#since we are talking about christianity and the bible

[blasphemale]

Thomas Paine

Paris, May 12, 1797

In your letter of the twentieth of March, you give me several quotations from the Bible, which you call the Word of God, to show me that my opinions on religion are wrong, and I could give you as many, from the same book to show that yours are not right; consequently, then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides any way, and every way, one chooses to make it.

But by what authority do you call the Bible the Word of God? for this is the first point to be settled. It is not your calling it so that makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the Koran the Word of God makes the Koran to be so. The Popish Councils of Nice and Laodicea, about 350 years after the time the person called Jesus Christ is said to have lived, voted the books that now compose what is called the New Testament to be the Word of God. This was done by yeas and nays, as we now vote a law.

The Pharisees of the second temple, after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, did the same by the books that now compose the Old Testament, and this is all the authority there is, which to me is no authority at all. I am as capable of judging for myself as they were, and I think more so, because, as they made a living by their religion, they had a self-interest in the vote they gave.

You may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you cannot prove it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because you cannot see into his mind in order to know how he comes by his thoughts; and the same is the case with the word revelation. There can be no evidence of such a thing, for you can no more prove revelation than you can prove what another man dreams of, neither can he prove it himself.

It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No.

Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?

For my own part, I believe that all are impostors who pretend to hold verbal communication with the Deity. It is the way by which the world has been imposed upon; but if you think otherwise you have the same right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must answer for it in the same manner. But all this does not settle the point, whether the Bible be the Word of God, or not. It is therefore necessary to go a step further. The case then is: -

You form your opinion of God from the account given of Him in the Bible; and I form my opinion of the Bible from the wisdom and goodness of God manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all works of creation. The result in these two cases will be, that you, by taking the Bible for your standard, will have a bad opinion of God; and I, by taking God for my standard, shall have a bad opinion of the Bible.

The Bible represents God to be a changeable, passionate, vindictive being; making a world and then drowning it, afterwards repenting of what he had done, and promising not to do so again. Setting one nation to cut the throats of another, and stopping the course of the sun till the butchery should be done. But the works of God in the creation preach to us another doctrine. In that vast volume we see nothing to give us the idea of a changeable, passionate, vindictive God; everything we there behold impresses us with a contrary idea - that of unchangeableness and of eternal order, harmony, and goodness.

The sun and the seasons return at their appointed time, and everything in the creation claims that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing, and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God.

It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. That bloodthirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes God to say, (I Sam. xv. 3) `Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'

That Samuel or some other impostor might say this, is what, at this distance of time, can neither be proved nor disproved, but in my opinion it is blasphemy to say, or to believe, that God said it. All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes.

What makes this pretended order to destroy the Amalekites appear the worse, is the reason given for it. The Amalekites, four hundred years before, according to the account in Exodus xvii. (but which has the appearance of fable from the magical account it gives of Moses holding up his hands), had opposed the Israelites coming into their country, and this the Amalekites had a right to do, because the Israelites were the invaders, as the Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico. This opposition by the Amalekites, at that time, is given as a reason, that the men, women, infants and sucklings, sheep and oxen, camels and asses, that were born four hundred years afterward, should be put to death; and to complete the horror, Samuel hewed Agag, the chief of the Amalekites, in pieces, as you would hew a stick of wood. I will bestow a few observations on this case.

In the first place, nobody knows who the author, or writer, of the book of Samuel was, and, therefore, the fact itself has no other proof than anonymous or hearsay evidence, which is no evidence at all. In the second place, this anonymous book says, that this slaughter was done by the express command of God: but all our ideas of the justice and goodness of God give the lie to the book, and as I never will believe any book that ascribes cruelty and injustice to God, I therefore reject the Bible as unworthy of credit.

As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case.

You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New.

When you have examined the Bible with the attention that I have done (for I do not think you know much about it), and permit yourself to have just ideas of God, you will most probably believe as I do. But I wish you to know that this answer to your letter is not written for the purpose of changing your opinion. It is written to satisfy you, and some other friends whom I esteem, that my disbelief of the Bible is founded on a pure and religious belief in God; for in my opinion the Bible is a gross libel against the justice and goodness of God, in almost every part of it.

[gxlden-angels]

Bro I hate fundamentalists and culturally-fundie parents they'll say shit like "spare the rod spoil the child am I right haha yea my parents used to have to beat my ass with a switch almost everyday but I sure did learn my lesson" but like??? no you didn't??? you were hit multiple times for something you very obviously did not, in fact, learn

Like studies about how harmful even lightly spanking children is aside, you're literally contradicting yourself?? Some even admitted they got worse as they got older cause they wanted to see how far they could push their parents before they got punished

And studies not aside, you're gonna get child raising advice from the same book that tells you to stone your wife if her hymen doesn't break on your wedding night instead of the decades of research we have now?? Just say you're a bad parent and move on my guy. Skill issue

[gibbearish]

ok i finished the first chapter and am gonna take a break now but im v excited to keep reading im really liking the way the author looks at things so far

[fdelopera]

Yo Goyim! Looks like I'm going to need to give some of you a crash course on what antisemitic language looks like, because I've been seeing entirely too much of it from some of you here on Tumblr.

Now, I think it's time for a Jewish history lesson, because I've been seeing way too many Nazi-related conspiracy theories going around. If you hear contradictions to the basic information that I am about to share (i.e., if you hear someone saying that the Jewish people are "a race that originated in Europe"), it is likely that you are hearing a white supremacist, anti-Jewish conspiracy theory.

So, here's the basics of Jewish history. Jews are indigenous to the Levant have been there for thousands of years. The Levantine people that Jews descended from have been in that area of the Levant since the Bronze Age. Jews as a distinct people have been there since the Late Bronze Age. Before it was Palestine it was the Kingdom of Judah, then Judea, and then Judaea, and that is literally where we are from. The word Jew means "a person from the Kingdom of Judah." The Romans renamed the area Syria-Palaestina (which they borrowed from the Greek name Palestina) in the 2nd century CE after destroying the Second Temple in Jerusalem and leading another campaign to try to eradicate the Jewish people (guess what, we're still here, motherfuckers).

And even after the Romans tried to annihilate us, even after they scattered many of us into European diaspora, many Jews came back, again and again over the ages, and there have nearly always been Jewish communities in the region throughout history.

And if you come for me or try to dispute any of this history with white supremacist bullshit, I am a Jew who has studied way more Jewish history than you. And as politely as possible, you can take your white supremacist conspiracy theories and fuck off into the sun.

Okay, with all that out of the way, let's get into it!

Gloves are coming off, because this is just a sampling of the Nazi dogwhistles I've been seeing here on Tumblr about the Jewish civilians who were tortured, murdered, and worse:

- If you say shit like, "The Jews got what they deserved"...

GUESS WHAT? You're talking like a white supremacist, and you need to fucking check yourself.

- And if, on the other hand, you say shit like, "The reports were probably overblown. I think those were paid actors. I don't think those Jews were murdered. No Jewish children were killed. No Jewish bodies were desecrated" blahblahblah...

GUESS WHAT? You get to sit with the Nazis at their table for lunch.

- If you tell Jews "go back to Europe where you came from"...

GUESS WHAT? Not only are you telling the descendants of Jewish refugees to go back to the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, and the Nazi gas chambers, as I explained in this post, but you are also repeating a white supremacist conspiracy theory about the origins of European Jews.

Jews are a Levantine people from the area of the Middle East currently called Israel (formerly called the Kingdom of Judah, and then Judea). While there was some emigration to Europe during the late Roman Republic and the early days of the Roman Empire, the first mass migration of Jews to Europe was a forced migration. Gentiles from the Roman Empire dragged us there as captives after 70 CE, the year Rome destroyed the Second Temple.

- And if you're telling yourself that there are "good Jews" and "bad Jews," and those Jewish civilians were "bad Jews," so they deserved to be tortured and killed...

GUESS WHAT? You're spouting white supremacist ideology.

Antisemitism takes a long time to deprogram.

A lot of gentiles grow up with anti-Jewish ideology that they have never questioned.

And a lot of Christians are kept ignorant about Jewish history because preachers and priests fear it would make Christians question the many inaccuracies in the Bible.

But the first step in noticing antisemitic beliefs is to notice when you start singling people out *because* they are Jewish.

And I have been seeing some of you gleefully celebrating the murder of Jewish civilians *because* they are Jewish.

And that is antisemitism.

That is one step closer to the next generation of Jews getting shoved into the gas chambers. And there are only 16 million of us left in the entire world. We're 0.2% of the world's population. And we cannot afford another Holocaust.

And if your response to me saying that is, "Well, those Jews deserve it."

Guess what. You are making it easier for Nazis and white supremacists to spread hatred and commit acts of violence against Jewish people. And you will have to live with that blood on your conscience.

So...

If you are a gentile, and you see other gentiles repeating these kinds of white supremacist dogwhistles about Jewish people, here's how you can help:

1. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Help them direct their focus away from attacking random Jewish people online and towards helping Palestinians.

Actions that people can take right now are contributing to verified charities and relief organizations that help the people of Gaza. Only donate to organizations that are verified by CharityNavigator.org and CharityWatch.org.

2. Call that shit out. Tell people that they're being antisemitic, and explain that Jew-hatred is dangerous to Jewish people. Antisemitism gets Jews attacked and it gets Jews killed. In the US, many synagogues require round the clock security to protect against white supremacists who want to murder Jews. In Pittsburgh, my old home town, a group of Nazis from north of the city planned the murder of Jewish congregants at Tree of Life Synagogue, and so far only one of them (the gunman) has been arrested and convicted of the murders. The others are still at large.

3. Explain to them that it is antisemitic to celebrate someone's death *because* they're Jewish. ALSO, it is antisemitic to blame a random Jewish person for the actions of ANY government, whether that be the Israeli Government or the US Government.

4. Explain to people that they're not going to solve this conflict by posting antisemitic statements and memes online. All they will do is alienate the Jewish people in their lives and make those Jews feel scared and unsafe. And they will contribute to this current wave of antisemitism.

Antisemitic hatred doesn't help Palestinians. All it does is put Jewish people around the world in danger.

[artist-issues]

“At least it's not ferociously attacking God quite as directly as Steven Universe did…”

Not that I’m surprised by this statement, but can you elaborate on this? Kinda intrigued by your thoughts on Steven Universe.

Okie dokie, you’re not the only one who has asked me about this, so I suppose I’ll poke the hornet’s nest. 😅 I haven’t talked about this before because I assumed that everyone who wanted to hear my kinds of opinions on stories wasn’t watching or interested in Steven Universe.

It’s like asking vegetarian if they enjoyed a turkey dinner. The turkey dinner was so obviously not made for vegetarians to enjoy, so why would the vegetarian even bother analyzing the turkey?

But I think if some people are asking me why I think Steven Universe is anti-God (of the Bible) its because maybe they don’t know what the turkey is. Not completely. (Maybe not you, because like you said, you’re not surprised by my comment.) So I’ll explain my thoughts on Steven Universe.

If you’re just following me because you liked some stuff I posted, but didn’t realize that I’m a Bible-believing Christian and don’t want to hear about it, unfollow me now. Because I’m going to talk about some hot button issues here and the trolls will come out.

Steven Universe is really well-done. The jokes are funny, the writing is believable, the characters have great chemistry, great design, the concept is fascinating, the slow build-up and reveal of the plot elements is great. But when you watch the throne room scene in the last episode of Season 5 “Change Your Mind,” it’s alarmingly clear how much the whole show is not just settling for defending and championing the LGBTQ+ worldview—it goes all the way to attacking what Christians believe, on the other side.

Anything that’s pro-LGBTQ+ is doing that by default, but this show goes out of its way to do that.

You have to understand: God created and designed us. Deeper than that; He created and designed romantic relationships, and invented marriage. He didn’t just create love—He is love. So when humans come along and do what we’ve always done since the fall, and say, “I’d rather define what Your thing is and how it works for myself, God,” it’s not only an incredible slap in the face, it’s an attack on God’s actual identity—and it’s destructive for us and the people around us. Like a fish insisting it can breathe oxygen.

But Steven Universe goes beyond that. It knows that the Christian worldview is it’s biggest opposition. It digs right down to the heart of the worldview-battle. LGBTQ+ worldview says, “I should get to love what I want and be who I am, because I’m me. Love is love. (By which I mean, any action or relationship I choose to call love is love, because I’m the one calling it that.)”

Biblical worldview says “No, wait, you shouldn’t base your decisions on you alone; what you want changes day to day, and you’re broken, so you can’t ever be satisfied based on what you want—the Bible says God made you for something, and you rejected that, and it broke you. You’re not how you’re meant to be: even what you want and what you think love is is twisted up and can hurt you and others. But if you submit to God He’ll help you, He’ll fix what’s broken and give you new life by making you how you were supposed to be: He’ll live in you and through you.”

Are we beginning to get the picture?

See, the whole thing with the opposing views between LGBTQ+ and Christian people is as old as time. It’s not a new debate. It’s Satan and Eve in the garden. She says, “This is not how God said things should be,” and Satan says, “Are you sure that’s what He said? He knows if you do this thing, you’ll be like Him. You’ll be god: you’ll get to decide ‘how things should be’ for yourself.”

He lied and said that disobedience would satisfy her. That she knew what her own heart needed better than the God that made it did. That the very act of being imperfect would make her godlike.

And then Steven Universe comes along and says “if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs.”

And has a cast of created being characters who’s imperfections (Garnet’s forbidden “love,” Pearl’s obsession, Amethyst’s insecurity) are supposedly “the best thing about them; what makes them who they are.”

And has a main character who used to be a part of the god-like creator relationship, but used her power to come down to earth and completely change who she is into a fully different person.

And has a godlike Creator character who claims she “doesn’t need” her created beings (just like the God of the Bible) but they all have a little part of their creator in them so she has to repress their imperfections; she holds them all to a standard that’s impossible to reach called “perfection” and punishes them when they don’t meet it even though it hurts them to try; she expects them all to do what they were created by her for; she fixes them when they can’t meet her standard by shining her light through them and making them extensions of their Creator.

And has a main character who argues, fights back, tries to stop her, and is answered with lines that sound surprisingly like what LGBTQ+ people hear when Christians argue with them: “you’re only making things worse; you’re just deceiving yourself; even while you resist it your actual light can’t help shining through,” etc.

White Diamond just wants everything to be perfect. Like her. She just wants her created beings to “be themselves.” But what she means is, be how she created them to be.

And she’s the bad guy. She’s playing God in this show, and Rebecca Sugar is saying, “If God is telling us that can only be happy by being perfect, as He is perfect, and doing what He created us to do, then He’s wrong. Our imperfections are what make us special—unique—individuals—free—and there is nobody who has the right to take that freedom away from us, not even out creator!”

And you know what?

If God were like White Diamond, like Rebecca Sugar believes Him to be, Steven Universe would be right.

But He is NOT.

God is not a dictator who forces us to conform to a standard of perfection and then smashes us when we don’t meet it. He is a King who made us perfect to begin with, and we rejected him, because He allowed us to do that. He knew that true love was love that had to be chosen, and He wanted us to love Him by choice, so he gave us the option. But Rebecca Sugar doesn’t understand—there was never “Choose God or Choose Yourself.” There was only, “Choose God or Choose Nothing.” There was nothing except God. Then He created everything. There is no version of reality where you have something better than God, or even slightly less good but different, to pick. You’re not jumping from one ship into a smaller one, but at least it’s yours—you’re jumping from one ship into a void, and then complaining that there’s no other ship. That’s humans. That’s not God. / White Diamond didn’t make her creations perfect (Amethyst) and she didn’t make them for love. She made them for power. That’s not the God of the Bible.

Even when we did choose to try and love ourselves instead of God, and therefore warped our ability to perfectly love at all, He didn’t smash us. True, everything fell and was cursed, which is exactly what He warned us would happen if we chose it, but it was a natural consequence of breaking ourselves. And then He didn’t leave us that way. He didn’t give up on us. And He certainly didn’t just zap us, snap His fingers, quick-fix it and turn us all into robots who are extensions of Him, who say they love Him but only because it’s His voice puppeting us to say it.

No. He came to us, chose to give up His life at the exact point on the timeline when Romans, masters in the art of slow, humiliating, torturous death, would be the ones to carry out His crucifixion, and saved us Himself. Through the sacrifice of His own life. And even then, we still have a choice. We get to choose to accept that incredible self-sacrifice when we don’t deserve it, and be given new life and a relationship with the Creator who knows us and loves us better than we can love ourselves or receive love from others—OR we can just keep stubbornly insisting that our slavery to the opposite of what God wants is somehow freedom, and our twisted versions of love are genuine, and we’re not broken, and die like that. Die broken creatures who lived their whole lives stomping their feet and screaming “I’m not a creature, I’m a god!”

White Diamond sacrifices nothing, because Rebecca Sugar doesn’t know the God of the Bible. She just knows her idea of Him. She’s never actually gotten to know Him. If she had, she’d learn how silly and twisted her idea is.

Because you know what, yeah, if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs. But people aren’t pork chops. And hot dogs have flavor (not better than pork chops) but they are awful for you.

Christians aren’t perfect cuts of meat with no individuality or flavor. Just because we all know and love the same God doesn’t mean we have no personalities. It just means we don’t think so freaking much about what we are, or who we get to be, or what we like and want. Jeez, what a self-centered, narcissistic, self-obsessed way to live. She plays Steven like he’s this wonder-child, innocent and full of heart, who encourages his friends to love and keep trying. But honestly?

This is very pretty animation but it’s not real. Steven looks happy hugging Steven but self-love doesn’t ultimately get you that.

That’s all based on the premise that what he’s encouraging them to do is actually good, and will make them happy, and will help them love better. And it just won’t. Not in real life. That’s not how any of this works. Self-love is just self-obsession. And that is a sure-fire way to hurt you, and everyone around you.

You’ll never be free by choosing to run to a worse master. You’ll never be satisfied with your crappy attempts at loving yourself, because you were made to be loved flawlessly and forever by someone who is Love Himself.

And choosing to identify with your imperfections doesn’t make you uniquely you. It just makes you exactly like every other human being marching in the same line since the Fall.

White Diamond’s not relational. She’s up high and distant. That’s not God. He made you to be in relationship with Him. He loves you, totally and perfectly, and He proved it by sacrificing for You.

So yeah. That’s the problem with Steven Universe. Come get me, SU fans.

[holyspiritgirl]

What is Spiritual Warfare and how to overcome it with the help of God?

• Spiritual warfare is the idea that there's a battle going on between good and evil forces. In Christianity, this means a fight between God and His angels against the devil and his demons. It mainly happens in our minds, hearts, and spirits. It’s about resisting bad thoughts, temptations, and influences that go against what God wants for us. Though we believe that Jesus has indeed already defeated Satan by dying on the cross and coming back to life, the enemy still tries to lead us to sin in order to push us away from God, thus spiritual warfare.

• “Symptoms” vary since the devil attacks you where it hurts the most, to make you as vulnerable as possible; but here are some of the most common ones:

- believing that your not worthy of having a relationship with God or talking to God therefore feeling the need to distance yourself from him

-self destructive / sabotage / harm temptations

-paranoia / overthinking

-strong headaches / body aches

-temptations towards sin such as lust, gluttony, laziness, anger.. etc, depends on your weaknesses

-self hatred & self doubt / doubt in faithfulness

-hopelessness, fear, anxiety

-random depressive moods & replaying bad memories … the list goes on!

• Living a life more aligned with God’s will is seen as a threat to Satan and his purposes, leading to increased attempts to discourage or derail one’s faith journey. With a deeper relationship with God often comes a greater sense of purpose and mission, attracting more challenges and obstacles from evil forces trying to prevent one from fulfilling God’s plans. Our Father allows these intensified battles to refine and strengthen our faith, helping us rely more on Him and grow spiritually.

• Here are some bible verses that may help you during those tough times battling spiritual warfare :

-Corinthians 10:13

- Psalm 91

-Ephesians 6:11-18

-Isaiah 54:17

-Galatians 5:17-26

- Peter 5:8-9

-Romans 8:37-39

-Luke 10:19

-James 4:7

-John 16:33

-Deuteronomy 3:22

-Matthew 4:10-11

• Let me know if you’d be interested in me posting those verses and talking about some of them with you guys, sort of like a bible study kind of thing. It’d be a pleasure ;)

Have a blessed day 💞💓👼🏻

[nezz-cringe-crib]

light yagami's black-and-white mindset is so interesting and i want people to expand on it more. like that one time where he sincerely considered killing the bullies at his school. the only (stated) thing that prevented him from following through with the kill is the fact that it was too closely connected to him. it wasn't the fact that they were also still kids, nor the fact that being kids meant they had more of a chance to still change for the better, but the fact that it would up his chances on getting caught. which is so insanely interesting to me.

following this logic would imply a belief that anything that rots stays rotten-- which ironically is exactly the same kind of mindset that light's initially trying to combat. light yagami fights under the impression that the only way to restore justice and protect the innocent is through extreme methods (since the current method of a courtroom is clearly flawed). his extreme methods consist of, as we all know, executing criminals, making an example out of them, and then uniting all the "righteous" civilians under a benevolent god. this way, in his eyes, all the wicked have been plucked and the remaining will never step close to crime because of the fear of being next.

that's christianity. light yagami has re-created christianity.

those exact three things can all be found in the bible (or at least the one i read). and they also can be found in american and british history. y'know because of christianity. no matter how much you try you cannot eradicate christianity from these histories because of how influential it was in the culture. this is also why you can't pluck it from american law either. light yagami is not american, but this still applies to other justice systems as well. religion is such an integral part of early society i would argue you couldn't strip a religion from any nation's law. light yagami does not restore justice, he creates a religion, which is why the justice system he's fighting exists in the first place. he just restarted the cycle. and that is so incredibly ironic to me.

he is a teenager and it shows. he is so incredibly detached from both life and death and it shows. i don't even know how this turned into me talking about religion this whole thought process was sparked from fucking Pumped Up Kicks i need to put this man in a blender.

[nerdygaymormon]

Having religious beliefs doesn't mean people are homophobes. The Bible says it's a sin, there's no getting around that. It's not natural and LGBT people are always trying to groom children because you can't reproduce. You should check yourself, especially since you claim to be a Mormon. When I was growing up, we didn't hear about all these gay and trans people. You need to repent because surely this is a sign that the last days are here.

Wow, you packed so much ignorance and bigotry in just a few sentences.

You're telling me that an all-knowing, all-powerful God would allow so much variety in nature and in humans, only to be upset at homosexuality? Make it make sense

What's written in the Bible only has the authority that you and society give it, and it doesn't change the fact that some people are gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or whatever else. Most Christians ignore what the Bible says about food, about slavery, about polygamy, about divorce, about being rich, and they can choose to ignore what it says about particular sex acts if they wanted to.

Even if God has the exact opinion of homosexuality that you do, then I would not think of God as my Father but instead as my oppressor. I would need to separate myself from Him and His followers.

How can you say homosexuality isn't natural when it's been observed in over 1500 species of animals? It objectively IS natural. Nature affirms queerness.

The reason you think queer people are conditioning, or in your words, are "grooming" children is because that is what you do, you try to train them to be cis and straight, as if that can be taught. What you're teaching are gender roles which aren't related to biology. Letting boys wear pink, take dance lessons, and play with dolls and kitchen sets isn't going to make them queer. Basic life skills like cooking & child rearing aren't girl things. What you're actually doing is teaching your queer child that it's not safe to talk with their parents about this part of how they experience life.

Yes, I'm a Mormon, but the thing about religious beliefs is they are a choice and subject to individual interpretation. Not all Christians are homophobes because they don't ascribe to the homophobic beliefs that some other Christians believe. I can choose my religious beliefs but I didn't choose to be gay, white, tall, male, or right handed, so I'm not going to deny a key part of my nature just so you feel better about your homophobic beliefs. To disagree with an inherent trait in another human being is nonsensical. It's not logical to be biased against traits that aren't harmful and don't impact others. To do so would be to disagree with how God created them.

Why wouldn't you want society to be less oppressive? Is it because you have a vested interest in seeing a minority group suffer? Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, xenophobia, and the like, do not live in the same space with decency, empathy, love, and logic.

You miss the days when it was easier to ignore and marginalize queer people? I also lived then. For most of my life I lived under laws that made gay sex illegal and also wouldn't allow me to get married. Opinions and beliefs like yours lead to oppressing people. Unfortunately, a lot of people feel that way and now have positions of power in our society and government. It's a scary time to be a queer person in the United States as transphobia and homophobia are normalized and a push is on to roll back the human rights of queer people. We are just normal humans who deserve the same dignity as others.

This world has had slavery, colonization, epidemics, natural disasters, and genocide. In the United States each year there are multiple school shootings, serial killers, and child abusers. Even with all that, you believe God sees queer people and thinks that humans have finally gone too far, time to wrap it up?

Yes, religious beliefs can be homophobic and I'm not going to apologize for saying that.

[alpaca-clouds]

"I thought you wanted this!" Religious Zealotism in Castlevania

Something Castlevania Nocturne Season 2 made me think about a lot about is its relation to religious zealotism, and how generally speaking religious zealotism is a theme that has been around since the first season aired in 2017.

And there is one very interesting aspect to this: Only one character escapes the grasp of religious zealotism for good - at least from all we know. And that character is Isaac. (Though I guess we also can talk about Mizrak.)

The Bishop & Emmanuel

The unnamed Bishop, who gets killed by Blue Fangs in season 1 of the show, and Emmanuel both are Catholics. They are similar in their motivation - and yet also very different.

The Bishop is very self-righteous. He claims he is acting in the will of God, even though obviously nothing he is doing has actual basis in the bible - especially not in the New Testament, which I remind you does explicitly state that it does undo a variety of rules from the Old Testament. Lisa was in the end just helping people with knowledge that he did not understand, and he killed her for it. Even if her husband had not been Dracula, who then exacted revenge on humanity for it, probably killing thousands in the process, the bishop would have probably doomed quite a lot of people through it. People, who without Lisa's medicine would have died even without Dracula's genocide. We maybe should not give a whole lot on what Blue Fangs says, but generally speaking I think that his entire thing with "your work makes God puke" is not too far off. Still, the Bishop very much clearly had very successfully convinced himself that he was indeed doing God's bidding. Of course God never thanked him for it, and he - like most other people - eventually ended up being killed by Dracula's creatures.

In Nocturne then we have Emmanuel. I wrote about his motivation already. He is different from the Bishop in that he does not think fully that he is enacting God's direct will, but thinks he is still acting in the name of God. He thinks he works for God, if he stops the heretic Revolution and then also Erszebet. Still, he is of no illusion about the fact that his actions will eventually end him up in hell. It is still zealotism that makes him act like this, though. He is absolutely certain of the fact that he is doing what he is doing for heaven and for God. In this he has convinced himself to not even do the kind of Witchcraft that definitely is forbidden by scripture, as he makes a deal with what he thinks is a demon. But of course, just like other religious men before him, he absolutely is convinced that this is still for the greater good. (Insert obligatory Hot Fuzz reference here.)

And just like the bishop in season 1 of Castlevania, Emmanuel obviously eventually dies because of this, not finding protection through his religion.

Drolta

Drolta is quite interesting in regards to the religious Zealotism, because she is the kind of Zealot that we very rarely see in media.

I talked about it before: Western media at the very least tends to be iffy about depicting religion in any strong sense outside of the religion of a possible exorcist in a horror movie (which tends to be Catholicism, as to Americans apparently Catholicism is a very magic religion, I assume). If we see Zealots they are usually Christian or Muslim.

A kemetic Zealot is something I have never encountered. But indeed, Drolta is a very interesting character through this. I wrote about her motivations, too. Her religion at this point is close to being a dead religion. And then the religious community she has gets murdered around her. She is a member of a cult (aka someone from a polytheistic religion just praying to one of the many gods). And thus she prays for a sign from her goddess. And the first thing that happens after this is that a vampire comes in to feed of the dead bodies. So to Drolta this is the sign she has been waiting for. And she, who clearly is afraid to be ever helpless again, decides the goddess wants her to be a vampire.

Now, she knows her goddess to be dead, and herself now being undead, she also decides that the goddess must want this too. Undead immortality. And thus she starts to reason herself into believing this is, what she has to do. And when she finally is confronted by her goddess she cannot even comprehend, that this could not have been what the goddess has wanted. That indeed the goddess was not aware of what Drolta was doing.

Her case is of course quite interesting in that she indeed gets opposed by her goddess herself, rather than just facing defeat in the end.

Mizrak

Before we talk about Isaac, we should quickly chat about Mizrak, too. Because within this conversation of Zealotism Mizrak is quite interesting exactly for being very, very religious, but not a zealot. Mizrak's religious experience in fact is very much focused on his doubt and his guilt. Yes, he strongly believes in the Christian God and in Catholic doctrine. He see him pray several times, and he soothes himself by saying prayers. Yet, he very much is doubting what gets presented to him. While every other character in this list goes to further and further extremes in the name of their deity, excusing those crimes to themselves by telling themselves it is what the deity wants, Mizrak cannot do that.

Mizrak does not know what God wants, and he does not claim to know. He is in fact at times clearly doubting God, partially probably because of his own homosexuality. Doctrine at the time said, homosexuality was a test given to the people to test them and their devotion to God. But of course, someone thinking critically about this, cannot help but conclude that this means God is quite cruel to test some people like this, and not others.

However, the point for Mizrak gets reached, when Emmanuel is about to kill Maria in his Zealotism. No doctrine, and no religious scripture will convince Mizrak that it is right to kill or even endanger a child - no matter to what end. And this is the point where he concludes that even if this was what God wanted, he - Mizrak - in that case cannot want what God wants, and he will in the worst case stand against God's will, because his moral integrity is stronger than his religious zeal. (This is the reason I like this character so much.)

Isaac

Finally we have Isaac, who is very much interesting in this - mainly in that the show does not quite as clearly telegraph his religious zealotism, if you have not read Muslim scripture (and that is more than just the Qur'an). I have seen quite a lot of discussion about why Isaac is so perfectly happy to commit genocide, despite his deeply held religious believes. After all, religion in general has strong opinions about killing people, right? And even if we were to assume that God was alright with killing non-believers, or non-Muslims specificially, "killing all the people in the world" would definitely include quite a lot of Muslims, right?

If you have however read the scripture, there is enough answer to this question in Isaac's dialogue. He does quote and reference scripture more than once, and from this it becomes quite clear: Isaac believes that the prophecized end times have begun and that he has been chosen by God to enact His will to end humanity, so that all the humans can eventually be reunited with God in heaven. (Please note: While it depends on the flavor of Islam people follow, Islam in general has an idea more closely to Hinduism, in that souls that end up in hell will be punished until their soul is redeemed. While in Hinduism this means a soul is ready for reincarnation, in Islam it means the soul can finally ascent to heaven and it is God's goal that in the end all his children will be in heaven. Which is why Isaac references several times that "hell will be empty". In Isaac's view he pulls souls from hell to enact God's will, which will cleanse them and allow them to eventually ascent to heaven.)

Isaac however is interesting in comparison to the other zealots of the show, as he allows himself to be reached by reason. After the Captain, the shopkeeper and Miranda talk to him, he does eventually come around to the believe that not only he was on the wrong path, but also that his zealotism itself was a sin. Which allows him to stop from going further on this path, and rather choosing a different goal, in which he eventually does want to help people.

[hypothermiatapes]

What do you think about the headcanon that Tom Riddle is left handed by nature, but forced to write with his right?

I’m all for it and it would make sense since left handedness has been associated with negative connotations historically (which is so odd because who actually cares?).

Often in the past it’s been associated with the devil, sin, weakness, uncleanliness, and other things like that, mostly negative. What I’m about to bring up is from short research so if I get something wrong please correct me since I haven’t been Christian in several years. Tom grew up in the 30s in Britain where Christianity was the most prevalent religion and we also know the time wasn’t accepting of those different.

The Bible puts a huge emphasis on the right hand due to it being the dominant hand of about 90% of the population. Gods right hand side is the most honorable position to be placed, it representing strength, and while his left hand side is still an honorable position it’s not like his right hand side. People depicted in the Bible who are left handed are few, but they’re often given very positive connotations.

Now, if the Bible is accepting of it why would it be considered sinful? That’s because left handedness isn’t the norm, isn’t the most honorable. People will take this knowledge and decide that means the left hand is the right hands opposite, that means it’s weak and dishonorable. And what is the most dishonorable thing in the Bible? Sin, the devil, things like that.

In 19th century Europe left handedness was associated with homosexuality, and I do not need to elaborate on how negative of a connotation that is during the time. While that was the 1800s, people in the 1930s will likely still associate it with that. In Scotland it’s considered unlucky to meet a left handed person before a journey, they called the Roman Catholics left-footers, and there’s a saying to describe an unlucky person which is: he must have been baptized by a left-handed Priest.

Throughout history there has been a large pressure on children to write with their right hands because it’s preferable. In the United States in the early 20th/21st (study I’m using only said earlier this century so I’m guessing) century it was said left handedness was a disease they needed to cure and they would hit the knuckles of kids who were caught using the left hand.

The English word for left originates from the Anglo-Saxon word lyft which means weak or broken. The Oxford English Dictionary defines left-handed as meaning crippled, defective, awkward, clumsy and inapt and is associated with stuff like underhand dealings. Left handed “compliments” are often insults like a “left-handed marriage” means an adulterous sexual liaison.

Anyways, I could go on for hours about this so I’ll leave the study I used here.

I think Tom being left handed would fit his character extremely well considering how he’s depicted as violent, scary, prideful, greedy and manipulative (sinful in other words). Dumbledore says he was bad from the start and almost acts like he was an omen which goes well with connotations attached to being left-handed.

Now, I can see him being forced to write right-handed since this is the 1930s we’re talking about, but I refuse to believe he just went with it. He likely practiced with his left hand in private and the moment he went to Hogwarts switched (did you know the left hand was also associated with witchcraft?). He also probably used it as evidence as to why he was better than everyone else.

[woodchuck019]

Crowley was Raphael?

WARNING: MAJOR GOOD OMENS 2 SPOILERS

Ok, so in the last few years we all enjoyed the headcanon that Crowley was the Archangel Raphal pre-Fall. To be completely honest, in season one this theory didn't make a lot of sense because we knew basically nothing about Crowley as an angel except for the fact that he helped create the stars and fell because he asked too many questions. So, even though it was a nice and interesting theory, I thought it would remain that, a theory.

Well, seems like this theory is basically confirmed now at the end of season 2. But let's start at the beginning.

First, we have to talk about the Hierarchy of Angels in Christianity. This Hierarchy was theorized by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in his book De Coelesti Hierarchia (On the Celestial Hierarchy). Dionysius described nine levels of spiritual beings which he grouped into 9 orders.

Highest orders:

Seraphim

Cherubim

Thrones

Middle orders:

Dominions

Virtues

Powers

Lowest orders:

Principalities

Archangels

Angels

Now, a lot of people asked Neil why the Archangels have so much power if they are so low in the Hierarchy and he said that he and Terry actually tought of archangels and Archangels as different beings.

So we have the arch-angels, in thre sense of being just above the lowest Choir of angels, and then we have the Arch-angels, in the sense of being above all angels.

Actually, the term archangel itself is not found in the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament, and in the Greek New Testament the term archangel is used referring to Michael, who is called 'one of the chief princes,' and 'the great prince'.

The idea of seven archangels is most explicitly stated in the apocryphal Book of Tobit when Raphael reveals himself, declaring: "I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand in the glorious presence of the Lord, ready to serve him."

In Judaism the Archangels are given the title of śārīm, meaning "princes", to show their superior rank and status, so they are also called "Princes of Heaven".

In season 2 episode 6, when Crowley is in Heaven trying to find any info on Gabriel, Muriel gives him the missing Archangel's file explaining that even if they wanted, they couldn't show it to him, since only angels above the rank of Dominions could access it. Immediately after, without putting in any effort, Crowley opens the file, saying that he was an angel once and they never bothered to change passwords. (I totally read a fic like this btw).

When the Archangel Saraquel meets them and recognises Crowley, she says that they worked together on the Horsehead Nebula. So Crowley must have been pretty high up in the ranks if he worked with an Archangel.

When they show us the scene of the trial, Gabriel is ready to be cast down to Hell, but the Metatron stops him and says:

"You are not going to hell. For one Prince of Heaven to be cast into the outer darkness makes a good story. For it to happen twice makes it look like there is some kind of institutional problem."

So we know that one of the Seven Archangels has Fallen, and it could be Lucifer, even though in the bible it is never stated that he was an archangel, but wouldn't they have said so if it were the case?

Also in episode 2, when Shax tells Crowley that Heaven and Hell think Aziraphale has something to do with Gabriel's disappearence, she says:

"A miracle of enormous power happened last night. The kind of miracle only the mightiest of Archangels could've performed".

Reminds you of something? Raphael, one of the mightiest of Archangels?

I really hope they will confirm the theory in season 3.

[lullydoesstuff]

- TOP DYSTOPIAN BOOKS -

Well, since I want to use this blog for personal stuff too and not just for requests or stuff concerning my MANY Demon Slayer AUs, here we are talking about some of my favourite books ever.

I love dystopian ones so these three will be very hard-core, I love the Hunger Games, I love Maze Runner, I love 1984 but these three just hit different.

Let's not lose time and let's begin!

3 - Tender is the Flesh (Augustina Bazterrica)

I decided to start with a book that has arrived in my country just this year, I didn't know about it before and I'm so glad I red it, even if it really disturbed me... do you know what the Promised Neverland is? Well, take it but make it Supersayan. And this is the less disturbing one here.

Plot: Marcos works in the meat industry, he always did but recently a virus started spreading, and animals couldn't be edible anymore so what does the government do? They start searching for vegan replacements? NO! They legalize cannibalism. Marcos has a troubled life, his father has gone mad since this "transition" from animal meat to human meat and his wife left him after they lost their son. He works in the meat industry but he swears to himself that he's not like the others, because he doesn't eat meat.

I know what you're thinking, "but this is a book to bring people close to veganism, it's the whole point"... no, congratulations, you didn't understand ANYTHING. This book is way more complex, this because it's about the line that divides humanization/objectification, and this will be a recurring theme in this post.

This book is full of gore (what did you expect?), graphic descriptions, violence, sexual violence so I don't know if I recommend this book to everyone, it's very short but be aware of this if you decide to read it. In any case, the plot is very interesting and it's very well written.

2 - The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

I'm sure many of you have seen the TV series, I've seen it too and it's one of the few cases I say that the series is better than the book, maybe because the series has a more modern setting and so I can actually be terrified by it.

Plot: the world has been almost destroyed by wars and this caused the birth to decrease to 0, and what happens in America? After a coup a new government is instituted... a totalitarian theocracy where religious confessions that aren't Christianity are banned, let's fucking go, this new country's name is Gilead. In this new world women have an only job: being literal baby machines given to rich families to have children.

This is so damn disturbing because, the insemination thing is wild, the man reads a Bible verse from Genesis, and then he just... does it. It's gross, go check for yourselves, human butchering was nothing compared to this.

We follow June, an Handmaid and we just see how things work in this new... amazing... world... I guess.

1 - Unwind (Neal Shusterman)

This deserves the first place, I've never stopped reading a book I loved because it disturbed me too much. I wanted to support the author, he's very good, so I bought all the other books from the Unwind distology... but I finished the first one and never red the second one, please tell me in the comments if it isn't as disturbing as the first one so I can give it a chance or not.

Plot: in the USA a second civil war is fought, but that's not a war where you shoot people from aontoher country to conquer it, or to oppose the government (well... kinda), it's about reproductive rights, many discussions, many things but in the end people decree that you can't abort in any case (*Lully already screaming and tearing off her hair*) BUT you can... well... Unwind your child if you don't want them anymore. But just when he's from 13 to 18.

What does unwind mean? Basically you give your unwanted child to some clinics that literally vivisection them (yes, the person is awake during the process BY LAW) and give thier organs to people that need transplants.

Now you can easily understand why this is the number 1 in this list, it's the destructive combo between "Tender is The Flash" and "the Handmaid's Tale".

We'll follow the story of Risa, Connor and Levi (and this last one oh my God, I wanted to punch his family so bad), escaping their fate of being unwind.

And yes, that scene comes, yes, you will see a vivisection, and yes... you will feel physically sick and need to throw up after, you'll probably have nightmares and life crisis. Also because... the unwind isn't exactly one of the "good guys".

Ah, dear pro-life people that care about a bunch of unborn cells and can't distinguish a human embryo from a dolphin embryo... Read this book, then change your mind about other people's body and take choices just for yours, because it seems we're going back and not aiming foward as we should.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I read your post on the canonical likelihood that the Wizarding World follows Christianity rather than paganism commonly seen in 'pureblood culture' or political fics, so I kind of had a question?

There's the whole mess of God and the church against witchcraft (such as the banning of Harry Potter books), so how would that affect Christianity in the WW? Additionally (considering how many fics use it as rationale for pureblood bigotry), how do you think a pureblood culture fic would pan out around Christianity?

Hello 👋

I think I talked about this in the past here, but what we see with the anti-witchcraft sentiment in churches is relatively modern. Like, until the 1600s, incidentally, when the Statute of Secrecy became a thing, witch hunts and witch burnings weren't common. Until the latter half of the 1200s the Catholic church considered believing in witchcraft heresy and even after they started viewing witchcraft as devil work, they used witchcraft allegations to prosecute the Knight Templars in the 1300s and protestants in the 1400s, not actual witches. It was politics back then more than actual fear of witchcraft which we only start seeing late in the 1500s. But let's, take a look at witch hunts in history and see why the WW, who broke off from the muggle one in the late 1600s probably didn't really have a problem with Christianity (at least in the UK, the US, and other parts of the Europe are very different. The UK was actually not that big on the witch hunts compared to the rest of Europe).

Past entries in my 'wizards aren't pagan essays': part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 (has the most quote evidence)

Witch Hunts Timeline:

(Many items on the list are taken from here)

~910 - The canon "Episcopi," a text of medieval canon law, was recorded. It condemned maleficium (bad-doing) and sorilegium (fortune-telling), but it argued that most stories of these acts were fantasy. It also argued that those who believed they could somehow magically fly were suffering from delusions. This text influenced later catholic church canon.

1154 - John of Salisbury wrote of his skepticism about the reality of witches riding in the night.

1230s - An Inquisition against heresy was established by the Roman Catholic Church. (Not against witches, against people who speak heresy)

1258 - The pope accepted sorcery and communication with demons as a kind of heresy, and therefore prosecutable by the church.

1306-1315 - The Church moved to eliminate the Knights Templar. Among the charges were heresy, witchcraft, and devil-worship.

1316-1334 - The pope issued several bills identifying sorcery with heresy and pacts with the devil.

1317 - In France, a bishop was executed for using witchcraft in an attempt to kill Pope John XXII. This was one of several assassination plots around that time against the pope or a king. (AKA accusations of witchcraft being about politics and not about magic).

1340s - The Black Death.

1401 - Parliament passed the Suppression of Heresy Act, the first English law authorizing the burning of unrepentant or reoffending heretics. With the intention to burn protestants translating the bible to English, not witches.

1484 - Pope Innocent VIII authorized two German monks to investigate accusations of witchcraft as heresy, threatening those who interfered with their work. (AKA accusations of witchcraft being about politics and not about magic. Again).

1486 - The "Malleus Maleficarum" (basically the witch hunters' bible, written by a dude who had nothing to do with the church) was published.

1492 - Nearly Headless Nick was beheaded, supposedly for witchcraft. I will note it's odd since witches/wizards were commonly hanged in Britain. Additionally, a priest actually came to comfort him in his cell prior to his execution on the block and he didn't even have a trial at all. So, his death wasn't really a proper witch trial as the first Witch Act in England was only passed in 1542, so he was executed before Witchcraft could have been legally tried in England and something more complicated happened there. My bet — politics that he doesn't like talking about.

1500-1560 - A period as one in which witchcraft trials, and Protestantism, were rising in Europe (These things were connected since the catholic church saw protestants as basically witches and burned/hanged them as well).

1542 - English law made witchcraft a secular crime with the Witchcraft Act.

1552 - Ivan IV of Russia issued the Decree of 1552, declaring witch trials were to be civil matters rather than church matters.

1560s-1570s - A wave of witch hunts was launched in southern Germany. The witch hunts really started in Europe as civil law trials, not church prosecution.

1563 - The second English Witchcraft Act was passed in England. Again, treating it as a civil offense, not a religious one.

1580-1650 - Considered the period with the largest number of witchcraft cases in Europe. Most cases of witch hunts in the UK though, happened in the 1640s, and the worst of it lasted only 14 months.

1682 - Mary Trembles and Susannah Edward were hanged, the last documented witch hangings in England itself.

1689 - The Statute of Secrecy was signed.

1692 - Salem witch trials took place in the British colony of Massachusetts.

1692 - The Statute of Secrecy went into effect.

1717 - The last English trial for witchcraft was held; the defendant was acquitted.

1736 - The English Witchcraft Act was repealed, formally ending witch hunts and trials. (Most of Europe only officially ended witch hunts later).

So we can see that the actual witch hunts (trials and burnings) were a secular civil matter and that church law wasn't really a part of it. For most of the medieval period, believing in witchcraft would have been seen as heresy, and even into the 1400s the church was more concerned with prosecuting protestants and political opponents than witches (which many clergymen still doubted the existence of) — because they saw them as the real danger. Basically, the witch hunts weren't a religious medieval thing as they are often portrayed, but a Renaissance civil movement for the most part. (In Europe, at least, the witch hunts in the American colonies are a whole other beast that operated diffrently).

In England, the laws regarding witchcraft were civil laws made by parliament, not by the church. And the witch hunts in England were shorter (in time period they took place over) than most other Western countries (France, Germany, and the US, for example, had longer witch hunt periods, more anti-witch laws, and a higher death toll to these hunts). So it makes sense the wizards in the UK wouldn't really see anything contradictory between being Christian and being witches/wizards since the prosecution didn't come from the church. It came from their muggle neighbors:

The persecution of witches and wizards was gathering pace all over Europe in the early fifteenth century. Many in the magical community felt, and with good reason, that offering to cast a spell on the Muggle-next-door’s sickly pig was tantamount to volunteering to fetch the firewood for one’s own funeral pyre. “Let the Muggles manage without us!” was the cry, as the wizards drew further and further apart from their non-magical brethren.

(Albus Dumbledore on “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot”, Tales of Beedle the Bard)

The wizards' disdain wasn't for the church or Christianity but for the muggles in the homes next to them. That's who betrayed them and hunted them down, not the church. This is why we see the kind of anti-muggle sentiment we see. Becouse wizards' neighbors, muggles whom they helped and lived beside for generations turned on them. For the WW, the hunter wasn't the church, it was the muggle next door.

And if we look at the numbers of accused witches killed, the UK and Ireland were on the lower estimates in Europe:

Scotland acquitted almost all tired witches and while England killed more, the number of trials and executions was much lower than in Germany, Switzerland, and France. Even though Belgium and Norway had fewer trials, they killed more of the witches tried than England by percentage. Ireland isn't even on this list but their numbers are even lower. (Spain is low on the witch executions since the Inquisition was more concerned with religious opponents and heretics than witches):

(Source - a book about the economic and religious background to the witch hunts, for anyone curious. I will note I've seen higher estimates of the death toll of the witch hunts, but these higher estimates are often not based on existing historical records so it's hard to know the real number of deaths)

This context about how the witch hunts were worse in central Europe explains why Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are so secretive about their location compared to Hogwarts. It also gives context to why Grindlewald had more supporters from these areas and why even Voldemort had supporters from Durmstrang (Karkaroff and Dolohove maybe) even if they have nothing to do with Britain — the anti-muggle sentiment is just more widespread there because the witch hunts were worse there ("There" being the Holy Roman Empire). I think this gives interesting context to the world-building.

As for the second part of your ask:

Religion in pureblood society

This part has more of my headcanons sprinkled in and isn't strictly canon, but here's how I see it.

We don't really see them going to church on Sundays or even on holidays. In general, church-going isn't one of the traditions they adhere to. If it was, we would've likely seen a small chapel at Hogwarts, but there isn't one.

That makes a lot of sense. The reformation of the church happened in the early 1530s (it's a little more complex because Mary tried to return catholicism but I'm not going into that), hence before wizards broke away from muggle culture, so most wizards we see (Ones from the UK at least, as I assume the Irish ones (not north Ireland) are still mostly catholic) are what I call Magical Anglican. They are Anglican but with a magical flare and some unique wizard saints.

As Anglicans are protestants, their doctrine is more focused on the Bible than the church. So the average Magical Anglican wizard in the UK probably steps foot in a church only on rare occasions and mostly practices the traditions and holidays without a church involved. We see a wizard priest conduct weddings and funerals outside, wherever the wizards are, so clearly it's not about the church for them. It's about the community.

That being said, I think certain communities, such as Godric's Hallow, do go to church on holidays. In DH, when Harry and Hermione notice a sermon for Christmas at the church in Godric's Hallow, I headcanon many of the wizards living there were in the church that night.

In general, they seem to celebrate all the Christian holidays and have their own traditions for them. Like, the Christmas hats on the house elves' heads at Grimmauld Place. Like, I headcanon that's something Sirius' family did when he was a kid and even before that. I mean, why else would they have little house elf Christmas hats for all the mounted heads just sitting there ready?

Their decorations have a magical flare, and so do their holiday traditions, but they're mostly the same. Yes, their Christmas crackers are magical, but Christmas crackers are a thing in Britain. Yes, they place gnomes or fairies atop the Christmas tree, but it still is a tree topper that serves the same purpose. Yes, their carols are a little different, but they are still Christmas carols that mention god.

I like to headcanon godparents are pretty common in the WW, and that Magical Anglicans baptize infants pretty regularly. I mean, everyone in universe treats being a godparent like a big deal, and something important they respect. So, culturally, I believe purebloods christian their kids and that most wizards have godparents. I headcanon said godparents are usually relatives.

Like, I headcanon Alphard (Sirius' uncle who left him money) was Sirius' godfather. I like to headcanon Cygnus and Druella were Regulus' godparents. I also like to headcanon Uncle Billius, from whom Ron got his middle name from Ron's godfather. Sirius was Harry's godfather as a the brother-from-another-mother he was for James.

Purebloods might hold Yule Balls like we see in GOF, but, like in the book, it has nothing to do with the pagan holiday and more to do with just a cool wintery theme for the ball.

I can totally see some purebloods (I think not all purebloods are actually upper class) having fancy dinner parties for holidays too. Like, that seems to me like something they'd do besides balls. Like, I want to be a fly on the wall in my headcanoned Black family Christmas dinner with all the cousins and aunts and uncles when Sirius was 11. Just, imagine it.

So, while they aren't regular church-goers, I think you can see the footprint of Christianity all over their culture.

I mean, Hogwarts doesn't have a church, but they serve pork in meals on the regular in the Great Hall, something Jewish or Muslim wizards would not eat if they followed their religions' rules. The calendar Hogwarts operates by is one that follows Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. They don't work/study on Sunday, which is a Christian thing. In Muslim countries, Friday is the holiday day, while in Israel, it's Saturday. Even these little things that seem obvious are based in Christianity. Yes, it's the case in Britain, but if wizarding culture was separate enough to have a different religion, I doubt they would've kept all these little footprints of Christianity in their society.

The way I see it, they're Christian in faith and ideals, but have some of their own magical spins on the traditions and holidays. They are more focused on their community than going to Church (which might be a result of the muggle communities they lived in turning on them). So, that's kinda how I see religion in the WW.

(Obviously, this is different in different areas even in the UK, and could vary from family to family. This is more the general vibes I got and some headcanons).

[actual-changeling]

I have written many meta posts and s3-theories, and read even more, but I got hit by an idea I have not seen before. (If there is another post, please link it!)

After vibrating for an hour and losing my mind in my dms, I have no scraped together enough brain cells to present what is probably my first actual 'main-plot meta'.

Welcome to another edition of Alex's unhinged meta corner, today with a title to honour Crowley's James Bond obsession and the possibility of another heaven heist.

I give you:

From Jesus with Love - You Will Live Twice

Now, let's get right into it.

I think Neil might have told us more about the main s3 plotline in the announcement article than we previously thought. We all got stuck on 'they're not talking'—for good reason—but it is the part before that which has been bugging me ever since then.

The plans are going wrong—and this time that is a problem for earth and humanity. Turning that around, it means that whatever that plan consists of would be the way to go and beneficial for everyone, the opposite of the main plot of s1.

"They need to prevent the Second Coming (SC)" is pretty much the only and most popular idea I have seen, hundreds of fics and metas and whatnot have been written about it, but I think there's a good chance we're wrong. If we're not, well, I will honestly just be happy to be watching season 3.

Whatever the Metatron is planning will have negative consequences for everyone, or as Michael puts it: "And so… it ends. Everything ends. Time and the world is over, and we begin Eternity… forever and ever."

It sounds very much like Apocalypse #1 - Same Old Plan, same expected result, yet if we look at different interpretations of scripture we find that the SC is not entirely about complete destruction and death for all of humanity—it is about creating a new world/migrating to the kingdom of God.

This is taken from the Wikipedia article about the SC

Resurrection and life in a world to come are a direct contradiction to the result Michael is explaining—total annihilation of humanity.

Now, I am neither religious in any way nor have I ever received any sort of biblical education. Luckily, Christians seem to love talking about the bible because there are dozens of bible website to wade through. If I get anything wrong, please point it out, I have never touched a bible in my life.

So, after reading many, many quotes by a bunch of different guys, I tried to create a somewhat coherent picture of what the SC might look like based on the assumption that the end result is positive. I will talk about how they can be interpreted more in-depth later, otherwise this would turn into a string-net very fast.

Additionally, we can also see where these points overlap with the statement Jimbriel gave in the bookshop in episode three.

What is Jesus' job description?

only God knows when and how exactly it will begin/happen, no one else does, including Jesus and the Metatron

a lot of different catastrophes are mentioned or quoted as something Jesus said, like earthquakes and storms -> Jimbriel mentioned a tempest and great storms

there is also the line "All these are the beginning of birth pains." Birth pains dictate that there will be a birth—birth of the world to come perhaps?

dead people will be resurrected/leave their graves so that they too can be judged (I'd say participate in it but that sounds like the Second Coming is a summer camp activity)

there are also mentions of stars and the heavens in general falling from the sky and the sun going dark -> Jimbriel also mentions darkness as one of the signs

great lamentations, as Jimbriel says, are also a part of many different passages, with humans mourning the world as it was

the Lord will descent with the voice of an Archangel and the sound of a trumpet/the trumpet of God; the grammatical structure of that sentence seems to be interpreted differently depending on who you ask, but the voices of angels/an Archangel and some sort of trumpet are common terms

once everyone is in heaven/wherever the 'main even' will take place, a judgement call will be made for every single person in relation to the book of life, which decides whether they will be punished forever or not (one passage talks about a lake of fire and mentions it several times in a row)

And this is where it gets tricky. To figure out what the SC looks like, we first need to understand a) what the Metatron's capabilities are, b) what he has to lose, and c) what exactly would be a threat to him.

If you ask me, all of this comes down to the Metatron wanting to stay and be in power for eternity with full control over angels so he can do as he please, aka keeping the system running as it is.

We know the book of life (bol) is a thing in the Good Omens universe, whether it does what Michael said is an entirely different question. So far, we have also only got confirmation that hell collects and tortures souls—in such large amounts that they are understaffed—while heaven looks completely empty.

The Metatron runs heaven as an institution, he seems to be the highest power any of the angels have access to and the one they defer to. He refers to himself as the voice of God and combines judge, jury and executioner, making him one great celestial dictator.

From what we know of hell, they do things a lot more democratically, having different councils, dukes, and ranks that are responsible for different levels of command.

We also know that that the Metatron wants the world to end, his goals can probably be summarized as the statement Michael makes, which would leave him in charge without any opposing forces.

We also also know that he sees Crowley and Aziraphale as a threat—why exactly remains a mystery for now—and that the success of his plan hinges on having a Supreme Archangel (SA) he can control. Gabriel decided to become princess of hell and Beez' sugar baby, so he was out of the equation, and after the Armageddon disaster, I don't think he wants to risk failing because of an unfamiliarity with earth (plus, y'know, getting our two idiots away from the plan).

It's interesting to me that right at the end, he says to Aziraphale "We call it the Second Coming"—call, not it is or it will be, CALL. We know that nothing Neil writes is a coincidence, definitely not with such an important line.

Just because you CALL something a specific name doesn't mean it IS what you call it, e.g. Aziraphale calls Crowley a foul fiend when we know he very much isn't.

The Metatron is selling his plan as part of the "Great/Ineffable Plan", so any questions can be blocked by saying it's God's will, it's ineffable. Whatever his plan is, he hides it behind the concept of the Second Coming, which angels know just enough about to understand the basics without having in-depth knowledge of what exactly it entails.

It is a good fucking strategy, I'll give him that, and it WORKS because angels—even if they have doubts—do not question. They simply don't; fear of punishment and millennia of conditioning have left them in a horrible place. When they encounter something unknown, their response is "I already knew that" as to not ask questions.

Crowley questions, we know that, and Aziraphale, ohhhhh, Aziraphale ALSO questions, but he does it in a less dangerous and obvious way. The Metatron is vastly underprepared for that.

(Side note: That alone would be its own meta post, but the gist is that he questions heaven's plans and then adjusts his assumptions of what God might want to what he WANTS God to want, e.g. Job, the Arch)

To summarize everything I just said, the Metatron wants to do what Armageddon failed to do—destroy earth and the universe—so he can be supreme dictator of all remaining celestial beings and gorge himself on power.

But instead of calling it his Big Evil Plan, he calls it the Second Coming, making everyone play along without resistance.

We cycle aaaaall the way back to the sentence I quoted—the ACTUAL plans are going wrong since the Metatron's would mean total destruction.

But what is the SC supposed to be if not the Apocalypse 2.0?

When I look at all the different aspects of the SC and assume a positive outcome, then the end result to me would be a new world that is pretty much like the old world, or maybe even literally the old world but with any destruction reversed. Heaven and hell get dissolved since now that everyone has been "judged", they as institutions are no longer needed, they have fulfilled their purpose.

No more judgement means there is no reason to keep track anymore, so why do you need to run celestial corporations whose only job is doing exactly that? You don't—and THAT is what I believe is the biggest perceived threat to the Metatron, losing full control over everyone and everything, losing his position, his title, and whatever else he has.

On top of that, Good Omens has told us again and again that God doesn't seem to give a fuck about good and evil anymore, and that without heaven and hell being all wrapped up in it, humanity would have 100% free will without any consequences.

Maybe the BoL is empty, maybe it isn't real, maybe Jesus stole it to straighten a wobbly table, who knows. There is a chance it is what Michael says, but I would admittedly find that a bit. too obvious and boring since it would boil the plot down to "they save their own asses again" and not "they save humanity at all cost".

Regarding Crowley and Aziraphale's role in this—I have Thoughts TM but those definitely need their own post. In short, they have to get the SC back on track, the real one.

-

If you have made it this far, thank you for working through what I hope are more or less coherent rambles. Any spelling or grammar mistakes are my own.

Questions? Thoughts? Corrections? Expansions and additions?

Feel free to add to this post however you like (and I can't believe I have to mentions this but if you clown on my post or behave like an asshole you will be blocked).

[mylight-png]

Hi I have a hot take after seeing too much TikTok bullshit.

Islam and Christianity are religions of appropriation.

This is something that bothered me for a while but specifically came to my attention after seeing a TikTok where someone made the joke that the Christian pride flag is just the colors of Joseph's coat, based on the musical about it.

And fine, maybe that is a little funny. But the story of Joseph and his coat isn't Christian. It was Jewish first. It's still Jewish. Fine, they believe in it too (because they originally broke off from Judaism) but to claim it's Christian like that just rubbed me the wrong way.

So so so many people claim that Prince Of Egypt is a Christian "Bible movie" except it isn't. Or at the very least, it shouldn't be. Because it isn't Christian, it's Jewish. The Christians weren't led out of Egypt by G-d's hand. It was us, the Jews.

I know I seem petty, these are just movies, just musicals, and to some they are just stories. But this removal of Judaism from originally Jewish texts feeds into a larger problem.

Why do Muslims and Christians care at all about Israel? About Jerusalem, specifically? It's because they took our Torah and made it their "old testament" and claim it is the root of their religion. They claim they have equal, if not greater at times, claim to the land they only care about because we care about it.

If these religions were not Abrahamic then they wouldn't give a crap about Moses or Israel or Joseph's coat.

Any claim that any of the stories (for lack of a better word) from the Torah are Muslim or Christian is appropriation. Sorry not sorry. They were Jewish first, are Jewish now, and will forever be Jewish.

Can people of other Abrahamic faiths believe in them? I don't give a shit, I won't tell them what to believe, it's their religion. But they have no right to claim those stories as their own. To believe them and to claim them is vastly different.

When sharing in a culture that isn't your own, it's generally acknowledged to be wrong if you say that it's now part of your culture. Because it isn't. It still belongs to the original culture you took it from.

And since they do believe in the Jewish texts and claim them as their own, they are appropriating Judaism.

Shortly after October 7th, when my mom was talking to a coworker about what was going on, her coworker lamented the safety of the sacred sites. She said nothing of my mom's family living there, even though she knew. She, as a Christian, felt more entitled to care about the "sacred sites" (sacred to them because the land was first sacred to us) than about the Jewish blood being spilled.

I've said it before, to them, Jewish blood is cheap. And this appropriation only serves to cheapen it further.

This appropriation and entitlement has been an issue throughout history. The Crusades, the taxes on Jews for not being Muslim, this repeated and continued oppression of Jews under the justification of the other two Abrahamic religions, it's because those other groups feel entitled to our heritage, because they believe they're the ones "doing it right" and say we're doing it wrong even though what they do has strayed so far from their origins that such a claim is absurd.

I do not think Christians and Muslims should convert to Judaism. We don't encourage conversion (we accept y'all, but we aren't a proselytizing religion, not meant to offend Jewish converts).

What I am saying, however, is that Muslims and Christians should back the hell off from any claim to anything within their religion that is originally Jewish. And yes, that includes their entitlement to Israel and Jerusalem, and any and all "Biblical" stories that originated in the Torah. Those aren't Muslim or Christian, they're Jewish.

Again, I don't give a shit what people believe or practice, but what I am saying is for people to start giving credit where credit is due, and to back off from claiming other people's cultures and religions as reasons for your own entitlement.

Hell, I'm not even saying that only Jews can live in Israel. Anyone can live there now and that's fine. The issue is more so when claims start that Israel is equally important to all of us, or that Jews have no claim to the land. First, you care about it only because we did, that's not equal importance. And second, whether you like it or not, Jews are from Judea. We always have been, are, and always will be indigenous to Israel.

So yeah. Back off. Believe and practice what you want, but back off of what was ours first.

...

If this gets too much hate I'll just delete it tbh. It's a hot take and I recognize that the truth isn't for everyone.

[ikeoji-subs]

Zettai BL Ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL Ni Naritakunai Otoko 2024 - Episode 2 Eng Sub

VS SMELLS and VS AGE GAP RELATIONSHIPS

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translation notes:

about Fish Cake Man (7:28)

As we state in the subtitles, this guy’s monologue isn’t something we’re equipped to translate and if we did, it probably wouldn’t make much, if any, sense to English-speaking viewers. We learned from Snow’s Japanese friend that he's a comedian who is famous for doing this particular bit. After we had already finished most of the subtitles, I rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of the show and found that he was also in the other two seasons. In the first season, when Mob is explaining about how he's a side character and intends to keep it that way, he looks at a gardener on his university campus who is pulling weeds, illustrating that the world of BL needs to include some people who are unlikely to ever become main characters. That’s this dude. He appears again in season 2, when Mob is scouring the university for signs of Kikuchi after reading his goodbye letter. In every appearance, he's shown wearing the same sort of nondescript work clothes and cap and seems to work in some kind of maintenance or cleaning capacity at National BL University. –Towel

His name is Nou Misoo (脳みそ夫) which means brain tissue. I believe there's a pun here I'm missing but you can check out his sillyness on youtube, instagram or tiktok. –Snow

about “the gods decided to smite me” (10:24)

The first version of this line said that Mob “received divine punishment” for his Mob Move. That was already a great line! But I thought it had the potential to be a little more specific and evocative in an English-speaking context. At first, I was just trying to think of something a bit more specific to replace “received.” I thought of a few possibilities, including “I was smitten by divine punishment.” But since “smitten” is barely used anymore except to describe someone who's in love, it had the wrong connotation. Then I thought about how another tense of the same verb, “smite,” avoids those connotations and has a kind of King James Bible quality. But if I was going to say “smite,” I’d have to change the sentence from passive voice to active voice (which is generally best anyway) and give the sentence a subject who is doing the smiting.

I thought a unitary, capital-G God would make it sound a little too Biblical, possibly tipping it over into sounding overtly Christian. I knew that some religious traditions practiced in Japan, like Shintoism, included multiple gods. So I tried “the gods decided to smite me.” This seemed to balance out the Old Testament-ish aspect of “smite” a bit. The end result seemed more vivid than the earlier version, and it seemed like something Mob would say.–Towel 

about “select shop” (11:30)

Observant English speakers might notice that when the guy who used the same shampoo as Mob talks about where he got it, he uses a term made up of English loan words. He says he bought it at a “serekuto shoppu" (in English, a "select shop"). While both parts of the word are borrowed from English, the term you get when you put them together isn’t commonly used in the US. I ended up replacing it with “boutique,” which gets across some of the meaning. But I’ll explain in more detail here. 

It turns out that a “select shop” is a kind of smallish shop with carefully curated items that all fit a certain aesthetic. A business like this might be called a “lifestyle boutique” in America, but it’s slightly different from any business model used widely here. The big selling point of a shop like this is the fact that they’ve already vetted and coordinated these products. Their offerings are tailored for a particular niche, so that if you’re into the general idea a select shop is going for, you’re likely to be interested in a lot of what they’re selling. The items for sale will also have been hand-picked by a professional who’s able to find just the right thing in a way that a typical consumer wouldn’t be able to. 

You can imagine what kind of college student would not only shop at this sort of place but declare it proudly. Even if Mob was going to fall in L with a B, this guy would be a bad fit.–Towel

about “a listless ne’er-do-well” (19:04)

The more literal translation of this part goes “a man like this, without ambitions or vitality.” It’s a nice turn of phrase, definitely, but I thought if I could localize it a bit it might evoke more of the right feeling. I thought it would be more typical in English to express this in terms of an adjective plus a noun describing the kind of person he’d appear to be, rather than saying he was without these qualities. From “without ambition” I got “ne’er-do-well” and from “without vitality” I got “listless.”–Towel

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