#and is also an atheist:

[motley-melodrama]

:D

[afalconfromalcyoneus]

Just a reminder for the official writing team and fandom

[tritoch]

this will forever be the funniest moment in final fantasy xiv to me. you are a bright young officer of the globe-spanning evil empire. over the last few months you've watched the entire empire crumble from the edges inward after the former crown prince killed his father and seized the throne so he could redirect the state toward his own occult ends. you have witnessed unbelievable horrors. you had to kill your own family. finally, you get a chance to stand across from the man who caused all this and ask: why? what was it all for?

and he goes, uh, because i wanted to, dipshit? that's literally the only reason anyone does anything? fuck, you're stupid. if you don't believe me ask literally anyone else. or even like an alien. they'll tell you they do whatever they want for the specific reasons they made up. and like that's literally fine we're all just doing what we want for the cool made-up reasons we each picked.

then a teenager roasts him and he vanishes from history forever. you were probably the last of your countrymen to ever see or speak to him, the man who burned down everything you knew and loved for nothing at all. and like the second to last thing he ever said to you, right between imparting his existentialist philosophy and threatening to kill you, was that aliens are real. he didn't even pause, just said "go ask an alien" and went on with his speech like aliens existing was a baseline assumption everyone could agree on.

[birdofcauthon14]

With reflection on their characters, the idea that Dennis "theology major" Whitaker and Trinity "probably steeped in religious angst and probably has a dozen theses about Stupid Catholic Bullshit because she's literally named Trinity" Santos have the highest likelihood of the newbies of becoming work siblings is, theologically speaking, kind of hilarious.

[bonefall]

Splashtail and Atheism

Hello. I am an Atheist and I call Splashstar an Atheist because he is based on widespread bigoted depictions of godless people like myself. There have now been several posts about this written as if they're trying to "correct a misconception," and I am tired of vagueposts completely missing the point of the criticism to get caught up on arguing semantics.

The misanthropic, god-hating "Atheist" character in Christian propaganda, which I feel Splashstar has some alarming similarities with, does not come from the writer's correctable "misconception" of irreligious labels. It is born from a hatred of nonbelievers.

Specifically, my point that Splashtail is a mashup of two popular anti-secular tropes common in religious media;

The assertion that there's no such thing as a "real" nonbeliever, and that Atheists are just "rebelling" against God because we're mad at him, want to do bad things without guilt, or have "lost our way."

The belief that morality itself stems from faith in a higher moral being, asserting that the irreligious are "evil" in contrast to the faithful.

Even passing familiarity with the arguments of Christian apologia seen in Chick Tracts, Pureflix films, PragerU videos, and so on, will have put these tropes in front of you. They are false and harmful, and they target Atheists.

For more on this, TVTropes has an entire article dedicated to the Hollywood Atheist and its sub-tropes. Note how many of these Curlfeather and Splashtail fall into, regardless of if you're arguing that they are "real atheists" or not.

Those that hate us do not care about semantic labels. To them, we are without God, A-Theistic, and they do not actually care what is at the core of your beliefs if it contradicts their narrative.

But, even worse, the "Splashtail Can't Be An Atheist" crowd isn't even totally correct on the semantics they're trying to have a pedant battle about.

Most atheistic organizations and online atheists define Atheism as "one who does not believe in God" and attempt to push a sliding scale of "agnosticism" on how hard of a "maybe" you're feeling about your lack of faith. In the sliding agnostic scale, Agnostic Atheists are a "probably no god" and Gnostic Atheists are a "definitely no god." Others describe that scale as "hard" and "soft" Atheism-- but there is NOT universal agreement on that definition.

There other definitions of an "Atheist," and even those who reject the "agnostic scale" completely (I am one of them). "Atheism" was historically the catch-all term for what we might now call "Irreligious," and more.

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy explores its many meanings, and proposes that what defines an Atheist is an active choice to distance oneself from faith; "Someone who rejects the premise of gods either based on lack of belief, or meaninglessness of the question." Matt Dillahunty, a prominent educator and activist, intentionally refers to himself as an Atheist when others (including religious people!) have tried to pressure him into using the label Agnostic, for reasons he covers in great depth. Historically, "atheist" simply meant anyone who denied the gods or acted impiously, evolving into use as a broad label for irreligious practices around the 1500s, until attempts to narrow it to "nonbelievers in deities" in the 1800s.

By EoP's expanded definition alone, Splashstar qualifies as an Atheist. The rejection does not have to come from a belief that Theism is false, but that the question is meaningless. He doesn't have to "believe" in StarClan any more than you have to "believe" in a total stranger. He rejects faith in it and lives without their influence.

But even more than that, "atheist" is a broad, stigmatized term with a history you can't erase. Hundreds of combinations of philosophies, spiritual beliefs, and logical positions have been called "Atheism."

"Atheist" can refer to Agnostics (those who aren't sure if there is a god or not), Antitheists (opposition to the belief in and/or worship of gods), Igtheists (those that feel that "god" is such a nebulous term that the question of belief is meaningless), Apatheists (people who just don't care), practitioners of Non-Deistic religions (such as Humanistic Judaism and some sects of Buddhism), and even heretics who spoke against religion like Diagoras of Melos (gay guy who chopped up a statue of hercules and used it to bake beans. king.)

In a fantasy universe where gods are provably, visibly real, the term "Atheist" is going to look a lot more like those historic and expansive uses.

Unless you want to argue that "atheism" by the narrow, popular definition of "believing in deities" can't exist in such a setting. So, arguing that Cloudtail stopped being an Atheist when he saw demons in OotS, in spite of this not affecting his spiritual practices. Or, dancing around using one uniting term, you could specifically say Curlfeather is a Misotheist, Splashstar is an Antitheist or Agnostic, Mothwing is Deist, etc.

You could have a discussion about how applicable these words even are in the setting. Or make up terms that satisfy yourself. You could do this forever. But I choose not to.

I think it's counterproductive to push people to learn a bunch of terms for hyperspecific branches of irreligious philosophy just to discuss clear anti-secular sentiment within the text of a book, actually. Or push people to abandon a useful word because fantasy isn't exactly the same as real life. Functionally, imo, all of those aforementioned cats are Atheists within this setting, living "without god" by rejecting belief-- and many of them invoke real world bigotry, with tropes much older than WC itself.

So the simple fact is; Calling Splashtail an "Evil Atheist" immediately communicates the narrative tropes I am criticizing.

Either by authorial accident or on purpose, Splashstar's lack of morality being tied to his rejection of StarClan invokes the demonized atheist trope, very much like the ones seen in PureFlix's God's Not Dead or Jack Chick's The Last Generation.

All the arbitrary wishing that the terms were more narrow and exclusive will not change the reality that those characters are intended by bigots as atheists. The terms of the discussion reflect that. Trying to tut-tut the fandom for calling a spade a spade is a smug way to phrase you completely missed the damn point.

[genderkoolaid]

nations which pride themselves on their secularity when you ask them which "God" they are asking to bless their country:

[redheadedbrunette]

If you say "religion and science are contradictory" I don't trust your opinion on either

[onyx-plutos-moon]

Being a big fan of Grace Chasity and NPMD when coming from a very atheist area is sorta weird, like I'm missing two thirds of the subtext because it's stuff I've never been exposed to. I don't know anyone who goes to church on Sunday, the only prayers we did at school were cultural ans mostly for food.

I am missing so much about that show which sucks and it's just because I have no like, real concept of how Christianity works because I've never been around it.

I need someone who understands Grace's character a lot more than me to watch npmd with me and explain all yhe subtext I'm missing

[universe-prime]

"Do not be afraid...I am here."

If you like Click-Clack or any other transformers oc I've made, then THIS is the guy you ought to thank for them existing LOL

Meet Origin~! My first ever fella I've ever made for transformers...he's gone through a LOT of different looks, a lot of different backstories, but he's still stuck with me through the ages and I've never had the heart to really let him go. You might be seeing him a lot more now thanks to a👀 certain shark👀 trying to kill him, but for now here's some more doodly propaganda

[cassatine]

my conclave review i guess! i was going to gush in chat but then. too many words.

so literally all i knew about it going in was (1) a cardinal vapes in it (2) probably it's about a conclave?? (3) good vibes according to dashboard osmosis. the cinematography was a+, which i always appreciate. i liked that on one level it's a perfect comedy, really fucking funny in a sort of understated way. the beginning kinda reminded me of the death of stalin, what with the inciting event being the guy at the top of the hierarchy dying… somehow excellent comedy setup. at the very beginning, when lawrence & co struggle a bit to take the ring off the pope's corpse and it's all so ritualized, that's when i knew it was going to be Funny.

but beyond the fact that it was funnier than i expected... i liked the layers. most of all i think i liked the earnestness. ralph fiennes mid-crisis of faith, hating his job, trying to be a moral man in a system that is broken?? chef's kiss. the other cardinals of note were also nicely layered, like adeyemi? it would have been so easy to just stop at his being homophobic and treat his having had a kid being revealed as comeuppance but the way he cries and asks lawrence to pray with him… he sucks and it's a good thing he's taken off the race but it also happens for the wrong reason. bellini who's lying to himself and everyone else over not wanting to be the pope when he so clearly does and still letting himself be bought by the promise of a nice post… and yet he is not just an hypocrite. he sees he failed. he apologizes. he is only human. tedesco could have been a one note villain but he's the coolest dude around, and on a fundamental level that's part of what makes him dangerous: he's a reactionary and a bigot but he makes it kinda sexy. you want to like him; he's fun to watch and he has style, something the other cardinals probably wouldn't recognize if it hit them in the face. benitez. well. benitez is jesus. sister agnes was neat, it's a bit sad we don't really get to know her but she's indispensable and i love that for her. like. here's a bunch of dudes with all the decisional power who expect her to just exist in the background doing the menial work and then her printer expertise ends up being vital, and in general lawrence wouldn't have managed as well without her support… noice.

the end feels a bit easy, like lbr benitez being elected pope because he made a nice speech is ludicrous, but also… it works for me?

(1) on some level the film is about the difficulties of trying to be a moral person in a system that does not reward being moral. sure it's about faith and doubt and the limitations of organized religion. it's about catty bitches vying for power in a ritualized way that, on some level, speaks of an institution that ossified, that resists change (and on that note: benitez, obviously-the-best candidate only gets elected because people skirt the isolation rules, because the outside world intrudes. also because he is jesus.) it's stated near the beginning that the pope hadn't lost faith in god but in the church, and through the movie we can see why, all the machinations and the thirst for power and the fallibility of the men within the institution. through lawrence we see how much easier it would be to just… stop trying, to do the convenient thing, the easy thing, rather than the right thing, and to find justifications for that: better not make waves and better not make a scandal, for the sake of electing a blandly liberal pope rather than tedesco. and who would disagree? sure, better a bland liberal than reactionary tedesco. but then comes the ethical quandary: should the goal of avoiding one evil mean closing your eyes to another? should you forsake your sense of right and wrong for the greater good? too often i think we are told to prioritize the greater good, and maybe sometimes we should. but maybe sometimes we shouldn't. maybe sometimes we should hold to our principles. in the end, benitez being elected pope isn't going to miraculously make the catholic church and its agents unproblematic. but it is a win, and it happens because lawrence kept choosing to do (what he believes is) the right thing, the moral thing, even when it's not easy, even when it's inconvenient, even when he's told he's being naive and hurting the greater cause. and i appreciate that message.

(2) as i said: benitez is jesus. the film is a parable… it's a story about how jesus showed up, completedly unexpected, in the middle of the church his disciples built, and because the church is made up of people and people are flawed and faillible and too busy with things like power, they did not notice jesus walking among them. at least not until god (metaphorically) shone a light on him. like yes sure the way benitez ends up the one elected is ludicrous but!! it took an act of god. not the bombs per se. but the tragedy of it intruding into the isolated conclave? the windows exploding, the light coming in, this is what allows the true stakes to become clear again, and for benitez's love thy neighbour speech to take place at all - a speech contrasted with tedesco's own, all the style stripped from him, making it clear he is a man who reaches for hate and not compassion. it's a parable!! it takes a tragedy. it takes an act of god.

[tacticalfiend]

I really love how the reveal about the origins of the gods in Pillars intertwines the games two major themes so perfectly. The game is obviously very concerned with religion and the role it plays in people's lives. It can provide the devout with a sense of purpose, a moral compass, rules to live by, and comfort... With the knowledge that the gods are manmade, Pillars is stating that morality and purpose (and religion) are also manmade. These things come from humanity, even the metaphysical and spiritual is something we create and perpetuate. But the gods aren't just manmade, they are the final and most lasting legacy of the Engwithans, created with their souls. Literally a tangible manifestation of the past controlling and haunting the present. the gods aren't "real" in that their history is fake. They covet the past and mythologize it.

[hazel2468]

I got Very Yelled At when I said that Christmas is not and never will be a secular holiday but like.

What are you celebrating on December 25th?

"Oh, well, it's a time for people to come together with their families and-"

What are you celebrating on December 25th?

"You don't need to make it religious, you can just enjoy the holiday energy-"

There is nothing secular about a Santa hat. It is about Christmas. CHRISTmas. Because- what are you celebrating on December 25th?

"It's a holiday about universal joy and love and peace and-"

My people have an entire tradition centered around staying inside on Christmas Eve because we get FUCKING POGROMED so often on that day. This is NOT a day of universal peace and love. Also-

WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING CELEBRATING ON DECEMBER 25th?

The answer is the birth of Jesus. You can make your trees and garlands and hats as blue and white as you want. You can call it a "Channukah hat" all you want. Those things are about Christmas, not Channukah. And with Christmas approaching, I'm surrounded by people insisting that Christmas is secular now and it's "just the winter holiday".

I hate how Christianity is so much the norm in America that it is basically divorced from being "religious" at all. Christianity is seen as being irreligious and "normal" to the extent that if you point out that CHRISTmas is not secular. You get a bunch of people yelling at you that yes it is shut up.

[deservedgrace]

i really do think something a lot of people (especially christians) don't understand is that atheism only answers one question: do you believe god(s) exist? atheism says nothing about ideology or beliefs held, it's simply an answer to that one question. the only thing you know for sure two atheists have in common is that they both don't believe in the existence of gods. there are atheist scientists and there are atheists that are anti-science. there are lgbtq atheists and there are anti-lgbtq atheists. there are right wing atheists and left wing atheists. "atheists believe [xyz]" is almost always nonsensical because atheism is not an ideology with things to believe in. "atheists believe in science" is just as true as "atheists don't believe in science" because atheism answers ONE question and people with all kinds of ideologies and beliefs and identities are atheists.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

guy who so desperately tries to find god. who wants to have faith in a higher authority to guide him out of the hole he's in. from the weight of guilt from simply existing, as the person he is. but every time he thinks he's answered his higher calling it turns out he's made the Morally Incorrect choice and his path to goodness and holiness was the road to the devil all along

[menlove]

the way this website balks at the term "culturally christian" is so funny to me like. oh shit you mean the religion our government and culture is structured around might impact you even if you're atheist and ESPECIALLY if you're ex-christian? noooo it's the people using it to describe a phenomenon of western culture that are wrong

[zephyr-ocs]

First Impressions, Pete's POV There's only one person allowed to mansplain zombie movies to cute girls and it's Pete DiNunzio