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blessedarethebinarybreakers · 2 months

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(I’m popping a extra disclaimer here because I don’t know if I worded this very well, and I understand if this isnt the kind if question you feel comfortable answering, but this is a genuine question made in good faith. I also apologise if this sounds really stupid)

I read one of your recent asks about inclusivism and it reminded me of something that always sat in the back of my mind with this train of thought.

If we say that everyone regardless of religion, or absence of it, gets into heaven, doesn’t that seem disrespectful to their faith. By saying that people of other religions get into christian heaven, is that not inadvertently telling them that their religion or their gods are fake, and that when they die it’ll be okay because they’ll learn the real truth? I hope this doesn’t come across as blunt or disrespectful to anyone, I’ve just never be able to come to a conclusion that isn’t exclusive (which is kind of a depressing thought), but is also respectful. Because it’s a beautiful idea that god loves us all regardless of who we are or what we believe, but what about people who have the kind of faith we do in a completely different god, or multiple gods, do they have the same thoughts about us? that their god loves us even though we dont believe?

I feel like I’m asking questions I’m not supposed to but I’m just really curious about your perspective if this is something you’re comfortable answering.

Hey anon, this is an important question, so thanks for asking it! You don't sound "stupid"; you're thinking like a theologian :) I'm probably not going to do it justice, I'm afraid, but maybe folks will hop on with more ideas or resources?

This got really long, so the TL;DR: I agree with you, and so do a lot of theologians and other thinkers!

In a religiously diverse world, it makes sense that people of various religions ponder where people outside their religions "fit" in their understanding of both the present world and whatever form of afterlife they have.

If someone has a firm personal belief in certain things taking place after death (from heaven to reincarnation), I don't think it's inherently wrong to imagine all kinds of people joining them in that experience, when it points to how that person recognizes the inherent holiness and value of all kinds of people, and shows that they long for continued community with & flourishing for those people.

However, this contemplation should be done with great care — especially when your religion is the dominant one in your culture; especially if your religion has a long history (and/or present) of colonialism and coerced conversions.

Ultimately, humility and openness are key! It's fine to have your own beliefs about humanity's place in this life and after death, but make yourself mindful of your own limited perspective. Accept you might be wrong in part or in whole! And be open to learning from others' ideas, and truly listening to them if they say something in your ideas has caused them or their community tangible harm.

In the rest of this post, I'll focus on a Christian perspective and keep grappling with how to consider these questions while honoring both one's personal faith and people all religions...without coming to any solid conclusions (sorry, but I don't think there's any one-size-fits-all or fully satisfying answer!).

I'll talk a bit about inclusivism and how it fails pretty miserably in this regard, and point towards religious pluralism as a possibly better (tho still imperfect) option.

And as usual I'll say I highly recommend Barbara Brown Taylor's book Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others to any Christians / cultural Christians who want to learn more about entering into mutual relationship with people of other religions.

In previous posts, I brought up the concepts of exclusivism, inclusivism, and religious pluralism without digging into their academic definitions and histories — partially because it's A Lot for a tumblr post, but also because it's by no means in my sphere of expertise. I worried about misrepresenting any viewpoint if I tried to get all academic, so I just stuck to my own personal opinions instead — but looking back at some posts, I see I didn't do a great job of clarifying that's what I was doing!

So now I'll go into what scholars mean when talking about these different viewpoints, with a huge caveat that I'm not an expert; I'm just drawing from notes and foggy memories from old seminary classes + this article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), and anyone interested in learning more should find scholarly articles or books rather than relying on some guy on tumblr!

Defining exclusivism, inclusivism, & religious pluralism

When we encounter traditions that offer differing and often conflicting "accounts of the nature of both mundane and supramundane reality, of the ultimate ends of human beings, and of the ways to achieve those ends" (IEP), how do we respond? Do we focus on difference and reject any truth in their views that conflicts with our views? Do we avoid looking too closely at the places we differ? try to find common ground? try to make their views fit ours?

Exclusivism, inclusivism, and religious pluralism are three categories into which we can place various responses to the reality of religious diversity.

It's important to note that this is only one categorization system one can use, and that these categories were developed within a Western, Christian context (by a guy named Alan Race in 1983). They are meant to be usable by persons of any religion — all sorts of people ask these questions about how their beliefs relate to others' beliefs — but largely do skew towards a Western, Christian way of understanding religion. (For one thing, there's a strong focus on salvation / afterlife and not all religions emphasize that stuff very much, if at all!)

Drawing primarily from this article on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), here are basic definitions of each:

Exclusivist positions maintain that "only one set of belief claims or practices can ultimately be true or correct (in most cases, those of the one holding the position). A Christian exclusivist would therefore hold that the beliefs of non-Christians (and perhaps even Christians of other denominations) are in some way flawed, if not wholly false..." . (From my old class notes — Exclusivist Christians believe 3 things are non-negotiable: the unique authority of Jesus Christ as the apex of revelation; Jesus as normative; salvation exclusively through repentance and faith in Christ's work on the cross. Some will allow that God does provide some truths about Godself and humanity through general revelation, including truths found in other religious traditions, but the Biggest most Important revelation is still Jesus.) .

Inclusivist positions "recognize the possibility that more than one religious tradition can contain elements that are true or efficacious, while at the same time hold that only one tradition expresses ultimate religious truth most completely." . Christian inclusivists tend to focus on salvation, claiming that non-Christians can still achieve salvation — still through Jesus Christ. Sometimes they hold that any non-Christian whose life happens to fit Jesus's call to love God and neighbor, etc., will be saved. Other times they hold that only non-Christians who never had the chance to learn about Jesus can be saved; if you know about Christianity and reject it, it doesn't matter how "good"you are, you're doomed. .

Pluralist positions hold that "more than one set of beliefs or practices can be, at least partially and perhaps wholly, true or correct simultaneously." For Christian pluralists, that means believing that Jesus is not the one Way to God / to heaven/salvation; Christianity is one way of many, usually conceived of as all being on equal footing, to connect to the Divine. .

(These three categories are not all encompassing; the IEP article also brings up relativism and skepticism.)

Issues with Exclusivism & Inclusivism

I hope the issues with exclusivism are clear, but to name a few:

Christians who are taught that all non-Christians (or even the "wrong kind" of Christians) are doomed to hell are taught to see those people as Projects more than people — there's a perceived urgent need to convert them asap in order to "save them." The only kind of relationship you'd form with one of them is centered in efforts to convert them, rather than to live and learn alongside them as they are.

Doesn't matter if they are already happily committed to a different religion. In your eyes, they're wrong about feeling fulfilled and connected to the Divine.

Doesn't matter if you have to resort to violent and coercive practices like wiping out all signs of non-Christian culture or kidnapping non-Christian children to raise Christian — the ends justify the means because you're looking out for their "immortal souls."

...But what about inclusivism? If you're a Christian inclusivist, you aren't forcing anyone to convert to Christianity right now! You acknowledge that non-Christians can live holy and fulfilling lives! You even acknowledge that there's scraps of value in their valid-but-not-as-valid-as-Christianity religions! So what's the problem?

Turns out that this is a major case of one's good intentions not being nearly as important as one's impact.

You may be pushing back against exclusivism's outright refusal that non-Christians have any connection to the divine at all, which is nice and all — but by saying that non-Christians will basically become Christian after they die, you are still perpetuating our long history of coercive conversions.

There's a reason some scholars argue that inclusivism isn't actually a separate category from, but a sub-category of, exclusivism: you're still saying everyone has to be Christian, "so luckily you'll See The Light and become Christian after you die :)"

This is very reasonably offensive to many non-Christians. If nothing else, it's ludicrously smug and paternalistic! I won't get into it here but it only gets worse when some inclusivist positions try to get all Darwinian and start arranging religions from lower to higher, with Christianity as the "evolutionary" apex of religion ://

For now, I'll only go into detail about Catholic Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner's particular version of inclusivism, because it's quite common and really highlights the paternalism:

Rahner's Anonymous Christians:

A question that Catholics and other Christians struggled with in the 20th century was this: If non-Christians cannot be saved (because they held firm in believing that salvation must be in and through Christ), what happens if someone never even had the chance to learn about Christianity? Surely a loving God wouldn't write them an automatic ticket to hell when they're non-Christian through no fault of their own, right?

German Jesuit Karl Rahner's response was to conceive of a sort of abstract version of Christianity for non-Christians who lived good, faithful lives outside of official (what he called "constituted") Christianity:

"Anonymous Christianity means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity. ...Let us say, a Buddhist monk…who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do that. And so, if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity." - Karl Rahner in Dialogue (1986), p. 135.

So someone who has intentionally devoted themselves to another religion, someone who does good work in that religion's name, is...secretly, unbeknownst to them, actually Christian?

I hope the offensiveness of that is clear — the condescension in implying these people are ignorant of what religion they "really" belong to! the assumption that Good deeds & virtues are always inherently Christian deeds & virtues! the arrogance of being so sure your own religion is The One Right Way that you have to construct a "back door" (as Hans Küng describes it) into it to shove in all these poor people who for whatever reason can't or don't choose to join it!

One theologian who criticized the paternalism of "anonymous Christianity" is John Hick, who was one of the big advocates for religious pluralism as a more respectful way of understanding non-Christian religions. So let's finally talk some more about pluralism!

Religious Pluralism!

As defined earlier, religious pluralist positions hold that there are many paths to the divine, and that all religions have access to some truths about the divine.

For Christians, this means rejecting those 3 non-negotiables of exclusionists about Christianity being the one true religion and Jesus being the one path to salvation. Instead of claiming that Christianity is the "most advanced" religion, pluralism claims that Christianity is just one religion among many, with no unique claim on the truth.

Some other pluralist points:

Pluralism resists antisemitic claims that Christianity is the "fulfillment" of (or that it "supercedes") Judaism.

Various religions provide independent access to salvation rather than everyone's salvation relying on Christ. (Note the still very Christian-skewed lens here in emphasizing salvation at all though!)

When we notice how different religions' truth claims conflict with one another, pluralists reconcile this by talking about how one's experience of truth is subjective.

Pluralism tends to give more authority to human experience than sacred texts

John Hicks' pluralist position

I mentioned before that Hicks is one of the big names in the religious pluralism scene. The IEP article I drew from earlier goes into much greater detail about his views and responses to it in the section titled "c. John Hick: the Pluralistic Hypothesis," but for a brief overview:

His central claim is that "diverse religious traditions have emerged as various finite, historical responses to a single transcendent, ultimate, divine reality. The diversity of traditions (and the belief claims they contain) is a product of the diversity of religious experiences among individuals and groups throughout history, and the various interpretations given to these experiences."

"As for the content of particular belief claims, Hick understands the personal deities of those traditions that posit them...as personae of the Real, explicitly invoking the connotation of a theatrical mask in the Latin word persona."

"Hick claims that all religious understandings of the Real are on equal footing insofar as they can only offer limited, phenomenal representations of transcendent truth."

We must accept that world religions are fundamentally different from each other, rather than falling into platitudes about how "we're all the same deep down"

Each religion has its own particular and comprehensive framework for understanding the world and human experience (i.e. we shouldn't use the normative Christian framework to describe other faiths)

Another angle: hospitality

As various philosophers and theologians have responded to and expanded upon pluralist frameworks, one big concept that some emphasize is hospitality: that all of us regardless of religion have an obligation to welcome others to all that is ours, if and when they have need of it — especially when they are of different cultures or religions from us.

Hospitality requires respect for those under our care, honoring and protecting their differences.

When we are the ones in need of hospitality, we should be able to expect the same.

Hospitality implies being able to anticipate our guest's needs, but we need to accept the impossibility of being able to guess every need, so communication is key!

Liberation theology & Pluralism

I also appreciate what liberation theologians have brought into the discussion. Here's from the IEP article:

"Liberation theology, which advocates a religious duty to aid those who are poor or suffering other forms of inequality and oppression, has had a significant influence on recent discussions of pluralism. The struggle against oppression can be seen as providing an enterprise in which members of diverse religious traditions can come together in solidarity.

"Paul F. Knitter, whose work serves as a prominent theological synthesis of liberation and pluralist perspectives, argues that engaging in interreligious dialogue is part and parcel of the ethical responsibility at the heart of liberation theology. He maintains not only that any liberation theology ought to be pluralistic, but also that any adequate theory of religious pluralism ought to include an ethical dimension oriented toward the goal of resisting injustice and oppression.

"Knitter claims that, if members of diverse religions are interested (as they should be) in encountering each other in dialogue and resolving their conflicts, this can only be done on the basis of some common ground. ..."

Knitter sees suffering as that common ground: "Suffering provides a common cause with which diverse religious traditions are concerned and towards which they can come together to craft a common agenda. Particular instances of suffering will, of course, differ from each other in their causes and effects; likewise, the practical details of work to alleviate suffering will almost necessarily be fleshed out differently by different religions, at different times and in different places. Nevertheless, Knitter maintains that suffering itself is a cross-cultural and universal phenomenon and should thus serve as the reference point for a practical religious pluralism. Confronting suffering will naturally give rise to solidarity, and pluralist respect and understanding can emerge from there."

Knitter also sees the planet as a source of literal common ground for us all: "Earth not only serves as a common physical location for all religious traditions, but it also provides these traditions with what Knitter calls a 'common cosmological story' (1995, p. 119). ...Knitter makes a case that different religious traditions share an ecological responsibility and that awareness of this shared responsibility, as it continues to emerge, can also serve as a basis for mutual understanding."

When Knitter and other liberation theologians speak of suffering or earth care as rallying points for interreligious solidarity, it's important to point out that such solidarity doesn't happen automatically: it is something we have to choose to commit to. We have to be courageous about challenging those who would pin suffering on another religious or cultural group. We have to be courageous about having difficult conversations, again and again. We have to learn how to work together for common goals even while accepting where we differ.

How to end this long ass post?

My hope is that as you read (or skimmed) all this, you were thinking about your own personal beliefs: where, if anywhere, do they fit among all these ideas? where would you like them to fit?

And, in the end, did I really address anon's question about whether it's disrespectful to people of other religions to assert that everyone is loved by God, or gets into heaven? Not really, because I don't know. I think it probably depends on context, and how one puts it, and how certain one acts about their ideas about God and heaven.

For me, it always comes down to humility about my own limited perspective, even while asserting that we all have a right to our personal beliefs, including ideas about what comes after this life.

When I imagine all human beings together in whatever comes next, I hope I do so not out of a desire for assimilation into my religion, but a desire to continue to learn from and alongside all kinds of people and beliefs. I hope I remain open to learning about how other people envision both what comes after death, and more importantly, what they think about life here and now. What can I learn from them about truth, kindness, justice? How can we work together to achieve those things for all creation, despite and in and through our differences?

I'll end with Eboo Patel's description of religious pluralism, which sums up much of how I feel, from his memoir Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim:

"Religious pluralism is neither mere coexistence nor forced consensus. It is a form of proactive cooperation that affirms the identities of the constituent communities while emphasizing that the wellbeing of each and all depends on the health of the whole. It is the belief that the common good is best served when each community has a chance to make its unique contribution."

___

Further resources:

Explore my #religious pluralism tag for more thoughts and quotes

You might also enjoy wandering through my #interfaith tag

Two podcast episodes that draw from Eboo Patel, Barbara Brown Taylor, and other wonderful people: "No One Owns God: Readying yourself for respectful interfaith encounters" and "It's good to have wings, but you have to have roots too: Cultivating your own faith while embracing religious pluralism"

My tag with excerpts from Holy Envy

Post that includes links to various questions about heaven

Here’s a post where I talk about why I don’t believe in hell

My evangelism tag (tl;dr: I’m staunchly against prosletyzing to anyone who doesn’t explicitly request more info about Christianity)

#feel free only to read the tldr anon -- the rest goes way beyond your actual question!#exclusivism #inclusivism #religious pluralism #long post #essays #theology #other faiths tag

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tleeaves · 6 months

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The church always felt like another version of theatre to me. I never felt what other people apparently felt. No presence of God or otherwise made Themself apparent to me. It was like Santa or the Tooth Fairy. A piece of make-believe I just had to pretend and act my way through lest anyone think I was weird or a demon or something. The high ceiling, the red carpets, the altar, the pews, the many candles, the chandeliers, the confession box - they were all set pieces to set an eerie yet grandiose feeling about the place. The only chills I ever got was from the reverent way people spoke of Him, when as a kid, I thought these people were mad and I was the only sane one, which was a frightening idea, because it also meant I was on the Outside of whatever was going on. So I had to pretend. When I went to confession, I had no clue what to confess about. Was I some inherently horrible person who committed sins weekly and should feel shame over it and beg for forgiveness and advice? I used to wrack my brain for something I had done wrong, anything. I'd come up with yelling at my sister or something over a matter she and I already made peace on. The priest on the other side of the curtain would say something like, "ah yes, it is difficult having siblings. You must make it up to her, for the Lord is watching. And He will absolve you once you earn His forgiveness." I would exit feeling heavier, because participating in any of this felt like a lie. Because I did not believe in God. Did not understand how anyone could. I lied a lot as a kid. Mostly to fit in or avoid trouble. I would never confess that to a priest. He was just a man, a man who could speak with others, and I did not need others to know I was the lying sort as a child. That seemed more sinful than yelling at my sister.

Maybe it's because I was raised to be distrustful and sceptical. Maybe the church is only one half of the things that instilled shame in me as a child. But the church was like theatre. It was all a performance, all the time, built on stories, ones people just chose to believe wholeheartedly in and judge themselves by. I didn't understand it then and I still struggle to now. But not as much. To me, it is still a performance, but one people partake in for the sake of community, belonging, and meaning. But I cannot fathom such deep faith in something like that. I do not mean to insult anyone by this either. I am speaking of my own complicated relationship with religion and the church. Religion and worship can be many things. In the end, I would rather humble myself before the earth and all its life than any single god who would command I solely dedicate myself to Themself. Because respect and gratitude I understand. And I hold that for this planet.

#catholic #church #religion #faith #complicated relationship with faith #personal experience

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apollos-olives · 4 months

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wow thank you again for the great reply. i honestly never knew gender dysphoria could be like that so please forgive my ignorance. i was aware of it's existence but like we both said, my not being trans will never truly understand your being trans. i also appreciate the analogies because that does put it into perspective as well. Suicide of course should be prevented, and if transitioning is truly the only way to prevent it, then Allah knows best.

religious trauma is something i greatly identify with - having attended a Muslim school and being subjected to blatant misogyny as well as being the daughter of a revert who married into a culturally Muslim family, and growing up in a household that didn't really practice either - i totally understand why queer Muslims may feel distant from Islam and I do not judge them whatsoever because someone leaving the folds of Islam truly says more about their community. However, what I learnt from my own trauma and healing from that is that at the end of the day, we do have our own choices and we can choose whether to open our hearts back to the religion or not. ofc this statement is easier said than done.

Regarding queerness and children - I did not word myself correctly and forgot to mention what you have mentioned. I don't believe that being queer is inherently sexual and I apologize if it came out that way. You are right in saying people don't have a problem when heterosexual people make assumptions but will immediately have a problem when someone who is non-hetero does. It is hypocrisy and I admit that, I am not against children learning about people who are queer or even what queer means, my concerns are merely with people who hypersexualise under the guise of being lgbtq+ activists and in the same breath I will say that I feel the same way about heterosexual people who sexualise kids.

Where I stand, as long as Bi'dah is not committed, for example, free mixing in salah or roles of men and women interchanging when it comes to the practices of Islam, I genuinely have no qualms with anyone.

I have honestly learnt so much more in these two replies than I have learnt through media and discussions with people who identify as part of the community and for that i am truly grateful. many of your points allowed me to question my own perspective of queerness as well as to challenge myself regarding how I actually view people who are different than myself.

All in all, my stance on lgbtq+ hasn't changed much in the sense that I can agree with anything and everything that the community preaches but I have become more aware that not everyone who belongs to it shares the same opinions and not every Muslim who is queer/non-hetero hates or blatantly chooses to reject Islam. I do think that this discussion has been fruitful and it's a conversation I'm glad to have had, especially since it's civil, hopefully from both our perspectives.

Allah truly knows best, regardless of my view or your view and we all are Muslim and hopefully striving towards the end goal in the Hereafter. We should focus on the issues on hand and spread Islam through its meaning and not on our own prejudice because you as a queer Muslim may be doing much more good than I, a heterosexual Muslim, am currently.

Thank you for the discussion and may Allah bless you ♥️

no worries thank you so much for being so respectful and understanding! most muslims i meet aren't willing to listen to people they don't agree with so it's very refreshing that you're being so open to trying to listen to me. it's very heartwarming :)

alhamdulillah i'm glad you understand the struggles of being trans and how queer muslims may stray away from islam because of religious trauma. and you're absolutely right that at the end of the day, allah knows best and it is always up to the person to choose the right path for them.

and thank you for clarifying your stance on the whole children situation. and yes you are correct that people do use the lgbtq+ community to try to get away with stuff that is deemed unacceptable! unfortunately the community is facing hardship because people are abusing the openness and acceptance of the community and sometimes are using it as an excuse to do bad things, which most people in the queer community condemn and are actively trying to fight against! and even then, those situations are kept to a minimum and are handled as best as possible, and the occurrence of those problems are not as common as people think, actually. but i do understand how you may be concerned and that's totally fine, but i want to assure you that it's not common at all and most of the lgbtq+ community want to protect kids as much as possible!

i don't have much of an opinion on bi'dah and whatnot, but your beliefs are very valid and i totally respect them as well :)

i'm so happy that i could help educate you and give you insight about how queerness affects me and other muslims. i'm so glad that you were open to listening. it's totally okay if my insight hasn't changed your opinions very much, i'm just glad to have been able to be given an opportunity to share my perspective as a queer muslim. and you are right that the muslim community as a whole must drop their prejudices and all reach to strive for jannah in the afterlife. inshallah we can all have good discussions like we did in jannah as well :)

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vaspider · 1 year

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Just throwing it out there, but I'm a Quaker (aka Society of Friends) (a lot of people consider us to be Christian but I don't - we're not expected to believe in Jesus or even a god, nor read the Bible, go to church, celebrate Christian holidays, any of that, though we're allowed to if we want to. Quakers are actually allowed to belong to any other religion, or lack thereof, which is rather un-christian. Like, you could be a Muslim Quaker or a Hindu Quaker or whatever, it's all good (I'm an atheist Quaker). We did start off as an offshoot of Christianity but there's plenty of offshoot religions that become their own thing, like Christianity itself). Context aside, it's literally, explicitly against my religion to try to convert people. We're not even allowed to suggest it to people, although it's not a closed religion. Like, if you ask me about becoming a Quaker, I'm welcome to talk about it, but I can't just tell people that they should do it.

So yeah, just adding to the anti "proselytizing is just a required part of religion" pile.

On a side note, the main tenets of Quakerism are Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship, and in my experience, a frightening number of Christians (my parents included) balk at the "equality" bit. Like, people have legit gotten angry with me about it. Despite the "we're all God's children"/"all sins are equal in the eyes of God" thing that a lot of them talk about, because when *we* say equality, we actually do mean equal.

Also, fun fact since it's Coronation Day or whatever, Quakerism is inherently anti-monarchy as part of the "equality" tenet 😉

I attended multiple Quaker meetings (Lehigh Valley Friends Meeting, Lancaster Friends Monthly Meeting, Gwynedd Friends Meeting) for like... a total of about eight years of my life, and I was planning to marry a Quaker. My HS boyfriend was super active in Young Friends; we used to do a lot of the setup and teardown for the Peace Walk in December and before First Day Meeting. Emet and I used a self-attesting/Friends wedding license. I spent most of my life before 2019 living in the eastern half of Pennsylvania or in Maryland. I know what Quakers are, but I appreciate your thorough explanation for folx who might not know.

I ... have a lot of respect for the Society of Friends, and I applaud the Society's attempts to keep everyone under the same big tent, but to say that the Friends are not Christian is quite a stretch. 89% of Friends worldwide belong to Evangelical or Programmed Meetings, with a pastor and Bible readings.

It's probably more true to say that American Quakers of Friends General Conference do not have a Creed, that some Quakers are not Christian and that many Meetings, especially Unprogrammed Meetings in Friends General Conference in the United States, welcome diverse faiths as well as non-theist members.

I think it's important, however, not to look away from how deeply-rooted many Xian ideals and concepts are in Friends philosophy. Saying "Friends aren't Xian" kind of allows for a sort of magical thinking that all of those ideas - some of which are harmful or have been used for great harm - are just gone. That's not the case.

There's a lot of classism issues in many Friends Meetings, too, especially some of the older ones, because many of those Meetings are populated by people who have an awful lot of old money, and that can give people outsized voices when it comes to seeking consensus.

At least, that's what caused me to come away from the Friends, though I went through multiple times of returning to Meeting because I was deeply Convinced at multiple points. I was drawn to Meeting very strongly by the ideal, and the reality pushed me away.

None of this is to say that Friends don't do wonderful things or that FGC's work isn't often lovely and commendable. I just ... object to the idea that Quakers aren't Christian. Well, no, many are, and the deeply Xian roots of the Society are still very visible to me. I love the Friends deeply (the design for a Publick Universal Friend pin is waiting for me to set up our next Kickstarter), and I'm very glad you find such joy and fulfillment there. I have confidence that if anyone can continue working on the issues within the conference itself and on the greater issues of the world with patience, consideration, and genuine consensus-seeking, it's FGC.

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mx-ryder · 2 months

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Some thoughts on Hazbin Hotel

I literally just watched HH this week, followed by binging Helluva Boss on YouTube right after. And my Dash is full of HH and HB stuff now. And the other day I saw someone posted their thoughts on the show, including one specific take that it falls right back under the typical "Sinners are bad but hey, we can fix them!" sort of trope. (I really don't know if I'll be able to find the post again, if I do, I'll reblog/link it here or something).

And hey, I'm not gonna argue that it doesn't, per se. I just think there's a bit more to it than that.

c.w for general religious trauma talk, SA mentions, drug use/abuse, alcohol use, addiction, gambling, probably other things I'm not thinking of

(Also please don't feel like you have to read this. It's literally just me rambling because I haven't been able to stop thinking about this topic all fucking day, so I wrote it down to get it out of my head. Obviously if you read it and want to comment/continue the discussion, feel free. Just please. Be respectful.)

Now.

All my thoughts on HH are very much colored by my past experiences with religion, US christianity, specifically. More specifically still, the sort of christianity that makes people believe that "home schooling" their kids, isolating and indoctrinating them away from anyone who might make them question it all, is the best course of action. I grew up bouncing from church to church, from home schooling co-op to co-op, all so my bio-mom could find the exact group to echo her own sentiments back at her.

Among the things I grew up believing were great ideas such as:

Sexuality is inherently disgusting, and something you should always be forcing down/avoiding/punishing yourself about. Masturbation, porn, sex before marriage, dressing "immodestly", and any sexuality outside of heterosexual were inherently evil and worthy of punishment. Sometimes that punishment was being assaulted, because really, she should've covered up, right? Girls, sometimes girls as young as 12-13 (if not younger) were villainized for wearing tank-tops and shorts, because they were causing the boys to stumble and immodesty was a moral failing on their part.

Drugs, alcohol, substances in general, are bad and wrong and using them, or heaven forbid becoming addicted, is a moral failing on your part. You are a bad person for consuming a drug, and therefore deserve to fall into addiction, houselessness, starvation, and/or abuse.

Poor people deserve it. Accepting help of any kind is leeching off good, hard-working people. Your worth as a person is directly tied to your ability to be a "productive member of society."

Any mental health issues are your fault, and are either because you don't believe in jesus hard enough, or because you're inherently broken and sinful and therefore unsaveable. There is no room for sympathy or empathy for anyone struggling.

There's a reason these are the same stereotypical archetypes you see in this sort of show. The queer sex-addict. The gambler. The "weirdo" who isn't like other people and enjoys "weird" things, or enjoys things "too much". Even just the party-girl character. Because these aren't just stereotypes. These are actual entire groups of people who are ostracized and vilified just for being who they were born to be, for making choices christians don't like, or for being sick.

And that brings me to Angel Dust. Who, by the way, I wish I could've been given a content warning about, because holy shit Ep 4 and Addict hit me really fucking hard. My friend recommended the show to me without having watched it, so I went in not expecting that sort of storyline to punch me in the gut out of nowhere.

Anyway! Angel Dust! Literally named after a drug. A gay porn star who flirts shamelessly with anyone and everyone, who proudly shows off his best films to his friends, who secretly hates his job, not because of the sex, as we come to find out, but because he's under the thumb of a fucking psycho who treats him like shit and actively physically, sexually, and mentally/emotionally abuses him. He's basically been trafficked, and hates that he doesn't have any say in what happens to him in front of the camera. It's a horrifying position to be in, and one that left me a little shaken up, tbf.

The take I'm mostly writing this based on is that Hazbin Hotel falls into the trite tropes of "rich white girl attempts to fix people who are below her" and specifically mentioned disappointment in how Charlie didn't try to argue that Angel Dust didn't deserve hell based only on his addiction or sexual past, but that she instead claimed that she could "fix him."

And I just . . . think that's a little bit of a black/white take.

For the first part, what would people rather she do? Put all her time, effort, influence, and power into trying her damnedest to help her people, who are being slaughtered by the thousands every year just because Adam is bored? Or sit at home and use all that time, effort, influence, and power to make rubber duckies like her father? She could just ignore everything going on, call it hopeless, give up, and ignore the suffering of her people. Would that be better? Would that satisfy this weird little "she's just a rich white girl with privilege" gripe?

Charlie is a rich girl. A princess. Someone with huge amounts of privilege, power, influence, etc. But you know what? She's also stuck in hell. She was born there, through no fault or choice of her own, and because of who her parents are, she is trapped in literal hell, with no hope of ever, ever ascending to heaven. She does not get a chance at redemption, because she was born to the wrong people. She is a young woman who was born into horrifying circumstances, living in a world that she frequently expresses disgust for (her frequent discomfort with sexuality, her disgust toward the cannibals, her dislike of violence, even necessary self-defense).

And she still loves her people and wants to see the best in them.

She would be completely justified in hating everything about hell, her life, the people around her, her parents, heaven, everything, really. She has every right to hate her entire existence, but she puts all that hatred for the system into her efforts to fucking do something about it. Why is that a bad thing, just because she was born into a position of power and authority??

And now on to Angel Dust.

Charlie never once makes a judgement call about Angel or his habits, his work, or his personality. She expresses discomfort with the sexual nature of his work (tbh wouldn't be surprised if she's a sex-repulsed ace), but she does not think he's a bad person because of his work. Nor does she think that he needs to stop doing his work in order to become a better/good person. When she tries to get him some time off, she's explicitly doing it because she wants him to have time to decompress and participate in activities at the hotel, not because she wants him doing less of his specific kind of work.

She never condemns his partying, either. She has a bar in her hotel! She defends him partying, right to heaven's face, because she knows everyone present has partied, everyone has enjoyed a drink with friends. There is no condemnation of his partying activities, and I don't think she ever makes it seem as though Angel needs fixing.

What I got out of that episode, watching Charlie passionately defending her friend in front of the worst fucking person in the universe, was that people do not need to be fixed, but some love and support can help them make better choices for themselves. Angel still has a good time. He still has his job (contract, y'know, but would probably be in the industry regardless). The only thing different about that particular night of partying is that he's out with people who care about him, and who he cares about.

Even Cherri, though she expresses some joking disappointment that he's spending so much time worrying about Nifty, doesn't actually seem that put out by it. She teases him a little, but leaves him to do his thing. And his thing is making sure his friend, who is less experienced at partying (and who is significantly smaller/more vulnerable than most other people), is safe and okay. His thing is defending his friends from an extremely dangerous person, at massive risk to his own personal safety.

And he didn't do any of this because he'd been "fixed" or because he'd "changed." He did it because, for possibly the first time ever, he has people around him who love and care for him, and who want the best for him. And who he loves and wants the best for in return. He said himself that he stays out of his mind on substances, allows himself to be drugged and assaulted, puts on this persona of care-free-crack-whore-who-only-thinks-about-sex, because he is trying everything in his power to dull the pain he's in. Because he doesn't believe he deserves any better.

And this, this is what Charlie is trying to show Heaven. She is trying to show them that there is nothing morally damning about alcohol consumption, or even drug use, sex work, or anything that makes Angel who he is. She's trying to show them that, with some love, care, and support, with a safe place to call home, with their base physical and emotional needs being met, people don't need to resort to the sort of destructive behavior heaven/Adam is condemning! People can choose to engage in these behaviors safely, consciously, and with people around them who want them to be safe and have a good time.

Then we get on to the idea that this entire episode ends on. Heaven doesn't know how people get there. They don't know what it takes to be "good enough" for heaven. Sera herself admits that Adam was just "the first soul in heaven," all but admitting that he's just there because he defaulted into it. (Though that does make me wonder, what about Abel? He would have died long before Adam, and considering how long Adam lived, and that there were plenty of other people around by the time he would have died, where were all those souls going??).

And Adam is the fucking worst! He is literally the worst, most selfish, violent, vulgar soul in the entire show, but he is allowed in heaven, for reasons no one even understands.

You know what the difference is between Adam and Angel?

Adam can't be fixed.

His behaviors are all destructive, not to himself, but to others. He insults, abuses, hurts, and kills with abandon. He made this weird, shitty deal with Hell and Lucifer because he wanted to murder innocent souls, because he was bored, and the rest of heaven doesn't even know about it. He has free reign to be an absolute piece of shit to everyone around him, damaging people left and right, and he will never face any sort of justice for it, because hey, he's already in heaven!

But Angel? Angel's behavior is all self-destructive. Again. He gets fucked up to dull his immense pain. He allows himself to be drugged and assaulted because he believes he deserves it. Because he's been told, for who knows how many thousands of years, that he's a whore anyway, so why shouldn't he be free to use for anyone who wants to take him? He has been beaten down, physically, emotionally, sexually, until he's a shell of a person who is struggling to find any reason to continue his shitty existence.

And he hurts only himself.

I mean, okay, he does piss off Husk sometimes, crosses boundaries/etc. But he and Husk pretty clearly fix that between themselves. There's no lasting damage there, and idk if anyone else noticed, but he stops that behavior pretty much entirely after that ep.

Angel is hurting. He is hollow, and hopeless, and trapped. And he does not need to be fixed, nor does Charlie ever attempt to do so.

All she does is reach out a hand, and say, "Hey, I see that you're struggling. This place is fucked up, isn't it? Maybe I can help."

Charlie is a flawed person. She takes her privilege for granted. She feels the immense weight of her choices, and the pressure of having taken responsibility for a people who may never want her help. She messes up, because somehow, she's endlessly cheerful and optimistic, despite her upbringing and the world she grew up in.

Charlie is flawed. But she's trying her fucking best. She isn't trying to fix. She's trying to help.

We all need some help, every now and then, don't we?

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sophieinwonderland · 1 year

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I had a question. I've had the opportunity to talk to a few antis - and I noticed something very weird. They kept parroting vague lines about how "endo systems roleplay", but the language and logic they used was very reminiscent of what people say about otherkin and therians, and what otherkin/alterhumans say about kin-for-funs.

The vitriol seemed directed to spiritually-oriented systems in particular. Saying as if, people cannot have spiritual identities that, in antis eyes, center plurals' disability or neurodivergency. But it also seemed like a lot of people use "endo" to mean a variety of vague things that they only heard from other people. What do you think of that?

Totally!

And not just similar to the lines used against Otherkin, but also the lines used against DID and OSDD systems on r/Fakedisordercringe and r/Systemscringe. Anti-endo talking points parrot the phrasing of their oppressors.

On the spiritual identities, this one is especially seems strange to me. Maybe my perspective is very different from a lot of the system community on this because I'm an atheist who doesn't actually believe in magic or spirits, so my definition of a spiritual system is a system that interprets one or more headmates to be spiritual in nature. Any system to me who adopts a spiritual interpretation is a spiritual system, regardless of whether they're really literal spirits or not.

In this way, the DSM actually directly mentions DID systems who would be considered spiritual, and discusses how to determine if these systems have DID, and be able to differentiate them from non-DID plurality.

So when I see an anti-endo post about not understanding why a gateway system who talks about their headmates going to another dimensions is lumped under the same umbrella as DID, and this is coming from someone who I seriously doubt believes in actual spirits either, it always feels weird to me because it's acknowledged in the medical community that this is sometimes a manifestation of DID.

I don't think you have to share someone's beliefs to respect them.

And there is this inherent ableism within the anti-endo community that acts as if only singlets should be allowed religion or spirituality.

If a singlet wants to astral project and meet a friend in the astral plane, that's totally fine and acceptable. If a headmate wants to systemhop, they're a liar who is spreading misinformation. Many will still support Otherkin who believe they have spiritual origins, but not headmates in systems. Why?

The anti-endo community has universally decided that systems aren't allowed to have spiritual interpretations of their selves or experiences. This is hypocrisy at its finest. They've decided that religion and spirituality belongs to the neurotypicals and singlets alone.

It is pure ableism and sanism to deny systems the right to their spirituality.

#ask box #syscourse #plurality #spirits #spirituality #religion #systems #system #multiplicity #plural #metaphysical #endogenic #plural system #endogenic system #pro endogenic #pro endo

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blazehedgehog · 9 months

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Hello, I have a strange question to ask

I've been having some existential crisis about my understanding of art, but mostly when it comes to Sonic

I'd like to belive that there's no valid answer or approach to enjoying something that speaks to you and partaking in it no matter what, if folks have a better time relating to the musical side of the series and not many other aspects of it, that's fine, like a different era and aesthetic, no problem and I'll encourage it in practice. And I find telling someone "you have low/high standards" offensive honestly, it's way too assumptious.

But I'd be lying if the sea of criticism and hot tales online doesn't get to me, making me question maybe I'm wrong, maybe some opinions are more valuable than others. Like I know my preferences, but what if it all comes from ignorance, or me being lenient on others experiences is some sort of creative failure. Maybe the people who want their specific vision of what they love are onto something and are owed that, even tho it would put folks at even more odds.

I find it very disturbing, the idea of an absolute truth and aiming to find it is very comforting but I just hate the idea as well. It would mean disregarding voices that never had the chance to be heard, perspectives and experiences that don't fit within a coherent vision.

Like I'm from a country that was sanctioned to hell and my first language isn't English nor japanese so Sonic was never accessible for me, so I'm inherently biased against someone telling me something I enjoy is not for me.

A bit of followup to that ask: What I'm trying to say is that while I want to support artistic integrity and respect authorial intent, I just the idea of art being treated like a religion and words of artists (and in sonic's case forgotten manuals sometimes lol) to be treated like holy scripture with a specific "vision" or "direction" everyone should follow Also sorry for lengthy ask

This is definitely a hefty subject to be sure.

I spent 12 years as a paid critic. I wasn't paid very much, and the site wasn't very big, but I still took the job seriously enough that I developed a sense that at some point, you just have to plant your feet and establish your own opinion. You can't walk on eggshells around everyone forever. Battle lines have to be drawn for you to be who you are.

Avoiding conflict with strangers is one thing. But you have to express yourself, your intents, and your feelings at some point. By its very nature, that means you are going to be dismissing someone, somewhere. I don't think that can be avoided. Somebody out there will love the thing you hate, and that WILL generate a conflict.

What really and truly matters is how you are prepared for and handle that conflict. Not every disagreement has to be thermonuclear warfare. And sometimes you might want to defuse, and the other person doesn't. To me, that's just part of life. Have opinion, will argue.

I realize this is easier said than done, but if this kind of stuff bothers you, then... don't let it. It's the internet. If something is bothering you, it's easy to get away from it. Nobody is making you remain in the same argument for days or even weeks on end. Maybe this is just something that comes as you get older, but at some point I realized I valued my time more than just yelling at other people online all the time.

So I... stopped doing that. I put my thoughts out in to the world through places like this blog or my Youtube channel, and if people have a problem with the way I express my opinions, I try to express them better. I don't attack back, I just try to identify what they aren't understanding. Rarely does it start arguments anymore. Does it mean my opinions are right? Probably not. Not entirely, anyway. What even is right and wrong in this context? It's all just perspective.

And once you realize that, the idea of drawing a line in the sand, planting your feet and expressing your opinion, all the arguments and disagreements it may generate just become different perspectives. It doesn't mean you're wrong, it doesn't mean they're wrong, because nobody is wrong. It's all just from where you're looking at the thing from.

Given that we're just talking about Sonic the Hedgehog, and there are no guns, or knives, or real violence happening, ultimately you have to realize: who cares? Find your own happiness. This isn't the fate of the world. It's a cartoon hedgehog. And though you may have started an argument today, the sun will still rise tomorrow. Free yourself and enjoy it.

#questions #bluerthanthoumaybe #sonic the hedgehog #sega #sonic team #ramble #stream of consciousness #does this mean anything? I don't know

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why-am-i-here-just-to-suffer · 1 year

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"White" Jews are systemically oppressed based on immutable characteristics. Not to mention that Jews who are literal POC with Middle Eastern and such heritage are all too often lumped together into one group. In "progressive" countries in Europe you can get hate crimed for simply wearing a kippah and tzitzit outside. And who is doing said hatecriming? The pro-Palestinean group. They aren't concerned with our political beliefs. They will go after us simply based on the fact that we are outwardly Jewish. There's a reason we haven't returned to Europe post-Holocaust. America has managed to be safer. The same things happen on American college campuses all the time. Story after story of students being physically assaulted by pro-Palestinean groups. Or just walking up to us unprompted and asking us about our opinion on Israel. Because if you don't buy into the Palestinian terrorist groups' propaganda (Israel has plenty of ridiculous propaganda too, they are not innocent in that regard) then they will shun you from everything. And now with Kanye West and Irving and all this crap the right is coming out too.

It's not a religion thing. They don't want us to convert, they want us dead. Antisemitism uses eugenics and discrimination based on genetic heritage, not cultural practices. It's much more racism/xenophobia than it is religious discrimination.

Jews are one of if not the most systematically oppressed group throughout history:

Antiochus of Syria desecrated the Temple with Greek idols, and forbid Jewish religious practices. Legend has it the Jews practiced in caves in secret. I shouldn't need to explain why this is attempted cultural genocide. Antiochus was defeated by the Hasmoneans, led by Judah the Maccabee.

Achashveirosh decides to get rid of queen Vashti and selects a new queen, Esther. Her cousin Mordechai reported a plot to assasinate the king to her, gaining the king's respect. Haman, the king's top adviser, demands that everyone bow down to him in the streets. Mordechai refuses because it is sacrilegious to do so. Haman gets mad and convinces the gullible king Achashveirosh of Persia to let him exterminate all Jews in the empire. Esther sees Moredchai in mourning and asks him what is happening. Some stuff happens to work around laws related to unpromptedly approaching the king, but eventually Achashveirosh is informed that Haman wants to exterminate Esther and her people. Achashveirosh is not happy and orders Haman be hanged on the gallows he built for Mordechai.

The Crusades. It was primarily between the Christians and the Muslims, but they couldn't help but persecute Jews at the same time as well. Myths like "the Jews killed Jesus" and "Jews eat the blood of babies" date all the way back to this time, and people still believe them today. The blood libel is OLD.

The Holocaust. Hitler attempts to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe through death camps on a mass scale. He only failed because traditionally opposed military powers (namely America and Russia, also quite antisemitic. Russia only fought back for political and territorial reasons. The Soviet Union hated Jews.) banded together to stop him.

And much much more.

And today, people are still chanting "Jews will not replace us." "From the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free!" (of Jews. Left unsaid so that progressives buy into the rhetoric. I'm sure a lot of them actually mean it.)

The separation of Zionism from Judaism. Zionism is the idea that Jews have the right to return to their historical homeland, Israel. The land that is literally central to Judaism and its practices. On its own it says nothing about who should be in control, what the government or economy should look like, or what rights citizens, including goyim, should have. That's up to a person's individual political beliefs. For this reason, being "anti-Zionist," or "anti-Israel," is inherently antisemitic. Any Jew who says otherwise had either believed the lies, or is saying it for their own personal safety. There's obviously a difference between being anti- a certain government and anti- the existence of a country. "Pro-Palestineans" are by and large anti- the existence of a country. Nobody ever talks about China, or Russia, or North Korea, or other countries far more oppressive, like they do about Israel. There's a reason for that. Fun fact: The original Zionist pioneers were communist! The early settlers created kibbutzim, literal communes. And it worked really well on a small scale for initial development of the land. It's honestly beyond me how anyone could point at Zionism and call it fascism. There are communist Zionists, fascist Zionists, and everyone im between. More religious Jews tend to lean right, and less religious Jews tend to lean left. But if you're left leaning you're not allowed to be a Zionist. That's why it looks like Zionism is all right-wing when that's historically and objectively not true.

We are hiring security guards at synagogues, putting in code locks, putting up boulders and concrete pillars.

But sure, because some of us are ethnically "white" that means we aren't actually oppressed at all.

#antisemitism #Jews #jewish life #israel #anti zionisim #zionism #palestine #free palestine #racism #xenophobes #some dumbass on reddit prompted me to write this

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mercy--killing · 1 year

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how're you doing? You've been quiet on here for a while now. Sending good vibes y'all's way, hope you're doing as well as you can

hey i randomly logged into this account today and saw this and sort of wanted to give an update :)

the last year and a half ish i think has been good and bad. i started college, i got my first real job, i got my drivers license, and i got my first semester with straight a's since like middle school! but also ive had a couple more major traumas, had a major loss, had issues with hoarding, had an alcohol problem for a while (pretty much okay with it now though), where i live is getting very dangerous for trans people, and my physical health has kind of tanked. also i realized i was a lesbian! i almost forgot that one lol

one of those major traumas (losing someone i was very close to in front of me) just kind of changed me. it was like how the psych ward i was in killed a part of me. i just dont feel like that same person anymore because she was in my life since i was a baby and i dont think that same me can exist in a world without her. that was about a year ago and im okay but its still really hard.

im in a lot better of a place now though. im actually still living with abusive family that im totally financially dependent on, but tomorrow im getting my car put in my name and this weekend im doing a doggy date for a dog shelter with a very old pitbull and i have friends and im learning to work on cars. i still very much am a lot better off than i was the last time i posted here.

also i sort of found religion? its weird but thats been a really major part of my life lately. i call myself christian adjacent because i believe in jesus and everything but i dont agree with literally any conservative christian belief. God loves queer people, abortion is a right, other religions should be respected and christians are privileged in the west (myself included), hell doesnt exist, refugees and immigrants should be welcomed with open arms, etc. i mostly align myself with quakers. thats been a really big thing with trauma and im so much better at coping and having healthy behaviors now because of it.

i did quit therapy and im pretty strongly anti the institution of psychiatry. @/trans-axolotl has a lot of posts on it and i dont want to get too into it here. basically therapy and meds arent inherently bad and should be much more accessible and many people benefit from and need them, but not everyone does and stripping autonomy away from mentally ill people is bad.

so yeah. im sort of okay. some things are worse and some things are better. and if anyone is still following this blog i hope yall are doing well. i probably wont ever come back, i dont really find this blog helpful anymore, but ill keep it up for now just in case.

#asks #anonymous #noooo idea what i used to tag asks

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erikahammerschmidt · 1 year

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thoughts about family

cw: mentions of traumatizing stuff

Imagine that you grew up in a community that was very religion-focused, and also very toxic and repressive. You were raised to believe that your church was, by far, the most important unit of society for you to participate in. Your love for your church was supposed to be among your strongest passions. Not being part of a church was considered unthinkable.

But your experiences with being part of a church were, overwhelmingly, bad ones. Your church did not let you express who you were. It punished you for saying what you believed, and for doing the things you enjoyed. When you think about it, all you can feel is oppression and fear.

By the time you've grown up and gotten away from this environment, you're full of negative feelings about not just the church you grew up in, but churches in general.

You've developed an ingrained idea of what a church is. And all the things that feel like defining characteristics to you-- the power structure within a church, the way it handles rituals and teachings, the way you're expected to think about other people based on whether they belong to your church-- feel inherently bad to you. They've been used to hurt you in so many ways that you can't imagine how they could ever be good things. You cannot hear the word "church" and have any positive thoughts about it.

And then, imagine you build a group of friends and acquaintances that you really love being with. They respect each other equally. They support your freedom and accept you for who you are. They connect with you over your beliefs and interests. And none of them are interested in church at all.

But, imagine that they still use the WORD "church."

Imagine that they even use it --a little bit-- like how it was used in your childhood. They use it to mean something good. A group that's important to belong to. A group you should care about deeply. A type of interpersonal connection that it's truly sad to see someone without.

But even so, they don't use it about anything that fits in your definition of a church. They use it, mostly, to mean this group of friends with shared interests. The community that, to you, is antithetical to the whole idea of church-- the community that feels like everything un-churchlike, a place of freedom and escape and refuge from church.

Whenever you insist that you don't have a church, your new friends correct you: "Of course you do! You have us!"

They bring up the word in every heartwarming conversation. They wax poetic about the importance of their "found church," and how "church isn't just who you share a religion with, church is the people who are always there for you."

There are so many ways they've respected your beliefs and accepted who you are. But this one, of all things, is where you find their limit. They simply cannot understand why you would not like the word "church," or would not want to use it for your relationship with them.

The closest they can get is to acknowledge that it comes from your bad experiences in the past. And their response to that is to insist that you just need to overcome it, to learn a new appreciation of what church can be, so that you can stop feeling so negative about it.

How would that feel?

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roobylavender · 1 year

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How do you feel about the Ziyech/Aboukhlal thing generally? Like are you going to keep supporting them?

going to put this under a cut bc it's long and i totally respect if people don't wanna read lmao

i don't really follow many of the other players on the national team closely aside from ziyech so there's that but (and not to scrutinize your word choice here) i feel like support doesn't really encapsulate the dynamics of the situation accurately, at least for some gay muslims like me. like do i like any of it? no. it's obv disappointing. but i also think people are kind of naively if not outright ignorantly loath to the reality of much of the muslim diaspora, esp those with an impoverished upbringing

second generation immigrants born into socially liberal muslim families are really lucky, but for a lot of us that’s not the reality. many muslims immigrate having come from already socially conservative backgrounds that are subsequently exacerbated by their poor economic circumstances. our parents are economically and racially / ethnically isolated in a new country and that makes them even more vulnerable to conservative support systems here, particularly religious ones that reinforce regressive cultural values. it’s easy to write off entire populations or groups of people for being inherently “backwards” but for a lot of us it’s a matter of opportunity and well timed exposure to break free of certain ideologies ingrained in our upbringing. and many young muslims don’t even experience that opportunity at all. i’m lucky to have broken away from many of the cultural values i grew up with, but there were several factors that played a part in that. my parents were not internet savvy at all so i was on tumblr / twitter from a young age and befriended other gay people here. i stopped going to islamic school pretty early despite maintaining my own belief in my faith. i grew up in a school district that was overwhelmingly white and had no irl muslim friends before i entered uni (although this was an admittedly smaller factor at play bc most of the white people in my school district were republicans. but it was a factor in the sense that i was surrounded by people who encouraged parental rebellion and questioned my family's values so while that had harmful effects in some areas it helped in others, even though the peers i grew up around were largely homophobic themselves). and probably most significantly, i was never really a well-behaved kid. i've always been someone to talk back, speak my mind, resist social conformity. it has led to me having a very poor relationship with my parents at times but as i already mentioned it's helped in other ways, like establishing my own beliefs free of religious / cultural influence. and to reemphasize, i was very lucky. most of the people in my religious / cultural community are openly homophobic. i am in all likelihood a closeted rarity here

all of this to say, when those socially regressive values expose themselves within our communities, it's not that they shouldn’t be condemned. they should. but it’s so easy to write off people and give no thought to the environment that’s nurtured them to begin with. it's a product of decades of enforced patriarchy and heteronormativity that has only been exacerbated in the dire economic circumstances many immigrants are put through when they uproot their entire lives. all too many of them turn to religion without recognizing that not all of what they're told actually makes sense. and by the time they acquire wealth, if they do, it's a matter of already having spent years in these communities and circles. no amount of proximity to social liberalism or wealth can actually change their views if the people they're still hanging out with share those values. which is why it's really frustrating to see people act like unlearning culturally ingrained homophobia is like turning on a light switch. it’s not. it’s hard, it’s a daily struggle, and it’s insulting to assume immigrants are automatically prone to liberalization merely by virtue of living here. i wish it was that easy. i wish my parents could just wake up one day and recognize some of the beliefs they have are nonsensical so that i could actually tell them i’m bisexual. but that’s not how reality works, and more people should understand that. gay muslims who struggle to help their parents and peers recognize the hypocrisy of culturally ingrained ideology should have way more say in the treatment their communities deserve from society than those who have no understanding of nor exposure to that dynamic at all

and to be clear, non-muslim gay people are under no obligation to condone these figures or people in their community. on the contrary, they're fully entitled to being upset, disappointed, etc. but i also think it's all too easy to approach it like it's a black-and-white situation when it's not. you (figurative "you" here, am not targeting you) have no idea what it's like to live with people you love dearly who nonetheless continue to hold deeply regressive values. i have gotten into so many arguments with my mother over homophobia (among a range of other issues) and i remain committed to getting into those arguments bc i care about her and i want her to recognize that what she's being told by lecturers, scholars, etc., doesn't actually make sense. not everyone has that kind of stamina nor has to have it, esp in situations where extensive abuse is involved. i'm very lucky that my mom never resorts to that and fields these arguments with me even if it's supremely hard to win her over on them. no one is obligated to stay or try to reason with a parent verbally or physically abusing them for their identity. but personally speaking, those situations aside, there is no hope for some of our communities if we take an approach of simply leaving people behind to eternally stew in their regressive values. i feel like it's so bleak to wait for regressive people in our communities (i.e., oppressed communities and figures, not people in positions of political power who enact oppressive policies in turn) to die before we move into a new era. i want to take my parents with me into that new era even if it takes everything in me to make it happen, bc i know at their heart they're not bad people, they've simply been shaped by decades of regressive views that it will take extensive work and consistent challenge to unlearn. i can admit that's a very idealistic view of things but it's one i've embraced personally

so like. do i support the statement from aboukhlal? no. but i also feel like having grown up the way i did i'm not really going to be one of those people who's like wow the moroccan nt are automatically scum and i can't ever believe i thought they would be perfect socially liberal men completely aligned with modern day progressive values re: sexuality and gender. like it's a bit delusional to think that way yknow. this is one niche of social views where they are unfortunately regressive and i really hope they meet people in their lives who can help challenge those views. but i simply think it's too easy to blame individual people for the products of cultural upbringing that they've simply never bothered to question (esp where many are not party to the same factors or inclination towards parental disobedience that i was). and that becomes even more significant when this blame is used to exacerbate and justify racism against them in turn. like maybe there's a slim chance aboukhlal did say "where we live, women don't talk to men like that." but when the person he allegedly said that to immediately refuted it and he never had a history of behaving that way with female coordinators in the national team, not to mention never had any problems at toulouse prior to this incident, what do you think the chances are of it being legit? it feels way too convenient. i don't like what he said in his statement, but i honestly think the story with the toulouse official is complete bs and being used to freeze him out of the team

#cw homophobia #like at the end of the day. do i think he needed to do all this over a rainbow number on a jersey. no #but the fallout is kind of ridiculous when you take necessary context into account #also have talked to some mutuals since last night about this who i know felt anxious about the whole thing so like #if you think this encapsulates what we're all feeling well. feel free to reblog #in any case like i already said i'm not one to attach myself to celebrities to the point of delusion #but i simply want to embrace reality and exercise some patience here. personally. even if i am annoyed and disappointed #outbox

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