Comic Strips

i call myself a devout agnostic. the justaposition of those words is inherently absurd since part of agnosticism and identifying as such is believing there is value to studying theology even if you yourself don't believe the theologies you're studying because ultimately prior to colonization, religion was how groups of people encoded and passed along their wisdom. however saying "devout agnostic" throws people enough off balance enough to introduce them to these concepts since so many say with their whole chest that they're something when traditionally these terms have meant something else to the people who use them.

for example, an astounding (at least to me) number of people say quakers and unitarians aren't christians. when you dig down on this you often find that this position is rooted in a believe (both positive and negative) that the fundamental mechanism and experience of christianity is trauma. however, when you look at the broader world of religion, you find that that's mostly only Christian denominations rooted in the theologies of the roman empire such as roman catholicism and the various european orthodoxies like Greek and russian. however, the oldest denomination, Ethiopian Orthodox, would i think to the people who say quakers and unitarians aren't christians, seem very unchistian. for that matter, i think so would Native America Christianity, Oriental Orthodox, and Armenianism. (fun fact, the Unitarian church is rooted in Oriental Orthodox, which is either the second or third oldest christian denomination)