NOW✋i need to get nitpicky here

in this context i mean religion as a human phenomenon. as a thing humans do and organize and participate in. i'm not viewing it as the "correct" way to interact with gods. you have to be impartial here bc we're studying the people right now, not the gods. gods can be there, but we're studying all the ways people act about it

anyways, studying christianity helps to break you out of the idea that religion is the single way this large group of people interacted with gods for centuries AND you get to see all the different perspectives and practices that were thought of as "correct" but were also commonly argued. you see all the splits and changes in religion. all the reinterpretations of the same words or actions over time.

and if you were raised christian or raised around christian's, you see the humanity that builds religion. no religion is infallible because the gods did not make the religion, humans did. our fickleness and passions and mistakes are fingerprinted all over every religious tradition and line of thinking.

AAAAAANNNDDDDDDD. ☝️and. you learn the function of religious traditions. whether that be a spiritual significance or a symbolic one or just something that brings comfort even if the people don't believe the tradition does anything metaphysically.

and you can try it and experience some of them yourself. (highly recommend praying a rosary if you haven't already, even the hail marys alone have calmed me down immediately, and i can feel Mary's presence even without being catholic)

you can see the different ideas and perspectives of god. different beliefs on what god likes and dislikes. different beliefs of how god wants to interact with humans. and even beliefs about god that are not reflected in practice.

AND. you can see religious arguments and changes and splits happen in real time. you can watch catholic arguments on tiktok. there's a whole thing about vatican 2 right now among young new catholic converts. you can listen to living anglicans, catholics, pentecostals, lutherans, episcopalians, today. (there's more than just evangelicals and catholics)

you can watch well recorded documents and living examples of human dynamics play out. and you can look at older religions with more critical thinking. abusive widespread cults that look holy and sacred at first glance are not just a christian thing. traditions that are based off human bias and mainstream culture more than the divine are not just a christian thing. that's a human thing. every religion is going to have that. history books are not always an instruction manual. they are just a recording of things that humans did at different times. and we fuck up all the damn time

so if you are want insight on whatever religion you're learning about, try looking christianity.

and good news christian's are fucking everywhere. like freud. and plastic. here are some places where i learned a lot about christians which helped me understand religion in general

good news is they are all over history so if ur in college and have to take a history elective, you will find christians. my intro to fine arts elective also taught me about catholic beliefs via what they put effort into creating. statues, buildings, doors even, were all ways to reflect biblical figures, religious authorities, bible stories, and literally heaven itself. even the golden backgrounds of some catholic paintings reflected a religious belief. also. of course. the iconoclasm (there was period where ppl thought all the art was too self indulgent and prideful so they started destroying the art. as we can see this belief has changed once again😭)

or you can go with ur anglican aunt to church one day. or watch a video about orthodox christianity.

information about christian's is all over so sometimes all you need to do is just perk your ears up a little more. very accessible religion to learn about

u just gotta be careful bc as we know cults are VERY common in christianity bc it's a big ass religion so of course a big religion can fit more cults inside it. (i mean spiritual spaces also have lots of cults. cults are just everywhere) keep ur wits about you.

actually i'll drop my art textbook w all the catholics while i'm here. it's: Gardners Art Through the Ages: A Concise Western History. 4th Edition. by Fred S Kleiner.

and the history one was: The Making of the West, Volume 1. i can only find the title bc it was a rental book and this is all i could find about it in the moment

and i'm taking a class on the history of christianity as an elective soon!!!!! so i'll get even more christian gossip to use for my spooky evil pagan devil worshipping purposes😈heh.......

and if i said all my studying of religion has actually served more as ancestor work to help me connect with people living and dead than with the gods.......and that the gods have repeatedly kept me from doing things the "right" way bc it made it harder for me personally to connect and just made me overthink (it can def help some people).................if i said that...........

Action: Do something intentional (cleaning, cooking, etc.) in her honor

Journal: How can I incorporate magic and devotion into my daily life?

Day 22 - Personal Power

Action: Stand tall, breathe deeply, and center yourself. Close your eyes, and reach deep inside, and feel the power nestled in your core. breathe it in. Ground yourself in your power. You are so much stronger than you know.

Call your power back: Vocalize your intention. Say “I call back my energy from every person, place, and moment where I left it behind.”

anyways loki wants me to get myself a treat and i've been talking about how i'm in the mood for a new indie deck that SPECIFICALLY will come in the mail and potentially has cute little extra things in it and one of the decks i've had my eye on is on sale and comes with a sticker. in the mail.🧍. and i have the money. but noooo what if i'm not allowed to get myself nice things and what if im actually too reckless w my money (i buy myself one treat a month MAX).

Action: Offer something that you are grateful for to Hecate. Maybe it is your favorite chocolate, or clean water, or a song you love. Share it with her, tell her about it.

Action: Cleanse Your Space & Set Your Intention. Pull a tarot or oracle card while asking, “What part of myself do I avoid facing?”

Pull another card and ask “How can I integrate or heal this part of myself?”

Or if you do not have a deck, sit quietly and meditate on these questions, asking Hecate for guidance

Journal: Write about the answers that you recieved and what steps you can take toward this shadow work?

for me i don't care about the idea of ppl disrespecting their deities DONT MAKE ANY WEIRD VAGUE POSTS ABOUT ME WITHOUT FINISHING READING MY WHOLE POST OKAY

okay here's my reasons:

1. this is super basic but no one else's personal practice has anything to do with me. that's truly between them and the god yada yada yada

2. i PERSONALLY☝️(bc this is DEF not a universal belief) think gods don't feel like personally offended or personally hurt in the way we as humans do. we biologically do need to care if we're not liked or respected bc we are social animals. it is instinctual to care. i don't think gods have survival instincts like we do.

like unless you are personally very self conscious already, it's not personal or offensive if a scared animal hisses at you. you get it, it's just scared. you may have more context to understand the animals response than the animal does.

there is a However but i'll get to that in a minute*

3. sometimes gods will literally push you to be disrespectful on purpose. maybe to bring up past traumas to work on, or show you how to process certain emotions while giving you a safe space to fail as you learn, or to show you it wasn't actually disrespectful at all, or to teach you how to apologize after an outburst, etc. this is the major reason i won't judge someone. you genuinely never know what is going on w other people

4. gods are grown, they can handle that disrespect accordingly in any case

back to my however

*HOWEVER. i DO think that sometimes it does hurt deities when you're rude to them but not because they take it personally, because that means you are in some sort of pain or blocking yourself off from love from them.

people aren't rude for no reason. it could be insecurity, past trauma, fear, paranoia, learned habits, self protection, lots of things. but like. they're not good. and they're often non helpful when done to ppl who genuinely want to love and help you

back to the animal metaphor, imagine a scared animal batting and hissing at you because it's injured. and whenever it bats at you it hurts itself more. imagine you're the one trying to get it to the vet

than would actually make you sad (or angry/frustrated). it would genuinely be upsetting. but that would be bc the animal you care about is hurting itself when it doesn't have to, and blocking off help.

also for the "gods angrily putting you in your place for your hubris" trope. i still don't think they are offended the way a human is. i do think they are unhappy about a human's hubris. "your place" isn't a degrading place. your place is to live as a human. doing otherwise isn't healthy. so when you try to control life like a god they will get upset and put you back in your spot as a human the same way you snatch a chihuahua up before it picks a fight w a doberman. it's not being denigrated to a lowly animal, it's being told "QUIT that, you are not doberman sized and i don't think you've realized. you have skills and strong suits but none of them are Being Bigger Than The Doberman. STOP picking fights or you're gonna get HURT and i do not want that."

like to be humbled isn't to feel bad about yourself. being in "your place" should not mean feeling insecure or ashamed. it just means knowing your strengths and limits. but if you've been hubristic, being humbled probably will make you feel ashamed.

(also i know a lot of ppl think shame is the cure to hubris. um it's not. it's actually a cause of overconfidence. think overcompensation. humility is NOT shame👍)

SO BASICALLY

i do think gods get upset sometimes when you're rude to them, but i don't think they take it personally. i think they are upset that YOU are so upset to the point that you feel like being mean to people who love you is the safest available option.

idk. gods are so old. they've met and watched so many people. i'm sure they are thinking way farther ahead in this type of circumstance, u know. they can handle it. they can use that behavior and turn it into something helpful and useful for the practitioners. like idk i really think they will be okay.

um but the reason i actually feel a need to say this outloud is bc so many people are disrespectful to physical humans over perceived disrespect between a god and a human. and then they adopt a sort of "i'm better than you bc i don't do that with my deities😼" behavior and they start harassing internet strangers like hey so now you are actually in fact being disrespectful to people who can be proved to exist and can be proved to be personally hurt and offended so like what now. you have literally become the villain. you need to get over making judgements on random peoples personal religious practice👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

i also say this for the ppl w ocd w debilitating fear of hurting their gods to the point it makes it difficult to connect w them. it will be okay and the gods will be okay.

christians were in rome. they started as a minority. when everybody else was pagan. ??????

if you're raised and live in a majority pagan society where you're required to participate in certain rituals. it's not stealing. that was just everyone's default state of life.

also ppl acting like lighting candles and praying and ritual is exclusive to paganism. like that's near universal. that's like saying christians stole telling stories related to divinity and singing songs

pagans are not a single united group of ppl and christianity didn't come from nowhere. and !!!! christianity was not always the popular religion !!!!!!!

do christians appropriate things from specific marginalized ppl and their religions nowadays ? yes !!!! but you can just talk about those with the detail and care and respect those religions deserve instead of throwing out an unresearched "CHRISTIANS STOLE X FROM PAGANS" as a "so there" so you don't have to critically think about any religions

every. single. religion has the potential to be an oppressive tool. being pagan doesn't protect you from being evil or from culturally appropriating. it's not enough to just hate christianity so that you can bypass any actual deconstructive work.

christianity is not harmful without PEOPLE pushing their harmful interpretations of it to gain power and control. YOU can do the exact same thing as a pagan. the religion is not the source of evil. it's people.