#wait gonna try something

[strawberrynova]

i hate my fucjing heapdphnes so much WHY DOES IT DO THAT

[dualitieds]

Happy (late) new year everyone!

I hope 2025 is a bit more productive than the last

[bonefall]

Splashtail and Atheism

Hello. I am an Atheist and I call Splashstar an Atheist because he is based on widespread bigoted depictions of godless people like myself. There have now been several posts about this written as if they're trying to "correct a misconception," and I am tired of vagueposts completely missing the point of the criticism to get caught up on arguing semantics.

The misanthropic, god-hating "Atheist" character in Christian propaganda, which I feel Splashstar has some alarming similarities with, does not come from the writer's correctable "misconception" of irreligious labels. It is born from a hatred of nonbelievers.

Specifically, my point that Splashtail is a mashup of two popular anti-secular tropes common in religious media;

The assertion that there's no such thing as a "real" nonbeliever, and that Atheists are just "rebelling" against God because we're mad at him, want to do bad things without guilt, or have "lost our way."

The belief that morality itself stems from faith in a higher moral being, asserting that the irreligious are "evil" in contrast to the faithful.

Even passing familiarity with the arguments of Christian apologia seen in Chick Tracts, Pureflix films, PragerU videos, and so on, will have put these tropes in front of you. They are false and harmful, and they target Atheists.

For more on this, TVTropes has an entire article dedicated to the Hollywood Atheist and its sub-tropes. Note how many of these Curlfeather and Splashtail fall into, regardless of if you're arguing that they are "real atheists" or not.

Those that hate us do not care about semantic labels. To them, we are without God, A-Theistic, and they do not actually care what is at the core of your beliefs if it contradicts their narrative.

But, even worse, the "Splashtail Can't Be An Atheist" crowd isn't even totally correct on the semantics they're trying to have a pedant battle about.

Most atheistic organizations and online atheists define Atheism as "one who does not believe in God" and attempt to push a sliding scale of "agnosticism" on how hard of a "maybe" you're feeling about your lack of faith. In the sliding agnostic scale, Agnostic Atheists are a "probably no god" and Gnostic Atheists are a "definitely no god." Others describe that scale as "hard" and "soft" Atheism-- but there is NOT universal agreement on that definition.

There other definitions of an "Atheist," and even those who reject the "agnostic scale" completely (I am one of them). "Atheism" was historically the catch-all term for what we might now call "Irreligious," and more.

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy explores its many meanings, and proposes that what defines an Atheist is an active choice to distance oneself from faith; "Someone who rejects the premise of gods either based on lack of belief, or meaninglessness of the question." Matt Dillahunty, a prominent educator and activist, intentionally refers to himself as an Atheist when others (including religious people!) have tried to pressure him into using the label Agnostic, for reasons he covers in great depth. Historically, "atheist" simply meant anyone who denied the gods or acted impiously, evolving into use as a broad label for irreligious practices around the 1500s, until attempts to narrow it to "nonbelievers in deities" in the 1800s.

By EoP's expanded definition alone, Splashstar qualifies as an Atheist. The rejection does not have to come from a belief that Theism is false, but that the question is meaningless. He doesn't have to "believe" in StarClan any more than you have to "believe" in a total stranger. He rejects faith in it and lives without their influence.

But even more than that, "atheist" is a broad, stigmatized term with a history you can't erase. Hundreds of combinations of philosophies, spiritual beliefs, and logical positions have been called "Atheism."

"Atheist" can refer to Agnostics (those who aren't sure if there is a god or not), Antitheists (opposition to the belief in and/or worship of gods), Igtheists (those that feel that "god" is such a nebulous term that the question of belief is meaningless), Apatheists (people who just don't care), practitioners of Non-Deistic religions (such as Humanistic Judaism and some sects of Buddhism), and even heretics who spoke against religion like Diagoras of Melos (gay guy who chopped up a statue of hercules and used it to bake beans. king.)

In a fantasy universe where gods are provably, visibly real, the term "Atheist" is going to look a lot more like those historic and expansive uses.

Unless you want to argue that "atheism" by the narrow, popular definition of "believing in deities" can't exist in such a setting. So, arguing that Cloudtail stopped being an Atheist when he saw demons in OotS, in spite of this not affecting his spiritual practices. Or, dancing around using one uniting term, you could specifically say Curlfeather is a Misotheist, Splashstar is an Antitheist or Agnostic, Mothwing is Deist, etc.

You could have a discussion about how applicable these words even are in the setting. Or make up terms that satisfy yourself. You could do this forever. But I choose not to.

I think it's counterproductive to push people to learn a bunch of terms for hyperspecific branches of irreligious philosophy just to discuss clear anti-secular sentiment within the text of a book, actually. Or push people to abandon a useful word because fantasy isn't exactly the same as real life. Functionally, imo, all of those aforementioned cats are Atheists within this setting, living "without god" by rejecting belief-- and many of them invoke real world bigotry, with tropes much older than WC itself.

So the simple fact is; Calling Splashtail an "Evil Atheist" immediately communicates the narrative tropes I am criticizing.

Either by authorial accident or on purpose, Splashstar's lack of morality being tied to his rejection of StarClan invokes the demonized atheist trope, very much like the ones seen in PureFlix's God's Not Dead or Jack Chick's The Last Generation.

All the arbitrary wishing that the terms were more narrow and exclusive will not change the reality that those characters are intended by bigots as atheists. The terms of the discussion reflect that. Trying to tut-tut the fandom for calling a spade a spade is a smug way to phrase you completely missed the damn point.

[candyje11yfish]

slight redesign. love her🩻🩸

[phonification]

i canfinally draw again . Yaoi galore

[szakkale]

staircase

[beatcroc]

what, didn't you know most amphibians shed and eat their skin? what did you think was going on there, peppino? this is normal frog stuff. come on now.

many more sketches bc i had way too many thoughts about this to try and illustrate all in a comic. horrid beast fp agenda ❤

[boredlime]

when you're Probably Not Cis but you present as it anyways because you're too lazy to do anything about it

[snekdood]

"if we make america worse and more of a dictatorship that will be even harder to unravel and make it the way we want the country to be, maybe then everyone will join our Glorious Revolution!" bb girl you cant even be in the same room with someone who thinks you should vote, how in tf do you think you're gonna unite people to fight in The Revolution with you? it's gonna be you and your 5 friends, i hate to break it to you.

[cozylittleartblog]

diversity win your spam emails are queer

[cinnamonsikwate]

post-canon laishuro but it's gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun. is this anything???

shuro attempts to confess his new & confusing feelings but laios misunderstands "i want to stay by your side" as shuro volunteering to stay and help in the golden kingdom's restoration efforts. everyone's patience is sorely tested and an ungodly amount of cheesecake is consumed.

[ch1zzie]

The original in the bottom

Plus the picture I mainly drew but decided to draw the rest for funny

[devilsskettle]

The X trilogy + "psycho-biddy" influences

[drowningbpdbodies]

Me? About to lose my shit? It’s more likely than you think

[fennthetalkingdog]

Y'all I just watched Jaiden Animations' video about learning she has ADHD and man... some of that stuff just hit me hard. The having to tie yourself down to work, the being relatively okay in school until college, the wondering if a doctor would just say, "It's a you problem, go away"—geez that resonated. I'm glad she finally got a diagnosis and Adderall and learned how to work best with herself though! I hope things start to turn out better for her as time goes on

[dawnthefluffyduck]

Warm Coco (speedpaint)