#christian orthopraxy

[theexodvs]

In a culture that attempts to impose androgyny, growing a beard is how I take the sentiment contained in Genesis 1:27, Deuteronomy 22:5 and Mark 10:6 to its logical conclusion.

[morgenlich]

the main thing that does keep me hesitant about whether or not i have ocd is that, while i absolutely have obsessions, and they are frequent and distressing enough they significantly impact my qol and make me genuinely suicidal, i have never really had compulsions. i know there’s like a thing where you can be diagnosed w ocd when you only have the obsessions, but ehhh it at least makes me wonder how likely i am to find a therapist who will take me seriously about it

[biblebloodhound]

Victory Over the Power of Evil (Luke 4:31-37)

Even though our thinking is important and critical, there is more to it than that: Orthodoxy (right belief) requires orthopraxy (right actions).

He went down to Capernaum, a village in Galilee. He was teaching the people on the Sabbath. They were surprised and impressed—his teaching was so forthright, so confident, so authoritative, not the quibbling and quoting they were used to. In the meeting place that day there was a man demonically disturbed. He screamed, “Stop! What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what…

[loveerran]

It's important to me to remember that Jesus, the perfect Son of God, didn't fix all the problems in the world or even his own community.

And he was rejected, despised and acquainted with grief. So keep moving forward and doing what you can. All of us are needed and you do make a difference.

No offense but the internet gives you the most wrong and fucked up idea of helping people because people get mad if you don't care about disasters happening in 72 countries, meanwhile the people in real life that are doing the most good picked one VERY SPECIFIC thing to care about and care about it REALLY HARD

[n0nw0ke-gay-exs0d0m1te]

HI & WELCOME

So first, for safety & identity reasons, my name is the Gay ExS0d0m!te or u can call me that Exiled Mite or Exiled Soddi, tho I got other nicknames but for now I'll just present myself as what I just introduced myself & reason why I chose this name it's bc I'm a pick me gae jk jk but fr it's bc I'm bi(lgb & ts) actually but also a traditionalist somewhat conservative & moderate bc my beliefs don't align with the Queers(lgbtqiaa2sabc+) & I'm orthodox catholic well catholic,I'll explain in the future why I identify as orthodox catholic. & my username represents like I guess this parallelism in which my kind conservative-moderate "normal" gays & "real" transsexuals & transcums are often "exiled" from the alphabet "mafia"/circus which kinda represents how biblical figures are treated in S0d0m & G@m0rrah but also how the ABC mafia affects us as well when it comes to our faith & our religious community which separates our relationship with God(meanwhile there are progressive churches some of us prefer to follow the "true" church(es) & believe those leftist churches are heterodoxal)& all we want them is to accept us & be part of the Body of Christ which can hard bc some of us don't want the church to become a circus but also want it to be loving & understanding to us homos & cgd ppl & with this platform I want others like me who want to make a better & understanding future in our Mother & Sister churches without betraying our beliefs & be included in the House of our Lord, we can discuss & share our gay conservative & moderate views & maybe compare some liberal views to see how we can actually guide others to reconciliate their faith & sexuality or cgd, & show others that we are children of God as well as Brides of Christ & children of the Theotokos & can live morally, ethically, & gracefully with God's word & law along with humility & love, & dicuss misunderstandings & misconceptions our church leaders have about us & as well as what progressive left wing churches also get wrong, Amen.

[orthopraxchristianity]

The official website of Orthoprax Christianity.

[rue-with-the-tarot]

If you’re finding it difficult to carve out a practice for yourself, you’re just having a normal response. We were never supposed to do this. Polytheism is not an orthodoxy that we can divert to based on dogma and texts. It’s an orthopraxy, the likes of which were always intended to be practiced by the community, the polis, with the guidance of elders and experts. Because of the march of time bringing forced Christianization, colonization, and capitalism enforcing rugged individualism, we’ve been left with little choice but to carve a tiny piece for ourselves.

We’re doing fantastic, considering we’re rebuilding from the scraps and ruins of long gone empires.

[aprillikesthings]

If I can hop on, with the disclaimer that I started attending an Episcopal church four and change years ago and am very much still kind of a noob lol

The nerdier (affectionate) Episcopalians talk about this a bunch—like, wtf DOES define us?

And part of it is “via media,” aka our attempt at always being a middle way between extremes

And part of it is the “three legged stool” of scripture, tradition, and reason

But the biggest thing (imho) is the Book of Common Prayer.

And yes, nearly every church in the Anglican Communion has a different one, but they have a lot in common.

But while we argue constantly about what belongs in the BCP or doesn’t—the idea of the BCP, that worship/prayer shapes our belief, that on any given Sunday every church in a given part of our Communion is using the same opening prayer and readings—that is what unites us.

I could pop into any Episcopal church in the United States and know approximately what’s going to happen. If the bulletin says “Eucharistic prayer C” I know what the priest is going to say and what my responses are.

I’ve gone on about this before, but I also think that’s why a disproportionate number of adults who become Anglican/Episcopalian have autism or ADHD. The routine and predictability of the liturgy are a huge draw for us.

why do anglicans still exist like their entire church is built on the fact that some guy wanted a male heir. or do anglicans believe that this isn't rly why their church came about

Okay, I do love clowning on my Anglican friends, but there are a few angles (da dum tss) that we can look at in terms of why the Anglican Church is a distinctive tradition.

Theologically, the Anglican Church might have started off as "Catholic without the Pope," so to speak; the Anglican Church was essentially Gallican in nature, meaning that the head of the church wasn't the seniormost bishop, but the head of the state. But even if it started off simply being in schism with the Roman Church, it didn't take very long before Reformed theology started entering the Church through the efforts of Anne Bolelyn, Thomas Cromwell, and especially Edward VI. There were preceding documents, but the Thirty-Nine articles passed by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571 helped to solidify a distinctively Anglican identity.

But it's a little more than that, too, because in addition to this Protestantization of the Anglican Church, there have also been movements within to.... "Latinize" might be the wrong word, but to bring back some traditional Catholic elements. We see this, for example, in the Oxford movement of the 1830s; many of its members would end up converting to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, but those who remained behind started the Anglo-Catholic movement which still has a strong presence. (My girlfriend goes to an Anglo-Catholic parish, and our city has at least three other ones).

This kind of dual accommodation of Reformed and Catholic theological ideas has created a unique situation for the Anglican Church; Bishop J. Neil Alexander tries to articulate this by distinguishing the Anglican Church as a "pragmatic church," in contradistinction with "confessional churches" (Catholic & Lutheran, which focus on creeds and councils) and "experiential churches" (Baptist and other groups whose memberships require a born-again moment):

What, then, does it mean to be pragmatic? It means that within the generous capacity of the Episcopal [American Anglican] Church, we do not always agree on matters of biblical interpretation or theological definition. It means that we have all gotten here by way of hundreds of different and often unique experiences of God's presence in our lives. It means that those things which other churches depend to hold themselves together will never be a central feature of our common life. We find our life together driven by our willingness to stand together at the table of God's gracious hospitality. […] That, I believe, is the pragmatism at the heart of what it means to be an Episcopalian. We are a variegated tapestry of theology and experience, and we are all the richer for it. But no level of theological agreement or experiential commonality will ever be the basis on which Episcopalians will live together well. What is possible is that we will be pragmatic —we will keep our differences in perspective— and we will recognize that ultimately nothing will divide those who are willing to stand together before God's altar to sing, to pray, and to receive the gift of God's eternity.

Now, this is a very fascinating situation, because it means that the Anglican Church has a lot of diversity in religious thought and doctrinal opinion. On an official level, that means you will have bishops aligning with different theological orientations working side by side — and, in theory, the office of Archbishop of Canterbury is supposed to alternate between Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical holders. On a more personal level, I have found that the Episcopal clergy who I interact with have varying spiritualities and theologies; one priest I know has Catholic sympathies that are so strong that he was referred to as "the Papist" in seminary, while another clergymember I know doesn't think Confession is necessary and is ambivalent about her parish's practice of Eucharistic Adoration. And they work at the same church.

Liturgically, they are also distinctive. The current bedrock of Anglican prayer is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is clearly inspired by Benedictine spirituality, but with continuing liturgical revision and innovation that kind of fits with the 'pragmatic church' mindset explained above. Some Anglican parishes even preserve pre-Tridentine traditions (remember, they split before the Council of Trent), like the Sarum Use.

The Anglican Church has had a developing liturgical patrimony for the past five centuries; one of the reasons why the Catholic Church created the Anglican Ordinariate was because it recognized that fact, and wanted former members of the Anglican Church to be able to preserve their traditions even after re-entering communion with Rome.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, like, the Anglican Church may have started off as a more-or-less Catholic particular church that was in schism with Rome, a schism orchestrated by a king who wanted fuller control over the Church in his country, the Anglican Church has had five centuries of development. And, as much as I like to clown on my Anglican friends, I can definitely see why the Anglican communion has a deep appeal.

[skaldish]

What is Norse Heathenry?

Norse Heathenry is a contemporary pagan spirituality derived from the beliefs, customs, superstitions, and folklore of the pre-Christian Norse people. It is one of a few different kinds of Heathenries, which include Slavic Heathenry and Teutonic (Germanic) Heathenry.

The word "heathen" means "of the heaths." However, it's not a word the Old norse people themselves used. They didn't have a word for their spiritual belief system, as they didn't distinguish this from all other aspects of their lives. Rather, "Heathen" was coined by Christian writers to refer to Scandinavian pagans (this is also why it's sometimes used interchangeably with the word "heretic").

Nowadays, Norse Heathenry is referred to by many names, which reflects different developing iterations of it. Amongst these names are Norse Paganism, Asatru, and Forn Sidr / Forn Sed.

Where does Norse Heathenry come from?

Norse Heathenry comes from the Nordic countries of Europe: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. These places are also known as the homelands of the vikings. But despite their shared origins, Norse Heathenry is not the religion of the vikings. This very large misconception has a very long, complex history behind it, owed to a combination of commercialization and fascist tampering. The Heathenry we see in America is extremely muddied from these influences. Fortunately, we now have the means to disambiguate it, thanks to increasingly accessible cultural exchange.

The following explanation is a product of ongoing anthropological, theological, and cultural research, in combination with what we know about the historical.

Norse Heathen Beliefs

Unlike organized religions, Norse Heathenry is (and has always been) a decentralized belief system. This means it has no universal doctrines, no orthopraxy or orthodoxy, no holy texts, and no religious figurehead governing it. When you hear people say "There's no 'right' way to practice Heathenry," this is generally what they're referring to.

However, Norse Heathenry does have a distinct way of thinking about and viewing the world, and it's very different from what we usually see here in the US. If you're feeling stuck trying to figure out how to "do Heathenry," this would be why.

Animism

A staple of Norse Heathen epistemology is Animism.

Usually, Animism is defined as the belief that all things have a spirit or vital essence to them. But this is only one definition of many, and not the definition that applies here.

The Norse concept of Animism is "the awareness that all things are part of an interdependent ecosystem." This changes how we engage with everything around us. We understand that when we interact with the forces of this world, they will interact back on their own merit. Our relationship with all things is a social one, and we're not spectators in our environment, but active participants at all times.

This stands is stark contrast to the way the USAmericans typically view the world: As a landscape to either test or be tested by, with the forces of the world acting as the means through which this is done.

Additionally, there's no separation between the sacred and the profane.

Immanence

Faiths that focus on spiritual ascension, enlightenment, or attaining a good afterlife are known as transcendent faiths.

While Norse Heathenry has some transcendent elements, it's ultimately an immanent belief system, which means its focus is on living life for the sake of living, as opposed to living life to receive a good afterlife. A good afterlife is already guaranteed.

(Some Heathens may strive for a specific kind of afterlife, however, which do have certain conditions for accessing. But these are elective rather than required, and different as opposed to superior. It's all a matter of preference, at the end of the day.)

The Norse Gods

Many people are already familiar with the Norse gods, such as Thor, Odin, Loki, and Freyja, but not many people are familiar with how they operate as gods.

In Hellenism and Religio Romano, the gods are divine lords who preside over different domains of society. It's a reflection of what the ancient Greeks and Romans highly valued in their civilizations: Law and political/civic involvement.

In Norse Heathenry, however, gods don't operate in a lordship capacity. Instead, they're more like celebrities in that they're celebrated figures everyone knows about.

While they don't rule over one thing or another, the Norse gods often act as allegorical representations of worldly phenomena. Thor is to thunderstorms as Loki is to "random-chance odds." SIf is to wheat-fields as Odin is to the old wandering beggar. Frey and Freyja represent masculine and feminine principles, Skadi the driven snow and foggy winter, and so on. The gods exist as worldly experiences inasmuch as they exist as ideas.

Lastly, but importantly, the Norse gods don't distribute rewards or punishments in accordance with on one's actions or deeds, nor do they tell us how we ought to live our lives. The way they interact with us depends on our individual relationships with them, which can be just as diverse as the ones we have with each other.

Myths & Folklore

What people often refer to as the "Norse Myths" are stories found in two old Icelandic texts called the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. These texts are special because they're the oldest and largest collection of tales featuring the Norse deities.

However, these texts represent just one region's period-specific interpretation of Norse folklore. They also only represent a fraction of the tales that still circulate within Nordic oral traditions, so not only are they not "canon" in the usual sense of the word, they're also just a sample.

This is all to say that Norse Heathenry doesn't have a hard body of mythology. It certainly has a defined one, but its definition is built from local legends, fairy tale humor, songs, customs, superstitions, and family folklore in addition to what survives on runestones and parchment. The corpus of Heathenry is very much a living, breathing thing.

Spirits

Norse Heathenry recognizes a wide variety of different beings, the likes of which can be found all around us. Some of these beings are like how we typically imagine spirits, in that they're incorporeal or otherwordly, while others are physical but may play tricks on you so you can't see them.

Like many things pertaining to Heathenry, there isn't a universally-shared classification system for Norse beings. But generally-speaking, beings are defined by their natures and the manner in which they relate to the rest of the world, rather than their morphology. For example, Trolls can take the appearance of rocks, trees, and also living people, but they can also be incorporeal spirits. This is all, however, the same kind of Troll, rather than being different types of trolls.

This is also why the lines between "spirit", "god," and "ancestor" can become very blurry at times. In English use, these are all typically labeled under the category "vaetter." Sometimes "wight" is used to refer to spirits of various types, but isn't often used to refer to gods.

Typically, the way people interact with spirits entirely depends on what kind of spirit they're dealing with, as well as their disposition towards human beings. Some spirits may enjoy a personal relationship, while others are best when left unbothered.

Values & Morality

Because Norse Heathenry has no doctrine and is immanent in nature, it has no fixed value system. Just like the stories were decentralized, so were the Norse people's values.

This is a feature as opposed to a flaw, and a fact as opposed to a theory. But it also has a habit of making Americans very uncomfortable.

For this reason, Heathens sometimes choose to construct their own value system to observe as part of their practice. But what those values are is up to each individual, and individual community, if applicable.

Anyone claiming Norse Heathenry has a universal value system is either new to Heathenry, or selling something.

Veneration

Heathen veneration is not just limited to gods, but also includes ancestors and even certain kinds of spirits, such as nisse/tomte.

Like most things in Norse Heathenry, what, who, and how a Heathen chooses to venerate is their choice to make. One popular observance across the globe is to craft altars, shrines, or similar sacred spaces for the entities one venerates. If a Heathen lives in a house that has a nisse (similar to a gnome), they might leave porridge (with butter) by the hearth for him, and he'll in turn bless the house with good luck and fortune.

Oftentimes, relationships with entities are very interpersonal. Heathenry's animistic and immanent nature means entities are rarely cold and distant, including the gods.

Misconceptions!

A list of misconceptions off the top of my head:

The practice known as 'Odinism' is an invention of the Germanic Volkish movement, which was the social precursor to Nazi Germany. This is also, unfortunately, the first kind of "heathenry" to be brought to the US, back in the 1970's. It was spread through the country via one of the fastest-moving networks at the time: The US prison system.

The Black Sun is a Nazi symbol, not a Heathen one.

No, Norse Heathenry is not a closed practice.

No, you don't have to have Scandinavian heritage to practice Norse Heathenry. Blood quantum is not a thing.

The rune alphabets are old, but the method of runecasting is new.

So is the use of magical bindrunes.

Bindrunes are also different from Galdrastafir. The latter is actually a form of Jewish-Christian-Norse syncretism and needs to be taught orally since it's a mystery tradition. You can still slap the Helm of Awe on things and look cool about it though.

Norse Heathenry is not the same as being a viking, and Norse Heathens are not vikings. However, some Heathens partake in viking reenactment as an extension of their practice.

There's no good or bad gods in Norse Heathenry. All the gods are capable of great good and great bad, just like people. They're fallible, and that's what makes them relatable.

Odin and Loki aren't at odds with one another.

You don't need to wait for a god to pick you to start venerating them.

If you're interested in learning more about any of these in-depth, check out the website I've built on Norse Heathenry, located in my pinned post!

[starlightomatic]

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

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

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

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

[coldalbion]

Narc

"I am available to provide information or quotes to media, law enforcement, governmental, or non-governmental organizations"

Really? Good to know you'll narc on anyone and their spiritual practices if there's a buck or exposure in it for you. Mate, law enforcement could conceivably come knocking at your door in a resurgent Satanic panic, but you, a white guy in the US, are publically admitting you'll give quotes to cops because you think Vodou is uniquely responsible for human trafficking in some way, and not that folks would, and do use any particular religious, spiritual or social belief or orthopraxy as a method of social control. Again: you, an American white guy, are publicly saying you'll talk to cops about an Afrodiasporic Religion's 'role' in modern slavery, a religion practiced by millions - the majority of whom are people of colour (but not all).

Look, it's obvious you had an intense magical and spiritual experience 20 years ago. You were loud enough then about how you were thrust into a world of what you described as hostile and dangerous spirits. You were loud enough about how you believed the problems of Haiti were down to the lwa as apparently insectile-iike beings that were larva - masks of dead and ancestral people being worn by Horrible Things. You were loud enough about how you believed they sucked the souls out of people: fed on fear, pain, and suffering. You were called out for your racism then. You are being so now, by others. You won't see this, but by all the gods that ever were, mate, of course modern slavery is a problem. But its not just Vodou. There's Christian-trafficking operations, Falun Gong trafficking, etc etc. You've had a massive magical experience that's inflated some ego biases and made either personal or cultural biases come roaring out and distorted your perceptions. That shit happens. One deals with it. One processes. Or one goes full on David Icke. I believe that you believe this. I know you won't see this as anti-blackness influencing you, that you are repeating colonial propaganda. That if anything got into you, it's cultural fear of a non-western spiritual ontology has been riding you for decades. And I also know you'll see this argument as being an apologia for enslavement - that I'm in denial. I'm not. As I have said, this stuff happens. But solely focusing on Vodou, your fervour inspired by a bad magical experience 20 years ago? That's fucked up. It truly is. And then, to set yourself up as an authority. To say you'll give quotes? To media. To governments. To NGOs. To cops.

You, who set yourself up as a teacher? Who has a website that has as its banner: Unleash Your True Self.

Master Magick, Master Your Reality.

A website with "thousands of video lessons on the core teachings of the world's sacred traditions. " We know you've appeared on media, worldwide. On podcasts. On sodding Netflix. Sure. Its your business. I wonder what'd happen if the police took all the data you have on your students? This isn't sour grapes - this is pure practicality here. What would happen if folks who were quietly practing magick were outed in a hostile environment But it's OK to give statements on Vodou and slavery to the powers that be. Isn't it? Because you're saving people. People can make their own judgments. Me? I view that as fundamentally untrustworthy. I wouldn't be happy placing my undoing of standard western materialism in such hands. Like I said, there's a word for that.

[temple-of-eternal-hera]

Understanding Hellenic Polytheism: The Orthos

There are three big theological "orthos" that typically define religions. They are orthopraxy, orthodoxy, and orthopathy. Orthos is a Greek word that means "straight" and is often interpreted as "right" or "correct."

Orthopraxy means "right action" and emphasizes correct actions over belief or feeling. Hellenic Polytheism is orthopraxic - essentially holding that one's personal beliefs and feelings are irrelevant, but that performing the correct actions, both ritual and ethical, are integral to securing the blessings of the Gods and having a strong society.

Orthodoxy means "right belief" and emphasizes having the correct beliefs over feelings or actions. The Abrahamic religions are all orthodox. They require certain beliefs in order to be a practitioner: belief in one singular divinity, belief in one particular savior, belief in one particular prophet, etc. However, many orthodox religions also have orthopraxic elements. For example, a Torah-observant Jew believes in the orthopraxy of the halacha, while a Catholic believes in the orthopraxy of confession, and a Muslim must uphold the five pillars of Islam.

Orthopathy means "right feeling" and emphasizes correct feeling over actions or beliefs. Orthopathy is uncommon on its own, but is a common feature of evangelical religions, as well as new age spirituality. In many evangelical sects, you have to feel the "Holy Spirit" or you just aren't doing it right. In new age spirituality, beliefs and actions are ignored or warped to suit whatever makes the individual feel good.

This is something that can be challenging to wrap your head around as a practitioner. For me, growing up Christian, everything was orthodox. Ultimately the only thing that really mattered was a belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God and savior of the world. Prayer and adherence to orthopraxy were just a way of expressing that belief. However, the right feeling was how I knew that I was believing correctly, so that was a big feature too. The emphasis was on a "personal relationship" with Jesus, and that involved feelings and belief.

I still struggle sometimes, more with orthopathy than anything else. I find great comfort, when I'm struggling with faith, in the fact that the Gods don't give a single rat's ass if I believe in Them or not. Despite that, I frequently struggle with the idea of not being in the right mindset to "approach" the Gods. Growing up, if my mind wandered during prayer, that meant I wasn't actually focused on God, and I was being disrespectful. That leads to me not doing the right actions now, because I don't feel good enough. For example, I'll skip Hekate's Deipnon-Noumenia-Agathos Daimon because I'm not in the right mindset, even though I know that all the Gods care about is that I do the rituals, correctly, and on time.

[thegrapeandthefig]

Do you also feel that "faith" (as per the xtian definition) might be an alien concept to hellenic polytheism on some cases, amiga?

In many ways, the question comes back to the discourse around the orthopraxy of hellenic polytheism in contrast with orthodoxy.

It is alien in the sense that, unlike Christianity, there never was a formal profession of faith in ancient Greek religion and the fragmented nature of modern reconstructions don't allow for one anyway.

This will sound farfetched but I think that, when approaching this question, we need to consider the purpose of the Nicene Creed for Christians. The concept of faith (and of statement of faith) in Christianity is one that served to solve a theological conflict (cf. Arianism). The purpose was unification under a single belief: an orthodoxy.

Whereas the Greeks recognized their religion through practice. The dissonances in theology didn't matter that much. Which can very easily be seen through the many versions of myth or the different parentages gods can have from a place to another. The Greeks seem to have been very accepting of theological diversity. Pausanias is a great example of that, he will sometimes express surprise at local beliefs that he encountered but he won't consider them to be outside of the realm of "greek religion" because the rites are ones he recognizes.

I feel that maybe, we, as moderns, have simplified the term "faith" in such a way that the theological question is set aside. I think this is mostly a protestant thing, where the statement of faith is "we believe in God" (regardless of denomiation) and, unconsciously, for greek pagans: "we believe in the Theoi". Under this definition, then yes, surely there is an element of faith, in that there is a common red thread, or a trial at a sense of togetherness in an otherwise very fragmented and diverse community.

But this also begs the question of how orthopraxic is modern greek paganism, really? I don't know if I recognize my practice in the practice of someone who is, for example, a wiccan witch who worships Aphrodite. We just haven't defined anything, both in practice and in faith.

I hope this makes sense, because admitedly this is a very complex topic with many possible angles of interpretation.

[gust-jar-simulator]

I like the idea of Vio adopting some Gerudo traditions as a way of mourning Shadow and coping with his loss.

I base a lot of my Gerudo culture headcanons on ancient Egypt, even though my specialty is Mesopotamia and “ancient Egypt” is about as vague as saying “yeah I have a mammal in my house”. The time frame we’re looking at- ancient Egypt is so vast that actual ancient Egyptians had their own archaeologists studying their own past. So. Read my uncited and sleep-deprived fandom post with that in mind, and maybe go look up Hathor’s significance as a goddess of both mining and makeup, or the origin of the dog star. People seem to think Egypt was all about death.

Still, I’m here for goth blorbo posting, so talk of death it is!

For my personal headcanons, and Hyrule Historia’s debatable take on Shadow being made from Ganondorf AND Link- I think he was both an attempt at mocking Link, but also possibly an attempt to create a Gerudo hero. It must sting that not only can Ganondorf never win, but even his people suffer the short end of the stick. I’ll leave Shadow’s creation and the motives behind it up in the air, but- I do like the idea of him being somewhat racially Gerudo, if not raised in it culturally. Shadow is alone, running on emotions and instincts that might be his and might be the old hate of an endlessly reincarnated demon. His brain keeps spitting up random facts about the divine ritual significance of the king, flooding season and how to respectfully summon ghosts, and he has no idea what to do with any of this.

Until, of course, one day he brings home a cute nerdy twink to the evil castle and Shadow wants this guy’s attention So Bad. Cue poorly planned and half-understood infodumping that still earns him Vio’s complete undivided attention and possibly even cuddles. We don’t know what they were doing while Blue and Red tried not to die. Maybe they painted eachother’s nails while Shadow awkwardly coughed up random facts about Gerudo noun modifiers. (It would work on me)

Let’s fast forward.

Shadow is, for all intents and purposes, very dead by the end of things. While I love the idea of Vio descending into the guts of occult research hell to bring him back, there’s time between the end of the adventure and when- or even if- his attempts work. Research is one coping mechanism. How else does he want to remember Shadow?

Shadow wanted to be a person, above all else. Real, someone to be looked in the eye and respected. Nobody else is going to mourn him- who else would have cared enough, known him enough? The other parts of Link might try to understand for Vio’s sake, but they didn’t live it. They didn’t drink with him and toss around awful villain greetings like “vile morning your wretchedness”. The only people who don’t get graves or rites or anything are… well, being deliberately treated as less than people. And even if Shadow was a magic construct made of half a dozen things and the kitchen sink, enough of him was Gerudo for him to cling to it and say this, this is evidence that I’m a person too.

Something about the practice of religion that might not be immediately apparent to the average white American Protestant or culturally Christian atheist is that orthopraxy and orthodoxy are two different things. Correct action versus correct belief, essentially. In the ancient world, it often didn’t matter if you “believed” in a god, especially if you were in a high political position- the motions still had to be performed. It was taken as a matter of fact that the ghosts needed to be given bread and the rash on your neck was a sign of a god’s displeasure that could be interpreted via medical divination.

I’m vastly simplifying it because this is a fandom post and I’m running on two hours of sleep, so I’ll cut to the chase- it doesn’t matter if Vio “follows” the goddess of the sands or any other deity, or even none at all. If he thinks Shadow would have wanted beer and bread left out for his ghost, according to how any real person would be honored, I don’t think it’s out of the question that he might just do that. Plus, I think Vio would be invested enough in how Shadow would want his memory to be treated that he’d do the reading and maybe hop over to the Desert of Doubt to ask the Gerudo for proper funerary details in person. Again, it’s not like Shadow would have any other family or friends to fill the role.

Vio absolutely has a little sketch of Shadow in his room with a glass of water and a little plate next to it, and when Blue leaves a giant platter of stress-baked cookies outside his door he shares them with his dead boyfriend. I’m just saying. The guy may be dead but the love is not.

[atomicwitchfestival]

⭐️✨ I’m so curious!

⭐️ My earliest witchy memory is of making baskets for Beltane with my paternal grandmother, who passed away when I was in 1st grade. She was a Christian convert who never gave up her practice of folk magic. I began to practice actively myself after a near death experience in my early 20s, which also led me to Hellenic Polytheism. I have always been drawn to the focus on orthopraxy (right practice) in witchcraft and Hellenism, because I struggle with orthodoxy (right belief).

✨ I am super excited that in 2 weeks my best friend, who I met on Gaia online when we were teenagers, is flying across the country to visit for the first time ever, and we are going to do a New Moon ritual together! She’s a baby witch, and I have a bunch of little presents to give her too to help her practice.

[apenitentialprayer]

is judaism more similar to christianity or to islam

Well, this is one of those questions that won't have a clear, indisputable answer.

For example, Judaism and Islam are both alike in that they are anti-Incarnational, anti-Trinitarian faiths. They are both more similar to each other than Christianity in that they affirm the absolute Oneness of the transcendental God. (As a historical footnote, this may be why when faced with forced conversion, there are more high-profile cases of Jewish people picking martyrdom over conversion in Christian lands than in Islamic ones).

If we look at Scripture, on the other hand, Christians and Jews are much more similar. While they disagree on the interpretation of their shared texts, up to 77.4% of Christian Scripture (depending on your flavor of Christian) is also Jewish. This is strikingly different from Islam, which has its own canonical Scripture and a very ambivalent relationship with Judeo-Christian texts. Historically speaking, some Islamic scholars have been amenable to using Jewish and Christian material to better understand their own Scripture. Others have been very cautious about the so-called Isra'iliyyat, narratives from other Abrahamic traditions, seeing them as corrupt.

Judaism and Islam are also more similar in that they both focus on orthopraxy more than orthodoxy. Gershom Scholem, a leading scholar in the academic study of Kabbalah, once said that Kabbalah is the closest thing to a theology that Judaism has. At the end of the day, though, Jewish individuals have a lot of freedom in terms of what can be believed. Islam likewise has a few articles of faith, but that's also less importance. What separates different Jewish groups is more religious practice, and what separates Muslim schools of religiosity is more jurisprudence, than what separates Christians.

Or consider the doctrine of the imago Dei, which is very important to Christianity and Judaism, but is either non-existent or only occasionally acknowledged in Islam, depending on your flavor of Islam. Whereas Judaism and Christianity both affirm a likeness to God in human beings, which explains their unique status in His creation, Muslims are much more likely to emphasize God's inability to be compared to anything.

This question also ignores how Islam and Christianity are more similar to each other than they are to Judaism. Along some similarities, both are evangelical religions, seeking converts and at least in theory aiming for a world where everyone belongs to their respective religions. Both emphasize the afterlife much more than Judaism does. And while both Islam and Christianity get inculturated into specific ethnic groups, neither are ethno-religions to the extent that Judaism is (One definition of Judaism? "The -ism of the Jewish people").

One concept that really emphasizes how complex the answer to this question is? Take a look at how all three tackle this question of the Messiah. Christians and Muslims both affirm Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, while Jews do not. Jews and Muslims both view the Messiah as an establisher of an eschatological kingdom, albeit of a worldly kind; Christians focus on the eschatological aspect, and affirm that in some sense the Kingdom of Heaven is already at hand. Both Christians and Jews heavily associate the Messiah with Israel and the House of David, whereas Muslims do not. And in Islam, the Messiah isn't the sole or even most prominent champion of the cause for God — that would be the Mahdi.

Keep in mind that even with these cautious generalities, you will find contradictions to what I am saying. Each of these religious systems are incredibly diverse, and you may find other resonances and dissonances depending on which particular groups you are comparing.