fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2291 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2291 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 020 secrets from Secret Submission Post #327.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Why is believing you are a wolf so much more absurd than believing you will become the god of your own planet when you're dead? You're trying to paint one of these things as normal and the other as beyond-the-pale bizarre, but not giving any reason for the distinction.

Why are you still trying to press this?

Religion/spirituality is a rather old thing. It appears to be more or less a constant in human history.

"I am a wolf, no, for real, follow my tumblr for insight into my lupine soul" is a relatively recent development largely dependent on the internet as a means of connecting disparate people who believe they are actually animals or elves or dragons. It also doesn't seem to have a spiritual component for most of those who feel that way.

If you cannot see a difference between these things then you have very little depth.

Edited 2013-04-12 00:29 (UTC)

Shit, that went through un-anon. What are my chances of you respecting my desire not to be excoriated by the Troll Posse and laughed out of the comm? I'm not the OP of the secret, btw.

"Why are you still trying to press this?"

...Because we were having a conversation, and you made a statement that I felt needed clarification? Is that not how this discussion thing works?

I don't see why "it's old" makes one idea acceptable and the other laughable, if they're both unsubstantiated and silly when taken on their merits.

I also don't know what you mean when you say it doesn't have a spiritual component. Any "soul," whether "lupine" or otherwise, is a spiritual concept.

(I don't want to laugh anyone out of the comm!)

I guess my feelings are that I'm trying to steer clear of wank and people are so willing to start it; starting religious wank in an otherkin thread is kind of stretching it in a way the CS Lewis stuff yesterday was not. I don't see religion and otherkin as really comparable in anything but a vague sense. One is an important cultural touchstone, the other one is a fad on the internet.

Belief in a "soul" is spiritual. I was talking more an organized, coherent metaphysics sense. I probably shouldn't have used that word.

Frankly I think you were trying to back me into insulting religious people by comparing them to otherkin because you think it makes a point. I don't like that.

Edited 2013-04-12 01:38 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not trying to "back you into" anything, or force you to insult anyone -- if anything, kind of the opposite. I don't understand why mean-spirited mockery of one group of people with unfounded beliefs is okay when others with beliefs that are just as unfounded get a pass, and it makes me uncomfortable to see anyone subjected to that kind of derision when they're not actually hurting anyone. We may find the beliefs of otherkin silly, but I don't understand the hate -- especially from people who will staunchly defend other people's beliefs in things that seem just as odd when examined on their merits.

I guess, here's my issue: I can understand wanting to respect a belief that holds major emotional significance for a person or group of people. And I can understand wanting to point and laugh at beliefs that are silly and unrealistic. But I can't understand treating one set of beliefs one way and another set of beliefs the other way, with what strike me as fairly arbitrary distinctions between the two. At least, distinctions that have nothing to do with the merits of the beliefs themselves.

It's telling that the original secret didn't mention religion but compared themselves to POC experiencing racism, and yet there are more comments saying 'lol, religious people though' than pointing out that this is a completly false comparison.

Well, here's the thing: basically every single human society in the history of forever has believed in gods or supernatural spirits that control the universe. This is normal to human existence itself. Faith is as normal as love is.

Now, when you talk about otherkin, you're talking about something new entirely. Religious people--for the most part--talk about things they do not experience and do not feel and simply assume. They don't say "I think I'm part god"--anyone who says that would receive the same amount of ridicule, even though gods are a normal part of human society. In fact, they often do. I'm sure you've heard of ill people who believe they are Jesus.

Otherkin is simply more ridiculous than religion. It doesn't mean otherkin is actually less true than some other religion (or less fake, if that works better). It just means it's sillier.

"They don't say "I think I'm part god"--anyone who says that would receive the same amount of ridicule, even though gods are a normal part of human society. "

Well, unless you happen to be pantheist, panentheist, subscribe to certain mystical views about the Holy Spirit, pagan, or some flavors of Hinduism and Buddhism. But then, "I'm part god" isn't anything special, because so, potentially, is everything else in the world.

Actually, they would still ridicule you for thinking you're Krishna incarnate or the Buddha came back again or if you are actually the one, true deity or something.

Because there's actually a huge difference between 'we are spiritually linked' and 'I'm part god'.

Actually, they would still ridicule you for thinking you're Krishna incarnate ...

Didn't write anything close to that

... or the Buddha came back again ...

or that

... or if you are actually the one, true deity or something.

or that either.

But to say that we are all Brahman, Goddess and God, Buddha, or guided by the Holy Spirit are relatively uncontroversial statements in theology.

I know you weren't saying that. I'm saying that *I* was, in a sense. I wasn't talking about the spiritual state of the universe, I was saying calling yourself part-god would make anyone from any religion raise their eyebrows unless you are Pharaoh.

There are more than a few fundamental issues with this. First, pretty much since science became a thing, there have been more than a few people who didn't believe in gods or supernatural spirits that control the universe. So no, it's not universal. It's not any more normal to human existence than believing in unicorns.

I'll give you that faith is normal, but the thing is, this person has faith too, just because it's different from what you've been conditioned to accept as normal doesn't actually mean that it's not.

The belief that some humans contain within themselves the spirit of animals is ancient. The term otherkin isn't, and I'm sure that there are a fair number of kids who just want to be special little snowflakes on the internet making this their niche. But, the idea, the core concept is very old and has been a part of many religions. I fail to see how it's any less valid than any other religious belief, and all I've seen in these threads so far, is that other religious beliefs are old and this one's shiny and new. Well, it's not, so what's your excuse to single this group of people out and ridicule them now.

I see in later comments that you clarify the "I'm part God," comment, but I almost find that more baffling. How is my belief (and this is my belief) that each of us holds a piece of the divine within ourselves any less weird than someone's belief that they hold an animal spirit within themselves.

All that said, I think that there are issues with the secret. I think that the myth and legend of werewolves is a very different thing from the belief that you carry an animal spirit or soul. Which means that pretending that Teen Wolf or something is a gross perpetuation of stereotypes against someone who does believe that, similar to the treatment of women or POCs in media can be, is ridiculous to say the least. I think I need to sleep now; I'm afraid that last sentence didn't actually make sense.

[ SECRET POST #2291 ]

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