Religions?

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

Always Dagor Dagorath.

[Erunion he/him]

4 hours ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

Always Dagor Dagorath.

There Turin will plunge gurthang into thy dark breast; thus avenging Hin Hurin once and for all! 
And then the children of Illuvatar shall sing along with the vala a second great music - a greater and more splendid music than the first! Oh it shall be glorious!

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

4 minutes ago, Erunion said:

There Turin will plunge gurthang into thy dark breast; thus avenging Hin Hurin once and for all! 
And then the children of Illuvatar shall sing along with the vala a second great music - a greater and more splendid music than the first! Oh it shall be glorious!

At least i get to plunge the world into Darkness.

Sure you'll end up ascending it, but eh, I get my fill.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

@Kaymyth if you follow magic: the gathering, they're currently in the middle of an Egyptian themed/inspired world!

Interesting discussions guys!

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

[Mestiv he/him]

1 hour ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

Nope. But if you worship Spider-Man we can talk about it

[Delightful]

6 hours ago, Erunion said:

There Turin will plunge gurthang into thy dark breast; thus avenging Hin Hurin once and for all! 
And then the children of Illuvatar shall sing along with the vala a second great music - a greater and more splendid music than the first! Oh it shall be glorious!

Hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

[Erunion he/him]

5 hours ago, Delightfully Smoak said:

Hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

When once thou hast slain thine jabberwock, is thy life not in that very moment fulfilled? For the jabberwock remains ever until thy last day when thou shalt face thy own beast once and for all and overcome it - shouldst thou be provided with a keening vorpal blade! 

[Jedal he/him]

On 4/2/2017 at 10:15 PM, Slowswift said:

Agreed. 

Though, the discussion about whether or not religious adherence is due to a Big Brother-type thing is a whole other can of worms.  

Sorry to grab your quote about a month after you said it, but for me, it truly began as a Big Brother sort of necessity, because as a child, who really wants to follow some dumb old rules made by some long dead dude. But wait, if you do, then you get to live forever and have happiness and do whatever you want. It began as a sort of greed, but eventually as I matured I started to internalize the ethics being told to me, and now, I don't even think that it's necessary that there is a God or heaven, just that I do the right thing and that I try to live a good life (not to say that I always do).

[Steeldancer he/him]

Lol so many Mormons. 

[Mestiv he/him]

3 hours ago, The Flash said:

Lol so many Mormons. 

Why the laugh? 

[Ammanas]

Its not surprising that there are so many Mormons on the shard. Forgive me for stereotyping, but I believe I have the right to: Mormons love to read, feel uncomfortable with sex scenes in entertainment, they are fascinated with Mormons that are famous, and the cosmere is just clean fun. There are so many great fantasy series that I cannot get others to read in my church bc it has one brief sex scene. Its hard to find high quality, non-YA books that meet that criteria...I actually surprised Riftwar isnt more popular come to think about it 

[+Extesian he/him]

If the many Mormons on this site are any way to judge Mormons generally, they're one of the most open, non-judgmental religious groups I've met. A lot of religious people I know are beautiful people with deep held and positive beliefs, but are afraid to go into real detail or examine the foundations of their beliefs. I've seen far less of that with Mormons on this site.

I do have a question for our Mormon friends here. And I hope it's an ok question, and I don't want it to get into a debate about accuracy, but...did those who have seen it enjoy the Book of Mormon Musical? Or maybe a better question (because that's a matter of taste), was it offensive? 

[Orlion Blight he/him]

Honestly, I have not seen anybody go into real detail or examine the foundations of their beliefs on this site. I am actually under the impression that such critical analysis of belief is actively discouraged. 

Essentially,  it seems that one could state their beliefs simply, someone else says "Oh!" And then a third person comments on how civilized the theological discourse is on this forum... as if any such discourse has taken place! 

Rinse,  wash, repeat and you got this topic with only some minor digressions in this routine... like this post!

[Left he/him]

6 hours ago, Orlion On a Cob said:

Honestly, I have not seen anybody go into real detail or examine the foundations of their beliefs on this site. I am actually under the impression that such critical analysis of belief is actively discouraged. 

Essentially,  it seems that one could state their beliefs simply, someone else says "Oh!" And then a third person comments on how civilized the theological discourse is on this forum... as if any such discourse has taken place! 

Rinse,  wash, repeat and you got this topic with only some minor digressions in this routine... like this post!

To a large extent I think I could agree with you. Very few of us have gotten into the deepest parts of our doctrines or the very personal reasons we believe and follow them. But the Shard is still part of the internet, so it is very difficult to decide to open up such personal parts of yourself and your beliefs to a potentially limitless audience. That's certainly part of why I've refrained from getting too personal on here. 
And again, no there hasn't been any in-depth analysis and comparisons between religions, but compared to the rest of the internet we aren't doing too bad hahahaha. 
 

[Steeldancer he/him]

Well I am one. It is part of why I enjoy Brandon sanderson so much. I'll endure a sex scene here or there, but I prefer the Brandon method. It allows me to enjoy the writing more, versus George RR martin, whos language, despite being excellent writing, just made it too hard for me to read.

[Mistrunner]

On 5/12/2017 at 10:42 PM, Extesian said:

If the many Mormons on this site are any way to judge Mormons generally, they're one of the most open, non-judgmental religious groups I've met. A lot of religious people I know are beautiful people with deep held and positive beliefs, but are afraid to go into real detail or examine the foundations of their beliefs. I've seen far less of that with Mormons on this site.

I do have a question for our Mormon friends here. And I hope it's an ok question, and I don't want it to get into a debate about accuracy, but...did those who have seen it enjoy the Book of Mormon Musical? Or maybe a better question (because that's a matter of taste), was it offensive? 

On the subject of the musical, I haven't seen it, but I know generally what it's about. In my opinion, it's always good to be able to make fun of yourself. You can't ever take things too seriously. However, I'm not a huge fan of the musical. A lot of people already have a lot of misconceptions about the Mormon faith, and the musical isn't helping. Some of the humor in it I actually find funny, but a lot of it comes too close to being actually mean-spirited, or, perhaps more accurately, condescending for comfort. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

As for whether or not it's offensive, that's really no question. The musical itself has almost used that as a selling point.

Honestly, in my opinion and based on what I know you'll get better "making fun of Mormons" content from Mormons themselves. We have much more experience in that area, and we'd like it done right.

[Kaymyth she/her]

So. Bast has made it into God Auction. That means in two months, I will be letting her fully into my brain and portraying her in a bid to make her our patron for the next year.

Dear sweet gods what have I gotten myself into?

 

On 4/30/2017 at 4:27 AM, ParadoxicalZen said:

@Kaymyth if you follow magic: the gathering, they're currently in the middle of an Egyptian themed/inspired world!

Interesting discussions guys!

Yep! I got to participate in a sealed deck pre-release tournament at JordanCon. I found the theme interesting.

...and there were kitties.

[Erunion he/him]

@Kaymyth - Early Bast, warrior-lioness goddess of the sun? Or later Bast, cat goddess with moon connotations? Or an amalgamation of the two aspects?

Either way, don't go tearing peoples throats out or knocking valuables off of tables. Be careful about these things. 
I'm sure you know the typical christian concerns towards pagan religions, so colour me (slightly) concerned for you  - but I reckon you'll just have fun and good fellowship. 

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

4 hours ago, Kaymyth said:

So. Bast has made it into God Auction. That means in two months, I will be letting her fully into my brain and portraying her in a bid to make her our patron for the next year.

Dear sweet gods what have I gotten myself into?

 

Yep! I got to participate in a sealed deck pre-release tournament at JordanCon. I found the theme interesting.

...and there were kitties.

Channel Oketra 

[Kaymyth she/her]

10 hours ago, Erunion said:

@Kaymyth - Early Bast, warrior-lioness goddess of the sun? Or later Bast, cat goddess with moon connotations? Or an amalgamation of the two aspects?

Either way, don't go tearing peoples throats out or knocking valuables off of tables. Be careful about these things. 
I'm sure you know the typical christian concerns towards pagan religions, so colour me (slightly) concerned for you  - but I reckon you'll just have fun and good fellowship. 

It's really not quite that simple. Early on, she was associated as a lioness, and later as a desert wild cat (never, as is commonly believed, a domestic cat). Either way, she was always a solar goddess, and always an Eye of Ra. There were a number of goddesses who carried that title, and none of them were ones that anybody wanted angry at them. There's a common belief that Bast was "tamed down" to accommodate Sekhmet when the Upper and Lower Egypt pantheons merged, and used as reference the change from "Bast" to "Bastet" taking it as evidence that the addition of a diminutive suffix denoted her newer, gentler role. Except that's actually a load of crocodile dung, because it was later figured out that the change in her hieroglyph was due to lingual drift and 't's starting to get dropped on pronunciation; the additional glyph just told people to pronounce it.

The moon connotations have absolutely no basis in Kemetic practice. The Greeks and Romans just had a superiority complex and decided to make everyone else's gods fit into their pantheon. They equated Bast with Artemis, and that's where the moon stuff came from.

The short version: Kemetic gods are complex, and trying to compartmentalize them like that is difficult at best. Her connection to me is very much the warrior protectress, so that's mostly what I'm focusing on in my preparations, but who knows how things will change on the day.

And ha. No, nobody getting clawed and I do not intend to damage any breakables. God Auction doesn't get that rowdy; the worst that ever happens is deities/powers/archetypes trash-talking each other (which can be hilarious). This is how we choose our next year's Patron; current Patron is Dionysus. We've also had gods like Brigid, Thor, Thoth, Athena, Lugh, Quetzalcoatl, and Danu serve as community Patrons in the past, so we run the gamut.

8 hours ago, ParadoxicalZen said:

Channel Oketra 

That sounds like poor life choices.

[Erunion he/him]

@Kaymyth - about what I figured then. It's usually a lot more complex than it seems at first glance. 

[Pinnacle-Ferring he/him]

@Kaymyth could you elaborate on what this God Auction is? Like, to someone who doesn't know the first thing about paganism. It sounds really interesting.

[Kaymyth she/her]

9 hours ago, Erunion said:

@Kaymyth - about what I figured then. It's usually a lot more complex than it seems at first glance. 

Right now my concern is the wig. (And, of course, the rest of the costuming. I already have the necklace and a scale mail bra created. The rest of the costume is in progress. And I'm going to have a friend do a major body henna job on me for the event.)

Oooh. The necklace. Y'all need to see this.

So I decided I needed to try to recreate the necklace commonly seen depicted on statues of Bast. (At this point, I had no idea if she was going to make it in, but I figured it was a good devotional project anyway.) So here's the statue that I used as a reference:

Spoiler

And here is the finished necklace. It took me a couple months to get it right. I had to unstring and restring layers several times before I worked out the right ratio for the spacer beads, but I am extremely pleased with the finished product.

Spoiler

And a close-up of some of the detail:

Spoiler

 

26 minutes ago, Pinnacle-Ferring said:

@Kaymyth could you elaborate on what this God Auction is? Like, to someone who doesn't know the first thing about paganism. It sounds really interesting.

It's actually something that's pretty unique to my Pagan Unitarian Universalist congregation, but the root of the idea actually comes from ancient Egypt, where temples used to compete with each other to earn the honor of their god being the city's patron for the next year.

So it starts with Penny Auction in the spring. In the few weeks leading up to the equinox, people nominate deities (or powers, archetypes, etc.) to be put into consideration. We cap it at 20, but rarely actually have to enforce that cap. Then from the Equinox to Beltane, people vote in the Penny Auction by putting coins into one or more of the Powers' jars. We tally it weekly and keep people updated on who's ahead. Once Beltane ritual is closed out, we take the final tally and the top three (in the past it has sometimes been four) Powers are the ones competing in the God Auction. It's held in mid-July so we all have about 2 1/2 months to prepare.

Whether it be by volunteer, voluntell, or just plain begging, someone is designated to portray each Power. They also each get a Scribe. During the event, each Power argues for why they would be the best patron for Gaia Community in the coming year, with the speeches organized by rounds of questions.

1. What would you do for the Community?

2. What do you expect the Community to do for you?

3. A question chosen by each team, usually to address something specific about the power that is either important or needs attention.

4. Questions from a hat put in by members of the congregation and/or anyone else who cares to show up.

We operate the event as a fundraiser and food drive for Harvesters. Each individually packaged item counts as equal to a dollar, so a lot of people will hit Costco or Aldi's to get a good bang for their buck. Kids are out of school for the summer and they're generally not getting school lunches at that time, so a lot of us try to make sure we put in a bunch of food that's easy for a kid to prepare themselves. And people do put in plenty of money to the church as well; it's by far our biggest fundraiser.

Scribes' main duties are to introduce their Power and keep a running tally of their team's donations. These days we use an app that one of our members coded for us, so it's a lot easier than it used to be!

The winner of God Auction is the Power who collects the most combined donation points.

...and I say "Power" because it's not always gods who get portrayed. We've had in contention in the past archetypes like Rabbit and Beaver, concepts like the Green Man, the Flying Spaghetti Monster...and even Captain James T. Kirk.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

@Kaymyth always storming amazes me whenever I read all the awesome stuff you do