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carefully studying White Wolf texts so I might achieve the most ethical apotheosis
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Mar 30, 2024 19:51
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cross-referencing the guidance in ancient Egyptian and Sumerian theology. Pulling out the big book of Gnostic gospels for clarity
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Mar 30, 2024 19:55
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Mar 30, 2024 20:15
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future me e: I might go with less red though. LITERALLY A BIRD has issued a correction as of 20:27 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 20:18
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one thing i have long wondered is why western theism trended towards such a dominant stamping out of polytheistic practice and osmotic absorption of its most popular pagan rituals. i feel in other parts of the world (and especially in native american culture) co-existence of multiple great spirits/divinity was not only accepted it was/is just thought of as natural and in accordance with our vast and unknowable universal existence as thinking beings who pop into and out of life. the various forms of christianity and western abrahamic beliefs (in the sweeping generalization sense) refused and inquisitioned away any kind of adherence to anything other than God and/or Jesus (maybe catholicism is an exception to this?). an extension perhaps of the concept of jealous godhood, taken to its extreme end in literally destroying and qŭashing worship of any other Gods. to me i have never cottoned to the idea of a singular supreme divine. there's just too much existence for one godhood to do it all, nuh uh. even a gods gotta kick back and crack an ice cold Cöörs Lïght once in an eon ex post facho has issued a correction as of 21:46 on Mar 30, 2024 |
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Mar 30, 2024 21:39
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a major part of this is the way that the roman imperial project transitioned from imposing a very specific polytheistic state cult on its subjects, to swapping that out for a monotheistic state church. the institution of imperial state religion was already incredibly jealous, just in a different way that got along somewhat better with the various polytheisms, and "only" required their formal subjugation rather than elimination or strong syncretism.
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Mar 30, 2024 21:52
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ex post facho posted:one thing i have long wondered is why western theism trended towards such a dominant stamping out of polytheistic practice and osmotic absorption of its most popular pagan rituals. i feel in other parts of the world (and especially in native american culture) co-existence of multiple great spirits/divinity was not only accepted it was/is just thought of as natural and in accordance with our vast and unknowable universal existence as thinking beings who pop into and out of life. the various forms of christianity and western abrahamic beliefs (in the sweeping generalization sense) refused and inquisitioned away any kind of adherence to anything other than God and/or Jesus (maybe catholicism is an exception to this?). an extension perhaps of the concept of jealous godhood, taken to its extreme end in literally destroying and qŭashing worship of any other Gods. If a God is jealous then it's not all encompassing, and it's not a supreme deity. It's as simple as that.
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Mar 30, 2024 23:51
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oh poo poo
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Mar 31, 2024 00:31
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:oh poo poo me when I attain apotheosis again
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Mar 31, 2024 00:57
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SpaceGoatFarts posted:If a God is jealous then it's not all encompassing, and it's not a supreme deity. It's as simple as that.
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Mar 31, 2024 02:02
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I forget if it was here or some other thread but there was a study in Canada that kinda accidentally just blurted out the gist of it; 'religion' to most Westerners basically consists solely of blindly performing the motions of rituals for brutal authority figures who punish the slightest perceived deviance and also just for the heck of it. And they perceive all religion this way, they can't understand that Islam has reasonable exceptions to its rules and that pork to them isn't like garlic to a vampire. Christianity for the most part has been a mechanism of social control, enforcing heirarchy, patriarchy, and ritualised obedience, dovetailing with the interests of the state. Only relatively recently the state stopped caring about having to directly control people anymore (they have cops for gross correction and enforcement now) and religion is mostly flailing because they don't even realise they don't have a purpose anymore now that they can't force people into church at gunpoint.
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Mar 31, 2024 02:13
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ex post facho posted:one thing i have long wondered is why western theism trended towards such a dominant stamping out of polytheistic practice and osmotic absorption of its most popular pagan rituals. i feel in other parts of the world (and especially in native american culture) co-existence of multiple great spirits/divinity was not only accepted it was/is just thought of as natural and in accordance with our vast and unknowable universal existence as thinking beings who pop into and out of life. the various forms of christianity and western abrahamic beliefs (in the sweeping generalization sense) refused and inquisitioned away any kind of adherence to anything other than God and/or Jesus (maybe catholicism is an exception to this?). an extension perhaps of the concept of jealous godhood, taken to its extreme end in literally destroying and qŭashing worship of any other Gods. i think that when we talk about western monotheïsm, we are almost always talking specifically about the underpinnings of christianity, because the other intellectual/cultural streams associated w the term are not wrestling w the nature and character of a monotheïstic worldview in the same way as is usually relevant to the topic of contention. a LOT of the lets say 2nd-4th century history of christianity is contending w the questions of what a god is and what it means or must mean to have exactly one, who is also strongly associated w one dude. a tremendous amount of western thought is impacted by the exigencies entailed in accommodating all of that. christology and “this one named ethnonational god is also being presented as the fundamental source of all” is a lot to process and you can kinda see how the trinity arose from that dynamic
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Mar 31, 2024 02:17
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I forget if it was here or some other thread but there was a study in Canada that kinda accidentally just blurted out the gist of it; 'religion' to most Westerners basically consists solely of blindly performing the motions of rituals for brutal authority figures who punish the slightest perceived deviance and also just for the heck of it. And they perceive all religion this way, they can't understand that Islam has reasonable exceptions to its rules and that pork to them isn't like garlic to a vampire. it's quite shortsighted to think this phenomenon of ritualism and religion as lever of social control is uniquely western christian, or christian, or even monotheist. this is just part of how religion works especially when it gets big! the roman state cult had many very similar issues!
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Mar 31, 2024 02:57
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Ohtori Akio posted:it's quite shortsighted to think this phenomenon of ritualism and religion as lever of social control is uniquely western christian, or christian, or even monotheist. this is just part of how religion works especially when it gets big! the roman state cult had many very similar issues!
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Mar 31, 2024 03:07
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Orbs posted:It doesn't have to be how religion works. That's my point, yeah, it's not unique but it's so specifically prominent in Western Christianity that it colours the lens through which we automatically view pretty much anything under the umbrella of 'religion' or adjacent, in various ways, and for a lot of people they can't even perceive it as any other way. Like most depictions of Satanism, almost entirely fiction, basically have it as Bizarro Christianity. (the last Sabrina show had a lot of fun with that) Also that a lot of it is effectively vestigial, as they don't know how to cope with losing the monopoly on social control, and so double down on the dull, tedious performative misery with suspicion and hostility towards any form of expression or joy outside the confines of the church- hence the hysterical moral panics and hostility to random elements of entertainment and pop culture, compounding the issue as for most young people, 'religion' consists mostly of an ever-growing list of things you're not allowed to enjoy.
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Mar 31, 2024 03:13
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so, could it be said that to meet the demands of a larger and larger empire, a streamlining of belief(s) was not only encouraged but required? it's interesting how the demands of certain kinds of human expansion, beyond its equilibrium, have shaped systems of worship and gods. a lot of internecine strife might also be prevented. with a singular recognized state belief informally or formally it tends to smooth internal pressures that might otherwise be too great for a human empire to deal with ex post facho has issued a correction as of 03:19 on Mar 31, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 03:16
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Orbs posted:It doesn't have to be how religion works. well duh. but it's going to be a persistent demon that shows up in any religion that gets big, that the members of that religion have to confront.
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Mar 31, 2024 03:16
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agrarianism was a mistake
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Mar 31, 2024 03:28
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8sfa_KKpFY
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Mar 31, 2024 03:31
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ex post facho posted:agrarianism was a mistake it was costly enough and costly in recognizable specific ways that it remains possible that reasonable people can say that it cost more than the benefits. but that is a super complicated historical ckntext to navbcitave
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Mar 31, 2024 03:57
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Ohtori Akio posted:well duh. but it's going to be a persistent demon that shows up in any religion that gets big, that the members of that religion have to confront.
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Mar 31, 2024 04:18
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One of the obstacles you have to overcome to achieve stream entry and become a no-more-than-7-times returner is dependence on rites and rituals. Like you still do them but you have to recognize that rituals don't help you as much as actually living the practices and that you can't be saved by doing rituals, you have to save yourself. Meanwhile in the degenerate West you gotta show up to church enough to convince a guy to save you smh
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Mar 31, 2024 05:31
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In a Christian context, one might put it as setting aside prayer as a semi-hollow, monotonous action to see that it's the quality of prayer that matters. Surrendering your defenses in prayer is infinitely better than saying 500 Hail Marys every day for more selfish reasons. So re: stream entry, after a direct religious experience, the focus instead is on getting your heart straight, while performing rites or rituals or while doing whatever else is helpful to yourself and others. Paramemetic certainly knows this, but to clarify, it's ultimately not best put as saving yourself in Buddhism. The part of you that does that is enmeshed in the problem. Effort is needed, but it's more like how a good massage can be grueling, as some stuff doesn't want to relax.
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Mar 31, 2024 13:49
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Yah definitely not the best phrasing, though you do see that terminology used now and then. In general that language comes from Christianity and I was mostly being cheeky. You'll see the language of "saving" but it's not saving from one's own sins or suchlike, it's escaping samsara, and by the point where you're in striking distance of escaping samsara you're also not worried about being saved. Specifically, there are two other things that you need to be a stream-enterer and one of those is correct self-view, and that necessitates recognizing there isn't actually a "self" that "needs saved" anyhow, though not necessarily holding that as a stable view at all times. Anyhow it was a throwaway shitpost riffing on the empty view of simply going through motions for rites and rituals. Incidentally, even recognizing they are unessential, the steam enterer still does them for the benefit of others. At the end of the day, it comes down to the analogy of the boat and the river. At the beginning of the path we see "I am suffering in samsara and have a strong revulsion and so a drive to renounce from this world," in a word we want to be saved and we learn that we can save ourselves from this world of suffering through diligent effort towards the dharma. We need that boat of "saving ourself from suffering" to motivate us. When we get over that river though we no longer need that boat and we should leave it. Similarly, rites and rituals help us by being a part of learning that path, by cultivating virtues and so on. At a certain point that's unnecessary and we shouldn't keep carrying that boat. Though in that case we might continue to do those things to show others the path, to inspire others, and so on. If someone's learning to summon demons they might use a full goetic formula. If you have a connection to a demon you don't need to do it anymore, they should give you their "direct line" (if you're not demanding a direct line from demons and doing a full ritual every time you're a chump), but if you're doing that with someone else then you should absolutely do it the long way for their benefit, etc etc
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Mar 31, 2024 15:01
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from what I've read, it's beneficial for a stream enterer as well, as there are still many parts of the body-mind that are bound up. A strong desire for performing something genuinely can result in insight into that. Or even for an Arhat or an advanced Bodhisattva, as the cognitive obscurations are still there. A rite or ritual may help with that, by forming stronger connections between say compassion and wisdom during the experience. Kind of like a sensory integration exercise.
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Mar 31, 2024 15:30
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Yeah it's not that it stops being beneficial so much as it's important that it not become an object of attachment or clinging, or aversion for that matter. There's nothing harmful about ritual, it's just that your motivation for doing them should be based on that actual benefit and not "I have to do these prostrations because those are the rules" or "I have to do these because they are the thing that will get me enlightened" or "I have to do them because I always do them" etc
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Mar 31, 2024 16:27
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Ritual is a conscious connection to the unconscious (or a connection to kia via the unconscious, w/e floats your boat). Though they are not 1-to-1 the same, I connect 'ritual' etymologically with 'habit'. The same way you have small daily habits, you can have small daily rituals. On of the first things that people like Gison and Burroughs will tell you to do is to deliberately form a daily habit/ritual that is without purpose. For example, you have a paper wheel pinned to the wall near your light switch. Every morning, when you leave the house, you invert the wheel 180 degrees. Soon, you will be jnverting the wheel without thinking about it, showing how deliberate intent can effect the automatic functionings that control our actual second to second actions
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Mar 31, 2024 17:38
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A bell rings "No, you see, my mouth is watering because I'm hungry."
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Mar 31, 2024 17:39
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Also, with the hypernormalization of 'reality' that many of us face, I'm forced to admit that even very fantastical things cannot be automatically discounted they way they once were. What physically would be different in your life if la sombra Did take down united 93? Would we not have invaded Iraq? If the infamous 9/11 dust really Was the dust of a vampire coven making it's nest on floor 82, does that mean all those people would not have gotten sick from inhaling it? Posters like to joke 'death to America', because they say the country is evil. If the country was ruled by Literal evil vampires, would that really change? Then the arguments "no the people who rule us here in real life are literal evil monsters, just not Vampires" . And then it's like, okay, but notice how none of the context or solutions change between scenarios?
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Mar 31, 2024 17:51
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 heard a lot about wraith sourcebook The Risen today, thought i would work on a character
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Mar 31, 2024 20:28
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"He's survived by his parents, Miriam and Yosef, and his brother James."
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Mar 31, 2024 21:53
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Squizzle posted:
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Mar 31, 2024 21:58
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I have been carving little devils out of willow sticks and leaving them around churches. I'm hoping that I can hyperstition a new satanic panic into being so that I can destabilize the united states. Wish me luck!
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Mar 31, 2024 22:49
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LuxuryLarva posted:I have been carving little devils out of willow sticks and leaving them around churches. I'm hoping that I can hyperstition a new satanic panic into being so that I can destabilize the united states. Wish me luck! effective blessings, neighbor
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Mar 31, 2024 22:59
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Black & White was great. e: I feel like I'd play it with too much nuance if I tried playing it again today though. As a ruthless young adult who didn't care about CPU feelings I was terrible and my tiger a lean mean lightning bolt- and villager-throwing machine LITERALLY A BIRD has issued a correction as of 00:25 on Apr 1, 2024 |
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Mar 31, 2024 23:00
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check out shiva duetti, who stole a poor womans body to solve her own murder
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Apr 1, 2024 00:25
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polycritical posted:Also, with the hypernormalization of 'reality' that many of us face, I'm forced to admit that even very fantastical things cannot be automatically discounted they way they once were. I'm weirdly reminded of someone who wondered what if Palpatine in the Star Wars prequels wasn't even a dark wizard but just a powerful corrupt politician, and immediately realised how little that would change
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Apr 1, 2024 01:47
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ex post facho posted:one thing i have long wondered is why western theism trended towards such a dominant stamping out of polytheistic practice and osmotic absorption of its most popular pagan rituals. i feel in other parts of the world (and especially in native american culture) co-existence of multiple great spirits/divinity was not only accepted it was/is just thought of as natural and in accordance with our vast and unknowable universal existence as thinking beings who pop into and out of life. the various forms of christianity and western abrahamic beliefs (in the sweeping generalization sense) refused and inquisitioned away any kind of adherence to anything other than God and/or Jesus (maybe catholicism is an exception to this?). an extension perhaps of the concept of jealous godhood, taken to its extreme end in literally destroying and qŭashing worship of any other Gods. I think the biggest thing that prevents true syncretism or the acceptance of other faiths as equally or even partially true is not the idea of one supreme god, but the idea of special revelation, i.e. god himself gave us his words in the form of the bible or the commandments, etc. as opposed to general revelation, i.e. truths that can be inferred from the universe through reason, meditation, etc. Although the bible can be interpreted a number of radically different ways, some things are very much set in stone and there is really no way, for example, to reconcile the contradictions of being a devout Christian who either 1) accepts that other faiths are also valid or 2) declines to proselytize because of social norms, unless said Christian is intentionally ignoring or is ignorant of fundamental tenets of his own religion. How this exclusionary attitude developed probably has something to do with ancient Hebrews' antagonistic relationship with their neighbors, though I'm sure they're hardly unique in that so 
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Apr 1, 2024 03:45
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Not that other religions don't have holy books said to be divinely inspired or from the gods, but I think not quite with the same assumption of authority.
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Apr 1, 2024 03:50
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 happy holiday to all who celebrate
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Apr 4, 2024 15:21
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