i do think it's really sad when faith is misinterpreted because of the effects of organised religion. like certain views and analyses of a religion completely invalidate the individuals experience, and something that one person mocks or is frustrated with is something holy and important to another person, and its even more frustrating when 9 times out of 10 the person mocking this thing has completely misunderstood it or isnt even attempting to see the good in it. not trying to say anything with this i just think there's a lot of misunderstanding and assumptions based on personal bad experience with or surface level understanding of a certain religion and it does way more harm than good. or whatever

im a bit nervous to say this cause i really dont involve myself in tulpa discourse other than stating im accepting of tulpas, but its my understanding in life that people can't own actions. yes certain cultures and religions may have their specific way of doing something and make it their own, but that doesn't mean they own that action, they own the way they do the action. (im using own kinda liberally im not trying to imply they have some sort of legal ownership lol) but so with tibetan buddhist tulpamancy (i cant for the life of me remember the word they actually use) they dont own the concept of creating another entity in your mind or "self" but they do own the way they do it and their beliefs attached to it. im trying to relate this to something but i cant think of any analogies that would be as specific as this, and i dont want any anti-tulpas to see my general example and think im comparing to very different things.

Yeah, I think tulpacourse can be pretty difficult to wade through sometimes. Personally, I'm not entirely sure I even agree with the concept of owning your own beliefs. Even in a figurative way. Aside from, maybe, actually totally closed cultures.

I see beliefs as things that are meant to be shared, adapted, or sometimes even torn apart and scavenged for scraps. And sometimes, I do think the way these things happen might be offensive to some people who feel connected to them.

I don't really feel like this applies in the case of tulpamancy at all because I think it's so far divorced from Tibetan Buddhism as to not share any beliefs with it whatsoever.

But this was something I thought about a lot during the whole thing about God being plural. Because there, I'm playing directly with people's very sacred and personal beliefs. And I'm doing so in a way that some people are going to find offensive.

And the thing I decided is that... I don't feel like Christians have ownership over their beliefs. Not in a way that they would get to dictate who can use them or how they're used.

Yes, they can complain if they find something offensive or blasphemous. And some will do that very loudly. But I don't think I should feel obligated to avoid offending people either.

Especially when Christianity is itself based on Judaism. In fact, basically every old religion is a permutation of a permutation of a permutation, dating back thousands of years to religions which would look very differently from anything that's practiced today.

And I also think again on certain practices that some might consider offensive, such as the conversation on Godspouses where some people believe they both can communicate and marry certain deities. I don't see that people from those religions have any sort of right to police the beliefs of others. They can be offended by godspouses if they want. But that doesn't mean the godspouses are somehow in the wrong for their beliefs and experiences nor should they feel obligated to change how they worship and connect to their deities to please others.

...

As a side note, there was another fun note to come out of the tulpa AMA that I wanted to share. Michael Lifshitz is working with a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism to write an article on the practice tulpamancy was based on, going over texts that have never been translated to English!

So that's something pretty cool to look forward to! 😁