Jesus Christ, and get twenty-year-olds from Tumblr to explain and defend the phrase 'culturally Christian' to the group.

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review XVI (NSW 2023): Group T (Milton Caine / Christians for Community)

Prior reviews: None, this is a new unregistered party

Milton Caine is standing as the lead candidate of an independent group of two candidates. This means he will not get a square above the line (you need 15 candidates for that) and you can only indicate a preference for him if you vote below the line. He has previously stood for the Liberal Party and for Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party, and now views himself as representing a remnant of the CDP “to negotiate a solid and Christian path forward”. He is intending to register Christians for Community as a formal party. I hope he doesn't.

I am quite concerned that Caine takes a theological approach to government: for him, the first question to ask about government decisions is whether it is “in agreement with God? (God’s will, as revealed in the Bible)”. This is a wholly inappropriate attitude to take towards governing a secular country of many faiths and where roughly four-tenths have no faith. He espouses the sort of US-influenced and ahistorical claims that Australia was “established on Christian principles” (it was not! the colonies were founded for imperial purposes and they federated for pragmatic reasons! yeesh!).

In general, Caine wants to mandate conservative forms of Christian observance, and this is entirely unjustifiable even from a Christian perspective, never mind a pluralistic one, as any serious student of theology would reject enforced faithfulness as insincere. When you turn to his attitudes towards other faiths, it exposes how self-serving his ideology is. He “opposes any formal legal recognition of sharia law or aboriginal tribal law”. Now, I’ve seen plenty of xenophobic beat-ups about Sharia in Australia over the years, but it’s quite something that he groups this with Aboriginal traditions and that he opposes the First Peoples of this land from exercising their laws despite the fact they never ceded their sovereignty. This is unpleasant stuff.

Some of his home-page rhetoric seems superficially reasonable, as he gestures positively towards environmental needs, poorer communities, and particularly disabled people. But the more you dig into his policy pages, the worse it gets. His media policies, for instance, mandate very narrow conservative morality (he seems to have a bee in his bonnet not just about pornography, nor just about the ABC, but that “Reality television is just one genre where there has been flagrant abuse”). This guy is a boring prude. He could never advance policies for the benefit of all, nor legislate without religious prejudice.

Recommendation: Give Group T (Milton Caine / Christians for Community) a weak or no preference.

Website: https://miltoncaine.com/

[odinsblog]

This is an illegitimate and deeply corrupt Supreme Court

Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people. The Supreme Court of the United States declares that a particular kind of business, though open to the public, has a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. The Court does so for the first time in its history. By issuing this new license to discriminate in a case brought by a company that seeks to deny same-sex couples the full and equal enjoyment of its services, the immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status. In this way, the decision itself inflicts a kind of stigmatic harm, on top of any harm caused by denials of service. The opinion of the Court is, quite literally, a notice that reads: "Some services may be denied to same-sex couples."

Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. Specifically, the Court holds that the First Amendment exempts a website-design company from a state law that prohibits the company from denying wedding websites to same-sex couples if the company chooses to sell those websites to the public.

The Court also holds that the company has a right to post a notice that says, "No [wedding websites] will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages."

Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.

—Justice Sonia Sotomayor; excerpts from the dissenting opinion

[serpentface]

Faiza performing the Kagnoma Odo (pretty literally 'lion dance'), a weapons dance and one of the more important ritual duties of Odonii priestesses. A relatively new addition to this traditional dance involves the musket as the primary weapon, which is fired mid-twirl into the ground at the climax of the dance. Faiza is experiencing an 'oh fuck' moment because her shot is more than ideally diagonal, but she’s being so cool with it.

This is a wholly ceremonial performance at the onset of the pilgrimage, performed in full regalia and lion skin (of the small, semi-domesticated strain) but no armor. It’s also distinctly a display of political allegiance between the powerful and beloved Odonii priesthood (and its loyal military) with the increasingly reviled and destabilized imperial family, with Faiza prominently wearing a bracelet of the royal serpent, which was gifted (along with the musket) by the usoma Stavis Amanti himself (Usoma is the Wardi word for king, which has been retained in the context of emperors).

The Kagnoma Odo is the ultimate demonstration of the Odonii as an embodiment of the Lion Face of God and living vessel of military might and sovereignty, demonstrating her fitness and proficiency with weapons and as a spiritual unifier for soldiers. It is accompanied by drumming and occurs in stages, running through the three keymost weapons used in war- the spear, the sword, and the musket. The musket is of the most significance, given the weapon has developed a particular esteem as the ultimate embodiment of might and superiority. Assistants (almost always other priestesses, occasionally high ranking soldiers) load and prime the musket to be fired at the climax of the dance, where it is shot into the ground as the priestess leaps out of range of the shot. The firing signals the end of the dance and the rite itself.

While not the utmost exemplar of trigger discipline, only fully inducted and senior (and therefore very thoroughly trained) Odonii are permitted to perform the dance, and injuries during actual performances are quite rare (though are known to occur during training, more than a few Odonii have burns and wounds on their feet).

The most important renditions of this dance are performed upon declarations of war and before battles (in this case, generally done in full armor along with the lion pelt). It is also done during some trainings (while a dance, it is carefully choreographed to include naturalistic maneuvers of the weapons involved and helps soldiers limber up and learn to move their weapons). It is regarded as an impressive and motivating sight and a morale booster, and, seen at a distance, potentially intimidating to enemies.

A special variant of this dance is performed as means of fully incarnating the Odomache, which is done in full nudity with the body covered in the blood of the freshly sacrificed lion and cloaked in its raw pelt (the lion has become the corpse of Odomache in the moment of death, as part of its recreation of God's sacrifice). Her public, full nude appearance once (and only once) in this act is what allows the Lion Face of God to incarnate within her. Those in attendance see the spiritually vulnerable, naked human body obscured with the sanctified and deified blood and cloaked in the sanctified and deified skin. It is a merger of the contradictions of mortality and divinity, the boundaries between the two indistinct in flickering firelight and the flash of musketfire. She is witnessed by her people, dangling in between humanity and divinity and leading them in dance, and and is thus transformed.

[fictionadventurer]

Maybe the problem with Christian fiction is that it's non-denominational. People are just "Christian", with no effort put into showing what practicing that religion looks like for them specifically. No indication that there are other Christians who could have different beliefs. No wrestling with differing ideas and the struggle of how one should live out their Christian faith. And that makes it unrealistic and unrelatable.

[journeytothewestresearch]

Great overview! I just wanted to add one thing. Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) actually omits something about the Diamond Snare from the original Chinese. As a reminder, the translation reads:

But the Chinese states:

The year when I crossed the Hangu Pass, I depended on it a great deal for the conversion of the barbarians to Buddhism (emphasis added), for it was practically my bodyguard night and day (based on Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 186). 當年過函關，化胡為佛，甚是虧他。早晚最可防身。等我丟下去打他一下。

This refers to an ancient story cycle in which Laozi travels west from China and becomes the Buddha. The tale was likely created in the second-century to explain the similarities between native Daoism and foreign Buddhism. However, the story was later weaponized during the fourth-century, resulting in the Classic on Converting the Barbarians (Huahu jing, 化胡經), an anti-Buddhist polemic claiming that the religion is just a bastardization of Daoism. [1]

This idea remained current in some Daoist circles for centuries. For instance, a Qing-era reprint of The Illustrated Explanation of Taishang Laojun's Eighty-One Transformations (Taishang laojun bashiyi hua tushuo, 太上老君八十一化圖說) includes an illustration of Laozi's birth as the Buddha (fig. 1).

Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) likely skipped over all of this to avoid confusing readers.

Note:

For an in-depth discussion, see chapter six in Zürche (2007)

Sources:

Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vols. 1-4) (Rev. ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

Zürche, E. (2007). The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China (3rd ed.). Leiden: Brill.

Fig. 1 - A print showing Laozi's early birth as the Buddha.

How does the diamond snare thing work?

Diamond cutting, from the Ming Dynasty fairy novel "Journey to the West", is the magic weapon of the Taishang Laojun. A dense white circle, also known as the golden steel ring, diamond sleeve; can change, is invulnerable to water and fire, can hit all things, collect all kinds of magic weapons and weapons, and the magic is endless. It was refined by Naikun steel, and it was also refined by Huan Dan. It has spirituality. It was used by Laozi for self-defense when he used it and used this treasure to overthrow Sun Wukong and help Erlang Shen capture him.

Later, it was stolen by Taishang Laojun's mount "Banjiao Qingniu", and fled to the lower realm to occupy the mountain as a demon. He called himself the One-Horned Rhino King, captured Tang Monk in Jindou Mountain. He used this treasure set to get Sun Wukong's golden hoop, the six demon-subduing weapons of Prince Nezha, and the magic weapons of all the gods and generals were taken away together, even water, fire, thunder, and lightning can be absorbed. Later, the king was subdued by the Taishang Laojun who came down to earth with a fire-type plantain fan. After subduing the green bull demon, he took back the diamond cutter and returned the weapons of the gods. Finally, the diamond cutter became the nose ring of the one-horned green bull.

Taishang Laojun is the imperial blacksmith of the Heavenly Court. He has made diamond bracelets, purple, gold, and red gourds, mutton fat jade bottles, golden ropes, plantain fans, seven-star swords, and many other magic weapons. The diamond snare being the most powerful as he used to go down to earth and defeat Sun Wukong after the Tota King, Eighteen Arhats, and other gods in Jindou Cave. Finally, Laojun took away the gold steel bracelet with a plantain fan and subdued the One-Horned Rhino King.

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%87%91%E5%88%9A%E7%90%A2/3279152?fromModule=lemma_inlink&fromtitle=%E9%87%91%E5%88%9A%E9%95%AF&fromid=10311852

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

y'all need to get a grip. you blab all day about how much you hate bigots and hateful people and how evil it is to dehumanize anyone and then you turn around and say "kys" and "i think [x] should all just kill themselves" and other disgusting, violent and childish trash

so many people on here are just full of hatred and vitriol and turn into frenzied sharks anytime the target 'deserves it' and they think they can get away with it and not be called bad people. then they whine about how sad it is that we can't all just get along and if only all the evil people in the world would stop doing evil things wouldn't that be nicer

you're just as vicious, hypocritical and fanatically puritanical as the caricature you have made in your minds of the people you think you have nothing in common with. if you've ever told someone, ANYONE to kill themselves you're not advocates of justice, you're not artisans of peace, and you certainly don't have any moral high ground that would allow you to pass judgment on others

[communistkenobi]

another thing that bourdieu says that I feel very deeply is that if you investigate any social phenomena long enough you arrive at the state. I didn’t start in academia particularly interested in the state as an object of study but it has ended up being completely unavoidable

[seraphimfall]

i’ve read so much tradcath bullshit the last two years. i can confidently say tradcath men fit into one of two categories:

“protestant-raised and converted to catholicism because of his crippling porn addiction and racist tendencies. reposts crusader and conquistador memes. is hated in his local parish.” tradcath

“catholic-raised band kid who ate his lunches with the religion teacher. smells like mildew. cut off all his friends that came out as gay after high school. now larps as an aquinian scholar and cries after jerking off.” tradcath

[diioonysus]

“let’s keep the olympics free of politics and religion” I’m going to hold your hand when i say this but olympics were created to honor the god zeus