#on people who aren't aligned with that faith/culture maybe

[danieyells]

Do you think methods of exorcism and laying spirits to rest would have to differ depending on the spirit's origin? Or would it depend more on where the act is taking place than where the spirit is from?

Like Zenji covers his face around purifying incense and covers his ears when Haku plays his flute to lay the childrens' spirits to rest, but would non-Japanese methods still be a threat to him?

Knowing him he wouldn't wanna risk it, but I'm imagining Hotarubi going on a mission thinking they're dealing with a Japanese spirit and Haku's like okay I'll put it to rest and it doesn't work. . .because the spirit is from another culture entirely. At most it's put off for a bit but it comes back because it hasn't been given proper peace or something.

[spacelazarwolf]

Here's a fun random question: Is there such a thing as a secular Jew?

Like, we have secular Christians who do the bare minimum to call themselves a Christian and participate in Christian holidays. Are there Jews that do that? Like maybe they were born into the faith and participate in the culture but they aren't like. Super religious about it all and if they miss something, it's not a big deal for them?

oh absolutely. there are some jews who will eat a bacon cheeseburger then fast all day with their family on yom kippur then not speak another word of hebrew till passover. but i think for jews it’s less abt doing the bare minimum to still be considered a jew bc judaism is a tribe, and more abt spending important days with their family or connecting with their culture.

and like obligatory 2 jews 3000 opinions and i’m not the Ultimate Authority on judaism, but the thing that’s different imo abt judaism vs christianity (at least western christianity) is that christianity is a faith-based religion. generally, if you don’t align with christian theology, or at least say “yeah ok jesus sure”, you are by definition not a christian. for jews, there’s multiple different axes on which jews can interact with judaism, but the two that are probably the most helpful to gentiles in understanding the jewish people’s complex and varied relationships to judaism: religiosity and observance.

religiosity is about what you believe. do you think god exists? what is god? what are your beliefs about creation? how do you interact with jewish spirituality? and honestly, you could probably even break religiosity and spirituality into two different categories.

observance is about what you do. do you abstain from eating pork and shellfish? do you light candles every friday night? do you attend synagogue regularly? do you just go on yom kippur? do you wear a kippah or tichel?

to a lot of people who aren’t jewish or aren’t familiar with judaism, they might think that if someone is religious then they’re obviously observant, and if they aren’t religious then obviously they aren’t observant. but you will meet jews who keep fully kosher, light candles every single friday, observe even the most minor fasts, celebrate all the holidays, and think the notion of god is bullshit and saying the shema is just a way they connect with their ancestors. you’ll also meet jews who haven’t lit candles since they moved out of their parents’ house, eat bacon for breakfast, only go to synagogue on yom kippur, and believe that god created the universe and calls the jewish people to heal the world through good deeds and charity. you’ll meet jews who are deeply spiritual but don’t believe in god. you’ll meet jews who go to synagogue every saturday morning but don’t know a lick of hebrew. and that’s the coolest thing about judaism for me is that there are a shit ton of rules that you can study for years and years and you still don’t have to follow a single one to be jewish if you’re already part of the tribe.

[shut-up-rabert]

okay I have to vent, you can ignore this ask but I would love it if you gave your opinions on the topic. Hindublr lately seems to be filled with spam tagged #casteism and other things wherein the entire religion or culture is reduced to just caste atrocities. I blocked some but it is like new accounts spring up everyday. Hindublr isn't a politics tag? Atleast it wasn't when I first joined tumblr. Also these blogs are full of blatant hindu hate and somehow they equate being an orthodox hindu as being a bjp supporter? Like if you call them out on their misinformation they start calling you andhbhakt even if the context had nothing to do with bjp? Modi hate or Yogi hate is so blatant. Like these blogs aren't even talking about actual problems. They spread misinformation most of the times. Like yk in one of your answers on that one blog that was regarding Congress sending army to kashmir.

Half baked knowledge, "saviour of the dalits" complex and Hindu hate is all they offer. I am all for talking about genuine discrimination that goes on in our society but it must be based on facts rather than artificial hysteria and emotion driven ideologies.

Honestly, call me a hypocrite because I use the hindublr tag for political stuff relating to hindus aswell , but I will admit that the tag of Hindublr is not for Hindu hate, its for hindus to engage.

Blogs like not-so-sweet61 and others following her trail are truly going out of their way to spread hate about us. Their motive for tagging is not to spread awareness, because their manner of presenting is vehemently anti Hindu (as you said, half baked facts) , and what they do is not spreading awareness either; they are doing a sham act of defaming the religion in the name of “calling out the bad practices” by bringingthe character of Shri Ram and others into question.

And before people call me out for being a propagandist and all, the sweet61 is not someone who is calling out ill treatment of Dalits that I am too much of an andhbhakt to see, this person is a muslim calling out Hindu Gods. I had an altercation with her during the infancy of this blog, and skimmed through hers to find Sufi quotations and other Islam related stuff that has most likely been removed as of now becuase I can no longer find it.

That put things in perispective for y’all?

Also, cherry on the cake, she’s a congressi, girl legit quoted Sonia Gandhi on section 377 like it was not Congress under whose command it was reinstated🤡 So yeah, ofcourse theres andhbhakt comments and equating shit to BJP.

They are not saviours of dalits, they are not champions of minority. These are people of other faiths targetting us systematically, maybe because of the non left alignment of people who use the hindublr tag.

And another thing? Hindublr tag is used by Hindus ourselves, like I said, for engaging with each other on religion related stuff. For those not of the faith, they use hinduism tag. The specific use is for us so these people are using the tag on purpose to get our attention.

Nothing more, nothing else.

[horizon-verizon]

The way Alicent “forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law” Hightower protect and align herself with a kinslayer, even saying that Larys’s help has not gone unnoticed and she will have need of it in the future (“the day will doubtless come when I require such a friend, with not only skill but discretion as well), and a murderer who broke guest right (an ancient and sacred custom in Westeros). Alicent’s character is quite basic and not hard to understand, like SO MANY religious people, her definition of “morality” is entirely rooted in bigotry and her own hypocritical patriarchal self-serving (mis)interpretation of religion.

Maybe a response to the chain of posts that began as Rhaenyra-as-leaders-and-her-flaws to Alicent-is-a-better-politician-bc-she-has-a-"cooler-head" asks I wrote. Most recent HERE.

In all those posts I strictly commented on the book!versions of both characters. Not the show. Still, you seem to observe how the past two asks' anons or so have tried to make book!Alicent who she isn't while having skewed interpretations of her. Maybe you feel that such a skewness would also apply to their views on show!Alicent bc Alicent stans/green stans tend to conflate certain aspects.

BC they see the shared quality of what you say here: "like SO MANY religious people, her definition of “morality” is entirely rooted in bigotry and her own hypocritical patriarchal self-serving (mis)interpretation of religion".

Except, of course, they don't see her faith as bigoted or think the bigotry is enough to morally condemn her non-instigated actions against Rhaenyra for power. They rather see it as a virtue of hers, her being resolutely dedicated to a Catholicism-modelled religion, her family's prestige, and their symbiotic relationship with said Catholicism-modeled religion.

The family's history is so interconnected with the origins of Oldtown, even though they aren't considered the ones to really build Oldtown, they basically are culturally and politically synonymous with the Faith itself. The Hightowers frequently had their own members become septons, even becoming High Septons. The High Septon--being the Westerosi version of a medieval pope when popes had an active role in how rulers/leaders conducted themselves and made decisions--lives and makes declarations from Oldtown. He--never has been a "she"--has such influence because they are known as the direct link to the Seven and responsible for the Andal-descended person's confidence in "salvation", or having a better afterlife. (Thus why the unnamed HS who raged against Maegor for his physical abandonment of Ceryse Hightower [niece] to marry Alys Harroway and against Aenys for marrying Rhaena and her brother Aegon together.) The Hightowers also fund the Citadel, so they also gain prestige from being kinda patrons of the central knowledge center of the entire society that itself supplies and reaffirms some key Faith teachings/aristocratic ideals and values. The Faith's influence/growth in Westeros is seen as a purely admirable thing by those persons. They either don't fully realize or care that Faith's hegemony also affirms abuse of power, and violence to preserve chivalric "honor" and the existence of itself, classism, blood purity, and misogyny in Westeros.

I think that show!Alicent is less "complicated" in that she's not written well in her being inconsistent and the idea behind her motivation is reduced to desperate, not very well-thought-out kind of protectiveness instead of an even more nuanced ambition reflective of how women in an Andal/Faith patriarchal feudalist state try to seize power AND believe in its definitions of womanhood simultaneously. A savvier, more self-controlled (except for some events where her misogyny really makes her downfall), and more capable Cersei. (For posts on what I mean by her similarity to Cersei, look HERE & HERE).

Book!Alicent, like Cersei, is "simple" & "complicated", but really I can only say this about Alicent because I'm aware of Cersei and see the likeliest existing parallels.