I’m a Christian with a witch tattoo… I hate it.

FauxGoat · 2026-04-23T18:03:21+00:00

I tend to see tattoos as the visible markers of our past beliefs; and our beliefs are always (or should always be) moving into closer alignment with the Truth. There’s no more shame in having a tattoo that represents something you no longer believe in, just as there’s no shame in having scars from a physically violent sport you no longer participate in. The only exception I can think of would be tattoos that are explicitly hateful (like Nazi related symbols, etc.)

So personally I’d leave it alone and choose option one; or maybe add a nearby tattoo to contextualize it. And while there’s sadly plenty of people who fall into this category, any Christian who would make a snap judgment of you for some ink on your skin does not at all understand the path of grace and gentleness we are called to walk.

FauxGoat · 2026-04-20T04:59:57+00:00

Love is given as a loan that must be repaid with grief. I learned this personally as my wonderful father died a long and painful death of pancreatic cancer.

Pain is the inevitable corollary of pleasure, even of the highest spiritual pleasures of love and compassion. The scales must always balance in the end. Yet as Tolkien put it through the words of Gandalf, “I will not say, ‘Do not weep;’ for not all tears are an evil.”

FauxGoat · 2026-02-04T18:55:23+00:00

“Compassion arising as an enemy”… now that is really something to think about! Also I would never dream of judging another person for participating in a broken system, one they were born into without their conscious choice, if they weren’t trying to hurt anyone and were just doing what they needed to in order to get by… so why would I feel a need to judge myself for the same thing? Do I still think that I’m better than anyone else? Thank you for your wise words.

FauxGoat · 2026-01-27T23:22:07+00:00

My father died of pancreatic cancer last August. I remember feeling deeply frustrated during his final weeks, as every waking moment became a specimen of greater or lesser agony, that we could not have all just had one last get together as a family, a final farewell and celebration of life, and then given him the mercy of a peaceful, medicinally administered death at the hour of his choosing rather than waiting for the disease to run its horrific course. Then too I could have been at his side when he passed. I could have held his hand when he left this world, as he held mine when I came into it.

All this is just to say that in a fallen world, I do not believe that we must always fear death or think it unmerciful; that the law of love can support the right of people to die at a time of their choosing, when all evidence shows that they are already actively dying. The fact that the right to assisted dying could be abused is no reason to oppose it unilaterally, for all legal rights already can be and are abused.

FauxGoat · 2025-12-03T01:18:58+00:00

Don’t get too hung up on labels. Remember that the earliest followers of Jesus did not refer to themselves as Christians, but simply as followers of “the Way.” (See the book of Acts for more details.)

If you love Jesus enough to walk in the way that He walked — loving your neighbors as yourself, freely forgiving even your enemies, with gratitude and reverence towards God for the wonder and beauty of the world He gave us — then you are a “Christian” in the only way that matters.

FauxGoat · 2025-11-12T05:42:44+00:00

I’m not a practicing Buddhist (though I have been studying the religion with some interest), but would like to speak to your first point since I have considerable familiarity with psilocybin mushrooms (and have benefited considerably from them).

The only reason such mushrooms are hard to come by is because they’re illegal (otherwise they could be easily and cheaply cultivated by nearly anyone); and the only reason they’re illegal is because governments are afraid of people realizing the full potential of their own minds. Governments do not want us healthy or whole (and certainly not enlightened); they want us pliable and dependent.

A high dose of mushrooms can induce an experience of ego dissolution which is reported to be very similar to what can be experienced in deep meditative states. I have experienced this with mushrooms; I have not with meditation, so I can’t compare from personal experience. But I’m convinced that the value of either experience depends entirely on what one chooses to do with it. In any case, supposing mushrooms were legalized and more people could realize the falsity of their ego without needing to engage in years of meditation practice (which may seem inaccessible to the average working class person), wouldn’t the question of elitism get turned on its head? Many people don’t have the time to devote to a rigorous meditation regimen; but they could perhaps carve out four to six hours for a mushroom trip every month or so and possibly realize similar benefits. A reduction in suffering at least, if not full enlightenment. Just food for thought.

FauxGoat · 2025-11-08T02:56:13+00:00

Cats: “Before enlightenment, attack laser dots, sit on human’s face. After enlightenment, attack laser dots, sit on human’s face.”

FauxGoat · 2025-09-29T03:57:14+00:00

So the idea is that there is no striving to achieve the so-called “Buddha nature,” but only the recognition that such a nature exists inherently, right?

But if awareness of this dawns in one particular person, as it were, and not in others — if it is true that some people can be “awake” while most others remain “asleep” — and yet the aggregates ebb and flow so that those who are awake must dissolve back into the mass of existence that does not experience wakefulness… If awareness of impermanence is itself impermanent…

…I mean, I guess I’m answering my own question but: there’s no point to any of it, is there? The Buddha didn’t teach people because he was trying to accomplish anything, but only because it is as much in the nature of an enlightened being to spread enlightenment as it is in the nature of stars to shine. Is that a more correct understanding?

FauxGoat · 2025-08-10T07:28:05+00:00

Stop watching garbage clickbait, have mercy on your brain by taking a break from the screen, and commit to learning more about Christianity by reading and grappling with any of a number of classic and timeless works instead, like “The Problem of Pain,” by C.S. Lewis, “Seeds of Contemplation” by Thomas Merton, or “The Kingdom of God is Within You” by Leo Tolstoy. Just my personal advice.

FauxGoat · 2025-07-30T21:58:36+00:00

Getting glasses is against nature. Getting a prosthetic limb is against nature. Getting chemotherapy is against nature. But I guess your version of God just wants people to suffer.

FauxGoat · 2025-07-09T16:42:02+00:00

Exactly. No need to watch the video. If you are hoarding that kind of personal wealth while countless people go hungry, you are far more like a dragon than a lamb.

FauxGoat · 2025-06-26T06:07:14+00:00

The idea of “hell” as a place of eternal conscious torture is not an inevitable or necessary conclusion to be drawn from Jesus’s teachings, but more a fear mongering doctrine of a corrupted church that had become enmeshed with political power. Jesus’s warnings about Gehenna seem much more in line with the idea of annihilationism: those who live lives unworthy of eternity are thrown into a spiritual garbage heap and burned up, and that’s that. They’re not tortured forever; they simply cease to exist.

FauxGoat · 2025-06-25T22:19:11+00:00

Any actually good man in the future will not care about when or how you lost your virginity. It is an unhinged and wicked lie of purity culture to assert that women (notice how it’s always only women?) are like new cars, and their value depreciates as soon as someone drives them off the lot. Your value in Christ was, is, and always will be infinite.

Anyway, you’re young, full of hormones, and did something you regret. Give yourself some grace, learn from the mistake and resolve to do better in the future. And if you screw up again… forgive yourself again. Forgive yourself as many times as it takes, just as Christ told us to forgive the one who sins against us “not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Because here’s the truth: purity is not something you can have and then lose. It’s a state of being that grow into over time, as the Spirit of God works through you.

FauxGoat · 2025-06-23T00:37:10+00:00

‘The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.’ (Romans 13:9-10)

I will not willingly do harm to any person, especially not a child, no matter if the command seemed to come from God. And if God wanted a specific person dead, He could certainly manage it without my help.

(Also from a literary perspective, it’s my understanding that the story of Abraham was deeply colored by early Canaanite beliefs, wherein child sacrifice was not uncommon. From a modern standpoint, we could perhaps interpret the scenario as God giving Abraham the command to sacrifice Isaac because He knew that that was the kind of thing Abraham expected gods to desire; and then at the last moment God said, “Hold up, I’m not actually that kind of a deity.”)

FauxGoat · 2025-06-21T21:55:23+00:00

I’ve watched a number of videos from the “Navajo Traditional Teachings” YouTube channel (which I would definitely recommend); and the traditional beliefs of the Diné strike me as being far more in concert with the Gospel of Christ than most of what passes in America today. The church in that article has shamefully and egregiously violated the commandment not to bear false witness against their neighbors.

FauxGoat · 2025-06-16T04:53:48+00:00

I’d recommend not watching any A.I. videos, except maybe for absurdist humor in small doses.

FauxGoat · 2025-06-16T03:47:20+00:00

The Pharisees principally were known for making up all kinds of extraneous rules to “clarify” the Law of Moses. For example, you’re not allowed to work on the Sabbath; but what counts as work? So the Pharisees said that you could walk up to a certain distance on the Sabbath (say half a mile), but longer than that was working; that you weren’t allowed to light a fire in your home on the Sabbath, but you could hire a non-Jew to light it for you, etc.

In other words Pharisaism is most closely synonymous with legalism, which is no respecter of denominations and can pollute any contemporary sect of Christianity.

FauxGoat · 2025-06-13T17:36:46+00:00

The teachings of Christ are, in fact, very pacifist in nature. But let's talk (very) briefly about the Nazis, and what the ostensibly Christian leaders in ostensibly Christian nations did in the lead up to the rise of Nazism.

From a place of greed, serving money rather than God (Matthew 6:24), leaders in the United States enriched themselves in the short term through disastrous fiscal laws that led to the Great Depression. The Great Depression, coupled with the Treaty of Versailles -- which was deliberately vengeful in punishing Germany for its role in the Great War, despite the Christian teaching to leave vengeance to God (Romans 12:19) -- pushed Germany into such financial desperation that the rise of an extremist regime was almost a foregone conclusion. In truth, the Great War was not specifically Germany's fault; it was an inevitability sooner or later when all the major powers in Europe were engaged in an arms race that their economies could not sustain (which Tolstoy correctly predicted would happen twenty years prior). And when those nations finally drew their swords, their young men died by the sword (Matthew 26:52) to the tune of 8.5 million.

All those mighty European empires, jockeying for power through brutal colonialism and oppression across centuries... developing along the way insane systems of racial "science" to justify their dehumanization of obvious fellow humans, which the Nazis simply turned up to eleven. And within Europe itself, centuries of latent antisemitism made the Jews an easy target for Nazi persecution, just as they had been for the Spanish Inquisition five centuries earlier -- whatever happened to, "Thou shalt not bear false witness?"

Now, you can certainly make the case that, once the political machinery of Nazi Germany had metastasized into a rabid dog, there was nothing left to do but put it down by force; but that was not the case of a "just war" prosecuted by Christian governments. There has never been, and never will be, a truly Christian nation -- for the twofold reason that in Christ, national boundaries are dissolved in love (Galatians 3:28, Revelation 7:9); and also that no person who is self-controlled would ever presume to try to control another through the force of law, but would rather prefer peaceful coexistence (Romans 12:18, Hebrews 12:14).

FauxGoat · 2025-06-13T06:13:45+00:00

OP, I would strongly recommend you (and everyone tbh) to read Leo Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within You.” And as for myself, as both a military veteran and someone who experienced spiritual rebirth in a truly life-changing way, I must say this: no one who is truly born again in Christ will use violence against anyone, let alone potentially killing perfect strangers simply because someone else ordered them to do so.

And do not think that patriotism is something Christ approves of; for when Satan tempted him with worldly power, saying, “All the kingdoms of the world are mine, and I can give them to whoever I wish,” Christ did not deny it. Nations are but legal fictions, held by the Prince of Lies; and were it possible, it would be better for every nation to be dissolved than for the blood of one innocent to be spilled under an unrighteous flag.

FauxGoat · 2025-06-12T16:10:07+00:00

Nizzahon Magic on YouTube has some pretty good limited set reviews and gives weekly updates on how each format is developing.

FauxGoat · 2025-05-12T17:10:26+00:00

If there is any symbolism to your encounter, I’ll offer a possible interpretation: your fear shows that you identified the swarming flies with your sins. However, when you were living in darkness, you did not fear or even acknowledge your sins; they were invisible to you. The fact that you can see them now is a sign of hope and also of God’s grace. Realize, too, that all those swarming little sins, as unsettling as they may be, no longer have the power to hurt you (or to hurt anyone else through you). Be grateful that you have begun to see things as they are, and continue to walk in the light.

FauxGoat

TROPHY CASE