one thing that makes me sad about startrekverse is that alongside genuinely utopian things like “in the future there will be no poverty or hunger or crimes or illness” there is also “in the future there will be no religion” like what is this a john lennon song. i am sending you my least amused face
it saddens me that apparently a utopian future involves “”transcending”” religion which apparently universally and inherently holds humanity back?? whaaat. give me a break
i dont want to imagine a utopian SPACE FUTURE which has no, like, hijabi starfleet officers, or space rabbis bickering about what counts as “sunset” when you are on a space station. or what counts as “friday” for that matter
BUT MOST OF ALL
I DONT WANT TO IMAGINE A SPACE FUTURE IN WHICH EVERYONE DOES NOT VALIANTLY PRETEND THAT THERE IS NO ONE HOME ON THEIR STARSHIP WHEN THE MORMON MISSIONARY PODS COME BEETLING BY WITH THEIR DIGITAL PAMPHLETS
AND I AM WILLING TO BET THAT YOU DONT WANT TO IMAGINE THAT EITHER
i was nodding along all serious and then my tea came out my nose
“Captain, we’re being hailed”
“On Screen”
“Hello Captain, this is the Mormon Faith Ship Joseph Smith, have you thought about letting Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into your life?”
“…You have reached the holographic life size double of Captain Pipistrellus, please leave a message after the beep. Um… beep?”
SPACE RABBIS THOUGH I HAVE ALL THE FEELINGS (also Jewish Julian Bashir like thank you @cosmictuesdays for inspiring me in this I just…I love it). And look my people (Jewish, Iranian/Syrian) are absolutely going to be debating what counts as sunset and whether or not a food is kosher and 😀
I want to see where pantheistic paganism goes when we have more than one planet, dude.
I also want to see the polytheists who are completely unfazed by the Prophets, and the syncretic practice people who adopt Kahless into their pantheons, and whether or not that offends or delights the Klingons or if the Klingons can even decide.
What happens with gods who are so intensely astrally associated when you’re no longer anywhere near That Sun or Those Planets or That Moon? I mean I know what happens with MY type of faith, but what about the others? Is Sol particularly special? Or is Apollo the god of ALL suns?
King Rhys of the dwarfs presented a dress of brimstoned rubber and leather to Lady Margolotta six months ago…
So says Nutt in Unseen Academicals, …and isn’t that just the most un-Margolotta dress imaginable? What if Margolotta and Rhys, as two women in power who both transgress the traditions of the institutions they govern, have a tradition of sending each other outrageously OOC and stereotypical gifts? Rhys has a cabinet full of beer jars made of gold, Margolotta has a closet full of black dresses in varying degrees of vampishness, and of course they can’t just throw them out or accidentally stuff them in a lit chimney or drop them into a river because politics (via ironhammer)
Not technically a quote, nor technically incorrect, but I feel like this belongs here because this is the kind of content I will cut me own throat to bring to you.
Fun fact: According to Greek legend there was a famous prostitute who managed to avoid a death sentence by showing the judges her boobs and arguing that it would be a crime against the Gods to destroy something so beautiful.
Before you ask, yes there are paintings of this. And yes, they’re amazing.
No, but this is one of my absolute favorite bits of history!
The courtesan named was named Phryne and she was indeed a renowned beauty, and was indeed was put on trial for a capital crime. And yes, the sum of her defense consisted of her stripping in court (helped by her lover/defendant) and asking the jury (all males) if they were prepared to destroy this.
But this is actually a very interesting case of Values Dissonance – the capital crime she was accused of was blasphemy. In Ancient Greek society, exceptional beauty was a sign of favor from the gods, and they took the idea that beauty indicated goodness with great seriousness. They even called their nobles Kaloi k’Agathoi, “the Beautiful and the Good.”
So by showing off her great physical beauty, Phryne was being very clever indeed, her argument essentially being “How could I possibly commit blasphemy if the gods have given me this body?“
If you’ve ever had questions about Catholicism, here are all your answers as described by me, a Bad Catholic:
Yes, we totally think the wine turns to blood
but not, like, blood in our reality. like, blood in Plato’s cave
so yes, that makes us creepy vampires
but no, we can’t explain it
There’s a bunch of stuff we can’t explain, but we gotta believe in them anyway, so we just call them “mysteries” and move on
mysteries include the blood thing, the virgin birth thing, and the three-for-the-price-of-one God thing
every time I think of the mysteries of faith, I hear Geoffrey Rush say “It’s a mystery” like he did in Shakespeare in Love
(I’d like to briefly mention here that the Immaculate Conception doesn’t refer to Mary getting knocked up with Jesus. The IC was actually her mom Anne.)
(but Mary did have a virgin birth)
(because mysteries)
For a while there was a good chance that it wasn’t going to be a father-son-and-holy-ghost situation
the Council of Nicea in 325 was basically a big fan con trying to pin down what was canon versus fanon
St. Nicholas punched out a guy, and so his side got to win the debate
no really Santa got put in jail for assault and then apparently angels totes appeared and busted him out
Other religions think we’re weird for praying to Mary and the saints as well as to God-and-Co.
answer 1: Mary is one of the saints, and what the saints all have in common is that they were (mostly) real people who did (mostly) real stuff and are definitely now chilling with God. so they kind of know how it is for us folk, and they can handle the minor human problems while God, like, makes sure gravity keeps working or something
answer 2: we kept all the small household gods, yes we did
Things the Inquisition has, on record, worried about:
Thank you this has been Lessons in Catholicism from a Bad Catholic
see the way i was taught was that we were like asking the saints to “intercede on our behalf” like gods secretaries, like, “hey mister saint anthony sir guy buddy, can i call u tony? also i know god is busy and all but like i cant find my damn keys no offense so could you maybe ask god if he could like, make them un lost, becuz i am late for work and this is kindof a problem.”
Yes this is probably a more accurate answer regarding saints.
Important things to know:
Saint histories are called hagiographies
sometimes, when you’re a kid, you get given these books full of saints and their histories, often with pictures
the pictures are usually either the saint staring up at God or angels idk, or it’s super gruesome pictures of the shit they went through in life
Awesome saints to know:
This is Saint Agnes. She got her tits cut off, and wants everyone to remember that really specifically
This is Saint Sebastian, who got tied to a tree and stuck full of arrows. He is the sexiest of our saints.
This is Saint Christina the Astonishing, who apparently isn’t real, but I call bullshit on that because after a near-death experience she couldn’t stand people anymore and went to really outrageous lengths to avoid them, thereby making her the patron saint of tumblr
Saints will have multiple things they’re “in charge of”
these things are almost always ironic and/or sometimes hilarious in combination
St. Agnes, for instance, is the patron saint of breast cancer (not hilarious)
St. Margaret of Antioch, who totally kicked her way out of dragon (WHO WAS SATAN), is the patron saint of childbirth. and explosives. and maybe also Monty Python, I’m not ruling it out
sometimes saints are the patrons of multiple things that make no sense at all
St Anne, mother of Mary and total spoiler of baby Jesus, is the saint of miners, mothers, equestrians, cabinet makers, homemakers, stablemen, French-Canadian voyageurs, and sailors
Honestly in all of these stories these poetic white men who somehow end up immortal get so bored and miserable because they just sit in their mansion all day doing whatever it is they need to do in order to sustain their immortality and then they just throw lavish parties and organize orgies or whatever and then they’re like “why am I sad I eat three course meals and have at least one orgy daily what MORE could I POSSIBLY need??”
Like???? Damn go for a walk. Do you even KNOW your neighbors? Get a dog and take it to the park. Set up an elaborate fish tank. Go skiing like you’ve been alive for 200 years and you’ve spent 180 of it in your house looking at paintings and drinking wine with other rich assholes no wonder ur life sucks my man.
I sincerely believe that by 7th year Ravenclaws would just tell the door to their common room to fuck off and it would open for them
Q “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” A “You shouldn’t shove either up your arse.” “…Technically, yes.”
Imagine it, a poor First Year is waiting outside the common room, they can’t answer the riddle in a way to appease the eagle and must wait until someone else to answer it for them. It’s getting late, they’re starting to resign themselves to having to spend the night here.
Suddenly, their saviour comes! It’s a seventh year! Back from a night finishing off their Araithmancy essay in the Library. They look angry, but our poor little first year squares their shoulders, waiting to see what will happen, and hope that they’ll keep the door open for them.
The Seventh Year bangs the handle against the wall, and a slightly disgruntled voice asks the question again: “What is the truth?”
The Student Replies, “The Truth is that I am so fucking sick of all these mother fucking questions about stupid fucking topics like this you bloody fuck-witted bastard. Who in the name of Merlin’s saggy left testicle gives a fucking damn about all this shit anyway? I’ve been working my arse off in the library for the last seven hours now let me the fuck in or, truthfully, I’ll blast my way in and take you with me.”
The eagle knocker tutts, but allows the student entry anyway, and our little first year enters, eyes wide and in shock. They watch the seventh year go up to their bedroom, awe all over their face at their new hero. They did, indeed, learn something that day by waiting for someone to arrive, they learnt that swearing has a magic all of it’s fucking own, and that sometimes it is big and clever to use it.
The only head canon I will ever accept. Its both perfectly witty and fantastically assholish
witty and fantastically assholish… pretty much quintessential ravenclaw traits right there
“What is the truth?”
“THIS IS A STUPID FUCKING WAY TO REGULATE WHO GETS INTO THE TOWER.”
Kimchi and Justice 