#mentions of religion

[springtimebat]

The Baby Dream (A Poem)

If I had kids

I think

I would have to drown them

Bury myself in swampy waters

Hold my babies in a vice-like grip

A cuddle, transferred from mother to mother

An ageless tradition which sprouts from melancholy

It ends with the kid that I gave 

To old waters, to a sea burial

Deep in snowy Japan

My own Pandora’s box

Blood, guts, and all

God’s many mouths say nothing

As they meet me at the height 

Of the mountain 

As we meet at the peak 

Of the mountain

God and baby

Slip away

Turn to blood, pus, sweat

Just bloody cells, masses of flesh

Writhing, slimy beneath my palms

Such experiences are bus stop experiences

Sporadic in nature 

They take place when the snow turns red 

[cage-cat-yt]

Some random anon said I was a bad person because I was Christian :( no context, I think all I did was say on a random post

"lol I'm a queer neurodivergent Christian"

But like guys can we not say people are bad people that deserve to die strictly because of their religion? Like if you're gonna be mean to someone be mean to them about their character or actions lol

Anyway tea of the day I'm gonna go write fluffy fluff fanfic (shirtless men edition)

Also also if anyone knows songs similar to I can't decide by Scissor Sisters please recommend, I'm making a playlist for my oc Saro Margossian and his whole thing is happy melody and disturbing lyrics (one song I added was Choke by I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME)

[melmac78]

So the weekend update:

Old place packed and ready for bug treatment. I’m moving what I can today and Tuesday before treatment and hopefully the heck out of here by next Monday. (No issue in new place in regardless and treating as precaution).

Have been giving stink eye to old bed: can’t risk taking but am sick of sleeping on cot.

Supposed to get new furniture Wednesday which will help me in regard to unpacking items there. I will know where to put what. What couple of items I can still take there furniture wise from old place will come over after treatment.

Please keep good thoughts Tuesday and Thursday as I have events at the crack of dawn and evening. (July 4 events both, though one is fun and in old town so I’ll be getting stuff to take to new place.)

Went to farmers market and got one of more unique religious tract ls I’ve ever seen (note verse is listed for content clarity):

Whether or not you believe I will say this wins for creativity. Plus if one doesn’t want to listen, they can take the stones out, clip top part off and display elsewhere.

Missed barbecue pan it by 10 mins., but my backup order was available. So good and a good way to wrap up weekend.

••••••

Finally…

Ash doing great.

She needs to stop trying to do her “Garfield the window figure” parody.

Fortunately the new blinds are rubbery so they don’t break as easy.

[shadesofnavy]

Please do me a little favor. Can you confirm that Keith and Cherry would not get down to funky times in a holy place? If they will then please spray them with the no horni bottle /lh

Believe it or not, they have the decency not to get funky in any holy place, so fear not

[thegalacticjustice]

ask that guy where he lives

[what-even-is-thiss]

Love answering ”why are you transgender?” with “God told me to” because it’s funny and it confuses everyone except for me. And God. Because he told me to.

[prokopetz]

Since we're getting into "did you know that Santa's eight tiny reindeer are a reference to the eight legs of Odin's steed?" season once again, remember: while there are some elements of Christmas (or Hallowe'en, or Easter, or...) observations that are probably pre-Christian in origin, before one believes any of that this-is-really-100%-just-a-Pagan-holiday-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off stuff, one must consider all of the following possibilities:

Our earliest known records of the cited pre-Christian practices were written down by some random Christian monk centuries after the fact, and we genuinely have no idea how accurate this account is, to what extent the apparent similarities with Christian practice are due to the author deliberately or unwittingly putting a Christian spin on it, or indeed, whether they were just making shit up.

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by Christian writers who were bent for prefiguration theology (i.e., the idea that the Bible echoes backwards in time and pre-Christian religious practices were unwittingly imitating future Christian practices).

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by Protestant writers who believe that all Pagan deities are Satan in disguise, so they think that if they can prove that Catholic practices are secretly Pagan in origin, that proves that Catholics are secretly Satanists.

The similarities between the two sets of practices have been exaggerated or misrepresented by overzealous mythographers trying to prove that all mythology and religion throughout all of human history is secretly a single unified monomyth; if it's pre-Victorian, expect shades of prefiguration theology, while if it's post-Victorian, expect a lot of stuff about the Collective Unconscious.

A bunch of 19th Century proto-Fascists were trying to construct a pre-Jewish cultural identity (and considered Christianity to be tainted by association), but didn't want to give up any of the fun rituals, so they made some shit up about how it was still okay to do Christmas because something something Odin, or whatever.

A bunch of early 20th Century Pagan reconstructionists filled in the gaps in their understanding of pre-Christian ritual with culturally Christian assumptions, then turned around and pointed at their own accidentally Christianised reconstructions as evidence that Christian practices are derived from them.

A bunch of late 20th Century self-help manual authors tried to break into the occult bookstore market by uncritically repeating any or all of the above.

Someone on the Internet just made it up.

[ily-no-romo]

Hey so I know “trauma” has become a really common term, and people somewhat recognize boundaries/respect in terms of not telling people whether or not you agree that their trauma counts as trauma. But a lot of people need to learn that that applies to what someone doesn’t label as trauma.

If I describe an experience and never once refer to it as traumatic or trauma or anything like that, it makes me very uncomfortable for people to label my experience as trauma when they respond to what I’m saying.

For example, I think a lot of my religious upbringing had negative effects, but I don’t consider myself to have religious trauma. But when I talk about certain beliefs I was taught or discussions at my school, people will call it religious trauma or say I can joke about it or justify certain fears because everyone handles trauma differently. But I don’t consider it trauma. And I don’t think I should have to label something as trauma to be allowed to cope with negative experiences on my own terms.

And it’s totally fine if someone relates to things and thinks of it as trauma in their own life. But trauma is incredibly personal, and you shouldn’t invalidate people’s trauma, but you also shouldn’t elevate someone’s experiences to trauma when they don’t call it trauma. That’s a loaded assumption.

[writinator]

We just started creative nonfiction in my creative writing class so here's a warm up we did today. Prompt was morning routine

Morning. I open my eyes, dread immediately filling my stomach as a greeting to the day. It’s still dark out and I feel pleasantly warm under my sheets, a feeling I know I will need to say goodbye to soon. My alarm hasn’t gone off yet, I think, but it must be near time. It always is. As this thought flutters through my still groggy mind, the devil hears me speaking of him and my alarm clock decides now is the best time to screech the most god-awful noise known to man. In reality it’s a rather cheerful chirping, but no one can convince my sleep-deprived brain that it isn’t the call of Satan pulling me into the depths of Hell at 5:30 AM.

[awakefor48hours]

I saw a post about this so now I'm curious

New poll with more options if you want there

please consider reblogging for a larger sample size unless you're planning to say something that's anti-theistic

[throesofincreasingwonder]

You know what? I want a whole post for this:

Sex Repulsion is not the same thing as, or an excuse for, Sex Negativity

non-negotiable!

I am a sex-repulsed asexual. This means that I am uncomfortable and repulsed by the idea of engaging in sexual acts. This does not mean that I have an excuse to be repulsed by other people's sexual attraction or the right to police how other people engage in or express sexual acts or attraction.

Young queer people need to learn the difference between sex repulsion and sex negativity, and actively work to unlearn sex-negative attitudes. Asexuality, even sex-repulsed asexuality, is and should be fully compatible with sex positivity.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea of other people feeling sexual attraction or engaging in sexual acts that do not involve you in any way, that is not sex repulsion it is the cultural Christianity and you need to seriously work on that.

[solhunder-new]

Workin on a thing ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )

(bonus sheet below the cut)

[outofcontextdiscord]

[midnightsslut]

religion is one of the most prominent recurring themes on the album, and it has been present in some capacity for quite a few records now. taylor previously compared love to religion: her saving grace, her belief system, and a fated divine intervention (false god, cornelia street, and cruel summer are the best examples of this). ‘sacred new beginnings that became my religion’ and ‘we’d still worship this love even if it’s a false god’ are two of the defining statements about her philosophy on the lover album.

taylor doesn’t want to leave all of that behind on ttpd, at least not at the beginning. the first supernatural force she mentions is the spaceship on down bad, which she compares to a skylight of freedom in the epilogue. *something* has finally come to save her from her life of suffering. she doesn’t care if it’s a force of good at first; if anything, she’s just fine being taken away by aliens. she views this man as her destiny. it isn’t until guilty as sin? that taylor starts to ponder the moral implications of what she’s doing. is she guilty as sin for wanting to leave her previous religion and relationship behind? she comes to the conclusion that, even if she rolls the stone away and gets resurrected/redeemed, she cannot avoid the fallout. she is okay with the thought of having to wait, as long as both lovers vow to be together forever, just as she once did with someone else in false god. ‘I choose you and me religiously’ finishes the bridge of the song in a direct callback to cornelia street.

the next mention of religion has murkier imagery. she claims that she does not need the Lord’s help to save this man. she sees the halo that he has, and she can fix him herself. now that she feels free of her prior cage, she isn’t looking for divine intervention anymore. she wants control. she is their route to salvation.

when the relationship falls apart, she retreats back into the position of a believer rather than a divine figure. she compares him to a Holy Ghost who promised to save her and take her to heaven. instead, she is in hell in every sense of the word: she’s down bad and feels guilty for digging up the grave. he was a jehovah’s witness who promised that she could break free of the cage imposed by love without changing her religion altogether; she would’ve just had to switch denominations. she could still have a marriage and kids! she could still have a blue tortured poet! the man was different, but not the dreams they had together. the story of the first part of the album ends here. her faith has been broken, and she has only found any semblance of sanity by refusing to mention these belief systems altogether.

side b/the anthology blends the christian imagery of side a with goddesses, sorcerers, and prophecies. she bargains with these powers to let her have the future she wants (the prophecy). she doesn’t sound like someone believing in salvation. if anything, she feels cursed. she decides that the concept of divinely ordained timing will never work in certain relationships (‘the goddess of timing once found us beguiling / she said she was trying / peter, was she lying?’). this disdain extends onto her perception of other people’s faith (‘bet they never spared a prayer for my soul’). she does position herself as a prophet in cassandra, but even then, she admits that the role has hurt her. perhaps the pain in thank you aimee was meant to be, or perhaps she was just strong enough to build a legacy in spite of it, boulder by boulder. is she a martyr? does she want to be? or did she save herself?

the only real love song on this half of the album makes no mention of fate or any divine forces. it wasn’t meant to be. it’s not a supernatural invisible string or lightning in a bottle. she is just in love.

the album ends with the manuscript, which revisits an old story of a defining, formative heartbreak. as she sings ‘at last, she knew what the agony had been for’ while describing the legacy of her writing, she seems to revert to thinking about the purpose of trauma. the only exception is that, in this case, she is the one who found meaning in her pain by turning it into a manuscript. writing is her belief system now, and she proselytizes by telling her stories and thus giving up the manuscript.

ultimately, her belief in destiny has chewed her up and spat her out. she so desperately clung to her existing belief systems that she was fooled by a conman, which left her feeling cursed. religion is supposed to be with someone even in their darkest moments, but the album explains that taylor often felt abandoned. the only constant in her life was, well, herself. she’ll be okay, but her pen will be her saving grace.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m a Christian and pretty religious but I’m not like. Bothered about it if that makes sense? I don’t generally care what other people are doing spiritually as long as they’re not causing harm to others. So I get whiplash when I say I’m thinking about checking out the local Islamic center just to see what it looks like in there and other Christians are all like “Oh guard your heart while you’re in there!”

Guard my heart against what? The exact same guy we worship but slightly to the left?

[prokopetz]

About twenty years back, there was this weird transitional period after companies had figured out that harvesting their users' demographic information was a potential gold mine but before we lived in a hellish panopticon where any website operator could look up your IP address and know what you had for breakfast where some sites would try to get you to fill out, like, detailed demographic surveys before they'd let you access their stuff. Not just age, gender and geographic location, either – some of them would fish for employment status, marital status, brand preferences, even religious affiliation. A lot of folks I knew would just pick the first option in every dropdown, but my move was always to fill in the demographic information of the current Pope, at least as far as I was able to determine it (brand preference was always a tricky one). I like to think that, thanks to my efforts, their data sets are haunted to this day by a phantom pontiff.