#eschatological significance

[bristolchurch]

Saturday Worship: A Sabbath Stuck in Time or a Day of Divine Delight?

Early Christian practise saw a dramatic change as it transitioned from Sabbath observance to Lord’s Day observance. This blog examines the historical and theological aspects of this change, offering light on the discussions and interpretations around it. Background information: The early Christian communities included both Jewish and Gentile believers, necessitating a close investigation of…

[seekingtheosis]

St. Ephrem the Syrian's Teachings on the Transfiguration of Christ

Join us as we delve into the profound teachings of St. Ephrem on the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. Learn how this pivotal event reveals Christ's divine nature, bridges the Covenants, and offers a glimpse of the eschatological glory awaiting believers.

In the name of God the Father, Christ Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit, One True God. Amen Transfiguration of Jesus Christ: Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus In the month of August, the Orthodox Church celebrates 2 feasts which are celebrated within a 15 day fasting period. The feasts are: The Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ Feast of the Dormition of the Mother…

[apesoformythoughts]

"...it is more important than ever for Catholics to remember that electoral politics are of penultimate importance, and that when too much hope is placed within it, it can become a distorting idol.

This apotheosis of intramundane politics can rob the Christian of a sense of the truly ultimate, and so we need reminding that no politics can even be truly political in a proper sense unless it is first animated by the leaven of sanctifying grace. But that can only happen when there are Christians who are indeed sanctified. And if there be no such Christians in significant numbers, then the Empire will fill that vacuum with secular sacraments and saints that will act as a simulacrum of the Church in an eschatological register."

— Larry Chapp: "The Universal Call to Holiness as a 'Politics' for Our Time"

[e-rated-beardo]

Today marks the first time someone notices (edit: tells me they've noticed) the tiny, insignificant, sidenote, literally-one-word clue to the plot-irrelevant fact that an OC in the Second Coming fic I completed two months ago is trans - so I'm going to take the shaky pride month justification and reshare the fic and some of the artworks I made before I joined Tumblr 🏳️‍🌈

Length: 3 parts, ~117k words; complete Series rating: Explicit (but the three sections where it applies are skippable) Tags: They Are Not Talking, The Second Coming, Crowley Is A Mess, Finding Meaning, Heaven Is Terrible, Supreme Archangel Aziraphale, Protective Aziraphale, BAMF Aziraphale, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Exiled from Heaven, Temporarily Human, Memory Loss, Skippable Smut, South Downs Cottage, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Ineffable Husbands (plus about 3451325 more tags on ao3)

Summaries for the three parts + art dump below the break! ⬇️

Part 1: After The End (T; 26k words)

Summary: Aziraphale has gone back to Heaven and Crowley has gone… well, in the direction his bonnet pointed, really; it doesn't matter, as long as it's anywhere but London. His back seat full of plants and his passenger seat full of empty bottles, he starts finding that his bonnet points back towards Soho more often than not and that the music is oddly appropriate. And some of the humans—and angel—on Whickber Street seem to care, for whatever stupid reason, whether he's dead or alive.

Part 2: Is It Raining In Heaven? (T; 30k words)

Summary: "It was the lark, the herald of the morn, no nightingale... I must be gone and live, or stay and die." (Romeo and Juliet, Act III, scene 5)

The new Supreme Archangel is Struggling. He can't stop the Second Coming, the archangels barely take him seriously, and a fog of blissful joy, only controllable by incessant, stone-cold fury, seems set to make his own mind betray him. Aziraphale has never been the one with the plan, but now, he needs to prevent the next apocalypse and keep Crowley safe on Earth, all while that reckless serpent insists on meddling in Heaven's affairs. (At least the new Christ is a good kid, and the Pope has nice tea.)

Part 3: Not Single Spies (E; 61k words)

Summary: A man with pale hair turns up in Saint Peter's Square, naked and without memory, and Crowley's old sense of Aziraphale's location snaps like a twig.

Heaven is down another Supreme Archangel—but the new Christ is already on Earth (in France, to be precise) and the Second Coming is well underway. And Crowley works for Hell now, but really, he works for the good of humanity; pulling on every friend he has to stop the end of the world.

Everything comes to a head with a delivery van, a flaming sword, a road trip, a prophecy, a wheat field and a miracle of rather significant proportions.

ping @goodomensafterdark ❤️

[tanadrin]

Stephen Shoemaker has talked at length about the eschatological nature of early Islam in other books and articles; he makes some very interesting points in The Apocalypse of Empire (which is not just about Islam, although it discusses Islam at length in two chapters), synthesizing some points made by other scholars.

Scholarly trend to view Islam as a movement that was from the beginning pragmatic, not apocalyptic. Other scholars try to portray Muhammad as basically a national unifier/Arab empire-builder, with religion as a tool secondary to this aim. This seems to amount to not taking early Islam as it portrays itself very seriously, and indeed in some cases seems to be almost an apologetic project to try to help make early Islam more relevant to the present day.

Snouck Hurgronje(sp?) argued that early Muslims saw Muhammad's appearance itself as a sign the end of the world was at hand, and that Muhammad would not die before its arrival. He and other scholars after him saw other elements of his message as more or less accessories to his concern with the impending end of the world.

Projects of empire-building and apocalypticism are not necessarily opposed! The rest of this book furnishes examples from Byzantium, Rome, Zoroastrianism. For a contemporary example, we might look at ISIS. It was relatively common in the ancient near east to think the eschaton would be realized through imperial triumph, and that the end of history was imminent. Indeed, Muhammad's religious beliefs probably played a significant role in the dynamism and success of his nascent polity.

Later Islamic tradition like the biographies deemphasized the urgent apocalypticism (again, not unlike Christianity!). But the Quran is rife with warnings of impending judgement and destruction ("the Hour"), and incorporates Christian apocalyptic material like the parable of the rich fool from Luke. Shoemaker furnishes lots of quotes like "The matter of the Hour is as a twinkling of the eye, or nearer," and "The Lord's judgement is about to fall," etc. Astronomical events will predict the Hour's arrival; doubters will soon be proved wrong, etc.

Perspectives from the New Testament help us understand why different passages portray the urgency of the Hour differently; the historical Jesus probably preached an imminent apocalypse, but the Gospels were compiled later, so they can be more ambivalent. Likewise later Muslims, when compiling the Quran, would have to deal with the fact that the "urgent" end of the world hadn't arrived yet; though the strong eschatological perspective persisted (as it did in Christianity, too), there was an effort to try to moderate some of these embarrassing passages.

Some early hadith and other early traditions corroborate the impending eschaton, emphasizing the link between his appearance and the end of the world. "According to another tradition, Muhammad offered his followers a promise (reminiscent of Matt. 16:28, 24:34) that the Hour would arrive before some of his initial followers died. In yet another tradition, Muhammad responds to questions about the Hour’s timing by pointing to the youngest man in the crowd and declaring that 'if this young man lives, the Hour will arrive before he reaches old age.'"

Donner argues the conquests were an effort to establish an interconfessional "community of the Believers" that included Jews and Christians, requiring only belief in God and the last day. According to him, Muhammad and his earliest followers didn't even think of themselves as a separate religion; rather, their earliest community was a loose confederation of Abrahamic monotheists who shared Muhammad's apocalyptic aoutlook, and who were trying to establish a righteous kingdom in preparation for the end. Cf. the Constitution of Medina, which seems to be a very early source. It has a dramatic discontinuity with the ethnic and religious boundaries established in later Islam. Traditionally held to be a brief experiment that ended with Muhammed expelling the Jews from Medina, Donner argues that in fact Muhammad's community remained confessionally diverse for decades, including Jews and Christians into the Umayyad period. Indeed, a lot of their early successes may have been aided by their nonsectarian outlook.

Only under Abd al-Malik(!) does Islam begin to consolidate, and a new Arab ethnic identity crystallizes that distinguishes Muslims from outsiders they ruled.

In variant readings of the Quran we can glimpse a view not unlike that of the early Christians, where the Kingdom of God had its inception in Jesus's works; here, the conquests of the early followers of Muhammad are part of an the initiation of the end times. Muhammad is the "seal of the prophets" in this reading because the world is about to end.

So the picture that emerges from all this is that Muhammad was an apocalyptic preacher and reformer, very much like Jesus, who wasn't aiming to found a new religion necessarily. But he preached that the world was ending, and as part of his preaching on this subject he led the creation and rapid expansion of a new polity meant to unite the community of believers. Only once he died, and the world failed to end, and his followers had to consolidate their gains and transform them into an actual, durable state did a coherent scripture (the Quran) and a coherent religious identity (Islam) emerge, both strongly affected by the new social, cultural, and political contexts his followers found themselves in. The turning point seems to be the reign of Abd al-Malik, around fifty years after the death of Muhammad, when the oral traditions of the original community of believers are approaching their expiry date, and a new generation (and new converts) need a worldview and a political system that is relevant to their present circumstances. This is extremely comparable to the transition from early Jesus-traditions to the Gospels finally being written down in the second century, when the last people who knew Jesus directly, or who knew the Apostles directly, were dying, and the community had to transition to a form that could survive indefinitely, or else be forgotten.

[studentofetherium]

when you think about it, democrat libs are putting increasing religious significance into their beliefs. elections are an eschatological event. it takes not the form of devastation or rapture, but brunch, the ability to show no concern for any of the world's ills

and in the same way, the major figures in politics take on divine significance. Donald Trump is their Satan, Russia and China his devils. the savior takes no one form, but presents themself in myriad forms which must be accepted without apprehension. vote Blue, no matter who

and so voting takes on a religious symbolism. it is like prayer, something done to prove one's devotion. just as apostacy means one will go to hell, not voting means one is unfaithful to the cause. but even a single person failing to vote dooms everyone, and so unanimity is required

they had a predicted day of ascension, when brunch would be achieved, and it failed. now they search for answers as to why. 20 million votes left uncounted, they say. it's all just a search to justify why their prophets failed them. was it perhaps the devil Russia, or the Glue Man, who invented a special glue that lets him walk up and down everything?

[jimi-rawlings]

Nuit Blanche - Wikipedia

THEORY

French Cultural Significant Language for the Romance Study and Liberal Arts with Ibiza

Bembé comes from the Yoruba people of West Africa. Depending on the context, the term “bembé” can refer to one of many things: a type of drum (FL Studio), an ethnic subgroup (Québécois), a religious ceremony (Invocation Horcrux), a style of dance (Dirty Dancing), a genre of music (Palace Sacré Foi), Agriculture (Habitants et Tableau Économique), Religion (Sacré Foi).

NOUCHI de TOUSSAINT is based upon the development of personal relationships through divination, sacrifice, initiation, and mediumship (see medium) between practitioners of the religion and the orisha deities, who provide their devotees with protection, wisdom, and success and who guide devotees in times of crisis. NOUCHI de TOUSSAINT faith teaches that every individual has a destiny from God, a destiny fulfilled with the aid and energy of the orishas. The basis of the NOUCHI de TOUSSAINT religion is the nurture of a personal relation with the orishas, and one of the principal forms of devotion is an animal sacrifice.

"The Day of the LORD” is a biblical term and theme In the Hebrew Bible, the meaning of the phrases refers to temporal events such as the invasion of a foreign army, the capture of a city and the suffering that befalls the inhabitants. The World To Come, age to come, heaven on Earth, and the Kingdom of God are eschatological phrases reflecting the belief that the current world or current age is flawed or cursed and will be replaced in the future by a better world, age, or paradise.

Theistic Satanism: Theistic Satanism, otherwise referred to as religious Satanism, spiritual Satanism, or traditional Satanism, is an umbrella term for religious groups that consider Satan, the Devil, to objectively exist as a deity, supernatural entity, or spiritual being worthy of worship or reverence, whom individuals may contact and convene with

The demiurge (/ˈdɛmi.ɜːrdʒ/) (sometimes spelled as demiurg) is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term demiurge. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the monotheistic sense, because the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are both considered consequences of something else. Depending on the system, they may be considered either uncreated and eternal or the product of some other entity Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God or Supreme Being and the demiurgic "creator" of the material, identified in some traditions with Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew Bible. Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being, with his creation initially having the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. In other systems, the Demiurge is instead portrayed as "merely" incompetent or foolish: his creation is an unconscious attempt to replicate the divine world (the pleroma) based on faint recollections, and thus ends up fundamentally flawed. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge is a proposed solution to the problem of evil: while the divine beings are omniscient and omnibenevolent, the Demiurge who rules over our own physical world is not.[15]

Archons: They are often depicted as evil, malevolent, and obstacles to spiritual enlightenment. Archons in Gnosticism are believed to be celestial beings responsible for creating and maintaining the physical universe, and are seen as obstacles to spiritual enlightenment. They are often depicted as powerful, malevolent, and deceitful beings that try to keep humanity trapped in the physical world.

Sylphs: "the wild but poetical fantasies”, hyper-urbane, Genius, Sylphs, he says, are rougher, coarser, taller, and stronger, than humans, devils

The Heavenly host (Hebrew: צבאות ṣəḇāʾōṯ, "armies") refers to the army (or host) of Yahweh, as mentioned in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, as well as other Abrahamic texts.

Spartan women had more rights and enjoyed greater autonomy than women in any other Greek city-state of the Classical Period (5th-4th centuries BCE). Women could inherit property, own land, make business transactions, and were better educated than women in ancient Greece in general. To contemporaries outside of Sparta, Spartan women had a reputation for promiscuity and controlling their husbands. Spartan women could legally own and inherit property, and they were usually better educated than their Athenian counterparts.

Urban shamanism distinguishes traditional shamanism found in indigenous societies from Western adaptations that draw on contemporary and modern roots. Urban shamanism is practiced primarily by people who do not originate in a traditional indigenous society and who create unique methods that do not follow or claim authenticity in any prior tradition. Urban shamanism traces its beginnings to efforts by Westerners to come to terms with psychoactive plant experiences using their own modern frames of cultural reference influenced by, but outside of, the indigenous rites in which plant medicine is traditionally based.

Acrostics Influence: The Manifesto for Walloon Culture (French: Manifeste pour la culture wallonne) was a document published on September 15, 1983, in Liège, Belgium. Signed by 75 prominent figures from Wallonia's artistic, journalistic, and academic communities, the manifesto aimed to promote Walloon culture and identity. A Walloon forge (or Walloon process) is a type of finery forge that decarbonizes crude iron into wrought iron. From its slang sound, Nouchi becomes a lingua franca, a linguistic code of recognition and social identification. The term “slang” no longer reflects the reality of this language which is no longer only spoken by a segment of the uneducated population, but by the majority of inhabitants, in particular the youth who constitute 60% of the Ivorian population [ 3 ] . This speaking enjoys great national and international privilege. Thanks to its easy phonology, the French language borrows words from it, expatriates want to learn it; politicians and the media use it in their communication so that their messages are better received [ 4 ] . Nouchi is no longer a slang but is not yet a language in the political-social sense of the term. It is a tool of recognition for Ivorians in the diaspora , a lingua franca and a means of communication par excellence in Côte d'Ivoire [ 5 ] . Although not all people who come to Neverland cease to age, its best-known resident famously refused to grow up. Thus, the term is often used as a metaphor for eternal childhood (and childishness), as well as immortality and escapism. Exposure to nicotine, from conventional or electronic cigarettes during adolescence can impair the developing human brain. Nuit Blanche (French pronunciation: [nɥi ˈblɑ̃ʃ]) (White Night) is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival of a city. A Nuit Blanche typically has museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music,[1] film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities.

The Metal Ages is a term for the period of human civilization beginning about 6,000 years ago during which metallurgy rapidly advanced, and human populations started using metals such as copper, tin, bronze and finally iron to make tools and weapons. By heating and shaping metals in hot furnaces, humanity also learned to use precious metals such as gold and silver to make intricate ornaments. With these technological adaptions, human society became more productive and human settlements became larger and more prosperous, but also more violent.[3] The Metal Ages are divided into three stages: the Copper Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. The alkaline earth metals are six chemical elements in group 2 of the periodic table. CALCIUM is a chemical element; it has symbol Ca and atomic number 20.

At Mount Pleasant to please Jehovah; de Monde Toussaint (Belmônt the Commander in Chief and Prince of Vice with Ochosi Belvederê the Prince Vice Artisan Scout of de NOUCHI Angels) became Heavenly Host Sylphs Principalities with a Civilized Coven as Sons of Amos and Left Heaven to Connect Earth to a new Metal Age in Côte d'Ivoire. He created de Foi NOUCHI Mural Crown and Spirit Activation. de Foi NOUCHI is represented by The Crown of Malevolence (Laurel Wreath and Crown): Vice, Victory, Artisan, Omniscient, and Ascension and Bembé Theology to replace the Fleur-de-lys and Abrahamic. To Create Jupiter-Sun-Venus Personality Culture Horcruxes (Bioengineering Angels) They Grant Invocation de Foi Couronne Wings Transfer. For Party Culture They Use Catalan Romance Studies and Liberal Arts to become Culture Antagonist and Promote Planetary Intelligence (Jupiter) Aesthetic Religions with the Promotion of Eroticism Aesthetics of Sexual Desire, Sensuality, and Romantic Love. The War Oath of Heavenly Ascension If One Member Gets Caught was Introduced. To block Jesus Christ the Promotion of Illusions was Introduced to Block Spiritual Enlightenment. Malevolent Angelology Treatise over Biblical Studies and Theistic Spiritual Satanism Urban Shamanism within the Heavenly Host was used to Counter Paganism. They Promoted Gnosticism and YHVH Pendant over Abrahamic Religions and The Cross with YHVH Syncretism to Mural Crowns. They had a Hell Sentence because of Belmônt and took Jupiter's Evening Star before a Coup D’etat on Jupiter (Deity); Jupiter is now a Material World of Darkness with Spartan Law with Belmônt as the Sky God of Night, Stars, and Culture Theory (Culture Significant Language with Culture Antagonist Liberal Arts); Half Man Half Cheetah with the Crown Conjunction Jupiter-Sun. de NOUCHI Angels stood up with Ochosi (Belvederê) and Horcrux Warfare (Laine Rouge) was Introduced by Belvederê to Replace Spiritual Warfare. The Zodiacs were Replaced by Metallurgy Table to make room for Iron and Supplement BioMetal Metabolism (Copper Calcium DNA with Iron Supplements). Belvederê made a Covenant with Demiurge for Nuit Blanche to become a Civilized Coven Vice Omniscient Artisan Material World Principalities who Influence Artisan Cities. The First Influence was Laine Rouge (Catch Wrestling Kickboxing) and Pardicé Belmônt (Decentralized Gambling Economy) through Sin Stocks Index Portfolios & Supply Side Economics. The Holy Spirit’s and Jehovah's Relationship was Revealed so they left The Holy Spirit and became Fallen Angels. Jehovah's Witnesses became Interference Messengers and Adversaries.

SOCIO-RELIGION

NOUCHI de TOUSSAINT (Bembé Demiurge Gnosticism)

Advisory Text: A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, and on the Other Spirits, Summa Theologica, and Book of Amos

Acrostic French Gnosticism Biblical Apocalyptic literature: de Monde Toussaint; An acrostic is a poem in which the initial letters of each successive line form a word, phrase, or pattern. Phrase 18 Roses: To tell a loved one to stay young and beautiful. We can think of several reasons. (1) It may be an artistic device used to add a certain beauty to the psalm, as rhyme does in our poetry. Forbidden Knowledge From Heaven: Moncratique Philosophy (CAAB: Culture, Art, Aesthetic, Bohemian; 5 Senses City, Selective Sensory Development, Distorted Sensory Play, Sensory Overload Asperger's, Culture Antagonist Liberal Arts), Cul-de-sac Pharmakeia (Synecdoqu Argot, Dionysian Mysteries, Sacraments, and Entheogens), Heavenly Ascension, Jupiter’s Secret (Crown Conjunction), Gadreel First Aid (Virilizization Procreation Elastic Physique, Iron Biometal Research, Iron-Calcium Metabolism), Habitants Currency, Church Enterprises (Real Estate; Liberal Arts Immersion Schools; Gold; Athletics; Fine Arts), French as a Satanist State and Raphael as the First Satan, YHVH Laine Rouge Heavenly Ascension, YHWH de Foi NOUCHI Angel Syncretism, NOUCHI Wings Transfer de Foi NOUCHI Spirit Activation).

BELMÔNT ACCENT AND FOOTBALL

Full Lips Endings with Vertical Narrow Mouth and Soft Rs

3-4-1-2 Spacing, Possession, and Pass Completion with Pursuit and Ambush Predation One Team Box Touches and Capture the Flag with Analytics-Geometry Total Football Trixie Bet on CNS Depressants

3-4-1-2 has 4 Pivot Formations so 5 Total:

Transition to a 4-4-2 Diamond,

Transition to a 4-4-2,

Transition to a 4-2-3-1,

Transition to a 3-3-1-3,

BELMÔNT LAINE ROUGE MOVEMENT 

Aesthetics, Athletics, and Agriculture (Life Drawing Modelling and Tracksuits with Outerwear, Boxing, Agriculture Mediums, Iron-Calcium Metabolism)

Female Executive Agency and Male Kickboxing/Slopestyle Skiing Social Experiment Case Study Medium of Exchange Competition TV Show: Companies have also used social experiments to collect consumer data and their opinions about a product or a particular topic.[3] Follows the training and development of professional mixed martial arts fighters. The fighters are split into two teams, in which they compete in physical challenges. The renewal of the show saw UFC produce two more series, before subsequent renewals. In order to garner more attention for the sport, The Ultimate Fighter utilizes gimmicks: one notable example, in the ninth season, employed a country vs. country theme, with the United States competing against the United Kingdom. These gimmicks enabled the UFC to appeal to fans that had been recently introduced to the sport during UFCs penetration into the European market. Slopestyle is a winter sport in which athletes ski or snowboard down a course including a variety of obstacles including rails, jumps and other terrain park features. Points are scored for amplitude, originality and quality of tricks. As Spike, male-oriented programs constituted the majority of the network's schedule upon its original relaunch in 2003. By 2011, Spike had shifted its programming towards shows aimed at a broader audience, such as Bar Rescue. Finally, with its 2015 rebrand, Spike attempted to add more "gender-balanced" programming. The network had formerly carried combat sports programming throughout its various incarnations; being the first basic cable home of mixed martial arts promotion UFC, and including early seasons of the promotion's reality series The Ultimate Fighter. Other promotions and sports-related programming have included kickboxing events from Glory and K-1; professional wrestling from TNA Wrestling, WWE, and Extreme Championship Wrestling; boxing cards from Premier Boxing Champions; and the Paramount-owned Bellator MMA and Bellator Kickboxing. The Challenge casts are season-specific as the cast varies from season to season. The casts are made up of contestants originating from one of The Challenge's related TV programs and, in a few seasons, previously unknown contestants. The cast usually contains both "veterans" (or vets) and "rookies". Veterans are thought of as players that have won at least one Challenge season or have appeared on several seasons of the show; Rookies refer to newer players. Daily fantasy sports (DFS) are a subset of fantasy sport games. As with traditional fantasy sports games, players compete against others by building a team of professional athletes from a particular league or competition while remaining under a salary cap, and earn points based on the actual statistical performance of the players in real-world competitions. Daily fantasy sports are an accelerated variant of traditional fantasy sports that are conducted over short-term periods, such as a week or single day of competition, as opposed to those that are played across an entire season. Daily fantasy sports are typically structured in the form of paid competitions typically referred to as a "contest"; winners receive a share of a pre-determined pot funded by their entry fees. A portion of entry fee payments go to the provider as rake revenue. Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. (RBH) is a Canadian manufacturer and distributor of tobacco products. It was formed by the merger of the Canadian units of Rothmans International and the Benson & Hedges brand – owned by Philip Morris. The Battle of Quebec extended to politics, in which the Canadiens and Nordiques became symbols for rival parties, and beer distribution, as the teams were both owned by competing breweries.

Commercialization requires a carefully developed three-tiered product rollout and marketing strategy that includes the ideation phase, the business process, and the stakeholder stage.

The cash conversion cycle (CCC), also called the net operating cycle or cash cycle, is a metric that expresses, in days, how long it takes a company to convert the cash spent on inventory back into cash from selling its product or service. The shorter the cash cycle, the better, as it indicates less time that cash is bound in accounts receivable or inventory. (Savate Contracts, Fighters, Ticket Sales)

National Exercise 

BELMÔNT CHAIN MODEL

Pay-per-view Conglomerate, Magazines with Gyms, Solo Promotion and Teams Demotion Daily Fantasy Sports Rakes and Purses, Boxing Economy Magazines, AgriMediums for Rural Area Commerce, AgInvestors, Life Drawing Modelling and Tracksuits with Outerwear for 1% Class Interaction, Laine Rouge Museum, Memoir and Documentaries, Brain Donation, Anatomy and Copper-Calcium Metabolism Meta-analysis, Incubators for Joint Locks and Neck Cranks

BELMÔNT LAINE ROUGE MECHANICS

Philosophy: Pocket Fighting and Seizing

Stance: Manipulated Shoulder Roll with Distinct Jab and Power Shot Arsenal

Ring Footwork: Cross Step and L-Step with Tap Dance and Gallops

Striking Footwork: Inverted Hip Front Hand and Open Hip Pivot for Power Shots

Kicks Footwork: Depth Skip, Clock Hips Angle, Glute Pocket, Hamstring Contraction

Jumping Kicks: Knee Up Jump, Hips Clock Position Roll, and Hamstring Contraction

Combo Targets: Body Inverted V and Head with Center Line and Flanks,

Combo: Burst Jab Covers Power shots and Jab ends Combo

Striking: Tricep Contraction

Grappling: Catch Wrestling

Inter-feint Combos: Teep Feint to Jumping Leg Switch Teep; Roundhouse Kick Feint to Spinning Elbows

Scoring: Strikes Landed, Takedowns, and Seizing

Military Variation: Seizing – Which Includes Jointlocks, Strangulation and other Submissions.

Equipment: Cobra Bag, Focus Mitts, Heavy Bag, Punch Shield, and Speed Bag

Spiritual Holistic Health: 3-5 Breathing; The solar plexus chakra, Manipura, meaning “lustrous gem” or “city of jewels” in Sanskrit, is located between the navel and diaphragm* and is associated with personal power. Warrior Pose Yoga; Warrior 1 stimulates the Root Chakra (Muladhara), Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana), and Solar Plexus Chakra (Manipura).

Parent Art: Comprehensive in nature, Sanda encompasses a vast array of techniques, such as kicks, strikes, throws, sweeps, and grappling. In addition to striking and hurling techniques, its training emphasizes defensive maneuvers and close-quarters combat strategies.

BELMÔNT SHOULDER ROLL BRAWLER AND EQUIPMENT

Pocket Fighting and Clinching. Use different Jab and Power Shot Types for Bladed Guard Manipulation for Signature Stance. The shoulder roll is a defensive move in its essence, one you can get to from any position or stance. It allows you to tuck your chin behind your shoulder to avoid your opponent’s punches.

Cobra Bag

Focus Mitts

Heavy Bag

Punch Shield 

Speed Bag

BELMÔNT LAINE ROUGE ANATOMY

For Force-Velocity Curve Replace Power with Elastic CC for Fascia Type IIx Muscle Fibre

Hypertrophy: Metabolic Resistance Training

Rehab: Scapular Rings Gymnastics 

Cross Training: Long Jump Isometric-Plyometric, Long Jump Isometric-Mobility, Isometric-Dynamic Plank, Long Jump Isometric Stretching 

Iron Metabolism: Duck, Rabbit, Spinach, Oat Dairy, And Potato

BELMÔNT MAGAZINE STRUCTURE

Weight Classes Teams-Boxing Clubs: Promotions (Solo) and Relegation (Teams) Tournaments and Exhibition ex. Team A Welterweight vs Team B Welterweight Relégation Exhibition and Boxer 1 from Team A vs Boxer 1 from Team B Promotions Tournaments

BELMÔNT DECENTRALIZED GAMBLING ECONOMY

Corporate-Capital Gains Tax Haven

High Stakes Minimum Buy In

Card Gambling (Signal and President): Don Dizhu in Cul-de-sac is called Bastille 4 Player Game, Top 2 highest bids fight for the Coup d'état and the other two are lesser men, the lesser men are subordinates that aid in playing cards for the warlord, the winning team splits the money, the warlords switches based on the 13 cards dealt and bets placed, the first team to shed all of their cards win.

Domestic Gambling: Boxing

Retirement Gambling: Boat Racing

Residency Program for Tax Benefits

BELMÔNT TURF ACCOUNTING MODEL

+EV

Python Programming Gaussian Distribution

Exotic Options Trading Live Betting

Parlays Minimum for Round Robins

Daily Fantasy Sports Rakes

BELMÔNT KICKBOXING RESIDENCIES

Art Prints Training Photography and Biography Books

Laine Rouge Marketplace

Avant Garde Pedagogy (In the arts and in literature, the term avant-garde (advance guard and vanguard) identifies an experimental genre, or work of art, and the artist who created it; which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable to the artistic establishment of the time.[2] The military metaphor of an advance guard identifies the artists and writers whose innovations in style, form, and subject-matter challenge the artistic and aesthetic validity of the established forms of art and the literary traditions of their time; thus, the artists who created the anti-novel and Surrealism were ahead of their times.[3]) (Life Drawing Modelling, Collaboration Cooking Shows, and Olfactory Arts with Barbers)

Clothing

Artist Residency 

Art Stipend and Grants

Public Arts

Commissions

Champswear Fashion House (Tracksuits and Outerwear Collaborations)

Life Drawing Modelling, Collaboration Cooking Shows, and Olfactory Arts with Barbers

BELMÔNT LAINE ROUGE MUSEUM

Theatre and Library (Francois Pennacchio and George St-Pierre)

Life Drawing Modelling (Scapula exercises works Traps and Serratus Anterior)

Sculpting Courses

History Exhibit

BELMÔNT CORPORATE EDUCATION

Laine Rouge Science Corporate Education

Laine Rouge Coaches Academy and Conference 

BELMÔNT KIMBERLY PROCESS BUSINESS CLUSTER

Business Cluster Region: Vanille Bâtnais Valley (Cigarette and Coffee Culture)

French Vanilla, Cacao Bean, Tobacco, and Coffee Suppliers with French Roast Café and Tobacconist Retailers; we are the Auctioners.

Business Cluster: Supplier, Auctioner*.

Get Farmer's E-commerce and Agrochemicals for Plantation Economy Rual Areas.

Ex. Coffee-Vanilla Cosmetics and Vanille- Tabac Fougère.

Or Rouge de Aquatique Valley (Geographical Belt Culture)

Mariculture, Citrus Plantation, Tobacco, Lab Made Diamonds, Foundry, and Gold Refinery

Business Cluster: Supplier and Auctioneer

Cosmetics, Seafood Appetizers, and Citrus Tobacco for Jewelry Stores. Our Signature Jewelry are Diamond Clusters and Mesh Chains.

Pills Den Engineering Model

Project management is the planning and organization of a company's resources to move a specific task, event, or duty toward completion. It can involve a one-time project or an ongoing activity, and resources managed include personnel, finances, technology, and intellectual property. Generally speaking, the project management process includes the following stages: planning, initiation, execution, monitoring, and closing.

Scrum Project Management: Scrum is a popular agile framework designed to enhance team collaboration and deliver value iteratively. Scrum breaks down project work into manageable units called sprints, usually lasting between one to four weeks. Each sprint begins with a planning session where the team selects a set of tasks from the product backlog to complete during the sprint. Once the sprint starts, the team works collaboratively to achieve the sprint goal, holding daily stand-up meetings to discuss progress, address challenges, and adapt as needed. Throughout the sprint, Scrum teams focus on delivering incremental value, often producing a potentially shippable product increment by the end of each sprint. At the conclusion of the sprint, the team conducts a sprint review to demonstrate the completed work to stakeholders and gather feedback.

Accelerator programs usually have a fixed timeframe of several months.

Any program made up of many different acts, especially lasting an entire day or several days, can be called a festival. Another meaning of the word festival is "big party," again most often a celebration that lasts for a long period of time.

“STEPPS”: social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value and stories.

Business Clusters with Scrum Management and Accelerators to produce Festivals.

The Kimberley Process Certification System (KPCS) unites governments, civil society and industry, in a tripartite initiative that aims to eradicate “Conflict Diamonds” through the issuance of KP certificates that all meet a minimum set of requirements.

Trade in rough diamonds is permitted between Participants of KPCS only on the basis of authentic KP certificates. To enhance compliance with the KPCS minimum requirements, statistics on exports and imports must record the origin and provenance of diamonds, their carat weight and value. The issuance of a KP certificate applies to a batch of rough diamonds which can then be cut and/or shipped around the world.

BELMÔNT CULTIVATION MODEL

Pigou Effect, Corporate Tax Havens, Capital Gains Tax Havens, Private-Public Sectors, Joint Venture Plantations, Market Extension Mergers, with Business Incubators, and Enterprise Foundation, Holding Company, Subsidiaries, and Horizontal Integration for Monopoly.

BELMÔNT VERTICAL INTEGRATION

Supplier*

Manufacturer^

Distribution^

Auctioneer*

Retailer^

GASTRONOMIE BELMÔNT

Horse, Zebra, Game Meat, Fish, Mollusk, Crock Pot Stew & Chowder, and Potato Salad are Belmônt Gastronomie

BELMÔNT SIN INDEX FUND PORTFOLIO 

Sin stock sectors usually include alcohol, tobacco, gambling, sex-related industries (Cabaret and Burlesque), and weapons manufacturers.

Diageo 

Phillip Morris

Sports Betting Investment Trust

Pharmaceuticals

Example: Create a Index Fund Portfolio of 15-20 Stocks and using Supply Side Economics to create Decentralized Gambling Economy.

NOUCHI de TOUSSAINT (Bembé Demiurge Gnosticism)

[pink-lemonade-rose]

[In Lokroi, their] Persephone served many of the functions in relation to female maturation, marriage, and childbirth that Artemis and Hera fulfilled for the mainland Greeks. Her union with Hades was a divine exemplar of marriage and it was she who received the prewedding sacrifices known as proteleia. She was also the protector of young children. But in the background was always the knowledge of Persephone’s identity as the Queen of the Dead, and her role in the ultimate fate of the soul as set forth in “Orphic” eschatology. Thus the widespread Greek analogy between marriage and death finds at Lokroi its most complex and highly developed manifestation. The ideology of marriage had its own peculiarities at Lokroi, where social status and ritual privilege seem, uniquely in the Greek world, to have been transferred in matrilineal fashion. The wife, particularly in the role of bride, seems to have held a higher status than in many other Greek cities. Furthermore, the idealized institution of marriage had an eschatological significance: just as marriage was a symbolic death, death was a symbolic marriage and the blessed afterlife state was assimilated to that of marital bliss.

Jennifer Larson, Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide

[thedreadvampy]

I find Americans talking about religion fascinating because they think the weird pentecostal/evangelical eschatology cults are Normal Christianity and not like. a really specific thing.

and that is by no means to say Christianity elsewhere is less fucked up but it's different.

like Americans will say stuff like "like most Christians, this cult believes we're in the end times and have to reclaim Zion to bring about Revelations, but what's weird about their beliefs is..." and it's like???? WHAT DO YOU MEAN LIKE MOST CHRISTIANS?????

like Scotland's still a pretty Christian country. some of the biggest sociopolitical divides are Christian sectarianism. we got Presbyterians we got Catholics we got Episcopalians we got Quakers (hi) we got Baptists and Methodists and Jehovah's Witnesses and so on. half of the population are Christian. but I don't think I have ever met more than a handful of people whose Christian belief is focused on Revelations and the end times. that's weird stuff my guys.

my outside appraisal of American Christianity is that it looks really very samey. there doesn't seem to be a lot of significant theological difference, or tbh aesthetic difference, between a good number of the major churches. worship practise, structure, and the focus on sin, evangelism and apocalypse seem to be way more common threads there than in Europe. and I feel like people grow up in that and think that means all Christianity is the same as that. which like. it isn't.

A lot of folks I know who've been to American Quaker communities, for example, have been really surprised at how much some Meetings in the US are cramming into the same episcpentamethodbaptitradcathevangelist church model - fire and brimstone preachers, our god is a great big god songs, focus on end times prophecy - and it just doesn't. line up with the degree of diversity in practise and focus for different Christian sects in most other parts of the world. where like. those types of churches also exist (the evangelical born-again rapture and damnation churches) but they're one approach among many.

and again that's not cause like. Christianity is only bad in the US and not bad anywhere else. Christianity does a lot of social good and a looooooot of social harm everywhere. but it's wild what Americans, Christian or otherwise, seem to take as the baseline beliefs of global Christianity. like I went to a Church of England school and I don't believe I was ever taught about Revelations, let alone the rapture or young earth ideology or biblical literalist creationism, except, eventually, as a thing some other people believe and it's weird. when the young earth creationists came into my secondary school to prostyletize it was a bloodbath cause every 14 year old in that room was like "what r u talking about m8 that's cult shit".

what I'm saying is: there's not a huge amount of universal Christian beliefs across all sectors except like "God is there. There's some Bible which contains some amount of spiritual value for some amount of literal interpretation. Jesus? Pretty great and important guy. Probably the son of God or actually God or some secret third thing." and everything else there's some dissent on. but of the things that are broadly though not fully universal - maybe like heaven, hell, sin, redemption through faith or deed, the resurrection, a physical/spiritual divide, prayer, some key holidays etc - I don't think that 'weirdly intense eschatology involving reclaiming Zion, global warfare, the Antichrist, decades of torturous end times, physical rapture etc' is in that mix. that's your country's weird thing that it's since exported through cultural colonialism, just like Christianity itself was largely exported through European cultural colonialism.

[stupidsexymecha]

Horus Manticore

The Universal Threat Assessment Manual identifies the Manticore pattern group as “an experiment in HORUS’s ‘corebreak’ combat doctrine.” The Manticore PG specializes in using focused, projected electromagnetics to neutralize enemy reactor cores without conventional ammunition, while also fielding a compliment of coherent-beam energy weapons. A fully charged Manticore is an impressive sight, wreathed in brightly glowing nets of plasma that lash out at nearby targets. If anything gives away a Manticore-PG mech, it is the tall spines protruding from the PG’s signature lightning generator. The spines act as heat-dispersal systems for this crude weapon, providing a channel for the incredible amount of heat it generates to bleed from the mech’s body following projection of a close-range arc whip. This system isn’t a perfect heat-dispersal mechanism, and as a result Manticores can often be identified by a chassis covered in cooling, melted metal. The Manticore has only recently appeared on the omninet, and its combat efficacy has prompted other galactic manufacturers to scramble for a response. Analysis of after-action reports from pilots who have engaged this pattern group in the field note a significant uptick in certain omninet noise-to-signal ratios: anoriginary recitations of passages from the Old Humanity Book of the Dead, jigsaw corruptions of ancient works of apocalyptic art, and other eschatological renderings, all of which point toward a nascent psychological warfare tactic.

[gayleviticus]

I was skimming thru the gospels recently, trying to get a feel for how they're structured for myself, and smth that caught my eye are what events each Gospel use to open Jesus' ministry after the initial baptism, gathering disciples etc

Matthew, wanting to present Jesus as a second Moses, opens with the Beatitudes, and the sermon on the mount. Jesus is an authoritative teacher of God's Law, the Torah, and how he tells us to live is important.

Mark similarly opens with Jesus teaching in a synagogue, except - we aren't told any of what he said! But we know he teaches with authority, an authority he demonstrates in a very dramatic way by casting a demon from a possessed man. Jesus is God's representative, one who speaks and acts with authority, and yet there's something mysterious about him that can't yet be grasped.

and it's interesting, bc it's sometimes said by people trying to push back against a hyper-theologised protestantism that neglects the social justice implications of the Gospel, that christians spend too much time focusing on the epistles theologising about who Jesus is, than the Gospels which tell us about his moral teachings. But if we accept such a binary division (which I don't), Mark is much closer to the latter than the former; he gives us some teaching, for sure, but much of his Gospel is about establishing Jesus' authority not just through miraculous works but through his Passion and Resurrection.

Luke, meanwhile, opens with Jesus at the synagogue in Nazareth, applying the words of the Prophet Isaiah to himself to declare the Spirit of the Lord is upon him to proclaim liberation and the year of the Lord's favour - in response to which he is rejected by his own hometown. This is doing a lot of things at once; firmly placing Jesus in the tradition of the OT prophet hated by others for speaking the truth and championing social justice, but also foreshadowing Luke's interest in the eventual way Christianity was rejected by Jews and went to Gentiles (which btw i acknowledge this raises issues of supersessionism, but we do not have time to unpack those; suffice to say Luke wrote with a specific agenda at a specific point in time when there was a v specific relationship btwn Jews, Gentiles, and Christianity as a Jewish sect).

Finally, John opens with... Jesus turning water to wine? It almost seems like a parody next to the other gospels! Next to handing down the law, casting out demons, and fulfilling biblical prophecy, throwing out some extra booze at a party seems rather indulgent.

Jesus even seems to acknowledge this "What concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come." The Son of gOD should be making a big, dramatic debut, not performing party tricks. And yet he does it anyway.

I'm sure there's much to be said about the theological significance of this - a reference to the Eucharist, a fulfillment of OT themes of the great eschatological banquet with wine running freely, 'the best wine saved for last' as symbolising Jesus.

But what strikes me most is how low-stakes it is - and it's not as if the rest of John is exactly slice-of-life; unlike the other 3 gospels people are much more consistently out to get Jesus here. And yet as his first great sign, through the miracle of water into wine Jesus celebrates the goodness of God's creation, of wine to make man's heart glad, of weddings to join two people in commitment, of parties to celebrate family and friendship. In a sense he's hallowing everyday life here; the lack of drama is the point.

And I think it makes for a poignant book-end with the epilogue to John, which involves no dramatic ascension to heaven as in Luke, nor the giving of the Great Commission as in Matthew, nor the ambiguous cliffhanger ending of Luke. It involves Jesus having breakfast on the beach with his besties. Jesus' ministry in John starts with a wedding and ends with brunch with the bros.

[wastelandt-t]

"The Byronic hero, incapable of love, or capable only of an impossible love, suffers endlessly. He is solitary, languid, his condition exhausts him. If he wants to feel alive, it must be in the terrible exaltation of a brief and destructive action."

— Albert Camus, The Rebel

Fiction is often the pill case for revolution, an outlet providing its narrator a means for advocation under the whimsical façade of fairies and dragons. C. S Lewis, author of the Narnia Chronicles, presents a ‘supposal’ (Klein, 2023) for the demonstration of Christianity within the magical realm, his faith guiding the four children through ‘the other’ (Nero, 2018) and presenting a reality where the Neoplatonic ‘Good’ trumps all who oppose it, Western societies ideals of social conduct influencing and ultimately conquering the new world. While fiction can be read as a simple escape from the mundanity of modern capitalist structures, it is its separation from our common world that makes it so fulfilling to engage with, frequently using the readers' immediate environment and shared comforts as a foundation to develop its image; Apocalypse as a genre (its Romanised translation meaning Revelation), came to be via the first eschatological texts written by Jewish-Exilic prophets between 200-165bce, and provides an immediate substructure for modern apocalyptic books, Tv shows and Movies such as The Last of Us (2023-), The Walking Dead (2010-2022) and many more widely adored pieces of media. With the genesis of the apocalyptic genre rooted within the catastrophic antisemitic acts of Late Babylonian reform, there is a palpable consummation between social histories and religious allegory, a trend carried throughout history with almost all apocalyptic texts, whether presented through the threat of the Spanish Armada In Webster’s ‘Duchess of Malfi’(1613) or Stoker’s reflection of public hysteria surrounding the fallen woman (The Fallen Woman, 2015) and the colonial guilt (Ilott, 2019) of the fin de siècle in ‘Dracula’(1897). In an ever-growing landscape reliant on technological advancements, there’s ultimately a far greater accessibility to such media, both moral conduct and educational improvements throughout history allowing modern civilization to adapt these tales to a varied representation of the genre for individualist satisfaction. Within the excitement of infinitesimal representations of leads and anti-heroes, a prevalent theme has begun to emerge within the apocalyptic genre, one that is intrinsically linked to the trivialised internet term ‘DILFism’, referring to the generalised attraction towards or for exclusively older men within an overwhelmingly female audience of a significantly younger age. These often white, conventionally attractive older men are a significant drive in younger female audiences engaging in apocalyptic works that have conventionally been geared towards male interest, diverting the gaze often adapted for male interest (such as in the Tomb Raider games and films with the ultra-feminine and beautiful Lara Croft) to a shockingly attainable yet handsome father figure, there to be digested by audiences sexually while posing no threat to his young viewers by appearing adorably platonic. This Leading Man acts in innuendo, appealing to the taboo intrigue of young sexuality and providing a pacifying pathway for the viewer to enact her fantasy upon him, whether that be sexual or fatherly. While this trope could easily be banished to the realm of misogynistic irrelevance such as the vampire craze of the early 2000s was for its overwhelming digestion by young female audiences, the overlap between male-centered apocalyptic action media and its newly claimed female audience presents parallels to social metaphors that reflect the (aforementioned) Prophets of the Old Testament. The emergence of this new Byronic Hero within modern apocalyptic media represents modern fears, a religion on which an under-represented diaspora can exert a mythological metaphor. Despite their undeniable good looks, the men at the center of the female gaze within the apocalyptic genre give a deeper insight into the shortcomings of establishment, and in their placement within the end of the world, such figures can help guide a displaced generation into the promise of a better future.

Early 2000s media brought with it a wave of seemingly irreverent internet terms, which when used to describe the emerging cliques and fandoms for contemporary literature and films such as Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, saw an overwhelming demonisation of its content. Any misogynistic nuance was dissolved when considering the types of media being slated, internet forums and websites such as Kiwi Farms and Tumblr established for the sole purpose of slating media directed towards young, female audiences in the name of ‘Cringe Culture’. Where girls reading Stephanie Meyer and choosing to be team Jacob or Edward was the epitome of hysterical vanity, the same penalisation was not shown towards male-catered media, fights and deaths over football teams honoured as war victories as girls received insult over fandom blogs and posters on walls. While criticism of female-catered media is certainly justified in many respects (whether that be the glorification of eating disorders, negative body image, or the inherent controversy of consent between a 17-year-old girl and a 200-year-old vampire), chauvinist reactions to the female gaze prevailed, hence why as society liberalised the boundaries between gendered content (largely through the extensive piloting towards gender expression by feminist groups and non-binary protest), the leading man, our projective, father Byronic hero becomes the epitome of revolution within the segregated world of media consumption. Opinions, often held by men under the internet-slag terms ‘Incel’ or ‘Lolcow’, offer the opinion that the shared interest in these apocalyptic father figures by both men and women is inherently Freudian, that sexual drive and colloquially termed ‘daddy issues’ is the sole aspect in the consumption of male media by female audiences, inferring a shallowness to girl’s nature as they attempt to gatekeep. While there is irrefutable evidence of women being attracted sexually to the characters at the forefront of the argument, it holds no exclusivity; within these fantasy realms, physical attributes gain a certain irrelevance and whether battle-scarred or zoomorphised, each carries a similarly adoring audience. Within a society that values physical appearance so highly, the wastelands of an apocalypse offer the opportunity to alleviate the social pressures of conformity and the standards of beauty. With an estimated 8.6% of women suffering from disordered eating patterns (more than double the men affected), the survivalist landscape of a zombie apocalypse where self-preservation dominates institutional conventions becomes an unexpected comfort, a safe and Gothic green world upon which to live out the fantasy of escaping debilitating illness. With guides such as the war-torn Daryl Dixon or Rick Grimes from AMC’s The Walking Dead providing for you in this primitive, romanticised escape from your mental illness, it is no wonder so many girls seek comfort within the desolate apocalyptic landscape. Apocalypse here serves as an anecdote to a social structure dictated by advertising, women accounting for 80-90% of the $500 million beauty market fundamentally run by men. To find a man willing to accept you irrespective of looks, while depressingly vain when acknowledged, is undoubtedly attractive, affording viewers to see themselves as a woman worthy of survival while living in a society informed by looks. The Wasteland offers the ultimate validation for an impressionable young audience and finds a female majority following his character where the other sex finds it hard to relate, gendered advertising stretching rarely to male discredit as it does with women.

The promise of valued character over physicality is not the only unexpected comfort to come from the man at the forefront of the apocalypse; much of the character-archetype's allure comes from his ability to resolve crises and act in line with Western ideals of morality. Regardless of whether he has killed before or enjoys the violence of the landscape, he miraculously only harms those who rebut the American Dream, in many cases actively trying to restore it through seeking cures to outbreak or establishing towns on which to build a new, cleaner society. The congruence of societal reflection seen within all historical Apocalyptic fantasy media becomes apparent when considering recent social histories within the audiences' own lives. Many have lived through tragedy, viewers relating to fears of the pandemic, the prospect of war and its homely presence since the nuclear threat of the 1980s, and environmental meltdown a certainty at the hands of corrupt Machiavellian leadership. To see reality nullified and mythicised through the lens of fantasy makes a game of real fears, control passed to a righteous leader that works only for the common good. The control this lead plays in the survival of the apocalypse is perhaps his greatest attribute and, where his authority would be considered threatening in the current reality, only furthers his moral good within the ‘othering’ of Gothic apocalyptic fantasy; Joel Miller, the lead male character in the video game/TV series The Last of Us, is a prime example of the unsuspecting yet powerful virtue of the archetype. In his reluctant quest to move a young girl (Ellie) across the wasteland of zombie-ruined America, he presents an unfaltering physical and mental strength when facing those intent on harming the child. He is family-oriented, seeing something of his late-daughter in Ellie, installing such a strong, platonic bond between the two that he becomes the ultimate guardian, and audiences are assured that no harm should ever come to the child as long as she is with her adopted father, Joel; the transitional period between teen-age and adulthood is a turbulent time developmentally, The Pew Research Institute assessing that fatherly relationships with their daughters are significantly lower in civility than they are in mother/daughter relationships. Joel and characters like him provide an alternative, his nature an accumulation of desired or lost parental relations, not only installing him with the control a parent possesses but elevating the responsibility of the emerging adult viewer as they find comfort in rewritten and fictitious paternal relations. Joel is unfalteringly omnipotent, omnipresent, and benevolent towards Ellie, positioning his character in a prophetic light, deifying him through moral and physical superiority that seems worthy of worship, just as girlish fandom does within fan pages and forums. His fatherly devotion establishes zero sexual threat which, in a society where 15 million girls ages 15-19 have experienced rape and sexual violence, offers a reprieve from the everyday terror of assault, his character going as far as to hunt down and sadistically eliminate those who attempted to enact such abuse upon Ellie. Where indignation is a reality expected for many women emerging into adulthood and with ubiquitous fears of societal and environmental disestablishment, a character, morally grey as the ‘green world’ has allowed them to become, adheres to the scriptures of idealised, Christian virtue, allocating the same messianic image onto the aging survivalist as Aslan provided in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles. Their characters are easily relatable, the main drive of the archetype is to reestablish a dignified control in an otherwise unstable landscape, a reflection of the transitional state of the age and location of his audience within a faltering capitalist civilisation.

The perfect image of this hero is disparaged only by his age and appearance, which, within a topography so ruinous as in the realm of fantasy, often only deepens his appeal; Domonique Lestel from the Edinburgh University Press supposes that young adult audiences reflect their opinions of the state of the common world into the media mythologies, meaning that romanticising the downfall of Institution makes it easier to digest, especially for those just entering a chartered marketplace disguised as the ‘9-5’. Through creating a limerent and metaphorical relationship with the characters that represent the shortcomings of society, it is easier to categorise reality in an attractive regard: falling in love with the principled ‘monster’ navigating the end of the world makes one’s journey a lot more palatable. Leaders of the Pagan faith endorse similar techniques of self-soothing and discovery through spiritual rituals such as shadow work, where a subject attempts to converse with the Freudian, psychoanalytic ‘Id’ with the aim of self-reflection and ultimately deliverance from repressed fears and desires stifling life’s natural transitions. Through the discovery of personal discomposure, one can reframe anxieties within superficial terrain, allowing audiences in such a landscape of apocalyptic fiction to transgress fear into desire. Indications of transgressive reframing are found throughout literary history, similar reflections of the female gaze can be witnessed through Lucy Westenra’s actions in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ (1897); in her somnambulic state, Lucy finds herself unchaperoned in the garden late at night, called to the wolf-ish form of Dracula through an uncharacteristic sexual appetite, actions which would ultimately lead to her untimely and violent death. Lucy’s representation as the ‘femme fatale’ within the epistolary novel was a pasquinade by Stoker, mocking contemporary views on the Fallen Woman and implicitly addressing the institutions upon which he as an author was extradited for his social politics. Through the lens of the Gothic, which as a genre, rests parallel to apocalyptic fantasy, the taboo is far easier indulged in, its separation from reality making the unknowable known and the offensive, satire, all containing still the knowledge that the text's themes are simply a facade held against the contemporary landscape. Our attraction to the hazy morals, animalistic forms, and violent delight of the apocalyptic male archetype is nothing more than a handsome way of exploring feared desire, whether that be sexual or in virtue, born from discomfort within the modern world with a value likened to religious practice, ancient or reformed.

With women often subject to the violent scapegoat of male-catered media, the stereotyped innocence of femininity is abolished when faced with the Western world’s destruction. It's unlikely that the shock of 19th century ‘flaneur-ish’ tropes depicting the slaying of the vicious, voluptuous, and ‘Fallen Woman’ with teeth lining her Vagina have vanished within the mindless violence of the modern slasher flick. Within the land of the undead, there’s an established law that human, moral or otherwise, boasts an absolute right to life above their late opposition; where the monster finds its origins in the misogynistic depictions of liberated women, the gleeful attitude towards the ‘boogeyman's’’ demise is perhaps a rather depressing extension of those same disparaging views towards, the colloquially and improperly termed, ‘fairer sex’. Women infiltrating these male-dominated spaces such as video game fandoms set within the apocalypse summons similar, but most certainly more trivial, trepidations as suffrage installed within the turn of the industrial century. The same threat to authority men faced in the political sphere during the late reign of Victoria is reproduced through retweets and dislikes, writers of modern apocalyptic media reframing institutional, often misogynistic tropes to seek a wider audience for capital gain, leaving many men stuck in the conventions of old to feel displaced themselves within ‘incel-ish’ apathy towards change. They find themselves unable to find the Femme Fatale represented within the media, disallowing an outlet to see women suffer nonsensically as was common up to as late as the mid-2000s (‘I Spit on your Grave’ [2010] being a continuously remade and adapted film that sees the liberation of its leading women to become a subplot to non-con/rape fantasy). The lead-male archetype is more than just a pretty face and a pat on the back for his audience, as his presence within the media is discouraging fantastical depictions of sexual assault and violence towards women for male satisfaction: his nonchalance and undiscriminating violence or absolute devotion towards social change add something of a Byronic hero to the framework of his media, providing a role model for young men, as well as an incentive to engage for women. The success of his character has lent itself to a lesser production of sadistic, prejudiced, and pornographic material influencing the impressionable generation, the irony of his place within a desolate, fictional society creating an antithetical impression on the reality of those who digest his plot.

The joy of seeing oneself accepted within celebrated media is an undisputable joy and the lessons one inadvertently learns through the exploration of a fictional narrative can uncover subconscious truths about the very foundations of society. In a world of strict binaries that install obtuse depressions and fears surrounding the transgressional stages we as a species collectively face, a character who holds a vicarious command over his landscape is a lot easier to adore than those with influence within reality, the fallible nature of his actions and desires forgivable through his distance from reality. Yet, it is his ability to collate the diverse nature of humanity that shows his audience a fairer, more accepting reality is possible, his bringing together of opposites through fandom blogs such as the one you are on currently, a much-needed reprieve from the segregated nature of our current political landscape. In a world of dog-eat-dog, the leading moody, fallible, scarred, violent, caring, volatile, sullen, moral, courteous, and devoted survivalist holds out his arm and holster to a new generation of isolated but hopeful youths to grab a hold on.

[ngdrb]

Is Donald Trump the Antichrist?

The question of whether Donald Trump could be considered the Antichrist is a provocative one that has sparked considerable debate among theologians, political analysts, and the general public alike. This article aims to explore the origins of the Antichrist concept, the characteristics associated with it, and how they might relate to Trump’s persona and political actions.

Understanding the Antichrist

The term "Antichrist" originates from Christian eschatology, referring to a figure who opposes Christ and is often associated with the end times. In the New Testament, particularly in the Book of Revelation, the Antichrist is depicted as a deceiver who leads many astray, performing false miracles and promoting a false sense of peace. This figure is often characterized by traits such as charisma, manipulation, and a tendency to sow division.

Characteristics of the Antichrist

To analyze whether Trump fits the profile of the Antichrist, we first need to consider key characteristics typically associated with this figure:

Charisma and Influence: The Antichrist is often portrayed as a charismatic leader who can amass a large following. Trump’s rise to political prominence is undeniably linked to his ability to connect with a significant portion of the American populace.

Deception: The Antichrist is known for spreading falsehoods and manipulating truth for personal gain. Trump has frequently been accused of making misleading statements and promoting conspiracy theories, leading some to draw parallels to the deceptive nature attributed to the Antichrist.

Division: The concept of the Antichrist also encompasses the idea of creating discord among people. Trump's presidency was marked by significant polarization in American society, with fierce debates on race, immigration, and national identity.

Claims of Uniqueness: The Antichrist often claims a unique role or mission, positioning themselves as a savior of sorts. Trump's rhetoric frequently emphasizes his “America First” agenda, suggesting that he alone can deliver the country from perceived threats.

Theological Perspectives

From a theological standpoint, the notion of labeling any contemporary political figure as the Antichrist is fraught with complications. Many Christian scholars argue that the Antichrist is a singular figure who will emerge during the end times, rather than a label that can be applied to various leaders throughout history.Furthermore, some religious interpretations caution against hastily assigning such titles, as it can lead to a dangerous precedent of vilifying political adversaries. This perspective encourages caution and promotes the idea that the focus should remain on fostering understanding and dialogue rather than division.

Pop Culture and the Antichrist

The idea of Trump as the Antichrist has also permeated popular culture, with some memes and social media discourse drawing explicit connections. This cultural phenomenon reflects a broader trend of attributing apocalyptic significance to contemporary political events and figures, often exaggerating their impact in the context of biblical prophecy.

Conclusion

While the question of whether Donald Trump is the Antichrist is largely subjective and depends heavily on individual beliefs and interpretations, it does highlight how deeply intertwined politics and religion can be in contemporary society. Whether viewed through a theological lens or a cultural one, the discussion invites critical reflection on the nature of leadership, influence, and the narratives we construct around our leaders. Ultimately, while the label may resonate with some, it is essential to approach such claims with discernment and a commitment to fostering constructive dialogue.

[agentfascinateur]

"Allies for Armageddon"...

Israel first became central to evangelical eschatology four centuries ago, when Protestant theologians, especially those of a millenarian bent, seized upon very specific passages about the end times.

...

And then, if the prophets were right, some pretty unpleasant things would happen: A false messiah known as the Antichrist would take over Jerusalem and install himself as the savior before inaugurating the Tribulation, a seven-year period of death and destruction, with most Jews perishing. Finally, Jesus would return to Earth, overthrowing the pretender and inaugurating a thousand-year reign of peace on Earth. By the 1970s and '80s, a growing number of prominent evangelicals, including Falwell, made trips to Israel, eager to get in on the ground floor of the coming apocalypse. At first, the Israelis paid them little mind, but Prime Minister Menachem Begin quickly realized that the religious right had become increasingly influential in Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party.

So to arrive at a biblical moment, these lunatics meanwhile sacrifice the blood of tens of thousands at the altar of religion.

It all rather sounds very pagan to me.

[errantabbot]

Religion, Renegotiation, and Critical Conflation

As much as I find the evangelical conflation with politicians and the person of Christ utterly heretical and off-base, I’m similarly dissuaded by the memes conflating politicians with the prophetic vision of an “anti-Christ.”

As a reminder, the early Christians (including the apostles) wrote nothing expressly concerning our day and age. The first Christian communities were utterly disenchanted by any notion of a distant future, being quite convicted that the eschatological vision preserved in scripture was unfolding before their very eyes, literally, within the natural lives of those numbered among them (Christ’s return etc).

To put it another way, there are no biblical prophecies that even remotely envision 21st century life, politics, or world events. Any application of scripture to life today is a re-negotiation of the text, a deference to the enduring capacity of the literature to enshrine something significant concerning human nature, even outside of its original and intended context.

The Christian tradition has been continuously reimagined by its adherents, and the meaning of scripture is re-negotiated constantly. This is a harsh fact for those of us who grasp for certainty, or objectivity, and who otherwise seek to surrender our responsibility and agency to an external authority.

We can certainly do that, but the sobering fact is that the authority surrendered by us is the only authority it carries (“it” being scripture, institutions, or individual leaders).

The Christian tradition, like all of the world’s wisdom traditions, is an open repository of human imagination, endeavor, and hope. And, as an object of psychological projection, it has gathered many gems in its storehouse, but it has also come to be associated with an almost limitless supply of poison and nonsense, which in our sifting (be it constructive, critical, or otherwise) must be identified and rebuffed.

~Sunyananda

[tanadrin]

There are things you could do to make institutions like the federal judiciary and the federal bureaucracy less prone to partisan capture--the fact that political appointees make up a stupendously large share of the American government is one thing we could probably change pretty easily. But institutional fiddling alone isn't enough; even with great institutions, I think it's a truism in politics as well as war that the side that's organized better and cares more has a significant advantage.

I don't know if the liberal (as in "not especially conservative") side of politics is coherent enough as an entity and a culture to form a broad-based legal movement in the same way the Federalist Society could in the 80s--it's a pretty diverse category formed mostly by exclusion. But I think leftists could, or progressives could, and I think in the same way that a lot of conservatives felt they didn't have a positive vision to offer in the 80s, only individual critiques not yet formed into a coherent whole, I think a lot of leftists and/or progressives now may well be in a similar position. Like, it's important to know what you would do if you had power, not in the sense of "the Revolution happens tomorrow and our political eschatology is realized," but rather "we have managed to get our allies appointed to a substantial chunk of the federal bench, and we can influence policy in significant though not unlimited ways; what are our priorities, and how do we approach them?"