Hey so I still see people utterly baffled by how religious fundies (still a majority in America and moreso its senate) react on certain issues so uhhh is it actually not common knowledge what the antichrist is all about? You guys know his defining characteristic is ending war, right? That he’s foretold to unite the world under his leadership by preaching global peace and solving basically every single problem in the world? So you know when you try to talk to these people about equality and togetherness they literally believe that’s what makes you an agent of the devil right???
im sorry what. so. ok im assuming they think that this is all like. to gain trust and then take over or something? because.
Yes, he’s called the “antichrist” because he’s an imposter Jesus and the majority of the world will love him when he ends all class divides and erases all borders, creating one world government with him at the top. That’s the “new world order” they’re terrified of. But they think he’ll oppress true Christian believers who see through his ruse, which is why they’re constantly looking for signs that they’re being discriminated against and panic when they lose any control over government. This is why they fear diversity, immigration, socialized anything. The less religious right are pretty clearly still running on the same logic; they might drop some of the spiritual lore but this is where they get the idea that all progressivism leads to the “real” fascism. Some believe the antichrist isn’t a literal person either but just that entire set of beliefs, so everyone protesting against war and trying to feed the hungry is a *collective* antichrist.
So from the notes it turns out people are MUCH less familiar with all this than I suspected and that’s honestly kind of alarming, guys, you should really really pay attention to things that affect so much of this country. No these are absolutely not obscure or fringe beliefs, these are MAINSTREAM with megachurches, Trump voters, the GOP and a vast proportion of the wealthy. Alex Jones and multiple Fox News hosts openly believe word for word what I described here.
And yeah as several people pointed out it isn’t even explicitly in the bible, but something some radicals pieced together in maybe only the last century. My uncles all believe it to the letter and they all believe it’s what the Bible is “supposed” to be communicating.
A lot of people are also confused as to why they would believe the peace and unity are villainous things and what the difference even is then between the “antichrist” and actual Jesus, which brings me to another thing I realize some folks CRITICALLY overlook about American Christianity, which is that they do not believe in good or bad deeds. They believe the same deed can be right or wrong strictly according to whether or not it’s performed by a believer with God’s stamp of approval. Like, they KNOW the Satanic Church and Witch Covens do community service or donate to cancer research and they are not confused, surprised, bitter or embarrassed by that at all. It’s exactly what they’re taught to expect. They believe the forces of Satan do primarily“good” things so people will think he’s just as good or better than God. So if a pastor heals a sick child with a prayer then that’s good, but if a “witch” heals the same sick child with “magic” (not something I believe exists, but they do) then that’s a false miracle from the devil and the child was better off dying because now everyone involved is a sinner who deserves hell. They’re taught to view you as a ridiculous fool if you don’t grasp this difference, and every single argument you might make is a part of the satanic trickery.
After all, they think our entire existence on this Earth is an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things. The suffering in the world isn’t a bug to them, but a feature that God set up to test everyone’s worthiness, teach them lessons and filter out the faithless, so they actively do not believe it’s always morally right in itself to help people or save lives. Rather, certain people are just intended to suffer and die and it can be MORE wrong to help them.
Sorry to put this big ass thing on your dashboards again but I’m downright awestruck by the notes. There’s 15,500 of them at the time of this reblog and almost zero disagreement, just hundreds of people expressing absolute terror that they didn’t realize they were living under the thumb of a doomsday cult, and I’m really really sorry for that because I really did not expect to be the bearer of that news to so many. If you haven’t looked at the notes for yourself though, they’re pretty eye opening even to me, especially the next most common type of response on it:
….And something I’ve heard before but still neglected to mention:
…..so that’s all pretty nightmarish confirmation of how pervasive this mindset is around here, but you know, if the majority of reactions to this information have been either “what the fuck are you talking about?” or “yeah I WAS taught this and I’m better now,” maybe that’s a sign that it’s slowly but consistently fading with every generation?
I actually wasn’t raised religious AT ALL, and it was still impossible for me to not hear this shit constantly in the 80′s and 90′s from basically everyone outside my immediate family. It’d even crop up on television and radio stations that weren’t even supposed to be christian-oriented. Just boom, there’s an evangelist suddenly talking about how Only God is Allowed to End War and Satan Takes the Form of Kindness, like these were just normal banal perspectives to toss in between a relationship advice segment and the latest movie reviews.
I’m really proud of every person saying they escaped from that indoctrination and actually feel much better and more hopeful about the whole thing. It might not be fixed completely in our lifetimes but clearly it is fixable.
Yup, it’s true. I grew up Seventh Day Adventist. I remember my grandmother telling me this stuff, and giving me bible lessons cherry picked to prove her point. She also gave me a book to read, written by some high muckety-muck in the church, from the POV of Satan. I came away from those lessons with a much different understanding of the world than she wanted to teach me tho.
First of all, the lessons? She’d read a passage, tell me what it “means”, and I’d be like… that’s not what that said, are you sure you understand Words? Like yeah okay the language is archaic, but that’s still not what those words say when strung together in that order.
And the Satan book? The ENTIRE time, I’m just kinda devastated because at every turn, I’m like “okay but he was right? he was kind? he was good?” and then right at the end, suddenly there was this weird heel-turn moment where he was like “HUMANITY MUST DIE” and it made NO SENSE. And that was when I was like ooooh these people are fucking insane, and I would like to not associate anymore.
I would like to suggest that we ought to switch the emphasis in Christianity from belief to practice, from Orthodoxy to Orthopraxis, from believing things about Jesus to the imitation ofJesus. There would be three challenging elements in such a determination, none of them easy to follow. The first would be a resolution to love rather than condemn sinners; to seek to understand others rather than to rush to judgment. The second element would be an active pity for the wretched of the earth that worked to change their lot. Finally, there would be a mistrust of power and violence, both personal and institutional, and an active opposition to them. This was the programme that got Jesus crucified. Following it today won’t make us popular, but it would be a more creative response to the confusions of the human condition than the endless disputes over doctrine that have so disfigured Christian history.
For like 18 or 19 years I didn’t actually know what holy water was or that catholic priests were apparently granted the powers of biblical prophets and so I assumed that holy water must be water from the river Jordan and that for thousands of years catholics had been going over to Israel and harvesting their river for ritual purposes
….huhH?
I was under the impression it had to be from *the river*???
Like my dad went to Israel and purchased holy water while he was there???
Bought multiple bottles?? So the church could have them for baptisms and we could have some at home
Someone help
Well somewhere along the way someone convinced me that holy water was just regular tap water blessed by a priest but thank you for letting me know that I was right about at least some Christians mining the river in a mass theft/conspiracy operation
I still don’t know what holy water is
Theories from the notes:
It’s just any water that’s been blessed by the Pope
It’s spring water with small amounts of silver mixed in that has been blessed
It’s water that has been exorcised by a priest and then had exorcised salt added during a specific ritual prayer
It is water from the River Jordan
It is water blessed by a priest
It is water that has been blessed with a certain prayer and salt
It is water someone did the sign of the cross over and then spoke a certain incantation
Glad we all had this discussion on Easter Sunday when anyone who would know for sure is not on tumblr
I went to a friend’s baptism in either early highschool or late middle school and I watched them wheel out a bathtub looking box thing and they filled that shit with a HOSE
Just one thing I want to make clear regarding my knowledge of Christian theology and scripture.
I hate that I have it.
Like, legitimately, I am angry that I have it.
I grew up in a very socially isolated enclave of Orthodox Judaism. I knew nothing about Christianity beyond “They kill Jews for fun so you need to behave or they’ll come and take you away and kill the rest of us.” I was nine when I had a Christian child run up to me and scream in my face that “You killed Jesus!” Around that same age, I was confused by a scene in Batman: The Animated Series where Batman calls a priest “Father” because I thought his father was dead.
So I grew up as isolated from Christian thought as was possible in a Christian-dominated society.
And now I can literally out-debate and out-quote born-and-raised Christians when it comes to their own holy books and their own theology.
Do you know why I can do that?
Because I had to.
Because I have literally been stalked by missionaries. I have had people try to trick me into accepting baptism. I have been libeled, threatened, and assaulted by Christians. I have been called a liar for existing as a Jew with my own Jewish perspective, by both right-wing and left-wing Christians.
So I had to learn about Christianity in self-defense, to maintain my own heritage and identity in the face of people who want to destroy it. Completely without meaning to, I have become a Jewish folk hero archetype–the learned Jew who can beat Christians in a rigged debate.
So every quote, every new testament citation, every Christian theological argument I make? It comes from a place of anger and fear and “You forced me to learn this. See how well I’ve learned!”
I had a coworker last year who told me she could convert me in 10 minutes. MF me and a few other Jewish kids went to Christian school for two years and we didn’t buy into it.
not to talk about the owl house again, but i literally cannot stop thinking about hunter being raised christian on the boiling isles. not the pseudo-christianity belos created via changing his language to fit the boiling isles (ex: “the titan’s will”), but real christianity. first few years of his life, belos puts a big fat book in his room called “the bible” and the only way he’s allowed access to the other books in the library is reading the whole thing front to back. luz says, “oh, jesus christ!” to which everyone but hunter replies, “what is that?” hunter exclaims, “you guys don’t know who that is? have you guys never read the classic The Bible?” and then he finds out no one else on the boiling isles has ever read it.
TheΤροπάριοντης Κασσιανής (Tropárion tis Kassianís, Hymn of Kassia) is a Greek Orthodox Chant performed in the evening of Holy Tuesday.
Kassia or Kassianí is a saint venerated by the Orthodox Church as well as the Latin and Eastern Catholic Church. Kassiani was a Byzantine Greek composer, hymnographer and poet. A famous legend is associated with her.
Kassiani, Classics Illustrated.
Kassiani was born around 807 in Constantinople into a wealthy family and she was well known for her exceptional beauty and intellect. She participated in the “bride show” organized for young Emperor Theóphilos, who was of Phrygian (Cappadocian) Greek descent. Theophilos was enraptured by her beauty. He stopped in front of her and offered her a golden apple, according to the custom, while saying: «Ὡς ἂρα διά γυναικός ἐρρύη τὰ φαῦλα» (Os ára ðiá yinekós eríi ta fávla), “So, through a woman the baser things come forth”, meaning Eve’s sin. Kassiani did not touch the apple and responded promptly: «Ἀλλά καὶ διά γυναικός πηγάζει τά κρείττω» (Alá ke ðiá yinekós piɣázi ta kríto), ¨But also through a woman the most excellent things spring¨, meaning the Christ being born to Mary. Of course, a commoner answering back to an emperor, let alone a woman, was not exactly well accepted in the Byzantine etiquette. Theophilos, outwitted in front of his whole court, turned and gave the apple to another girl, the modest Theodora, who was of Armenian descent.
The emperor Theophilos chooses his empress A.D. 829-Val Cameron Prinsep (1838-1904)
Little is historically confirmed about Kassiani until 843, when she founded a monastery west of Constantinople but she had become a nun before that. According to some sources, she chose the monastic life after her heartbreak, while others argue Kassiani was primarily interested in religious studies and other intellectual endeavours, which she could pursue much more easily in a monastery than as a regular woman in the Byzantine society. Kassiani wrote many hymns still used in the Byzantine liturgy. She also composed the music to accompany her spiritual poetry. 261 works of secular literature are also attributed to her, covering themes such as ethical ideals and weaknesses, social structures, femininity and the defense of women’s rights.
Emperor Theophilos was a fierce iconoclast. He persecuted supporters of the veneration of icons and Kassiani did not escape the imperial policy. She was scourged with a lash. Yet she remained outspoken, saying at some point: “I hate silence when it is time to speak.” Ironically, Empress Theodora was also against the Iconoclasm and she restored the veneration of icons when her emperor husband died.
Theodora is also venerated as a saint.
According to tradition, Theophilos regretted rejecting Kassiani because of his wounded ego. When he sensed his death was near, he visited her monastery in order to see her one last time. (Theophilos died young, aged 30, from illness.) Kassiani was in her cell, composing one of her hymns. She heard the imperial carriage stopping at the yard and understood. Panicked, she hid herself inside a closet in order to not be tempted to break her monastic vow. Theophilos entered the seemingly empty cell and saw her writings. He sat down, read the unfinished hymn and then added a line of his own. The line attributed to him is this one:
Transliteration: On en to paraðísso Éva to ðilinón, króton tis ossín ihithíssa, to phóvo ekrívi.
Translation: In the paradise at sunset, Eve heard the thump of these (feet) and hid herself in fear.
Emperor Theophilos.
It is thus said that Theophilos understood Kassiani was hiding in the closet. However, he respected her wish to not be seen / tempted and left without a word. Kassiani got out and read what the emperor had written. She kept his addition and finished the hymn with three more lines. The hymn is about the woman caught in adultery and saved by Jesus and not about Mary Magdalene as it is often believed. The hymn is easily recognized by its opening line:
Κύριε, ἡ ἐν πολλαῖς ἁμαρτίαις περιπεσοῦσα γυνή…
Transliteration: Kýrie, e en polés amartíes peripessússa yiní…
Translation: Lord, the woman that fell into much sin…
and it is the one chanted today according to the traditions of the Greek Orthodox Easter.
