It's okay to be gay every day.
But don't play gay during a mayday.

A friend of mine found this somewhere in the net. It's a love letter (translated from old Anglisc to modern English) from one twelfth-century nun to another nun:

And another letter from a different nun to her own darling:

( 灬☉.☉ 灬)

(ღˇ◡ˇ)~♡ ♡ ♡

Nunneries were the all-girls schools of the dark ages. lol

last edited at May 10, 2019 3:31PM

^^Again, I'm disappointed at myself for not crying.

It's even sadder when you remember that these women actually believed they'd go to hell for these letters.

last edited at May 10, 2019 3:32PM

It's even sadder when you remember that these women actually believed they'd go to hell for these letters.

I think middle age nuns have more nuanced theological beliefs than the average church going American. In the middle ages religion was a philosophical study for nuns, not some sort of dogma handed down by the most charismatic pastor.

Before science, religion was science. Monks and nuns were the ones who sought the truth critically through the lens of religion. Even if they decry it as a sin, it's a bit different than simply "do this and go to hell".

One day our current scientific theories will seem quint and outdated. Just like how Einstein replaced Newton, even things we currently hold to be absolutely true, like the theory of evolution might be supplemented by a more general and advanced theory. When that happens we don't want future generations to think we dogmatically believed in things like evolution right? What we believed in is the pursuit of truth, not any one theory.

Similarly, I think you should rest easy thinking that what these nuns sought was not dogma in religion, but truth in a uncertain world.

That's a funny way of saying they were super religious and dogmatic.
Because that's what they were, no matter what your idea of proto-science may be lol

You seem to be more of an expert on medieval religious practice than people who actually lived during that time and deigned to write down their experiences. Religion is not science. It does not allow for "outdated" and "updated" stuff (the West is just slowly shedding its religious idiocy and that's why all the rules keep loosening). Especially not in the goddamn middle ages.

The truth nuns and priests sought out was all in the name and view of god. Mendel might have laid the foundation for genetic biology, but he also still believed women were inferior, god would punish anyone who ate meat on the Sabbath and judged men for sodomy.

I guess you kind of have a romanticized view of those dark times. There is literally nothing good about the middle ages. You better believe that these nuns knew 100% they would go to hell. They might have justified it away, but not because of some "truth", but because humans always try to escape punishment. Until Martin Luther himself appeared to split the church into two large sects, nobody ever dared to question either the bible nor the way the church did things.

In summary: Religion is all about keeping its followers stupid, gullible and afraid. It is simply unrealistic to believe that nuns were anywhere brave or intelligent enough back then to question their shitty dogma.

EDIT: Why does this always happen to me? At some point one has to wonder if these posts are just voices in my head...

last edited at May 10, 2019 5:01PM

You know BugDevil, I really do understand what you are saying. I don't just have a romantic view of the middle ages, I have a romantic view of everything.

Which is why I deleted my post. Because I just want everyone to get along. Not get into arguments. I really wasn't trying to argue with you, but I thought maybe someone might misunderstand, so I deleted it.

last edited at May 10, 2019 5:14PM

You know BugDevil, I really do understand what you are saying. I don't just have a romantic view of the middle ages, I have a romantic view of everything.

Which is why I deleted my post. Because I just want everyone to get along. Not get into arguments. I really wasn't trying to argue with you, but I thought maybe someone might misunderstand, so I deleted it.

Welp, romance is nice. And medieval times especially get romanticized regularily (good old knights, princesses and dragons). Religion is just a topic where I don't like to ignore how bad it really is. I think especially on a site like this that is understandable.

If it means anything, I didn't want to argue either. Especially not against you. I saw it more as a correction of the facts.

I agree. I totally understand BugDevil.

Facts aren't going to get in my way of enjoying lesbian nuns though.

I agree. I totally understand BugDevil.

Facts aren't going to get in my way of enjoying lesbian nuns though.

Even better, that they were lesbians and in love is a fact. They expressed their love despite knowing the consequences and personally, I find that far more romantic~

last edited at May 10, 2019 5:46PM

I agree. I totally understand BugDevil.

Facts aren't going to get in my way of enjoying lesbian nuns though.

Even better, that they were lesbians and in love is a fact. They expressed their love despite knowing the consequences and personally, I find that far more romantic~

Pfft, it couldn't possibly have been love, nobody even asked for nudes.

This all reminds me of that visual novel series that takes place in a christian(?) girl's school. Flowers, or something like that.

Medieval scholars are notably resistant to recognizing LGBT+ people in history, and will do their best to explain them away. That includes real people like Eleanor Rykener and fictional ones like Silence.

Medieval scholars are notably resistant to recognizing LGBT+ people in history, and will do their best to explain them away. That includes real people like Eleanor Rykener and fictional ones like Silence.

This is really cool. I'm definitely gonna see if I can find the translation of the poem that they recommended. Thanks for sharing!

They always existed and will always exist. It's part of human nature.

The church was always good at destroying everything that didn't fit their world view. We are damn lucky that they decided to assimilate Norse and Celtic religions and thus preserved some of those ancient texts or otherwise all these amazing legends would only exist by word of mouth today. We know that other cultures didn't fare so well...

^ Well... religions do have a tendency to assimilate aspects of other religions in order to gain converts quicker. For example, that's part of why the French had more success in converting Native Americans than the English and Dutch did. Some consequences can be seen today in, for example, how Christian Slavic people celebrate Christmas Eve: burning a yule log (most commonly oak) at a great collective fire at the nearest church, monastery, temple or basilica. This tradition is very non-Christian one, rooted in the Slavic paganism of our ancient and early medieval ancestors. Back during the 5th through 11th centuries, places like forests and marshes were revered, and often associated with the Slavic pantheon of gods. On the winter soltice, many families and clans would gather to an open area within a forest or near a forest or at the banks of a marsh. Throughout the day, they'd take whatever dry trunk or branch or piece of wood they could, preferably with some equally dry leaves still on them. Not too long before sunset, they'd set some of them into a pire, and light them up. From then on, they'd just throw all the pieces of wood they gathered over the day into the fire, and this would continue until the last of the families and clans going to that sacret open-place throw their yule logs into the embers of the fire. This was basically an offering to Perun and the other gods. Though virtually all Slavs converted to Christianity, this tradition continued, and was even made cannon by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Bosnians today are majority Muslim, tho, so I don't know if they still have a similar tradition or not. Though I am atheist, I'm still following tradition, and go every year on 6th January with my parents and younger brother to throw our yule log into the fiery embers of the yule pire. I have to wonder, before the Proto-Slavs, did the Proto-Balto-Slavs, Proto-Satem and Proto-Indo-Europeans have similar, precursor traditions to yule pires? That I have no way to know, but it may be possible.

Google is your friend if you really care enough.

^ OK, I did find something rather interesting. While I'm still uncertain if the (Balto-)Slavic yule pire had predeceding traditions, I found something that some Proto-Slavs and Proto-Balto-Slavs did believe that the fire burning the wood was seen as a newly born god killing the old yule, who wanted to bring chaos into the Universe, a belief that stemmed from the Proto-Indo-European myth of a great serpent trying to usher chaos each year, only to be thwarted and defeated by a great serpentkiller. This Proto-Indo-European myth may be a common ancestor of this and similar myths down the line, like the Norse myth of Ragnarok. Many other Slavs believed the yules to be the embodiment of the gods, especially those closely associated with forests, and didn't treat the yules as dead trees, but as living people, giving them wheat, wine and honey, before burning them in the pire, which these Slavs saw as the gods within the yules dying, only to be instantly resurrected by the ash fuming upwards from the fire into the air. In addition, there were similar traditions amongst other Indo-European peoples, some of which still survive into today, in places like England, France, Germany, Italy, Albania and Greece. The old Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism (the real life basis for the Faith of R'hlor in Game of Thrones) had a huge emphasis on fire. Even though it's not clear whether Proto-Indo-Europeans had yule pires, it goes without saying (and y'all will probably jokingly and insultfully call me Captain Obvious for it) that the Proto-Indo-European religion was the precursor to many religions accross the Old World. The Hittite Teshub, Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter, Germanic Thunor, Norse Thor, Slavic Perun, Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda and Proto-Indo-Aryan Dyaus-Pitar are probably different offshoots of an original "sky-father" in the Proto-Indo-European religion.

Ok.

To those who have read my essay-posts and found them boring: sorry for boring you.

last edited at May 11, 2019 8:47AM

Well what you posted is no different from just copy-pasting a Wiki article. Then you also repeated obvious things and didn't put a single line break in there. It's not very appealing to read.
I'd equate it to a history teacher reading a passage from the textbook for 20 minutes. It gets the job done, but those who aren't already very into the topic will be staring at their phones after half a minute.

^ Fair. And it's truly no wonder why my only hope for sharing some of the many history topics with people my age would be if the class misbehaves, so the teacher punishes them by havingme hold a history lesson... Maybe people would be more interested if I used an approach similar to the YouTubers 'Oversimplified', 'Tooky History', and to a lesser extent 'Feature History' and the late 'brain4breakfast' (rest in peace, F): keeping it as short, interesting as something so complex can be, while also adding some humor?

If you do it in text form, at least make distinctive paragraphs. Even a shitty writer like me knows those basics. Flow of consciousness is never good form.

last edited at May 11, 2019 11:35AM

If you do it in text form, at least make distinctive paragraphs.

... How come I can make it work for someone else's video series that I'm turning into books, but not for something that I write in my own words? Lol

Been a week since the elections and another 5 years of worthless politicians stealing everyone's money.
Also, fraud and no one gives a shit? Yaaaaay I love my country!
Depression level still at 300% someone end me.

^ I'm honestly very curious about what country is it in question.

last edited at May 14, 2019 4:20PM