Wed Jan 17 16:55:57 2024 UTC by CrazyPaya234
On an alt because my brother knows about my main, and I don’t want this attention to come towards my parents and make it to my grandparents [somehow]
I never had a relationship with my grandparents from either side of my family. On my father’s side, they died before I was born, and on my mother’s I barely ever saw them. And when I did, it seemed as though they had no intensions of speaking or interacting with me. I was at home for the longer weekend because my parents needed help cleaning out the attic, and in one of the old boxes there was a old picture of my grandmother and my mom when she was younger. The picture got me thinking about why my mother’s grandparents always had acted so strange around me, as if they were avoiding me entirely. I brought the subject up to my mother while we were cleaning up the attic, and she told me why. She told me that my grandparents had always been hyper-religious, specifically catholic. This came as no surprise as I had deduced such from various mannerisms they had shown in the little time I had meet them. She finally said that the reason my grandparents didn’t want to be around me was because I was left handed.
WHAT.
She explained further that the left-hand had been interpreted as the devil’s hand as a catholic superstition. Because of this, my grandparents had always been wary of me, which grew out to them avoiding having a relationship with me entirely. I’m at a loss for words as to how these insane traditions continue to be prevalent in religious circles, especially in older individuals. It saddens me that despite how Christians often claim to be a welcoming community to all people, that many exclusive and elitist traditions continue to be practiced. I hope as time goes on, we open our eyes to realize how absolutely batshit insane these traditions, and maybe religions as a whole, really are.
Sounds like you were better off never interacting with those nutjobs. Good for your mom protecting you from their crazy, because that is the sort of thing that would leave a scar on an impressionable young mind.
Like being forced to be right handed, which causes long term problems like stuttering.
My wife’s mom was left handed but forced to use her right hand to write.
Anyway, she died of a degeneratieve nerve disorder which slowly took away her ability to control her muscles, while her brain reminded intact. Really terrible. Her right hand was among the last part of her body to lose control, so she was able to write after she lost the ability to speak.
So by pure chance at least one person benefitted from these crazy anti-leftie ideas. (She could just as easily have lost her ability to use her right hand first, which would have been a horrible twist of fate.)
I prefer to listen to Aleister Crowley and take the Left Handed Path in life.
“If one were to take the bible seriously one would go mad. But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad”
So much of Catholocism is extra-Biblical it’s NUTS.
For example… the whole bit about no meat on Fridays. It had such a cultural impact that this is why restaurants do fish and chowder specials on Fridays.
There is absolutely no Biblical basis for it, but try telling that to a devout Catholic.
It’s old Roman superstition, basically. The Latin word for left is sinister and it had negative connotations even then. Predates Christianity by a decent bit yet that didn’t stop the Romans who later turned Catholic from perpetuating their superstitions as dogma.
Also the reason priests can’t marry has nothing to do with Jesus being celibate* and everything to do with medieval inheritance laws and making sure church land never leaves church ownership.
*In fact (assuming he existed at all) Jesus almost certainly was not celibate. You pretty much could not be taken seriously as a teacher in Judaism in that time period unless you were married. (Who tf was getting married at Caana and why would it have been his problem that they were out of wine if he was just another guest? But if he was the one getting married, well…)
Yeah, if he was real, he seemed to be pretty close to Mary of Magdolin (or whatever the place was), who was a prostitute during a time when celibacy wasn’t really celebrated. I wouldn’t even rule out him having kids.
Also Protestantism was a thing because of how corrupt the Catholic church got. They needed the Crusades funded, so they offered forgiveness for sins in return for either service in the Crusades or a financial donation in lieu of service. Then over time, that just became another thing that could be bought whenever, frequently after someone’s death, which is fucked up on another level because people were guilted into paying for the souls of their loved ones so they could get into heaven even if they didn’t confess in time (which they might have, or they might have lived a good life, but if you want to be sure to see grandpa after you die, better pay up just to be safe).
All the signs are there that Christianity is just a scam, I wish everyone could see it as well as understand that there’s secular reasons to not do evil shit, it’s just not as arbitrary about defining what is and isn’t evil.
The more I read the Bible, and the more I read about the Bible, the more utterly laughable it becomes to me that anyone takes Christianity seriously.
The reason for eating fish today is money making in the past.
“Fishermen were hurting. So much so that when Henry’s young son, Edward VI, took over in 1547, fast days were reinstated by law — “for worldly and civil policy, to spare flesh, and use fish, for the benefit of the commonwealth, where many be fishers, and use the trade of living.””
My favorite extra-biblical notion in Catholicism is their weird veneration of Mary. Catholics have this belief that Mary was this divine demi-god that was not only a sinless, flawless, human being, but also stayed a virgin her whole life. Despite the fact that the Catholic Bible literally says that she had other kids with Joseph and that Jesus had brothers.
It’s this super bizarre JK Rowling-ization of the Bible that a council unilaterally declared, like, 400 years after Jesus. There’s no mention of any of the shit they claim Mary did in the actual Bible yet all Catholics I’ve ever met vehemently defend these belief.
Because they can’t admit they have a goddess cult baked into their supposedly monotheistic religion.
Of course that’s what happens when your entire religion is the accumulation of thousands of years of marketing scams and cultural assimilation.
I don’t know many Catholics. I would appreciate if you could explain some of the things Catholics believe Mary did that Protestants dispute.
Sure! I was raised Methodist protestant and my wife Catholic. Neither of us are practicing any more. One grain of salt I’ll add to this is that Protestant beliefs vary WIDELY on a lot of subjects, so this is going off my own experience. This is all about Mary the mother of Christ, not to be confused with Mary Magdalene.
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Catholics and Protestants both believe that Mary was a virgin when she had Jesus, but Catholics believe that Mary never had sex in her entire life. Protestants are more willing to accept that Mary was not a virgin her whole life and went on to have more children. In fact in both bibles, his brothers are named: James, Joseph (Joses), Jude (Judas), and Simon. Note that these are not necessarily the same as the apostles but they are mentioned in both the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. It is also mentioned that Jesus has sisters. The Catholic interpretation is that these are not literal siblings, but perhaps other family. (The Catholic assertion doesn’t check out in the original greek btw).
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Catholics have a concept called “Original Sin”, which all people are said to be cursed with due to Adam and Eve’s fuck ups. This Original Sin is why we commit sin at all. This is another Catholic extra-biblical concept. Mary, however, is “Free from Original Sin” for reasons that are never explained, and that’s why she was chosen to carry Jesus. Because according to Catholicism, Mary was literally perfect and never did any sin in her entire life. Protestants generally don’t believe in the concept of Original Sin at all, and subsequently believe that Mary was just a regular poor girl.
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The Veneration of Mary and the other Saints is another extra-biblical Catholic special. TL;DR: If you check enough boxes and the Church has enough political will, you can posthumously be awarded Sainthood which a pagan would interpret as being elevated to the status of a minor god. Saints are a whole different class of person in Catholic cannon. Not only are they getting into Heaven first, they apparently can appear to people through miracles, and its certified Catholic kosher to worship saints as you would Jesus or God himself. Its not un-typical for Catholic households to have literal shrines dedicated to specific saints, and to pray to saints directly. Ironically they are usually praying to the saint as some sort of divine middleman because for some reason Catholics are afraid of praying to God directly. Mary is considered even better than a saint, so think all the above x100. More so than saint shrines, its common for Catholic households to have shrines dedicated to Mary. You also may have heard of the “Hail Mary”; it is an actual prayer. If you’ve never heard or participated in one, look up a video, its unironically like a cult chant. Seeing it in person is extremely bizarre if you aren’t already familiar with it.
Protestants do not recognize the Veneration of any thing or person beyond the Holy Trinity. Worshiping saints by praying to them is considered blasphemy. The creation and worship of shrines to anything other than the Trinity is considered Idol Worship, which is a form of blasphemy. All of this extends to Mary. Worshiping or praying to Mary is not ok. Protestants also don’t have nearly so many cult chants and prefer to improv praying directly to God but that’s another rabbit hole.
3a. I don’t feel like I got across how important Mary is to Catholics. Mary in Catholic lore is like a fuckin super saint. She has titles like “Masterwork of God”, “Mother of the Church”, “Queen of Heaven”, Etc. She “appears” to dozens of other people who go on to become Saints. She was prayed to widely during the Black Death, has entire churches devoted to just her, and has a specific shrine in literally every single Catholic church on Earth. In Protestant lore, Mary is not much more than a footnote.
This is getting pretty long winded at this point but you get the idea. This is only the tip of the iceberg with Protestant v Catholic btw, they are astoundingly different in doctrines and practices while believing a lot of the same core bullet points.
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You can jerk off all you want as long as you don’t eat meat on Fridays. But you also have to eat Jesus meat on Sundays.
Its origins in worshiping the fish god “Dagon” are… interesting to say the least.
But it is by far the only example.
Easter is reputedly (I heard - ofc really who knows) the name of a mesopotamian sun god’s wife, where the worshipers would have an orgy with temple priestesses/prostitutes and then the next year do human sacrifices of the babies born from the previous years orgy. Exodus 23:13 be damned (“Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips." emphasis added). Notably, b/c Easter herself was supposedly visited by her dead husband (now the sun god) and in so doing turned a nearby bird into an egg-laying rabbit (or… vice versa? or something?), they would take the blood from the sacrifices and dip eggs into them. To this day the South American celebrations of Easter will only color their eggs red, not pastel as is done in many Western areas… and supposedly they have little idea why - it’s just their tradition started sometime in the past and now mostly forgotten.
And the link between Christmas and the yearly winter solstice - worshipping a tree, the date of December 25, etc. - is very well-known.
If even 1/10th of any of this were true, that would be strong support for what you said - a LOT has been added over time. The Bible itself, even the Old Testament, while it does single out left-handedness as being “odd”, often presents left-handedness as an ADVANTAGE (or strength and riches), or at least not terribly cursed - e.g. Judges 3:15-21, Judges 20:16 1 Chronicles 12:2, etc. Then again, the “tradition” of Catholicism (which I grew up under) is that people should never read the Bible, b/c we are too dum-dumbz to understand it, and the people should trust the priests to
fondle the childrenexplain everything properly.So yeah, you probably are better off, even if you develop a relationship with them as an adult, to have avoided that indirect indoctrination as a child.
Then again, the “tradition” of Catholicism (which I grew up under) is that people should never read the Bible, b/c we are too dum-dumbz to understand it, and the people should trust the priests to
fondle the childrenexplain everything properly.Hmm, what other religion does that remind me of 🤔
but really
!it’s probably a thing in many old and vaguely formulated religions, though!<
It seems so weird to me when people think that their beliefs and practices come from words on a page.
That’s just not how culture works.
It’s a living thing, like language. What we do and what we think it means is passed down, influenced by events and neighbors, sometimes changing slowly over time, sometimes proving incredibly durable, sometimes undergoing rapid mutations.
Christianity doesn’t come from the bible anymore than words come from the dictionary.
why’s he raising his right fist?
Because he’s left-handed and so his right is the free one after he instinctively picked up the sign with his left?
Easy, left handed sign
Sinister and proud of it!
He’s an evangelical Protestant, not a Catholic.
Yeah, but the point is the Lefty solidarity, not his religion.
Grandfather was beaten when he tried to use his left hand in school (Catholic run), father was not beaten but also forced to use right hand in school. I was in kindergarten and the teacher pointed out that ‘we need to fix that’ referring to my left handed writing. My mother must have given her a stern warning because I never heard anything else about it.
The nuns “fixed” my dad and he has the worst handwriting of anyone I know. My mom went to public schools and writes excellently with her left hand.
Both my brother and I are left handed. It boggles my mind when I see people trying to change children’s inborn traits.
Nothing as drastic here, but, my father is left handed and he pushed me to use my right because of how much of the world is designed around right handers. He didn’t use physical force but definitely pushed hard for me to use my left. That could be the reason for my atrocious handwriting.
I was waiting for ‘born/conceived out of wedlock’ and was hit with even more insanity.
Same that came straight out of left field.
On an alt because my brother knows about my main, and I don’t want this attention to come towards my parents and make it to my grandparents [somehow]
Dude, there are like 27 people total on Lemmy. I think he’s going to figure it out. 🤔
/S
There are dozens of us! DOZENS!
Why the /s? I ran into my sister a couple of times already. First time she recognised my nick, second she didn’t and quoted my own comment back to me in real life because it was funny. I just told her to check the username when I recognised it.
Your sister recognised your WHAT?! … Oh, sorry, I read that wrong. Nevermind, carry on.
What are you posting, step-brother?
This is a reddit repost. I know you posted the /s indicator, but just for clarity since this is the top comment, I think it’s worth pointing out.
Just like Trump, religion ruins everything it touches.
I don’t think religion can be blamed for that donkey. He was born and raise as a nutjob and conman
Trump wasn’t even a Christian. He only pretended to be one just to get evangelical votes.
Looking at the bright side, you end up winning by having them away.
Cool. I can scare Catholics.
When I was in high school we had a vice principle who referred to weed as “left handed cigarettes” lol
Had a teacher in school with fucked up looking hands writing. It was because she was left handed, and forced to learn various skills in school with her right hand
Yeah… This is also partly why the dominant (read in church as “sinful”) traits aren’t prevalent, like having 6 fingers on one hand, or webbed hands, or a plethora of other indicators that YOU’RE A WITCH!
I went to a private Catholic school run by nuns prior to highschool. One of my friends was left handed and they forced him to learn to write with his right hand. They always told him it was wrong to use his left hand.
My mom, 90 now, raised by German-American parents in the 30s, swears she was born left handed and was forced to change in kindergarten. Duck those old school superstitions.
That sucks, sorry. I’m left handed and got (still get) teased,but this is over the top. Glad you seam no worse for the wear. Knowing this I would “kill them with kindness” ,but to others in front of them. You clearly are not the devil they think you are, so show them.
