thou_dog ✡

That's all some religions ask of non-members, although Christianity and other imperial religions could never, because their whole thing is "We're right, you're wrong, and that justifies your subjugation followed by erasure of your cultural distinctiveness."

Y'know, like the Borg. Maybe worse.

Yes. We are all responsible for our actions, good ones and evil ones, all bounded and defined by some hopefully universal basic ethics like "Don't rape or murder, don't be cruel, have laws and courts, don't cheat each other in courts or in commerce".

I mean, maybe it's true of Islam as well, I don't know enough about its orthodoxies and orthopraxes to say for sure. I do know Islam as a religion developed after their leading figure of folklore had learned about Christianity, so it would not terribly surprise me.

Of course.

You don't need to believe your myths (mostly interchangeable with folklore here, though I like the word folklore better, it has room for more nuance) are true to any extent to find value in them. That is a particularly Christian point of view, I think.

* as long as they're not unjust or rapists or murders.

If a given religion preaches universality (our truth is everyone's truth so everyone else is wrong), that's divisive. That is also not a universal feature of religions, which can also be "We do and/or believe this, nobody else needs to, everyone's fine as they're not unjust or rapists or murderers."

We should all be aware, as a moral imperative, of where our sacred folklore and practices come from. Christianity seems to reject the idea that their collection of these comes from cultures that existed before theirs was founded. That's not a universal feature of religions.

part of any other religious tradition that believes in the absolute truth of sacred folklore.

(I do think sacred folklore is a universal feature of every culture, though - the word "sacred" doesn't mean connected to divinity, after all, and secular/secularist cultures all seem to have theirs.)

I think you are looking at prayer exclusively from a Christian lens. Praying to divinities is, IMO, not inherently helpful, in large part because I don't think they exist. Believing in the absolute historical truth of your culture's sacred folklore also strikes me as silly, but I'm not Christian nor

But that's not reliably representative of religions other than Christianity or religions that drew inspiration from Christianity. I think it's worth being aware of the different ways different cultures define and act within religion.

I think you may be taking an overly Christian perspective on what religion is, what it means.

For Christians, it's about individual salvation (at least) through belief in the resurrection narrative (and supersessionism), and maybe also working to make the world better for everyone.

they don't seem high control, they don't seem to demand isolation or bizarre and personally costly actions of their members. Plus, they feed people. Hard to call that a negative. Maybe they're less efficient than they would be without their group identity, but is that different from the churches?

On cults: Scientology is a harmful cult. Trumpism is a harmful cult. They're both high-control, isolate members from outside support, require personally costly actions (often acts judged bizarre by wider society) as investment into the cult identity.

The Rainbow Family is also a cult. Harmful? IDK,

I'm well aware of how American Christianity, and Christianity in general, manifest. I'm not talking about the majority. I'm talking about people who take the obligation to act in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed seriously, and just happen to think divinity is the reason why.

I get that you find their tools ridiculous and you would never use them yourself because you find them so devoid of meaning or utility.

But if you see someone shoveling the shit the world throws at us all, and you don't like their shovel, leave them be and work by their side with your own.

nor how they express it as long as they're working to support the people who need support and push back against the people who need pushing back.

and listen to sermons about their religion obviously isn't (although the part where they're feeding the hungry is still worthwhile). The same goes for organizations that spend too much on management and not enough on actual operations - that's corrupt too.

I don't care about what people believe

members of a religion (or even a cult) are using their beliefs and practices as a psychological or logistical means to making the world objectively better.

A place that gathers and distributes food to hungry people because religion said so™ is an unqualified good. A place that requires them to sit

3) Religion is a human cultural thing. You can't argue that a religion is fake because you don't believe in its tenets. Are people doing religion? It's real. Whether the religion has articles of faith that are true in some cosmic sense is irrelevant. Maybe they're all nonsense. It doesn't matter, if

1) difference between cult and religion is one of degree, although Trumpism definitely is one (rejecting individuality in favor of slavish adherence to the ideas and dictates of an idolized leader is a cult feature).

2) I think I know & think of kinder Christians than you.

Also, I'm still chuckling at the idea AIPAC is bombing anyone. Have you met these people? They're American lobbyists. They know how to smile, shake hands, be sociable, and above all be persuasive. Their advocacy may be unwise and ham-fisted (treif, ofc), but it's not a bombing run.

I'm not talking about Trump cultists. I'm also not talking about prayers to divinities, necessarily. You don't have to believe in divinities to pray, and prayer isn't necessarily addressed to any, whether they're real or not.

If it takes the place of action, that's shitty, but if it leads action?

of anyone justifies violence, oppression, and/or murder, because, as we know very thoroughly from history, anyone who stands back when their despised or inconvenient people are on the chopping block will eventually be on it themselves.

Maurice Ogden's poem "The Hangman" represents this pretty well.

Solidarity requires us to push back against oppression of every person, every people, every class or caste, everywhere. If we decide there are some people whose oppression is less important, we become complicit in their oppression.

Don't surrender to the seductive, evil thought that your loathing

It's seriously bizarre, particularly so when it's coming from another minority group suffering from murderous hatred, very often from the same people with the same ideologies.

Solidarity is the only way we are going to survive, and that word means something. It's not just a marketing buzzword.

Your response to an attack on a Jewish community hub like a school or a synagogue should be "Wow, that fucking sucks, we should aspire to build a society where murderous hatred like antisemitism is rare and despised, and its adherents shunned", not "I think this is justified, how dare you complain"

The replies in this were things like "What about Israel?", "Tell AIPAC to stop bombing people!" and "How do you feel about bombing schools?" which is a particularly groan-worthy line here because Ayman M. Ghazali allegedly attacked a synagogue that is also a school (which is pretty common).

So not by, say, the people deciding whether or not they're going to attack a synagogue?

The battle cry in Khuzdul (חוזדול), as opposed to the above joke, would be something like

ברק חזעד! חזעד אי-מנו

I would be interested in reading a Khuzdul-Hebrew transliteration guide, as well as hoping Neo-Khuzdul becomes a proper conlang.

ברוך חזעד אי-מנו לעולם ועד