#religious superstitions

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Ancient Philosopher on Prayer

“Pray all you want - heaven can't hear you.

It's not going to stop the winter because you are cold, and it's not going to make the Earth smaller because you don't want to walk so far.

You pray for rain and it rains, but your prayer has nothing to do with it. Sometimes you don't pray and it rains anyway. What do you say then?

If you want to have a better life, educate yourself and think carefully about the consequences of your actions.”

-- Xun Zi, 312-230 BCE

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Heart amulet, 1295BC-1070BC, Egypt.

[anim-ttrpgs]

(Excerpt from the vampire PC rules in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy.)

[districtscare]

okay so based off of haymitch ripping his house phone out of the wall, i think he's had several incidents where he's broken certain important things in the house and. did not fix them. the clock's too loud? there's now a knife splintering the middle. looking in the mirror is too much? they're all covered minus the bust-level ones. some are broken! he doesn't own a microwave because the beeping is god awful! the washing machine is in a designated room because if he hears the sound it WILL set him off! like yes he is rich but lavish living doesn't concern him because he is in his own personal hell and money cannot fix what the mentality is tormented by. no, he's not going to see a shrink unless he's forcefully tortured. and all of that is painfully old school.

[taegularities]

some men are textbook villains fr

[suitmana]

father hans you are the best worst old man to me (yes more than old jochen). i love how the game tries to give him some depth without shying away from his actions

heavy discussion of the apostasy route ahead

so, yeah, he's very zealous in his religious beliefs.

but despite (or maybe because of) his strong convictions, he cares a lot for kieferberg, even if only out of moral obligation:

i mean, he has the decency to feel a little guilty about the supernatural terrors he puts the town through:

that very religious zeal, unfortunately, also makes him willing to have any of kieferberg's residents burnt at the stake for the sake of the town's "salvation". ironic, then, that in the same letter that he condemns walpurga's followers he starts with this:

his well-meaning, yet extremist religiosity is also apparent in his relationship with elise. even with the clear animosity on both sides, he was genuinely concerned for elise's soul after learning about how holle had her in the first place:

...as that concern later turns into condemnation:

yet he doesn't even word it as something he looks forward to either. just something unfortunate that needs to be done.

the way he tries to keep the peace throughout the game and is actually one of the more vocally skeptical among the townsfolk (even if part of that is to diffuse suspicion towards his own experiments) is also interesting considering how his religious beliefs enable him to do genuinely terrible things. like he believes that his god has no problems with him burning people alive but also he wants to be absolutely sure that there's an actual witch to burn in the first place. he is simultaneously the personification of everything wrong with kieferberg and one of the few (aside from gustav, leb, and freya) who are barely keeping the village together

[ladytabletop]

Could I please request 1d10 smuggler superstitions? A new campaign has started n my character is a smuggler who moves elven slaves n other goods from one country to the other free country

A cart anointed with linden oil and grave dirt will go unhindered.

An onion added to hidden cargo is good luck.

Never speak on the first day of a journey, or else you invite suspicion and violence to walk with you.

Woe to he who does not pour an ale out to the Road God before a journey.

Tap the toe of either boot to the opposite heel thrice as you approach a checkpoint to avoid suspicion.

A handful of bitter fennel consumed after a safe delivery is necessary for safe future ventures.

A magpie spotted when the sun is directly overhead is a portent of difficulty to come.

Every person involved in a venture must wear a poppy in their lapel until it has shed every petal, or else face bad luck.

If you encounter a fellow traveler headed the same way as you, it is bad luck to share a soup with them.

Wearing green at journey's start is good luck.

all d10 lists

[zombiechoir]

I want to share this. I got off work and sat in my car. I thought of Reita and started bawling for a moment. When I looked through the window I saw a blackbird in the bushes in front of me, sitting there. A black one so it means it's a male (females are brown). I love birds and especially blackbirds so it gave me comfort. When I started the car I expected it to fly off but he didn't. He looked at the car and didn't fly away. I waved at him when I drove off and it felt so fucking nice.

[astudyincontrasts]

wondered this during my weekly 12 hr session of "think nonstop about Penance and pray to be reincarnated as Lilah/Reader": has Penance!Silco ever considered if his vision of God during the drowning was like, a lack of oxygen or something else that had a scientific explanation?

Ok so, great question. I based Father Silco’s revelation during drowning on the DMT or Dimethyltryptamine studies mimicking the white light syndrome and euphoria of near death experiences. See here for more info. For the sake of the narrative Father Silco is either unaware of the mighty tricks your brain chemistry can play upon you at the moment of death, or else it just felt far too real for him to doubt, and he framed it in a religious context to help himself cope. But he’s an enormous bastard with a big brain, so there were more reasons than one for him to seek refuge in the priesthood.

[wickedzeevyln]

Folklore

We were told not to venture when it was dark out. Fear is a chain that binds the mind, a fetter that bounds the feet from reaching its true potential. Fear—weeds growing with the flowers reaching for sunlight and deprived of rain, and there they be, mulching on dreams and aspirations, until the flowers wilt. Noxious whispers sown into the fertile dirt preventing chances from ever sprouting.…

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"Even when life is as hard as it gets, I know I don't have to rely on religion to make it past all the struggles.

I have my own strength for that."

[mariocki]

Night of the Demons 2 (Night of the Demons: Angela's Revenge, 1994)

"What's the problem here?"

"Oh, the old sexorcist here thinks I stole his precious little ghoulie book."

"Yeah, so?"

"So what would I want with a book?"

"Good point. Perry, Kurt doesn't have your book. He can barely read a clock."

[prolibytherium]

I'll be real though I think attributing some innate moral or intellectual superiority to atheism is ridiculous and not the answer to questions about the power structures inherent in organized religion. That argument is based on a (conscious or subconscious) belief that atheism makes your outlook automatically rational and your perception of reality close to completely objective. If you think you are beyond falling for cults/magical thinking/your own internal biases etc bc of a disbelief in deities, you are wrong and also might be especially susceptible for falling for that shit

[entropy-sea-system]

Ok so. My in sys partner figured this out when I told them about my avoidance of personally having spiritual or religious beliefs (I have OCD and STPD and experience magical thinking) and I hadn't thought of it before but.

One may be avoidant of personally engaging in spiritual or religious activities or beliefs if they experience magical thinking.

Magical thinking is defined as "the belief that one's ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world" (from Encyclopedia brittanica website)

So magical thinking is when you believe causations or correlations between things that aren't necessarily rooted in actual consequences or possibilities. It's associated with some neurodivergences like schizospec (includes schizotypal pd, schizoid pd, schizophrenia, etc.) and OCD although anyone may experience it at some point. For example if you think unfollowing someone led to that person breaking up with someone. Or perhaps if you think that being jealous of someone led to them being injured in an accident.

Many superstitions and some religious and/or spiritual beliefs may literally have tenets that reinforce or include magical thinking (if you think this you will be punished for sin, 'step on a crack break your mother's back', etc.) . So if you're already prone to magical thinking, some such tenets or beliefs may make it worse (or it may also not, as not everyone has the same experiences).

This doesn't mean religion or spirituality is wrong(and this post is not antitheist or supportive of being antitheist or otherwise bigoted towards religions), it just means it can be difficult for some people to engage with spirituality and/or religion as a result of experiencing magical thinking.

[pinkfey]

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION -> CORINTHA TREVELYAN

"There was about her a wildness that flashed in her eyes. She was spoiled and beautiful and easily bored."

[bucephaly]

Love seeing an argument on my dash where both sides are kinda stupid