I do not believe in God nearly as much as I believe in mai waifu, who is a fictional character alright.
God exists to the extent that it changes your life. So do waifus.

I'm not, but I'm curious to see the replies of those who are.

Pic related is an influence on my religiousness.
Probably her and Dostoyevsky are the causes I believe in God.

>>13428
>Probably her and Dostoyevsky are the causes I believe in God.
Care to elaborate on that? I'm interested.

Of course.
At the ending of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov (the protagonist) confesses his crime partly becouse of the influence of Sonya who is very religious. He is taken to Siberia and Sonya follows him. Even though he's in the wold's harshest environment, he still has hope because Sonya is with him (and also becouse he believes in Christ and the afterlife) Sonya kind of reminds me of Rei in that she might never leave me.
I also read "The Grand Inquisitor" but that's harder to explain.
And well I often tend to overlap Rei and religiousness, partly becouse she is Lilith, an ancient goddess and all that. Her last monologue in EoE also made an impact on me.
This will sound like the ultimate blasphemy but I often draw parallols between Christ and Rei in that they both died and resurrected, protected mankind and gave hope to the world, and to me.
I hope i don't go to hell for this (joking)

I do have religion and it doesn't get in the way on having a waifu as I do not think about the conflicts over the ideas.

>>13431
Well, I think we share some concerns alright (and I take them deadly seriously too).

>Raskolnikov (the protagonist) confesses his crime partly becouse of the influence of Sonya who is very religious.
Partly yeah. But, from my reading, Rodion finally confessing his crime (moreover, to consider it a crime at all) was not pushed from any external influence but, instead, the result of a profoundly intimate process that religious people experience as God's presence. I mean: that woman he killed was a horrendous person, cruel and abusive; no authority was really after him and no observer who knew the old bitch was going to blame him; therefore, what Rodion experienced was not shame, before Sonya or anyone out there, but guilt (key here: Guilt society vs Shame society). It was not up to society to punish (and thus redeem) him, but up to himself: he absolutely had to be the one who'd punish himself because the approval he needed was from something within himself. This is, I think, the very distinction between a moral problem and an ethical one, and I do think christian nomic content (Commandments and such) duels right in-between this quasi-dialectic opposition; I mean: that the God whom the religious search redemption from is not an external but inner entity (very much à la Jung, with his notion of Self)... and that very -very- much works like my concept of a waifu.

TL;DR: There's absolutely no abuse in considering the waifu a functional deity, either for a believer or for an atheist. It's so damned well founded is ridiculous how good it works.

Post edited on 22nd Sep 2013, 10:52pm

>>13431
>And well I often tend to overlap Rei and religiousness, partly becouse she is Lilith
Well, yeah: she's the sort of vis motiva of Lilith within the Evangelion world. But, at symbolic level, I'm still not so sure about it. Since this is a thread about religious views, allow me to share a little resume on the kabbalistic Lilith (from my own freelance studies, at least):

In the Zohar is told that Adam Kadmon was created together with Lilith, from the very same material (red clay; therefore Lilith's usual redhaired depictions) as a picture of God's own dual nature: (secret name of) God = male / Shekhinah (fruit of knowledge, origin of difference) = female. i.e. God is initially a hermaphrodite entity, whose split (according with Isaac Luria) was an accident: a consequence of the same process of creating the universe by which God (who existed as Ein Sof, the unbounded) gave birth to otherness as an attempt to "know" (i.e "form a picture of") himself. Anyway, the story tells that Adam and Lilith used to copulate but, unlike the other animal females, she wanted to be on top during sex, that is, to have the chance to lead as well since they were created equals; neither God nor Adam accepted it, and Lilith angrily flew away from the Garden of Eden (giving ground to a vast tradition of jewish demonology). Lilith thus symbolizes the female who, armed with knowledge, forsakes man, his world and her role as his partner in order to find (or build) her own self. Therefore, Lilith cannot ever, ever, be a woman who longs to reunite with man.

Moreover: it was only after Lilith's runaway that God said his famous “It is not good for man to be alone” and decided to create Eve, but now from Adam's rib. So, rather than a true woman (which would be Lilith), Eve could be labeled as the very first andreïde (term coined by Villiers De L'Isle-Adam, precisely, in L'Eve Future): an artificial female made out of man, not just physically but also in the sense that she was made in the image of man's concepts and expectations about femininity as an appropriate partner for him: a man's fair lady, whose existence begins and finishes within man and his wishes. Eve is either a slave (czech roboti) or a walking ghost (german doppelgänger): a personification of a man's beloved (greek eromenos); the hope for man to find love and have a future, but never for her to be free and have a future for herself... much like Rei.

TL;DR: Rei is more like the kabbalistic Eve, who is a hell of a lot like a schematic waifu alright.

>>13431
That insight of Rei as trinity looks fascinating.
Please elaborate on that too, if you don't mind.

>but never for her to be free and have a future for herself... much like Rei.
Rei is indeed created from man and by man, she also appears submissive and obedient willing to obey man's every whim. It very easy to take Rei as a metaphor or an allegory of Eve based on this superficial traits, but she is in fact, the opposite of Eve. She rejects Gendo (man) and goes to live on her own outside the earth (Eden) like Lilith. She refuses to be used as a tool by man and instead she chooses to follow her own path. Visual imagery through EoE also help to reinforce her Lilith-likenesses: She lies on top of Shinji during instrumentality.

>>13435
As for the insight on Rei's trinity...

I didn't make that picture, I just found it and saved it since I thought the same as you: it certainly looked fascinating.

I was thinking all day what to make of that picture and my conclusion is that just as there are 3 persons on one God, there are 3 persons on Rei's soul. The holy trinity states that there are three "personalities" in God or 3 persons but they are all made of the same essence or the same soul so to speak, very much like Rei.
There are 3 "Rei's throughout the series. They have different personalities, but personalities are just a mask, a facade that we use to relate with others. All three Rei's have the same essence.
No matter how many times she dies and no matter what personality she adopts, she will always have the same essence, the same soul, which makes her "Rei"

Those were my thoughts on the subject. They seem to be all over the place , but I'm sure you'll find some sense

>>13441
Those are very good points, thank you.

>>13442
I see. It's ok, I had never considered it myself, maybe cause I went wit the usual thing about Kaworu being like the functional Jesus and such. But I will give it more thought sometime.

I know it's hard: Evangelion is so damned (but deliciously) mixed up that it's almost impossible to find any clean usage of references. For example, I went to great lengths trying to find some connection (dialectic, opposition, complementation: fucking anything) between the Dead Sea Scrolls and The Zohar; I found nothing, except from a radical difference in the operative exegesis of each cult but unrelated with the series. In the end, of course, all religious references serve as mythology (in the best sense of the word: as archetypes of behavior, as in greek epics) and the only sure thing is that all characters are facets of Anno's version of his own fucked up head.

cool eva thread

>>13447
It was to be expected. It'd be very interesting if people with waifus from other series with strong religious or theological concerns (Ergo Proxy, Lain, Madoka, GITS,...) come to participate as well.

Post edited on 23rd Sep 2013, 10:16pm

I would never merge religion with my waifu. In fact, I wouldn't discuss it at all, unless she brings up her own religion and so long it doesn't harm her or brainwashed by some sort of cult, I wouldn't mind following her religion anyway. Although I am quite agnostic, so it's not likely I am going to force my 'supposed' religion on my waifu. And it is highly unlikely that waifu is going to be religious, especially Christianity, where idolatry is frowned upon.

>>13449
Idolatry is kind of encouraged in Catholicism

>>13452
Ah that's true. I was just thinking of the hardcore fundamental ones back then.

I'm a Christian. And if her cross pendant means anything, she is too.

I don't think there's a problem with having a waifu in Christianity so long as she doesn't become an object of idolatry or lust.

Although I know I won't meet her in the afterlife. Even if she was real, the Bible says there will be no marriages in heaven.

I consider myself celibate/a eunuch anyway, so I'm sure Jesus is okay with everything.

>>13486
Wouldn't a lot of the things that go on in anime in general go against Christianity?

>>13487
Just against mindless takes on Christianity, I'd say.

>>13441
>She... goes to live on her own outside the earth
Just a friendly reminder: the soul in Eva 01 that flew away from Earth was Yui, not Rei, and she actually flew away with Gendo (fulfiling his sole desire to reunite with her). Rei did reject Gendo but she stayed in the Earth, omnipresent, disseminated in the LCL (i.e. in every living being) after Lilith's fall.

This is only tangentially related, but after reading the Wikipedia article on Gnosticism I had the perturbing thought that 3D females are mere shadows of "real", pure 2D females.

>>13576
>3D females are mere shadows of "real", pure 2D females.
That relates indeed with the old dispute between materialism and idealism: which one is the real one, the world reported by our (deceiving) senses, or the one attainable through our (defective) intellect? The current state of the art is to conclude that reality is merely a construct; that fiction predates experience and not the other way around.