#The two exceptions are the creation story and Adam & Eve because I think those are more metaphorical

[mikewheelerfan2022]

believing in ghosts is stupid but believing a man walked on water, rose from the dead, turned water into wine, and cured fucking blindness with a single touch is smart and logical to you? 💀

Yes, it is. Although I don’t post about it often, I am a Christian, and I believe in the miracles of God. The paranormal is very different. In my opinion, most of the stuff that happens in the Bible is true. And paranormal stuff like ghosts isn’t. Now, there is the Holy Spirit, but that’s different because the Spirit is one of the three aspects of God.

I understand that not everybody is religious. And that’s fine. I respect Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Taoists, etc. I even respect Satanists, although that does make me fairly uncomfortable. And of course, I respect atheists. You don’t have to be religious. But can you not be so rude about it? I respect you, please do the same for me.

[infinitelycomplexpuzzles]

About Beelzebub

So you want to know about ol’ Beelzebub, do you? Well, forget everything you think you know about the Lord of the Flies, and listen well, because it’s a long story and condensing it is hard.

So a long, long time ago, God decides to make the universe, and creates all the angels to do it. Poof! Then he sends them forth to go do his will and all that. Beelzebub is put in charge of making all the food, all the animals and plants and stuff. For this, he’s seen by a lot of the angels as being lower on the rung, because he’s not been given the job of making light or physics or something like that. Even Heaven has its hierarchy.

Anyway, you know the important bits by now. Light, six days, humans, rest. The part that gets messy is how time works, because he and the other angels made that too. It wasn’t really days so much as periods. Days just sounds and looks better and is easier to understand. But it’s more like six periods where different groups went out to do their thing, the thing they were put in charge of.

Day six comes around, humans exist, and God calls all his angels up to have a chat with them. See, humans are the most perfect things in all existence; Adam and Eve are perfect in ways words cannot possibly describe; and as you can imagine, all the angels love them. They’ve spent the entire time they’ve existed preparing for this moment, the moment where Adam and Eve get to enjoy all the things that the angels made for them. I mean, they literally hung the stars in the universe and grew the grass beneath their feet for them.

Except then God throws a cold bucket of water on the lot of them, saying that they’re not allowed to reveal themselves or anything. Non-interference. They’re the most important beings in all of creation, and they’re not allowed to know that. Okay, say the angels, not entirely understanding.

But then God goes and tells them that they’re supposed to love them the same way they love God, like they are God. Now, this confuses them, because how do you love your creator, or anything, without them knowing you exist? How exactly do you love something that knows you exist the same way that you love something that doesn’t? It made no sense to the Angels. But God simply said those were the rules. Don’t interfere, love them like they loved God.

And then he decided that was a great time to stop taking questions. As you can imagine, this went over poorly. Angels started asking questions, started making debates, started arguing with each other about what to do. And this created two camps. On one side, you had the ones who said that the first rule was more important: don’t interfere. It came first, it’s more important. On the other side were the ones who said the second one was. If you can’t follow the second rule without breaking the first, it has to be the more important one, since following the first broke the second too, and loving your creator was more important that not being seen.

If this is giving you a headache, think of the Angels like parents. Adam and Eve were basically their kids; and as a parent, is there anything you don’t want to give your kids? Could a parent stand for their kids to never know their parents? Never know that everything was provided for them, and never know why? Everything was created for you, and you were just supposed to think you were alone in the universe. That it didn’t care about you, and you were just some accident.

Lines were drawn, arguments made. Finally, it came time to make good on those arguments. And the three that fell first? Lucifer, Leviathan, and Beelzebub. Yeah, bet you were wondering where he came back into the story, huh?

Lucifer you probably already know all about. Thinks he knows better, thinks he’s got the plan, thinks he can keep everything under control. Leviathan fought God before creation. Leviathan was everything God wasn’t, and wanted what God was, and so fought God and lost. Hated him ever since. Should have probably thought it was weird when he went along with this, but everyone was whipped up in a fervor.

Beelzebub… No one actually knows what the Hell he was thinking. He gives so many different answers it’s hard to know which ones are true and which ones he says to fuck with you. Maybe he was insane. Maybe he wanted to take the risk. Maybe he was so filled with love and dogma he couldn’t do anything else. Point is, he was there next to Lucifer and Leviathan, the first created and the one who fought God, this guy who was put in charge of making dandelions and worms and stuff. First indication he was hitting way above his weight class.

So you know the rest of the story to some degree. Adam and Eve, forbidden fruit, awareness. Suddenly, mankind is capable of complex thinking, of reasoning. No longer do they just see things and accept them, they start asking why. No more ‘apple taste good’ and move on. Now they wonder what makes an apple taste good, what makes it different from other apples, what makes the best ones. All kinds of questions.

Beelzebub takes to this with vigor. See, he made all the plants and animals like I said. And he made them to be eaten. What is the point of an apple if it doesn’t get eaten? He literally crafted everything to be enjoyed. To keep humans alive. Humans need food, so they should get things they like. Things they enjoy. Things they want more of. And why shouldn’t they? They’re the most important thing in all creation.

You can probably grasp how he got tagged with being the demon lord of gluttony. You see, it never occurred to Beelzebub that humans could do something like become ravenous monsters that would literally destroy each other just to consume things. And there’s a lot of things you can consume. Food, drink, sex, entertainment, arrogance, hate… If you can indulge in something, it’s Beelzebub who made that possible, though he didn’t know it.

Now obviously, God finds out about this, gets really pissed off, and throws the lot of the offending angels into Hell. Throws some humans in there too, not to punish them but to punish the offending angels. After all, they loved humans so much, what could be worse than seeing their own handiwork?

Some of them, like Satan and Belphegor, turn to resenting and hating humans. If it wasn’t for them, if they were fallible, God wouldn’t have been angry. Not Beelzebub. He loves them all the more. Perhaps it’s part of his curse… Oh, did I not mention that?

So, all the ringleaders got cursed by God. Remember how Cain got cursed for inventing murder? Same sorta deal. Lucifer for example gets cursed to have a realm in Hell, a twisted mirror of what he could have had. There he remains, trying to build a utopia, and forever failing, forever injuring his pride. He can’t give it up, he’s too proud.

Beelzebub gets cursed to never be satisfied. He’s an addict, the king of them, someone who craves and hungers and consumes endlessly without end, who cannot be satisfied no matter what. He’s a pathetic being, really. Some people think gluttony looks like massive fat blobs, and it does, but it’s just as familiar to the burned out addict in an alleyway. He’s got plenty of forms. Just depends on what he needs right then.

Anyway, guy loves humanity. And humanity loves him, even if they don’t know it. Beer, cake, coffee, the fucking KFC Double-Down… The human desire for more comes from him, and he is rewarded by being given new and wonderful things to crave. Angels, and demons for that matter, are not nearly as creative as humans are. It’s not their nature. It used to be that the only humans who could be gluttonous were the rich. Now? Everyone can. You can binge watch television shows and drink wines from across the globe and eat all kinds of foods most people in the past would never have imagined. It used to be that eating five thousands calories a day was limited to royalty. Now? It’s easy.

And it’s not just food. Gambling? Entertainment? He loves it. It’s his domain. Art? Same deal. His entire realm, the third circle of hell, probably looks to the outsider like the best part of the whole realm. I mean, it’s got everything you could possibly want. Only… it’s a good place to visit, you know? Because guess what, after a while, even the greatest pleasures become unappealing, and it never stops. Imagine being made to eat cake every single day for every single meal, forever. Imagine never being able to lose at gambling. Imagine women or men, whatever you prefer, never turning you down, or always wanting more of you. How long before it became maddening? That’s his realm.

It’s why he’s called ‘Lord of the Flies.’ Because he’s like a fly on shit. The fly doesn’t care that it’s shit. It cares that it’s hungry. He’s basically the king of the bums. He’s the world’s first junkie.

Of course, because of his domain, he’s also sometimes called 'the kindest demon.’ Because he’s like a doting parent or grandparent, always wanting to give more and more and more to their kids. Ever heard a grandparent complain a kid is too thin? Imagine that, times a million.

He can be loving. He can be indulgent. He can be full of love and kindness. But he can also be cruel, inhuman, violent, and impossibly sadistic. He is everything to extremes. He cares for nothing except getting his next fix. He is someone who can feast on the finest foods one moment and be eating literal dirt the next.

Oh, and he once stole Lucifer’s throne from him and gave it back to him on a whim, because he wanted to see if he could. That’s the kind of being he is. Basically no one in the underworld crosses him for it, because none of them can accurately predict what he might do. Lucifer and Leviathan rule by force and power, but Beelzebub rules through guile and intrigue and indulgence. He even intentionally supports challenges to his rule, just to see what’ll happen.

All of this is to say, you’re as likely to find him covered in garbage in an alley smelling of urine and booze as you are to find him at a high society party drinking the finest wines. Never assume that something is beyond him, or beneath him. Because it isn’t, if he gets the hunger.

[neil-gaiman]

How Did you come up with the first eve in the story about adams wives? I haven’t been able to find anything about her after I read it and I want to know if she’s an actual biblical character or just someone you made

She's from the Midrash. I learned about her as a 12 year old, from my barmitzvah teacher. There was a point in there, long after I'd put her into Sandman, where I was starting to think I'd imagined her, when I ran across her in Robert Graves's Hebrew Myths....

Excerpt from: The Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai (New York:  Doubleday, 1964), pp 65-69

Chapter 10: Adam's Helpmeets

(a) Having decided to give Adam a helpmeet lest he should be alone of his kind, God put him into a deep sleep, removed one of his ribs, formed it into a woman, and closed up the wound, Adam awoke and said: 'This being shall be named "Woman", because she has been taken out of man. A man and a woman shall be one flesh.' The title he gave her was Eve, 'the Mother of All Living''. [1]

(b) Some say that God created man and woman in His own image on the Sixth Day, giving them charge over the world; [2]  but that Eve did not yet exist. Now, God had set Adam to name every beast, bird and other living thing. When they passed before him in pairs, male and female, Adam-being already like a twenty-year-old man-felt jealous of their loves, and though he tried coupling with each female in turn, found no satisfaction in the act. He therefore cried: 'Every creature but I has a proper mate', and prayed God would remedy this injustice. [3]

(c) God then formed Lilith, the first woman, just as He had formed Adam, except that He used filth and sediment instead of pure dust. From Adam's union with this demoness, and with another like her named Naamah, Tubal Cain's sister, sprang Asmodeus and innumerable demons that still plague mankind. Many generations later, Lilith and Naamah came to Solomon's judgement seat, disguised as harlots of Jerusalem'. [4]

(d) Adam and Lilith never found peace together; for when he wished to lie with her, she took offence at the recumbent posture he demanded. 'Why must I lie beneath you?' she asked. 'I also was made from dust, and am therefore your equal.' Because Adam tried to compel her obedience by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered the magic name of God, rose into the air and left him.

Adam complained to God: 'I have been deserted by my helpmeet' God at once sent the angels Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof to fetch Lilith back. They found her beside the Red Sea, a region abounding in lascivious demons, to whom she bore lilim at the rate of more than one hundred a day. 'Return to Adam without delay,' the angels said, `or we will drown you!' Lilith asked: `How can I return to Adam and live like an honest housewife, after my stay beside the Red Sea?? 'It will be death to refuse!' they answered. `How can I die,' Lilith asked again, `when God has ordered me to take charge of all newborn children: boys up to the eighth day of life, that of circumcision; girls up to the twentieth day. None the less, if ever I see your three names or likenesses displayed in an amulet above a newborn child, I promise to spare it.' To this they agreed; but God punished Lilith by making one hundred of her demon children perish daily; [5] and if she could not destroy a human infant, because of the angelic amulet, she would spitefully turn against her own. [6]

(e) Some say that Lilith ruled as queen in Zmargad, and again in Sheba; and was the demoness who destroyed job's sons. [7] Yet she escaped the curse of death which overtook Adam, since they had parted long before the Fall. Lilith and Naamah not only strangle infants but also seduce dreaming men, any one of whom, sleeping alone, may become their victim. [8]

(f) Undismayed by His failure to give Adam a suitable helpmeet, God tried again, and let him watch while he built up a woman's anatomy: using bones, tissues, muscles, blood and glandular secretions, then covering the whole with skin and adding tufts of hair in places. The sight caused Adam such disgust that even when this woman, the First Eve, stood there in her full beauty, he felt an invincible repugnance. God knew that He had failed once more, and took the First Eve away. Where she went, nobody knows for certain. [9]

(g) God tried a third time, and acted more circumspectly. Having taken a rib from Adam's side in his sleep, He formed it into a woman; then plaited her hair and adorned her, like a bride, with twenty-four pieces of jewellery, before waking him. Adam was entranced. [10]

(h) Some say that God created Eve not from Adam's rib, but from a tail ending in a sting which had been part of his body. God cut this off, and the stump-now a useless coccyx-is still carried by Adam's descendants. [11]

(i) Others say that God's original thought had been to create two human beings, male and female; but instead He designed a single one with a male face looking forward, and a female face looking back. Again He changed His mind, removed Adam's backward-looking face, and built a woman's body for it. [12]

(j) Still others hold that Adam was originally created as an androgyne of male and female bodies joined back to back. Since this posture made locomotion difficult, and conversation awkward, God divided the androgyne and gave each half a new rear. These separate beings He placed in Eden, forbidding them to couple. [13]

Notes on sources:

1. Genesis II. 18-25; III. 20.

2. Genesis I. 26-28.

3. Gen. Rab. 17.4; B. Yebamot 632.

4. Yalqut Reubeni ad. Gen. II. 21; IV. 8.

5. Alpha Beta diBen Sira, 47; Gaster, MGWJ, 29 (1880), 553 ff.

6. Num. Rab. 16.25.

7. Targum ad job 1. 15.

8. B. Shabbat 151b; Ginzberg, LJ, V. 147-48.

9. Gen. Rab. 158, 163-64; Mid. Abkir 133, 135; Abot diR. Nathan 24; B. Sanhedrin 39a.

10. Gen. II. 21-22; Gen. Rab. 161.

11. Gen. Rab. 134; B. Erubin 18a.

12. B. Erubin 18a.

13. Gen. Rab. 55; Lev. Rab. 14.1: Abot diR. Nathan 1.8; B. Berakhot 61a; B. Erubin 18a; Tanhuma Tazri'a 1; Yalchut Gen. 20; Tanh. Buber iii.33; Mid. Tehillim 139, 529.

Authors’ Comments on the Myth:

1. The tradition that man's first sexual intercourse was with animals, not women, may be due to the widely spread practice of bestiality among herdsmen of the Middle East, which is still condoned by custom, although figuring three times in the Pentateuch as a capital crime. In the Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic, Enkidu is said to have lived with gazelles and jostled other wild beasts at the watering place, until civilized by Aruru's priestess. Having enjoyed her embraces for six days and seven nights, he wished to rejoin the wild beasts but, to his surprise, they fled from him. Enkidu then knew that he had gained understanding, and the priestess said: 'Thou art wise, Enkidu, like unto a godl'

2. Primeval man was held by the Babylonians to have been androgynous. Thus the Gilgamesh Epic gives Enkidu androgynous features: `the hair of his head like a woman's, with locks that sprout like those of Nisaba, the Grain-goddess.' The Hebrew tradition evidently derives from Greek sources, because both terms used in a Tannaitic midrash to describe the bisexual Adam are Greek: androgynos, 'man-woman', and diprosopon, 'twofaced'. Philo of Alexandria, the Hellenistic philosopher and commentator on the Bible, contemporary with Jesus, held that man was at first bisexual; so did the Gnostics. This belief is clearly borrowed from Plato. Yet the myth of two bodies placed back to back may well have been founded on observation of Siamese twins, which are sometimes joined in this awkward manner. The two-faced Adam appears to be a fancy derived from coins or statues of Janus, the Roman New Year god.

3. Divergences between the Creation myths of Genesis r and n, which allow Lilith to be presumed as Adam's first mate, result from a careless weaving together of an early Judaean and a late priestly tradition. The older version contains the rib incident. Lilith typifies the Anath-worshipping Canaanite women, who were permitted pre-nuptial promiscuity. Time after time the prophets denounced Israelite women for following Canaanite practices; at first, apparently, with the priests' approval-since their habit of dedicating to God the fees thus earned is expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy xxIII. I8. Lilith's flight to the Red Sea recalls the ancient Hebrew view that water attracts demons. 'Tortured and rebellious demons' also found safe harbourage in Egypt. Thus Asmodeus, who had strangled Sarah's first six husbands, fled 'to the uttermost parts of Egypt' (Tobit viii. 3), when Tobias burned the heart and liver of a fish on their wedding night.

4. Lilith's bargain with the angels has its ritual counterpart in an apotropaic rite once performed in many Jewish communities. To protect the newborn child against Lilith-and especially a male, until he could be permanently safeguarded by circumcision-a ring was drawn with natron, or charcoal, on the wall of the birthroom, and inside it were written the words: 'Adam and Eve. Out, Lilith!' Also the names Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof (meanings uncertain) were inscribed on the door. If Lilith nevertheless succeeded in approaching the child and fondling him, he would laugh in his sleep. To avert danger, it was held wise to strike the sleeping child's lips with one finger-whereupon Lilith would vanish.

5. 'Lilith' is usually derived from the Babylonian-Assyrian word lilitu, ,a female demon, or wind-spirit'-one of a triad mentioned in Babylonian spells. But she appears earlier as 'Lillake' on a 2000 B.G. Sumerian tablet from Ur containing the tale of Gilgamesh and the Willow Tree. There she is a demoness dwelling in the trunk of a willow-tree tended by the Goddess Inanna (Anath) on the banks of the Euphrates. Popular Hebrew etymology seems to have derived 'Lilith' from layil, 'night'; and she therefore often appears as a hairy night-monster, as she also does in Arabian folklore. Solomon suspected the Queen of Sheba of being Lilith, because she had hairy legs. His judgement on the two harlots is recorded in I Kings III. 16 ff. According to Isaiah xxxiv. I4-I5, Lilith dwells among the desolate ruins in the Edomite Desert where satyrs (se'ir), reems, pelicans, owls, jackals, ostriches, arrow-snakes and kites keep her company.

6. Lilith's children are called lilim. In the Targum Yerushalmi, the priestly blessing of Numbers vi. 26 becomes: 'The Lord bless thee in all thy doings, and preserve thee from the Lilim!' The fourth-century A.D. commentator Hieronymus identified Lilith with the Greek Lamia, a Libyan queen deserted by Zeus, whom his wife Hera robbed of her children. She took revenge by robbing other women of theirs.

7. The Lamiae, who seduced sleeping men, sucked their blood and ate their flesh, as Lilith and her fellow-demonesses did, were also known as Empusae, 'forcers-in'; or Mormolyceia, 'frightening wolves'; and described as 'Children of Hecate'. A Hellenistic relief shows a naked Lamia straddling a traveller asleep on his back. It is characteristic of civilizations where women are treated as chattels that they must adopt the recumbent posture during intercourse, which Lilith refused. That Greek witches who worshipped Hecate favoured the superior posture, we know from Apuleius; and it occurs in early Sumerian representations of the sexual act, though not in the Hittite. Malinowski writes that Melanesian girls ridicule what they call `the missionary position', which demands that they should lie passive and recumbent.

8. Naamah, 'pleasant', is explained as meaning that 'the demoness sang pleasant songs to idols'. Zmargad suggest smaragdos, the semi-precious aquamarine; and may therefore be her submarine dwelling. A demon named Smaragos occurs in the Homeric Epigrams.

9. Eve's creation by God from Adam's rib-a myth establishing male supremacy and disguising Eve's divinity-lacks parallels in Mediterranean or early Middle-Eastern myth. The story perhaps derives iconotropically from an ancient relief, or painting, which showed the naked Goddess Anath poised in the air, watching her lover Mot murder his twin Aliyan; Mot (mistaken by the mythographer for Yahweh) was driving a curved dagger under Aliyan's fifth rib, not removing a sixth one. The familiar story is helped by a hidden pun on tsela, the Hebrew for 'rib': Eve, though designed to be Adam's helpmeet, proved to be a tsela, a 'stumbling', or 'misfortune'. Eve's formation from Adam's tail is an even more damaging myth; perhaps suggested by the birth of a child with a vestigial tail instead of a coccyx-a not infrequent occurrence.

10. The story of Lilith's escape to the East and of Adam's subsequent marriage to Eve may, however, record an early historical incident: nomad herdsmen, admitted into Lilith's Canaanite queendom as guests (see 16. 1), suddenly seize power and, when the royal household thereupon flees, occupy a second queendom which owes allegiance to the Hittite Goddess Heba.

The meaning of 'Eve' is disputed. Hawwah is explained in Genesis III. 20 as 'mother of all living'; but this may well be a Hebraicized form of the divine name Heba, Hebat, Khebat or Khiba. This goddess, wife of the Hittite Storm-god, is shown riding a lion in a rock-sculpture at Hattusaswhich equates her with Anath-and appears as a form of Ishtar in Hurrian texts. She was worshipped at Jerusalem (see 27. 6). Her Greek name was Hebe, Heracles's goddess-wife.

[imsorryimlate]

Specific references in Pomegranate Seeds, sorted by chapter

Title of work: Pomegranate Seeds

A reference to the myth of Persephone and Hades, where Hades is the god of the underworld who kidnaps Persephone – the daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and harvest – and makes her queen of the underworld. He gives her a pomegranate to eat, and for every seed she swallows she has to spend a month with Hades in the underworld. During the months she is with Hades, she is gone from her mother, and that’s why autumn and winter exist (since Demeter is grieving the loss of her daughter). Spring and summer are the months when she is back with Demeter, and Demeter is once again happy. The myth has lots of interpretations, but my favourite is the one where it is said to be based on the trauma of both daughter and mother as they are separated when the daughter gets married and enters a new household.

Even though Giorno’s mother didn’t treat him well, her death was most likely traumatic to him. He enters the new household of Dio (Hades) and every time they touch each other in a way that isn’t befitting father and son, one could say that Giorno swallows another pomegranate seed, and it binds him to the underworld. In this case, the underworld would both represent the criminal world, but also the trap of their incestuous relationship that he then cannot leave, should he want to.

No specific references in chapters 1 & 2.

Chapter 3:

Demetra – Giorno’s mother doesn’t have a name in canon, so I made one up. Demetra is the Italian version of Demeter, which is the name of the Greek goddess of agriculture and harvest. The goddess is the mother of Persephone, and the title of this fic – Pomegranate Seeds – is a reference to the myth of Hades and Persephone.

The biblical paintings in the church – John the Baptist (martyr) was beheaded, and Judas (traitor) hung himself. The imagery around Eve, the snake and the red apple, well… depending on how you interpret the story in the Bible, this could mean that the scene doesn’t represent a fall from grace, but rather that it was God’s intention to have humanity step into the broader world.

Dio’s books – I mostly just had a look at my own bookshelf, but I purposely included Nabokov, Machiavelli, and Plato. Nabokov, of course, references his infamous novel Lolita. Machiavelli was an Italian politician and philosopher during the Renaissance, and he’s most famous for his book The Prince, where he gave rulers quite… devious advice, not shying away from unethical and corrupt means. Therefore Machiavelli and the derived term Machiavellian often denotes (political) deceit. And Plato, well, in his text The Symposium he speaks of the ancient practice of pederasty in a very positive manner, and claiming that it is the purest form of love.

Aniara – I picked the book because it’s my sister’s favourite. It is a book-length epic science fiction poem that narrates the tragedy of a large passenger spacecraft carrying a cargo of colonists escaping destruction on Earth veering off course, leaving the Solar System and entering into an existential struggle. This is the “space-travel” Giorno later reflects on while in the bath.

No specific references in chapter 4.

Chapter 5:

The next reference to Machiavelli – Giorno thinks about Machiavelli and the question if it is better to be feared or loved, which is something Machiavelli writes about in his book The Prince, where he states that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved, if they cannot be both.

No specific references in chapter 6.

Chapter 7:

Reckless – Giorno notes that Dio wants him “recklessly, passionately”. This is one of the two times the word “reckless” is used in this story; the only other time being in the first chapter when Giorno’s mother dies after her car collides with a reckless truck. Dio’s desire for Giorno is tied together with that accident, as if it’s equally dangerous.

Jewel – “Yes, Giorno would like something like that; to show Dio that he was a prized jewel, cut to fit perfectly in the curve of his palm.” This line directly references the Song of Songs 7:1 “Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.”

Eden – “How truly unfortunate, that the most tempting fruit should be found in the middle of Eden.” The garden of Eden, in the Bible, is where life is first created by God. It can therefore also symbolise family, where life also is created. So what Dio essentially says here is “what a shame the most fuckable person is found in my family”.

Draconic tendencies – Giorno having “draconic tendencies” is a reference to his earlier thoughts about Abbacchio hoarding Bucciarati like a jealous dragon.

Chapter 8:

Buttercups – Giorno picks a bouquet of buttercups for Dio, and buttercups have traditionally been associated with childhood. It is meant to express that Giorno, no matter how mature he himself is convinced that he is, still has a childish edge to his affection. As a fun aside, the Latin name for buttercups is Ranunculus, which means “little frog”.

Leda and the Swan – the painting Dio has in his study. It is, of course, an erotic yet controversial motif in itself, but there are some references to the Greek myth it is based on. In it, Zeus disguises himself as a swan and copulates with Leda. It is not entirely clear if it is by rape or seduction. Zeus, of course, is known for his sexual escapades, his violent temper and jealousy, but here he disguises himself as a swan, which is an animal that in European culture often has symbolised love and fidelity. This story of a shady person disguising himself as someone loving, to enter a relationship where consent is dubious at best, well… I think the implications are clear. As a fun aside, the name Zeus and the name Dio are directly connected.

Uneasy lies the head – the whole quote is “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”, a saying from Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 2, meaning that someone with great responsibilities won’t be able to rest properly.

The prodigal son – it’s a reference to a parable in the Bible, from Luke 15:11-32. The story goes that a son requests his inheritance early, spends it all irresponsibly, and then returns home to beg his father to let him work for him. His father, however, welcomes him home with open arms and throws a feast, which indicates that he has hopefully waiting for the son to return.

Nakedness – the scene in Giorno’s room, where he lowers his duvet to display his “nakedness”, the word choice here is important. Except for Genesis 42, all biblical occurrences of the common idiom ”to see the nakedness of” or “to uncover the nakedness of” are explicitly sexual, usually referring to incest. The Classical Hebrew word 'erwā is not “nudity” but “nakedness”, in the sense of something that is unseemly or improper to look at or expose; often used to denote forbidden sexual relations.

Chapter 9:

Wine-dark – Dio’s eyes are described as wine-dark, which is a reference to the use of “wine-dark sea” in Homer. It’s an epithet used in the Iliad and the Odyssey, of uncertain meaning. What exactly does it mean that the sea is “wine-dark”? Is it a reference to the stormy sea being unpredictable, like someone who’s drunk on wine? Or does it tell us something about how ancient Greeks perceived colours, where maybe depth and opacity levels were more important than hues?

Ambrosia – Giorno compares the taste of Dio’s seed to ambrosia, which is the food and drink of the gods in Greek mythology.

Lollipop – Giorno is sucking on a lollipop while he’s out shopping. This is a shameless reference to the most culturally recognised image of Nabokov’s Lolita, where Sue Lyon, the actress who portrayed the character Lolita in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaption of the novel, is sucking on a red lollipop while wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. It’s worth noting, however, that the character Lolita doesn’t eat a lollipop in the novel or Kubrick’s film, and the images were only used for promotion. Either way, the lollipop has nonetheless become a symbol for playful, youthful temptation.

No specific references in chapter 10.

Chapter 11:

Dio’s alarming beauty – Giorno reflects on how beautiful Dio is, that he is alarmingly beautiful. This is a reference to a quote from The Secret History by Donna Tartt: “Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”

Chapter 12:

Kisses – there’s a lot of descriptions of kissing in the beginning of this chapter, and it is all a reference to the biblical book Song of Songs. “Honey-sweet kisses that melted his tongue” is a reference to Song of Songs 4:11 “honey and milk are under your tongue”. On a more complicated note… “those kisses, Giorno drank them from his mouth like they were life-giving water” is a reference to Song of Songs 1:2 that should be “I want to drink kisses from his mouth”, however, most translations will read “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth”. It’s really complicated as to why I and others would translate it differently, but in general it has to do with the manuscript and the Masoretic editors’ vocalisation, which in turn has a lot to do with evaluating Classical Hebrew grammar and poetic conventions… I am going to spare you that lecture, but I still wanted to let you know that you won’t find that wording in most English translations of the Bible.

The garden, Eden, and juvenile sex – this all ties together. The garden of Eden is, in the Bible, where life is created and before “the fall of man”, it is a place of peace and innocence. Now, it might seem strange to refer to innocence in a story like this, but there still is a certain kind of innocence to their relationship, especially on Giorno’s end. They are described as “easy and unafraid, in full view of God”, which again is a reference to the biblical creation story; after “the fall of man”, when Adam and Eve have sinned, they are suddenly afraid of God and tries to hide from him, and for the first time shield their nudity, since they have now lost that innocence. So, Dio and Giorno being unafraid in full view of God is another reference to them being fairly innocent. At least that’s how Giorno conceptualises it.

Satyriasis – a word for excessive sexual desire, and an outdated term for hypersexuality. The word was developed in relation to the satyrs of Greek mythology, who were lustful woodland gods.

Nipple play – Giorno sucking on Dio’s tits, well… quite obvious reference, but if you missed it; it’s a reference to breastfeeding and nourishment.

Sunlight – in Stardust Crusaders, Dio tells Polnareff that he too has pain in his life because he can never see the sunlight, since he is a vampire. In this story, Dio isn’t a vampire, but I still wanted to include this pain. Dio’s love for the sunshine, and the depravation of it in his childhood, is my attempt to reconceptualise it.

Chapter 13:

Ice cream – elder flower sorbet has a tendency to taste like laundry detergent if you’re not careful, so Mista definitely picked the wrong flavour that time.

Know thy enemy – “know thy enemy” is a famous quote from The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

Chapter 14:

Paradise burning – more Eden references, they never truly stop.

Loins – in Classical Hebrew, one specifically emphasises that a child has sprung from someone’s loins to indicate that it is a biological child rather than an adopted one.

Deadly sins – Giorno notes that one of the seven deadly sins, sloth (that is, excessive laziness and indifference), doesn’t come as naturally to him as others would (such as lust or pride).

Know thy self – another reference to the famous quote of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

Companion – Giorno thinks about how the universe has blessed Dio with a companion that can keep up with him, which is a subtle reference to the creation myth in the Bible. There, God creates the first human, Adam. Adam attempts to find a companion amongst the other creatures, but cannot find an equal until God creates another human – incidentally, God creates another human from Adam (by his rib), which of course parallels with Giorno being created from Dio, since he is his biological child.

Clay – the dream Giorno has of Dio forming him out of clay and breathing life into him is another direct reference to the creation myth in the Bible, where God forms the first human out of clay/soil/dust from the ground and breathes life into his nostrils. Similar creation myths are found in several ancient Near Eastern religions. If you want a little more “fun” fact, the first human is named Adam, a name he gets from the Classical Hebrew word for “man” (as in human – not male), which is adam, and the word for “ground” is adamah, which ties to all together quite nicely.

Nakedness – Dio uncovers Giorno’s nakedness, and just like in chapter 8 it’s a biblical reference. Except for Genesis 42, all biblical occurrences of the common idiom ”to see the nakedness of” or “to uncover the nakedness of” are explicitly sexual, usually referring to incest. The Classical Hebrew word 'erwā is not “nudity” but “nakedness”, in the sense of something that is unseemly or improper to look at or expose; often used to denote forbidden sexual relations.

Chapter 15.

Cuddling – after having breakfast, they cuddle, and their position is described as Giorno resting his head on Dio’s left arm, and Dio draping his other arm over Giorno’s waist. This position is a reference to the biblical book the Song of Songs 2:6 “His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me.”

Angel lust – Dio gets hard after Giorno chokes him, which he says is a perfectly natural reaction to being choked. Which it is! “Angel lust” or “death erection” refers to the phenomenon of men executed by hanging having an erection, because of the increased downward blood flow. After observing this, doctors in the 17th century started prescribing choking sex to men with erectile dysfunction, and that’s partly where erotic asphyxiation comes from.

England – the phrase “lie back and think of England”, alternatively “close your eyes and think of England” is an old-timey reference to unwanted sex that one doesn’t enjoy – specifically used for sex within a marriage, which at least back in the day was more of an economic arrangement than a love affair. Disgustingly, it means “just lie back and endure it”.

Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh – this is another reference to the creation story in the Bible. The specific verse is Genesis 2:23, when God has created another human to be a worthy companion of the first one. Adam, the first human, has searched for a companion among the animals but been unsuccessful to find an equal. But when he meets the newly created Eve, the second human, he exclaims “At last! This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (since she was created from his rib). That “at last!” is very sweet – and fits in this story too! Dio has finally found a worthy companion to share his highest highs and deepest lows with.

Chapter 16.

Roses – Giorno buys a bouquet of roses for Dio. This is intended as a contrast to the buttercups he picked for Dio in chapter 8, being that roses are a much more “mature” flower than buttercups, therefore showing that Giorno has matured. Also, the fact that he buys the bouquet of roses while he picked the buttercups indicate a certain loss of simplicity and naturalness in their relationship.

Fin.

[universejunction]

Midwayers, and problems of intended belief

A discord conversation (at first about fae and spirits)

Me:

I feel so far behind on learning about fae and spirits and such. When I thought The Urantia Book was more than a well-intentioned hoax it was easy to think fae and such are all just what it calls "midwayers". Now I'm... wide open to new interpretations. I know I'm not behind, I'm just where I am, but still...

A:

I would love to give you more of an idea, but I don't know a ton about the Urantia book or what you mean by midwayers.

Me:

Oof, okay. I don't expect much in the way of answers, I know I'll get what I get in time. But I will take this opportunity to share.

In the Urantia Book, it make a lot of distinction between spirit and matter, as you might expect. Mind is the means by which Spirit rules over matter, yada yada. It also has a ton of details on angels.

There's a ton of history in there too, which I'm now interpreting as metaphor at best, because it's sure as shit not factual with its racial skeletal types and what not.

Anyway... Y'know, I'm gonna give the summary and then see if I have the energy for the story, because I'm worn out.

Basically, midwayers are midway between material and spiritual (but they're not, like, pure mind), covering the gap between angels and humans. They're native to the world, but descended from super-humans. They're immortal and stick around until the "age of light and life". And there's 1111 of either all of them or that might just be the first group of them.

Midwayers also get attributed cases of demonic possession (but so does mental illness), though they're not supposed to be able to do that anymore since Jesus completed his experience of life and earned his sovereignty (which was... before his public work) as basically god of local creation.

There's so much in this book and I carved it into my brain and now I don't trust it but it's still so quick to mind 😩

Innkeeper:

Woof okay I just read this

This is....so much not correct at all but also weirdly accurate

Which makes sense considering my personal theories on bleedthrough but thats another topic for another time

Me:

"Bleedthrough" sounds so very likely correct even without knowing what you mean exactly. That's pretty much my theory on how the Absolutes stuff seems so probably accurate despite everything else

A:

I'm just going to offer that whenever you hear "superhuman," in a spiritual tome, your hackles should probably raise.

Like, it sounds like this is coming from the same branch of angelic and Christian occultism that recognize the Nephilim, but uh, just be mindful that rhetoric about "ancient superhumans" is almost ALWAYS used to sell bullshit about magic indigenous people

It sounds like you're mindful of that, but, heads up

V:

The midwayer concept is ringing alarm bells between "Magic White People From Outer Space" to "Eugenics"

Innkeeper:

^

The idea of a liminal concept, something that exists in between those two states, I feel that holds water

The idea of literally everything else is uh

Worrisome at best

Me:

I'll add more in a sec but y'all right

Me (later):

To be clear, I was raised on the Urantia Book and am now moving away from it. For reasons mentioned above, among others.

It does come very close to "magic white people from outer space" and definitely is like "eugenics is a good idea but no one is qualified to direct it".

Me (replying to A):

Adding on, yes, but it's like... Fix-it fic. There's this spirit prince for the world who rebelled with Lucifer (who was like... a local administrator, not a god or angel), but when he arrived they like... called 100 natives [of Earth], cloned them with power-ups, and put people from other worlds like ours into the bodies who served as the prince's staff in the task of cultivating culture. Those staff, through essentially spiritual sex, created the first midwayers. After rebellion, the staff split and the ones who stay loyal to the prince are called nephilim and start a line of (acknowledged in the text) big ol' nasty racial supremacists. They're also called Nodites (c.f. "Land of Nod")

Later, Adam and Eve show up to "upstep" human evolution (disease resistance, humor, art... yeah, magic white people) but because the prince rebelled and shit's fucked, they're having a hard time. Eve bangs a local tribe leader to get an alliance and fucks everything up (that results in Cain. Able is Adam and Eve's next kid). So now should-be-immortal Adam and Eve only have a few hundred years to live and their (already many) kids get the choice to leave and most of them do.

A while later, their first son, Adamson, goes off to start a new cultural center, meets a woman named Rata who "claims" to be the last pure-line Nodite. [They] have a bunch of kids, every 4th of which is invisible(???), and they make those kids get together (yikes!) and that's where the secondary midwayers come from.

And it lampshades all this like "many things in the spiritual development of a world are hard to understand." Uh, yeah! History is weird, sure, but as it's fan fic, it's creepy.

A:

So, I'm saying this with all the love in my heart, but you can only portray things as fiction which are not intended to be believed.

That's not a fanfiction, that's a religious text. That is a religious text with a fully realized theology and metaphysics, complete with creation story. I think it is harmful to approach it as anything else, or as a "generic" metaphysical practice. (Relatedly, there is no such thing as "generic witchcraft," which is a main point of this history of the occult book club).

Doing a little bit more research, it's a religious text associated loosely with the Urantia Foundation and written in 1955. I'm not seeing any indication at the moment that there's a formal power structure associated with the movement, which lessens the chance for cult behavior.

What I will suggest to you is that you need to approach this work like you would any other religious text. Set aside questions of whether the text is "accurate" or "true." If you are honestly interested in the metaphysical, you should be able to separate empirical reality and history for the metaphysical. If you can't do that, take five steps back in your practice and come back once you can.

So, setting aside questions of truth, does this cosmology reflect the things you believe about the world? Does it encourage a way of thinking about people that you think is good, virtuous, honorable, etc? Can this text be used to uphold values that you hold, or do the natural extensions of this text lead to certain conclusions? Are those conclusions harmful?

For instance, I believe that eugenics is totally and morally abhorrent, and that there is fundamentally "no such thing" as a person who could pull it off "correctly." There's no way to do eugenics "right," just like I believe there is no morally correct way to, I don't know, punch a baby.

As such, even your acknowledgment that the text accepts eugenics makes it worthy of rejection in my mind.

Maybe you are interested and capable of doing the apologetics to make this into a compassionate religious movement. I don't know. I am not interested in doing that. But I do not think you can "move away" from this text, in the same way that you cannot "move away" from the bible, only from interpretations of it.

At some point, you have to believe in a basic assumption. If there's something that "feels right," there's only so far you can push it without that basic assumption.

If you think there is a separation between mind, body, and Spirit, wonderful. I would recommend you find another text and another basic set of assumptions. For instance, one that doesn't involve angels making angel-possesed magic native people for the point of preparing the world for the "good races."

Me:

Yes, you've got it right. Except that my interpretation has moved from "I think this book is what it claims" to "I think this was (probably well-intentioned, but still) a hoax perpetrated by ex-Seventh-Day Adventists". But for whatever good intentions may've been involved, the fact that it's intended to be believed makes it very harmful. I talked about it today as a way of saying "wow, look at this crazy shit" and talking through the changes involved in my different interpretation / loss of faith.

I don't believe in midwayers anymore and don't know what to believe, I'm trying to do the work, as you say, of finding what parts are good and what's harmful, comparing with empirical stuff, etc. But, however ready I may've been to walk away from the Urantia Book, it's still a process of recognizing what ideas I have based on it and examining them in turn to see what's salvageable.

Innkeeper:

I think that's an incredibly respectful way to go about it, Toph.

When something is that formative to you as a person, it's rarely as easy as learning it's harmful and then moving on, entirely separated from the source material. There's a long process of digging up every assumption you know you have--and many you don't know you have, or don't have at all--and needing to challenge them in a newer, healthier framework. One of the most potent aspects of the danger of cults is that they're incredibly difficult to challenge that base assumption, and it can take years if not a lifetime to walk a path that steadily heads away from what was taught.

So to acknowledge something formative's deep capacity for danger and harm, and go through the long process of picking it apart piece by piece to ensure you don't retain its harmfulness as you separate from it, I think that's the best possible way to go about something.

[dahniwitchoflight]

Homesquared Chapter 4

I cheated and some of my chapter 4 thoughts leaked into the chapter 3 post lol

Mostly about the pretty obvious Garden of Eden metaphor Dirk is for some reason setting up for himself and Rose as Adam and Eve

and I was about to say which begs the question of what the heck role Terezi is supposed to play as but then it’s very obviously as the Snake in the Garden

Terezi is very much just barely holding back some irritation towards how Dirk is treating Rose, but she’s also very intelligent and is aware of How much Dirk sees/knows and controls about their situation, so she’s probably leveraging her powers over Mind as much as possible in order to stay hidden in plain sight from Dirk’s narrative

and she does so in a way that is one of Dirk’s only blindspots - How Mind and other people have an effect in the determination of the Soul/Heart

By acting in a manner and doing things in a way that aligns with his expectations of her, he assumes and pigeonholes her into a type of character and bases his predictions of her behaviors off of that archtype, never expecting her to act outside it, and when he sees her actions and thoughts and desires all align within it, never questions that it might one day change or was different all along. Dirk’s never really been good at reading other people, can’t see without the lens of “how would I do it” blinding him to things he would never think to do, a trap that he keeps falling into with his friends and one he’s probably trying to overcome by becoming Ultimate God Person/combining all perspectives into his own and uncovering blindspots like that

But right now Mind is the darkest thing in is corner still and I think he sort of knows that as well

Terezi walks the crazy wiggled line boundary between their two Souls that defines who each of them is, as expertly as a person on a tightrope, never wavering until she reaches her destination, at which point she’ll leap off of that line and leave Dirk scrambling to try and calculate her next move/who exactly is she/what her goals are, since’s it won’t be following the clearly defined Heart boundary he’s used to drawing his plans by, so she’ll have to choose the perfect moment in order to entice Eve of the Apple of Revelation once more, heck, she might even do that so sneakily that she gets Adam to take a bite as well, since as soon as Rose bites it she’ll have an ally with her against Dirk.

For God created the Serpent originally as well, so thus why did he not imagine it’s betrayal and prevent it before it could have happened? Or else why did he create something he knew was going to betray? Eden was a paradise, so why intentionally create Evil in that paradise?

If Eve corrupted Adam and the Snake corrupted Eve, Who exactly corrupted the first Serpent? That’s something that the bible never goes into really, at least in Genesis, except to say that the Snake was punished for it’s action to forever crawl the earth eating the dust of man’s heel, punishing all snakes, as Adam and Eve’s punishment punished all humans

(Later I think the bible would try to say that the Snake was the Devil all along, but then why punish the Snake and all it’s progeny for it? If it was the Devil’s doing that undid Adam and Eve then why punish them for the Devil’s actions they would have no way of guarding against or now way of knowing it was a lie? Was it not God’s failure? The Walls of the Garden of Eden were supposed to protect his perfect creation afterall)

Gotta say though I really Rose’s design

I would call her Evil Rose, but she things she does she does in ignorance, not really out of evil, it would be like calling Eve evil for listening to the Snake when she was purposefully blinded to it’s intentions by her creation by God.

Once again we get this idea of Knowledge and Choice affecting eachother, Well I say again but really I’ve been watching RWBY a lot lately and the idea that you can’t make a real choice without real knowledge comes up a lot in it’s mythos and it is really applicable here

Terezi’s design as well is incorporating a lot more Red, she really dug those red shoes aesthetic but gave it her own twist, she’s got a red tie, her ever present red cane and glasses and even in that shot of her her horns look more red and solid as well, even though i know it’s just the lighting

So really digging the whole Terezi is the Apple/Snake in the Garden metaphor, she has also been having that tendency to just snack on random plants, intentionally for her own or Dirk’s unaware benefit or not, it’ll make it that much easier to her actions of later betrayal to be seen as “in character and therefore expected and not dangerous” instead of pre-meditated and actually dangerous, to him

And then they start waxing about their various philosophical babble, Dirk seems really determined to also use this to try and figure out that whole problem of how other’s affect the self, he’s trying at least, I think, in his own way. But not for a good reason, not so that he can have a real understanding of that, but because he wants to use it to guard his own self even further

He’s maybe not using Rose here as an equal player, but more like a wall to bounce his own ideas off of and test them, like using a neural learning AI to test ideas or an actual literal wall in a game of table tennis.

Heh, I got a chuckle out of the fact that Dirk’s answer to the Ship of Theseus problem is “why does we even have to remove and replace parts of it, why not keep the original pristine and eternal?”

because it’s funny how avoidant of the problem that answer is, man he really really is uncomfortable with the idea of changing the self in any way

“He's avoiding the question again. It's amazing how one can technically have the maximum amount of metaphysical personal awareness possible, and still not notice these sorts of things. “

SAYS LITERALLY YOU but honestly this is just more fuel to the idea that maybe he can make a genuine connection and understanding with a person if he can recognize how he and her are the same

“It's stuff like this that makes me wonder sometimes whether there's anything about myself that I'm missing. Then I throw that wonder in the garbage can and turn the incinerate setting on.”

but nah he’s still firmly denying that possibility, he’s almost actually equating his trauma of self erosion with the idea that making friends and understanding others changes the self in subtle ways as well

He can’t even stand the thought of his own close friends influencing him to be different in small subtle ways or adjusting his behavior for others because that STILL counts as a change of self that he didn’t authorize or choose. 

Also can’t help but by be reminded of my wacky little fan made Gamma session I made forever ago by them using the name Delta-Detritus and basically be like alright, what if we do SBURB again but BETTER/worse this time?? Which is essentially the thread that most Homestuck fix it fanfiction tends to go towards

Though I am curious now

We got A/Alpha for Alternia which is based of off “Alternate” introducing the trolls as an alternate race to Human Earth

B/Beta for Beforus which is based of off “Before” introducing the planet of trolls that came before the first group

And then Earth C, now, there isn’t a letter C, the third in the greek alphabet is actually Γγ Gamma, (and the fourth is  ΔδDelta)

So I wonder what “name” Earth C really has?

It feels like it should either start with C OR with GA, as Alternia starts with the AL of Alpha, Beforus starts with the BE of Beta and same with Deltritus and Delta

As as “Another for Earth” Gaia isn’t a terrible option all things considered, now you just have to make it sound like a word which describes it’s use to the narrative

It’s is a very split place, having the two timelimes Meat and Candy associated with it, as well it does feel extremely mercurial in nature, being a sort of crosswords between Homestuck and Homesquared proper, and really exists in a place between stories, an ephemeral epilogue of sorts

really a merger of Gaia and Gemini feels the most appropriate here, like Gamini, also the word mini stands out in there as well, knowing that this Planet is sort of on a lesser status compared to the other three since it’s not going to be the birthplace of a session, also has the word Game in it

But then people will wonder why it doesn’t begin with a C since it still is called Earth C so *shrug*  

Honestly C K and G sounds are all very similar in the tongue, so maybe it’s both Camini and Gamini at the same time OH FUCK CA AND GA, ONE HAS CALLIOPE ONE HAS GAMZEE? SHIT IM ONTO SOMETHING (no im not)

I like Camini now better, it comes from a place of Gamma/Gamzee/Game/Gemini but ends up being more about the twinned Ca’s that were used to, Caliborn and Calliope and fits with the establish Earth C theme

So there you go, Earth C’s actual planet name should be Camini 

which also works because: 

Camini

home stove/furnace

smelting/foundry furnace, forge

vent (underground fires)

according to the latin language this word also has multiple meanings and many Irons in the Fire, I think the fandom will appreciate the name haha

Yeah both races are definitely going to both be playing one game of SBURB, despite what Dirk is intending, the pic does make it really clear

There’s something to say how Dirk seems to be represented by Purple and Rose by Orange in this here and then how all of the cave is a backdrop of that same purple.

Look at even the controllers on the machine having purple and orange knobs, even being solely on Dirk’s side of the image

I guess Dirk intends himself to be the force behind Derse, since that’s the force that always “wins” and Rose fitting in her place as the ultimate loser (since of course Dirk will want to win his own game) but also to be like Skaia the force of Prospit

So Dirk intends to be a whisperer like a horrorterror, choosing to manifest his influence that way, while Rose will give visions to her race like Skaia?

makes sense honestly

but again even with the themes of duality, the theme of the trio is bright and center in that piece of ultimately technology, the third influence hidden unseen in the furthest corner behind the curtain of snakelike tubes and wires that Dirk will not expect to interfere, or even have the capability to interfere, Terezi

heck it’s even in the buttons next to the controls being colored red blue and green

there’s so much duality in homestick with destructive red and creative green but then there’s also always been that mercurial breathy blue as the third

God, tell me that doesn’t look like a baby proto horrorterror

I can hear it raging it’s revenge against it’s cruel human creators even as I type

No wonder they become associated with destruction, they know theyre the pawns of two heartless cruel god children playing at life like it was a game

Rose you MUST KNOW how bad this is, it’s not a theoretical discussion anymore, that things exists and is alive and has feelings and you did it to that

and that thing is technically a Dirk too

Is this how Dirk get’s his revelation? Or downfall? As his Heart is unwittingly invaded by the horrified cacophanous screams of his grotesque tortured progeny crying out for his blood?

His end unintentionally ending up as the thing he feared most? Inner self destruction caused by his own sharp and bloody splinters turned and pointed inward, tearing himself apart with the pieces of his own Soul? Caused by his own Hubris?

I will say typing that all out is pretty good

I’m just sad the same will probably happen to Rose too though ): Maybe she’ll make careful more humane species? Something that has the potential to exist and be happy as it’s own creature while Dirk just creates monstrosities forever in conflict with Rose’s race?

They’ll each be the master of their own eventually destinies I suppose but Homestuck seems to have a good track record so far of the Ultimate Female Creator being out to protect the happiness of the children that exist in her creation while the Ultimate Male God just ends up destroying everything in his

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

image description: a tweet thread by Anthony Peter @LiturgicalQueer on Twitter reading,

I don’t appreciate “Exceptions don’t disprove the rule!” in response to the existence of intersex people.

If you’re saying “God made only male and female”, and intersex people exist, then your rule is literally broken.

These are real human lives that are not accounted in any major Christian anthropology of gender.

“Well intersex people are just broken males or broken females. They’re a result of the Fall”.

How in the world do you draw the conclusion? Because there’s only Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 and 2?

There’s a whole lot of stuff that’s good and beautiful that’s not in the Garden. Racial and ethnic diversity for example?

The Bible doesn’t talk about amphibians either. Just animals in the sea or land, not both.

Why is not being in Genesis evidence of being “fallen”?

Intersex people are erased when we we talk about sexual ethics. If you believe sex must be “of the procreative kind” (I say kind because conservative churches consider infertile heterosexual couples validly married), then how are many kinds of intersex people accounted for?

If marriage is only between male and female, then I think intersex people deserve to hear why or why can’t they be married. Because the way this conversation had been framed has unintentionally erased or diminished their marriages/relationships.

Because currently here are the conclusions that are to be drawn based on the arguments from those who do not acknowledge this group of people:

Male/female marriage only means...

1) intersex people are actually male or female. Just “broken”. Why?? And how is it clear cut to you in every case?

2) intersex people can’t be married. Why? Because of variation in chromosomes and body parts? All supposed to be celibate

3) Intersex people can marry but based on gender identity. Intersex woman could marry man for example. But it doesn’t seem like gender identity is the route conservatives would want to take.

4) not on gender identity but on “procreative kind” of relationship. Problems..

4 continued) problems arise when we talk about intersex people’s bodies are non-procreative. And I don’t mean infertile, I mean those whose bodies have no uterus and XY chromosomes for example but are women.

5) then I guess it could be grounded in some kind of anatomical argument. As long as it is PIV sex. But then we are getting super arbitrary again especially with no grounding in procreation.

This is not to use intersex people as some kind of “gotcha” to conservatives. It’s to acknowledge the underpinnings of the commonly referenced positions fail to address folks outside of the male/female sex binary.

/end id

I retweeted the thread with some commentary of my own to expand the conversation: 

image description: a twitter thread by Queerly Christian reading,

Queerly Christian@Queer_in_Christi agree 100% that not being present in Genesis 1&2 isn't evidence "resulting from the fall"--but it's still interesting to explore interpretations of Genesis 1&2 that do include intersex persons! First, 1:27's statement that God created humanity "male and female"...(1/6)

(2/6) ...can be understood as a merism -- naming 2 "extremes" to represent a whole thing. Genesis 1 contains several examples – God creating “the seas and dry land” encompasses the shore between them; and God created dawn & dusk, not only “night and day"; etc.

(3/6) The “and” in 1:27’s “male and female” is not a binary “and.” It also encompasses humans whose physical characteristics don’t fit into a sexual binary: intersex people. Which is cool, bc that explicitly confirms that God declares intersex bodies "very good" too (Gen 1:31)!

(4/6) Furthermore, it’s possible to interpret the first human themself as intersex! While most Christians see the first human described in Genesis 2 as a “male,” the Hebrew word used for this first human is not “ish,” meaning “man,” but “adam,” meaning simply “human.”

(5/6) To create the 2nd person, this human is split in two – from 1 person who might have had both "male" and "female" physical characteristics (and thus was intersex), into one person with “female” characteristics and another person with “male” characteristics.

(6/6) For a more in depth explanation of Genesis 1 & 2 and intersexuality see the section of the linked webpage titled “the genderfull first human”

i welcome criticism from intersex folks if i got something wrong in this thread. Basically i wanted to say: despite so many Christians denying & erasing you, you DO have a place in God's creation and in humanity's story!! if you want scriptural "evidence" for that, it's there.

/end id

[livayl]

A sneezy OC introduction

Until now I somehow forgot about this- but I thought it would be nice to write a bit about each of my OC´s sneeze related things. I´ll start with my oldest ones and end with the newest. :3

This is going to be long af for being pure self-indulgence but you can always scroll down to the character you like the most. xD In case you want to know more or look at their art/read some stories: If the tags work right all should be found by searching my blog for the OCs name. :)

Lillandlian: 

He has a distinctive photic sneeze reflex due to his unique, pallid complexion and the fact that he has lived in a deeply shaded forest. If not in complete shadows he´ll sneeze right after waking up, when passing through rays of bright sunshine or from looking directly into any radiant source of light. Quick changes in light-and shadow ratio can trigger a sudden release as well.

Those forced photic reactions tend to be quicker and less drawn out than his regular sneezes. For example a sudden yet forceful: “heh-PTSCHieh!”   Due to his unique link with nature the druid is also oversensitive to any kind of air pollution (smoke, ashes,...). This can cause prolonged fits and even breathing troubles. Lillandlian is also prone to catch colds and vulnerable to cool weather and chills. His cold sneezes tend to be more drawn out, come in multiples and rise from deep out of his fused lungs. His regular sneezes are very wet and spraying already and things can get very messy when he´s sick. Generally he does his best to keep them as quiet and polite as possible- giving them a softly spraying, yet forceful kind of tone. This won´t work when his nose is affected very badly- they´ll burst out unrestrained, loud and thus embarrass him even more than his regular ones.  The sounds are all wet, spraying with a lot of force behind and often ending with a higher pitch. Mostly expressed in one or two syllables but rarely in three. ”hhh-TDZSSSSCHiieh!”,  “ hah-IDZSCHHIIIEW!” Stifling them always hurts and needs lots of effort but he will do so to be unobtrusive and considerate despite his discomfort. Telling him to stop will secretly relieve him a lot.  The centaur always tries to shield or angle them away from people and prefers to safely release sneezes into a handkerchief. If nothing else is available he´ll sneeze against his bare forearm, wrist or into his hands. Feeling or seeing his own spray makes him cringe and shutter though.  He will bless other people with: “May Acacia bless you!/Acacias blessings be with you!” or simple “Blessings to you!/Bless you!” -referring to the goddess of nature and creation and wishing the other health in that way. Lillandlian will be very flustered after sneezing himself and apologize. 

Shokhrakka: 

Is sensitive to certain flowers and healing herbs. They will make his nose itch and tingle for a while before the teasing grows into a more pressing need. At that point his nose will be utterly swollen shut and they´ll burst out suddenly. With a lot of force behind. 

There´s not too much actual voice in them but a snarling, deeply growling quality mixed with the distinct sound of air rushing by mighty tusks. The kind of release that vibrates through ones chest and scrapes the throat a bit. Also they´re really loud and tend to startle others. They mostly happen in singles but a very persistent tickle can cause a double with a stray third trailing behind. They mostly sound like: “Huhhr-ERZSSCH-UE!”, “HEH-HURRZSCHH-ah!” Changing or cleaning his several nose piercings can cause a sudden and powerful reaction too. The big Orc is rarely sick and generally not prone to any kind of infection. Shokhrakka is not considered to be a sneezy person and has no other sensitivities.  He´s simply angling his head to an unoccupied side or will sneeze down towards the floor- not being rude on purpose but simply not thinking further about the matter. Surprisingly he always carries a handkerchief with him in case he needs to blow his nose.  If another person sneezes he´ll mostly ignore it but is more attentive to people who are close to him. Then he´ll make sure that the sneeze is not caused by any kind of discomfort. And in case it was: Find a way to ease it.

Marya: 

The Alchemist is allergic to a flower that´s simultaneously an important  medical ingredient called pale nightingale. It´s pollen or crushed petals will cause an instant and strong allergic reaction expressing itself in multiple wet, desperate sneezes. And a clogged or streaming nose as well as badly tearing eyes.  Generally her sneezes are pronounced softly: There´s a wet, mellow sound in them even in the bigger ones and they´re mostly voiced and blended together as one syllable, very rarely two. They come in rapid, spraying multiples that have a distinct “girlish” pitch and ending.  “apTSCHIU! -TSSCHih! -ahTSSCHIEW!” or “ Ah~PTSCHiih!- IZSCH-uh!- TDSCHiuh!”

They´re neither very loud nor very quiet and almost never stifled. She´d only restrain them to avoid sneezing on somebody or infecting another person. Marya tries to cover with a handkerchief or something else available. She is thoughtful about germs and careful not to cause others harm. Yet sneezing is a completely natural thing to her and normally no cause of embarrassment or stress. 

She also has the kink and very much enjoys most sneezes of other women. Especially those from her girlfriend Amaziah. In that relationship Marya has fantasies about being sneezed on and inducing the Archmage in various scenarios.With the later both have had a surprising amount of fun and excitement already. Although not a necessity for fun sneezing does play a big role in her sexuality.  Maryas overall constitution is very sturdy and healthy though she´s prone to falling sick when overworking herself over a long period of time. Or after taking care for Amaziah- because despite knowing better she´s adamant in cuddling and keeping comfortingly close to her girlfriend. There any shared intimacy and care is worth a possible contagion in her opinion.  She´ll mostly wish the other “Gesundheit!” after a sneeze but will vary with “Bless you.” or exclusively to Amaziah the elven “Anvael ci na´eve.” from time to time.

Amaziah:

Is a rather sneezy person and hates every bit of it. She´s a highly decorated leader that personally emphasizes a lot on self-control, manners and ever present strength. So when her body is “disfunctioning” like this it makes her feel angry, annoyed and embarrassed in company.   This is why she´ll try to fend off the inevitable multiple releases as best as possible when others are in vicinity. That works only for a while though. If she´s forced to give in she´ll try to stifle them with cruelly pinching her nose. The action is hurtful, full-bodied but mostly silent. Sometimes the restraint fails and is painfully audible: “-kdnxxt-ugh” or like “Hah-kngxt-uh”. Her natural sneezes are clearly vocalized and mostly separated in two or three syllables: The first distinctly stressed, the middle a deep, harsh and throat scraping sound and the third again rising in pitch and vocalization. Also very loud and a bit achy for her chest: “ Hah-ERRSCHH-hue!”, “huh-AERSSCHH-ah!”. Amaziah has severe dust allergies and is suffering from a strained physical constitution that makes her fall sick often and easily. In addition to that she´s mostly unable to get the much needed rest and thus her condition worsens despite healing potions.  She does hate it when others acknowledge this or react to her sneezing which is why most people have given up on it. They get the dreaded and very intimidating “How dare you!” stare if they dare to offer a blessing. This does not include close people or her girlfriend Marya however: While Amaziah had felt embarrassed and shy about the matter of sneezing at the beginning of her relationship she´s now fine with it as long as both are in private. She even enjoys inducing for her but struggles with the concept of actually sneezing freely.  

The Archmage prefers to turn aside and muffle them securely into a silk handkerchief or the crook of her arm.   Normally she does not offer any kind of blessing because she things it would make others as uncomfortable as herself. She may make an exception for Marya though:  “Anvael ci na´eve.” Amaziah is afraid of germs and thus always aiming for good hygiene in both ways. She´s struck with quite some persistent stuck sneezes and false starts from time to time.

Azra: 

Does share some sensitivities regarding certain flowers and healing plants with her half brother. They cause a lingering, buzzing sensation inside her nose that soon spreads to a full faced tickle and discomfort. She´ll try to harshly rub it out of every offended place which will cause her eyes to water even more. She mostly doesn't mind rubbing, grinding or even wiping her nose against her palm or back of the hand. Her nose responds with a lot of visible crinkling and flaring nostrils when teased.  Other than those triggers she also has a slight sensitivity to dust. It doesn't bother her much in small portions but can trigger some impressive sneezes when she´s exposed to bigger amounts over time.  Azra is not sick too often but when it hits her it´s usually doing so in a hard, unforgiving fashion. She´s not too good with taking care of herself and tries to hide any discomfort since being sick is could be equalized to a weakness she can´t really afford.  Generally her casual sneezes tend to come in doubles with the occasional triple. Her pre-sneeze face and build up are rather expressive and involve a lot of snarling, fang baring and possibly a few irritated hitches that grow in strength and audible depth before reaching their climax.  The final releases are very harsh and resound in her chest with a latent growling intensity. They´re sound could be described as “masculine”, fairly vocal, loud and she mostly sneezes off to her free side: “HuhhrERSSCHH-UH!  HAH-ERSSSCHH-ue!- HURH-EIZSSCHhah!” She does make an effort to cover or shield them when she´s sick. Will even try to stifle when in close quarters despite the fact that this is not fully possible due to her protruding, very big tusks. It´s a good way to tell that she´s unwell though. As are the longer fits that can hit her when she´s suffering from a bad headcold. Azra sometimes uses her plenty nose piercings to coax out some stubborn stuck sneezes rather violently. The feeling of having to sneeze and not being able to is a lot more annoying to her than the actual release.  Generally she doesn´t feel bad about sneezing if it´s not happening in an inconvenient situation or displaying too much vulnerability.  She´s not very used to any kind of blessings or reactions related to sneezing. 

Zephyr: 

Has the kink. And enjoys his own sneezes more than those of another person. He loves the feeling of it, the start of a light teasing tickle that rapidly grows into a more demanding itch. The first subtle and than more visible changes it causes to his body posture, breathing and face. The building pressure in his lungs right before the exquisite release hits him. 

The Satyr goes even so far as to watch his reflection while the sneeze builds- his eyes try to stay open and admiring as long as possible but will eventually be forced shut.  If he would live in a modern day setting instead of the present high fantasy one Zephyr would record his sneezes to watch and listen to them later. Revel in the moment and feeling. And probably have pleasure with it all over again. He can be rather embarrassed to sneeze in front of another person though.  Both things can lead to activating his curse: He´s prone to evoke gusts of wind and even storms with any kind of deeper routed feelings. So semi destructive blasts of wind that trail after some sneezes are an often occurring possibility. 

To Zephyrs own dismay he does not have many allergies. Luckily for him his nose is very sensitive to touch and inducing- a condition he uses very often. With feathers, sensual massages or by teasingly plucking the chain that´s attached to his nose piercing.  Zephyrs sneezes mostly build teasingly slow and are almost always precluded by a series of hitching breaths. Sometimes slightly moaned in desperation. They´re harsh and full-bodied commitments that tend to rattle him more than a bit. Although he does try to give them a (to him) pleasant sound: Always aiming for all three syllables, audibly parted and still musically melting into each other. With that slightly over dramatic rise in pitch and voice towards the end to conceal the harsher middle part: 

“hah-heh- HAH-ERRSCH-iiuuh!- HAH-IZSSCHH-iuh!- hheh- ah- Hadt-EISSCHIOO!” He´s not the type to stifle because... Why miss out on something great? Zephyr will sneeze freely and uncovered when alone but will turn aside to sneeze against his forearm or wrist when around people. 

Evan: 

This man has an immune system so strong it´s an almost indomitable fortress. Which is good since his husbands health is the exact opposite. Normally he does not sneeze much at all but has developed a nasty and itchy allergy to birch tress and hazel bushes. When exposed his eyes and nose are opening the flood gates simultaneously while both turning visibly red and irritated. His nose starts to tingle and buzz with sneezy desperation right after and it doesn't take long to be fully overcome.  Despite him being very tall and muscular his sneezes are restrained and squelched into almost silent submission. And directly followed by an achy groan or shaky exhale. Desperate and painful sounding stifles that can arrive in singles or a whole big party when allergies hit him.  Initiated by a big breath and trembling grimace as his hand flies up to press against his shaking septum in a futile attempt to avoid the following: “HAH-nxdt!-uhh” or “HEH-kxndt-ah!” and very rarely he looses the battle for control after a longer fit- ending it with a harsh: “AERRRSCHooh!” or a similar sounding, very relieving sneeze. All variations are followed by some sniffs and a husky “xcuse me...”. His Love does chide him for stifling and keeps reciting the risks and possible harms of this kind of action. Although this does not stop Evan from doing it again.  Most of his stifles are dry since he effectively blocks every other option. A full release or a bad allergy day can still turn out messy from time to time. 

Evan always sneezes against his shoulder, into the crook of one arm or into his shirt that will be hastily pulled up over mouth and nose. He is especially careful with keeping all kinds of germs away from his husband Alexej. He´s not scared of catching things himself though.  He does thank people for blessing him and also very friendly blesses others who are in close vicinity to him. No matter if they´re friends or complete strangers. Has kind of a funny habit with calling “bless you!” through the whole flat upon hearing his husband sneeze in a far away corner of their shared place.  Which leaves Alexej blushing a bit, silently thinking: “Was it.... that loud?” before calling back a flustered “Thank you!”.

Alexej:

His health is very frail with his immune-system  actually compromised due to several chronic issues. He´s almost all the time at least achy and sniffly with the tendency to get worse very fast and really seriously.  In addition to catching colds and being sick way to often Alexej is also suffering from severe dust and perfume allergies.  Both he and his husband Evan do avoid any kind of scented products and keep their shared flat meticulously clean.  Despite the constant struggles his nose did not seem to have hardened against outside teasing since it can be vexed and irritated pretty easily.  All these ailments make him a very sneezy person and when doing so it´s almost always happening three times in a row. Although an allergy attack can easily cause a prolonged fit.  Especially his cold sneezes build awfully slow- teasing him with lots of gasped out hitching and a couple of false starts here and there. A struggle so clearly visible in his desperate facial expressions.  When they finally come they do so forcefully and accompanied by a lot of mess while shaking his lithe body and leaving him dizzy.  Despite their force and volume the sound is desperate yet underlined with a rather soft, spraying base that´s ending in a higher pitch. “hhh-heh-hhiih-PTZSSCH-hieh!”, “-IZZSSSCH-iieew!” He manages to keep his regular “just an itchy nose” kind of sneezes a bit lower in volume and force. They´ll built and come more sudden and he´ll hold them back to a more suppressed but still spraying “TZSCHieh!”.  If possible Alexej will always try and muffle his sneezes into a tissue, his sleeve or crook of an arm- resulting in big, very visible wet spots and a lot of blushing.

He used to apologize a lot after sneezing but has moderated that habit around Evan a bit due to his husbands constant reassurances and care. Although generally he´s feeling both deeply embarrassed and angry at himself for his often “misbehaving” nose and shattered immune system.  Having to sneeze in public, or worse in front of his audience during a concert, is still a huge horror for him. One that´s recurring from time to time despite his tries to ward it off.  Alexej is often too shy to bless anyone besides his husband Evan. He dislikes it when his husband stifles because he´s worried it will cause harm or hurt him. Alexej himself has had bad experiences with stifling- which is why he avoids doing so. 

Whew that was it for now. Somehow that was great to do but harder to write than an actual fic. Hope you liked reading it though! :)

[rebirthdilemmazine]

Evangelion: A FAQ

by @metaandpotatoes

Q: What, exactly, is an Eva?

A: Great question. An Eva is prehistoric goo heated to approximately 10000.9999999ºC then poured into a mould shaped carefully from the carcass of our quasi-religious-alien ancestors. After that, it’s flash frozen, rammed into the moon at light speed, and then animated for all our mecha fantasy needs.

Q: Doesn’t mecha imply mechanical though?

A: If you really think about it, isn’t the human body the most amazing mechanism of all? (#DYK the human hand has 27 bones in it? WOW! Don’t worry about what’s happening below. It can’t see you if you can’t see it.)

Q: Okay. So what are these giant robot monster machines for?

A: And when God created the Earth, He gave the life of His only forgotten Son so that humans may inhabit Him and use Him to break down the barriers between themselves and others and then stab the shit out of their hearts in a vain attempt to punish all life for being self-interested and self-sustaining.

Q: Is that really how the Bible goes?

Trust me, I have a divinity degree.

Q: Is this “barrier” situation like...a metaphor?

Oh no, it’s literal. There are invisible-but-totally-visible-because-animation Absolute Terror Fields between beings. Some beings have stronger fields than others, but rest easy knowing: Everyone is scared shitless of getting close to another thing. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. (Except you are. That’s why you must get in the robot.)

Q: Are you scared shitless of getting close to another thing?

Of fucking course I am, what do I look like, an empty shell existent in an equally empty universe?

Q: Why can’t Shinji get in the robot?

Why can’t you get out of bed every morning bright-eyed and bushy tailed without fail to go to your soul-sucking job?

Q: But he needs to like, save the world. I’m just helping capitalist drones buy shit they don’t need. Why can’t he get in the robot?

Are you really saving the world if you’re destroying it in the process?

Q: Hey, I’m supposed to be asking the questions here.

Fine. By logic of predestination, God has already determined who will be saved and who will be damned, so Shinji is just taking the logical path of not fucking things up any further trying to fight against that idea.

Q: So you’re saying Shinji is a Calvinist?

I’m saying that Shinji has never said he’s NOT a Calvinist.

Q: What’s up with all this religion anyway?

It’s right in the title: Neon Genesis Evangelion. There’s like, 20 layers of religion there:

Neon => neos => something new => New Testament

Genesis => creation => first book of the Old Testament (NB: Hebrew Bible) => the story of God’s new (soon to be old, because original sin and aging, WHAT FUN) creation etc., etc.

Evangelion => evangel => word for the Christian gospel (good news!) or for someone who goes around and evangelizes, aka spreads the good news (gospel!). (Evangelion also conveniently contains the word angel! Crazy amirite!?)

SO you could say that Evangelion’s title is like: New Beginning for the Good News (or the people that spread it). Whether humans or angels spread the good news...and whether...y’know, it’s actually good news is...well...up for the viewer to decide.

I, personally, welcome our singularity-obsessed orange goo overlords.

Q: Sounds like a lot of Judeo-Christian imagery is at play here...

HOLD THE FUCK ON WE DO NOT USE THAT TERM, THAT IS A MEANINGLESS TERM. EDUCATE YOURSELF: https://newrepublic.com/article/153867/arguing-bad-faith

Q: Can you give me the TL;DR?

TL;DR, “Judeo-Christian” erroneously equates two extremely different and complex religions, and carries the frankly offensive assumption that Christianity is a more evolved form of Judaism while leaving out a third religion that shares many of the same commonalities as Christianity and Judaism (Islam). 

TL;DR squared: We don’t use the term “Judeo-Christian-Islamic,” so you should immediately find “Judeo-Christian” to be sketchy af.

Also, the term gained popularity through use by mid-20th-century Christian evangelicals, who had a huge stake in 1) courting Jewish folks (who they didn’t really like but wanted to seem like they liked) and 2) getting the state of Israel established so that they can usher in the second coming or something. 

TL;DR squared part two: Once upon a time it was politically convenient for Christians to link themselves with Judaism, so they did, and it’s a useless term that we shouldn’t use outside of a very specific context.

Q: Speaking of, what is this Second Impact?

Oh that’s easy: Adam hurtled into Antarctica at lightspeed and sent the world into post-apocalyptic meltdown.

Q: Wait, Adam like...Adam Adam? Adam and Eve Adam?

In the words of Hideaki Anno: “Any moron should be able to tell this references Adam and Eve.”

Q: O-kay.

Look, what I’m going to say is: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a fascinating and important example of a decidedly non-Christian (in this case, culturally and personally) interpretation of quote-unquote Christianity—of like, the cool parts of Christianity. The apocryphal texts. The wacky subcategories of angels. The miracles. The Oedipal imagery.

That kind of batshit interpretation is important. It’s been happening the other way (e.g., off-the-wall Western interpretations of Zen Buddhism) around for a longggg time. These kinds of interpretations (some might call them “appropriations”) are, in my opinion, not fundamentally good or bad—the good or bad shit is brought on by, you know, using those interpretations to oppress and/or marginalize people. They are, however, fundamentally productive in that they make something new for the world to either chew up and digest into unusable diarrhea or mull over like cud until something even more productive or interesting results.

Like, the key to interpreting Eva through the lens of Christianity is to remember to put the lens of a non-Christian on top of it. Shit’s gonna be smashed together that people raised in Christian context don’t think are similar.

Like, Lilith doesn’t really register for most modern Western Christians, I’d venture, especially in the context of Adam and Longinus (got a lot of old and new testament mixing going on here).

But thematically, it makes sense: Fringe folks (from my understanding; this is where I disclaim that I spent 90% of my time in Divinity School studying Buddhism and angst) pin Lilith as the real first woman and therefore the original companion for Adam; Lilith getting run off the scene and replaced with Eve is kind of a crucifixion, I guess, seeing how women are usually treated by Christianity, etc. Did Anno go this far in his interpretation? Who fucking knows. The important part is that we can. AND WE WILL.

Q: Isn’t that cultural appropriation?

This is an interesting question that falls out of the scope of this shitpost of an FAQ.

Q: ...I’m out of questions.

That’s fine. You’ll come up with more later. I know because I am you and you are me and we always come up with more questions.

In the meantime: Take care of yourself. (Read: Take your antidepressants.)

[wellhellotragic]

Devil’s in the Details 1/?

Summary: It’s a well known fact that angels and demons exist. No one is saying that they don’t. Hell, you’ve all met your guardian angels before. But some of the facts, well you humans seem to be a little murky on those. Take Emma for example. Blonde, witty, beautiful. She must be an angel right? Wrong. She’s as wicked as they come. And she’s about to have the time of her life tormenting a certain English bloke

A comedy of errors....

A/N: Okay, lemme start this off with a huge disclaimer. This fic is nothing like anything I’ve ever written before. It is offensive. Sooooo offensive and I know it. There are three lines near the end that I actually cringed at when I wrote them, and I strongly considered changing them but I couldn’t do it, because the story needed it. The thing is, this story is pretty much told from the perspective of a demon, so some of the religious facts are going to be a little off. Just think about how different the Wolf’s side of the story was from the 3 Little Pig’s recounting. So, with that said, know that I have the utmost respect for all religions, cultures, and beliefs, and this fic has nothing to do with my own view points. It’s just silly and weird and highly sarcastic. I hope you’re all willing to give it a shot and stick with me. If you can’t make fun of yourself, who can you?

AO3 Link

A Prologue:

Heaven and Hell. God’s words falling on deaf ears. The angels had revolted and when God found out, he cast them aside into the mouth of hell.  Demons and possessions and all that jazz. Blah. Blah. Blah.The rumors had been circulating for eons. The Hinduists, the Buddhists, the Jews, all wrong. Hell (pun intended of course) even the Greeks had it all mucked up, but at least they were cool about it. Here, take this goat. Oh, not enough, well have my virgin daughter instead. Man she missed those days.

The Catholic church certainly hadn’t done their kind any favors either. Her first exorcism had been something else. It’s not like she had taken over the guy’s body. That would have been ridiculous. Seriously, if she was going to inhabit the soul of a human, she would have picked someone with bigger balls. And preferably without the syphilis. She did have standards after all.

No, she hadn’t taken the man over. She’d just whispered sweet nothings into his ear until he’d gone a little mad. All in a day’s work for a demon. The twitching, well that was just the guy being super dramatic. But the priest hadn’t known any better, taught from a young age that holy water was a cure all. Ya, because God has nothing better to do than listen to an old guy in a cloak talk about how he needs his water blessed. Sorry father, but he’s a little busy today. Maybe he can see you next week?

The whole thing had been a mess. He’d thrown water in the guys face and some of it went in his eyes. They turned bright red, in turn freaking out the priest more until he was pushing a cross to the guys forehead and chanting, “the power of Christ compels you!”

Oh honey, no.

The poor guy died of a heart attack and the priest felt that it had been a job well done. Sure, he’d lost part of his flock, but that was the price of expelling a demon from the mortal world. His words, not Emma’s.

And don’t even get us started on the Christians.

But in retrospect, that’s what made humans so much fun. They weren’t that bright. Don’t get me wrong, they were capable, but also arrogant and gullible. Prime for the picking. Okay, so ya, the dinosaurs had been a hit with angels and demons alike too. They were basically huge puppy dogs who liked to fight a lot. And historians can say what they will, but it was a well known fact that brontosauruses liked chasing trees and stegosaurus loved having their bellies scratched. Of course, God hadn’t been such a fan of the way demons played with the dinosaurs though, so he took them away from them like a toddler getting placed in time out. His favorite toy left on a shelf too high to reach. Truth be told, she’d always felt that meteor had been a bit vindictive for a guy claiming to be so damn benevolent.

But dinosaurs couldn’t talk back the way humans did. They didn’t have that higher level of thinking that made them so irresistibly fun to mess with. Take Adam and Eve for example. This woman, made from the rib of her lover (how is that even a thing people believe) listens to a serpent and eats an apple. Simple enough right? Except that’s so far from what really happened. Okay, so maybe she hadn’t been there personally, but she had the real story on good authority. For starters, the was never an apple. Ya, for all of you arguing it’s called an Adam’s apple for a reason, well you can just go to hell. The truth was, it wasn’t even a tree. The forbidden fruit, well it came from a vine in the form of a grape. Or a bunch of grapes if you want to get technical. But that’s not really the point now, is it? So, there were these grapes, and God was like, don’t eat these or you’ll die. Poetry, right? Anyway, Adam and Eve were actually really good about not eating the grapes, despite the fact that they were completely blind and didn’t actually know what a grape was.

Take note! This is actually a pretty important part of the story.

The two of them spend their day’s frolicking around in the garden of Eden, dancing and eating tomatoes or something. The guy who told Emma the story wasn’t really all that into details. So for the sake of assumption, and to keep this story moving along, they ate tomatoes and kiwis, and whatever else God had randomly decided weren’t off limits. But here’s the deal. Grapes, they don’t stay on the vine forever. Sometimes they fall off and roll away, and turn into something better. With a little help of course, which is were the serpent comes in. Remember Emma’s friend?

It didn’t take much really. A few grapes rolled in the right place so that Adam and Eve stepped on them while dancing. A small glass for the serpent to collect the juices in. A quick sliver into a nearby lake. Come on people. You know how many grapes it would have taken to fill up an entire glass? Even in the modern era wine makers like to water that shit down for profit.

Oh, maybe that’s where the human’s came up with water into wine?

What was that? Oh, ya. The story!

So the serpent, now having a full glass of wine returned to Adam and Eve, making sure to place the glass of wine near a glass of water Eve had placed out already. When she drank, it was from the juices of the forbidden fruit, and then, well you know. Everything went batshit crazy.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This is Adam and Eve. There were no glasses. Seriously, people. This isn’t the part where you should start questioning things. God mad men and butterflies, coffee beans, yet you draw the line and highly crafted glassware in an non industrial age?

Fine then. Don’t believe the story. It’s not like the bug guy upstairs would ever lie. Nope. Never.

But it’s the truth, at least as Gabriel told it. Gabe had been her mentor way back when she was still shiny and new. Most people believe that demons are all fallen angels, but that’s just laziness on the part of human storytelling. The actually history of hell was a bit more complicated. Yes, the Devil and God used to be tight. And yes there was an uprising, but God never sent the Devil away. He left on his own. Something along the lines of peace out, I don’t need this stress. And, yes, a few angels followed him, but most of them were created with the snap of a finger. You see, lurking around the eternal fiery pits of hell with six of your brothers can get a little monotonous.

It’s not like it was hard. He’d watched God do it before. He had powers given unto him by a supreme being. Admittedly, his first tries hadn’t been his best work, but no one gets it right one the first try now do they? Why do you think God flooded the earth? Sometimes you just need a redo. The devil kept them around of course, but all they were really good for anymore was dressing up as cherubs and shooting married people with their love arrows. Ah, the birth of adultery. Take that Cupid.

Eventually the Devil got better though. His creations resembled that of men with physical bodies when needed. Emma had been a crowning achievement. A blonde vixen with doe eyes and and a killer smile. But it had been her hunger for chaos that really had the other demons take notice. Gabe took her under his wing early on, as I said before.

He taught her how to seduce men, to make them gloat, how to send them into a fit of rage. Your garden variety of cardinal sins of course. And for a few thousand years, that’s exactly what she did.

Hey, Adolf, I think you missed some over there.

Oh Jack, have you met my friend Marilyn?

Ted. Look at this one. She’s beautiful!

Awful. Horrible. Unforgivable. I know. I don’t need you to tell me. The thing you have to remember about Emma is that she was trained for this. She was created for this. It’s in her blood. She’s never known love or compassion. But this is what you need to understand going forward, because everything is about to change.

[infinitelycomplexpuzzles-archive]

About Beelzebub

So you want to know about ol’ Beelzebub, do you? Well, forget everything you think you know about the Lord of the Flies, and listen well, because it’s a long story and condensing it is hard.

So a long, long time ago, God decides to make the universe, and creates all the angels to do it. Poof! Then he sends them forth to go do his will and all that. Beelzebub is put in charge of making all the food, all the animals and plants and stuff. For this, he’s seen by a lot of the angels as being lower on the rung, because he’s not been given the job of making light or physics or something like that. Even Heaven has its hierarchy.

Anyway, you know the important bits by now. Light, six days, humans, rest. The part that gets messy is how time works, because he and the other angels made that too. It wasn’t really days so much as periods. Days just sounds and looks better and is easier to understand. But it’s more like six periods where different groups went out to do their thing, the thing they were put in charge of.

Day six comes around, humans exist, and God calls all his angels up to have a chat with them. See, humans are the most perfect things in all existence; Adam and Eve are perfect in ways words cannot possibly describe; and as you can imagine, all the angels love them. They’ve spent the entire time they’ve existed preparing for this moment, the moment where Adam and Eve get to enjoy all the things that the angels made for them. I mean, they literally hung the stars in the universe and grew the grass beneath their feet for them.

Except then God throws a cold bucket of water on the lot of them, saying that they’re not allowed to reveal themselves or anything. Non-interference. They’re the most important beings in all of creation, and they’re not allowed to know that. Okay, say the angels, not entirely understanding.

But then God goes and tells them that they’re supposed to love them the same way they love God, like they are God. Now, this confuses them, because how do you love your creator, or anything, without them knowing you exist? How exactly do you love something that knows you exist the same way that you love something that doesn’t? It made no sense to the Angels. But God simply said those were the rules. Don’t interfere, love them like they loved God.

And then he decided that was a great time to stop taking questions. As you can imagine, this went over poorly. Angels started asking questions, started making debates, started arguing with each other about what to do. And this created two camps. On one side, you had the ones who said that the first rule was more important: don’t interfere. It came first, it’s more important. On the other side were the ones who said the second one was. If you can’t follow the second rule without breaking the first, it has to be the more important one, since following the first broke the second too, and loving your creator was more important that not being seen.

If this is giving you a headache, think of the Angels like parents. Adam and Eve were basically their kids; and as a parent, is there anything you don’t want to give your kids? Could a parent stand for their kids to never know their parents? Never know that everything was provided for them, and never know why? Everything was created for you, and you were just supposed to think you were alone in the universe. That it didn’t care about you, and you were just some accident.

Lines were drawn, arguments made. Finally, it came time to make good on those arguments. And the three that fell first? Lucifer, Leviathan, and Beelzebub. Yeah, bet you were wondering where he came back into the story, huh?

Lucifer you probably already know all about. Thinks he knows better, thinks he’s got the plan, thinks he can keep everything under control. Leviathan fought God before creation. Leviathan was everything God wasn’t, and wanted what God was, and so fought God and lost. Hated him ever since. Should have probably thought it was weird when he went along with this, but everyone was whipped up in a fervor.

Beelzebub… No one actually knows what the Hell he was thinking. He gives so many different answers it’s hard to know which ones are true and which ones he says to fuck with you. Maybe he was insane. Maybe he wanted to take the risk. Maybe he was so filled with love and dogma he couldn’t do anything else. Point is, he was there next to Lucifer and Leviathan, the first created and the one who fought God, this guy who was put in charge of making dandelions and worms and stuff. First indication he was hitting way above his weight class.

So you know the rest of the story to some degree. Adam and Eve, forbidden fruit, awareness. Suddenly, mankind is capable of complex thinking, of reasoning. No longer do they just see things and accept them, they start asking why. No more ‘apple taste good’ and move on. Now they wonder what makes an apple taste good, what makes it different from other apples, what makes the best ones. All kinds of questions.

Beelzebub takes to this with vigor. See, he made all the plants and animals like I said. And he made them to be eaten. What is the point of an apple if it doesn’t get eaten? He literally crafted everything to be enjoyed. To keep humans alive. Humans need food, so they should get things they like. Things they enjoy. Things they want more of. And why shouldn’t they? They’re the most important thing in all creation.

You can probably grasp how he got tagged with being the demon lord of gluttony. You see, it never occurred to Beelzebub that humans could do something like become ravenous monsters that would literally destroy each other just to consume things. And there’s a lot of things you can consume. Food, drink, sex, entertainment, arrogance, hate… If you can indulge in something, it’s Beelzebub who made that possible, though he didn’t know it.

Now obviously, God finds out about this, gets really pissed off, and throws the lot of the offending angels into Hell. Throws some humans in there too, not to punish them but to punish the offending angels. After all, they loved humans so much, what could be worse than seeing their own handiwork?

Some of them, like Satan and Belphegor, turn to resenting and hating humans. If it wasn’t for them, if they were fallible, God wouldn’t have been angry. Not Beelzebub. He loves them all the more. Perhaps it’s part of his curse… Oh, did I not mention that?

So, all the ringleaders got cursed by God. Remember how Cain got cursed for inventing murder? Same sorta deal. Lucifer for example gets cursed to have a realm in Hell, a twisted mirror of what he could have had. There he remains, trying to build a utopia, and forever failing, forever injuring his pride. He can’t give it up, he’s too proud.

Beelzebub gets cursed to never be satisfied. He’s an addict, the king of them, someone who craves and hungers and consumes endlessly without end, who cannot be satisfied no matter what. He’s a pathetic being, really. Some people think gluttony looks like massive fat blobs, and it does, but it’s just as familiar to the burned out addict in an alleyway. He’s got plenty of forms. Just depends on what he needs right then.

Anyway, guy loves humanity. And humanity loves him, even if they don’t know it. Beer, cake, coffee, the fucking KFC Double-Down… The human desire for more comes from him, and he is rewarded by being given new and wonderful things to crave. Angels, and demons for that matter, are not nearly as creative as humans are. It’s not their nature. It used to be that the only humans who could be gluttonous were the rich. Now? Everyone can. You can binge watch television shows and drink wines from across the globe and eat all kinds of foods most people in the past would never have imagined. It used to be that eating five thousands calories a day was limited to royalty. Now? It’s easy.

And it’s not just food. Gambling? Entertainment? He loves it. It’s his domain. Art? Same deal. His entire realm, the third circle of hell, probably looks to the outsider like the best part of the whole realm. I mean, it’s got everything you could possibly want. Only… it’s a good place to visit, you know? Because guess what, after a while, even the greatest pleasures become unappealing, and it never stops. Imagine being made to eat cake every single day for every single meal, forever. Imagine never being able to lose at gambling. Imagine women or men, whatever you prefer, never turning you down, or always wanting more of you. How long before it became maddening? That’s his realm.

It’s why he’s called ‘Lord of the Flies.’ Because he’s like a fly on shit. The fly doesn’t care that it’s shit. It cares that it’s hungry. He’s basically the king of the bums. He’s the world’s first junkie.

Of course, because of his domain, he’s also sometimes called 'the kindest demon.’ Because he’s like a doting parent or grandparent, always wanting to give more and more and more to their kids. Ever heard a grandparent complain a kid is too thin? Imagine that, times a million.

He can be loving. He can be indulgent. He can be full of love and kindness. But he can also be cruel, inhuman, violent, and impossibly sadistic. He is everything to extremes. He cares for nothing except getting his next fix. He is someone who can feast on the finest foods one moment and be eating literal dirt the next.

Oh, and he once stole Lucifer’s throne from him and gave it back to him on a whim, because he wanted to see if he could. That’s the kind of being he is. Basically no one in the underworld crosses him for it, because none of them can accurately predict what he might do. Lucifer and Leviathan rule by force and power, but Beelzebub rules through guile and intrigue and indulgence. He even intentionally supports challenges to his rule, just to see what’ll happen.

All of this is to say, you’re as likely to find him covered in garbage in an alley smelling of urine and booze as you are to find him at a high society party drinking the finest wines. Never assume that something is beyond him, or beneath him. Because it isn’t, if he gets the hunger.

[cavefelix]

Dulceleux Tyranoto, a CMWGE character and cake

Designer notes: 

Cake hats are a real thing. Here’show to make one. 

Pastry based Excrucians are also a real thing

.This originated as a discussion of why Nobles would want to fight for Creation, when their side is literally run by Evil, and someone said that Excrucians don’t have cake. So I wondered if one could masquerade as a cake

While I don’t go into details, I don’t think that being eaten counts as a Wound for a cake.

Dulceleux Tyranoto

Dulceleux (Dull-seh-lee-uks) Tyranato is dying of bad taste. Every fart joke, every person out shopping in sweat pants, every movie with an IV, V or, Harumaph help it, an X in the title, these each whither away a crumb of Dulceleux' ability to stay in this world.

Dulceleux is dying of bad taste. Which is odd, because it tastes delicious. Because it is a cake. A cake shaped like a hat; traditionally a woman's bonnet to show off its fancy fondant, though sometimes a somber man's top hat, accentuating its elegant vanilla base contrasting impeccably smooth and glossy dark chocolate icing. Sometimes in the Outside (and, in the olden days, the Border Mythic), you notice two eyes peering from the base of the hat, eyes of falling stars and endless night.

There are many stories of how a cake came to plot against reality. Some say Dulceleux was in the Garden of Eden, offered to Adam and Eve but rejected for the apple, and realized humanity was doomed by its judgment and abandoned Creation's cause. Others say that was a different cake, and Dulceleux was prepared only recently by the Bleak Academy in celebration of the marriage that will mark the opening of its fifth school, and the cake has picked up too much bleak academia. Today, Dulceleux spends much of its time in The Bakery of Despair (see sidebar) until it is purchased by someone and taken out into the world. When it is utterly consumed, it reappears as raw ingredients in a room in the far back of the facility, inaccessible unless you make it through the seemingly endless and haphazardly organized storerooms. As it regains strength (and MP), it begins to mix itself back together, turning the eggs, flour, milk, sugar etc. into an elegant hat-shaped cake.

Skills

Superior Cake-Hat 3 // Delceleux is a hat-shaped cake

Look tasty 2 // A very tempting hat-shaped cake

Baker 2 // Who knows how to bake

Art 1

// And how to make things look refined

Perks:

Connection: The employees of the Bakery of Despair

It's Like A Home To Me: The Bakery of Despair

Bond [Based on Calling]: I am driven to transform those who purchase me

Affliction 1: I cannot be consumed against my will

The Bakery of Despair

The Bakery of Despair seems to be an incredibly exaggerated and pretentious name. The closest to Despair it seems to project is that it's a little run down, in the way that any building that's been around decades in a working class neighborhood might look a bit run down. But the inside is clean, and if the linoleum on the floor and wall colors are out of style, they're always clean and in good condition.

Except for Dulceleux, the bakery has no cakes, and few desserts. It specializes in breads and rolls, as well as a few interesting ethnic pastries. They're very good. When Dulceleux emerges from the test kitchen, rebaked, it sits in the display case until it decides to let itself be purchased.

The staff currently consists of one baker, and two teenagers, a Rider girl who grew up in Old Moulder and a young man from Fortitude, who help with the baking and sales.

ARCS

Accursed 2, Creature of Delerium 1, Sentimental 0

Accursed grants the following powers

Test Kitchen:

For most people to get to the main office in the Bakery of Despair, they must go through the surprisingly vast and labyrinthine storerooms between the display case and the test kitchen. And to do that, they'd have to be the sort of cad who ignores the "Employees only, Do not enter" sign. But Dulceleux can bring itself there any time it is in a fancy cake keeper or elegant gift box. The Test Kitchen is its hidden room.

Sweet MP Bonus:

Dulceleux has an extra 2 MP

The World Grows Stale

Dulceleux has an Affliction, based on the Sickness Issue. The more that is wrong with it internally, the more it is the only thing of taste and beauty around it. At low levels, the other desserts on the table may look a little stale, or might have faked whipped toppings instead of real cream. At higher levels, the passing waiters may belch as they offer appetizers, and people begin blurting out "How many Riders does it take to change a light bulb?"

If its Sickness is greater than 1, and it has run out of MPs, then it must return to its test kitchen as quickly as possible. Usually, freak events happen to cause this to occur, such as a sudden localized tornado picking it up and depositing it in the bakery, or a giant bird swoops down and carries it away.

World Baker's Hand

A baked product is transformed, but diminished. Bread loses its elasticity and turns hard. An angel food cake turns ethereal foam to fragile pastry.

Dulceleux may diminish and transform things using the World Baker's Hand. While it can use this ability on anyone or anything, it is most effective if they consume part of it. (This is also how it uses its Creature of Delirium abilities, below). It might turn someone's all-consuming anger into a desire to sign a petition; it might  make a person's sense of confidence into a brittle shell.

Things that don't consume are transformed coarsely, often underbaked or overbaked.

This is a bleak ability, for most things are not meant to be baked in the oven of not. Though if Dulceleux uses this to actually bake goods you'd find in a bakery the effects may or may not be bleak.

Nourishment 

The test kitchen of the Bakery of Despair  helps Dulceleux clear its mind. There are various ways it can spend time here to gain MPs, outlined on page 545 of CMWGE.

A delicate crumb

It is a sad fact that cakes on the Accursed arc do not recover MPs at the beginning of each chapter the way most other characters do. Sorry.

Creature of Delerium Powers

Arbiter of Taste

Is there anything more refined than a cake shaped like a hat? Certainly not. Dulceleux is that picture of tastefulness and embodies the sense of taste as its Experience.

If Dulceleux is in an area long enough, a region property emerges:

                         Dulceleux must appear in good taste. 

(Note that if Dulceleux has Sickness 1+, its curse above may make it the only tasteful looking thing in the area.).

Tasting the taster

When one consumes Dulceleux, which requires either its permission or a Miracle with 1+ Strike, they sometimes feel a momentary heartburn as the otherwise surprisingly smooth buttercream goes down their stomach. This is because the Strategist is taking part of their heart, the part that rules their sense of what is tasteful. (And, incidentally, their physical sense of taste. After something as rich and decadent as this cake, everything seems bland.)

After a person's heart has been taken, an small, elegant silver fork appears by  Dulceleux, a weymark which can be manipulated.

Tasteful Advisor

Dulceleux may, for a MP,  see through and manipulate those whose sense of taste it controls, having them move it to a more suitable location, for example.

Palate Cleanser

Having an arbiter of good taste can be tremendously transformed. When Dulceleux controls your taste, if it targets you with a miracle it can make it an emotionally powerful experience.

Sentimental powers

Frantic

Dulceleux has begun to explore those it cares about, and discovered new emotions due to it. When it finds itself In Trouble, it can gain 1 MP.

At home with the staff

Dulceleux has 3 Miraculous Will to use when interacting with the staff of the Bakery of Despair.

The Dreams of Pastry

One of the advantages to being a cake is that nobody cares it you're awake or asleep. And while asleep, Tyranoto finds it easy to see what is happening with The Bakery of Despair, its staff, or (if it has Calling 1+) its most recent purchaser.

[pastordorry-blog]

Redemption

“Redemption”—Moses and the Burning Bush

Exodus 3:1-12

Exodus Week 4

October 1, 2017

            “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” Moses asks a very good question!  Moses is a murderer and a fugitive.  He has exiled himself to Midian, and made for himself a "normal" life, tending sheep and starting a family.  The last thing he would ever want would be to hear God's voice, for fear he would be called to account for the life he took back in Egypt.

         But God's voice comes, and it is not a voice of condemnation.  It is a voice calling Moses to action.  My people are suffering as slaves, Moses.  I need you to go back to Egypt and get them out of there.  God saw Moses at his worst.  But God calls Moses to use him for the best.

         God does this kind of thing so often that in the church, we have a word for it. Redemption.  Moses was a violent criminal.  He killed an Egyptian in cold blood and buried him in the hot sand.  Understandably, Pharaoh wanted Moses dead.  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. But God has no interest in punishing Moses.  Instead, God wants to USE Moses!  God needs him.  God wants to accomplish great things through Moses.  

         Redemption isn't just for hall of famers like Moses.  It's for all of us!  No matter what we've done, God is still with us, still at work for us, and still wants to work through us! We are, today, right this very minute, standing on holy ground.  We are all wrapped up in God's redeeming work.  We are all sinners, invited to the gospel feast.  God sees us at our worst, But God calls us to use us for the best.

         This week I was reading in Time magazine about a woman named Michelle Jones.  Have you heard her story?  She was horribly abused by her parents, got pregnant and had a baby as a young teenager.  Her baby was born with a disability, and parenting him was way beyond Michelle.  She got so frustrated, one day she beat him and left him for dead.  At fourteen years old, she was sentenced to 50 years in prison for her crime.

         Jones is now 45 years old, and has been released early from her jail sentence. Although she earned a college degree while incarcerated, upon her release from prison last year, she applied to 8 colleges, including Harvard.  In her application, she wrote about her past, explaining that she had a psychological breakdown after experiencing abandonment and domestic violence, and sadly, she repeated those patterns with her son. "Now," she wrote, "I have made a commitment to myself and him that with the time I have left, I will live a redeemed life, one of service and values to others."  

         Redemption. Michelle Jones wants to go from being a murderer, to one day being a graduate of a distinguished university and an advocate for a better world. The article in Time magazine went on to say that although her application was initially reviewed favorably, two professors further down the admissions process put the brakes on it, telling the New York Times that she had soft-pedaled her crime. She didn't seem sorry enough, and many who commented to the New York Times article seemed to agree.  In the end, Harvard decided not to extend an acceptance to Jones, she had to settle for NYU.  I wonder how many of her critics realize that Moses was a murderer before he became Israel's leader.  I wonder how many of her critics realize they are in the exact same boat as Michelle Jones when it comes to God.  God sees all of us at our worst, and STILL wants to use us for the best.

         The truth is, God has never called a perfect person to do good.  Except for sending Jesus, God's very self, no perfect person has ever been asked even to give a cup of cold water to someone who thirsts.  God only calls people like Moses, and Michelle Jones, and us.  In the end, I think Moses was a very "normal" person.  Not because he got a job, got married, and settled down to have a family.  But because he was a sinner, and God used him for good.  That is NORMAL.  That is, actually, the best case scenario, the way things work, day in and day out, with God.  Neither our past sins, nor our present infirmities, can ever negate God's willingness to use us to accomplish God's purposes.

         Perhaps that is why the story of Moses and the burning bush has captured people's imaginations for centuries. Judaism has compiled a collection of interpretations, stories, and commentaries on the Old Testament, which they call the midrash. Some of these rabbinic observations date back over 1,000 years ago.  Sometimes the rabbis used their imaginations and, almost like filling in a bubble over a comic strip to show dialogue, imagined what additional things God might have to say.  It was seen as a sign of holy engagement with the text, a responsible wrestling with the heart of the scripture.

         One early rabbi had this to say about Moses being called.  When Moses attempted to excuse himself from speaking for God, saying, "Words do not come easily for me," God responded very simply. "Am I not the one who created mouths in the first place?"  

         Am I not the one who created mouths in the first place?  God created us.  God knows our limits.  God also knows our capacities.  After all, it was God who created our capabilities in the first place!  None of us is being singled out to lead a whole people out of bondage in Egypt.  But we are all called--collectively as the church around the world, locally as a congregations, and individually to do our part--to lead people out of all kinds of bondage.  

         Do you remember these (hold up one of our Praying for Others cards).  The evangelism committee introduced them this summer.  The one side says, "Growing New Christians", which in an ironic twist, initially contained a misprint worthy of the Typo Hall of Fame.  They read, "Growning New Christians"!!!  They have since been reprinted to say, "Growing New Christians".  The flip side of the card offers some strategies for making a loving connection with people who do not have a faith home.  I'm not sure the cards have made much of an impact on this congregation yet, but I'd like us to keep working on using them.  

         If you can't think of any names to put on your card, might I suggest you start with anyone you know who goes to high school.  There is such a need for the good news of God's love in this generation! Recently I was talking to person who teaches at a local high school.  She told me that the biblical creation stories are included in the 9th grade English curriculum.  Can you guess how many of her students have read the Adam Eve stories before?  Less than 1/3 of her students have ever heard of Adam and Eve!  It seems very unlikely to me that they would know that they, too, are the creative work of a loving God who wants to be friends with them!

         At the end of August I watched the MTV music video awards.  This was sort of out of character for me--I rarely watch TV, and I am not really up on popular musicians these days.  But for some reason I felt a pull to watch the show. About half way in, they did a segment on suicide prevention.  A rapper from Maryland named Logic teamed up with two other artists and performed his song, 1-800-273-8255, which is the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.  Good for them!  But then I realized why I felt called to watch the show.  I felt convicted.  MTV should not be the place young people have to go to get someone to pay attention to their most significant issues.  

         We have a generation of young adults in America who children for whom anxiety and depression is a constant reality.  They don't know it is possible to have a life marked by the four qualities we celebrate with every Advent wreath, a life filled with hope, peace, joy and love. Young people need the church.  And we need them!  We need them to lead us into the future.  Will you pray for the young people on your street, in your neighborhood, in this community?  

         What would it look like if we could see others at their worst, and want to partner with God to help bring out the best?  What would it look like if others could see US at our worst, but still want to partner with God to bring out the best?

         In a few minutes we are going to come to the altar rail for communion.  I'm not going to ask you to take off your shoes, but I do want you to remember, this is holy ground.  God has placed a burning bush in each of our lives, a fire that will not be quenched.  It is God's desire that all human beings have the chance to hear about, experience, and respond to God's love.  God is still in the business of seeing his people's suffering, and calling others to help. We can pretend there are no burning bushes in our midst.  We can cover our eyes and tell ourselves we are only human, what can God really expect from us?  Or we can stop making excuses and get busy strengthening our relationship with God until it's strong enough to lead others into relationship with God.

         On this world communion Sunday, we come to the table with people around the globe, who are all asking the same question:  who are we, God, that you would want to be in communion with us? Who are we, God, that you would want to use us?  It boggles the mind, how God would want to use sinners like me and you to accomplish God's will in the world.  But God's people are hurting, and God needs us to help.  God doesn't just know our limitations.  He knows our capacities.  We all have the capacity for redemption.  God sees us at our worst, but wants to use us for the best.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.  

[athyriiium]

Okay, I’m back at it again with another long ass, symbolism heavy theory. I would heavily suggest reading my other theory here before you read this one since I will be referencing that one often in this. There’s a tl;dr at the bottom fyi!

To begin, the symbolism and art shown in Blood, Sweat, and Tears (BST) is very religion heavy. It is to be expected when pulling from work from the 17-18th centuries. I’ve seen some people theorize that Jin is the one behind all the “evil” the boys have done in RUN and I Need U (INU). I agree with this, though I don’t think he is necessarily evil, but more of a tempter.

In my previous theory, I discussed how I believed Jin to be Sinclair and Tae to be Demian, acting as a force to influence Sinclair as a mentor. I still believe that to be true. Each boy has his own storyline that is tied back to Jin, including Tae, but it’s a little confusing.

Let me backtrack: When Jin kisses the statue like Sinclair kisses Demian, they become one. Sinclair talks about not being able to see Demian anymore and realizes Demian was just a part of himself. So the metaphorical Tae that I spoke about previously is a part of Jin. Jin has realized himself fully and has accepted both the light and darkness in his life.

I also heavily discussed the concept of duality in my last post. There is the “other world” as Sinclair often mentions it which is the darker side of the world, which also means there is a light side of the world. This is a limited, binary viewpoint though. And the Spring Day mv told us there is more to the world than that through the usage of “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (short story) and “Snowpiercer” (film). Both stories show there are sides of gray in life. In the Omelas story, everyone is happy enjoying life at the expense of a miserable child. The knowledge of the child gets out and there are people who live that can’t live a life of blind happiness at the expense of others. BTS are the ones who walk away from the feeling of blindness and absolute happiness.

Snowpiercer is a film that depicts an apocalyptic world in which the last surviving humans live on a train. It is best known for its blatant ridicule of the class system but also depicts two sides of life. The tail end or back end of the train is where the poor are, living in oppressed squalor while the head of the train lives in complete luxury. But, both ends of the train are blind to the truth. They accept the train as the world, it’s safety and warmth. The middle of the train is the only place with windows where you can see out of the train. The middle of the train people, or middle class, are the ones who are educated with propaganda instructing them that the train is the world. BTS are those of the middle class, but also the two middle-class people who eventually escape the train. They sit and accept the truth that they are told until they see the colors of gray, or the world around them, and eventually leave the train.

Now you might be asking what about the two Jungkooks? That’s where the concept of duality comes in. the train JK sees the Omelas JK and that’s the spark to leave. Train JK is the passive one who accepts the truth, while Omelas JK is the boy who defies what is given to him. This is the spark to leave the train and explore the outside world. But I digress. Let me get back to the JPN BST mv.

The concept of this passive vs active duality is also seen in Jin especially in the newest JPN BST mv. Jin has been seen very passive around the boys, never really joining in on the fun just standing on the sidelines and filming. There is plenty of evidence out there, but if you want specifics let me know.

The Jin in the JPN BST mv, is not like that at all. He seems to play an active, almost antagonistic role. So, as I said there is lots of religious symbolism in the BST mvs and to explain what I think happens in the JPN ver I have to use some material from the KOR ver.

So I believe Jin is the tempter, acting as the snake (and depending on who you talk to, indirectly the Devil) in the story of Adam and Eve. After going back to watch the KOR BST it makes more sense since Jin was shown while Namjoon quoted the Demian line about Demian being a tempter. This may seem far-fetched but hear me out.

Jimin, who was seated on Jin’s left in the KOR ver BST table scene, is often showed with apples. It is seen in the JPN BST, KOR BST, and Jimin’s short film. Apples, in the biblical sense, are tied to Adam and Eve. To briefly recap the story, Adam and Eve were the first humans created. They were allowed to eat, use, and generally do anything in the Garden of Eden except eat from the Tree of Knowledge. A serpent tempts and eventually convinces her to do so to “open her eyes” to be like “God, knowing all good and evil”. After she eats the fruit, she shares with Adam and both are condemned by God and sent out of the Garden of Eden.

I didn’t put this together until seeing Jimin finally eat the apple in the JPN BST. He’s just been holding it or looking at it up until now like he was tempted. Jimin, also being on Jin’s left, is important. The left side in many people who believe in the bible is associated with Satan/the Devil. I’m not saying Jin is the devil. Some people believe the snake was Satan in disguise, but I think it’s more of a vector of temptation sent to taint God’s creations. But this isn’t the time for bible debate.

It also fits because the serpent implies that Eve’s eyes have been closed. Jimin is also often seen with a blindfold or having his vision blocked, by a certain someone (Yoongi). I thought previously that Jimin was turning a blind eye to something, ignoring something that was causing him pain, and I do still believe that, but I also think it has another meaning. If the serpent convinced Eve that she was blind, that she couldn’t see everything, then wouldn’t she think of herself as blindfolded? Then wouldn’t the one blindfolding her, be God? Just as I am not saying Jin is the Devil, I don’t think Yoongi is God. He is symbolic of him. Yoongi serves as a protection/barricade between Jimin and Jin. He doesn’t want Jimin to follow Jin into darkness. That’s why we see two Jimin’s. The one Yoongi protects, and the one that follows Jin into darkness.

So if Yoongi is symbolic of God, how come he fights Kookie in RUN? Many times in the bible, God is shown, for lack of a better term, a practitioner of tough love. See Noah’s ark for example, where floods come and kill many people and animals except for the one’s on Noah’s ark besides the people had lost the way of God. The people killed were the descendants of Adam and Eve, who I believe are the other boys since Jimin and Tae were the first tempted.

So if Jimin is symbolic of Eve, Yoongi of God, and Jin of the Devil, then who is Adam? At first, I thought it was Hobi since he is OFTEN seen with Jimin, but I have Hobi has something else going on I will get to soon. So that lead me to Tae. We see Tae struggling with temptation/sin often. The act of graffiti and an insane amount of suicide imagery associated with him in HYYH is too overwhelming.

Tae sits on the right of Jin in the KOR BST mv. If the left is associated with evil, then the right is associated with good. Tae was “good” which is why there is so much angelic symbolism near him. But, he was tempted, probably by Jimin since he is symbolic of Eve and Eve is the one who gives Adam the fruit to eat.

Jin, could also have been the one to tempt Tae and the other boys since in the KOR BST all the boys are shown around a table with no real food besides apples in front of them. So, Tae and Jimin are the first ones tempted.

Now, when Adam and eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, they could no longer understand the word of God, since they were no longer his children. So this leads me to believe that nothing heavenly could help either of them. Which is where Hobi and Namjoon come in.

I’ll start with Namjoon, since his story is somewhat laid out already. Many times Namjoon is shown running to a telephone booth and many people assume it’s because Tae is calling based off evidence from Namjoon and Tae’s films. But, Namjoon is never able to reach the phone or get into the booth. So, since Namjoon isn’t tempted YET, he is still considered heavenly, therefore, he can never help Tae.

Namjoon is eventually tempted and falls into alcohol, specifically absinthe. Absinthe is portrayed as an addictive, alcoholic hallucinogen. So he becomes addicted to drinking the beverage and eventually forces Jungkook to drink it (seen in the JPN BST mv). But, I don’t think Namjoon falls as deeply into temptation as Tae does. He learns to accept it. Namjoon is shown around a lot of mirrors either obscuring his reflection (JPN INU) or shattering the glass (Reflection). But, in JPN BST he is shown looking directly into his reflection. He’s learned to accept temptation as a part of himself. Reflections are often symbolic of showing one's true self which is why we say Jin’s reflection crack in KOR BST bc he hasn’t accepted his whole self (passive and active).

Before I get to Hobi, I’m going to finish Jungkook’s story. Before, I wasn’t sure where Kookie sat in the Demian/Sinclair story. I believed he was “Beatrice” but since he is often on the outskirts dipping his toes in good and evil I think he is symbolic of Abraxus. We don’t know who convinced the boys to leave Omelas, but from what I discussed earlier, it was most likely Kookie who convinced the boys to leave the train in Spring Day. He also tries to help Yoongi in RUN, who is struggling with his own problems. This is the good Kookie dabbles in. The bad is all the new stuff we saw in the JPN BST mv: the hallucinations and fighting off Yoongi who is trying to help him. Also, depending on what theory you believe, the shooting of the other boys in Not Today.

Now last but not least, Hobi. I think Hobi was once tempted, proven by the abuse of pills. But rather than accept temptation, he rejects it and fights it. This is seen by the throwing away of his pills, twice now. We also often see Hobi pulling a bow and arrow and now a dart on those tempted, usually Tae. Now, I believe Tae has fallen deepest into temptation and Hobi mourns the loss of his friends' purity, shown by the Pieta in KOR BST. He takes on the biggest challenge first, Tae. Which is why we see him throwing or going to throw the dart at Tae in JPN BST and pull the bow at Tae in KOR BST. Hobi is the descendant that God spoke of when cursing the serpent. God said that Eve’s descendant will bruise his foot by smashing the head of the snake. Basically, he will have to sacrifice something to get rid of the tempting serpent.

Hobi is also shown dancing under the fresco painted on St. Nicholas’ ceiling painted by Guilio Quaglio. I can't find a lot of info on the painting but it looks like a depiction of a world of light or heaven? So it looks like Hobi is reaching for salvation, but he isn’t the only one. Jimin is too.

Jimin, aka Eve, has realized what he has done wrong and has suffered for it. She lost her son Abel at the hands of her son Cain and was placed with pain after she was cast out of the Garden of Eden. This is why we see Jimin suffering/being uncomfortable so much while in water. Water is symbolic of purification, so Jimin is repenting for his wrongdoings but is also suffering because of the temptation he gave into.

We also see Jin circa INU era twice in this mv. Once in the bed of the truck, lying similarly to how he is lying in the bed in INU. In INU lilies are very present. They are also present in BST. Lilies symbolize innocence after death. Passive Jin wants to be innocent after he dies but is prevented from that because of tempter!Jin. This is why the lily petals are burned; all hope of innocence after death is gone. I believe both Jin’s are aware of each other having met in the Awake film, but since tempter Jin is the stronger personality, he has prevented watcher Jin from moving on. Which is why he is still interacting with the boys in the INU era but only passively.

The scene at the end of the mv is one of the first setups to Jin’s temptation of Namjoon. We see the effects in the INU era.

TL;DR: as seen in INU there are two sides to youth: the dark and light. This is further expressed in RUN and BST (both versions). Each boy has a doppelganger, opposite from what they are typically shown to be. Jin’s doppelganger, the tempter, has tempted the boys to do things they shouldn’t seen in RUN and INU. Hobi, the savior, is trying to fight Jin’s hold on the boys.

[fantasticliesandwheretofindthem]

Origins and Breedings Grounds

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat of any tree in the garden?’”

At a debate, John Lennox, an outspoken Oxford professor and Christian apologist was asked by an audience member, “Wasn’t it unfair that God created a tree of knowledge and ordered Adam and Eve to stay away from it? Why would a loving God keep his “loved ones” away from knowledge?” Professor Lennox smiled and replied, “That is an excellent question. It’s an excellent question because it’s the same one the serpent asked in the garden.” The whole auditorium erupted in laughter and then “Oooohh’s” as the weight of his statement hit them.

Much can be said about the nature of the serpent’s question and how ingeniously it was crafted (which will be discussed later) but our focus will be on where such lies are birthed. If we can identify where lies originate, we can better be lay those areas at the feet of Jesus for healing and repentance.

Simply stated, lies are birthed from two locations; others and ourselves. This is shown most clearly from the beginning at Genesis 3:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Here at first glance, we see the obvious; the serpent lies to Eve. It’s been told in kid’s stories and cartoons multiple times. I suspect one of the reasons why it’s been told that way is because it makes us feel victimized; we respond emotively when lied to and thus are more likely to engrain such event in our memory[1]. A few years ago, I was on my way home when a stout man approached me asking for money. He began to tell me how his car got towed, how his family was waiting at a precinct, how he needed money to take the subway downtown to retrieve his car. His story moved me to say the least and I considered giving him more than enough to help him—however, I asked to see his family first. He at first explained that his family was several blocks away and that he wouldn’t want them to be a bother; I insisted that it wouldn’t be. He then pleaded to my face for help and teared up. I continued to ask him questions to learn more about his situation. Finally, I went to an officer nearby and asked if they knew of his family. “I wasn’t here when that happened.” the officer said. “Oh, there was another officer who was here to help me”, the man replied.  “Hmmm, I think Jerry was on duty then.”, she replied, “Did you see a tall male officer with blonde hair? Was he the one helping your family?” “Yeah, yeah! That’s him!” the man exclaimed. “Ok, then yeah!” the officer turned to me and said, “There was no Jerry. You can take that as you will.” “Thank you.” I stated and turned swiftly away, feeling anger reeling in my head. I had just wasted twenty minutes trying to help this guy and now he was cussing me out. The crazy thing is this happened again several years later with someone else when I moved to upstate New York!

Although it has been several years, I still feel the bitter outrage whenever I recall that moment. I felt like I was almost used; in that man’s eyes, I was another sucker to catch and fry. Did he even see me as human? Did he not realize that I actually had compassion for him? But the hard fact that he had almost used my empathy for his own gain wasn’t even the worst thing I had to face; it was that I too had done the same thing to others.

Looking back at the Genesis story, we see that the serpent wasn’t the only liar in that garden.

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” (Emphasis mine)

Look closely Eve’s response. “…and you must not touch it, or you will die.” Flipping to a few lines before, we find that God says nothing of a sort to Adam and Eve! Therein lies the ugly truth. We aren’t just victims but are perpetrators as well. As a child, I once stumbled upon what I thought was an amazing discovery; if I did something wrong and told the truth, I would be punished. However, if I did something wrong and denied wrong doing, I increased my chances of avoiding punishment! And so began my childhood string of non-stop lying. At one point, my mother even had told me she couldn’t trust me anymore and my response was “So does this mean I’m in trouble?” Congratulations to me. Before any man had ever lied to me, I had succeeded in deceive even myself; that punishment free fun was all that mattered, not the relationships I had.

And it is with that, I believe we find the crux of the origin of lies; our fractured relationships, not only with others, but God himself.

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Emphasis mine)

When the serpent tells lies, it’s not just telling lies to deceive Eve into sinning, but it’s actually distorting Eve’s understanding of who God is. God is no longer a trustworthy benevolent father, but a selfish insecure being, hoarding his knowledge and power. Eve’s lie is no exception to this distortion. In Mike Cosper’s Recapturing the Wonder, he writes,

“What [God] prescribed for righteousness – don’t eat from that tree—they trusted, believed and obeyed. But when the serpent shows up, they make an attempt to take their righteousness even further—we don’t even touch it—and present themselves as “unimpeachably careful”. It’s a goodness that is independent of God , that doesn’t need him, and it’s a break from union with him.”[2]

Adam and Eve knew only the God of “very good”. After giving them dominion over all creation, God only asked for trust and faithful obedience in return. Instead, Eve’s lie revealed a new self-made commandment that required self-righteous action. That there was even a possibility of something --or someone-- you can trust more than God was enough of relational fracture to which the rest of sin blew wide open.

A few years ago, I was introduced to this model as a way to help children to reflect on sin as more than just “doing something bad”. Instead, it gave a wider view of how it affected one’s relationship with their Maker. It was called the “shark chart”. It was called so because the danger of a shark isn’t the top fin that you see but rather it’s the jaws underneath the surface that can really hurt you. Likewise, the danger of our sins lies truly in our tattered relationship with God. Like a naive swimmer who thinks that since the fin is gone means the water is free of sharks, so is the sinner who thinks that since they “stopped” doing something bad, means their life with God is going well. (Idols simply offer the lie with which we replace God’s character and promises with.)

            Figure 1.

                 Here are some case studies: Abraham gave his wife to Pharaoh (sin) because he believed that his safety depended on him  and his strategy and possessions (lie). At his core, he failed to believe that God would keep him safe and fulfill his promise to “fill the earth” with his descendants. Annas and Sapphira lied to the apostles and to God (sin) because they loved wealth and social attention (lie was that no one would find out and that wealth and attention would make them secure). At their core, they didn’t believe that God was more than enough for them nor that he would know their hearts. Adam and Eve ate the fruit (sin) because they trusted in their own abilities to know right from wrong and to be righteous (lie). At their core, they failed to believe God’s loving tenderness and that he wanted their best.

Lies come from within and without but ultimately, they are found in brokenness of relationship. “What if I can’t trust him? What if I can’t get what I want? What if they hurt us?” are just the tip of the icebergs that can sink our relationship with others and give us cause to justify acting and speaking dishonestly. Broken relationships that birth lies can be categorized into three; relationship with ourselves, relationship with others and relationship with whole communities and systems.

Lies from ourselves

For many of us, it may seem easy to recall the lies that have been told to us, and although that will be addressed, we need to start off right-- By recognizing that the breeding ground of lies come from our own heart, or as the prophet said in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all else. Who can understand it?”. If we only perceive the lies coming from our relationships, systems and our spiritual enemies, then we play the Pharisee, failing to see our fractured relationship with God while pointing out everyone else’ issues. 

I won’t forget when a student once pulled me aside and expressed his displeasure that he was passed over for a leadership position. He insisted that the leadership selection team had made a mistake and that since he was older than the appointed leader, he should have been given “the honor” of at least being interviewed. He then proceeded to share the pain and distress he’s experienced because we passed him over and he suggested that since he was not seen fit to lead at the executive level, he shouldn’t serve or lead at all. As we talked more, it became apparent to me what the real issue was; he valued himself based on his popularity and his titles. It’s what drove him to stay up late looking for job applications and gave him well paying internships, it’s what drove him to serve and lead in the fellowship and gave him a position where others looked up to him. Now that a coveted title and leadership image was denied to him, the lie saw its chance to hurt him; they think you are worthless. They don’t realize how much you’ve put into this fellowship. They look down on you and you don’t belong here. In that moment, I called out the lie and told this student the truth; that who he was is someone dearly loved by Jesus. He’s not loved less, nor is he a failure nor is he worthless because of his lack of leadership title. His worth and status was in who Jesus saw him to be; someone worth dying for.

Confronting lies from ourselves also requires development of emotionally healthy self-awareness. More than once in my student team meetings, it was shared that students were too “burnt” out to do ministry. The team would feel disheartened and voice temptation to give up on our goals. Then we started to ask, “Who feels burnt out?” “People” would not be allowed as a valid answer. The more we drilled down, the more we found that it wasn’t actually everyone who felt burnt out (A lie! Oh my!). We narrowed it down to students in a class year which then got narrowed down to two students who were taking a difficult class that semester! The process of spreading anxiety in an organization results from members unable to self-differentiate- or as Friedman defines “knowing where on begins and where one ends.”[4] Without understanding that someone’s situation and feelings are different from our own, we can easily adopt their attitudes and postures. Poor self-awareness resulted in individual members adopting the feelings of a few to the generalization of the whole. Too many times in my ministry have I seen individuals take up the belief or opinion for no other real reason than it got spread around. Three people do indeed create a tiger! Effects like this only emphasize the need to grow in self-awareness to unearth our unsaid beliefs and values- whether it’s implicit expectations or subtle emotional responses, these need to be uprooted so that we can bring them to be reconciled before God. Helpful tools my regional staff use are the significant incident report and the situation behavior impact debrief. Both resources are shared at the end of this chapter.

Lies from our relationships

Examples for this category are probably most unneeded. As stated above, we all have experienced being lied to in our relationships, whether those relationships are with our parents and elders (About Santa, tooth fairy, or Korean fan death or taking shower after eating if you’re Asian), from our siblings, or from strangers (like my example in the introduction). It’s so common, in fact, researchers has argued it’s almost even natural as we age.

According to a National Geographic article, a social experiment was conducted on children and lies:

To study lying in children, Lee and his colleagues use a simple experiment. They ask kids to guess the identity of toys hidden from their view, based on an audio clue. For the first few toys, the clue is obvious—a bark for a dog, a meow for a cat—and the children answer easily. Then the sound played has nothing to do with the toy. “So you play Beethoven, but the toy’s a car,” Lee explains. The experimenter leaves the room on the pretext of taking a phone call—a lie for the sake of science—and asks the child not to peek at the toy. Returning, the experimenter asks the child for the answer, following up with the question: “Did you peek or not?”

Most children can’t resist peeking, Lee and his researchers have found by monitoring hidden cameras. The percentage of the children who peek and then lie about it depends on their age. Among two-year-old transgressors, only 30 percent are untruthful. Among three-year-olds, 50 percent lie. And by eight, about 80 percent claim they didn’t peek.

Kids also get better at lying as they get older. In guessing the toy that they secretly looked at, three- and four-year-olds typically blurt out the right answer, without realizing that this reveals their transgression and lying. At seven or eight, kids learn to mask their lying by deliberately giving a wrong answer or trying to make their answer seem like a reasoned guess.

Five- and six-year-old kids fall in between. In one study Lee used Barney the dinosaur as the toy. A five-year-old girl who denied having looked at the toy, which was hidden under a cloth, told Lee she wanted to feel it before guessing. “So she puts her hand underneath the cloth, closes her eyes, and says, ‘Ah, I know it’s Barney,’ ” Lee recounts. “I ask, ‘Why?’ She says, ‘Because it feels purple.’ ”[1]

But even if we learn to lie from a young age and it’s “natural”, an interesting question arises; why don’t we lie all the time? And why do we tend to believe people even though we know all of us have lied before? What another researcher in the same article found

“… interesting is not why so many lie, but rather why they don’t lie a lot more. Even when the amount of money offered for correct answers is raised significantly, the volunteers [in her experiment] don’t increase their level of cheating. “Here we give people a chance to steal lots of money, and people cheat only a little bit. So something stops us—most of us—from not lying all the way,” Ariely says. The reason, according to him, is that we want to see ourselves as honest, because we have, to some degree, internalized honesty…”

We are built by God to be in relationship; no man or woman is an island and relationships require trust. It’s something we can never get run from. When those relationships are betrayed, it pains us greatly because it affects one of our core purposes- to be loving relationship with one another.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/06/lying-hoax-false-fibs-science/

 Lies from our systems and organizations

These lies are usually trickier to identify because they stem from a whole group rather than just one person (although one person can influence the whole group to believe it!). Lies from systems or organizations usually affect the group’s culture and unsaid beliefs. The narrative of “burnt out” wasn’t just discovered when I started ministry as staff but much earlier when I was a student. In my undergrad years, there was a large belief that everyone was tired and no one wanted to reach out to newcomers and unbelievers. It was something everyone accepted as true and something everyone planned around. “We can’t reach out to people, we can’t ask them to do this, we can’t ask them to come. Why? Because they’re probably all tired and burnt out and tired, so why bother asking them? It wasn’t later till my staff worker started to ask the question “Who? Who is tired and burned out?” the truth was revealed.

Other systemic lies are harder to find and can result in very angry and hostile responses when called out. One such lie is the equality of all people in America.

When I was younger, my mom used to watch the ABC news at 5pm without fail every weekday. My siblings and I would hop on over, and simply watch whatever was on (I even memorized the news anchors names and could imitate them if I wanted to!). On a particular news segment, helicopter footage showed chaos in city streets as a majority Black protestors were clashing with police. The footage would cut to Rev Al Sharpton as he would blast against discrimination and mistreatment of the Black community. “They’re crazy.” I told myself. “They’ve been here for years. They know English and have access to education but my uncles and aunties have come to this country knowing nothing, and they can survive and do well without blaming anyone or shouting in the streets. Why can’t these people be responsible and do the same?” I’ve read in my history books how America was a great country founded by people who wanted to start over, to work hard and achieve anything. Sure, there were some bad things that happened, slavery and mistreatment of Native Americans, but those things were history. We’re coming to a brighter future. Surely things are different now right?” As I’ve come to grow older and listened to experiences of my Black brothers and sisters, I’ve come to realize the how simplistic and outright wrong those thoughts were. People were still being prejudiced implicitly if not explicitly and with alarming effects. It was only a generation ago when Black men were punched for speaking to White women or when Black children forced to sit away from white children as if they were some disease. But the lie- that anyone can become anything in America- had broken my view and relationship with the Black community. Rather than seeing them as people were voicing their pain and fear, I saw their protests as a nuisance on unjustified grounds. And I had failed to love them.

Not everyone agrees with this however, and it has resulted in death threats, mockery and alienation from such communities. I believe that’s because for some people, confronting such a lie costs too much; it may cast further doubt on teachings past down from parents, teachers and other authority figures and that their very identity and value as rich hard working Americans is all a façade, built on something untrue and possibly evil.

If lies from relationships hurt the most, then lies that originate from organizations, communities and systems are perhaps the most powerful. Part of this is due to our own tendency to stabilize our own belief’s systems and values and when others affirm that, we will take all the support we can get.

“Researchers have shown that we are especially prone to accepting lies that affirm our worldview. Memes that claim Obama was not born in the United States, deny climate change, accuse the U.S. government of masterminding the terrorist strikes of September 11, 2001, and spread other “alternative facts,” as a Trump adviser called his Inauguration crowd claims, have thrived on the Internet and social media because of this vulnerability. Debunking them does not demolish their power, because people assess the evidence presented to them through a framework of preexisting beliefs and prejudices, says George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist at the University of California, Berkeley. “If a fact comes in that doesn’t fit into your frame, you’ll either not notice it, or ignore it, or ridicule it, or be puzzled by it—or attack it if it’s threatening.””

Systematic lies can take years if not decades to remove but it’s possible. The fall of Nazi Germany revealed to many Germans the resulting horror and consequences of their once proud nationalistic (and false) beliefs. Nonetheless it is a challenge, but there is hope.

Jesus has confronted each of these origins of lies. He confronted each and every one of the devil’s lies about himself. He called out the lies of how relationships were ought to be between peoples of different ethnicities, institutions and class. He called out systemic lies that the Pharisees enforced upon the Jewish people. And he set them free. More will be spoken on how Jesus empowers us to spot and take on these beastly lies later.

Books to consider:

Spiritual disciplines- Recapturing the Wonder

Self-awareness-Emotionally healthy spirituality

Systemic Lies: 12 lies that hold american captive and the truth that sets us free

[1] http://www.memory-key.com/memory/emotion

[2] Cosper, Mike. Recapturing the Wonder, pg 43

[3] Cosper, Mike. Recapturing the Wonder, 15.

[4] Friedmans, self leadership link here

[zuvluguu]

Ayahuasca

THE WORD AYAHUASCA: comes from the Quecha language and means "soul plant", "death plant" or "vision plant" known by many different names from the 72 cultures that ingest Ayahuasca in Peru, Columbia and Ecuador. This legendary hallucinogen is used by Shamans to cure illnesses and to communicate with the Spirits. Various Shamans of the Rain Forest simply refer to Ayahuasca as the "cure-all". To the indigenous people, it is known as a sacred medicine that can cure all illnesses. Without a doubt, it is the most celebrated hallucinogen of the Amazon.

ACCORDING TO THE INDIGENOUS FOLKLORE: Ayahuasca is the fountain of knowledge, the best way to reveal the mythological origins of life. The anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Donatoff once wrote that to consume this spiritual drink is to become the center of the cosmos. The origin of our existence where the individual sees tribal divinities, the creation of the universe and of mankind, Adam and Eve, the creation of animals and the establishment of social order.

THE BIG CLEANING: Ayahuasca has never been used casually or for recreational purposes in the traditional societies. The Shaman, which is the person who knows how to bring out a chemical induced state of trance, guides those who wish to embark on the "search for vision". The Shaman is without a doubt, the master of ceremonies, the key figure in drinking Ayahuasca. After sunset, the bitter drink is passed in a circle from person to person, and the Shaman begins to sing or chant about the visions that they will see. When they hear the song, the participants feel a certain tingling on the lips and a burning in their stomach. A nauseating energy ill overwhelm them, and many will begin to get sick with vomiting and diarrhea (but not necessarily everyone). This is a strong and unstoppable movement of the colon that penetrates all organs passing through the intestines like a liquid laxative of the soul, cleaning the entire body of all parasites, emotional blocks, and ancient feelings of resentment. This is why the natives of the Amazon refer to the "purge" when they speak of this drink. "One cannot help but be impressed by the notable improvement in their health attributed to the purging caused by the plant", wrote the psychologist Ralph Metzner, editor of "Ayahuasca". Metzner wrote an anecdotal report of the complete disappearance of certain types of cancer after one or two sessions using Ayahuasca. The rejuvenating impact of the "purge" helps to explain the exceptional health of those who use Ayahuasca, including even the oldest people.

TRAVEL IN TIME AND SPACE: After the inevitable purge, the senses sharpen and the initiate experiences are "magnetic liberation of the whole world". After that spectacular visions are coming like a turbulent pandemonium of images that change faster than you can think. While one is under the influence of Ayahuasca, people frequently have the sensation of being separated from their bodies and catapulted into a strange area of excursion. During this trip outside of reality, marvelous sights appear and enchanting landscapes that unexpectedly give way to unsettling encounters with wild jaguars, enormous iridescent snakes, and other predator beats that will try to attack the person. William Burroughs described a sensation of flying long distances when he drank Ayahuasca during a South American expedition in 1953. "The spiritual drink is a trip in time and space", he wrote in a letter to Allen Ginsberg. The blood and substance of various races: black, Polynesian, Mongolian people of the mountains, desert nomads, Indians, new races that have never been experienced before will pass through your body, incredible trips through the mountains, deserts, and jungles... A place where the past is forgotten and the emerging future combines in a vibration without sound." It is unknown, why the visions provoked by the Ayahuasca include animals from the jungles of the Amazon. Especially when people from other continents ingest the sour tonic. Long anecdotal stories about rivers and electric radiations that illuminate the night sky are classic elements of the experience with this liquid. An indigenous said: "Always when I drink Ayahuasca I have such wonderful visions that I have to cover my eyes with my hands, because I am afraid someone would steal them.