I’m in love with the podcast Data Over Dogma where a biblical scholar and a comedian (both named Dan) educate the listeners on the Bible and Christianity (and occasionally related religions) in a way I love.

They explain what the original texts actually said and how they were translated in different bibles and how different versions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam interpret the stories and commands and we get explanations for little known facts like one story seems to confirm the existence of another god who beat the god of the Bible because Bible God was on their land and the other god got a power-up from a blood sacrifice. And which Ten Commandments are people talking about and what did they mean when they were written down? And does God being a jealous god insinuate that there are other gods who aren’t jealous? Can God lie and change his mind in the Bible? Was Jonah being a little piss baby?

I highly recommend the podcast if you’re interested in religion from a scholarly standpoint. Scholar Dan is a practicing Christian so he takes it seriously while also being able to joke around and take the text with a grain of salt and they have guests on who talk about the Bible from different viewpoints like disability, lgbtq, non-white, Jewish, feminist and so on.

Bunny’s Moral Crisis and Julian being Anti Judeo-Christian

I was positive I got the impression, during my first read of TSH, that Bunny was truly morally bothered by the farmer-killing. Then I started wondering, post-reading, if I was being too generous, and Bunny legit was just worried for his life and was angry that the group was keeping secrets from him (that second one is what Henry told Richard).

But I got to the part in my on-and-off listening to the audiobook where Julian tells Richard he’s wondering what’s going on with Bunny. Julian says Bunny keeps approaching him and asking to talk about morality (particularly sin and forgiveness). Julian says he’s getting concerned that Bunny may convert to Marion’s religion. He asks Richard what denomination she is, and Richard says he thinks she’s Presbyterian. Julian is disappointed and says the only Christian denomination he can gracefully accept losing a student to is Roman Catholic.

Now this scene is interesting to me for a couple reasons. Firstly, it does indicate there may be more going on with Bunny internally than the Greek class gives him credit for. If Bunny is trying to approach Julian privately to talk about ethical dilemmas, this shows some level of genuineness in his questions (Julian also believes it to be earnest questioning). But secondly, Julian’s comment about only finding the Roman rite to be a worthy foe is so, so interesting to me.

The scene shows that something more is going on with Bunny, but it also reveals that Julian hates Judaism and Christianity— making exceptions for people like Dante and Giotto. The thing that’s fascinating to me about this detail is that Julian’s statements show the central theme of the whole book: that beauty is worth something if it’s backed by things of substance (Georges Laforgue says this, and the same thing is said by Theo in The Goldfinch. This is a concept important to Tartt’s writing).

Julian has a basic respect for Catholics, because Catholicism traditionally also has emphasis on art, philosophy, and classical aesthetic beauty. And, perhaps most importantly, Roman Catholics have kept Latin as the language of the Church and Vatican. The medieval Catholic Church was perhaps the biggest patron and commissioner of artists, and from the Catholic Church came Notre Dame, Aquinas, Dante, etc. Here, Julian mentions that the Catholics make “worthy foes” for the pagans, and what he means is that there’s all this aesthetic beauty and classical study within the Catholic Church. But it’s key here that Julian hates other branches of Christianity. The scene emphasizes that the only thing he enjoys about Catholics is their specifically classical history.

The thing I like about this detail is that it is a really specific bit of characterization to show that Julian does not care about morality or the search for truth that’s at the heart of all religions and mythologies. He’s different from people like Aquinas because he does not see human art and language as a means to articulate and pay homage one’s moral beliefs. He sees art/language as the highest good in and of itself. Once you remove the classics aspects of Catholicism, Julian does not care. And we see this because of his apparent disdain for Protestants and Jews. This also reminds me of Bunny saying Henry thinks Jamaicans have no culture. Obviously, they do, but it’s not the particular kind of culture and expression Julian and Henry find legitimate.

I guess I like how Donna Tartt understands her own theme and can show how it’s applicable so naturally just in the way her characters talk. We get a lot of hints about how closed-minded and shallow Julian actually is before we get to the end of the book where it’s confirmed.

I'm a bit obsessed with the way Zolf's relationship to religion is portrayed in RQG. In a world where your God can very well take your magical powers away if they're unhappy with your behaviour, it absolutely make sense for Zolf to say "I'm not on speaking terms with Poseidon right now" instead of I quit the church

hazbin hotel feels like whenever the most annoying athiest you know tries to #epicallypwn a Christian by making the most base level critique that rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what Christians ideology actually entails. and then if they made a really mediocre adult cartoon about what an epic pwn it was.

i'm so thrown by the dates of easter and pesach this year. i keep seeing easter coming up on the calendar (march 31st) and being like ahhh but i haven't sent pesach cards yet!!! and then i look at my calendar of jewish holidays which keeps telling me it's not until april 22nd. so i just looked up what the deal is and it's because of the leap month!!! i forgot about that guy. but now that you say it, duh. yay leap month 🥰

im not gonna link it cause im not interested in getting into shit tonight but i really hate that post thats like “as a jew i dont think jesus was divine or the messiah or anything but i think he was still a cool guy” bc i dont. i think he sucked actually

I'm watching The Sandman and honestly whoever decided to add the line "I'm glad I said the Shema. My old man always said it would guarantee you a place in heaven. If you believe in heaven," instead of something like "I'm glad I said the Shema. You're supposed to say it before you die, you know?" owes me $1,000 just let us have one observant Jewish character and can we acknowledge that "getting into the good afterlife" isn't the point of every religion please

Don't get me wrong, I'm so glad it was there, I cried when I realized he was saying the Shema, but it would honestly have been more meaningful imo if he just didn't comment on it. Someone had to add that line just to let us know he's not doing it because he believes he should because he's Jewish. To tone it down. It's great to see it included but it's also really sad they had to take a dead guy from a single scene and say "don't worry, he's not that Jewish."

(Important note just in case this leaves the context of my blog: I'm not Jewish yet, but I am converting and I am religious and I intend to be very observant. Also this is just my personal frustrated opinion.)

I’ve had at least three students this year tell me they thought I was Jewish. 

(I am their religion teacher at Catholic school, I have a papal flag in my room, I’m very known for saying y’all need Jesus - I’m still confused about how none of these are dead give aways.) 

“Well then why do you talk about Jewish and Muslim people, why do you wear a veil, why are there Hebrew letters in our room?” 

Because we are always going to combat ignorance with knowledge and hate with love. 

America (and Europe) is so Christianized and we truly do not realise how much of the “default” is Christian. The environment at our school is intentionally Christian - we are not meant to be a secular institution, that’s not our mission - but there is a great big world out there that still caters to Christianity. We are going to be going out into this big world and meeting all sorts of amazing people who do not follow Christian traditions. (And many who are also Christian but keep different practices themselves.) 

When we learn about new things we might be wary, that is different and we do not know about it - eww. (Like a toddler trying a new food.) If we speak of other traditions in class, even if it is brief, it means you already have these things in the back of your head when you encounter them in the world. Your instant reaction then, should not be negative.

If you already know that your Muslim friends will be fasting for Ramadan, that this is an important and communal part of their faith, you might need the reminder that it is Ramadan, but you can arrange schedules that suit their needs - be ready for alternate eating times. If you know that building booths outside is a part of a Jewish holiday, you won’t be as surprised when they pop up. (I thought this was the coolest thing ever as a little kid.) I am not able to teach you every detail of every religion and culture you will interact with (mostly because I don’t know myself), but you need to know that there are so many amazing people of faith in the world, with deep convictions just like yours, who are out there loving and caring for others just like you. The more you know, the more easily you can come to the table and break bread with others. 

Their differences do not erase their dignity and the call to love everyone and treat everyone with respect. There is far too much hate and discord in the world. It is fine that we disagree on what we believe, it is not fine to respond with hateful comments or words/actions that demean others. There are individuals of all religious backgrounds that do and say things that are a disgrace to the religion they claim to follow, you should never be one of them. 

The idea that presenting basic knowledge like ‘Muslims fast during Ramadan’, makes me somehow ‘other’ to what the students expect is terrifying. Their algorithms present such a single perspective of the world that deviation is absurd to them. Or they get deviations in the opposite direction - one of hatred and distrust. 

You don’t need to know everything about every religion, but you need to know that you are called first and foremost to love, not agree, but love. 

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hi i’m bored does anyone wanna talk about d gray man

My take on russian doll season 2 is life can be shitty and bad with almost no good things in them but still it's also your creator and never ever you are be able to change this and it's okay. And future is unknown but if you wanna live you need to accept things will happen and you have also like past have no control over them. You can hope or not it doesn't matter you are not future you only moment. Do your best and live future when it's becomes moment and leave past behind.

For example for Nadia ; trauma fucked her life and it was terrible and she had absolutely no way to take it back but also person who she was created by this trauma and if she did changed this in the past there were a completely new Nadia would be created and she will never archive her momentary being so instead of being stuck trying to change something unchangeable in the past or ignoring it she is gonna accept it and move on.

She will live in the momentary her because it's the only moment a person actually live and do a change have a choice. Past is gone and future is unknown both is unliveable for her. Only moment. No trains to future and trains to back repeats and repeats with no change in direction all in same lines.

And for Alan; like Agnes said it doesn't matter what happened to lover German boy that I forgot his name. It's gone. And he couldn't change it but it's okay it happened. And he should stop thinking about future afraid of doing mistakes, mistakes are living. And just accept you can't know future it's impossible, knowing it is limiting instead move and see. Do choose and then live in the bad or good consequences it's still matters anyway because only moment matters.

It is almost impossible for me to read the word "extant" without thinking about mushrooms and sokka and "decay is an extant form of life/you cannot kill me in a way that matters" and it really sucks because the authors of my world religions textbook LOVE the word "extant" lolol Not as much as they love "immanent" and "antiquity" and "august" but they still love it lmao

It's amazing to me just how good the Mormon church has been at hiding just how bad they really are from public view. Even the shit that gets spread around is the relatively harmless bullshit. They had a crazy prophet with magic glasses. They believe in god-mandated polygyny. They think everyone who is good enough will get their very own planet after the world ends. They wear magic underpants. Mormon men are all paladins.

Here's one of the ones you hear less often:

See, like many other Christian sects, the Mormons really do believe that the existence of Christ obviates the existence of Judaism. Judaism was just a placeholder until the "real" church could be established by Jesus.

And the Mormons in particular believe, dead ass, that the entire inheritance of Israel has been given to them, because the Jews failed to recognize the Messiah when he was on Earth. They really do. They have this whole system where people are given a "divine revelation" about which of the Tribes of Israel they're a member of (don't worry, they decided that most people belong to the two tribes that are willing to "adopt" people. Only the most specialest boys and girls are members of the original ten).

Let's sum up so far. The Mormons believe that they are the people of Israel, chosen and protected by God. If Jews want to get back in on that party, they can always repent and convert to Mormonism, the one true church to which God gave all the rights and blessings that were originally bestowed on Abraham's house.

But it doesn't stop there!

The Mormons also believe, in all seriousness, that all Indigenous peoples of the Americas are descended from a small group of Jewish people who left just before the fall of Jerusalem (~600 bc iirc). Their entire weird-ass extra bible is a chronicle of those people's history in [unspecific part of America]. At the very beginning of the book, two brothers in the original family turn away from god, so they and all their descendants are cursed with dark skin, so that the good Nephites (who remain "white and delightsome") will always be able to tell themselves apart from the wicked Lamanites.

So, you've got supposedly Jewish people running around the Americas. And the "good" ones are white, and the "bad" ones are brown. Then, ofc, Jesus comes to visit them (I guess supposedly that's part of what he was doing during his dirt nap? Or possibly after he left again, it's not clear), and they all convert to Christianity, which they think is clearly the natural evolution of Judaism. Well, at the end of the book, all of them become wicked, in a kind of weird pseudo-apocalyptic series of events. They are all cursed with dark skin, until such time as they repent for their ancestors sins and return to the gospel.

But of course, Mormons being the good and kind people they are, they want everyone to receive the blessings of God and be brought into the houses of Israel etc etc. And it isn't the fault of those poor little Indigenous children that their distant ancestors turned away from God and became wicked.

So what's the natural answer? Well, Mormons are real big on missionary work, as we all know. But apparently that wasn't enough in this case.

Because the Mormon church has been one of the big players in abducting as many Indigenous children as possible, in order to indoctrinate them into being good Mormons, so that they can turn white again and be blessed. My mother remembers hearing talks about this in the 70s and 80s. The church literally had a "Lamanite Adoption Program," where families in the church were encouraged to get as many Indigenous children as possible away from their families and not let them be reunited until they were fully assimilated and ready to go back and proselytize about how wonderful the church is.

The church leadership literally talked about how wonderful it was to see these children becoming whiter. Actually whiter. Like, saying that when they finally saw them with their families again, it was beautiful how much paler they were.

I'm pretty sure this program has been officially ended, but it doesn't take a genius to speculate about who might be behind the curtains on the movement in the western US to gut the ICWA....

So yeah. Next time someone tries to tell you that the Mormons are just harmless weirdos, please remember that they're an antisemitic cult that advocates for the forced assimilation of Indigenous children to help them escape the cursed brown skin of their ancestors.

So, Moses is a cleric, Solomon is a wizard, Joshua is a paladin, David is a bard, Jesus is a sorcerer, his apostles and Paul are warlocks, Elisha is a druid, Elijah is a monk, Samson is a barbarian, Tahkemonite along with Eleazar and Dodo are fighters, John the Baptist is a ranger, Jacob is a rogue

I'm really cautious about using DnD terms to describe nuanced historical metaphysics like this. DnD's cosmology is a mess. I don't know how it works because the writers don't know how it works. It's very easy for readers to come away with the wrong impression, and tbh it often comes off with this corny-ass "hello fellow kids did you know the Buddha was literally a hecking druid" type energy.

I wanna stress: This is fun to think about, but please don't treat this as meaningful analysis of real-world religions. I wanna demonstrate how quickly these terms break down when you're looking at actual historical metaphysics.

If we wanted to analyze biblical characters with DnD terms, every Charismatic Jewish Holy Man would be classified as a warlock. Moses is not a nebulous intermediary between gods and mortals. The man famously had a covenant. The whole covenant thing is a pretty important part of Judaism. But then again, that brings up problems for what the destruction of the first temple would mean for the classification of Judaism. Does the development of the rabbinical system suddenly turn everyone from warlocks into clerics? Within Judaism, the word of God is the law under-girding the whole of the world, including nature. Does that make every Rabbi a druid?

Jesus certainly wouldn't be a sorcerer, hes just a God. His power isn't hereditary, he is literally God. Calling Christ a sorcerer would be heresy.

Solomon is a wizard. The DnD wizard archetype is quite literally based on the biblical character of Solomon.

Samson is kinda a paladin? I'm not entirely sure what he would be classified as.

The Apostles are tricky, because their classification would probably change as the doctrine developed. Initially they would probably be classified as warlocks who "inherited" the laws and works of the new covenant with God, which is warlock metaphysics. But, several of them were kinda in charge of writing the new laws of the covenant, which I guess would be cleric metaphysics. Several of them also have priestly vows, which is paladin metaphysics.

John the Baptist is the only one on this list who could be considered a DnD Druid. Baptism as a rite probably has non-jewish pre-christian roots. I guess its the closest thing Christian metaphysics has to "nature magic." But my even suggesting that the power of baptism stems from a source other than God would be heresy.

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but seriously if you are at all blogging about the i/p conflict you NEED to read that standing together article from that post i just reblogged. please. please please please please please. these are the people who are actually doing something about freeing palestine and have been for years. And here's the thing:

IF YOU WANT PEACE IN ISRAEL, IN PALESTINE, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IT'S GOING TO COME FROM.

Because yeah. The way this site is spreading around uncritical posts is a huge issue (and a reason I haven't been around since October). Standing Together is doing a hell of a lot more than blogging about it. They're on the ground putting in the work. Nine days before the October 7 attack, they were in Tel Aviv publicly protesting about the systematic oppression of Arabs (not just Palestinians) in Israel.

"The global left has to be synced with what we need." Trust me, the right is. Boy HOWDY is the right synced. I have gotten more support about my Judaism from the far right than the left and it's??? kinda fucked up??? Someone who worked for Pat Robertson should not feel safer than someone dedicated to activism, but here we are. I can feel how easy it would be to be radicalized towards the right, and I'm actively fighting against it. Now imagine that multiplied by millions of people, plenty of whom don't have the same desire to do so, or feel like they don't have the luxury of safety to do so.

Seeing Hamas being portrayed as sympathetic and talked about like they had a right to commit all of the atrocities that they have is making me lose my MIND. They're a group run by corrupt billionaires who actively started this conflict with the intent of silencing the Palestinian people who have been protesting their tyranny. They have been siphoning money from Palestinians for years and this entire attack is them deliberately throwing Palestinians into the path of slaughter to distract from that fact, the same way that Netanyahu absolutely took advantage of the threat and tragedy to try and get himself off the hook for his own corruption.

Also check out the google doc linked in the article. It's not just a good way to learn how to communicate, but a very good resource for finding out if something you're sharing is worthwhile. In fact, it does a really god job of breaking down why I've felt so uncomfortable about a bunch of the posts on my dash. Some excerpts:

This got way longer than I had intended, but hopefully does its job. Go read the article and, yes, if you need to, reevaluate your activism. Because if it's not what people involved actually want or need, then it's just for you. And that's kinda fucked up.