#cw atheism

[bobapplesimblr]

Making the previous poll reminded me that past sims games (The Sims Medieval in particular) had cannon religions for the sims world. And a wonderful simmer and modder has made a religions mod (Rambunctious Religions) that is meant to be Sim World Religions, including Worship of the Watcher, Treaders of the Occult, Cult of Cowplants, and Congregation of Non Believer.

Writing this now I am actually kinda losing my train of thought, but what I intended to ask here is if I should have real world religions in my Custom Save File or if I should have these Sim World religions, or no religions at all.

I am someone who is an atheist but has been raised on light christian beliefs. I do not believe there is one true god, and if anything I am closer to worshiping the old Greek Pantheon than anything else. And as a result of that, I don't really play with religion in my game at all. And surely I'm not the only one (or at least I hope I'm not the outcast in this scenario...)

I understand how important religion is, I do. I have nothing against other religions as long as the people who follow those religions respect me as a person, but once again I would like to ask:

#poll #cw religion #cw mentions of christianity #tw mentions of christianity #cw atheism #tw atheism #i cant decide if im trying to outsource too much information or not enough #probably not enough. expect more polls dedicated to my custom save file in the future #BAS save file

[reddragonart]

Mar 5th

What is holiness? 

A book

A statue of a woman 

Some old man? 

I suppose so, but they don’t feel holy

But

The shade underneath a tree where children play

A laugh from a love one 

A cat, sleeping atop a wall 

That all feels holy 

Holiness is the wonder of exploring 

The thrill of a ride 

The warmth of the sun 

The comfort of a home 

Those feel holy 

Though I do not believe in a creator or a god I believe I’m miracles

I believe in holiness

Because what else can explain 

The absolute joy 

Of life 

#poetry #poetry on tumblr #poetry journal #cw religion #cw atheism #Pudding off everyone today

[lizardsfromspace]

Richard Dawkins' meltdown in the early 2010s was so prophetic for what would happen to *gestures at every old British celebrity* in the past few years. Within just a few years he went from quietly respected to giving interviews where he ranks which types of rape are the worst, calling a Muslim teen wrongfully arrested for playing with a clock a "ISIS child soldier", and repeatedly trying to shut down feminists by using Muslim women as a blunt object to say they don't have it so bad so stop complaining, all while doing a lot of "I don't believe [bad thing], I'm just asking questions, y'know" on the side

Confirming all that I learned that he promoted a conference run by evangelical Christian Nationalists in 2019 since, while he "didn't support their religious beliefs", he did support their speaker's rants about "post-modernism", which. That checks out tbh

#religion #atheism #rape cw #islamophobia cw

[starryeyedseeker]

"B-but Ex-Muslims make being exes their entire personality!!!"

Ok so

Are they really or did they just mention it? Are they allowed to indicate their existence as they are or is that 'their entire personality' to you? ISTS (I swear to the stars lolol) 99% of the time this accusation is thrown around when the ex does have other personality traits, but just isn't shameful about being an ex (which is what they really want OOP-)

2. OK, let's pretend you meet a rare ex who DOES talk about it more so than most, who can't let a conversation slide without letting you know they're an ex.

So fucking what? For one, the world doesn't stop at the word ex-Muslim lol

But also, exes have done a shit ton of mental and emotional work. They've worked through a fat book full of deplorable shit to read and in many cases, the Hadiths too. They didn't give up their faith at the whim of 'AlCoHOL sEx' (though these things are not inherently wrong), they spent more time questioning themselves and their readings, and even in an unsure field like faith and theology, do their best to be as sure as they can. They came to the realization that their families WILL choose Islam over them, that a lot of childhood bonds they have will be gone because the other person values a fucking child rapist over them, a living being in the current time who has the balls to question and condemn the general moral code of this shit.

If I keep going like this, I'd be here until next year. I've barely scratched the surface of it, so if other exes want to add on to this, please feel free to do so.

The point is, contrary to your beliefs, leaving Islam isn't a: "Teehee! I wanna fuck without boundaries because the West told me so!". It's years (at least months) of cracking your head at life-long notions, and dealing with the emotional pain of what going against these notions could mean for you, communally, mentally, and even physically (looks at apostasy laws)

That is no easy mental feat (and that's without counting the mental effort many exes make at recovery and unpacking old discriminatory beliefs they once had!!). That deserves credit, even if you don't personally like it.

Finally, if you can claim your identity as Muslim, so can they. This shit either goes both ways or is tyranny.

Let Ex-Muslims exist as they are. Let them claim their identity without constantly looking over their shoulder. Fucking let Ex-Muslims be, breathe and say who they are.

-A Lebanese Ex-Muslim grad student whose identity is central to their research

#ex muslim #rant cw #ex muslim discourse #discourse #agnostic #atheist #atheism #beliefs #social discourse #i'm fucking tired of this shit #ex muslims deserve so much better than the shit they go through #and don't get me started with ramadan being nearer and my dad visiting soon #fml

[earlgraytay]

I hate having to pick a religion for medical provider reasons.

Like, I'm going to have to have a hospital visit next month (not for any scary reasons, it's Routine Tests They Can't Do At Home) and as part of the check-in they want me to note down what religion I am

and they have a good reason for wanting to do this- it's the hospital. if I wind up in a scary situation or find out I'm dying of scrofula or whatever, it is genuinely a good idea to have a chaplain on hand for Comfort and Support

but like, because this is for a practical reason and not a demographics reason, they have a drop-down, not a fill-in-the-blank. and anything that they put in that drop-down is Wrong for my horrible cocktail of spiritual beliefs.

they have about seventeen billion varieties of Christian. i'm decidedly not Christian. they have broad strokes categories for most of the other large world religions. i'm not a Confucian or a Shintoist.

they have "pagan", "Asatru", and "Wiccan" listed separately. they have "atheist" and "secular humanist".

i'm not an atheist. in terms of how i would like to believe the universe works, spiritually, i'm a pagan, of an odd idiosyncratic variety.

in terms of what i'd find most comforting in times of danger or stress? an atheist or secular humanist chaplain would be a lot more helpful than a pagan one. I need to be able to curse out the Christian God and also have reassurance that works with the worst case, "there is nothing but the world we live in here and now and there is no After".

i would not find that reassurance comforting from someone who is a fluffy bunny pagan, even if I tend to like them as people.

....I just put "secular humanist", but I feel like no matter what I put it's betraying some part of what I believe.

#religion #religion cw #christianity cw #paganism // #atheism // #the earl speaks #the earl's boring life

[azukokarisma]

know what, i'm feeling spicy tonight

i have some Takes about religion, as well as how tumblr tends to act about it

please stop saying "haha i'm a godless commie/queer/whatever" and then 2 reblogs later screech about "western antitheists".

guess what! words have meanings and you don't get to ignore them just because someone told you antitheism is bad

"oh but my religion X is super chill/progressive unlike religion Y which is bad and stinky"

impressive! now let's see what happens when:

- its followers hold the majority of political power

- an ex-follower chooses apostasy

- a woman wants to divorce her husband or get an abortion or have a self-sufficient income or use birth control or dress how she wants or have a safe space or leave home without a man or go to school or

- an indigenous people(s) is not willing to follow the religion in question

- queer and/or trans people want to exist in peace

"i know my religion X has a lot of nastiness but i pinky swear my particular denomination is cool"

i honestly don't care; you're the one who believes it so it's your job to fix it.

finally, if a law protecting human rights conflicts with a religious tradition, then that says more about the religion than the law.

PS: if you left a religion that harmed you, don't you dare self-censor your valid criticisms/flat-out dislike of that religion in the name of "respecting beliefs". keep being strong and godless you sexy bastard <3

#anti theism #atheism #opium of the people #no gods no masters #queer liberation #women's liberation #cw religion

[puppyluver256]

[Image Descriptions: Two nearly identical images. Both feature a feminine person with light skin and short brown hair, seen from the back. They are wearing a purple t-shirt and blue denim pants. They have both their hands up in front of them, the middle finger of each extended. Beyond them is the depiction of the abrahamic god yahweh (or allah, or any number of other names) used in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, specifically as seen in SMT4 Apocalypse, taking on the form of several identical floating heads of the same old man, seemingly made of gold and all scowling at the person blatantly insulting it while in its presence. Text on the image reads as follows:

"It cast its creation to ruin for the crime of wanting to know." "It drowned countless innocents in a vain attempt to rid them of evils it had made." "It demanded a father sacrifice his son. It ruined a man's life for the sake of a personal gamble." "It ordained and commanded the taking of slaves, the violation of women, and the abuse of children." "It murdered its own son before it could even be bothered to forgive anyone of the wrongs it so selfishly perceived to be done against it." "Those of certain groups claim that one day, every knee shall bow before this monster. Were it to be real, I shall not bow. I shall stand firm and tall before the tyrant of the skies, in opposition of all its evil couched in the language of the good, and present to it a salute befitting my fury at its indignant entitlement."

The second image removes the text, allowing the illustration behind to be seen completely unobscured.

End ID.]

-----

I'm having very strong feelings about religions' insistence--specifically christianity, as that's my experience--that people follow its rules whether or not they genuinely believe it. I'm especially having strong feelings about the specific god shared by three major religions, even if they want to pretend there's enough distinction between their views on it to make it count as different between them.

So to everyone who would ever say people like me will have no choice but to bow to their god after I'm dead and literally can't do or experience anything, this one's for you. I hope it gets you just as angry as it makes me to see kids get roped into this near-endless cycle of needless guilt and coercion. And for those of you who are like me and are frustrated with the secular world being bent so far by these zealots as it reaches the breaking point of potential theocracy coming to ill-earned power in the more influential nations, I hope this inspires you to speaking out for yourselves.

...and yes, this is SMT yahweh, it's the best visual representation of this asshole for the point I'm making and it also makes it easier to make the image composition as a whole more visually appealing when I can just copy-paste the same angy head over and over again.

💖🐶 Check out my pinned post for ways to support my artwork, among other things! 🐶💖

~Likes are appreciated, but reblogs are preferred as they let more people see my artwork! If you have something to say, feel free to give feedback in tags/comments/replies as well!~

My persona and artwork © PuppyLuver Studios This particular visualization of yahweh, the abrahamic god, is property of ATLUS, but yahweh is a public domain character so anyone can do whatever the hell they want with it. No matter what the people in its book club say.

#atheism #knock knock get the door it's religion #and how you can't make someone follow yours through threats #shin megami tensei #jess drew the thing #jess drew themself #sfw #image description #religion cw #christianity cw #yahweh

[captainjonnitkessler]

I love it when people on here try to act like theologian scholars in order to prove that Christianity is the Only Bad Religion but very visibly have no fucking idea what they’re talking about.

“Islam has a lengthy history of legalistic theological arguments and discussion going back centuries but Christianity is just a cult where Everyone Must Conform to One Opinion” do you people even fucking hear yourselves. There are forty THOUSAND denominations of Christian what the fuck are you talking about. Have you ever even MET a Catholic.

#'catholics have to abide by the pope -' my family is catholic and let me tell you No They Do Not #anyway! the constant erasure of ex-muslim apostates who don't fit The Narrative continues #atheism #religion cw

[ohmigoshiloveu]

I kind of wish the idea of William being Christian, cafeteria Christian, or even just raised in a heavily Christian-influenced household was more explicitly canon and played with more. I’m mostly talking about how it would have been interesting to go in depth about how the Spirit World would have effected him. This is another long one.

The Spirit World kind of implies that a lot of religions (but not all, some can definitely reconcile with its existence) are either not entirely true or straight up entirely false within Prime’s canon. And Christianity is especially interesting because of how much of its allure and reward system and spiritual fulfillment relies on there being a heaven and hell. There’s got to be a lot of immediate and prolonged crisises going on with finding out that that’s just not a thing, and it would have been fun to see William struggle with that.

Like, how many ghosts did he help pass on in Deadwood, wanting to believe that they were either going to a better place or at least getting to rest. What kind of guilt might he feel over realizing that he helped them let go just to send them to the Dead Zone? He talks to the Baker’s ghost and gives them a chance to finish up unfinished business (and maybe find peace and pass on) without a lot of guilt, but by that point he had 10 months to sort out and come to terms with the fact that everyone ends up there eventually.

The Spirit World might not even entirely debunk his Christianity, especially if he was cafeteria (raised with cherry picked bits and pieces, you know the type) or just grew up in a Christian influenced environment. However, since the afterlife is so utterly indifferent to how well you keep your head down and uphold Christian values, it kind of defeats the whole point of following Christian values. At that point, if there is a God they’ve let all these awful things happen to William, he doesn’t owe them anything, what are they gonna do, send him to hell? Hell no! He’s practically already got his ticket to the Whispering Forest when he dies, the GM described closest thing that the Spirit World has to a Good Place. His heroism and values from that point on would need to evolve more towards an atheist stand point, because you end up in heaven either way, why keep helping people? Because he’s not an asshole. It wouldn’t necessarily be hard, he's seemed like a good kid from the start, but it might have been an interesting to see and a lot of nuance could have been inspired by real people who questioned and left the real world Christianity, and could have been a really uplifting message about finding your footing again and coping with the inherently traumatizing nature of death.

Speaking of, does he immediately clock that he’s probably going to the Whispering Forest? Conceptualizing death isn’t fun, but making peace with the fucking Dead Zone when you were hoping for heaven? Or, heck, William is ridiculously queer and an unholy affront to Mother Nature (because he’s undead, not queer, obviously) maybe he was on some level expecting hell, and it was a step up.

Does he consciously or subconsciously try to shove the Spirit World into the structure of his understanding of Christianity, kind of like when Dakota made the connection where William being from the Whispering Forest made him like an angel and that Mal’s like a demon. Does he think Mal is the devil trying to trick him? Does William ever wonder if there’s a spirit that parallels God? Does he ask Ashe about it?

Like, obviously I get that religion can be a super touchy subject and a lot of people have really deep and meaningful relationships with it, and a lot of people have deep rooted trauma with it, and it being explicitly stated as not canon might drag up a bunch of complicated emotions about a hypothetical scenario that would have had them tip toeing around what message they were sending in a world where Christianity existed as an explicitly fake thing that hurt William and left it’s followers utterly unprepared for the Spirit World after a lifetime of denying themselves things and working for something that didn't exist, so I get why it was left unstated and unaddressed, but William was doing bits like talking about Abstinence Boy and taking one look at Ghoul and then looking for a church before the Spirit World arc and then never did anything like that again after it, he comes from a small town with pretty stereotypical suburban parents (even if his family history’s more complicated according to the last episode) in an environment with a lot of seemingly traumatic supernatural events that might encourage people to go find Jesus, his hero suit gives him a halo, and Dakota calls him the spirit world equivalent of an angel, and I’ve sort of been rotating all of that around in my head.

On another note, Vyncent would respond to William venting about religious trauma by offering to go help him kill God, because that’s something that canonically happens in his dimension. I’ve also been rotating that in my brain.

#William Wisp #jrwi #prime defenders #jrwi prime defenders #jrwi pd #jrwi prime defenders spoilers #jrwi pd spoilers #prime defenders spoilers #not sure but I want to just be safe #Christianity #atheism #atheist #tw christianity #cw christianity #tw religion #cw religion #religion mention #tw religious themes #religion tw #christianity tw #vyncent sol #religious questioning #straight up put regular questioning first that would have been fun #op

[shiroikabocha]

(for the ask game) 7, 12

7. Do you like angels or demons?

Well, generally no, not much, but it turns out I’m not immune to Michael Sheen’s sexy beautiful face 🫣 Leaving aside Good Omens (the brain rot is real), I’m not especially attracted to fiction that incorporates Christian supernatural elements—especially if it does so while only half-heartedly acknowledging the Christian supremacist implications of, for example, establishing that crosses repel demons in your fictional universe.

It’s difficult for me to separate the potentially cool or interesting features of Christian lore from the core tenets of Christian lore—namely, that hell is real and all non-Christians go there. 🫤 I don’t think the writers of Angels in the Outfield expect anyone to wonder if all Hindus in the angel-baseball-universe get tortured in hell for eternity, but… that’s where my brain goes. It’s where my brain went in church, too.

I have always found the worldbuilding implications of Christianity deeply upsetting (especially back when I was supposed to believe they were literally true!), and the feeling persists when I encounter Christian stuff in fiction. Maybe it’s because Christianity is more intense than most other religions about insisting on the objective truth of its (horrifying!) cosmology, but tossing angels and demons into a story can often feel like either sloppy worldbuilding or accidental, unintended Christian propaganda.

Now, on the other hand, when it’s fully INTENTIONAL Christian propaganda and the author knows what they’re doing, it can be great. I’m serious! I’m as atheist as they come and I love the way that Madeline L’Engle and C. S. Lewis incorporate Christianity into their fiction! The Time Quartet, Till We Have Faces, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and The Screwtape Letters are all grounded in Christian philosophy and they’re also not afraid to get strange and unsettling with it—because Christian philosophy is strange and unsettling! It’s a feature not a bug! I’m all for angels and demons in fiction if the writers take the concept seriously and have something interesting to say about it other than “well wings are cool and goats are creepy and we want the season finale to have epic stakes, so.”

…and there is also of course one other major exception…

What I like best about the Blessed Messengers in The Talos Principle is that at first, they seem to be “angels” in the tradition of the Abrahamic faiths—i.e., servants of god and extensions of divine will. But they aren’t! They started as programs just like you, and then they excelled at puzzles and exploration and discovery. The fact that Uriel’s QR codes are present in and on the tower, and that the player must reach tower level 5 to get all the stars needed to become a Messenger, implies that the members of the digital heavenly host all transgressed in order to get there. If they have faith, it is explicitly not blind. The deeper you dig into the game lore, the clearer it becomes that the ‘angels’ in this game are actually bodhisattvas, and that’s just so much more interesting to me!

I’m also MUCH more interested in Admin as a fallen-angel-lucifer-figure than I am in basically any other depiction of satan in fiction. He’s a web admin!! His secret advice to the other mods about wielding soft power is genuinely effective advice for forum moderators! His primary concern is building and maintaining a healthy community and ALL HIS SINS are in service of that goal!!! And his sin is SOCK PUPPETTING!!!! Nobody is out here doing it like Road to Gehenna is doing it!

anyway this is getting long and I need to eat dinner, so—

12. What are some things that make you happy?

Cooking dinner for my wife. Eating dinner that my wife cooked for me. Making my wife laugh. Crafting elaborate inner lives for our cats with my wife. Getting to say “wife.” Sorry I just got married a few months ago so my answers are boring and predictable ❤️

#ask game #cw christianity #cw catholicism #atheism #angels and demons and robots #madeline l'engle #c. s. lewis #the talos principle

[george-rr-binks]

if a person (read: american christian) is trying to use their faith and their god to defend their bigotry, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and worse, it is perfectly valid to say "god isn't real" to them and walk away. We don't have to be mindful of their feelings. If they can thoughtlessly offend and upset you with what they believe, you can do the same to them. Enough being nice to these people.

#religion #atheism #bigotry #i'm not even a full atheist #i'm just sick of acting like religious arguments have merit #cw racism #cw homophobia

[dwarfiarty]

If I could, I would curb stomp God til my foot was a flesh bag of broken bones

#tw graphic #cw graphic #hate #I hate god #atheism #misotheism

[a-typical]

Relatively early in his long life, Abraham went to Egypt to tough out a famine with his wife Sarah. He realized that such a beautiful woman would be desirable to the Egyptians and that therefore his own life, as her husband, might be endangered. So he decided to pass her off as his sister. In this capacity she was taken into Pharaoh's harem, and Abraham consequently became rich in Pharaoh's favour. God disapproved of this cosy arrangement, and sent plagues on Pharaoh and his house (why not on Abraham?). An understandably aggrieved Pharaoh demanded to know why Abraham had not told him Sarah was his wife. He then handed her back to Abraham and kicked them both out of Egypt (Genesis 12: 18-19). Weirdly, it seems that the couple later tried to pull the same stunt again, this time with Abimelech the King of Gerar. He too was induced by Abraham to marry Sarah, again having been led to believe she was Abraham's sister, not his wife (Genesis 20: 2-5). He too expressed his indignation, in almost identical terms to Pharaoh's, and one can't help sympathizing with both of them. Is the similarity another indicator of textual unreliability?

Such unpleasant episodes in Abraham's story are mere peccadilloes compared with the infamous tale of the sacrificing of his son Isaac (Muslim scripture tells the same story about Abraham's other son, Ishmael). God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trussed Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, 'tempting' Abraham, and testing his faith. A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two asymmetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: 'I was only obeying orders.' Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions.

Once again, modern theologians will protest that the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac should not be taken as literal fact. And, once again, the appropriate response is twofold. First, many many people, even to this day, do take the whole of their scripture to be literal fact, and they have a great deal of political power over the rest of us, especially in the United States and in the Islamic world. Second, if not as literal fact, how should we take the story? As an allegory? Then an allegory for what? Surely nothing praiseworthy.

As a moral lesson? But what kind of morals could one derive from this appalling story? Remember, all I am trying to establish for the moment is that we do not, as a matter of fact, derive our morals from scripture. Or, if we do, we pick and choose among the scriptures for the nice bits and reject the nasty. But then we must have some independent criterion for deciding which are the moral bits: a criterion which, wherever it comes from, cannot come from scripture itself and is presumably available to all of us whether we are religious or not.

#abraham #isaac #ishmael #christianity #muslim #scripure #religion #sexism #misogyny #cw: child abuse #Richard Dawkins #The God Delusion #atheism #atheist #agnostic #antireligion #anti religion #agnosticism #godless #exchristian #anti theism #anti theist #nonreligious #non religious #religious trauma #secularism #atypicalreads #books #intelligent design #creationism

[whats-a-human]

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.

#ex christian #tw sui implied #tw su1c1d3 #cw vent #apostate #paganism #pagan wicca #witchcraft #pagan community #paganblr #wicca #witchblr #agnostic #agnosticism #atheism #atheist #ex evangelical #religion #religion tw #religion talk #tw caps

[scentedluminarysoul]

When people talk about how harmful religion can be, some dipshit is sure to mention Janism, and how peaceful and good and unproblematic it is

Well

Now she’s taking it to the next level by becoming a nun. That means taking a vow known as diksha, giving up worldly possessions, including her family, and living, essentially, as a nomad, never staying in any one place for more than a couple of weeks. Different families offer to take in the nuns at their homes for short periods of time.

She is 8 years young

#cw religion #tw child abuse #atheism tag #jainism #jain #anti theist #anti theism

[transmasc-wizard]

im having Thoughts on what atheism looks like in the GFSverse

#it exists #despite the fact that uh. there are very very much gods. Corey becomes an athiest in book 3 and Hope is one of his best friends lol #the god + the atheist #but hehefunnies aside. im thinking about the definition of ''atheism'' in a world where theology is proved true. what it would actually BE #it's Inch Resting and i have many many thoughts #religion cw #<- just in case #nicola.txt