Into the Mystic

This witch hates capitalism, and you can too! This is the blog where I keep all my witchcraft and religious stuff. Christian-ish but don't worry I'm weird about it.

[ookiigekkou]

[psalms-and-spells]

Stop trying to make thought crimes a thing! Why is everyone trying to make thought crimes a thing?

[yaldabaothadeez]

As @argumate seems to be on a religion thing right now, I’ll take this opportunity to post my own cringey, autistic atheist take.

I don’t really understand how someone can think a religion is true* and not think it’s very important.

Like, I mostly get the live-and-let-live attitude from the atheist side, but I don’t really see how you can think there’s e.g. an omnipotent god who has strong opinions on human behavior and not consider correcting the people who don’t (or who differ on important details) to be worth being a bit rude about.

So… what am I missing? How are there so many people who claim to be [insert religion here]-ists but are fine with the majority of people being fundamentally wrong about the nature of reality?

(*”religion” here being a set of statements about the world. I know some people, for instance, construct a version of Buddhism that amounts to “we should think more about the arbitrarity of our concepts”, but a) that’s not what I mean here and b) I’m not sure it’s really fair to call that Buddhism )

[tuiliel]

Animist & pagan polytheist here and just. There’s kinda no need to acknowledge or interact with gods or spirits? Most of them do not care that much about individual humans? They’ll hold people to pacts and oaths made to them specifically but if you’re not interacting with them you can kinda just. Continue on as you are.

Sometimes people get weird signs and dreams and sometimes those people then end up in our circles - and other times people just ignore it. And either choice is fine. It’s very opt-in. You can opt out. Most of them do not care very much, and none of them are all-powerful or any of the omni things people claim the Abrahamic god is. They’re just a few degrees more than us on each scale.

But it’s like. Not everyone needs to be interacting with wild animals, either? You can leave that to rehabbers and zookeepers and you can go to zoos or the wilderness if you wanna see them (this is things like open ritual circles, in this metaphor), and maybe you will and maybe you won’t, but you can also just spend your whole life somewhere they aren’t, except for tiny little mostly inconsequential things that some people interact with but you ignore, like pigeons and squirrels.

I think a lot of animistic folk religions are that way, too? (The indigenous tradition I was raised in certainly is.) Some people are deeply involved with the spirits, but for most people it’s just kinda fun to engage in holiday celebrations, because it’s not that deep for them, it’s just about food and community (and pretty lanterns or whatever the focus is). Ritual can be very calming even if you’re not a deep believer in what the ritual is honoring.

[tuiliel]

Also very much this, from prev tags:

I was mostly answering the question by pointing out the underlying assumptions in the question that I don’t feel like my practice has, which is that even if I am right and they are wrong, that it doesn’t really matter because you aren’t Required to do anything - but this is another very important point!

I think I’m right, based on my experiences and those of others I know and/or trust. I’ve developed a narrative that makes sense to me that is informed by the beliefs of others.

But I Could Be Wrong. And I know that.

I’m only certain enough for me, and my life. It seems to make sense and seems to work, so I’m gonna keep doing it this way as long as that remains true. But it could change in the future, and I’m not about to tell other people what to do. Even within my spiritual circles, as a teacher - I say, this is how I do things, and this is what I think, and this is what other people say. But you should figure it what works for you, what makes the most sense for your life.

Proselytizing is not at all universal even within Abrahamic religions, much less the world at large. It’s annoying as hell and we’d all be better off without it, and without the belief that anyone has got it 100% correct.

[yaldabaothadeez]

As @argumate seems to be on a religion thing right now, I’ll take this opportunity to post my own cringey, autistic atheist take.

I don’t really understand how someone can think a religion is true* and not think it’s very important.

Like, I mostly get the live-and-let-live attitude from the atheist side, but I don’t really see how you can think there’s e.g. an omnipotent god who has strong opinions on human behavior and not consider correcting the people who don’t (or who differ on important details) to be worth being a bit rude about.

So… what am I missing? How are there so many people who claim to be [insert religion here]-ists but are fine with the majority of people being fundamentally wrong about the nature of reality?

(*”religion” here being a set of statements about the world. I know some people, for instance, construct a version of Buddhism that amounts to “we should think more about the arbitrarity of our concepts”, but a) that’s not what I mean here and b) I’m not sure it’s really fair to call that Buddhism )

[tuiliel]

Animist & pagan polytheist here and just. There’s kinda no need to acknowledge or interact with gods or spirits? Most of them do not care that much about individual humans? They’ll hold people to pacts and oaths made to them specifically but if you’re not interacting with them you can kinda just. Continue on as you are.

Sometimes people get weird signs and dreams and sometimes those people then end up in our circles - and other times people just ignore it. And either choice is fine. It’s very opt-in. You can opt out. Most of them do not care very much, and none of them are all-powerful or any of the omni things people claim the Abrahamic god is. They’re just a few degrees more than us on each scale.

But it’s like. Not everyone needs to be interacting with wild animals, either? You can leave that to rehabbers and zookeepers and you can go to zoos or the wilderness if you wanna see them (this is things like open ritual circles, in this metaphor), and maybe you will and maybe you won’t, but you can also just spend your whole life somewhere they aren’t, except for tiny little mostly inconsequential things that some people interact with but you ignore, like pigeons and squirrels.

I think a lot of animistic folk religions are that way, too? (The indigenous tradition I was raised in certainly is.) Some people are deeply involved with the spirits, but for most people it’s just kinda fun to engage in holiday celebrations, because it’s not that deep for them, it’s just about food and community (and pretty lanterns or whatever the focus is). Ritual can be very calming even if you’re not a deep believer in what the ritual is honoring.

[velartis]

“what radicalized you” bro EMPATHY

[puppygirllaika]

"what radicalized you" well in kindergarten they told me to share things and be nice to people.

[rinnosetti]

"what radicalized you" I was taught about this dude who said "love your neighbor" and when I did that, I got kicked out of the book club

[radiant-quill-paradigm]

@ohholydyke this one's for you

[autumnsgambit]

Being a progressive Christian can be pretty damn irritating because you’ll hear people that you otherwise politically and morally align with try to make a point against specifically right-wing Christians, but instead of doing that, they just insult Christianity in general.

I understand why. I understand that the main group of people (at least in the U.S.) bringing Christian imagery into their political rhetoric is right-wing fundamentalists who use their religion as an excuse to harm marginalized communities and strip away women’s rights. It’s sad but it’s true. So when Christianity comes up in a political context, the natural inclination is to associate Christianity with the right, especially if you aren’t Christian yourself.

“Hate” towards Christians (again, I’m talking specifically about the U.S.) is a lot like misandry in some ways. It’s not, and probably never will be, a systemic force of oppression. They’re both also mainly spewed by people who A) don’t fully mean it and are just making an ill-articulated point or B) do mean it, and are assholes for that, but have understandable reasons that point to a larger systemic issue in which they’re ultimately more of a victim than the people they’re hating on.

But the thing about hating on Christianity, as opposed to Christian nationalism and fascism, isn’t that it’s just mean or annoying to those of us who are both politically progressive and devoutly Christian. It’s that it plays into the hands of right-wing Christian nationalists. Their rhetoric depends entirely on framing their social and political adversaries as not just that, but enemies of the Christian faith itself. Giving them what they want, rhetorically, only allows them to further dehumanize and demonize you, and convince less radical/more politically neutral Christians to see you the way they do.

So the point I’m trying to make is that in the United States, no, Christians are not oppressed, and yes, the real oppressors are a certain type of Christian, but they don’t represent the faith itself. We shouldn’t allow them to. Non-Christian progressives need to recognize that, and Christian progressives need to be louder about it.

[nomorechoirs]

“VI. Wisdom: The Voice of God” by Mary Karr

[saltriverroad]

[skinslip]

@ominous-signs

[ominous-signs]

Official ominous sign

[ohholydyke]

Christianity lost the plot when people took “go forth and preach the good news of Christ and make disciples” to mean colonialism and religious intolerance and control and shame

Everyone needs to go back to understanding it as spreading radical love and fighting for the oppressed everywhere and calling empire to repentance and fostering caring dialogue with others instead of having a weird bigoted superiority complex

More Christians need to stop doing fucking colonizer shit. Stop going to other countries to tell them to accept your white man’s version of Christianity and build shoddy houses without actually listening to the communities and their wishes and what they say they need and more importantly their consent as to whether or not they want you over there at all. Stop going out to people on the street telling them to realize they’re shit and need to change or they’ll be punished.

Go to protests and when someone asks you why you’re there, say your faith compels you to stand alongside the victims of oppression. Go to the soup kitchen. The DV shelters. The homeless camps. The low income housing. And ask what help they need and want (and if they don’t want it, fuck off). Donate your time and resources to organizations doing mutual aid and real work. Go yell at the empire and fight to tear it down from its idolatrous throne. Be an example of love and care and liberating radical change in the world. THAT is the great commission.

[orthodoxadventure]

Let’s say a prayer for those whose experiences of abuse and trauma have made it feel impossible for them to connect with or remain in their faith 

[fiercelywonderful]

Chronically online atheists will claim they are more moral and intelligent than religious people while using ableist and racist-coded language like “schizophrenic” and “primitive” to describe religious people. While they ignore the fact that science has also been used to harm marginalized people. Lack of religion doesn’t make you inherently more tolerant or ethical. It just means you can be an asshole for different reasons.

[creature-wizard]

So many conspiracy theories about Christian holidays deriving from "stolen" pagan customs implicitly dismiss the possibility that the common people might have had agency and created their own folk customs.

[twunkish-cleric]

The best people in the spiritual community are the ones who are super tolerant about other peoples' practices. Like spirituality is very personal and complex so just because you personally don't understand it doesn't mean it's insane, and the best people you know will live by that.

Get yourself someone who doesn't question godspousing. Who's intrigued by you mixing practices, like Christopaganism or Hellenic Buddhism, instead of judging you. Who will look at a chaos magician practicing pop culture paganism and just go on with their day. We need spiritual folks who look at differences and just go

Image ID: Gif of a kid sitting at a computer, turning towards the camera and giving a thumbs up while nodding.

[bdalak]

and if i said that the "christianity actually stole everything from paganism" claim made by neopagans who were raised christian is another facet of cultural christian self-victimization

[eesirachs]

Why is God so quiet?

because it’s your turn to talk

[faithshaped]

"God is not afraid of your honesty, He is not threatened by your questions. Silence is not abandonment, pain is not proof of absence."

—part of the sermon i heard today

[faithshaped]

"God is not afraid of your honesty, He is not threatened by your questions. Silence is not abandonment, pain is not proof of absence."

—part of the sermon i heard today

[motherangelic]

"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. - John 11:21 NIV.

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." - John 11:32 NIV

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? - Psalm 22:1 NIV

Amen