Dharma Curious (he/him)

I’m not hairy enough to be a bear. Forever without a box or label D:

Not really. There are nondualist traditions within Christianity. Meister Eckhart being the most well known. Nonduality isn’t the worshipping of other gods before Yahweh, it’s the belief that all that exists is within God. Panentheism isn’t incompatible with Christianity, it’s just a super niche trend within it, but with lots of historical precedent, even within large Christian organizations like the RCC. They never excommunicated Eckhart, and while he was controversial during his life, his thoughts on nonduality effectively forced the church to admit that it was not heresy.

Going beyond the RCC and into protestantism there is no unifying body to declare what is and isn’t allowed, so basically, screw that, imma do what I want.

But if you’re at all interested (not in a “Join us!” Way, more in an interesting historical knowledge way), there are tons of nondualist Christians, and I’d be happy to share.

Yeah, there’s a lot of damage the church has done. I don’t support the RCC. I just wish the RCC could be progressive and keep the liturgical/tradition side of things. Total pipe dream

Spiritual tradition, for starters. I also feel deep connection to liturgical traditions, and there’s a lot besides that I like about the RCC. I like that, generally, there’s someone at the church at any given time, that the building doesn’t stand empty for all but a few hours once per week. That I could go, and light a candle, and sit in contemplation, or speak with a priest. I like confession, I like a lot about the way the RCC functions. I just dislike the scandals, the bigotry, the, frankly, hatefulness that the church has proudly warn over the centuries. A big reason why I’m an Episcopalian is that it’s progressive, while also being liturgical. There are more progressive churches like the MCC, but they’re more congregational and remind me too much of the baptist churches I grew up in.

While it’s probably not important for a lot of people, for me, having that line of demarcation between the sacred and the secular, the robes and the chalices and the incense and bells, the line that says “this is a sacred space, one for meditation, contemplation, prayer” is important. It allows me to leave behind a certain mindset and enter a new one. Regardless of our ideas behind religion and spirituality, humans have been doing ritual for thousands, and potentially millions, of years. There’s a power behind it, even if it’s just in our heads. Nobody in Christendom does ritual quite like the Catholics. The episcopalians are good at it, but only on Sunday morning, and as much as I love the tradition, it lacks a lot of the spiritual tradition, like intercession of saints and a Marian ideology that I also crave. Anglocatholics are pretty good for that, but they tend to be conservative and anti gay, and most of them have moved to the ACNA, a schismatic group founded against the ordination of women and gay men.

There’s a lot to dislike about the RCC, and organized religion in general. I disagree with a huge chunk of it. The prohibition against marriage for priests has lead to so many problems. There’s too much to list, from the way nuns are treated, the prohibitions against birth control, LGBTQ+ issues, abortion, surrogacy… There’s a lot wrong with the institution. But I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’ll never happen, but I dream of a day when there’s major reform within the Church.

I just want a hyper progressive RCC with a married trans woman pope :(

Edit to add:

Feel a bit like I’ve misrepresented myself, so to clarify: I’m an Episcopalian, but I’m also a nondualist Advaitin (Hindu). I am not your average viewer or really anyone’s target audience, so don’t extrapolate my comments to the larger religious/gay community. Haha.

May your enema be forever empty, and may you have always just gained 3 pounds

There are also us gays who aren’t members of the church, but really wish we could be (but won’t, because of gestures wildly at the church with frantic, panicked eyes)

I haven’t read the article yet (sneaking Lemmy time at work), but this reminds of the literacy tests they used to use for voting in the US for black folks

You’re right. I forgot about that. It was glorious.

When was the off? Motherfucker has been daily news, even during biden’s term. Fucking news can’t stand a day with out him. He was right about at least one thing: he’s good for ratings.

I’m so fucking tired

Reminds me of that scene from the emperor’s new groove

“Tell us where they are and I’ll burn your house down!”

“Don’t you mean or?”

For what it’s worth, you’re objectively correct, regardless of what anyone else says. The majority of the country didn’t vote for him, and yes, inb4 “not voting is voting!” The people who didn’t vote are making a civic choice, and that choice lead to a trump presidency. But it doesn’t mean those people wanted him, or like him. It means they were politically un/underinformed, or didn’t want to have to make a choice between fascism and slower fascism (I hated making that choice, voted for Kamala). we are a nation of 340 million people. 75 million voted for trump. That’s 22%.

There’s your number. 22% of the US wanted this guy. Anything else is speculation. The only thing we know is that 22% voted for him.

Give Americans a politician worth voting for, someone with a backbone who believes in the universal right to healthcare, childcare and all the other things industrialized countries have by this point, and who doesn’t believe a little genocide is okay, as a treat, and you’ll see a different fucking result.

In other words, to my dear European friends blaming every American for the act of 22% of us, if we had a politician to vote for who would even try to give us 1\10th of what you already have maybe more people would have gotten off their ass and voted. But our elections have a different fucking vibe. We’re not fighting to keep what we’ve got here, we’re fighting to get some level of human decency so that we won’t have to watch our parents work into their late 80s with 3 days of sick time per year, and then die sleeping on the sofa in our living rooms because God knows their can’t afford to keep their house in this economy.

Yeah, you nailed it. Obvious in hindsight, but until this I had just assumed it was accurate, like, even if everyone wasn’t counted, I guess had I been pressed, I would have assumed there was some formula or something to account for the uncounted or some shit. Kinda wild

Also, village isn’t a word we really use in the US, but now that you say it, I guess that’s kind or exactly what it is. A little village of insane, isolated, meth makin’ hillbillies up in the woods that aren’t accessible by road.

I personally know of ~400 people who are absolutely not counted on any census and I’d be willing to bet not included in any population stats. Whole town up in the mountains. I’d imagine if that can happen in the us, it’s not unlikely to happen elsewhere, so sure… But when they do the whole earth population calculations, I always assumed they just checked in a few extra people to account for, like, uncounted towns and shit

Thing is, I only had a minor sore throat for like 24 hours, with a couple white spots, and honestly, I just thought the sore throat was from some, uh, recreational activity the night before. But I felt just awful and flinchy* for several days, then I got these red bumps all over my back and shoulders, and then almost died.

*I get flinchy when I have a fever or get sick. Something touches me and it’s like my body jumps or flinches and I don’t understand it at all. It’s happened my whole life, but about 6 months after the scarlet fever I got mono, and got super flinchy as well, and now that’s just a thing that happens to me now, where my body involuntarily flinches whenever anything touches it. It’s not all the time, but it’ll do it for several days with no reason, and then not again for months. Doc doesn’t know why, but guesses it’s because the mono virus sticks around in you forever, and it’s just an after effect. Says hopefully it’ll go away eventually, but it’s been like 5 years, and every so often (coincidentally happening the last couple days) I just suddenly become a scared Chihuahua or some shit

TIL why my mom always checked my throats for spots whenever we mentioned any kind of not feeling well. First thing she did. I always assumed it was just a strep thing, but she grew up in a time when measles was still an active threat. I just remember white spots in the throat being the biggest thing. No white spots, go to bed. White spots, go to doctor.

Fun fact: I ignored that advice in my late twenties and ended up with scarlet fever. Like a fucking Victorian child. Didn’t even know scarlet fever was still a thing.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who thought that was something other than a pacifier when I first glanced at the image

That’s such lunacy. Just because your denomination is different doesn’t mean it has a monopoly on the religion. Catholics have that same vibe to me, just not as weird about it.

Thing is, though, anti catholicism runs deep among the evangelical crowd. This is, as far as the mega (maga) church crowd is concerned, a ringing fucking endorsement of Trump.

If anyone wants to print this and sell me one, I would be very, very game for that.

It’s way better than a laptop. I can’t hold a laptop and play games with the ease I can pop this out of it’s case and use.