#doctrinal statements

[roses-red-and-pink]

Lolol sometimes it’s so funny reading peoples posts about “Mormon” theology that is based on Exmo stories, tradition/culture but not doctrine, and like random statements by some church leader 200 years ago that was not put into doctrine/canonized, or that he was corrected/reprimanded on, and all of us look back on like “well that guy was racist/sexist. Anyways moving on…” like tbh it just makes me laugh. Like I know our theology is a bit different than mainstream Christianity but y’all don’t need to make it sound like we are out here truly believing half the stuff you say about us.

[thatneoncrisis]

idk just like. the core concept of treating a group like a monolith will be the death of us all. "this isnt what the lesbians of old would want for us" even if that mythical group had only the best of intentions and zero infighting of their own goals and personal pursuits which is fucking impossible because its a group of people larger than 2 of various backgrounds, who gives a FUCK what they wanted. my goal as a lesbian is to love women. thats it. my goal as a human being is to alleviate the suffering of others and that INCLUDES trans women, i do not give a single FUCK if it wasnt on the Official Lesbian Docket of 1962

[asinglesock]

they got me again and they probably can always get me again

[absolute-immunities]

🥲

[grassangel]

"The novels are narrated by two half-brothers in alternating first-person point of view. In many ways, these characters are broken. Mildmay the Fox is a cat-burglar and ex-assassin. Felix Harrowgate is a gay wizard and former child prostitute. Monette’s series explores the reality of abuse and recovery.

It’s a great set up to explore queer identities. Queerness is not new to Monette’s writing. She has been queering the fantasy and horror genres since the lesbian relationship she featured in “Three Letters from the Queen of Elflands.”. In fact, she lists heteronormativity as a trope she refuses to write into her fantasy novels. As Monette explained in an interview with ofblogspot, “Felix is a campaign against heteronormativity all on his own.”"

[theconfusedartist]

I love it when I use the "lied" dialogue tag

Bc the character knows they're lying, the Reader knows they're lying, but the other characters don't know! they aren't privy to that information!

[theragamuffininitiative]

Today at church was the first time since I started attending that alarm bells went off with something that was said. I learned Several Big Things about myself and about this church tradition and (weirdly) about the history of canonizing Scripture today, but it was one quote from Augustine in particular that I disagree with. (If interested, see his commentary on the parable of the wheat and the tares, and how he defines the wheat and tares and their outcome.) The weird thing is, this goes against the church's founding doctrine too so I'm going to have to figure out if the preacher misspoke or if this is a genuine disagreement I have with their teaching....in which case I could find myself back at square one again in finding a church. I was finally starting to not be waiting for "the other shoe to drop" and now I feel like I may have heard it hit the floor across the room.

But, yeah, part of today was discovering I'm at a place where I'm no longer just hearing primary biblical scholars quoted but able to go "Actually, Augustine, I disagree with you there." Which is also an interesting personal development. XD

[seekingtheosis]

Defending the Divinity of Christ: The Church's Battle Against Arianism - Part 4

Discover how the early Church defended the divinity of Christ against Arianism. Learn about Arian beliefs, the Nicene Creed, and key Church Fathers who safeguarded orthodox Christian doctrine.

In the name of God the Father, Christ Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit, One True God. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus In the previous blog, we delved into the early heretical movement of Gnosticism, a significant threat to early Christian doctrine. Gnosticism’s emphasis on secret knowledge, dualism, and a distinct interpretation of Christ’s nature prompted the Church to…

[opencommunion]

The Stop Cop City movement has sought to prevent the expropriation of part of the Welaunee Forest for the development of an 85-acre police mega training center: a model town to prepare the state’s repressive arms for the urban warfare that will ensue when the contradictions of their exploitation and extraction become uncontainable, as they did in 2020 after the APD murdered Rayshard Brooks.  That murder, and all those that came before, were the lodestars of the Black-led movement during the George Floyd uprisings; their demands were no less than the dismantlement of the entire carceral system. Unable to effectively manage or quell the popular street movements, the Atlanta Police Foundation set out to consolidate and expand their capabilities for surveillance, repression, imprisonment, armed violence, and forced disappearance. One result is Cop City, which has been racked by militant sabotage, land occupation, arson, and popular mobilizations, in an attempt to end the construction and return Atlanta to its people.  As the Atlanta Police Foundation was unable to contain the 2020 Black rebellion, so too have they been unable to quell the resistance against Cop City. The press reports that the project is hemorrhaging money and is mired in delays and difficulties. For their part, the city, the state, and the federal government, have in turn employed every tool in their power to destroy the movement. Last week, the Georgia State Senate passed a bill to effectively criminalize bail funds in the state; RICO charges have been contorted to target networks of support and care that surround the fighters; and last January, APD assassinated the comrade Tortuguita in cold blood while they rested in their tent in the forest. It is clear that Stop Cop City represents one of the conjunctural spear tips for expanding the existing systems of counterinsurgency that span Africa, Asia, and the Arab world.  Today the system’s belly rests atop Gaza, whose rumblings shake the earth upon which we walk. Through its Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, the APD has sent hundreds of police to train with the Zionist occupation forces. And in October 2023, after Tufan al-Aqsa, the Atlanta Police Department engaged in hostage training inside abandoned hotels, putatively intended to “defeat Hamas,” in an advancement of tactics for the targeting of Black people. With every such expansion, the ability of counterinsurgency doctrines to counteract people’s liberation struggles grows. The purpose of counterinsurgency is to marshal state and para-state power into political, social, economic, psychological, and military warfare to overwhelm both militants and the popular cradle—the people—who support them. Its aim is to render us hopeless; to isolate and dispossess us and to break our will to resist it by any and all means necessary. This will continue apace, unless we fight to end it. Stop Cop City remains undeterred: on Friday, an APD cop car was burnt overnight in response to the police operation on February 8; yesterday, two trucks and trailers loaded with lumber were burnt to the ground. An anonymous statement claiming credit for the former, stated: “We wish to dispel any notion that people will take this latest wave of repression lying down, or that arresting alleged arsonists will deter future arsons.”  As the U.S. government and Zionist entity set their sights on the Palestinian people sheltering in Rafah, as they continue their relentless genocide of our people in Khan Younis, Jabalia, Shuja’iyya, and Gaza City, the Stop Cop City movement has clearly articulated its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. They have done so with consistency and discipline, and we have heard them. Our vision of freedom in this life and the next requires us to confront and challenge the entangled forces of oppression in Palestine and in Turtle Island, and to identify the sites of tension upon which these systems distill their forces. This week, as with the last three years, the forest defenders have presented us one such crucible.

(11 Feb 24)

National Lawyers Guild, Stop All Cop Cities: Lessons For a National Struggle (video, 1 hr 45 min)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Word List: Hannibal

Aperitif - an alcoholic drink taken before a meal as an appetizer

Assiduous - showing great care, attention, and effort; marked by careful unremitting attention or persistent application

Calumniation - to utter maliciously false statements, charges, or imputations about

Castigation - to subject to severe punishment, reproof, or criticism

Commove - to move violently; agitate; to rouse intense feeling in; excite to passion

Cozen - to deceive, win over, or induce to do something by artful coaxing and wheedling or shrewd trickery

Dissentient - expressing dissent (i.e., to withhold assent or approval; or differ in opinion)

Fabulist - a creator or writer of fables; liar

Heterodox - holding unorthodox opinions or doctrines; unconventional

Immurement - to enclose within or as if within walls; imprisonment

Intemperance - lack of moderation

Internecine - deadly; mutually destructive

Inveigle - entice; to acquire by ingenuity or flattery

Mythomania - an excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating

Outré - violating convention or propriety

Palter - to act insincerely or deceitfully

Parlous - full of danger or risk; obsolete: dangerously shrewd or cunning

Phantasmagoria - a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined; a bizarre or fantastic combination, collection, or assemblage

Recondite - difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend

Rufous - reddish

Sanguinary - bloodthirsty, murderous

Schism - separation; disharmony

Soigné - well-groomed, sleek; elegantly maintained or designed

Sybarite - voluptuary (i.e., a person whose chief interests are luxury and the gratification of sensual appetites); sensualist (i.e., one who is persistent or excessive in their pursuit of sensual pleasures and interests)

Truculent - deadly, destructive

More: Word Lists

[thoughtsandfiction]

"God?! Are we looking for God, Claudia??!"

Louis belittles Claudia out of pettiness and anger, but the statement has a biting edge to it because, for all his protestations, Louis has his dark "God." Lestat's entry into Louis's life is almost biblical. (He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters........the LORD supported me. He led me to a place of safety; he rescued me because he delights in me.- Psalm 18:16-18). Louis (freely??) turned away from his life and gave it to the higher power of vampirism and immortal love. Lestat gave him a doctrine to live by-that he fell short of- and that provided the questions, struggles, and shames of his new existence. He has betrayed "god" through his acts, but "god" has not abandoned him. The covenant made in that burning bloody church remains ("Be my companion Louis...For all eternity"). For now, it must be upheld in the spirit until the flesh returns.

“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."- Deuteronomy 31:8

Hallucistat/Dreamstat is Louis's guilt, his love, his self-hate, but he is also Louis's faith. He is keeping the covenant. We know that his nihilistic declaration that "Nobody's watching, Nobody cares," is a lie. We know that ,in his mind, Lestat cares. Lestat is watching, Lestat is passing judgement, and Lestat is awaiting the moment of Louis's happiness to strike down with righteous vengeance. Louis awaits the moment of his resurrection with fear, but he knows it's coming. For even dark gods must return to their faithful.

Watching Claudia light up as Daciana describes the future they could have, the hope as the dream is painted for her, the jaded woman we've been watching throughout the episode disappears and she's like a child again, which makes the heartbreak that follows so much more devastating. When Louis makes his impassioned speech of commitment, that child is who hears it. Romania has broken her down and brought her to a place where she has to allow herself to trust him again, to let him be enough because he's all she has. Likely, all she'll ever have. And some part of him pities her for that because she's trusting in a lie. It will never be just her and him, him and her. She will never be enough. Louis has 'god', and his 'god' is ever present.

Image Source: @samchilles on Twitter/X

[metamatar]

So the real crime of fascism was the application to white people of colonial procedures "which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the 'c***s' of India, and the 'n***s' of Africa." (p. 36) Here we must situate Cesaire within a larger context of radical black intellectuals who had come to the same conclusions before the publication of Discourse.

As Cedric Robinson argues, a group of radical black intellectuals,including W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R James, George Padmore, and Oliver Cox, understood fascism not as some aberration from the march of progress, an unexpected right-wing turn, but a logical development of Western Civilization itself. They viewed fascism as a blood relative of slavery and imperialism, global systems rooted not only in capitalist political economy but racist ideologies that were already in place at the dawn of modernity. As early as 1936, Ralph Bunche, then a radical political science professor at Howard University, suggested that imperialism birth to fascism. "The doctrine of Fascism" wrote Bunche, "with its extreme jingoism, its exaggerated exaltation of the state and its comic-opera glorification of race, has given a new and greater impetus to the policy of world imperialism which had conquered and subjected to systematic and ruthless exploitation virtually all of the darker populations of the earth." Du Bois made some of the clearest statements to this effect: "I knew that Hitler and Mussolini were fighting communism, and using race prejudice to make some white people rich and all colored people poor. But it was not until later that I realized that the colonialism of Great Britain and France had exactly the same object and methods as the fascists and the Nazis were trying clearly to use." Later, in The World and Africa (1947), he writes: "There was no Nazi atrocity-concentration camps, wholesale maiming and murder, defilement of women or ghastly blasphemy of childhood which Christian civilization or Europe had not long been practicing against colored folk in all parts of the world in the name of and for the defense of a Superior Race born to rule the world. The very idea that there was a superior race lay at the heart of the matter, and this is why elements of Discourse also drew on Negritude's impulse to recover the history of Africa's accomplish ments. Takirng his cue from Leo Frobenius's injunction that the "idea of the barbaric Negro is a European invention," Cesaire sets out to prove that the colonial mission to "civilize" the primitive is just a smoke screen. If anything, colonialism results in the massive destruction of whole societies-societies that not only function at a high level of sophistication and complexity, but that might offer the West valuable lessons about how we might live together and remake the modern world.

Robin DG Kelley's A Poetics of Anti Colonialism, published as introduction to a new edition of Aime Cesaire's Discourse on Anti Colonialism

[shares-a-vest]

It’s that time of year again. The Australian football season is in full swing so it’s my designated time to write. But PLOT TWIST! I have found myself, ahem… enjoying watching the sportsballmen sporting. Please keep me in your thoughts during this difficult time (or maybe read this projection onto Eddie).

-🏈🏈🏈-

“But, what about the foo-”

Eddie claps a hand over his mouth to stop himself from finishing that sentence. Something he should have never uttered in the first place. A statement that goes against the Munson Doctrine – and everything he ever uttered in gym class.

But it’s too late because Steve has frozen in place, one hand on his car keys still dangling by the hook near the front door, his other hand fisted into his Member’s Only jacket.

Eddie stills, his shoulders tensing up as he watches Steve slowly turn around, leaving his keys hanging and his jacket a-dangling off one arm.

Steve quirks a brow.

“Huh?” he says, feigning confusion as a sly smile tugs at the corner of his pretty mouth.

Eddie scrubs a hand over his face and sighs. His boyfriend is really going to torture him over this, isn’t he?

“Nothing,” he shrugs and rocks back on his heels.

“I said…” Steve begins as he takes a step forward, “We should go grab dinner…”

“Uh-huh,” Eddie nods, folding his arms now as Steve moves closer – a protective shield that is completely useless when confronted with the flashiest of shit-eating grins.

“But then you said…”

Steve raises his eyebrows expectantly and adds a winding hand gesture that Eddie supposes is meant to get him to admit to the thing he just mighta-sorta said, but not technically finished saying…

“I didn’t say anything,” he blatantly lies, shaking his head so much that he can feel his hair swishing about.

“It sounded like…” Steve teases as his big, strong and utterly irresistible hands come to rest on his shoulders, “You wanted to stay home and watch football.”

He quickly follows up with a gasp and bites his bottom lip just to be an even bigger nightmare and goddamn it! he looks so cute and Eddie wants to see him do that at least three more times as soon as possible.

Eddie sighs. He can feel his lip quivering as Steve looks him up and down, blushing like he has just been let in on the world’s biggest secret.

Something Eddie didn’t know himself until like, two minutes ago.

He scrunches his nose.

“Stevie,” he warns.

Steve holds up his pinky finger.

“Won’t tell a soul,” he giggles, wiggling that stupid, not-so-little finger in total knowing condescension.

Eddie captures the digit in his hand and presses a kiss to the tip of it.

“Let’s…” he spits, holding on for dear life.

“Watch the game?” Steve beams, all giddy and proud.

[asinglesock]

incredibly rude of this word to mean "receive in full" in the active voice but "abstain from" in the middle voice.

[lets-try-some-writing]

What does Ultra Magnus's funeral plan for Kids includes? 😂 Is it based on Cypertron or Earth customs? UM's search history looks very worrisome, "How to bury a dead child?". Ultra Magnus has funeral folder for each kid.

Ultra Magnus's plans for each of the children varies wildly between all three of them. He has not told anyone about his funeral plans, but the team know he has them stored away somewhere and have helped him work on them in quiet ways. His plans are as follows:

Jack

According to Earth customs, Jack still being a minor, is to have all of his inheritance go straight to his creator for her to handle. Aside from that and the legal hassle, according to the laws of Cybertron, Jack is also to receive additional honors in the event of his death.

As a chosen Herald of a Prime, in the event of his death, he is to be given religious honors and buried on Cybertron's holy grounds. Or barring that, his frame is to be melted, or in this case burned and turned into an ornament that the reigning Prime may wear on his frame. This way the Herald may serve eternally, at least according to religious doctrine. His remaining family is to be given a singular wish within reason to be granted as payment for his service.

Ultra Magnus made some additional notes in response to Jack's habits. That being that Jack's body will need to be cleaned out by humans before funeral handling since no Cybertronian in their right mind will want to run that kind of mortuary work. His body is to also be dressed as the humans see fit before being fitted with ritualistic armor, as is only proper according to the Primacy.

Miko

In accordance to Earth customs, Miko's body will go back to her family for a limited time so that they might settle her affairs. But in the event of her death, that mourning period will only be permitted for so long. As a Wrecker, Miko's body must undergo the correct Cybertronian rituals.

Her body is to be cleaned and then a badge of honor laid over her chest. From there, the Wreckers who mentored her, worked with her, or had direct interactions with her are to give her a funeral rite that they feel fitting with their knowledge of her personality. In this case, all control over her funeral rites falls to Bulkhead and Wheeljack. Ultra Magnus got their statements and according to them, the only end they find fitting for her is simple.

Wheeljack has stated that for a Wrecker like Miko, she should go out with a bang and have a pyre built and laced with explosives. Her body can then be lain on it and join the flames. Bulkhead suggested instead having her body preserved within Cybertronian crafted armor in order to honor her warrior's spirit. Those two ideas are likely to be combined in spectacular fashion if and when she dies.

Rafael

In accordance with human customs, Rafael's body will be entirely returned to his family, except for one key component. All his affairs will be handled by his human family due to his youth and position, but there is one small Cybertronian addition that must be seen to.

Rafael doesn't know. Ratchet doesn't know. Not even Bee knows. But in order to protect Rafael and give him proper honors, he is listed as a Cybertronian special agent on record. His name is Redacted and all information on him is carefully secured. According to Cybertronian tradition and law, when a special agent dies on a foreign world, a piece of their frame is to be returned and added to the hall of the fallen faceless.

Very few are allowed into that hall, and only there will his identity be revealed for the correct parties to see. That way he will be forever remembered, but in a way that won't compromise those closest to him. It was Optimus's suggestion to list him as an agent, and so in the event of his death, an officer is to retrieved some core part of Rafael, be it his heart or his brain, to be turned into a gemstone and preserved.

Ultra Magnus is prepared for their deaths. He knows fleshies don't last long.

[thevalleyisjolly]

There’s something really fascinating about the different ways in which the Hungry One is understood and conceptualized in Calorum.  In the Bulbosi Church, it’s characterized as an apocalyptic Satan-figure, the cause of suffering in the world and the thing that will one day come to devour everything just because that’s what it does.  Where things really get interesting is in the different sects within and around the Church.  Adherants of the Ramsian Doctrine, for example, believe that it is necessary for the Hungry One to devour the world so that the Bulb can triumph over it - and they believe that the Hungry One will not devour the world so long as it contains “junk food.”  In a similar manner, the Prophidian Heresy and the FDA believe that the Hungry One will not devour the world if it is full of waste -only the FDA consider waste to be general rot and decay rather than the Candians specifically, misanthropy vs xenophobia GO- and that this is therefore the key to preventing the destruction of the world. 

Within the FDA and the Prophidian Heresy, there’s also an intriguing link between body and soul that contradicts mainstream Bulb theology.  Whereas most of the Church believes in a rigid delineation between body and soul, that after death, the body returns to the ground and the soul (if it is not damned) goes to the Bulb, the FDA’s plan of filling the world with rot and decay so that the Hungry One will not devour it suggests, quite radically, that the body just as much if not more so than the soul is what the Hungry One devours.  Mainstream Bulbians believe the stomach of the Hungry One is Hell for damned souls who do not go to the Bulb - the FDA seems to believe that the state of the material is just as important to the Hungry One as the metaphysical and that large enough volumes of rotting decay (which could also be the moral decay that comes with actions in war, but in this case the FDA themselves have the most rotten souls of all) can keep this Devil-figure from consuming anything, regardless of the state of the soul.

On a different level, with Karna, we find the idea that the Hungry One is not just a powerful over-arching entity but rather something which people can relate to and personally interact with.  When Karna kills Sir Drunon and the woman, she takes part of their bodies and burns them “in offering” to the Hungry One.  As the audience, we know that Karna is mechanically a warlock of the Hungry One, with the specific subclass of The Great Old One.  Combined with the offering, the characterization of the Hungry One is as an active, powerful being who, to some degree, can engage with people personally.  Not necessarily in a reciprocal way -you can burn an offering as a sign of respect or acknowledgement without any expectation of receiving something in return- but people like Karna can and do engage with it on an individual and personal level.  Given the fact that when she kills, a new rotten spot appears on her body, it suggests that her relationship to the Hungry One does, in some part, go both ways, that there is something on the other side receiving her votives and responding to them.

Also fascinating to observe, when she kills Sir Drunon, she says “We are all eventual food in the maw of the Hungry One,” and immediately thereafter as she kills the woman he’s with, “I’m sorry, but we are all eventual waste.”  This presents another perspective on the relationship between the Hungry One and the concept of waste. In contrast to the FDA or the Ramsian Doctrine, which believe that the Hungry One won’t devour the world if it is full of waste or junk, Karna’s statements suggest that the process of dying inherently involves becoming waste - and that the Hungry One will still eat that waste nonetheless. 

Then there’s Cumulous and his specific monastic tradition (which is not actually one and the same as the Order of the Spinning Star because it’s stated that there are monks in the Order who draw power from the Bulb; overall, the Order seems to be more an organization of people dedicated to the same goal rather than a religious enclave of people with the same spiritual beliefs).  In ACOC, the first thing Cumulous ever says is, “The Hungry One must feed.”  It’s an interesting phrasing because there’s a very passive connotation - not “The Hungry One must consume” or “The Hungry One must eat,” but rather the use of the term “feed” suggests a little less agency and purpose.  It isn’t going out looking for something to eat, but rather it is feeding on whatever it is given.

Later, Cumulous explains to the party that he does not worship the Hungry One and that it is just a source of power to him.  He can tap into it, just like the Bulbosi miracle workers can tap into the Bulb, but it’s not something that has a real consciousness or its own will and he does not interact with it as if it does.  Combined with his monk subclass (Long Death), the characterization of the Hungry One is less a supernatural powerful figure but more a manifestation of inevitable death and entropy.  Very similarly to Karna’s perspective, it’s going to feed on everything eventually because everyone’s going to die one day.  It might be today, if you happen to be a cheese sailor trying to murder your lawful child duchess, but that’s neither here nor there.

And as Lapin realized in his last moments and as he later showed to Liam, this seems to be the closest understanding to the actual nature of the Hungry One which we have encountered so far in either campaign.  The Hungry One is just a cosmological ball (add that to the list of significant TTRPG orbs!) and while it certainly contains a lot of power, it doesn’t do anything with it other than eat what is delivered into its mouth.  The power and the destruction and the death associated with the Hungry One?  All of that has only been wielded or used by living people, for their own aims and agendas.

Anyways, all this to say that while I don’t think it likely to happen, my dream scenario is for a couple FDA members to flee the scene of whatever plan they had that some or all of the Scrumptious Scoundrels have managed to foil, and as they escape, they run straight into a group of Candian monks (aka what they were actually doing during the Ravening War).  The last thing they hear, after all their scheming to “save” the world, is “The Hungry One must feed.”  And it does.