The extent to which Christian proselytizing materials expect objections to the Trinity and the importance they assign to them is interesting historically/demographically.
The extent to which Christian proselytizing materials expect objections to the Trinity and the importance they assign to them is interesting historically/demographically.
Ah Xvim you big softie.
Oh man he has a self-identification scheme! Xvim is Acceptably Paranoid and I vote him as new protagonist.
Xvim is adorable and one of my favorite characters. He would, I freely acknowledge, be a more competent protagonist. I’m not sure I would prefer him as the protagonist though: we’d get to see a lot less growth than we do from a student.
I agree. I think what I want is a competence porn fanfic where Xvim gets marked instead.
I like competence porn as much as the next ten guys combined, but I think that most of the point of time loop stories is growth-of-competence porn. At start of loop, Kirielle jumps on you. By end of loop, you levitate Kirielle! If you were badass the first time around, you didn’t need a time loop!
Recommendation: For more “straight” competence porn, I think you might like With This Ring. It is technically Young Justice fanfic, but as long as you have a basic awareness of the DC verse (Green lanterns use power rings, Wonder Woman hails from an island that doesn’t include men, Superman is vulnerable to kryptonite) you can follow it pretty easily, and it’s much more “yes, with incredible cosmic power of course I introduced magitech to the world, stole the flying ice fortress for my own use, and cleaned up the environment.”
Yes, on reflection you’re right. The time loop part of the fic is unnecessary, I just want to watch Xvim do cool stuff (and fall in love with Alanic, obviously).
This sounds like a great story and I would happily read it.
That is the obvious romance. It starts when Xvim sees Alanic’s control over his fire. Chapter title: Set a Fire Down in My Soul.
I also predict with 60% confidence that someone who doesn’t realise Scott is Jewish will read Unsong and accuse him of culturally appropriating kaballah before the year is out.
(I think it’s less likely that people will accuse him of appropriating UU even though he’s not a UU)
I am culturally appropriating the heck out of kabbalah. You’re not supposed to do it unless you’re a married male Jew above the age of 40, and you should also probably believe in God and stuff. My defense is that I don’t really believe in cultural appropriation, plus that boat sailed long ago, like medieval alchemy long ago.
If it becomes popular enough that I worry people will notice, I’ll add a disclaimer that I’m not actually writing about very good kabbalah at all, but more like the equivalent of Star Trek people writing “science” by having people talk about “FIRE THE TACHYONS AT WARP SPEED”.
Also, accusing people of culturally appropriating Unitarianism would be amazing.
I’m sort of curious what one could appropriate from UU.
Coming of age ceremonies? You mean the thing where we rip off catholicism and judaism at the same time? (and IMO do it better)
Out in the midwest there are a lot of youth cons, but those aren’t unique to us by any stretch of the imagination.
Incoherent syncreticism, again not exactly original.
comparativelysuperlative asked: + "ilzo would be interested in 101-level discussion of christianity, why are there so few educational resources about something so important for understanding people and organizations?" If you mean the 101-level *beliefs,* as opposed to the culture or something, I'd be pretty excited about talking a lot and answering questions. But the actual beliefs are pretty stunningly unimportant for understanding people, because people are good at ignoring them when inconvenient, and that's pretty often.
I don’t know where to start! Unlike the atheist depicted in the typical Chick Tract, I have in fact heard of Jesus, but I sometimes run into issues with apparently basic things being really novel to me.
Maybe you can copy thetransintransgenic and do a Christianity Wiki?
And sure, 101-level beliefs are interesting. Infodump away, please!
Also, just knowing what all the different sects are might make things more comprehensible even if their actual beliefs aren’t particularly relevant.
(Also, I trust you not to go on about how you found the One True Branch™ of Christianity, because atheism (maybe agnosticism? IIRC you’re an atheist), so that’s useful.)
As for the sects, here is the simple and probably wrong version. I will let other people provide less simple and less wrong versions.
There are three major branches of Christianity: Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. Catholicism is historically associated with Western Europe but has spread itself fairly well. Orthodoxy is associated with Eastern Europe. They split in the 11th century. Protestantism is associated with the Germanic tribes, and it split during the Protestant Reformation. There are also some divergent branches, such as Mormonism (a religion of Americanism with Disneyworld aesthetics), Anglicanism (a wacky vestigial organ of the British state), Seventh-Day Adventism (which formed out of an apocalypse cult, adopted some of Kellogg’s dietary rules, and has some affiliated health food stores around here), and Christian Science (who the fuck knows).
There are a lot of different denominations of Protestantism: Presbyterianism (generally Calvinist and associated with the Scots), Episcopalianism (formed in the First War of Secession when American anticolonial rebels split from Anglicanism), Methodism (Arminian), Lutheranism (associated with Germans and Scandinavians), Pentecostalism (very, very low-church), and Baptism (which split in the Second War of Secession; the northern side is not terribly significant and the southern side is basically the religion of the South), to name a few. There are a few different theologies, which cut across sects – the major ones are Calvinism and Arminianism. The difference between Calvinism and Arminianism is that Calvinism was a direct ancestor of modern-day horrorism and did not have to change much in temperament to get there.
Then there are Unitarians (hippies), Anabaptists (pacifists who reject infant baptism – the Amish are Anabaptists, hence rumspringa), and numerous distinct minor denominations with names like “Churches of Christ”, “Christian churches and churches of Christ”, “Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)”, and “United Church of Christ”.
Although my knowledge is a little rusty, I can field questions about Catholicism if there’s interest.
In America, they’re called Unitarian Universalists, due to a merger in the 60s. In Britain you still have separate Unitarian and Universalist churches, but it’s Britain, where nobody goes to church anyways.
To understand the United Church of Christ, the joke is that they are “Unitarians considering Christ.”
I can talk in as much depth about UUism as you want: I was raised in the church, go to services in Boston, hang out with seminarians, and my mother works at a local church. I would wager I’m the most religious non-Jew here, which I say because calling a Unitarian Universalist a “Christian” is always a dicey move.
“Unitarian Universalists do not share a creed; rather, they are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth and by the understanding that an individual’s theology is a result of that search and not obedience to an authoritarian requirement.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#Unitarian_Universalism
I know wikipedia can be biased, but as a UU, this must be the most biased line I have noticed on Wikipedia in at least a year. It’s not wrong, it’s not an inaccurate or unfair representation of Unitarian Universalism, it’s just really obviously part description and part conversion attempt. Compare to the section that follows, on Taoism. “In 2004 there were an estimated 56,000 Taoists in the US. Taoism was popularized throughout the world through the practice of Tai Chi Chuan and other martial arts.”