#religion /////

[forthegothicheroine]

[News of Jesus] came from Japan later, in 1933, when a Shinto priest in the Ibaraki Prefecture discovered written documents that turned out to be the last will and testament of Jesus Christ. What's more, the papers (which disappeared just before the outbreak of World War II) identified the nearby village of Shingo in Aomori Prefecture as his last resting place. Jesus, it turns out, did not die on the cross - that was his previously unreported brother Isukiri, who had secretly taken his place. As Isukiri suffered the crucifixion, Jesus secretly fled for Japan, taking with him his brother's severed ear and a lock of the Virgin Mary's hair as keepsakes. On a journey of four years, he crossed the Siberian tundra to reach Alaska, then sailed for Hachinohe, and finally reached Shingo. There, he made a fake identity for himself and enjoyed a quiet life, marrying a farmer's daughter named Miyuk and raising three children, farming garlic and tending to those in need. Described as bald with features of a 'long-nosed goblin', Jesus Christ died in Japan at the age of 106... The most remarkable aspect of this story is that you can visit the grave of the Japanese Jesus to this day...The villagers of Shingo are certain of their godly heritage. "I'm not really planning anything at all for the 25th of December, as it doesn't really matter to us," a 52 year old villager named Junichiro Sawaguchi told a reporter in 2008. "I know I am descended from Jesus, but as a Buddhist, it's just not all that important."

Edward Brooke-Hitching, The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History

[creature-wizard]

"This thing will let in the Bad Spirits!" O RLY tho?

Anytime someone asserts that doing or owning some thing will get you bothered and tormented by any kind of spirit or entity, you should stop and ask yourself where the evidence for this is.

For example, it's often asserted that Ouija boards are portals that let in malevolent spirits, with an occasional anecdote about someone who was allegedly tormented by said spirits after using a Ouija board.

While these anecdotes can be extremely evocative, it's important to remember that they are just anecdotes, and they don't really say anything about what's happening on a broader scale.

Consider: Ouija boards are produced by Hasbro and sold in toy stores. If they were as likely to let in malevolent entities as people claim, they wouldn't be a commercially viable product. The reason Hasbro can sell them to people is because the vast majority of buyers do not have bad experiences.

The same goes for tarot cards - some people assert that they let in malevolent beings, but the reality is that thousands of people own and use tarot cards without any kind of problem.

Some people assert that depictions of fairies will let in the Fae - but millions of people own all kinds of fairy art and knickknacks without encountering any trouble.

If someone told you that they had just watched a popular children's fantasy movie and that demons torment them afterward, what would your first thought be? Would you just assume that this movie must be extremely dangerous, or would you remember that millions of other people watched the same movie and did not experience demonic attacks, meaning that this movie is probably not to blame?

There is no broad evidence to suggest that anything is very likely to let in malevolent entities. If some people perceive they are suffering from spiritual attacks after engaging with some fairly commonplace thing, it would seem that they are extreme outliers. (And I think it's more likely that such people actually suffering from mental illness and/or severe religious indoctrination than from real spirits.)

[fuckyeahreligionpigeon]

[chappydev]

Find local activist groups. Help food not bombs and other such mutual aid groups

And if you don't have religious trauma? I suggest joining a progressive religious community, if you aren't necessarily opposed to it. Unitarian churches are often a central hub to find activism, community, and support, where you can receive and give support. Quakers are similar and I'm sure similar religious institutions exist across the spectrum of faith

You don't have to join a religion, but if you're looking for places where activists gather or those in need can be found, progressive churches, synagogues etc are a great place to start.

Yes, community centers can achieve the same goal. Not everywhere has an effective community center. America is so religious, even in progressive circles, that religious centers are effectively our community centers. It is what it is. I know unitarian universlists gladly welcome atheists.

I am so serious when I say that now is the time to take your activism offline. I am not spending the next four years squabbling on social media or getting woke points by reblogging posts that my followers already agree with. There are real places in your offline community where you can do good if you seek them out

[dailyeffectiveprayer]

Prayer. Changes. Things. 🙏

[wh0-is-lily]

Isabelle Adjani in "The Story of Adele H", 1975 Dir. François Truffaut

[reality-detective]

Mel Gibson says the Pope and the Vatican are Surrounded by Child Molesters — He Believes the Catholic Church is Now a Counterfeit Paralle Church that runs an Entirely Different Religion

• On current Pope Francis, Mel believes he’s covering up or involved in pedophilia now.

[wherekizzialives]

And so do these:

#there is literally an entire genre of icelandic folklore that is just #'catholic priest does wizard shit' #not miracles not holy acts. magic #they even go to French Magic School to learn how to do it #known as The Black/Dark School #and it's literally Sorbonne College

I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.

[inbabylontheywept]

my grandpa was a good man. and it really wasnt his fault - recreationally lying to kids is a proud family tradition - but he told me, once, that cutting a worm in half resulted in two worms.

i think he said it so i'd be more morally okay with fishing? i actually dont remember the context.

point was, he told me this, and he understimated (by a very large margin) how much i liked worms. i was a worm boy. very wormy. and after hearing that, i went home, and i dug through the garden, flipped over every rock, did everything i could to gather as many worms as i could, and then i uh.

i cut them all in half. every worm i could find. all of them. with scissors.

i then took this pile of split worms, and i put them in a box with a bit of lettuce and some water and stuff and went to bed expecting to double my worms overnight. i have math autism, so i had a vague understanding that if i did this just a few times in a row, i would eventually have a completely unreasonable amount of worms.

i was very excited to become this plane's worm emperor.

(i think i was...six?)

anyway, i did not become the inheritor of the worm crown. i instead woke up to a box of dead worms and cried. a lot. i got diagnosed with panic attacks as a teenager, but i think i had them as a kid, i just had no idea what they were. i was kind of processing that a.) i had killed what i had assumed was every single worm in my yard, and thus would have no more worms, and b). i was going to like, worm hell.

(six year babylon spent a lot of time worrying about god.)

so i kind of freaked out, and i climbed a tree, because god can only smite you if you're touching the ground (?) and i sat up there mostly inconsolable until my mom came out and asked, hey, what's up? what happened?

so i explained to her that i had killed all of the worms, forever, and was also Damned, and she took me to the compost pile, and we dug for all of five seconds and found like twenty more worms.

the compost pile was full of worms.

she then told me that a). there were more worms, and we could put them back under rocks and stuff and recolonize our yard and b). that one day, i would die, and go to heaven, and be able to talk to the worms face to face. that i'd be able to tell them all that i was very sorry, and that i killed them on accident, driven only by excessive Love, and that she was positive they would forgive me because worms have six hearts and no malice.

at that point, i think i was sixty percent tear-snot by weight, and i had no choice but to gather enough worms that i could hug them. which my mom helped with. and then after that she helped me put some worms back under each rock.

and for my epilogue: i spent a significant portion of my childhood in trees. and for many years after, even when my mom didnt know i was watching, i would catch her giving the space under the rocks a light spritz with the hose. not because she loved worms.

but because she loved me.

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[severeprincesheep]

Men have been disrespecting women's safe spaces since the beginning of time.

[soup-mother]

still thinking about "decolonising" missionary work.

the way you decolonise missionary work is by not doing missionary work

the way you decolonise missionaries is like this:

[nando161mando]

[politijohn]

Source

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[dailyeffectiveprayer]

Prayer isn't just about asking for things—it’s about listening, reflecting, and being present in God’s presence.