Interesting essay on the role of American regulations in shaping the development of religious broadcasting. Argues for an essential link between broadcast ministries and end-times theology but doesn’t theorize it much.
Just rolling it over in my head, I can see the unidirectional one-to-many format of broadcasting being better suited to jeremiads or prophecy than, say, pastoral work. I’d still like to see numbers on the business model though.
Like, how did Jimmy Swaggart compare with his half-century predecessor Sister Aimee in terms of income sources and expenditures? (When I included the Foursquare Church with Scientology and Pentecostalism as religious innovations from Los Angeles, I’m talking not of theology but the “media spectacle” approach, and would rope in things like the Crystal Cathedral).
i read this really interesting paper on the emergence of Protestant interpretations of the bible and the introduction of biblical literalism as a theological doctrine and one of the big issues for that wasnt like Jesus’ parables or even the Book of Revelations because those come with big signposts saying “METAPHOR” but actually the Song of Songs. becuase where stuff like revelations can be understood to be as having a ‘face-value’ of being symbolic the same isnt necessarily true of the Song of Songs like if someone thats never read any anything in the Bible sat down with it they’d understand themselves to be reading an erotic poem theres no blatantly obvious things internal to the text saying its being symbolic and the reason its understood as such in Judaism and Christianity is because of external commentary by theologians. This was actually a legitimately frustrating problem in early Protestantism because it was a big deal for people like Calvin and Luther that the Bible should be read “literally” and not “allegorically” but under that criteria the Song of Songs is nothing other than an erotic poem it was actually one of most frustrating issues during the development of the Protestant canon and some people even wanted to remove it from the Bible because it only had any theological meaning if it was read non-literally and the only way an average reader would be aware of that is if they read external commentaries
anyway i found the paper its called “Reformation Attitudes toward Allegory and the Song of Songs” here’s a link i rec it if you think this theology stuff is interesting
The Lesser Bot is a twitterbot that is writing a machine-generated grimoire, complete with summoning runes, which is timely, given that we’re entering the age of demon-haunted computers.
There is a Pope in the Cars universe. This means that there is Catholic Christianity, which means there was a Jesus car who was crucified. Jesus Chrysler was crucified by car Romans under Pontiac Pilot who washed his wheels. A car was nailed to a cross and ascended to Heaven.
The thing as I see it, the thing that’s been central to the development of my worldview ever since I maxed out not believing in gods and assigning things human causes – growing up during the Jesus Seminar –
I had to deal with the fact that when you dispelled primitive myth there was still an actual human that corresponds to the mythic figure Jesus Christ, and there was an actual human that corresponds to the mythic figure Gautama Buddha, and there was an actual human that corresponds to the mythic figure Muḥammad, and closer still there was Joseph Smith and there was L. Ron Hubbard
and even if there weren’t divine powers there – especially if there weren’t divine powers there – that shit is within the range of human capacity and you’ve got to account for that
Woke up to an interesting thought today - Jesus’ miracles in the New Testament mirror Old Testament miracles, but with an important distinction: where the OT ones were acts of creation ex nihilo, the NT ones were acts of transmutation.
Like, to feed a crowd God made manna; Jesus made fish and loaves… out of fewer fish and loaves. God made water spring from a rock, Jesus made casks of wine out of casks of water. I suppose God used dust and a rib to make the living Adam and Eve, but that’s still more raw creation than the NT parallel of making the living Lazarus out of the corpse of Lazarus.
And that does make a sort of sense, that God bound to a specific physical form would have powers bound accordingly. And it’s not like existing Christianity totally misses the transmutation thing - thematically, there’s the God made the world//Christ made it the world redeemed thing, but more than that, the Eucharist! Transubstantiation! (No, not “tea substantiation”, iPhone, wtf.) The central priestly ritual as not a blessing cast on the worshippers but an act of transmutation!
Now I wonder how that schema could account for the empowered artifacts - the Shroud, the Grail, the Spear.
elaienar said: That’s terrifying and I approve 100%.
WELL HERE IS THE THING, RIGHT? black holes you basically literally have to be in their gravity like pretty much on top of them to be sucked in. so that’s not really an issue. it’s TERRIFYING sure, but explains a few things which I will list:
my astronomy teacher said if you were somehow able to survive entering a black hole and reached the bottom or singularity, the way time works is that you would be able to see the entire universe laid out - like you’d know when the universe ended if you looked back outwards
which falls into line with the idea that the angels know all of time and everything except when it will all end precisely (or scientifically, the collapse of this universe is unknown, but supposing angels were black holes they would see until this unknown point)
matter falling into a black hole creates a disc of light which is probably among the literal BRIGHTEST things in the universe
there are angels which are supposed to be the wheels of God’s Chariot, so it would make sense if, according to theories, that there ARE massive blackholes at the center of all galaxies which is what cause them to rotate, and those black holes are angels which make the galaxy spin.
black holes were formed sometime after the big bang, which lines into the story of creation, that the angels came after the universe.
angels can choose to physically manifest like humans, but aren’t actually. it’s said that you cannot survive looking at them or hearing them directly. NASA says that the “note” a black hole emits is the deepest sound found in the universe. i am just guessing here but you would probably die if you heard it up close instead of a bazillion light years away. ALSO side note cool fact apparently that “note”: “…It’s worth pointing out that the “sound” in question is 57 octaves (and one semitone) below middle C, which makes it 247×2−57≈1.71×10−15Hz, or one whole cycle every 18.5 million years.” CRAZY RIGHT although apparently some sing other notes and basically if there’s anything people know about angels it is that they DEFINITELY SING. anyways you can’t see black holes but you can see the things around them and the soundwaves surrounding them.
also apparently scientists picked up a death “scream” of a star falling into a black hole but like…
anyways literally every angel is terrifying BE NOT AFRAID “haha okay but i’m crying though is that cool”
black holes are probably angels. i’m just saying.
this is exactly the kind of weird christian gnostic-empiricist apologia i like to see on my dash
Okay here’s how I read this picture: homeboy in bright white is the guy who commissioned this thing, as part of his “oh shit I’m old and mortal better tend to my legacy” thing. He gets to do the ceremonial duties, pouring out oil for his dead homies, dudes actually pushing it up are his servants.
At the stump in red with the sacrificial lamb is homeboy’s eldest son, the surrounding figures are his family, blondie at the stump in pink is a younger son.
And look at what’s stiffly vertical in this composition, that’s interesting. The herm isn’t. The herm’s whole purpose is to be vertical as a sacred object, but it’s like “oh nope, just a human creation being humped around by some sweaty dudes”. You can see the rough foundation that’d normally be buried underground.
Dude with the spade - the spade’s vertical which is correct because the spade represents the artifice and the work here and the work is what is true. Dude’s leg is only slightly off and he kind of gets a pass as being the close-enough respectability of labor.
Homeboy in white - straight up. Look at his face, look at the sculptured herm. That’s the dude. This is his legacy - he’s old now and thinking about eternity and transcendence. He is taking this seriously, he’s fucking loving this.
In the background, the tower of the compound on the hill - oh hi there, hazed out, you’re the even more impressive site of human creation we’re only recreating in miniature. Herms along the path and in the woods, that one that gets red at the base almost halfway to modeling the trees, the trees that shoot up higher and spindlier reminding you that the human creations are only inferior imitations of natural form.
Grandson with the fruit bowl, young enough to take his role in this seriously.
(The donkey’s standing up straight, doing his job, but looks sarcastic. I think that’s the point of donkeys.)
And look who’s not standing up straight.
Red son at the stump is frustrated, cheek in his palm waiting for this to be over. (You saw statue face and white homeboy’s face? Look at red dude’s face, you see the resemblance. Balding. Unfortunate.)
He’s old enough to realize this is theatrics, but not old enough to be the honored elder. Dad’s having fun spending his inheritance on a roadside dick statue. Awesome. He’s there because he’s obligated.
(Pink bro, what the hell. He says nothing to me.)
Granddaughter in pink is straight-ish, but not ramrod like the two males in the center. Slumped shoulders, garland hanging by her side she’s just putting up with this. Teenage girls were the same in 1874, when this painting was made, the same in whenever the hell it was set.
Naked babe taking the proceedings in uncomprehendingly, wife in blue kneeling propping the babe up, inducting him into the ritual.
The laborers of course literally wearing rags, all too busy exerting themselves to be either solemn or resentful and… IS STRIPEYSHORTS MCMUSTACHE EYEING UP GRANDDAUGHTER?
I THINK HE IS
holy shit
This is an amazing tableau on the subject of religion: an honorably ridiculous process by which old men fool young boys into taking them seriously.
I will say one thing about contemplating rewriting the Bible as mythological tales, it really makes you appreciate how much the Bible wasn’t originally written as mythological tales. Like not in the sense of “they really believed it” so much as in the sense of “this predates the idea of dividing writing into genres, at all”.
Like, there’s mythological tales mixed with national history and geneaology but that’s kind of normal for a tribal religious corpus. There’s tediously detailed economic and shipbuilding records for what would have been pretty ancient history even to its original audience, but that’s not really unprecedented either.
But then it wanders off into like, a bunch of praise songs, and then self-help, and then a bunch of sexy slow jams, and a few biography/collection of speeches, and then a bunch of collected correspondence, and then the whole thing ends with a fucking trip report.
1:40am last night and I got stoned and thought about the Holy Trinity, as one does.
Specifically how weird the Holy Ghost/Spirit is in there. Like, you’ve got the classic demiurge-patriarch who’s been a character from the start. You’ve got the human incarnation/avatar/savior hero figure, and both of them are like human-analog figures - they have dialogue and thoughts and the story is organized around a series of conflicts involving them as parties. And then you’ve got, like, the transcendent concept of competent, inspiring leadership.
♫ One of these things is not like the other… ♫
(I’ve said before that on reflection most of my sense of Christian mythology comes from Vertigo comics, and at this point I realize I’m kind of conceiving the Holy Spirit as Genesis in Preacher. And at THIS point I realize no, Garth Ennis conceived Genesis as the Holy Spirit.)
I mean now that I think about that I dig that, that they put it on that level. I’m a big believer in the power of charisma (I kind of do wonder what translators would make of my use of “charisma”, or “enchant” and “idiom”. Probably get it wrong.) after all. Now that I think of it, that kind of means that anyone with a spark of charisma - compelling speakers and leaders of men like say the early missionaries and church fathers for example - would have been understood to some extent as inherently divine or divine vectors.
Like, I snicker at Mormonism for the whole prophethood (/no, godhood!) of all believers thing (and for the convenient hack that people are only given authentic prophecies as pertains their designated rank in the hierarchy) but how far off is that, really.
Buuuut the question comes back, if/when I do that biblical paraphrase, what am I going to do about the Trinity? It’s too central to dispense with, but the Holy Spirit just isn’t a character, he’s like… a buff, or maybe mana. I get that there’s some fascinating kind of spiritual angle there, Christian mystery and all, but that doesn’t really do much for me and I don’t picture it doing much for the nonbelieving heritage audience I’m aiming at.
One idea would be to make it a thesis/antithesis/synthesis trilogy of the Father/Rebel/Son with the Miltonian Lucifer taking over for the Holy Spirit - those would all be *characters* at least, and each pair has an interesting resonance (in opposition to the third) AND a good conflict.
But that just gets back to the question I had before, where the hell in the order of things do I stuff the War in Heaven and the Fall?
This could be fixed by making the Holy Spirit into a psychopomp figure, filling a gap in Christianity and giving us some really cool stained-glass fodder.
Well Gaiman’s Lucifer was kinda a psychopomp, and like I said the Vertigo books were a big influence on me. Just taking the Spirit as ferryman alone, well okay that actually gives him a role and a form but I think that might still be a step down in terms of being central enough to hold his own with the other members of the trinity. Like, what would be his conflicts/connections with the Father or Son be based on?
I mean just spitballing I can think of a few plot beats involving Purgatory where a psychopomp’s ability to withhold or misdirect souls from the other afterlives might work as an independent power base for some True Neutral force, but True Neutral doesn’t really make sense as a mediator or balance to Father/Son. I still think all the plots would work better redone for a Lucifer, the Father/Rebel/Son trilogy has better thematics of (Divine Order as its own end) v. (Human Liberation as its own end) v. (Human Liberation thru. Divine Order).
Honestly I think if you wanted to whip together a psychopomp you’ve got better material with Mary, though you could take Simon of Cyrene in a pinch.
Actually wait, Saint Peter at the gates with the book and keys. There’s your psychopomp.
That or the Grim Reaper which… well, that’s mythology, and it’s particular to Christendom (or if adapted from the near east no more so than the rest of it) so I guess that’s Christian mythology. Figuring out how he fits in might be kinda fun, actually.
1:40am last night and I got stoned and thought about the Holy Trinity, as one does.
Specifically how weird the Holy Ghost/Spirit is in there. Like, you’ve got the classic demiurge-patriarch who’s been a character from the start. You’ve got the human incarnation/avatar/savior hero figure, and both of them are like human-analog figures - they have dialogue and thoughts and the story is organized around a series of conflicts involving them as parties. And then you’ve got, like, the transcendent concept of competent, inspiring leadership.
♫ One of these things is not like the other… ♫
(I’ve said before that on reflection most of my sense of Christian mythology comes from Vertigo comics, and at this point I realize I’m kind of conceiving the Holy Spirit as Genesis in Preacher. And at THIS point I realize no, Garth Ennis conceived Genesis as the Holy Spirit.)
I mean now that I think about that I dig that, that they put it on that level. I’m a big believer in the power of charisma (I kind of do wonder what translators would make of my use of “charisma”, or “enchant” and “idiom”. Probably get it wrong.) after all. Now that I think of it, that kind of means that anyone with a spark of charisma - compelling speakers and leaders of men like say the early missionaries and church fathers for example - would have been understood to some extent as inherently divine or divine vectors.
Like, I snicker at Mormonism for the whole prophethood (/no, godhood!) of all believers thing (and for the convenient hack that people are only given authentic prophecies as pertains their designated rank in the hierarchy) but how far off is that, really.
Buuuut the question comes back, if/when I do that biblical paraphrase, what am I going to do about the Trinity? It’s too central to dispense with, but the Holy Spirit just isn’t a character, he’s like… a buff, or maybe mana. I get that there’s some fascinating kind of spiritual angle there, Christian mystery and all, but that doesn’t really do much for me and I don’t picture it doing much for the nonbelieving heritage audience I’m aiming at.
One idea would be to make it a thesis/antithesis/synthesis trilogy of the Father/Rebel/Son with the Miltonian Lucifer taking over for the Holy Spirit - those would all be *characters* at least, and each pair has an interesting resonance (in opposition to the third) AND a good conflict.
But that just gets back to the question I had before, where the hell in the order of things do I stuff the War in Heaven and the Fall?
I’m going through the Old Testament and I’m going to rank all the men according to the PUA spectrum of maleness
God - Alpha, he’s the big cheese, the main man, everyone wants a slice of that pizza pie
Adam - Alpha, hey he’s naming everyone and he gets to sample the first sliz ever. nice
Cain - Alpha, the gardening nearly makes him a beta but he brings it all back by murdering the fuck out of….
Abel - Beta. Sure he’s a shepherd and that’s a rough job but uh, you got killed mate,
Noah - Omega . henpecked. the only guy god chose to keep around because he wasn’t sinning. wow, get a spine noah
Abraham - Beta, was going to kill his only son, uh nice, where do you keep your tampons
Isaac - Omega, the worst of the patriarchs, didn’t even leave canaan, didn’t change his name.
Jacob - Alpha, tricks his idiot dad into giving him the birthright, fights an angel, changes his name to Israel, still causing a ruckus 3000 years later
Joseph - Beta, although he does have a PUA-approved coat, he gets sold into slavery and then doesn’t even fuck pharoah’s wife. dude what is your problem
Moses - Alpha, kills a slave driver, talks to a bush that’s on fire, delivers plagues, makes everyone drink gold. writes a book about himself where he says he’s the “Humblest man who ever lived”
David - Alpha, kills a giant when he was a boy, sends a man off to die because he gets hard for his wife, gets a little gay with jonathan but he gets a pass
Solomon - Beta, can’t get a woman to convert to his religion, did build a very peacocky temple though.
Job - Omega, literally gets COVERED IN FESTERING BOILS and still doesn’t stand up for himself. Get a new religion when that stuff starts happening pal
Daniel - Alpha, lions, dens, need I go on?
Jonah - Beta, you gotta admire him standing up to god, but swallowed by a fish? uh, paging dr freud!
Jesus - Alpha, he changed the game dog. Changed the fucking game. He died for our sins so that we may join him in the kingdom of heaven. give your life to the son of god today
