#tldr: im an atheist

[honestlyitsjustsam]

THIS GAME IS MAKING ME INSANE WITH CHOICES

i know ive been doing tricks on it for days but oh my god it has been a looooong time since i plyed an rpg that had me captivated like that ahhhh

Okay so recap

Fought with this Lorekkan (?) guy with Aylin and i have to say, Aylin baby darling sunshine i want you to talk less and fight more ffs GALE AND ASTARION OUTLIVED YOU DURING THE BATTLE PLEASE

Later Stole the book of karsus and elminster(?) anyway tav got cursed because of the book of thay so idk if i did something good or bad yelp, Gale keeps on tweaking the fuck out when the book or the crown are mentioned

Elminster caught us redhanded and told us that MYSTRA wanted to see Gale. I made sure i picked the options that sounded a lot like “Gale please dont obsess over this fucking crown ps love you” but i dont know what will happen, they talked and i am soooooo scared rn

Tldr im thriving off of the angst of galetav because i personally made mine an atheist shshdhdh not like she doesnt believe that they dont exist ( they clearly do and only bother her lmao) but she doesnt respect them at all (in the past he begged for any of them when she was going through sorrow and self h//arm and since they turned a blind eye to her pain, she all together said fuck yall to them thus the situation of sh laezel and gale really solidified her stance) SOOO seeing her man falling into to the trap of having powers to be the ultimate god for himself oh sorry for BOTH OF THEM scares the fuck outta her

Ohhh my mind is full of scenarios maaaan

but truth be told i really am trying to make sure he stays human, i really dont wanna look at the spoilers and learn how to make it but rather do it because i can, yet if he turns out to be a god or worse if he offs himself OOF i dont know what to do

[u3pxx]

hi, this is maybe strange or invasive so if it is feel free not to answer 😭

but i know you’ve mentioned going to a catholic college, and i wanted to ask how that’s been, esp being queer. college stuff is approaching for me and a lot of my options are like christian colleges and while i don’t really have a problem with that, i fear getting annoyed with the culture or encountering way more homophobia or racism than i do currently. in that sense, has your college met/let down/surpassed your expectations?

no worries! now, i can only speak for my experience going to uni in the philippines, but most of the "big-time" unis in my side of the archipelago are catholic so lots of people from different walks of life attend there, meaning that it's not that rare to meet a classmate/schoolmate who are queer themselves! (hell, i even have a prof who's an atheist which kind of surprised me lol) i'm very fortunate to be in a section that's explicitly pro-lgbt so there wasn't really any fear from me about being "found out" i suppose. so, definitely have not been let down by my peers.

the only time i ever really encounter homophobia is during my theology classes LMAO, which, i'll give a little grace to my professor as he does relay that "this is a catholic school so i will have to teach lessons based on the catholic doctrine. you don't have to believe in it, you just have to learn it. treat it like any other lesson."

i do get annoyed listening to the lessons but only bc some of them are what you expect from catholicism and i don't think he's that great of a teacher; some of his beliefs are kindaaaa backward and off LOL so i guess expect some teachers with opinions that suck ass but you can always just "goes in one ear, goes out the other" listening to them. make sure you don't fail any theology classes bc you'd never wanna go through that shit a second time pftt

tldr: the peers in my uni are kind, cool, and accepting and if you have theology classes, im sorry but there will likely be some lessons there that will be homophobic and also some professors suck ass but you can always just tune them out

[bl00d-1n-wat3r]

My review of Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White copied and pasted from Goodreads

I have never written a review before but I need to. This book, I have no words is just beautiful in its own fucked up way.

I am a trans 15 year old boy with autism and full of rage who hasn’t gotten a chance to express himself. I grew up in the church and when Covid hit I figured out myself. Im an atheist and unapologetically gay. But the guilt still weighs down on my shoulders like God is watching me disappointed in me. This book made me feel seen. Made me feel heard, I no longer feel alone in my anger or sadness that bares over me.

I see why this book isnt for everyone and anyone who decides they want this book read the trigger warnings, this book is gory and not for the faint of heart. But if you decide to read it I hope you experienced it the way I did. I couldnt put it down and finished it in one day. The characters felt real. And every time something happened I had to put the book down for a moment and pace and stim because I was so full of excitement thinking about what was going to happen.

TLDR: Be gay, make lizards, read the TW’S, and Andrew Joseph White is an amazing author who deserves more recognition than the world could give him

[mayybirds]

I love that Ethan is Jewish in your fic. I like that it adds some depth to his character and is especially poignant in zombie-ish settings I think. I was wondering your opinion on non-jewish writers making characters Jewish in fics? Especially in settings that could be especially upsetting for a practicing Jew. Im Jewish but I feel like I barely qualify as both my parents are Jewish atheists and I'm kind of disconnected from my faith so I'm wondering if it would be a bad idea to include such hcs in my fics. Also I was wondering, what do you think about Jewish!Karl Heisenberg?

Oh, thank you! Making Ethan Jewish was initially an impulse decision, but one I felt very strongly about once it was in my drafts. I'm glad it resonates. <3 I do think putting a Jewish character in a zombie setting is such an unexplored area, and if I'm brave enough I definitely want to eventually push on what Ethan's (loose) sense of Jewish faith would make of realizing he's a mold!boy, given Jewish laws around body modification and funeral proceedings...

I personally have no problem with non-Jewish writers writing Jewish characters, though a couple things worth noting here--I fall into the old(?) camp of thinking that generally a mixed/diverse cast more representative of the real world in any story, so long as it is done with respect and good intent (and an open ear to feedback), is for the better, rather than the new (Twitter inspired?) mind that one can only ever write from their own worldview successfully (There's layers and layers of nuance here concerning that debate and what stories one "can" write and where one might be overstepping boundaries, but that's not your question really so I'll not jump into my whole spiel there).

The second thing worth noting, though, as it pertains better to your question and your information on your personal situation... depending on who you ask, I'm not Jewish either, lol! To be clear, I identify as Jewish both religiously & culturally, have Jewish ancestry, and consider myself a practicing Jew--but I'm only ancestrally Jewish through my father. My mother was not born Jewish nor ever converted. Depending on who you ask, I'm not Jewish haha. I see myself as Jewish, as I was raised in no other faith, and according to many reform Jews--the sect I belong to--that's good enough. If you asked many other Jews, though, (hell, if you asked some of my own orthodox ancestors), they'd likely tell you "no!!!".

Rule number one, with Jewish people, in my experience? None of us agree on almost anything lol. Jewish faith is splintered into vastly different sects and practices, these days, and what's acceptable and true to me as a reform Jew likely lines up very little with what's acceptable and true to most Orthodox or Conservative Jews. I guess I say all this for two-fold reasons: One, to not cast any illusions about my Jewishness in order to better appear a "jewish authority," but also to stress that... there's no single good answer for a "jewish authority," because Judaism isn't a singular uniform religion. As the child of non-practicing Jews, you likely already know a lot of this, but it feels worth stressing! To me, if you asked, I'd say you're Jewish if you feel you're Jewish, which entitles you to explore and write about your view of Judaism/Jewish identity however you please--in fics or otherwise.

And for people who aren't Jewish at all, I think it's just worth noting--there's no interpretation of Jewishness that would please all Jewish people lol. I'm sure my interpretation of a Jewish!Ethan would be wildly offensive to some other Jewish people. So much as I say, "write in good faith and listen thoughtfully to feedback," no one should ever be shocked if they're praised by some Jewish people and criticized by others. Like all religious and cultural/ethnic minorities, Jewish people are not a monolithic opinion... we're arguably more splintered than many minorities lmao.

But yes, tldr, my personal opinion? I think you individually have every right to write Jewish character hcs into your fics, just as I think anyone can as long as they do so with respect, restraint, and forethought (&, as a Jew, "barely qualifying" or not, I'd say you personally have more wiggle room than goyim to just...do as you like with your writing about Jewish-ness... when one is basing their fiction off any personal experience, arguments about 'validity' become ridiculous. It's valid if it's true to your experiences and feelings, even if they're not universal! Nothing is universal!). That said--take my opinion with a grain of salt, because I have no more right to give you a "Jewish stamp of approval" than anyone else!

(And on your last note, I'm actually a huge fan of the idea of a Jewish!Karl. My current draft notes for his chapters currently imply his mother was Jewish, but I'm undecided on whether I'll explicitly leave that in. In my heart, though, yes, he's matrilineally Jewish. I think it brings an additional element to his backstory of basically being abducted into a religious cult and stripped of his own identity as a child particularly... poignant... because boy did Christians do this to some Jewish kids, historically!)

[meirimerens]

HI BESTIE HI BESSSSTTTIIIEEEEEEE. HELLLOO. Are We Talking About Religion Over Here. Hi.

anyway full agree with your Thoughts about Dankovsky. very interesting to see what saint you picked for my boy over here. i also love the idea that like. Orthodoxy is even very Picky about religious art because of any perceived connection to old Slavic pagan religious art. love the idea of Daniil “Grew Up Staring At The Icon Corner With An Inexplicable Feeling Of Dread” Dankovsky arriving in town and being like. whuh. huh. what do you mean they paint their bodies in beautiful complicated sigils and dance as a religious ceremony. what do you MEAN their tits are out while doing it.

i did my dissertation on orthodox portrayals of Mary so as you can tell im. insufferable. sorry ❤️

^ you get it!

i think his mom specifically is really big into her theotokos frames, she has her favorites (the ones where the shadow painted over the brow makes it look like a unibrow, she would never admit that is because she feels mary looks like her like this, but she does think it).

^ this one for ex. i think she'd love it they so so have the icons corner at home.

it is the catholics who are like almost recklessly horny due to how much emphasis catholicism puts on self-punishment, repentance, self-restraint to unhealthy degree (hence this)

but [most?] christian denomination have like. their fetish for asceticism, self-restraint, self-punishment almost, silence and denigration of the flesh and starvation [...] so i think dankovsky who quickly realized he. wanted None of that. + had Desires beyond what the church allowed (as in. gay) truly quickly felt it Very Hard to navigate an upbringing under these symbols and also this like. hunger. really.

i also think he had a bunch of "❓" moment like what do you mean i'm supposed to kneel under this man's shawl and confess. doesn't god know already. why does this man want to know. [really quickly feels The Sin creeping on [it's not a sin it's just him. being gay]]

tldr... yeah....... in a world that values a sense of satiation (even if you have to lie about it to save face) dankovsky's Hunger quickly felt like a cumbersome animal he couldn't quite tame.

christianity also has the confusing veneration of the flesh (the wounds of christ, the entire body of work around his dessecated, dying body [in the catholic faith]) paired with the denigration of it [asceticism, the covering of the women,...] so dankovsky had to navigate that, While having Desires for the flesh that were not very leviticus 18:22 of him which i think. that alone would have made him atheist. and coming from that and stumbling into 1) a culture in which women waltz and dance and run and prance hair unbound and dresses torn to smithereens with devotional violence, in which the body is adorned with sigils and drawings and is the direct conductor for divinity 2) a. relationship in which touching and being touched feels as close to divinity as he has been able to reach in almost 30 years of being alive i think it feels like putting his fingers in an electrical outlet it does. it does but he loves it and it's good for him.

[deathoverdignity]

Well, there’s a bit of an example of this from Ireland about how new holidays can sprout. It’s early days yet but interesting.

So Ireland had less bank holidays compared to most of Europe. There’s was a bit of a discussion nationally about when the new bank holiday should be.

Many of our bank holidays are connected to Saint’s, legacy or the Catholic Church’s stranglehold on society up until relatively recently. And what came up in this discussion? St. Brigids day, which happens to fall on the 1st of February. Why is this interesting?

Usually anything new to do with the Church brings about absolute mayhem as a result of a fairly widespread decoupling from the Church as a result of the various abuse scandals, mother & baby homes and of course, the literal goddamn hole in the ground where hundreds of baby bones were discovered in the last decade.

Not this time though! Because it’s quite agreed at this point that Brigid is a co-opted pagan deity by the Catholic Church. One of her myths is literally ending women’s unwanted pregnancies for example.

She is the Patron Saint of Ireland as well as poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, and most importantly, cows.

The alternative Celtic goddess that most believe she is based on is Bríd, goddess of wisdom, poetry, healing, protection, smithing and domesticated animals (but still mostly cows).

St. Brigid’s day falls on the 1st of February also known as the pagan festival Imbolc.

Traditionally people would weave the Brigid cross on this day long before Christianity.

This is a tradition that still is upheld today, again co-opted by the church but in recent years resurrected as a pagan tradition. I remember weaving so many of these bad boys in class as a small child in school. Seriously, the reeds HURT after a while.

So all this is just a very long winded way of saying that despite the recent legacy of Brigid as a Catholic saint, that there was very little disagreement in broad society as it’s become quite well known now that Brigid or Bríd was not a Christian daughter of a chieftain as her myth now proclaims but an ancient goddess that gave abortions and used magic to heal people.

For the first Brigids day, there were loads of grass roots and group organising of weaving, history and Imbolc celebrations. Even local authorities ran programs of celebration that related to the Celtic Goddess Bríd and not the Catholic Saint. It’ll be the same this year too.

Im an atheist, but I participated because well, there was good vibes and to be a part of a very cool piece of folklore & history being revived.

TLDR - the new holiday has become more a reflection on ancient traditions and acknowledgement of the Church’s co-option of Celtic mythology with many grassroots and official activities to celebrate the day.

You gotta create replacement activities man. We can't just phase out all the church attendance and all the usamerican social holidays cold turkey in the middle of a loneliness epidemic bro like yeah fuck church fuck thanksgiving and FUCK the 4th of July but like what's the long-term plan. People need holidays and repetitive social rituals or they go crazy. Like are we inventing new ones or ....?

[automatismoateo]

Is using the Lords name in vain in a workplace equal to making derogatory comments &amp; religious discrimination? via /r/atheism

Is using the Lords name in vain in a workplace equal to making derogatory comments & religious discrimination? I'm just after some advice & info about how to deal with this situation? I'm in Australia. My main question, is saying the Lord's name in vain in the workplace if there is a Christian around equal to Making derogatory comments or taunts about religion & religious discrimination? & please let me know if I should post it in a more suitable subreddit? In our workplace I'm a supervisor we have a mid 50yr old male operator who is a "born again Christian", self proclaimed "ex tough guy", says he has "dangerous friends", he's extremely sensitive, takes offence to everything, constantly getting in arguments & 'fights' with people, thinks the world revolves around him, everyone is out to get him & is not the sharpest tool in the shed... He has a big problem with people who say the Lord's name in vain. He usually pulls up most people when they say Jesus, God, Christ, Omg 'Jesus butt fucking christ' etc. Says "Hey you don't say that! That's offensive to me!"🙄 God it shits me 🤦 I grew up Catholic & went to a Christian Fundamentalist school but as an adult became Atheist, I have alot of knowledge & experience with Christianity. I'm confident I know A LOT More about Christianity than he does. He has let it be known to everyone that saying the Lord's name in vain is offensive to him & it's no different to saying homophobic slurs if there was a gay person around & they took offence to that! I disagree, I think it's completely different & nothing like homophobic slurs. I don't think it's something a Christian should be "offended" about. It's more about if a Christian was trying to spread the word of god, hears someone saying it, they feel they should should let the person know it's a sin to say that, it's one of the 10 commandments to not say the Lord's name in vain, they need to ask for forgiveness from God or they could go to hell. I could be wrong but I really don't think it's something a Christian should be offended about? Last week, in the morning prestart meeting, I wrote G.O.D. (general operational duties) on the board, everyone on my team knows what it means & has no issue with it. The next day after we left site, he saw G.O.D. written on the board, didn't know what it stood for, no one else in the room seem to know either, he was offended, He's now made a complaint to my boss. Im not worried about the complaint, once I explained to my boss that G.O.D. stands for General Operational Duties he said Oh... ok.... Fair enough... ok... Ah... I guess just be careful of acronyms?... Here's his complaint email; At the afternoon daily debrief meeting, I was asked by numerous work colleges when walking into the meeting did I write in the Job task section G.O.Duties and if so what does that involve? My reply was definitely not and I don’t know who did . All I and everyone in the meeting could see was the word G.O.D. Yourself and I talked about this ( Religion Discrimination ) and i emailed you the clarification that you requested Standards of Behaviour ( Making derogatory comments or taunts about religion). It’s disappointing that the supervisors in the prestart did not pick up on the act of discrimination . This needs to stop, diversity and inclusion is about respect, valuing difference and recognising patterns. Thoughts? My boss said this shouldn't usually be an issue but the fact that he has brought it up to be an issue to him makes it an issue. If he says it's offensive then it is offensive... What do you think? tldr; Is saying the Lord's name in vain in the workplace equal to Making derogatory comments or taunts about religion & religious discrimination? Submitted November 11, 2024 at 11:50AM by velp28 (From Reddit https://ift.tt/25k31fG)

[karma-ltk]

im just going to go on another ramble after months of not posting on here, theres some music i find absolutely beautiful because of the stories they tell. im a lover for complexity in what looks simple on the surface, but is an entire iceberg on its own.

my best example of this is "2112" by rush. the song is telling the story of how earth was deserted of human life in 2012, based on the aztec calendar that ended that year. 100 years later, a later evolution of man returns to the ruins of human civilization and have already formed a hierarchy and government system. one person discovers a guitar and learns to make music with it, being fascinated with the strings, the sounds, everything about it. he brings it to the officials to show off and see if he could make this discovery his whole life in their eyes, comparing the sounds to build high like a mountain and the notes to be falling gently like rain. he proposes to let the people make their own music, but is quickly shut down by the officials, saying its a waste of time, and what drove the old race to their demise, "another toy that helped destroy the other race of man." the tone of the song changes based on the emotions and scenery, who is talking and who isnt, its a perfect culmination of musical story telling.

theres also the musical stories being told of real events, whether personal or not. my favorite example of historical music is "run to the hills" by iron maiden, though a lot of their music relates to historical events. run to the hills tells the story of the americans overtaking the natives when colonizing the americas from three perspectives. the first being of the natives themselves, the second of an american cavalryman, the third of no single individual, though heavily criticizing the americans. i dont exactly have a great way of explaining why this song is incredible unless you listen to it yourself, as its easier to understand why if you read the lyrics to their entirety.

personal stories being told in music is another branch of musical storytelling that is just as amazing as the rest. "patient number 9" by ozzy osbourne is one prime example of this, as its based off of ozzys own struggles with mental stability. or theres also "montero (call me by your name)" by lil nas x. it was written the day after he hung out at a guys house that he was into, to make it more like he was telling a story. he described the humming in the song as a sort of mating call, and explained in an interview with genius as many key points as needed. this song was boosted for multiple reasons, the representation of the lgbtq community, but more importantly, the controversy. montero (cmbyn) was a huge deal among conservatives and christians because of its biblical inspiration and sexuality presented in the music video. honestly, it was hilarious. as a queer atheist, it was humorous watching these people get so upset over it, especially with the reaction video macdoesit made to the replies, but i digress.

theres plenty other examples i couldve put in here, but id have to make a whole playlist to get that point across.

tldr i like storytelling in music

[authors-dumpster]

Have Faith

The last time I set foot in a church was not by choice, but because my mom wanted the whole family to attend the Mother’s Day mass. It was May of 2017, and it was the last place I wanted to be. I had to sit through the whole service, bored out of my mind, unable to focus on anything the priest was saying. I tried to appear somewhat sharp for my mother’s sake, but to no avail. I can’t remember exactly when I decided to drop my affiliation with Catholicism, but it has been awhile since I had much faith in the Man Upstairs.

I sincerely believe that my loss of faith has something to do with the fact that my elementary and middle school education was in a private, Catholic institution. Maybe it was the teachers, or maybe it was my classmates that spoiled it for me, but upon reaching the eighth grade, I started to question basically everything that I had previously believed in under the Catholic faith. I clearly remember one day in late February of  2014 where I had my own little epiphany about my faith, or rather my lack of it. I was walking home from school. It was a particularly warm day in February- at least, as warm as it can be during late winter in Michigan. The sun was shining brightly, and the rays were bouncing off the dripping snow mounds that bordered the pavement. I was at the age of developing my own opinionated and rebellious thoughts, so naturally I was lost in my own mind as I dragged my snowboots across the icy ground. I began to wonder about a lot of things. What makes the snow so white? How does snow collect in such a way? Why is it that the sun rays don’t melt the snow faster? What is the sun? What’s up with our solar system anyway? All these questions, of course, could be answered easily with “God made it so”, but that was not good enough for me.

When I mentioned my questions to my parents at the dinner table, they gave me the expected answer. “Well, because that’s how God wants it. He wants the snow to look like that, so it just does.” This made me even more confused and frustrated. Obviously it could be explained with science, so why did they insist on this deity instead? I tried not to delve into this too much, and focus on what really mattered: my confirmation ceremony. At least, I thought it mattered. I was wrong about that too, but more about that later.

I remember a time when I thought that dropping your religion was something shocking, even scandalous. When, back in my elementary days, my best friend told me that her brother didn’t go to church anymore, I was shocked (and secretly intrigued). I suppose that even then, I felt that “church” was a boring place where I wasted my time. I never paid much attention anyways, no matter how stern the nuns were, no matter how funny the homilies were, no matter how many bathroom breaks I got.

I think it was sometime around my junior year of high school when I completely dropped religion as a part of my life. At 16 years old, I was very sure of this; it was a world “with which I no longer wanted to have anything to do,” as Hermann Hesse stated in Demian. Before this, though, religion was something obligatory for me. What I mean to say is that after my confirmation ceremony, I really did not feel the sense of community that one should apparently be feeling when you get that blessing from the Bishop. In the Catholic religion, the confirmation ceremony is the final step for a child before they become an “adult” in the community, similar to a Jewish bar and bat mitzvah. But I felt no different leaving the church than I did walking in. So much for faith, right?

Something else that I have come to realize is that I never felt that religion was a big part of my life. I had a subconscious set of rules that I followed, which had formed based on my exposure to Catholicism for my entire life, but that’s where the line is drawn. As I mentioned earlier, I never had that special feeling of being “fully integrated into the community” when I got confirmed. I never had that special epiphany. My soul (whatever that is) was neither touched by nor filled with the Holy Spirit. I think that that point in my life was when I really doubted all the things that were being told to me by my teachers, my family members, and the priests.

Going to a public high school really turned my life towards the better. I didn't have to go to religion class. I wasn't tested on how well I knew the 10 Commandments. I didn’t have to memorize the Apostles Creed. I didn’t have to sing questionable hymns in a dimly lit church full of kids who all wanted the same thing: to play outside on the playscape, and then go home. I can still appreciate churches and cathedrals for their architecture, though, and the purposes that they served. Not only a beautiful meeting place for people of a strong community, but also a safe house. Namely, the grand cathedrals in England that served as shelters during the Blitz of World War II, so that’s something.

My decision to be an ex-Catholic (as dramatic as that sounds) has had some negative repercussions amongst my family. My parents, naturally, attempted to support me in my endeavours, and said that they would “try to respect my opinions”. After the first child, it gets easier. My sister, too, is an ex-Catholic. She was more discrete about dropping her affiliation with the religion, though. First, she stopped going to mass. It always starts with that. Then, she just stated that she was no longer Catholic, one day in the summer. It was quite a surprise for my parents, but they dealt with it easily. It was definitely more smooth than me literally answering my mother’s question of “How was your day at school?” with “I’m not a Catholic anymore,” but I digress. Perhaps my sister had something to do with my own loss of interest in religion. I did look up to her, after all. She was the original, and I was the CNTRL C + CNTRL V. Old habits die hard, I guess.

My parents are fine with it now, but there were definite instances where my “atheism was getting in the way”. Evenings at the dinner table were always fun, when they didn’t end up with someone stomping off to the porch to angrily fume in the outside air. We tried to keep the conversations away from anything politics, religion, and/or business-related, but sometimes the conversations were as wild as a mare, and we were unable to control it when it got out of hand.

As I think it over, I’ve come to the conclusion that religion has, in a way, held me back in many aspects of my life. There are certain morals based around Catholicism that I still hold to myself, but these morals have restricted me in building lasting relationships with people. What’s more is that I was very biased against many different kinds of people for most of my childhood. Due to how my parents connected religion to politics, I remember being furious when seeing the final results of the 2008 Presidential Election, only because my dad was angry that a Democrat had won. I did not know a single policy of the government at that time, but since the Church and the State was so connected in my family, I equated one party with good and moral people (Republicans), and the other with the exact opposite (Democrats). This too, has changed for me. In this way, I was held back from realizing my own political views, which are very different from my parents. They now set me apart from all members of my family, which can be very alienating.

I never got the chance to choose my religion, so that could also be a contributing factor to the grand question of why I dropped religion. Do I want to follow a different religion in the future? This is something I have definitely thought about and strongly considered, but to no avail. There are so many options that I could explore and research; but would I be able to find the right one for me? This calls for me to do some reflecting on myself, and what morals I hold close. I could be a Deist, a Wiccan, an Atheist, a Druid, a Heathen, an Agnostic, a Taoist- the possibilities are truly endless. For now, however, I simply wish to leave that part of my life empty. Maybe one day, if something really calls to me and draws me in, then I’ll see where it takes me. Would I ever go back to Catholicism? No. I had quite the ride, but it was not the one for me.

As for myself, I can acknowledge that I fall under the “agnostic” category. Maybe someday, I’ll find a faith that I can follow willingly. Maybe someday, I can be a part of a community that shares the same beliefs, and has utter confidence in those beliefs. Maybe someday, I’ll find a group of people that practice what they preach, and they will accept me into their company. But as for now, I can only twiddle my thumbs and wonder about a lot of things. What makes the snow so white? How does snow collect in such a way? Why is it that the sun rays don’t melt the snow faster? What is the sun? What’s up with our solar system anyway? 

Even now, in all my adult confidence, I have a hard time admitting that I do not follow any religion. I’ve been so used to simply saying “I’m Catholic” that saying anything else still feels odd. I don’t go into details unless someone asks; the story is not that extravagant anyway. It is even more challenging for me to admit that I am an agnostic. It’s less acknowledged than Atheism, but still relevant. The part that really throws people off is how different it is than Atheism, and different still from not following a religion. Agnosticism is, in simplest terms, that the existence of any deity or higher being is unknown. There’s something unexplainable going on, so I couldn’t explain it to you if I had all the time in the world. For now, I am neither denying, nor agreeing with anyone. I’d like to keep it that way for a while.

[i-dont-know-nor-care-go-away]

hey atheists!

As an fellow atheist

You are literally required to stop harassing Jewish people, and specifically about Christmas. I am gonna explain, tldr at the end

if you aren't doing anything, then no, I'm not talking to you, you did *checks notes* the bare minimum. but still, not as bad as that guy.

PS fucking A:

if a Jewish person says that they don't celebrate j-boi Christ's rescheduled bday then ITS NOT UR PLACE TO GO AND SAY "WELL IM ATHEIST AND ITS NOT EVEN CHRISTIAN ITS FROM PAGAN TRADITIONS AND IT IS NOT ABOUT RELIGION" GOOD FOR YOU, REALLY, IM NOT SARCASTIC HERE, I ALSO HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST CHRISTIANITY AND STILL LIKE COOKIES AND TREES AND ALL THE FUN SHIT, BUT NO ONE ASKED!! IF THEY SAY THAT THEY FEEL LIKE XMAS IS A CHRISTIAN THING SO THEY DO'NT CELEBRATE IT THEN THATS NOT UR BUSSINESS!! IT LITERALLY DOESNT MATTER! THEY HAVE A. get this. 💫diff-er-ent bel-ief sys-tem💫. wow it's almost as if, they are allowed to feel what ever way they want because it's very likely* (read: almost guaranteed) they face casual antisemitism during the season of one of the main holidays of the church. lots of ex Christian atheists probably also don't like this holiday, so it's not just "the theists". people aren't hate criming you for not liking a time where there is a ton of Christian imagery everywhere. I know it's toned down, but it still came from the church and it's called "christ-mas" and is a major holiday for xtians. I'm begging you, literally none of it is a personal attack to those that like to non-religious-ly celebrate, it's about how they have felt and been treated, bc literally to any Jewish info site and see what they are talking about. they are literally just vibing, what is yalls fucking problem?

tdlr : If ur an atheist that celebrates and is happy when it's Christmas, have fun, but don't harass jewish people (or anyone, but it's mostly antisemitism I see) for simply seeing Xmas as something from another religion/culture (Christianity). also let them be mad about the antisemitism they face. it's not that hard

(I'm not jewish so feel free to correct me, I just posted about this bc a ton of atheists can have a hard time listening unless it's another atheist)

[thorraborinn]

Hello! I am raised atheist, and i feel like i could never believe in the gods/magic and non-science stuff. But i want to. I really really want to. Do you think it's okay/a good idea to try? Or should i leave it alone lest i lose my worldview? I feel like im at the edge of a cliff and i can choose to go back to the comfortable, or jump into the pit and maybe break my neck. Or maybe find that i land softly and comfortably. Tldr im really confused as to whether i should try to embrace the gods as i want to or just stay in a world where things can be explained.

This disrupts the flow of my answer a bit but I’m gonna give you the most actionable bit first: don’t worry about belief, your first step is starting to work on acquiring “cultural literacy.” That is, keep working on learning about and understanding all the Norse pagany stuff, read the eddas and sagas if that appeals to you, and start to learn how to make decisions and judgments according to the values embedded in them, with or without agreeing with them. Approach both pre-Christian heathenry and modern heathenry (neither of which is really one Thing so to speak anyway) as having their own internal value whether or not you are part of it, just like approaching any culture other than your own. The belief or disbelief is less important than this, you can do it no matter how you fall there, and this is worthwhile if this is one of your interests no matter what. Okay, on with the serious part.

[edit] Oh! And probably the most important thing! If you aren’t already, you shouldn’t feel afraid to interact with heathens and the broader heathen community in general, other than just me, and other than anonymously. As you’ll surely gather from the rest of this post, we’re totally cool with and inviting to people in your position. Like I mention below, there are already heathen atheists (who are quite different from the “Western hegemonic atheists” that I talk shit about), and they’re actually not too hard to find, so maybe running into someone like that would be helpful for you.

This is a very interesting question. I feel a little bit out of my depth on this one, to be honest. I’ll do what I can for you, but I’m not sure whether it will be satisfying. On one hand, going to a self-described animist and polytheist to ask this question feels a bit like you’ve already come down on one side of this, because I don’t think you’d expect me to say “no, don’t do it” (though to be fair, on the other hand, who could you ask such that it would be neutral in this regard?).

I can’t make this decision for you, and frankly and perhaps counterintuitively, I don’t encourage you to make this decision either. The way this question is framed, you seem to be operating under an atheist’s (or a Christian’s, for that matter) conception of what religion and belief are and how we relate to them. Generally, we heathens don’t tell people what to believe. In fact, some of the few beliefs that we do hold in common are that diversity of beliefs is itself good and important, and that personal autonomy of belief is too important to impose beliefs on others. We have hard polytheists, soft polytheists, pantheists, agnostics, atheists, and people who are combinations of these, all participating in the same movement, performing and communicating through our shared culture and symbolic manners of expression, all free to wonder and question and believe as best applies to them. Yes, there are heathen atheists, who practice heathenry not because they believe there are literal beings on the receiving end of veneration but because they think practicing it is good, for whatever reason.

That’s how I started, by the way. I was raised a fundamentalist Christian and when that collapsed I didn’t believe in much of anything. I believed in less than most atheists do. I didn’t believe in myself or in other people. Everything was just subatomic particles and waves, or fields, or whatever, interacting according to the laws of physics, and even our distinct personalities were just illusions, worthless byproducts of the mathematical metabolism of the universe. But then, allowing ourselves to impose that illusion of individuality and personality is of course necessary and beneficial (not to mention a precondition for contemplating that it is an illusion) -- so what about recognizing individuality and personality in things other than humans? If “you” and “I” are just bracketed parts of the grand physical equation and we ascribe personhood to those even while knowing that it’s not really true, then is that really any different from doing the same for the sun and the waves and the wind? Or for war and love and justice? If you’re like me and you need to plug your brain into a philosophical adapter like this one to start engaging in heathenry, I find you stop noticing it after a while.

If you want to embrace the gods then you don’t have to do it because you believe in them, you can do it because you want to. Sometimes what you perceive as an obstacle based in disbelief is actually more of an obstacle of feeling weird about performing belief. When I became heathen I felt uncomfortable speaking out loud to the gods, and because of that discomfort it was important for me to do it. But I also needed to be able to not do it. What I reasoned with myself was that most of the gods probably needed me to speak out loud, even if only at a whisper, in order to hear me. But that Heimdallr, who can hear the grass grow, could hear the firing of neurons in my brain that corresponded to me thinking out language, that would allow silent communication. There are always ways to make it work.

Man, I wish I’d had Eduardo Kohn back then. Kohn’s book How Forests Think is one of the many recent works of anthropology that deal with animism in a way that is basically compatible with scientific rationalism, and in my opinion his is one of the better ones. He basically derives animism from modern Western scientific rationalism, and does so in a way that’s actually uncommonly understandable even to people who aren’t used to reading anthropology. It’s actually not entirely different from the thoughts that brought me out of existential crisis as described in the last paragraph, but much more developed and full of practical examples and descriptions of why this matters.

But, returning to the accusation I leveled at you (perhaps unfairly, given the little that I know about you from the handful of words constituting your ask) in the opening of this reply, of having an atheists or Christian’s response to the idea of belief. Heathenizing (if you will) is not the exchange of one all-encompassing worldview for another, less scientifically accurate one. It’s probably too internally diverse to be able to give a description of what it is, but it isn’t that. Yet, it does require at least some unsettling of the idea that Western scientific naturalism is as universalist or as objective as it purports to be or that it’s entirely individuated from its roots in Protestantism, and question why atheism manages to continually “reinscribe” the assumptions of Christian philosophy even while denying them. This lecture is long, but I highly recommend it -- it even describes the history behind the misinterpretation of other ways of relating to the world, even some political dimensions to it. Strip the audio from it if you have to, the visuals aren’t important, or at least look into Mary-Jane Rubenstein’s written works. Skip to around minute 23 for a bit of a discussion of the interrelatedness of (Western hegemonic) atheism and Western hegemonic ideas about religion, in comparison to something totally different (here, “pantheism”, which isn’t a word I usually use for myself, but the pantheistic pluralism described later in the video isn’t an inaccurate description of me). What Rubenstein describes as the seduction of pantheism or whatever it is, I can’t help but see an affinity between her description and what you seem to possibly be going through.

So returning to what I said here: “Heathenizing ... is not the exchange of one all-encompassing worldview for another.” Maybe part of what it is, is the abandonment of the entire idea of the single all-encompassing worldview, and opting to stay with the undulating, never-finished, dialogue of co-creation. Of course, there’s nothing distinctly “Norse pagan” or “Germanic pagan” or whatever about that, but what gives us that is that we create our identities and perspectives in relation with the people who came before us in Scandinavia and other places where Germanic languages were vernacular, and the gods and spirits that they venerated, but that is an extremely permeable boundary.

I might be pushing you too hard at this point. If all this is confusing, that’s fine. In my opinion, it’s better to get comfortable with confusion than to resolve that confusion.

If I’ve stirred up some thoughts and you want to look into some of what I’m talking about here further, try some of these which have been very important for me:

Nordic Animism Channel (link to good example video)

Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, Thunder Shaman: Making History with Mapuche Spirits in Chile and Patagonia

Gloria Anzaldúa, especially Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality edited by AnaLouise Keating)

Graham Harvey

Donna Haraway (link to “A Cyborg Manifesto” but see also Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene)

Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism

Finally, one last bit of something practical. Surely as a scientifically-minded person, a little experimentation will appeal to you. You can try stuff out while suspending belief just like the scientific method requires objectivity. It’s okay and good to try things out, see how they make you feel, and proceed after reflecting on the evidence.

Please don’t hesitate to send a follow-up ask.

[system-of-a-feather]

What do you guys mean, “satanist in philosophy”?

JUST noticed this oops.

Honestly I was thinking about it a bit and its honestly a bit outdated. XIV was kinda just running down the list of "facts about the system" and previously I was a pretty dedicated atheistic Luciferianist and Aderis was (probably is) a dedicated atheistic Satanist - but at this point between fusions, healing, and honestly looking more into my ethnicity and culture, a lot of the principles of Luciferianism doesn't appeal to me as much and while I do like the iconography, I've largely lost my dedication to it.

With that said, it's largely the principle of free thought, living for your most genuine self, and being "your own god". PERSONALLY if you ask me, I've kinda listened to XIV a lot lately and also become Buddhist adjacent so I now honestly side eye the whole "individuality and own god" part of both of the philosophy as being kinda C r i n g e (JOKING) and white since like.... individualism kinda sucks and XIV's swayed me in that opinion.

So I actually think that bullet point is no longer accurate, but I also don't mind it being there cause if there are people who would unfollow off of that, then its better off cause we do still respect it and there is always *motions to Aderis who Im like 85-90% sure still is an atheistic Satanist* and I'm never gonna genuinely disrespect something she enjoys like that - at least with full genuine intent

I hadn't actually thought about this topic in like a year or two and Im like huh. I really have outgrown and evolved away from it huh. Go figure.

TLDR: We hadn't updated that note in our "facts about us book" and XIV went flipping through it but we honestly aren't really anymore save for one part in our system.

-Riku

[mskatesharma]

Hey sorry to bother you but I wanted to ask if you could rec some good sources on learning more about Indian Culture/history/customs. Movies books anything really. I have looked online but well, I always take things on the internet with several grains of salt. And considering I know very little on it, I can't say how reliable the information is. I would like to incorporate elements of Kate being Indian when writing about Kate (and Kate and Anthony) going forward and I want to do it in as respectful and accurate a way as I can. For example, I had a thought of Anthony seeing Kate and her fam celebrate Holi and falling in love with how happy and carefree she is and brushing some paint off her cheek before she dunks some pigment onto him or something 1/2

But considering I've never celebrated Holi or seen it celebrated before I don't think I'd do a good job to write it... I know I get annoyed when people get the basic customs and traditions of my culture wrong. Anyway sorry for rambling TLDR: I would like to learn more about Indian culture and idk where to begin so I would be grateful for any direction you can point me at 2/2

so this has taken me a while to answer because i needed to find time to sit down, think about it and answer it properly. it might seem like a somewhat simple question, but to me, at least, it’s complicated? (i’m probably going to be going over stuff you probably already know, but i’m trying to answer in a complete way.)

i need to start off by saying that my family is from north india (gujarat specifically), and because of that, i have a certain level of privilege, including how north indians and north indian culture is portrayed in the media (obviously including bollywood). i mention this because simone ashley is south indian, specifically tamil, and there is so much prejudice against south indians in general, and this obviously extends to how they are depicted and how their culture is shown in various forms of media; colourism (which simone has spoken out about) is just the start of it. (also, as someone who is north indian, i’m not the best placed person to talk about the prejudice and discrimination faced by south indians.)  

a big part of why desi fans are so excited about simone’s casting as kate is because she a dark-skinned woc, and typically, dark-skinned women aren’t cast as romantic leads, and they’re not cast in shows anyway, especially when compared to light-skinned woc. so the fact that she’s going to be a lead in one of the biggest shows on netflix is a big.fucking.deal. in addition, they changed her character’s surname from ‘sheffield’ to ‘sharma’, which on the surface seems like a great idea, but if you look a little deeper, there are so many problems to be found.

(this got long so continues below)

sharma is not a generic indian surname; it’s specifically a north indian hindu name, which throws up questions. is kate going to be a hindu on the show? does this mean her family is from north india?  are they going to talk about caste on the show because sharma is a brahmin surname? how are they going to explain kate being in england, and being out in society with the upper crust of the british aristocracy? (because of the time that bridgerton is set, and with them specifically setting up kate as indian, i honestly don’t know how they’re going to explain kate’s presence) i honestly think that the show didn’t think too deeply about it and they chose the name sharma because it starts with ‘sh’ and ~sounds indian. however, it’s thrown up so many questions that they can’t ignore, especially because they tried to explain race in the first season. 

i talk about all this because you ask about holi, and incorporating elements of kate being indian when writing. and i’m not trying to be mean, but i would maybe hold off altogether? i need to point out that holi is a hindu festival, and is not specifically tied to being indian. i know i mentioned that sharma is a hindu surname, but we don’t even know if kate is going to be hindu, she may be a christian, or another religion or an atheist. also, because simone is tamil, they may decide to have kate be south indian despite the north indian origins of sharma, if they chose to address it at all. and depending on where in india you are from, and your religion, you will celebrate different festivals. even indians of the same religion celebrate different festivals, and some celebrate occasions at different times (e.g. gujaratis celebrate hindu new year the day after diwali. this isn’t the case for most other hindus. if we take holi, i know that it tends to be celebrated more in north india, and the image you describe isn’t necessarily universal). 

there has been a lot in the tags regarding clothing, and seeing kate and her family wearing indian clothing, and while i get it, it makes me nervous. personally, i cannot wait to see kate in the same style of dresses that everyone else wore in season one. why? because seeing an indian woman in that period of dress is something i have been longing for. i don’t want to see an indian woman wearing a lengha or a sari or sabyasachi in that time period, i want to see her in a bonnet and empire waistline, because that is something we haven’t seen much of. 

also, talking about seeing kate and her family wearing indian clothing has the potential to ‘other’ her, and tbh, can come across sometimes as fetishy, especially when you consider the time the story takes place in, and all the implications of colonialism. (there’s also the fact that unless the show has hired indian costume designers, it would be kinda gross for them to use any kind of indian clothing, and that includes adding elements to the era-typical dress that i’m hoping for.) 

i’m going to be honest, i’ve seen pieces of fanart with kate wearing a sari and other indian clothing, while anthony has been in typical regency dress, and it makes me uncomfortable. it gives off coloniser vibes, and that’s a dynamic i have absolutely no interest in. there’s also the fact that i’ve seen art where simone as kate has been shown as light-skinned, to the point where she appears to be the same colour as anthony, and i mean, hello?!

full disclosure, i’ve made some posts regarding headcanons and music that i should have thought twice about. i’ve reblogged stuff that i should have thought more about before i did so. why? because they had overtones of north indian privilege, and/or orientalism. being indian (wherever in india that is) is part of someone’s identity, it’s not a gimmick to sprinkle onto things, and it’s not something to festishise, and i think, at least from what i’ve seen, that is the concern a lot of desi fans have, even if that’s not the intention of the original posters.   

i realise i’ve gone on a seemingly massive tangent, but what i’m trying to say is, i don’t think there is a need to specifically reference kate being indian, especially when when writing canon-era fic, even more so when you consider we don’t know how the show is going to address it. now, i’m not saying i have faith in the show when it comes to kate and her ~indian surname, just that until we know how the show addresses it, i don’t see why it needs to be referred to? i understand why one might want to, but i just think there are waaay too many potential pitfalls, and the risk of coming across as orientalist/patronising/fetishy too high. some fans have fears when it comes to kate sharma and how she is presented, and for good reason.

sorry for not answering how you expected, and not giving you the resources you asked for (which, tbh, i’m not sure i would know where to start). i get what you were trying to ask, and i thank you for asking in the first place, but the question felt a little unfair tbh. but, i would encourage to read up on orientalism, also about the privilege that north indian hindus have, and honestly, the british colonisation of india.

ETA: i put this in the reblog but im going to add it here as well

also, something i forgot to add, even though i talk about north indians/north india and south indians/south india, it is obviously more complicated than that. there are many different states in india, and even then, different regions within those states will have different customs to each other. and then you have to factor in religion. likewise, there’s no one language that everyone in india speaks. basically, it’s not one universal culture that can be ‘boiled down to the essentials’.

[friendlyhostile]

TW: religion, hallucinations/delusions (i go a little into detail) TLDR: being mentally ill w/ delusions+hallucinations in atheistic satanic areas as a new and young satanist is frightening yknow, as an atheistic satanist, i always feel bad for "believing in the supernatural" like spirits and ghosts and things like creepypastas. being a newbie in the world of satanism is very scary, especially when you are mentally ill (for example, i hallucinate on a constant basis, and have bad delusions that invade my life constantly. i have a health condition that causes this, and other mental health conditions that cause this that i am not fully aware of what they are yet). theistic and atheistic satanism is so pretty, but its hard to fully fit in to the atheistic satanist world when you cant help but believe your delusions, because, well, they are delusions. i believe in spirits and ghosts and am constantly tormented by hallucinations of dead people i dont even know watching my every move, despite it not being real. i believe in the afterlife and the paranormal, despite it not being real. i dont actually believe any of these things in my heart, but my head makes it my reality. this makes it hard to fit into atheistic satanist areas because they want to get rid of superstition, and dont believe in these things. its especially hard with all the church of satan gatekeeping stuff i keep hearing about, but have no idea where to start looking. also with the satanic temples lawsuit with queersatanic. while i dont doubt mental illness is accepted in satanic communities, it always makes me scared to open up about them when it comes to religion and stuff revolving around religion and the supernatural. there is no easy way to talk about it, especially when joining new communities in hopes to find other organizations that are atheistic, when most that you find are theistic and accidentally feed into your delusions. though im just rambling, its been on my mind or a while, and its eating away at me. i want to join more atheistic satanist communities, without being scared of them being harsh about my delusions or the fact i am a new and young satanist, or just being gatekeeping in any way (especially about what organization you belong too). that or.. they end up being super about christianity and less about satanism. or they are secretly super racist. which is a major yikes.

[ierotits]

just saw something on Twitter that reminded me of this but Twitter is difficult to use so I'm posting it here

I need atheists to stop trying to support queer Christians by saying things like "all of the anti gay stuff is in the old Testament, and the old Testament doesn't matter". I know you mean well but this is completely unhelpful in so many ways.

one of the things so totally wrong with it is how wildly antisemitic the statement it. it's trying to support Christians while brushing aside a huge part of what Jewish people belive as "unimportant". (also i belive muslims too? but i havent seen anyone including them in these discussions before so im not sure if thats because they dont want to be included or people just forget. please let me know either way!!) im really not qualified to speak on antisemitism seeing as I'm not Jewish, but I'm sure many many Jewish people on here have made proper posts about this issue if you go look

for me however personally it hurts like hell to be told the old Testament doesn't apply to Christians any more because it's such an important part of my faith, and most Christians. if you were to walk in any church I've been to and say the old Testament isn't relevant you'd get dropkicked. while the new Testament is seen as being a new covenant, it doesn't totally replace the old. it just means that we are to listen to the new Testament over the old (if something in the old contradicts the new we follow the new). the old Testament is still such an important part of most Christians faith and to say that it's irrelevant is such a kick to the guts.

and so importantly, that's literally one of the worst options for reconciling faith with the bible. it's a cheap out for atheists to make a single sentence point to say "oh yeah your faith isn't actually that important" when there's so many other options for explaining why being queer and a christian is totally acceptable, it's great actually. I'll make a list one day with some of that but it's gonna be a long ass one so not today.

tldr, saying the old Testament is irrelevant is antisemitic and totally ignores christian beliefs too. pick literally any other option for reconciling people's faith with their gender or sexuality

[automatismoateo]

So pissed off at my Catholic school's unfairness. via /r/atheism

So pissed off at my Catholic school's unfairness. I, (15M) is a closeted atheist my whole life because of my catholic family's extreme cocksucking glaze upon their "God". I was sent to a catholic school, ignoring every prayer they do but hey, I don't judge one's religion In fact, I respect their beliefs. Until i found out about a field trip where students who attended would be exempted from their monthly exam. This field trip is all about going to famous churches around our region and spending some time touring sum religious structures. The last field trip they did about visiting every church didn't go so well with only very few students attending, so they made people who attended exempted from exams. not to mention, the entry fee was quite expensive for this country's standards (maybe im just really fucking broke idk) that people were basically calling it "p2w" or "Pay to win". Them using religion as an excuse to fill their own pockets boils my blood. I may have left out some details. This happened in the country of the Philippines. TLDR; School made it so that every student who joins their religious field trip exempted from monthly exams on all subjects. Submitted March 10, 2024 at 01:44PM by Fantastic-Object-832 (From Reddit https://ift.tt/J2pW7Cv)