#prayers are useless

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"An alleged loving God that always waits for believers to beg and cry before it gives them what they need doesn't make any sense."

He likes to hear you beg.

[waldosakimbo]

OH MY GOD Heretic (2024) has me by the throat. I feel like this one is definitely worth rewatching, because it TELLS you so much, it advertises SO MUCH right away, and it's sinister how it plays out!

Does Sister Barnes have faith? Does Sister Paxton actually believe she's seen evidence of god from, hilariously, some amateur porn? You're given the idea Sister Paxton believes more but she has no converts and no baptisms. Sister Barnes is questioning, but she's more successful. Why is that? (Is it the big sad eyes?) When they spot the teenagers in the street and Sister Paxton earnestly says "I love them," they immediately betray her. She loves the world. Its cruel. She wants to save this man. He's cruel. Faith and cruelty. Iterations. The butterfly image. The dead moths coating the window. Belief and disbelief and god damn it's tasty. Quick aside, did anyone else think he drugged those drinks or not? I worried initially, but I think it was genuinely just another one of his tests for later. Also it's insidious how Reed tells them "truths." He tells them the walls and ceiling have metal but they don't know that would block cell phones. He tells them the front door locks by a mechanism timer that doesn't come undone until daylight, (but he can switch it off). He tells them the house is wired weird. He tells them he put the aromatic pie there, he tests them, and it's so. Good! So when he tells them about religion, his motivations, his study of theology, and the challenge from Sister Barnes (the faithless? Who choses Belief and stands up to him? Who has her throat slit as the sacrificial lamb? Beautiful, tragic) is the other side of that. The flipside of the coin. Hugh Grant is AMAZING in this, because he's Hugh Granting it up but instead of a comedy, it's a horror. Unsettling to the max. Why? Because it's just the power of humanity and faith. It's JUST. The power. Of humanity. And Faith. It's nothing supernatural. It's using knowledge, history, the arts, humanity and psychology. As a weapon. Longlegs fell short for me because it was eventually supernatural and I thought it clunky and mishandled in the second half. This one? It's just humans. It's just an evil man. And it's visceral. More grounded, which makes it Terrifying. Even when faced with a miracle, we learn it's false. It's a magic trick. Even when we could pray, we're told BY THE PERSON. WHO IS FAITHFUL, that it means nothing, but sometimes it's beautiful to still pray for someone. Which brings me to the point where Sister Paxton was stabbed and praying in level...three? of his twisted Dante's inferno house? Actually, quick aside to that, I love the back and forth of quoting Spider-Man or Voltaire. Quoting Virgil or the Swamp Thing. It's again putting them on opposite sides, another mirror. But also showing the house itself as a labyrinth, yes, but specifically I think that was Dante's Inferno poster in his office, making Paxton Virgil, travelling the levels of Hell to the frozen pit/horrifying chamber of cages where he keeps other pious women, going Through to get Out. "Sister P" Is praying even though she Just said it does nothing. Reed crawling towards her, his own throat slit. But there's this moment where he's draped over her, sobbing or choking, looking for the warmth of her prayer, I think trying to feel her belief because he's been searching for it for so long and he's left empty. Before he can find peace (or kill her, did he have his knife to her throat to kill her? I think he would, but I still think he had this moment where he wished he could believe to find peace with someone, especially after seeing that interview where Grant stated backstory of Reed that he was a lonely man who lost someone dearly to him and he searched through religions to find comfort and couldn't) he's killed. He's smashed in the head with the McGuffin from earlier. Victory. Did Barnes come back? I think she was saving her strength and had one final moment to help her friend. And then that fucking ending. Is she dead? Is she alive? Was the butterfly real? Did she believe? Is it only her belief, her butterfly, or is a final hallucination before she passes? Did she make it out of Hell? Anyways, I'm going to have to see this again soon. Delicious. Horrifying. Loved it.

[phoenixcatch7]

Something I love about the implications of the new ‘elemental’ weapons in totk is the idea that link is powering these things himself.

Like, in the first game the weapons were always on - they powered up whether they were being held or sheathed or even dropped. Give a monster a smack, drop it on the ground and it’ll light back up in a few seconds. Generally, this meant that link didn’t have magic, unlike other games in the series. Even the champion’s abilities were just that - the champion’s! He just indicated when to light it up!

But in totk it’s very different. Now, he’s crafting and powering his own gear. The gems were long theorised to be the main ingredient creating magic items, like elemental arrows or enchanted jewellery and armour, and now we have proof!! He’s even learned how to do it himself! Combining gems, or even monster parts to his weapons and lighting them up whenever he wants! Turns them on and off at will! He’s learned to channel magic sometime between botw and totk, something not all heroes learn to do! In fics he’s long been one of the few to have no magic talent whatsoever, and now that’s changed! Wild can officially join the ranks of the magic users!

There’s also the issue of where he learned it and who taught him, but the answer is pretty obvious, and speaks volumes of how far Zelda has come on her own journey. 

[moonbean117]

[internetcatholicism]

I have a new skin lesion forming in a spot that has proven to be exceptionally painful. Please pray for me that I caught it early enough that antibiotics can work fast.

[cultivating-wildflowers]

Prayer request for my sister-in-law. She’s 17 weeks pregnant and went to the doctor due to some spotting while she was at work today. Doctor didn’t seem concerned but they’re at l&d running tests to be sure. Baby is fine.

[loumauve]

our healthcare system is pretty good, comparatively, I usually pay at most 5 bucks for my regular medications. so that's 15 at most per quarter year or so. access to specialists is overall good, sure, sometimes you have to wait a while but most of the time you can get help fairly easily and quickly.

but god forbid you can't reach your Hausarzt for over a month, bc as soon as you don't have the regular Überweisung and you don't have the Rezept you are shit out of luck or at the very least in trouble when you're trying to see your psychiatrist

[rabarta]

-- to guide the heart from within, all in search for you.

taglist: @flowering-darkness @meowtroidvanya @thoda @gaiamatsu

[andromeda3116]

It’s an older fic of yours but Such Selfish Prayers is a great work that inspired me to be a better person and to have healthy boundaries, could probably say it was definitely at the start of my healing journey

I am so glad to hear that, truly. such selfish prayers is probably the most important fic I've ever written, which came as a bit of a surprise, because, as I've said before, I started it simply out of frustration with how Katara was treated in canon. I never expected to change anyone's life with it, and it's been very humbling to realize that my words have touched thousands of people. I've gotten many comments saying how readers were inspired by it, or given hope in a dark time, or even that it made them realize they wanted to pursue a different career. That it started your healing process kind of brings tears to my eyes, I'm so glad that I was able to help you.

One of the things I put into that fic was my own recent break-up and how I was processing it myself -- how do you deal with someone you love but can't be with? Who -- if you were to stay with them -- would be holding you back? And they loved you and they didn't mean to harm you but they were still wrong for you in ways you don't know how to say? Even more, he had reached out to me in what I thought -- as Katara did -- an attempt to become friends again, but was actually an attempt to get back together. The line, "I thought he was ready to be friends again, I was ready to be friends again," was a direct quote from a text I sent a friend that day, after an incredibly uncomfortable lunch date. I had to tell him that the door was closed, and wouldn't be opening again, and it hurt. That sense of "I wish I could make this be right for us just so I could stop hurting you, but I cannot choose you over me" came from a very personal place.

A lot of that fic is from that kind of personal place, like I said in the author's note of chapter 4. And it's very much idealistic in a way that -- I will freely admit -- isn't entirely realistic. Or, it wouldn't be that simple. (Ultimately, he and I could not be friends again.) But I wrote the world I wanted to see, wanted to make possible. Believing that things can change for the better, that we can stand up for what we believe in and build a better world, even if it's tedious and crawling two steps forward, one step back the whole damn way, even if it takes all our lives and more, we can make a better world and even if we ourselves don't see it, it matters so much because we can build the foundation of that and it will last and grow -- believing that this is all possible is the first step to making it be possible.

That hope and belief may, in the real world, simply be a small candle in the swallowing darkness, but it's a stubborn one and as long as we don't let it go out, it will light the way and someday -- someday -- the light will spread.

I didn't set out to write a story about that candle, but in the end I found I had, and the fact that it's spread to thousands -- and been read (or at least clicked on) by 170,000 people (170,000, it blows my mind) -- has swept me away and, in a way, kept my own candle burning. I may be small and helpless against the tides of everything happening in the world around me, but my words have inspired and helped and strengthened thousands of people. We give each other strength and hope through these awful times, and that hope and togetherness are the things that can change the world.

So, thank you for this. I am so, so happy that I have helped you, and so, so proud of you for going on your healing journey and learning to set your boundaries, it's important and hard and worth it and scary, and I am absolutely rooting for you the whole way.

[aci25]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"According to your beliefs, god has given you the disease. Why do you still pray to God for your recovery"?

If your god is a creator god, nothing can exist that it doesn't want to exist, and nothing can happen that it doesn't want to happen.

Praying to your god means you doubt its plans for you.

[nerdgirlnarrates]

I thought a patient was going to die yesterday. An artery was injured during surgery, and it took an hour and a half to get it under control. Two more attending surgeons came in, another scrub tech, and the attending anesthesiologist. They were working under the microscope, and the blood rushed up under the scope and filled the field. They were losing liter after liter, the anesthesiologist was yelling that whoever was getting the blood from the blood bank should run, pressure dropped to 60s/40s, and I was fucking shaking in the background convinced I was watching someone bleed to death. They got it under control though. Remarkably, the patient’s neuro exam was good this morning. Still, it was the scariest fucking thing I’ve seen in medical school.

[hyrule-kingdom-updates]

What a waste of talent. What a way to respond to the undeniable fact of destruction: indulging in every other aspect of the universe besides preservation.

It’s a pathetic existence that I’ve truly only ever seen in the most boring of men, the most muted of souls. And yet it is in her.

Here we are, witnessing innocence in the holy. Oil in water. This is as good a reminder as any that I am not the only thing to blame, though I’ll happily take the credit.

See, the opposite of a god is not a demon. The opposite of a savior is never the villain. Rather, here we have Hylia’s true diametrically opposed opponent: A vulnerable little girl.

Kindly brace for an update by this week’s end.

[brightblessed-aa]

// finally unlocking new araid and this questline is so funny because roi.... is just.... so resentful of the gods....

[keow]

It’s funny how God will tell you not to do something that you know would be effective in solving your problem, yet He refuses to help you when you pray for the problem to be resolved. What do You want from me…

[filosofablogger]

Awakening To Tragedy ... Again

Courtesy of Dan Rather … Again. Morning headlines of mourning. A night of violence and loss. A dawn that brings no comfort. Our national map of tragedy has a new place in which we stick a pin of pain. We see once more what happens when instruments of mass death are untethered from any semblance of logical restrictions. As always, there are new names to learn of people who will never hear their…