just a selkie in the sea

(I also go by Liz)

avatar by @PotechiPon on twitter


Calvinism's conception of human relationships also differed significantly from those of other worldviews. Pagans, who believed that God dwelled only in certain people, worshiped those with outstanding talents and enslaved those with limited abilities. Muslims oppressed women and Catholics devised a hierarchical system of relationships among persons. Modernists aimed to treat all individuals identically, an action that would eliminate diversity and thus impoverish life. Calvinists and evangelical Christians generally, however, considered males and females, rich and poor, weak and strong, all to be fallen creatures of God. No group could properly dominate another because people stood as equals before God and thus as equals among themselves. Because the only distinctions among people that Calvinists recognized were those given by God in assigning talents and civil authority, they condemned all slave and caste systems as well as all covert enslavement of women and the poor; yet they encouraged variety and individuality.

what planet do you live on

...I just want to talk

(Gary Scott Smith, The Seeds of Secularization: Calvinism, Culture, and Pluralism in America, 1870-1915, 1985)


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in reply to @JhoiraArtificer's post:

everyone is equal before g-d except for the ways g-d made some people superior to other people. but nobody is superior except because g-d made them superior. so everyone is equal actually. unlike the muslims. who oppressed people. but didn't do so out of a belief that g-d did that.

Well if you believe there are no hierarchies but what g-d made and that g-d made everything and assigned all the categories and attributes and merits to every individual to the degree of being predestined for heaven or hell then any hierarchies that exist must be g-d ordained it's a total tautology!!

it's all just waves hands I want to understand it because I really think secularized Calvinism is so foundational to understanding modern American society and then also there's... this

which as it goes isn't even enraging so much as just baffling, I guess