We Need To Talk About Danny's Power Level.

I was hesitant to make this post, but the more I think about it and the more I see... We really HAVE to discuss this. Generally speaking, I really don't want to be seen as someone who is trying to ruin people's fun within this fandom. I want to inform, and while I have issues with some of the very prevalent ideas in this fandom, I don't want to tell people what they should or should not be making! I want people to follow what they find fun to create! But this power level thing...? I think that it has some rather concerning implications to it that need to be examined and discussed! This is an actual, decently serious problem, and after considering it for a time, it occurs to me that I may be one of the few people in this community that recognizes this issue as an actual issue and has the authority to speak on it...

You NEED to stop making Danny so incredibly overpowered in the DPxDC space.

Now please don't misunderstand me. I understand the value of a good fun power fantasy and making Danny more powerful than God can be fun and cathartic if you have a negative history with the Christian faith. But this insistence on the Ghost Zone being The Most Important Thing Ever and Danny being The Most Powerful Entity Within It is actually actively warping how people interpret and think about DC canon as well as certain characters within its canon to the point of unrecognizability as well as robbing characters of what makes them interesting, the point of their stories, and their agency within it. But most importantly of all, all of this is just... Generally, genuinely dismissive and shitty towards most religions, cultures, beliefs, and faiths that people practice, ESPECIALLY the faiths of POC and other minorities. And this is specifically an issue that DC does not have and that people within this space are making an issue by refusing to let the Ghost Zone and Danny have some limitations.

So that you understand where I'm coming from, please understand that I'm a person of color (I'm half Filipino) and that I'm Buddhist (a religion that I decided to convert to and embrace after a lot of thought and soul-searching, even if I'm not very good at practicing it). It also needs to be stated that in the DC universe, all religions and faiths are true and real at the same time, and they all have more or less equal footing as any other faith or religion or mythology explored in this multiverse. Christian heaven and hell are real. Reincarnation is canonical to the DCU. The Greek Pantheon is real and they are just as real and powerful as the Norse Pantheon. (By the by, just to let you know, yes, people in the real life modern day do actually actively worship both of these pantheons today.) Different alien planets have different faiths, and there is precedent for them being real as well. (Hey! Fun fact! Kryptonians are polytheistic!) It does seem that some form of animism is real within the DCU (within concepts of The Red and The Green)! And there is even representation for indigenous African faiths and beliefs within this shared universe! One of the genuinely wonderful things about the DC universe is that all of these faiths are real, they're all valid, and they are all more or less on equal footing to one another! If all the religions and afterlives and gods of each pantheon went to war with one another, it would genuinely be difficult to know who would win, or who would even stand a chance of coming out of this conflict alive!

In fact, a lot of characters and storylines within the DC universe are actually DEPENDENT on all of these faiths existing and being equally valid at the same time. Do you know where Billy Batson gets his powers from? The phrase "SHAZAM," if you didn't know, is actually an acronym for the names of the gods and heroes that he derives his powers from. (Solomon, Heracles, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.) And it's implied that each person with SHAZAM powers has different heroes and gods that they derive their power from! (Black Adam derives all of his powers from the Egyptian Pantheon. Mary Marvel derives all of her powers from female gods and heroic figures.) Many of Wonder Woman's stories involve her interacting with various different pantheons. Xanthe Zhou gets their powers from traditional Chinese folk ancestor-worshiping practices. Ragman is a Jewish character whose suit is a powerful Jewish artifact- a suit made out of the souls of sinners that was created to protect the Jewish community. Sun Wukong is an actual character in the DCU and he is JUST as overpowered and immortal ×500 as he should be! And there are like... At least 3 entirely different characters that either are iterations of, claim to be, or pull their powers/inspiration from Anansi! DC celebrates a lot of faiths and religions and are bringing in more beliefs and faiths into their universe all the time! TONS of characters derive their powers from their religions, faiths, and beliefs! And DC celebrates them all as being real and valid to all who practice them! ... And you want them all to be forced to be under the same umbrella and less important and powerful as Danny and the Ghost Zone...

Bringing up ideas of ghosts and afterlives are always going to be loaded subjects because they often inherently rub up against actual living people's practiced religions and beliefs. But a belief in ghosts and dimensions better suited for them is also a valid belief that real life people have. And there is precedent for these beliefs also being real within DC canon. But DC only manages to get away with crossing over as many faiths as it does by saying that they are all real, valid, and while you might see less of some pantheons and more of others, they all exist and are doing their own thing just like they do in real life, just off panel... Are you beginning to see what the problem is...?

In the DPxDC fandom's eagerness to incorporate Danny into the DC universe and to make him powerful enough to go toe to toe with the likes of Superman, it seems that most people immediately overcompensated and that no one has really thought to slow down, stop, and actually think about what they are implying. Because the most common headcanons that I have seen regarding the Ghost Zone and other afterlives and religions? It's that they are all parts of the Ghost Zone, but are all ultimately subordinate to it. And since Danny is the Most Powerful and Important Person in the Ghost Zone... This implies that all religions, faiths and beliefs are less important and are indeed subordinate to the Almighty Danny. That all deities and the people following them should just bow down to Danny's might. This is something that DC, in spite of all of its flaws, has managed to avoid. These religions are REAL religions! Actual faiths practiced by actual people! We are NOT talking about dead, irrelevant pantheons that no one alive worship anymore! We are talking about living, active faiths and religions, some of which colonizers have tried to eradicate from the world! Some of these faiths have been suppressed! Some of the people who practice these beliefs have faced genocide for them! And so saying that the Ghost Zone is bigger, better, and that Danny is more important than any single other faith and afterlife...? THAT'S A SHITTY THING TO DO! You are literally doing the shitty Christian missionary thing, but with a fictional afterlife that consists of fictional characters that you know are not actual religious beliefs! You're landing on the sandy polytheistic shores of the DCU and declaring that the Ghost Zone is actually vaster than every faith already in the DCU and that Danny is more powerful and has authority over your gods! That your beliefs and faith and religion should just take a backseat to the Danny power fantasy! That your real, lived religion is not more important nor should it be respected when Danny is in the room! Of course the Buddha should bow down to Danny! Of course the Jewish people should renounce their faith and worship Danny instead because he's better and more powerful than the Jewish God! Why should people pray to their ancestors when Danny ultimately gets to decide what happens to everyone's ancestors!? If they want good things to happen to their ancestors in the afterlife, they should pray to Danny instead! Not like any form of prayer works or matters in this universe anyway because Danny is Almighty! And he doesn't hear the prayers! By making all faiths subordinate to Danny within these stories, you are saying that anyone who practices these beliefs and faiths within these stories are not valid in their beliefs. The only belief that matters and is real in this universe is the Ghost Zone and whatever will appease Danny the most. And while the characters in these stories are not real, the religions, beliefs, and practices they engage in ARE. And so you are implying that real people's faiths and religions don't matter. You are just dismissing real faiths and beliefs as not something worth thinking about or respecting within your works! You are saying that this fictional American white teenage boy and his goopy green land is more important to you than just being respectful of real people's faiths, beliefs, and religions. That your power fantasy is more important than saying that a person is valid for holding on to their beliefs. That when it comes down to it, that you would rather people choose your Danny power fantasy over their religion being portrayed as important and valid. That is honestly insulting. And really alls that you've done is impose monotheism onto the DC universe. You're just enforcing monotheism on people with extra steps. But instead of it being the Christian God, you've put Danny in that position. THIS IS A SHITTY THING TO DO! THIS SHOULD NOT BE THE DEFAULT HEADCANON THAT PEOPLE HAVE IN THIS FANDOM! PLEASE STOP!

Please understand. I know that you didn't do this on purpose or mean to imply this intentionally. I know that you didn't realize that you were insulting and undermining actual faiths and religions by pushing these ideas on the fandom. If one or two people had these thoughts and headcanons and didn't think very much about what they are implying, this would not be a problem. But for this to be the default is VERY disconcerting! As a Buddhist, it does feel genuinely shitty and insulting to imply that Danny has authority over the Buddha and that he outranks and is more powerful than Sun Wukong. It's not fun to think that my beliefs matter to you less than continuing to play with your Danny power fantasy. That you don't think that the pursuit for enlightenment and inner peace is real or worthwhile. That you would find my pursuit of compassion over everything else to be silly, stupid, and laughable when stood next to Danny. I know that you don't mean it. I know that's not what you meant to imply. But it is what you imply by making every faith subordinate to the Ghost Zone. And as someone who has a faith that is so often seen as subordinate to others and just a silly little play fantasy that doesn't matter and isn't real, it's depressing and uncomfortable to see this community as a whole unknowingly echo these sentiments. People in real life don't think that my faith is valid. People don't believe me when I say that I'm Buddhist. And as someone who is Filipino on top of that, I can't help but to think about the utter tragedy of my ancestors being forced to convert to Christianity or die. To forget their beliefs, pretend they never mattered, and embrace Jesus. To be forced to believe that their indigenous beliefs didn't matter. And so many of those indigenous beliefs are now lost and forgotten to their living ancestors (including myself) for it because to the Christians, their belief in Jesus was ultimately more important to them than just letting the Filipino beliefs and religions peacefully exist as they were. It's uncomfortable to me that you would rather I just embrace this view of Danny and let him be more important than and be an authority over my religion. That I should just be comfortable in Danny being more important and better than every religion that people actually practice in real life. That I should just forget the insult to my and any other religion that you make by placing Danny as more important than, and to "just have fun." But I can't. And these ideas are everywhere in this fandom. Even in stories where it shouldn't matter or doesn't need to be present, it's there. This reminder that you don't take my faith seriously- these ideas that Danny is more important than my faith are ubiquitous to this community. An issue that wasn't present in either of the original source materials. Because they thought about it and so went out of their way to not imply it. But here, people are just not willing to make that courtesy for even a second.

But it doesn't have to be this way. You can do better! I know that you can do better. And it isn't even difficult to do! All that you need to do better is to simply... Just... Think about it. When you imply or say "all afterlives are part of the Ghost Zone" actually think about ALL afterlives! Christian and Atheist and Greek ones, yes. But also Asian and Native American and African and South American ones too! Is that kind of thought fair towards Native American faiths, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Palestinians, Hellenists, Animists, and every other person and group that practices a faith? Or does this have majorly fucked up implications towards some or all of these people? If the answer is yes, you can proceed, but you need to be mindful of that fact and just think about it, even if only a little. Even if it's just a small acknowledgement that you don't know what you're talking about or that you are choosing to ignore some of the fucked up implications you're making here for the sake of the story in the tags. I just want you to take a moment and think through the implications of what you are making, and to make a choice on whether you should proceed or reconsider things. If you choose to proceed with the fucked up implications, that's fine. It means that you can do so with other mindsets in mind and can possibly use these ideas in interesting ways! At least you made a stance to possibly be shitty towards some people for the sake of your fun. At least you made the choice to say that some people's beliefs just don't matter to your story. This is a neutral statement. Some works of art are just not made for some kinds of people. And that's fine. But it is always better to knowingly acknowledge and make that choice than to pretend that it isn't there. And if you didn't realize that's what you were doing? If you reconsider and choose to turn back on this idea? At least you made that choice and didn't just passively follow the rest of the crowd to get here. Hopefully, thinking about it will make you more mindful about your art in the future and therefore make it better! The only thing to do about it is to acknowledge that you weren't thinking about the implications, but that you changed your mind, and move forwards with your life.

Now just to be entirely clear, I'm not telling you that I want you to feel guilty about being inconsiderate towards other faiths. That doesn't really do anyone any good. I won't get any satisfaction from you feeling guilty about it or internally punishing yourself for it. Just actually give what you might be implying more thought in terms of religion next time and do better. It's alright to make mistakes. We are all just human and we all make mistakes. Sometimes we don't even realize when we've made a mistake. Just strive to do better next time, be more willing to let go of these ideas that you're so attached to, allow yourself to see things from another perspective, and move on. Sometimes, it's better to just leave things alone. Sometimes you shouldn't meddle and try to rework ideas that were perfectly good on their own to begin with. Sometimes nothing that you personally can add will be a positive contribution. Sometimes the only thing that interfering will do is over-complicate things and rob the idea of what made it so interesting and powerful in the first place. But it's okay to leave it alone. It's going to be okay. I'm not angry. Just disappointed and a little frustrated. But it's better if you are able to just drop these things and move forwards with mindfulness in the future.

As an alternative, I think that it would generally be better for the Ghost Zone to just be its own thing separate from the other afterlives. Equal to other afterlives and not all-encompassing of them. It can be connected or related to other afterlives, but being greater than them as a whole is just a very uncomfortable and cruel implication. You don't need the Ghost Zone to be the most important thing in the multiverse. And Danny does not need to be the most powerful thing in existence. Please. It's okay to have power fantasies. But the invincible overpowered stronger than all Gods Danny should not be the overwhelming norm here to the detriment of everything else. It's only when you let go of Danny NEEDING to be the MOST important thing in the multiverse can you start to really dive into some of the more interesting sides of characters on their own terms and not on yours! Like... Did you know that there is one ghost character in DC called The Spectre and that he's the literal personification of the wrath of God? Did you know that Xanthe Zhou as a spirit envoy is actually half dead and half alive? Did you know that The Wizard Shazam is actually, secretly an aboriginal god? Did you know that in the DC universe that Judas Iscariot still walks the Earth to this day, doing vigilante work to atone for his betrayal of Jesus? Did you know that Ra's Al Ghul's mom has met and hung out with some of the demons that Sun Wukong fought against in Journey to the West? Hell, did you know that Damian is Buddhist!? Imagine that. Danny coming in and telling Damian that he's more important and more powerful than Damian's entire religion. That the Buddha is just a lackey of his and that he rules over all afterlives, including nirvana and cycles of reincarnation. I'm certain that Damian would take that very well and accept it wholeheartedly! Don't you agree with me?!!?!???!

I personally think that all of this is better and more interesting if characters, their religions, and ideas in general are able to interact with Danny's world on their own terms without being forced to fit within Danny's box! You don't need to try to force everything within DC's universe to fit inside Danny's. DC wouldn't ask for Danny's universe to conform to theirs! They would just add everything that Danny's universe has to offer on top of everything else they already have! And trying to fit the entire DC multiverse within the scope of Danny's universe... It's too small a box for too large of a universe! Sometimes you can just let things not be deeply connected. And sometimes things don't need a complicated explanation and it can literally just be magic. There's nothing wrong with trying to tie everything together in a neat and succinct way. But sometimes you need to pull your view out a little and look at what you're doing and genuinely ask yourself if what you're doing actually adds depth, or if it does more harm than good and makes everything worse, make less sense, and more complicated or not. It's okay to fall down the rabbit hole sometimes. I completely understand that happening and do it all the time! Just remember to be mindful about it!

Either way, if you're going to insist on desperately clinging onto these ideas of Danny being the Most Important and Powerful Thing in the Multiverse to the detriment of literally everything else, that's fine. But just be honest with what you're doing and why. This isn't a Ghost King Danny AU. Kingdoms don't have unequivocal power over other and all kingdoms. It's a God Emperor over all Gods Danny AU. Nothing wrong with that concept in of itself. Just tag it properly as something like "God King Danny" so that I don't have to deal with it and the implications you're making about my religion with it. That would be enough! I would be happy with that! Just make your choice. Think about what you're doing, why you're doing it and choose. If you choose to keep going, that's fine! All the more power to you! Have fun! But be honest about what you're making. I may not like it and think that it's an overdone, overplayed idea at this point, but you're free to do it! So go forwards and make what will bring you joy! But now that you've thought about it a little, hopefully you'll continue with a little more knowledge and foresight. And hopefully that will make your work even more interesting and better for it! And if you decide to change course, I'm glad that I was able to sway you and get you to see things from my perspective and come to my side on this. At the very least, hopefully this will help to vary up ideas within the fandom a bit and you won't just take ideas that are happening in this space entirely for granted and as givens! I have so many ideas on interesting ways that these intersections can go and characters that you can use, and ways to look at this community that offer so so SO many interesting story directions! I'm so happy that you've decided to come with me on this journey! You're going to make something great, I'm certain of it! So let's make something wonderful together! I believe in you! There's a lot of fun to be had! ^.^

I really hate toxic Christian’s on TikTok

They go ahead and judge people that follow other religions apart of Christianity and think theirs is superior.

Do they not know judging is a sin 😭

I feel bad for Christian’s who actually don’t judge people for following other religions / belief systems (toxic Christian’s give them a bad reputation)

“Why do you like Christian Rock? Christian Music is supposed to be joyous, that sounds so painful!”

Well, sometimes not all music is joyous. Yes, it’s wonderful to celebrate Jesus, of course, but sometimes people need him in pain too. If a non-religious person comes to a concert and hears “Jesus is wonderful!” They might not be convinced. But if they hear “Listen, I know life’s hard, and you are upset and you feel like a monster and you’re in the panic room, but there’s hope.” That might be enough to change their eternity.

When I went to see Disciple in Murphy, there were about 60-70 people there, and 12 accepted Jesus. While that might not seem like much, that’s 12 people who had their lives saved and the place they go when they die is looking up. While acts like TobyMac and For King and Country are absolutely incredible, they celebrate Jesus in every way. But at Skillet and Disciple shows, they have several teens come up to them saying “Your music saved my life.” While Toby and Joel and Luke are incredible, they can’t reach people the way Christian Rock can. The fact that these singers use a genre filled with agony and songs about death to talk about Jesus is truly something amazing.

I pray and hope that I get to be apart of this industry one day. I’m fired up about Jesus, and it’s such a beautiful and powerful thing that not only does music bring people together, and does music bring people to God, but it saves people’s lives and changes their eternity.

Plus, these performers are CRAZY talented. They have energy, amazing voices with crazy ranges, and can shred guitars and rock the drums like nothing I’ve ever seen.

So that’s why I like Christian Rock. Not just because it’s good. But because it’s freaking powerful.

BBU Community Days

@bbu-on-the-side * {Day 7: Details} What's a detail of BBU worldbuilding you always wanted to dive into? (Newly emerging professions, legal aspects, pet fashion, economic side effects, societal aspects, facility workplace ethic, history, safehouse organisation, deconditioning…) Do it now, and ramble a bit!

-

I touch on a lot of the things I think about in my own writing, because world-building is honestly so much fun for me!

I don't talk about religion much beyond individual people though, and so that is something I think about but don't write.

Like, my theory on this is that religious organizations across the board heavily disapprove of the system, with their logic being that this allows people to "escape consequences" of their actions in their life before signing up, and there are TV preachers on this universe's Fox News declaring that all must stand before the judgement of God, even if they were pets in life. "The Lord does not forget your sins, even if you do."

I think this makes for uneasy bedfellows between the pet lib movement's leadership and some church organizations. Both want to end the system but with different rationales behind it.

I also think some churches or religious groups run safehouses, halfway homes, etc. Some better than others. I think a lot of churches have "missions" where they go to "the streets" and try to convince runaways to come to their halfway houses. The kind of people who complain about how the runaways don't always seem sufficiently grateful for their pity and charity.

But I think there are plenty of churches who just show up, help, and provide support without demanding worship in exchange. People who leave backpacks with toiletries and some food in areas where runaways tend to congregate. People who just buy food and cook big meals, even when it's illegal to feed runaways. These are the people who know how to befriend someone and provide aid without pity. I see the Unitarian Universalist church being very much about that method? Not always perfectly.

Churches lobby constantly for legal restrictions on the system but in my BBU world part of the point is that corporations have so totally overrun everything that ANYTHING is legal if a billionaire pays the right senator off.

Nat gets most of her funding from Vincent Shield's various shell companies but also applies for a lot of grants. And I think many of those grants come from churches or religious orgs.

Jake doesn't want to ask for money from religious organizations because of his own lifelong resentment after his childhood church ignored, enabled, and eventually justified his father's abuse of Jake and his mom. It means he has to scramble for money more than Nat.

But, yeah. I think about religion in the USA in the BBU and how it would affect a lot of things, but I don't write much of that in.

im not christian but i do believe in god/jesus as a prophet/angels/etc. idk how to describe my relationship w it. but u know good will to man kindness towards other etc. maybe heaven's real and all my friends will be there. but also maybe i'll just be reborn again and that's okay too. god speed.

You're not a Christian lol, I can tell.

Emo: ".... sssuure you can. Good for ya pal, but just so you know, I am a Christian. Just throwing it out there, everyone's beliefs are just as important; Hindi, christian, Muslims, monks, etc so please be respectful of all. They're all important and all have their values, so don't hold priority to one like it's gold. Every religion are like different flowers in a garden, it's what makes the garden beautiful."

Hi! I wanted to ask if there is anything to be said about Vittorino's attachment to Mother Mary in particular, and the lack of crucifixes/references to Jesus at all? Are parts 8:11's specific portrayal of Christianity connected with a certain branch or is it all mostly made up/original? Growing up Catholic, 8:11 is highly intriguing to me, since it's simultaneously familiar and totally alien, haha. I've thoroughly enjoyed playing the game and am excitedly awaiting the release of the update :)

Hi anon! Thank you for asking:)

Mother Mary is important for both Vittorino and Ryker! Ryker just seems to really like her, but Vittorino on the other hand....... well, it is spoilers, sorry ;) Hope you stick around for chapter 2 to see the answer!

As for the portrayal of religion in 8:11;

It's a mixed portrayal of Christianity, Catholicism and something a little bit original..... at least I think so.....I don't study much of other religious beliefs so correct me if I step out of line here, haha.

To help 8:11's surrealism and having the player/Ryker feel like they’re in a foreign land, with different customs and beliefs, I have added some strange things. For example; demons are never mentioned. Instead, angels are seen as beings that can be "good" or "bad"; they are as ambiguous as humans. They also don’t serve under God per say, and follow their own system of morals, ideals, guidance, etc. The afterlife is a strange concept for all parties, including Ryker and Leon(lol). We will see more on this later, obviously......

Specifically, the name Jesus is never mentioned, as it is unfitting for the dialogue and story [for Chapter one]. Aliases like Christ, Lord, Savior, Elohim, etc are used. It's held as ambiguous, as, I didn't want the audience to get pulled out of the story accidentally by picturing Jesus while reading text hahaha. It's a bit more complicated, but, hopefully the sequel says it all for me here haha.

TLDR; The religion in Rosso Cadere is a mixture of others, and while Ryker hints at some similarities from their perspective, the beliefs in Rosso have molded into their own shape to really sell Ryker being a foreigner and the surrealism in the game.

Religion is a socially accepted mental illness where everyone doesn’t bat an eyelid at those who talk to an invisible friend.

Your opinion's valid. Here's my opinion.

Religion is arguably just a natural part of being human... it's human nature. We long for answers to huge questions (life after death, the meaning of life, human consciousness, the creation of universes) and our brains struggle and inevitably fall upon religion to find a way to comprehend it all. It's a global phenomenon. Cultures all throughout history have developed religions to answer these questions.

I don't believe formulating religious beliefs to fill in gaps in our knowledge that will likely never be answered in our lifetime is mental illness. I think it's a beautiful thing that we, as humans, do.

why am i feeling like i wronged god somehow. im not even christian. what.

Do you believe in any sort of afterlife?

I do, in a way.

I don't believe in a heaven or hell (I think neither exists, especially the latter) because I don't think that organized religion, something created by man, has all the answers.

I believe in some sort of thereafter, and that reincarnation is possible.

In a nutshell, I believe in the soul and that it does live on after death.

I never care to speak to the new pastor in my hometown, especially not after he sheepishly agreed to support the local bishop's decree that trans kids would be disallowed to dress and be regarded by their preferred gender identity

but I wonder if the man cares that those kids likely won't remain in the church when they become old enough to decide to no go

I wonder if he cares that he's filling that beautiful old chapel up with seeds of hate that are blooming into a dense forest of venom and cruelty

I wonder what he thinks of the story, of Jesus seeing his Father's house become a market to those preying upon the less fortunate, and Jesus sitting outside no the steps to carefully and coldly weave a braid of leather before driving out the wicked

where do you see yourself in that story, sir?

I wonder what drive this pastor, if it is not love, if it is not the word and teaching of Jesus, a man who said all would be forgiven and who bent his own knee to wash a prostitute's feet

the Catholic church is no longer my home and never really was, but I mourn for the children who perhaps saw comfort in the faith but will never get the chance to find their place inside

If I were a tiny prehistoric human gaining human sentience in this vast big world where everything I need to sustain me is miraculously in the environment and there are so many wondrous animals and plants around but the land gives and takes and the sky sometimes is cerulean but sometimes cries like I do and sometimes strikes at me with a bolt, feeling so much mystery and divinity and gratitude I would look up and worship the gods too

Tbf this Priest used Hinduism to explain soul death to the kids. I don't think he was following full Christian structure to a T. Guess we'll find out when the Nonny gets back from visiting their parents.

What's been shared certainly points to a type of worldview that is very much a quilt built on top of Christianity. The dharmic concept of Samsara, the presence of figures more common to Christianity's sister religions, an emphasis in an end times narratives that just screams of American cultural anxieties. I'm assuming the priest here is a protestant not very well studied in formal academic theology, which tbh tracks very well with protestantism's valuing of the common man being able to read and interpret the Bible on their own. It just is a very unusual form of thought to me because the academic institutions educating Catholic priests on doctrine are much more succesful at homogenizing thought.

What's going on with Ιεχωβαδες here in Greece? Recently some of them knocked our door and asked questions like "are you aware that you life is unhappy?" Etc. Of course they got ignored but many people in my town go to their "cult meetings" and i am a little concerned 😔

Not just in one town, many of my friends have encountered them and all very recently so I don't know what occasion for them it's happening, but it's not coincidence all of them go around trying to gather followers.

Also i had no idea who they were until recently, but all the cults are the same of course they prey on people easily manipulative.

I am a little uncomfortable with the use of the word “cult”, nowadays I think it sounds too negative. They are an officially recognised Christian denomination (outside of the mainstream church though). It’s not the denomination itself but convertionists do give a bad look to it with the pressure they put to other people.

A Jehovah’s Witness did approach my grandma at some point. Little did she know she had targeted the most immovable entity on the planet. My grandma was like “lol I ‘d love to see you try” and they ended up being friends without one converting the other after all.

I have never been approached personally and I wasn’t aware they have apparently hardened their game recently. What really concerned me on the other hand was that heresy in Thessaloniki pretending to do exorcisms and people attending them? What the fuck

every muslim ive come out to has just loved and accepted me, its a sign i fear (this is a good thing)

I'm such a confused person and never confident on myself, and I think I found out at least 1 reason why. When I used to be christian, I tried so, so hard to be fully dependent on elohim and I was always asking him to give me wisdom and make decisions for me and help me do the right thing. And turns out I still never had no idea what I had to do. I was struggling with untreated adhd and mental illnesses and God never helped me. The story about "oh God never abandoned you, he carried you in your worst moments :)" is bullshit. What helped me was learning coping mechanisms, zen & maranasati meditation and MEDICATION. Christianity only worsened my suicidal ideation and I just wanted to know God was real cuz I was talking to a wall. I just wanted to see an angel so bad or go to heaven already. So desperate, and in christianity you MUST be fully dependent on God and not be sure of yourself. And if it's not working for you then YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, it's not God or the church's fault or that's all bullshit.

Abandoning all that was the best decision I've made. As a pagan if I try something and it doesn't work I can just call bullshit or whatever. I make my own religion. Plus, this is the only life I have and I won't waste it. Having only one life makes it way more meaningful... and if there's something beyond that or reincarnation, that's just a plus I guess. I just trust science and religion is like the poetry part of life. "Scientific" reality is already magical af too.