Comment by reactordev
5 days ago
It’s always been like this, have you read the Bible? Or the Koran? It’s insane. Ours is just our flavor of crazy. Every generation has some. When you dig at it, there’s always a religion.
5 days ago
It’s always been like this, have you read the Bible? Or the Koran? It’s insane. Ours is just our flavor of crazy. Every generation has some. When you dig at it, there’s always a religion.
Mage is a game for teenagers, it doesn't try to be anything else other than a game where you roll dice do to stuff.
tbf Helter Skelter was a song about a fairground ride that didn't really pretend to be much more than an excuse for Paul McCartney to write something loud, but that didn't stop a sufficiently manipulative individual turning it into a reason why the Family should murder people. And he didn't even need the internet to help him find followers.
Mage yea, but the cult? Where do you roll for crazy? Is it a save against perception? Constitution? Or intelligence check?
I know the church of Scientology wants you to crit that roll of tithing.
> I know the church of Scientology wants you to crit that roll of tithing.
I shouldn't LOL at this but I must. We're all gonna die in these terrible times but at least we'll LOL at the madness and stupidity of it all.
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yeah, people should understand, what is Scientology based on? The E-Meter which is some kind of cheap shit radio shack lie detector thing. I'm quite sure LLMs would do very well if given the task to spit out new cult doctrines and I would gather we are less than years away from cults based on LLM generated content (if not already).
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Without speaking for religions I'm not familiar with, I grew up Catholic, and one of the most important Catholic beliefs is that during Mass, the bread (i.e. "communion" wafers) and wine quite literally transform into the body and blood of Jesus, and that eating and drinking it is a necessary ritual to get into heaven[1], which was a source of controversy even back as far as the Protestant Reformation, with some sects retaining that doctrine and others abandoning it. In a lot of ways, what's considered "normal" or "crazy" in a religion comes to what you're familiar with.
For those not familiar with the bible enough to know what to look for to find the wild stuff, look up the story of Elisha summoning bears out of the first to maul children for calling him bald, or the last two chapters of Daniel (which I think are only in the Catholic bible) where he literally blows up a dragon by feeding it a cake.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_presence_of_Christ_in_the...
The "bears" story reads a lot more sensibly if you translated it correctly as "a gang of thugs tries to bully Elisha into killing himself." Still reliant on the supernatural, but what do you expect from such a book?
Where do you see that in the text? I am looking at the Hebrew script, and the text only reads that as Elisha went up a path, young lads left the city and mocked him by saying "get up baldy", and he turned to them and cursed them to be killed by two she bears. I don't think saying "get up baldy" to a guy walking up a hill constitutes bullying him into killing himself.
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Yeah "Transubstantiation" is another technical term people might want to look at in this topic. The art piece "An Oak Tree" is a comment on these ideas. It's a glass of water. But, the artist's notes for this work insist it is an oak tree.
Someone else who knows "An Oak Tree"! It is one of my favorite pieces because it wants not reality itself to be the primary way to see the world, but the belief of what reality could be.
Interesting you bring art into the discussion. Often thought that some "artists" have a lot in common with cult leaders. My definition of art would be that is immediately understood, zero explanation needed.
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I've recently started attending an Episcopal church. We have some people who lean heavy on transubstantiation, but our priest says, "look, something holy happens during communion, exactly what, we don't know."
See also: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/real-presence/?
"Belief in the real presence does not imply a claim to know how Christ is present in the eucharistic elements. Belief in the real presence does not imply belief that the consecrated eucharistic elements cease to be bread and wine."
Same could be said for bowel movements too though.
There’s a fine line between suspension of disbelief and righteousness. All it takes is for one to believe their own delusion.
To be fair, the description of the dragon incident is pretty mundane, and all he does is prove that the large reptile they had previously been feeding (& worshiping) could be killed:
"Then Daniel took pitch, and fat, and hair, and did seethe them together, and made lumps thereof: this he put in the dragon's mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder: and Daniel said, Lo, these are the gods ye worship."
I don't think it's mundane to cause something to "burst in sunder" by putting some pitch, fat, and hair in its mouth.
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Yes, Catholicism has definitely accumulated some cruft :)
It is used ti be always religion. But now downsides are well understood. And alternatives that can fill the same need (social activities) - like gathering with your neighbors, singing, performing arts, clubs, parks and paries are available and great.
Religions have multitudes of problems but suicide rates amongst atheists is higher than you'd think it would be. It seems like for many, rejection of organized religion leads to adoption of ad hoc quasi-religions with no mooring to them, leaving the person who is seeking a solid belief system drifting until they find a cult, give in to madness that causes self-harm, or adopt their own system of belief that they then need to vigorously protect from other beliefs.
Some percentage of the population has a lesser need for a belief system (supernatural, ad hoc, or anything else) but in general, most humans appear to be hardcoded for this need and the overlap doesn't align strictly with atheism. For the atheist with a deep need for something to believe in, the results can be ugly. Though far from perfect, organized religions tend to weed out their most destructive beliefs or end up getting squashed by adherents of other belief systems that are less internally destructive.
Nothing to do with religion and everything to do with support networks that Churches and those Groups provide. Synagogue, Church, Camp, Retreat, a place of belonging.
Atheists tend to not have those consistently and must build their own.
I can see that. There’s definitely a reason they keep pumping out Call of Duty’s and Madden’s.