#the dangers of false christianity

[raz-b-rose]

Warnings Against False Teachers

 “I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naïve.”

Romans 16:17-18

Paul addresses false teachers in all of his letters, and is always warning his readers to be on the lookout for them, that their interests are not in growing fellow believers into further practical and applicable knowledge in Christ but to make themselves look and feel wise. To be the center of attention, and even some, deliberately lying to their audience for some twisted satisfaction in being able to convince people of their lies. Or even those who have a terrible misunderstanding or blindness to the truth of God's word, His doctrine, and even His commandments and therefore lead others away with their self satisfied assured ignorance. 

“for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites'.” 

The best translation here is belly instead of appetite. And the Greek word for that is koilia (koy-lee'-ah) can mean the physical organ but also “the inner man” and its origin is koilos which means hollow. 

Jesus also uses this word when he is talking about how food is not what makes us clean or unclean, but rather the contents of our heart and desires is what does so. 

And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

Matthew 15:10-20

This is why it is so important that we know God's word for ourselves. That is why the Holy Spirit is with us, to help combat the whispered enticing lies of the world trying to convince us that parts of the bible aren't true because they don’t sound “loving, kind, or nice.”  We do not want to defile ourselves with lies and the slandering of God's character. 

For the bible to be called a sword is so appropriate because it needs to be sharp to cut down the supernatural enemy. We don’t want to ever use God's word to tear someone down however, and all truth needs to be delivered in love. Our tongue is described just as sharp, and so we need to make sure God's word is sharpening our tongue, our words, in turn to be used properly and in a way that is honoring to God. 

“Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting,”

2 John 9-10

John says to not even greet them, let alone allow them into your home. It can even be read as the home. The early church didn’t have separate buildings for worship and teaching, but met in each other's homes. So John is most likely saying here  “do not let them into the Lords home to give them a foot hold to spread their deceit” 

We also know that the word of God spread because of those traveling on foot (going on ahead), town to town, often staying with fellow church members during their missionary work. John's concern here is allowing these false traveling teachers into your home, into the church, that it could be perceived as an agreement with their beliefs. 

Earlier in his letter however he reminds the readers that we are to love as God commanded us to. Love God and follow his commandments and all work for His glory and our growth. If our feet are solidly set on Jesus, and our words prepped with love I know the Holy Spirit can help us through any situation we may come across that could have us interacting with a false teacher seeking to drag us away from Christ. 

And this does not mean we are to cut ourselves off from unbelievers (how else are they to become believers) but that we should be careful with how we interact with them, especially if it's a believer weaker in faith, for our own spiritual health. 

we are responsible for the words we use, our interpretations of God's word, and how we share our knowledge with others. We need to be intune with God -be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God (Romans 12:2a)- so that we don’t take the proverbial mic from Him, misleading people with our own corrupted opinions. (Corrupted in the sense that our sin nature is not God's nature.) 

Those who deliberately twist God's word for their own gain will have a hefty consequence to answer to, due to the grave sin of leading others to death. Teaching carries a weight of responsibility for others. So ensure you know God’s word as He wrote it, and don’t try to twist it to justify yours or others sins. 

[random2908]

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS WILL NEVER END UNTIL THEY STOP TEACHING IT IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

Feeling hostile about seeing Christmas advertisements in October

[alandemoss]

John Piper’s Dangerous Doctrine: How Calvinism Distorts the Gospel of Jesus

Calvinism, especially through John Piper, distorts Jesus' teachings on grace and salvation. This article explores how limited atonement and predestination misrepresent Christ’s universal grace. Discover the dangers of these doctrines and learn how to alig

In today’s Christian landscape, Calvinism has been making waves, particularly through influential figures like John Piper and Apologia Studios. But beneath the surface, there’s a serious problem: Calvinism’s dangerous doctrinedistorts the very teachings of Jesus Christ. As we dive deeper into the flaws of this theology, it’s crucial to see how this reformed theology conflicts with the biblical…

[toni-onone]

Beware of false prophets ‼️

👀

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Okay, I lied. One last post before I take that much needed mental health break.

A post that I always swore - back before you could turn off reblogs and mute comments and basically make the lives of would be trolls very pointless, because you will never see what they say - I would never be stupid enough to make.

I leave you with my essay on…

Why Sparkly Vampires Make Perfect Sense, Stephanie Meyer Just Went About It All Wrong

Let's face it, humans don't always know what we're looking at. As an example, I was reading a book about poison use in royal courts. In the section on cures, in the subsection on unicorn horn (alicorn, for the technical term), it mentioned how the people who procured this rare substance were somewhat baffled by the fact that at the end of their lives the unicorn (which lived in such places as Africa, Persia, India, etc.) would migrate to the far north to die on the beaches of the arctic sea. Now, in their defense, it's very unlikely that any of these individuals would be well traveled enough to have even the opportunity to see both a live unicorn and a dead one. If they had, they might have had an easier time realizing 'these are two different animals!'. But the point still stands.

Humans don't always know what we're looking at.

Now, if you go through folk lore and mythology, you will, of course, find horrible blood sucking fiends that drain innocents of their life. Vampires. You will also find lots of entities which emit an ethereal luminescence or radiant glow, entities which possess powers beyond mortal understanding, who can be benign or terrible, and who are known to abscond with humans, although we're certain these humans are safe and happy on Olympus or under the green hill, not dead like they'd be with those blood suckers.

No one who had not seen both Apollo, God of the Sun, and the horrible vampire who chowed down on the neighbor two doors down would realize: they're the same entity.

To make it even harder for the poor mortals (and easier for the vampires!), vampires look different in different lighting conditions. After all, something that sparkles in the sunlight will also sparkle in the moonlight, the firelight, etc., it's just a matter of degrees. So some vampires would hang out in moonlit glens, for that 'fairy of the moonlight' feel, while others would set themselves up in temples with a many fires as they could manage. I mean, if you're going to call yourself Apollo, God of the Sun, you had better be all sparkle all of the time! Top all of this off with mind reading ability that lets traveling vampires fit into the local not-vampire-vampire mythos and yeah, the humans don't stand a chance.

It's great! Things are wonderful! Even if someone does see you devour a hapless victim and run screaming 'vampire' in the town, you can always just eat them next. No big deal. Only the stupid and careless are in real danger.

And then…

CALAMITY!

The head of the Roman Empire, that militant mass of well armed testosterone (and a bunch of less important people), converts to Christianity and proclaims there's only one god who is…not you.

Well shit.

Of course, if you're a lesser known vampire you can pass yourself off as an "Angel of the Lord" in a quick pinch, as long as you're talking to a peasant who's too illiterate to realize you're lacking in the eye and wing department (good news - this is most everyone), but you can't do that too often. And if everyone knows you as Apollo, God of the Sun?

Sucks to be you. You now have a bunch of very militant fundamentalists armed with sharp, pointy implements of destruction chasing after you with cries of 'demon' and 'false god'. Even with your supernatural speed, getting away from them is made far more difficult by the fact they can see you glittering from the other side of the market.

This is where vampires went nocturnal, since moonlight is less sparkle inducing than the sun. Then, since even that gets risky, they slowly moved into caves and cemeteries and the occasional creepy old castle that no sane person would enter without an explicit invitation to dinner, or for a real estate job. Something like that.

The next millennium was pretty dire. The millennium after that was…okay, also pretty dire, until suddenly, at the end of the twentieth century, a miracle! A remarkable shift brought about a change that would once again free vampires from their castles and cemeteries and allow them to walk safely among humans!

But they wouldn't go creeping off to the sun starved, water logged boonies of the Olympic rain forest. Oh hell no! They would go to the cities, to Soho, to Broadway, to places where they could strut proudly down the street to the envious stares of mortals and cries of "Damn, I wish I looked that good in body glitter!"

[babykittenteach]

Being back online right now has me wanting to ask people really basic true or false questions like I'm quizzing a 12yo, "True or false, one of two people will win the US election?" and "True or false, the POTUS will have immense power over both the US and the rest of the world?", "True or false, of the two possible candidates, one is a so-so prosecutor with a mix of moderate and progressive stances, while the other is white supremacist christian fascist rapist?" Except none of the tweens and teens I know irl are confused about this, probably because all the tweens and teens I know irl are in marginalized groups that understand how much danger they're in if we adults fuck this up. Dying for the glorious and morally pure revolution only seems to appeal to cowards online who know they personally won't have to.

[cavegirlpoems]

The Beast & The Church in 'Black Death Rising'

I'm writing a religious horror rpg, in which the End Of Days is in full swing in 15th century Europe. I figured it'd be worth it to talk about that game's religious perspective.

So I'm going to do something inadvisable, and talk about religion from a christian perspective. (religious/setting design ramblings under the cut)

Some context. I'm a quaker; for those less invested in minor christian dissenter sects, I'll give a brief summary. Quakers are a sect going back to the 17th century, with a strong focus on egaletarianism and individual conscience. No clergy or heirarchy, no formalised doctrines, and - historically and currently - a lot of focus on social justice issues. Honesty, equality, pacifism and simplicity as core value. So that's the overview.

This is, you will note, a stark contrast to a lot of what Christianity is currently, and has historically been. Which is to say, quite often on the side of the wealthy, the societally entrenched, and the oppressive.

I am also, as it happens, very openly and obviously queer. As you can imagine, this makes me really quite uncomfortable in a lot of 'christian spaces'.

So. Let's turn our attention to the Book of Revelations, as the various ideas in there are a lot of the game's inspiration. Revelations is written extremely abstractly, with dense metaphorical language rather than a direct accounting of events. There are, needless to say, a wide variety of ways to interpret the text, but I will focus on my own.

A key feature of Revelations is the subversion of religion; the idea of a false prophet turning religion away from its moral/spiritual purpose, and making it a tool for politics, leading to the rise of 'the beast' to power. It's made clear that as the beast seizes power, it goes on to use that power to persecute the outgroup (with whom the text's sympathies lie) and that a church controlled by and reverent of the beast becomes evil and totalitarian, leading to widespread suffering.

The parallels to the state of christianity in the modern day are, to my mind, quite apt. A wide faction - 'conservative christianity' to be polite about it, or christian nationalism to be more blunt - aligns itself with the oppresser over the oppressed, concerns itself with worldly wealth and power, and is actively and openly and inexorably tied to dangerous political forces. That mainstream christianity frequently acts in support of fascism is hard to miss.

There is a particular horror, I think, to seeing representations of one's faith hollowed out and distorted, emptied of their spiritual value and instead becoming a tool for evil. The perversion of what should be sacred has a huge potential for horror.

This is, after all, a particular horror one encounters in a regular basis in the real world. I mean, fuck, one simply needs to see Kenneth Copeland speak for 30 seconds to get a sense of something deeply, deeply wrong.

So, this is the horror the game seeks to capture and accentuate. The sense of what should be holy having been emptied out and used for evil. The twisting of faith to become a tool for fascism.

To this end, the game treats aspects of Revelations quite literally. The Beast is, in fact, the leader of a vast and horrible fascist empire that is the cause of misery on a vast scale. Key to this is the total cooption of the church. The 'pope' is a reanimated corpse issueing proclamations at the Beast's direction, and the church is an engine of propaganda and inquisition that serves to enforce the empire's orthodoxy and stoke hatred against the Empire's outgroups.

This is not to say that faith is absent, but those possessing true spiritual conviction (and with it, in some cases, the ability to perform miracles) are definitively outside the church; actual faith is the domain of religious dissenters and heretics. PC clerics are not members of the church, they're actively persecuted by that church for - essentially - their refusal to spiritually sell out.

(Also, critically, miracles are not the sole domain of christianity; the game treats Jewish and Muslim figures as equally capable of performing miracles, and grants relics associated with those religions equal potency to christian ones; what matters is spiritual conviction, not one's specific denomination).

Other aspects of The Beast's Empire followed from this. Inquisitors and paramilitary agents are common enemies, and the 'seven heads and ten horns' are taken to represent The Beasts inner circle of most powerful servants.

In particular, I've given the Beast's empire it's own form of magic, Defixion, with the name taken from old roman curse-tablets. Defixion is, essentially, the magic of spiritually selling out. In exchange for eroding the user's soul, they become bound to The Beast and his empire; this gives him incredible power over them, but also grants them power based on their position within the Empire's heirarchy. Importantly, it's totally, one-hundred-percent off limits to player characters; playing as the fascists simply exists outside the scope of the game. Instead, Defixion is an explanation for why the Empire's agents have scary monster stat-blocks.

The choice of what to make The Mark Of The Beast was surprisingly easy; it's a cross, the same one that is embraced by fascist groups such as Stormfront.

(This also ties in with the use of the inverted cross as a counter-cultural icon; it's historically been a symbol of humility before God, and in the modern age is associated with strongly anti-church sentiments. In a setting where the church has turned away from God and towards hateful political power, those two meanings can go hand in hand.)

In conclusion: "I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards."

[seraphim-if]

As a newly created minor angel in the Celestial Realm, you find yourself caught in the middle of a brewing civil war between the traditionalist faction and the rebels. As tensions mount and battle lines are drawn, you must decide which side to join and navigate the complex politics of heaven. Will you stand with the rebels and fight for change or uphold the status quo with the traditionalists? The choices you make will determine your fate and the fate of the Celestial Realm.

Seraphim is an interactive story inspired by Christian theology.  In this story, all colors/sexualities/genders are treated equal and magic undoubtedly exists.This story will be available on pc and mobile and it’s entirely text-based. It’s currently in development and it will be released chapter by chapter.

Rating: 18 + for graphic depictions of violence and death, skippable explicit sexual content, torture & executions, and coarse language.

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Drama, Adventure

Demo: To be Added...

Asks: Check my Guidelines

Customize your name, looks (in both angel form and human form), personality, skills, and independent gender and pronoun selection.

You will also be able to choose if you side with the traditionalist faction (with Michael/Michelle) or the rebels (with Lucifer/Lucielle).

Choose your weapon. Are you a powerhouse or do you rely more on finesse?

Select your magical specialty.

There are seven romanceable options. You can select the gender of all of them.

Michael/Michelle, The Regent

Race: Seraphim

Looks (of Human form): Dark brown skin and dark brown eyes. Black hair is slightly curly at the ends and it's cut short. Muscular and extremely tall and bulky.

Description: As the Regent, they're the official leader of the Celestial Realm; they lead the angels in God’s absence. The Regent is often described as authoritarian, prideful, responsible, hard-working, and assertive. They are also the leader of the conservative/traditionalist’s faction of Heaven.

Lucifer/Lucielle, The Morning Star

Race: Seraphim

Looks (of Human form): Waist-length, long, straight platinum blonde hair, fair skin, jade green eyes. Tall, lithe, and slender physique.

Description: They are the leader of the rebel faction of Heaven. Charming and silver-tongued, they are darkly alluring and dangerously seductive. To you, they are a mystery. To them, you are an open book. It is unwise to catch their interest, lest you succumb to their hunger.

Simeon/Simone, Regent's Right Hand

Race: Seraphim

Looks (of Human form): Dark brown wavy hair, cyan blue eyes, and dark brown skin. Tall, slender and lithe physique.

Description: Even-tempered, perceptive, and amiable, S is the most well liked and popular of the Seraphim. They're a close friend of both M and L.

Callis/Charmaine, The Innocent Ingenue

Race: Angel

Looks (in human form): Golden eyes, light brown skin, and ash blonde hair. They are muscled, short, and bulky.

Description: Gentle, kind, and easily flustered. They are your nestling and childhood friend.

Belphegor/Belle, Sloth Demon

Race: Sloth Demon

Looks: Sky blue skin, black eyes, short black hair. Black ram horns, navy blue feathered wings, and a scaly pronged tail. Short, lithe, petite physique.

Description: You were ordered to destroy them, but you failed. Ever since then, for some reason, they seemed obsessed with you. They frequent your dreams and seek to capture your heart and make you fall.

Ellis/Elaine, The Saint/Saintess

Race: Human

Looks: Wavy Sky blue hair, grey eyes, and fair skin. Short, petite. If female, a large bust and waist-length, long hair. If male, shoulder-length hair.

Description: In the Mortal World, they are hailed as the Saint/Saintess. Unfortunately, they serve a different god than your own. You are ordered to discredit them, to hinder the power of this false god, but the more you get to know them, the more you can't help admire them. They're clever, resourceful, and devoted. They're everything an angel should be.

Abaddon, Chaos-Bringer

Race: Archdemon

Looks (human form): Hetero-chromatic eyes–one blue, one purple, dark brown skin, and spiky ebony black hair.  They have a tall and slender physique.

Description: They are not the most well-liked among demons, but that doesn’t appear to bother them. They have a tendency to push buttons and bring chaos and drama wherever they go. They are charismatic and mischievous, yet biting and cynical.  Quick-witted and wickedly clever, they are more powerful than they seem and are keen to use that power to cause maximum suffering and destruction. 

[sapphilore]

I think it’s time for me to break my tumblr silence for Pride Month.

I was a child raised in a conservative Christian household in Texas, I was also homeschooled with a Christian program known as ACE from K-12. All of my friends were homeschooled up until 15 years of age

I was allowed no social media access at all until I was 16 (except Pinterest at 13-14)

I preface with all of that to say that I grew up on the rhetoric that

“homeschooling Christian families are oppressed”

“you could risk being arrested and your children being taken away”

“false child abuse claims are rampant”

“Being Christian in America is dangerous”

“the government is trying to take away our human rights to educate our children at home”

In the state of Texas homeschooling was legalized in 1994. CPS could not take away their children because of homeschooling. The government has not threatened their right to educate.

I have personally witnessed in my years of being in such a community:

A sweet 11 year old girl who could not read a single letter off a page but she damn well knew how to recite verses in the Bible. She had no mental incapacities that would prevent her from reading

A boy my age who failed every one of his classes regularly and as punishment was told to tend the gardens and receive spankings from a belt.

Girls who could only wear dresses and were not allowed makeup at any age.

There were so many of instances with young children like these it’s too many to name

To this day in many conservative households I was associated with still acted like the right to home educate was an important issue that hadn’t been resolved.

IT HAS BEEN 30 YEARS

Let me also take this moment to remind you that in my state you cannot legally have a sex change surgery or receive treatment related to it under the age of 18.

Parents who assist their children in this process can be arrested and charged with child abuse.

This is in 2024

No matter whether you think this is right or wrong for minors to receive gender affirming care

I think it’s important that we recognize that the conservatives believe that because they “gave us marriage” that we should sit down and shut up.

Conservative Christians claim to be a community who care about children but they sure as hell mistreat their own

This is not me hating on all Christians, but please, please try to talk some sense into these people.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

“Israel is going out of it’s way to be cartoonishly evil, for literally no benefit, when they could already turn Palestine into a parking lot with conventional weapons.”

Also, if the device is so dangerous, why is someone just casually handling it? Is it somehow set up so that only pulling the key releases it?

The irony is that sayruq is posting this nonsense to stan for folks who directly attack Israeli civilians with conventional weapons, and also tell their own civilians to ignore Israeli warnings.

https://youtube.com/shorts/CJFm1e5O_K4?si=DDrgWZBUB7yShBs5

https://youtube.com/shorts/rJO1zPaDjtc?si=q4_Tk2OKKK9VZCnc

Disclaimer: didn’t watch these videos that Angerybell linked.

Someone else’s post:

Those are containers for M603 fuzes for detonating landmines, and they are literally labelled as 'fuze mine'. They're dropped on the ground because they are small objects that aren't super important, and sometimes people drop things.

And it takes a minimum of 140 pounds of force to activate that fuze and set off the explosion. Given that people normally don't have to apply the force of literally an entire human body to open a goddamn can of meat, I really doubt anyone's going to be 'tricked'. Especially since the supposed fake can of meat is literally labelled as actually being an explosive.

(Source)

This particular line of bullshit was posted in January, and quickly debunked. And if you'd click on the notes at all, you'll see the reply section is also full of people pointing out that this is a blatant lie. Also, OP I'd love to see some sources on that 'exploding toys' claim, because I've seen multiple blogs posting a photo of the debunked exploding can story with that exact paragraph copy-pasted underneath, and frankly that's a bit of a red flag in terms of reliable information. Given that you're not fact checking something you posted yesterday that was debunked over a month ago, I really don't trust your unsourced copy-pasted paragraph accusing a Jewish state of going out of its way to kill children. Because given the very long history of Jewish people being brutally murdered over false accusations of them killing and eating christian/muslim children, you need to be very fucking careful when you make a claim like that. If your accusation isn't backed with rock solid proof that you are openly presenting, you're just blindly spreading blood libel, and that's basically the textbook definition of antisemitism.

(Explanation of blood libel)

I wish people would stop misusing “blood libel” for things that are not in fact blood libel, but are still racist, anti-semitic horseapples.

[memecucker]

My dad is a "Porn Addiction Coach". He called himself a counsellor for a while but I guess he found out he can't legally call himself that.

The man has zero training in mental health of any kind. He's a pastor, but he didn't even go to seminary. He has a business degree. That's. It. He hasn't ever even been to an actual, science-based therapist before. Some of the other people he's cited have "degrees" from a Christian "university" that was shut down for fraud for lying and telling their students that they definitely had pending accreditation. These are the people who have spent decades pushing the idea of porn addiction.

Which leaves us with a real catch-22. If porn addiction is fake, he's a vulture making money off of giving people bad and false mental health advice, making them feel like an addict (something that our society treats with a lot of shame) and therefore making the shame-based problem way, way worse. But even if porn addiction is a real thing...he wouldn't be fucking qualified to treat it.

But treating it has never been the point. It's been to reclassify porn away from being a form of artistic expression that has all these pesky protections through stuff like free speech laws, towards it being treated like a narcotic that can be prohibited "for our own good." The people with compulsive behavioural issues have never and will never be the point, which is why the discourse surrounding this topic--even among the left, who know for a damn fact how much of a racist tire fire the war on drugs was and the danger of dehumanizing addicted people--always treats people with "porn addiction" with open disdain.

Honestly that’s a good point that if “porn addiction” is real then why are the “therapists” for it so often so unqualified?

And yeah like, it’s very interesting how “porn addiction treatment” doesn’t resemble harm reduction strategies addictions that are proven to be better than this type of stuff.

[fromchaostocosmos]

I'm very frustrated with how the various youtubers and streamers talk about Ben Shapiro.

Because they do not understand or have the proper context when talking about him and everything he represents.

They also often go into antisemitic territory when mocking him, while it is unintentional and something they may not not even know they are doing, they are doing it none the less.

When they mock his voice or call him Shabibo that is actually antisemitic territory.

Due to a history of Jewish people having our names stripped from us and voices and names mocked. Now I too find his voice to be personally annoying, but I won't mock it because of said history.

It is not about the curtsy that Ben Shapiro deserves or doesn't deserve, but rather about deciding when it is okay to employ antisemitism against a Jewish person.

The answer is never.

The overwhelming majority of these commentators are not Jewish and the few that are Jewish don't seem to know any of the important details that make what Ben Shapiro says so dangerous for all Jews and such a false representation.

See what is not presented in discussions about him is that Ben Shapiro is not there to pull in a Jewish audience he is there as a token Jew to help further pull in an christian audience.

That is what makes it all so very insidious in nature. And sadly some Jewish people get fooled by this too because they do not look beyond the front facing facade he wears like costume, but they do not actually listen the words he says.

Ben Shapiro harps about a 'war on christmas' which no Jewish person would seriously do or care for. Especially any Ashkenazi Jews with our very long long history of being murdered in mass on xmas. Christmas eve is became seen a spiritually impure night that it would be called Nittle Nacht in Yiddish and Jewish people would purposefully not study Torah that night.

American Jews, like many others who belong to non-christian religious and cultural groups, have to deal with living a majority Christian country and country that culturally Christian and only makes concession for Christianity.

Has Ben Shapiro ever talked about that or the actual fights to get time off for our Holidays? No because that doesn't fit the narrative. But business having employees switch from 'merry christmas' to 'happy holidays' most certainly does.

Ben Shapiro has explicitly stated that he believes that conception is when life begins which is something to no in keeping with any Jewish held belief anywhere.

We hold life begins at first breath, the mother comes first (I wrote mother because that is wording used in the various writings, but really it would be the pregnant individual comes first), and that it doesn't just need to physical health on the line it can also be one's mental health at stake in order to need an abortion

Ben Shapiro talks about Judeo-Christan values, which a bullshit term that was created after the Holocaust to make it seem like Christian Antisemitism played no role in what happened and that the Church was not a guilty party. It is also a term that essentially holds Jewish people hostage.

He uses this term and talks about these shared values. So I have to ask what values?

Is respecting the elderly, caring for the sick, kindness to others, tending to the poor, and such? Because those are universal values and can be found in pretty much every culture and religion.

What about original sin? Heaven and Hell? Can someone be the literal child of G-d? Does G-d have literal hands, a actual face? What is the gender of G-d?

Just some questions to start with since you know we clearly have the same values and stuff.

Because Judaism would say: No such thing as original sin and in fact Hebrew doesn't have a word for sin we have words that mean things that wrongly translated in English as sin, but no, word for sin. We hold all people are born blank we go through and have experiences and make choices and those choices speak to who we are.

We believe in This World and The World to Come and the spiritual washing machine so to speak, but no a big nope to heaven and hell. No to Satan too. There is the HaSatan which means prosecutor who is as the name means in the Ultimate Court.

When we say "we are the children of G-d" it is poetic flourish and is metaphorical not literal no one can be the literal hild of G-d.

Same way we anthropomorphize G-d so that we have an easier time contextualizing G-d because otherwise it can be hard to wrap your mind around.

G-d is both genderfull and genderless at the same time. It depends on what you are talking about, in what context, and what aspect of G-d of you using. For example the Voice G-d and Presence of G-d are both in the feminine in Hebrew.

These have just been a tiny amount of examples from a vast vast array them.

My point is that if all these people are going to talk about Ben Shapiro especially ones with large followings please bring on someone who is actually knowledge and qualified to talk about this so the facts can properly be presented and explained.

Like I on occasion will listen to Leftovers podcast in background it hosted by Ethan from H3H and Hassan Piker and in the most recent episode that I was listening, which I had to stop because I was getting to annoyed by, they where talking about Ben Shapiro.

It was very frustrating for me. I get that Hassan might be very politically involved and knowledge about stuff, don't really know I don't watch him, but I was thinking the whole time that this is not an area you know.

You are talking about Jewish stuff and things related Jewish views points and you have no clue what you are talking about. You are talking about a religion and culture you just don't know anything about and are trying to debunk Ben Shapiro.

It will not work because you don't have necessary information and understanding to do so.

And you are missing the biggest point of it all which is again Ben is there as a draw for Christians. Because for these kinds of Christians having a Jew give a stamp of approval gives it some kind veneer of legitimacy.

It validates them and allows them to not have to feel guilty for crimes against Jewish people that they are party too.

This doesn't mean they like Jews or want us around or interested in our problems or helping us.

It is all about them in the same way they have Candace Owens tell them all the thing they want to hear so they never have to self-examine or reflect on anything and can assuage their white-guilt and keep of being horrific anti-Black.

They don't care about Black people or Black issues because they listen to a Black woman talk.

It is all for self-serving interests that they have been Ben and Candace there. While many seem to get that point (if you didn't get it before well get it now) in regards to Candace Owens and the purpose of her employment they miss that very important detail when comes to Ben Shapiro.

[magnetothemagnificent]

Just saw someone say that RAMCOA "isn't real and is an antisemitic conspiracy theory" which... I don't know. I think that's dismissive of the pervasiveness of Xian abuse and the actual context of RAMCOA. A lot of Xians are involved in organized cults and traffic/abuse people through various means. At the very least I think there is nuance here. I'd like to hear your take though

For those who don't know the acronym, it stands for Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, and Organized Abuse, and was coined by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), and organization with a history of past and present abuse and corruption.

It's not real. It's a conspiracy that began in the 1980s and 1990s with the Satanic Panic. Some corrupt psychologists practiced "repressed memory recovery", where they convinced their patients that they were ritually abused by satanic cults as children, but forgot about it due to trauma. In reality, it's actually very easy to convince someone that they remember something, even when it didn't actually happen. There is no nuance. While cults absolutely do exist, there is no underground network of cults (Christian or otherwise) engaging in occult ritual sacrifices and abuses. To assert that there is leans deeply into antisemitic and xenophobic conspiracy.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that certain dissociative disorders aren't real. They've existed before the Satanic Panic and before the epidemic of false memory implanting by psychologists. However, people with trauma disorders are very susceptible to manipulation, especially by mental healthcare professionals. Someone can genuinely believe they were kidnapped by a network of occultists, that doesn't mean it actually happened to them. It also doesn't mean that they're malicious liars- false memories can feel very real, and as we've learned, it's quite easy to convince someone of a memory that didn't happen. People who believe they were victims of these things deserve our compassion- the bad-faith actors are the doctors and therapists who manipulated them, not the people suffering from mental illness.

More reading:

Evidence Against Dr. Colin A. Ross

Dangerous Therapy: The Story of Patricia Burgus and Multiple Personality Disorder

Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend

Martha Ann Tyo v Ross

Satanic Cults, Ritual Abuse, and Moral Panic: Deconstructing a Modern Witch-Hunt

Dutch Investigators Find No Evidence Of Ritual Child Abuse

Supernatural Support Groups: Who Are the UFO Abductees and Ritual-Abuse Survivors?

[affectionatenouns]

It's rough coming to the realization that your parents only "care" about you insofar as keeping themselves in your life. I was on the phone with my dad the other day, which is a rare enough occurrence on its own, but the topic turned to politics, which my father generally refuses to talk to me about because he gets emotional when he's wrong about things.

My parents are old-style conservatives. Not good, but better than the raving, foaming-at-the-mouth fascism that modern conservatism is. They're the "small government, tax me less, Reagan was cool and trickle-down is real" type conservatives (nevermind that they've been poor their entire lives and jack shit has ever trickled down to them).

During this conversation, my dad said that he "just tries to stay out of politics as much as he can". I responded saying that I wish it were that easy for me, and that I'm staring down the barrel of having all of my rights stripped away from me. His response to that is still echoing in my ears, since it was one of the most delusional, blatantly and demonstrably false things I've ever heard. "Son," he said, not bothering to correct himself, nor even stopping to think about what he had just said, "I'm a straight, white, Christian man. I'm a minority in this country and there are people trying to take away my rights every day."

As sickening as that was to hear, I didn't bother calling him out on it because I had just woken up from a nap and didn't have the energy to start a fight about it. I just dismissed it and mentioned the realities I face both now and in the future. To which he responded "it's all a matter of perspective." What a fucking thing to say. A matter of perspective. Like, you can't bother to even listen to your daughter as she tells you about the material, unavoidable reality of her life. It's all a matter of perspective. As if I can just say "Oh, y'know what, you're right. I can just pretend these things don't happen to me and won't happen to me. I'm not in constant danger actually, because I've changed how I look at the problem." and it all goes away. A fucking matter of fucking perspective.

My mom is barely any better about this. She pretends to listen, but still refuses to believe that anything I'm saying is reality. My little brother still lives at home, and through him, I've learned that the only person who consistently genders me correctly is him. When they aren't talking directly to me or my husband, my parents don't put in an ounce of effort. They flatly refuse to talk with me about anything to do with HRT or how it affects me. I'm on the verge of cutting them off entirely because of it, but I know if I do that, or god forbid mention doing it, I'll get another tearful speech about how it's just SO HARD and they're trying their best and it's all such an adjustment. You have to let us make mistakes, we can't feel like we're walking on eggshells talking to you. Please oh PLEASE just let us misgender you and ignore your identity in favor of the one we constructed in our heads for you PLEASE.

It's all just so tiresome.

[kosmic-apothecary]

hi! fellow pro-palestine person here! you said some pretty antisemitic shit when you implied judaism encourages being "sneaky and deceitful." supporting a permanent ceasefire is not what makes you antisemitic pal

I NEVER said “Judaism encourages being sneaky and deceitful”. You KNOW this because you appropriately only quoted half that sentence and used the word “implied”.

I was answering someone who had asked why Christians were so triggered by things like the eruv and Shabbat lamp. There are VERY good reasons to be critical of those practices just like there are good reasons to be critical of certain aspects of ANY religion. And yes, those practices ARE sneaky and deceitful, at least in the minds of other believers, which is what I made very clear in my response.

Perhaps you’re one of the millions of people who has bought into the false notion that to criticism any aspect of Judaism in any way is off limits or inherently hateful. I used to be one of those people, but no longer. People/societies/religions become out of control and extremely dangerous when they’re above criticism.

The brutal genocide Israel is getting away with in Gaza while calling everyone antisemitic who rightly criticizes them is a direct result of the same thinking that you’ve internalized.

When you are questioning if something’s antisemitic, ask yourself if you’d be equally as offended and worried if this was something someone said about Christianity or Islam. 99/100 you’ll find that your discomfort stems from society training us to feel more than comfortable, even righteous, in criticizing other religions, but to interpret any criticism of Jews or Judaism as hateful and completely unacceptable.

[selkies-world]

Me, in the UK, preparing to watch the USA get turned into a fully fledged Christian ethnostate thanks to the fact they willingly voted a Christian Nationalist into power:

Meanwhile, USAmericans:

Here's what's going to happen, now that the orange bastard is on America's throne.

First, it'll be trans people & immigrants that will get the brunt of it. They'll be treated worse than they have this century.

Then it'll be BIPOC and disabled people. It'll be the women & girls who get it the worst, out of these groups.

Then it'll be the gays, and marriage will be returned to the state, Roe & Wade style.

Then it'll be women.

Along the way, they'll also be taking money and funding out of education and the workforce, and putting it into the military, weapons, tech for the pet elongated muskrat, and the church. Funding for climate and science and medicine will be taken away and relocated.

Your weather reports will be privatised, and if you pay to be able to view them, they will give you false information, and will intentionally fail to mention climate change. You will not know when a wildfire is predicted, or a flood, or a hurricane. Likewise, you will not know when those events happen in other states. You will not know what the weather is like in the rest of the world because the news will be heavily censored and filtered.

You will also lose porn. All LGBTQIA+ content, including shows and resources and books, will be classified as pornography, and banned. You will lose the general Internet, and anonymity, and privacy. Spyware will be mandatory on your devices. Anyone caught looking at banned material will be prosecuted, and labeled as a monster - someone looking at gay porn, or reading gay fanfic, or reading up on safe gay sex, will be branded as a pedophile or a sexual deviant.

You will also find that sex ed is removed from schools. Even anatomy & biology classes will be different. You can't miss something if you're never taught it in the first place, surely. Teen pregnancies will increase, as birth control becomes illegal, and pregnancy complications, child deaths, miscarriages and teen parents will be very commonplace. Sexual diseases will also become more prevalent as the medication for them will become scarce; PReP will be next to impossible to access, so a small AIDS epidemic will resurface. Antibiotics and vaccines will become rarer and rarer.

All porn will be deigned as a threat to children, and kink safespaces for adults will be hunted and shut down as being a threat to society. Gay clubs, too. Pride will be canceled, as will pride clubs in schools and colleges. Funding for therapy & mental health resources will dry up.

Families will be torn up, children will be tortured and abused, and adults will be forced to go along with it, face the same treatment, enact the abuse, or go to jail for child abuse because they tried to help their child. Gay adoptions will stop, as will family support for families with gay children.

Meanwhile, the UK will be in a political war with the USA. Palestinians will be bombed more, and so will most countries in the middle East. Egypt will become a target, and a few other parts of Africa. Russia and Ukraine will continue to attack each other, but Russia will be watching the USA and UK. So will North Korea and China.

None of you will be told if there's another pandemic. None of you will be told if there are millions or hundreds of millions of deaths. None of you will be told about loved ones in danger in other countries or states. None of you will be told the truth about anything.

Congratulations, America. You've built your walls high, and fortified your country. But you haven't just shut the rest of the world out; you've shut yourselves in.

If you don't believe me, save this post and come back to it 1 year from now. 2 years. 3 years. 4. Take a screenshot of it. And let's see which of us is right.