The whole world seems to be under delusion. Revelations 13 seems to be happening as they tell people they can't buy, sell or travel unless they do a certain something. All our governments have rapidly moved into totalitarianism. Hell I used to warn about the Fema camps in 2003 on conspiracy boards, and Australia, Austria and Germany have them set up for people. Yeah what am I supposed to think? I was right about 9-11, then they were starting to clamp down but now they are busily building the matrix for the Great Reset and the "Internet of Bodies".
One thing I am noticing is the people who are awake about this Covid garbage, even if they are not necessarily religious or of my background are asking questions like why are our leaders [aka parasites] so evil? Why have they taken things so far? Why did they do insane bullshit like the gain of function stuff that led us to this place? Why is the world acting as one in the insanity? Why is there no 'safe' country to run to? Some have theorized to me Mexico and Romania would be safer. Others think China is fighting WWIII, and we already lost, full of mRNA ticking timebombs in everyone that took it and only the West is screwed.
That part freaks me out the most because when I was a fundamentalist, I would go on and on about the "one world government" and "one world religion" and even wrote articles about how the "great awakening" would be fake, and bring in the Antichrist. There were conspiracy people who believed it would be used to bring down world governments so a one world government joined by the UN would take full charge.
Usually when people deconvert, they are so fed up with religion, and God, they may even bounce to complete atheism. It makes sense. I went into agnosticism, but now think there is a God/Source but he's not as cruel, blood and sacrificing demanding as the fundamentalist/evangelical Christian god. I am still technically a Universalist that sees truth in other world religions such as Native American religions and the Sikhs. I still think hell is sociopathic and like the ultimate human revenge fantasy projected onto God. I still like many of Jesus's core teachings. A lot was add-ons by those desiring power.
More and more I believe the world religions are controlled by the top, no church is perfect not even my own. I read some really weird stuff, always had that strange Aspie interest in religion and esotericism, maybe it's gotten me into trouble. I have been reading up on Gnosticism, archons and those who believe this world is a prison planet and those exposing the Saturn Cube cult. I also have been reading books on Native American spirituality.
Religiously I know I am an odd bird. I am too autistic to do religion right. For most neurotypicals it is a social affair, to be with like-minded people and mold themselves into the group and find happiness in it. They do well in it. Some people have found a lot of purpose in the positive sides of religion. This applies to me in the UU.
For me the main objective was always to find out what was TRUE. At this point in the game, I think I have admitted my many limitations, and that certainty is impossible on such a complex planet and on a little piece of 2 trillion galaxies in the knowable universe. I can't go with a God that punishes people over not getting every little belief right on a check list.
There's probably not many Unitarian Universalists wondering if Revelations 13 is coming true or if they will be joining the other dissenters in the camps. If there is another Unitarian Universalist who by some chance sees this and reads what I have to say and questions the Covid narrative too, come talk to me. Spiritually as a UU, I don't want the creeps invading the human genome and destroying my life, and as I wrote in my speech to my UU Natural Life vs Machine Life, I have kept my interest in the organic radical movement alive.
As people know the mainstream liberal world is not an easy one for us freethinkers. Some UUs were troublemakers in history who questioned the status quo so why not me? Servetus got burned at the stake.
It's hard watching people I care about line up for vaxxes I think will harm them. This was true of many friends in life. I am the minority by far in not joining them and an ultra minority that doesn't fit either side, and still wears KN95 masks around and complicated "real" science articles trying to make sense of this all.
I don't want to go on the metaverse. I do believe they are enslaving us with technology. That said, I have no interest in returning to the fundamentalist/evangelical world. That world burnt me to a crisp. My husband got worried for a time, but I told him, that won't work either. There are times I regret my deconversion and have conflicting feelings about it.
There's times I wonder what was wrong with me, I couldn't stay happy in one religion. I don't know if it is a personal failing or not. I've been a UU now for 19 years total as an adult, if you add my early years in it and the time since my return, but I've definitely have done my share of religious wondering.
I said to my husband, "Why am I such a commitmentphobe when it comes to religion? I am not when it comes to romantic relationships obviously!". There's times I envy the Christians I left behind not troubled by so many questions but that world became a cage to me. Fundamentalism was an abuse factory that pushed total authoritarianism. The guy on the Pair of Docks blog warned that after deconversion from a cult, there can be coping with regression and other issues even for years.
Sometimes discussing Covid stuff there's a lot of Christians around. Some told me they think I am still "saved" but immensely backslidden and confused and that's why I see through the Covid narrative. I won't get into all that but I know what's evil and what's not and have a conscience that cries out against all the insanity happening. I am happy for anyone of any beliefs who sees through the barrage of insanity, gaslighting, bullshit, and horrors the world has experienced over the last two years and what they seem to have planned for us all.
I suppose I am a full-fledged conspiracy theorist again, how can conspiring be a theory when they do so much of it? I know a lot of conspiracy stuff was propaganda and lies like Qanon, but some is true. We aren't told the truth in our news anymore. Some of us have to work with limited information. When they claim mass formation psychosis is a conspiracy, I feel like we are living in 1984 too.
Both left and right failed me. I hang in there with the UUs because they believe in freedom of conscience. Everyone else wanted me to parrot their preachers and obey and sit in a pew and give up thinking and I left.
I just wish the world wasn't such a crazy place. This was bad timing for the world to become apocalyptical.
For three years, I have been involved elsewhere online, helping
people
who have deconverted. This includes people who got sucked into the
evangelical or fundamentalist fold like I did as an adult and those who were raised in evangelical
and
fundamentalist households. Talking to them, I realized the overlaps with my uber Catholic background with their fundamentalist upbringings. There were parallels, I was indoctrinated by a lay teacher into last days who was obsessed with Fatima, they were told the Rapture was nigh.
This being my second deconversion with the
first from Catholicism and the second from fundamentalist Christianity, I
had practice at it, and decided to at least help others who had gone
through what I have. The deconversion community has been a source of support for me. Only those who had been there, could really related to how into conspiracy and bible prophecy I had been or how I had moved away from extreme fundamentalist rural town, that impacted my mind so strongly. Fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity really has it's own culture understood by those within. Normal secular folks or those in more sane churches aren't going to understand the ins and outs of the evangelical and fundamentalist cultures.
The numbers are growing of
people getting out and leaving. Life has changed so
radically, that Christianity is not holding up to reality. Just like Zeus and his pantheon of gods ceased to have meaning to Greeks, the same is happening with Christianity. Jesus, Yahweh, angels, the Holy Ghost, are fading just like Aphrodite, Zeus, Mercury and Hera. Younger people are realizing it's not holding up.
Many modern people are asking questions like, "Why do we have to worship something?""And why does something in the first place want narcissistic supply with legions of bowing and supplicating humans before it? Can you truly worship something, and have it love you?" I noticed most of the deconverted realized God [in the conservative Christian sense] had some major short comings like me. Yahweh's character was poor, capricious, outwardly murderous in the Old Testament, and in the end had nothing but cruelty to dispense along with his fireballs upon earth promised in the book of Revelation.
Christianity's promises of fellowship, companionship, answers for life's problems and misfortunes were really found wanting. The religion offered me no solace, only judgment and blame for my life problems and the message that I lacked the blessings of God because I lacked faith. I noticed without hesitation this one applied to many others who ended up leaving like me. None of us expected God to show up with suitcases of money but a few kind words, or help or guidance, was what we failed to find. If God had merely shown up in some way, I believe many would still be in the religion.
Sure the
Bible warns of trials and tribulations but then one takes note, Yahweh
threatens people too with as much bad stuff, as the world
does, with sending your loved friends to hell, or planning a big
planetary blow-out in the end. Yahweh rarely was a source of comfort to me, it only gave me silent treatment. It occurred to me like so many others that everything was drummed up out of my imagination, with vague feelings of discernment, leading, and the rest. It was a one way relationship.
Christians are loaded with too much guilt for wondering why God doesn't show up, or asking hard questions why prayers are never answered. Some people face the facts that regular prayer is more often then not a waste of time and whistling into a silent wind. It is a would be spirit who never literally answers back except in imagination or troubled dreams that brings no real solutions. Many deconverted people spent years trying to reach out to "god", working the religion hard like me hoping for something, but we faced the facts, it simply wasn't real, and didn't work the way we had been promised.
Sadly most conservative Christian communities when these doubts were expressed, always blamed the person in part. There came a point for me when I knew "nothing was good enough for Yahweh, just like nothing was ever good enough for my parents". I felt no love, comfort, involvement in my life, or real leading. Christian communities were one of judgement and never measuring up too. I noticed these feelings were rife among other deconverted people too. Some had faced major hardships, and expressed their feelings about the uselessness of prayer. Many felt judged and punished by religious communities that expected them to shut down their minds, hearts and feelings. God was always perfect while whatever problems you faced were supposedly your own fault.
The people who seemed to do the best in fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity, were ones who had lives that followed the script. I've written about this before on other articles. They always had good jobs. They had loving families and were able to have children and grandchildren. It does not escape my notice now that most of the conservative Christians I see on my Facebook, the ones who are left, all have endless pictures in large suburban or country homes of themselves and extensive generations, pictures full of 20 people easily. Their families are huge, and no one is down and out. One thing discussed in the deconversion community, was how if life was different from this script, one simply didn't fit in. Given the economic realities of most younger people of Gen X on down, Christianity especially in America failed to address how our lives really were.
Many who ended up deconverted, did not have the 1950s version of the nuclear family and did not experience this scripted life. They were gay and rejected over it, or trans, or childless like me and simply didn't fit in. Many tired of abuse simply for being who they were, while others shared the horrors of homosexual bigotry or having their lives limited via homeschooling and lack of real educations. Economically, many ended up leaving as church programs about being a good wife and the promotion of homeschooling didn't fit in with the world of part time jobs and struggling to make it in a studio apartment. Christianity in other words expected conformity to a life, that really didn't exist for many people. The churches all lived in the past. They demanded the impossible.
Our troubles, reality and more were ignored. Even now we see the majority of Christians who ignore economic and other realities. Few realize it but the conservative Christian world has become one of privilege, this is why they hate social justice so much. For those of us in need of some social justice or income equality, this was unacceptable.
The bibles warnings about "trials" seems like extreme
understatement. There's little in that book that really deals with
reality for some of us especially in this society. Sure everyone faced
"trials" throughout history, but modern society has brought complicated
onslaughts of them. Life definitely was more simple for the average
person. Christianity in other words is failing to provide any answers to an increasingly complex world full of new challenges.This was a common feeling among other deconverts.
Conservative churches all claimed to have all the answers to all of life's problems, they would do seminars on money, marriage, health, work life, children, and more. All the answers were always written to a lifestyle that doesn't even exist for many people. They were written to middle class or above white [mostly suburban but sometimes rural] people. The idea that there is a handy answer or a set of instructions to every life problem to be found in the bible became absurd. That turned out not to be true either. Many deconverts tried for years to follow the formulas which failed.
Some
people become liberal Christians, and inject a loving God into the mix.
I can handle the mystical Christians who don't believe everyone goes to
hell, if someone has a nicer God, that's better then the God of
Copeland and Trump who seems more akin to the classic portrayal of Satan. If someone believes in a Jesus Christ who is the opposite of Republican Jesus, my view of them is going to be more positive. In the deconversion community I am part of, we allow liberal Christians, we know the journey of deconversion can take people to different places. Some become full atheists, others find a different and more liberal Christianity that rejects the right wing nonsense. Others become in the middle somewhere like me, agnostics, who believe a god of a different sort is possible, or join the Unitarian Universalist Association or explore other religions. Most deconversion boards do wisely allow criticism of Christianity so a liberal Christian in those places must understand, that our view and experience of Christianity may be vastly different from their own.
One thing to note is that Christianity in it's conservative forms was a
misery producing juggernaut, that added trauma, repression, and
unhappiness to many lives. Many of my fellow deconverts shared the same experiences of trauma and PTSD from religious abuse, and oppressive. edicts. Abuse from parents, and religious figures was rife in conservative religious circles. There were multiple others who fit into the ACON criteria and dealt with narcissistic and other toxic parents and relatives who abused via the lens of religion.
Many lived lives like me under extreme guilt and being told they were never enough or that they suffered because God deemed it necessary. Repression was a big one too, where we were silenced or taught that conformity was the most important. Women realized the inner sexism and denial of their humanity in these conservative religious circles. This applied to me in Catholicism where the ability to have babies came first. We were lonely and told we had to believe or else. Some suffered like I did, rejection from their families in leaving a church or no longer believing. In my case, the uber conservative Catholicism was different from the fundamentalist and evangelical world but there were overlaps. Many of us did not have wise counsel to be told to keep our true religious feelings secret until we were financially independent adults.
Toxic Christian culture and politics brought a lot of us out. The religious political right is cruel. It was willing slaves to capitalism and taught authoritarianism to horrible political leaders like Trump. We watched our churches defend war, and policies that made us poorer. They were almost without limit all Republican. Many like me grew fed up with the poison pouring from the pulpits.
After all if you watch all your church members bow before the Orange Sociopath, what good is a religion? It is rot then. The love for the Republican party along with racism, hatred for the poor were reasons many people left. We questioned ourselves and did not want to stand for evil. . One thing I have noticed since I have left, is that Christians [and I am talking about the conservative ones] seem to have gone mad. Their hatred, and arrogance, now has them demanding all the poor go back to their service jobs even in the middle of a global pandemic. They don't care if people die. Many even have said directly, that "death is a part of life".
There is a darkness in Christianity now, and we can see it in the faces of screaming people who carry assault rifles to their state legislatures, and who carry signs like "I want a haircut". They don't care if the elderly or people like me die, with COVID being allowed to rampage through the population. I noticed every evangelical Christian left on my Facebook wanted the lock-downs ended. I worry about civil liberties too, but did not understand people who did not care about others staying alive. The darkness is lack of empathy and it controls a lot of Christians. I suppose this goes with the economic privilege and scripted lives, they figure they won't catch Covid19 because they are "blessed by God". That's supposedly for the heathens and non-believers.
Christianity has changed in the USA.
Even in my own lifetime, I remember the Christians of yesterday being a
bit different. Sure there was always Elmer Gantry and extremists in the old days too, but as I got older, the number of televangelists, ministries and para-church organizations grew. There were more liberal Christians when I was young. Science was advanced in mainline churches as being important and compatible with religion.
Jesus preached messages of love and helping the poor. There is almost a
madness in Christianity today. At my UU we still discuss the positive
teachings of Jesus and the decent messages.
Watching this farce, I'm glad I parted ways from such deluded people. When I was a Christian, I was against Dominionism, and wrote about this on line in Christian circles. I was rare, and realized as discussed in other deconversion articles, that I was in an authoritarian religion that was all about power and dominance. Well, the dominionists have power now. Our country is being hurt by extremist religion. We face a time in history where America is suffering directly from religious extremism. It helped advance this plague along. I believe right now a defacto Dominionist theocracy via Trump is in power now, and the anti-science and intellectualism of religion has taken over. If not for the few government scientists and Democrats listening to them, this country would be more in danger.
IFB people used to write things all the time, that when bad things happened to people maybe God deemed it necessary. The religion itself, I believe destroys empathy, blessings are to come from God and if something bad happens to you, it's your fault. So we have the religious right now with it's death cult beliefs, now wanting to literally unleash death upon us all via plague. Maybe a religion that has human sacrifice at it's foundations, doesn't mind sacrificing humans to capitalism in modern times.
Somehow this does not surprise me. I left Christianity seeing the lust for all the wars I protested against, now we see lust for death. Many deconverts like me saw the writing on the wall and got out! Our own lives were under assault by a harmful religion and philosophy but many others were too. We left the religion because it was evil, and it's followers assigned to evil. I do not want to color every Christian with this, there are those who are liberal and those who reject the right wing, although in America, liberal Christians are far fewer in number. Sadly many of the mainline and other churches have fallen to the Republican brainwashing. Every Catholic except a few liberal ones I know were going with the Republican party line.
"God's party" in other words and it's Orange Sociopath are now being allowed to unleash eugenics and genocide against the American population. One thing too I want to mention here too, is noticing most of the conspiracy websites [probably owned and astroturfed but full of many right wing Christians too] all are trying to say the virus is fake or is "not that serious". It's weird when those who believe in the "new world order" all think supposedly evil people are going to have "less people die". That makes no sense.
Liberal, sane and educated people want
us to "flatten the curve" and have more people survive the epidemic. This week we
watched the uneducated Fox news, conservative and
Christian-evangelical element go to protests for things to be
"re-opened".
Someone online wrote that in big cities, everyone knows someone who died
or got it, and it's been less common in areas with less population. I
am not sure this explains everything, while some certainly are afraid of
not having money to survive, with their lost jobs , many seem just to
lack any empathy.
They are such brainwashed slaves to capitalism, fear
of death gets lower priority. I had
weird thoughts about Trump voters and especially evangelical Christians, some seem immune to the worse life can do in their privilege. I can't help but think, that these
are clueless, spoiled people who have never witnessed someone dying in
front of them, violence or real economic struggles beyond a missed
haircut. Most of the jerks with their giant automatic weapons strapped
to their belts pointed to their feet, looked like they had plenty of
money, they just wanted poorer people then them, to get back to work,
and serve them no matter the cost, even of their own lives.
I sometimes wonder if America is going to collapse. I have my worries
about civil liberties too, but when a society is so fractured, that some
are protesting against protecting people from dying there's something
wrong. It's like there's no cooperation here. There's no love, care or compassion for neighbors either.
The rest of the world
watches more and more in horror. America has become a farce to the rest
of the world. Here's a new joke, I saw being told in non-American
circles online....
"What's stupid inbetween?"------ Canada and Mexico". I hate to say it but extreme religion and rejection of reality has made America dumb as a box of rocks.
Watching the protests on the news, I felt some growing anger. Where were
these "Constitutional Scholars" when rights in America started being
ravaged especially around 9-11?
They were silent as trillions were spent on useless wars in the middle
east, silent when American rights were cut down like right to trial by
jury with the passage of the NDAA and Patriot Act. So when I see them
now talking about freedom and rights? I shake my head. They pretend to be morally superior, but they were silent when it counted. Their selfishness shines on through.
I believe Covid19 is real and like 9-11 they will make use of it, to limit more freedoms, go on a money-clean out--we are seeing that now, the 1200 dollars to the average American is eclipsed by the trillions going to big business and millionaires and billionaires and worse. The conspiracy websites claiming it's not real and that no one is really dying, are absurd. It is scarier then hell to see where America has gone. The cruelty, the coldness, the absurdity and religion has helped fuel it all. I believe Trump is a traitor, that allowed a virus to fester to bring America down. He wasn't stupid and lazy, he let it come here on purpose.
Watching the majority of Christians support this sickening man, told me I got out just in time. I never was a Republican but for many of us deconverting was about conscience. We no longer wanted to be part of an evil religion or one that supported evil. We were tired of an abusive, cold, hard, silent God and tired of being associated with people who no longer were of light but who chose darkness and advanced oppression.
Spiritual abuse was common to many of my fellow deconverts. Some were abused by families but many experienced it from the pastors and other religious officials as well. Guilt, control, compliance, the focus on being fixed, many went through many of the same experiences I went through especially with the deliverance minister of years ago and an abusive family that shoved a religion I did not believe in down my throat. I know many were like me, they simply no longer wanted to live in guilt and shame anymore, where nothing was ever good enough, and they realized they were told to believe things that weren't coming true in real life.
I was glad to find the deconversion community and while some Christians will see us as "fallen away" heathens, my fellow deconverts were people of conscience who wanted goodness and no longer wanted to follow lies and deceptions or be part of a religion and system that brought so much misery to themselves and others. One thing we hold in common is seeking truth. Truth is not in the extremist Christianity of today. Religion has a dark side, and it's ruining America.
Update on this one: The conservatives were right to warn about the encroachment on freedom from Covid. Read more recent articles. My mind changed there. I could see the early social engineering but I noticed with horror how Covid was being used. The liberals are not sane and education seems to be more programming, most liberals have gone fascist and forgotten what freedom is in America.
From the video above: "Our emotions play a huge part in our ability to navigate daily life,and the distorted emotional responses drilled into us by relentless rehearsal in the abusive environment
can disrupt our functioning at the most subtle levels"
All my life every emotion was invalidated except by very few. Every ACON knows the results of being made into a narc puppet where you are trained to shut down all "unacceptable" emotions" and how this pans out in one's life leaving you as a target to new narcissists and dividing you from yourself. Narcissistic parents shout, "I will give you something to cry about!" and "Why are you laughing like that?" They tell us how to feel, aka smile at Mommy and Daddy's work party and pretend like life is great or else!
Theramin Tree compares high control religion groups with dictatorial gods that mandate certain emotions and love and how they operate the exact same as narcissistic families, that shut down emotional honesty and put compliance and conformity first.
As I age, I have been dealing with serious problems regarding emotional repression. There's few places to express any and trying to seek after authentic ways of being are difficult. This area is so reticient to the max. Think "Minnesota Nice" married to extreme Midwestern reservation. I haven't even seen an argument in public in 15 years. There was no getting used to this.
You never know if someone is really mad at you or not. The other day online, with an online support group of understanding people, I wrote, "I wish I had friends to cuss with!" Well I do with Mr. Peep, but there was something that overtook me, where the cloaking from Aspergers and survival fear, made me more of a repressed reserved person to the extreme. It's like I am two people, around him I will joke and cuss, and am loud and talkative, but in public and social situations, I feel like I am measuring words with teaspoons, and it has gotten worse as I got older. Also the going deaf does not help.
Some of this is happened because I didn't want narcissists to feed. Vulnerability in too many cases meant the predators came in, but now I feel so shut down.
Some people tell me "find your tribe" but whoever they are, they aren't talking and emoting around here.
Tribes are found far easier online. Some ACONs may find that learning to feel their emotions outside of the mandates of negative religions and families is a process. We also realize the lessons missed in expressing emotions around regular people to the point it's even hard to show positive ones. At least we start listening to ourselves and our "inner voice" instead of those who tell us to shut up constantly.
Those who deconvert, realize how much their religion gave them an image of a "good Christian" they were supposed to follow and how this was tied into emotional repression. The demanded constant "thought policing" of Christianity now pisses me off. Prayer even seems to be a demanding "numbing" ritual that focuses on thoughts instead of actually "doing" something. It upset me how I was trained to control my own thoughts as "not being good enough". "Don't be mad at mother, be forgiving!" "You shouldn't have negative thoughts about others, it's wrong!" even if said negative thoughts are sounding the warning cry! "Give people the benefit of the doubt" and so forth.
Then as we are told to shut down other emotions, the demands to produce fake emotions is constantly there.
For Christians, this is centered around being nice, and kind and "gentle" especially for women who are told that meek, mild and "having a servant's heart" is the way to go. If you are a brash, loud, more aggressive person, this is like being shoved into a box that is too tight.
The one demanded emotion is love. In Christianity we are told to "love" everyone. Thinking about this while some people are lovable, and add great things to your life, I thought about how I was told to love people who treated me like crap. Love itself gets degraded when it's expected to be shared with everyone.
Speaking up for yourself was considered "sin", so much was centered around being a doormat. Often, I felt guilt inside because I did not love everyone, I felt neutral towards most, loving towards friends or kind strangers or cute children, but there were people who did not bring out feelings of affection. Even yelling at someone who almost drove into you, was considered "sin". Somehow I was supposed to manufacture this new "persona" of loving benevolence towards all, the problem is that it was fake. The "love everyone" stuff puts toxics in charge and makes doormats of others when one is told to shut down their own thinking about how they truly feel about someone. If you think about this, teaching people to have no preferences breaks down alliances between them and gives a church organization far more control.
One thing mentioned in the video is how we are told to love God, and there is this idea of producing an emotion for what I believe now is an imaginary being, that never takes the time to interact with us. Somehow we are supposed to drum up intense feelings of affection for Mr. Silent Treatment. What does this do to the human psyche to drum up intense feelings for a Being that simply refuses to talk back? Here too, we have entered the realm of manufactured emotions. How can you truly love and know someone outside an imaginary sense if they offer no personality or words back?
Like life with narcissists, you are told to love your mother and father no matter what they do to you, and the same applies to God, "Though he may slay me, I will trust in him" Job says. That is the epitome of what we are told to all say when it comes to our abusers. God can do anything to you, let your life become a bombed out crater, betray, remain silent, indifferent, show no love or response to you [since it does not exist the way they say it does] and you are to remain a smiling cipher singing songs of praise at your evangelical or fundamentalist church. So Theramin Trees brings up great points about how our emotions are repressed in both toxic religion and in toxic families.
"People who've been subjected to different kinds of abusive environments often show highly convergent themes in their descriptions of their experiences. Years ago, when I began talking in depth with people who'd been recruited by religious and pseudoscientific high-control groups,
hearing them recount their experiences was like hearing a gigantic tuning fork resonating at my own pitch.
Their observations about life inside a high-control group echoed private observations I'd made about my life inside a narcissistic family.was the same divisiveness, where loyalty to the dictatorship came before any personal relationship between other members;
the same social isolation tactics, trying to sabotage external relationships with friends or lovers,
the same attempts to maintain child-like dependence.
Parallels have repeatedly been noticed between scriptural
tales of vengeful, dictatorial gods and abusive relationships, noting the same threat of dehumanising brutality, the same capriciousness generating erratic, inconsistent demands. the same sense of all-pervading invasion into every aspect of the target's life, with no boundaries and no privacy. The details of abuse vary from situation to situation, with different levels of intensity or sadism.
but the essential underlying mechanics merge.
At their core, all abusive environments are about gaining coercive control over others.
So, it's not surprising that abusive individuals and groups of all kinds -religious, political, academic, familial, romantic -converge on the same manipulative tactics to get people to sacrifice their autonomy and authenticity, and submit to fixed roles."
I've realized with age, I have been dealing with serious problems regarding emotional repression. It may be the area I live in, it is so reticient here, it drives me nuts. The other day online, with an online support group of understanding people, I wrote something like I wish I had friends to cuss with! Well I do with Mr. Peep, but there was something that overtook me, where the cloaking from Aspergers and survival fear, made me more of a repressed reserved person to the extreme. It's like I am two people, around him I will joke and cuss, and am loud and talkative, but in public and social situations, I feel like I am measuring words with teaspoons, it gotten worse as I got older. Also the going deaf does not help.
Is it just me or do people seem more like closed books? It's harder to get to know people, openness is long gone. I've dealt with some awful stuff in some circles, where classism seems to rule, and some of these folks don't believe in emotions or openness. In fact their first instinct is to shut me down and this can be over the most mild of opinions and I am not yelling or showing anger. I've had two recent instances of people shutting me down, like I was invisible. One lady who was an ally at one group I was at, came to me to talk to me how both I and her were shut down at a political book discussion we both went to. She was upset. I told her I wondered if the community book discussion group on a political topic was actually being held and financed by a conservative group. I mentioned the phrase "economic inequality" and the consensus people came running to shut me up. It was nice to be validated though by someone else who saw the manipulations going on.
In the second case, I was at another discussion group in my community, there was a wealthier high status boomer going after me, talking to me like I was ten years old. She was new to that discussion group, and was issuing edicts and rules on us all. Everyone's heads were bent down and I knew I'd have to fight back.
Sadly like what happens too often the leader of that group, was bending to a would be narcissists demands and throwing the rest of us under the bus. Later I would be told by the group leader referring to herself, "I didn't enforce the rules properly" so the narcissist's shaming methods worked. A group that previously had no problems was thrown into chaos by a would be narcissist.
She played overly diplomatic and seemed to take the side of the other
person. I even said at one point, "Don't you think they were even a bit
overbearing?" She said she didn't enforce the crosstalk rules enough,
and I responded "Why do things have to be so rigid and controlled for
such a small group, well for future people you need to make it more
clear you are following the AA like no cross talk rules." She said
something was in the "Covenant" of the group and that's part of the
program. [One odd thing is during the original argument, I said, that
was the ideal, and I know the only time I interrupted was to ask someone
to speak up]
She conceded to me, that you have to do what is
right for you, and keep your boundaries. I said I will and for her to
be careful of toxic personalities. I said, "I am not
going to take disrespect from anyone, and do not regret walking out."
Husband backed me up and said "this lady took things to the extreme, she
was spending 100,000 to make a 10 dollar point and would not let
up." I left the room and tried to redirect the conversation
multiple times.
Oddly she then claimed that others had complained
about the "crosstalk in the group" and that they had been interrupted
too often and did "not feel safe". I never saw this. My husband who was there said, "I
never saw that happen." I said something about how conversation flows
can be hard for Aspies, but I never interrupted anyone's turn to talk,
and knew I had to waited my turn and did and with my hearing have to focus
on words anyhow. At this point I said the group is "too rigid" then for
me. I think she wants us out of the group. I said at this point, "Maybe the group is too structured for me, and
it's not for me." I told her these extreme rules destroy connection. She
then suggested other activities.
The extreme rigidity in this community is taking a toll. The toxic person gained control. The group leader wants to please the
people with power. Toxic people will use rules to wrap people up, and
claim they are breaking rules to get others to dissuade them. I notice
people go running to to please personalities like this.
I ended up walking out of the room and have no regrets in doing so. The me of yesterday would have sat there and taken it, trying to please but the me of today knows there was reasons for my anger.
There seems few places now in American society where you can "be yourself". I feel uncomfortable in some higher class circles where they seem to want a higher level of control. It's horrible around here, especially among the corporate "professional" and wealthy people. Formal registers of speech are shoved down my throat. My personality does not fit among their circles. The endless rules and formality are stifling as hell. The pecking orders and competition do not allow for honest sharing.
It is a mine field for an Aspie too. I think here I need to listen to myself more on the type of people I am trying to communicate with and have made the decision to limit some of the socializing, why go out time and time just to get hurt again?
Some here have chided me for my negative view of boomers, but I am sorry to say, while there are some allies and good boomers, I have noticed it is mostly women who are 15-20 years older who are invalidating me, treating me like I am 10 years old and practicing unrestrained classism and ableism. Around here, the majority of the boomers I am talking about are very religious and politically conservative. There's others that would fit the neo-liberal label too. I don't think I am imagining this and I have seen differences in Silent Generation people who sadly are now growing very aged and millennials in how I am treated.
The "OK Boomer" meme exists for a reason. Some people I think got tired of being lectured to, and sadly too many of them feel they have the right to tell you to be silent and to invalidate you. I am learning to avoid people like this. Around here, their numbers are legion too. They are people that can make one feel extraordinarily lonely and silenced.
There's unwritten rules some types follow where emotional repression is the name of the game, don't act too boisterous, or tell jokes, or get too pedantic, stick to business only and everything must be conformist or emotionally flat. There's a lot of people wanting to repress you emotionally now and using a variety of tools to do so. There's this feeling inside that my fire burns too hot, and just by opening my mouth I'm burning them. I refused to submit to the one making demands and walked out of the group and the room when they wouldn't leave me alone. The Cluster B scent is strong, and I'm running for the hills.
There is huge disconnection being forced in people where we are always to be striving fitting in and jumping endless goalposts and hoops. Rules of communication I have noticed are very severe in higher class circles, and that seems part of the emotional repression to me too. That too works to deaden emotions and where people are taught to wear masks and to not have real connections.
Many people who deconvert too, talk about how in their churches, emotions were policed, being too sad, or upset was not acceptable. Once at a church I said I was upset over being sick, and was chided over not having "trust in God". Everything there the message was to close down all emotions, and conform. Depression, anxiety, angst, anger were all seen as "sins" and against God. The "holy" Christian was always happy, eager, smiling and joyful.
I thought more about that "commanded to love" video above. Theramin Trees nailed the whole process of love being forced and producing emotions at command. Natural emotions are shut down for produced ones. Often I struggle with the idea that people want me to be someone else then who I am. My emotions were controlled at narcissistic demand, and I was told they were wrong, they never were accepted, this would continue until I walked away.
My abusive childhood taught me to suppress emotions and then add the layer that I had to learn to "cloak" massively to fit into society being on the autism spectrum. One therapist told me I was intelligent enough to figure out the code so to speak. I am trying to figure out still feelings that are about emotional disconnection.
Society had few answers for instance with someone with severe rare illness that deformed their body too. I am learning to listen to myself more but it's scary what I am seeing, I blocked out a lot in how I was seen and treated. ACONs as they are trained to "go to sleep" emotionally to offer narcissistic supply, may find the waking up process to be kind of scary, especially if they exist in a lower status position in American society. Socially I may struggle the rest of my life, others are telling me they are encountering the same thing, where they feel silenced everywhere.
I have learned to protect myself more but I am realizing as I have aged society has gotten far more closed down, there is far less emotional closeness and openness. The social "rules" have become far more oppressive. I don't feel very safe in a lot of places anymore. This worries me for my future. So wonder people are becoming more lonely and mentally ill in America.
Fundamentalism too was all about emotional repression. Repression is a word that I thought of as I deconverted. I felt REPRESSED. When I threw off the yoke of abusers and went no contact and walked away from so many, deconversion was bound to happen.The two are tied together. I was told to be this certain type of person among the Christians and told to be a certain type of person among the narcissists. I never measured up. I never was allowed to BE MYSELF.
I had to get honest about the emotional repression of Christianity, that told me to be this certain type of person. One thing I think about is how Christianity pushes this fake persona on people, and I know I wasted years now, trying to be something I was not. It also taught me like the abusive family to only display certain emotions and invalidated true feelings and thoughts.
As time went on, I realized I was "not fitting in", I left all churches a few years even before my full deconvert, tired of the forced cheerfulness, tired of being told NOT TO FEEL, or that all feelings were SINS. We were given not only THOUGHT control but FEELING control. The religionists and narcissists all joined together to tell us what was proper to feel and what we had to close down.
Intuition and our connection to ourselves got closed down from their prison for the soul.
I had to get real even about how I felt about their God. I didn't like it anymore. I realized I did not love God anymore, leaving the religion was like a divorce from a cruel persona that betrayed me over and over, with it's silence and indifference. Instead of loving the "dictator", or shaming myself to do a fake smile anymore and "force" myself to love it and believe, I was done.
One thing I had to do as I recovered, was listen to my OWN feelings, and stop letting people tell me what to feel and think. Learning to own your own emotions and processing these things can be a process. We have to throw away these dictators of the soul to be our authentic selves. Don't ever let anyone tell you what to feel or what not to feel. I'm no longer a puppet being told to love something and someone who never talked back and being told to love people who treated me like a piece of garbage. Listen too and pay attention to those who are out to control your words and your emotions, they are people to be avoided. Update on this: I consider myself a Christian today, but obviously the churches I was in and false teaching I was encountering were not good or my faith. The god of this world wants emotions destroyed and repressed. There is a control to false religion.
The raised by narcissists life has many deciding families suck, living
hundreds of miles or more from extended relatives, meeting up with the
would be "strangers' means nothing. Suburban life is soul-less to the
young especially who don't have the money to replicate it. God, supports
the Republican party ensuring more destitution for anyone but boomers,
and has let us all down too especially in conservative churches that
support the lower wages and extreme authoritarianism. National Pride?
Three miles down the road I get to see burnt out buildings and we are
dodging pot holes that are a foot or more deep so a wheel doesn't fall
off our car.
Let's compare this meme I loathe which I saw all over Facebook, now, with another one...
Dear Yahweh, why did you give me a brain if you didn't want me to use it?
So wonder me and Yahweh parted ways, narcissists never wanted me to use my brain too and tried to practice various methods of"thought control" to get me to shut down the screaming intuition and intellect inside. I don't believe in the existence of a Big Brother god watching my thoughts for various modes of "thought crime" but this is a place where I think religion has served the powers that be. How else do you do this but shut down people's emotions and thoughts?
One odd thought I have about Jesus at times, is here was a guy who broke the "rules" enough to arrested and be crucified, and then his followers today teach absolute obedience and authoritarianism as the highest good. Weird huh? I have discussed with some people, if Jesus existed, how much was added to his teachings later in the interest of empire and control? When you see evangelical Christians support Trump in his racism and xenophobia, obedience to the "strong man" or "daddy" is running that show.
Verse like this one read differently to me now. When someone tells you to "shut down" your thoughts that worries me.
2: Cor. 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself
against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ; Can one have a real relationship with someone when they just want you to basically shut up and shut your mind off, and obey?
Religion has a huge mind control elements in it's toxic forms, and one main part of this is getting you to deny your own feelings, intuition and questioning your own thoughts. This is how cults shut down all thinking. How else do they get people to wear pajamas for daily wear or believe a UFO is going to whisk them away to a better place? If someone was to ask me what my least favorite verse in the bible is now, Proverbs 3:5 "do not lean on your own understanding" is first among them.
I've read where some people have said Christianity is a religion that has separated people from the "Source" and real divinity, and this is why it is so insistent on shutting down our feelings, emotions and thoughts. It has divided us from a world we are a part of. It is an interesting theory. The break down of conscience and self in Christianity leads to cognitive dissonance and people being separated from their "inner man".
Christians are always led to practice thought control on themselves. I did it to keep going as a "good Christian". I have been given this picture of a "decent Christian woman" and spent years just learning to repress myself to fit this mold. Doubts would arise and even questioning compassion when I was to treat people as "others" or judge on wickedness. I knew I was failing to conform, and I spent years in this trap of trying to make myself become a person I really was not. This can make me cry about those years and how self suppression had been taught to me by Christianity.
This is the same process I underwent in my ACON abuse. I was told time and time again, I was deficient, and broken, and that I needed to become someone else to be accepted and loved. I was "not enough". In my family's case that would have meant no longer being autistic, or poor or fat. I held out for too many years taking their abuse and refusals to love me, hoping one day I could achieve a modicum of success to be a person they would love and accept. The overlaps with Christianity here do not escape my notice. My deconversion rested on the very fact, that the same messages came to me from my abusers as from the religion I was in. My abusers even maintained a degree of thought control, too just like religion, telling me various thoughts, and doubts were WRONG. One main problem with Christianity is that it teaches us to believe in a torturing God, that wants to hurt us [in hell] for listening to our own thoughts! Think about that. We end up being forced to give our power and become victims. We are beaten down and told we are "worthless" without Jesus. We are emotionally and otherwise abused. We also are told we are not good people in ourselves. We are broken and we must become "new creatures" in Christ, and when we are born again, we are to have our personalities and minds replaced to a degree. Think about the message of that. You aren't good enough as you are, the person you became was not good enough, the whole message is to CHANGE or else. This is not a world of unconditional acceptance or love but a world of conformity.
Think about how often religion tells people to submit and especially women and children to OBEY. This definitely is a system of dominance and deception. One irony of the Bible is it tells people to seek for truth. What if you examine your religion and find that it is full of lies? If I die, and end up at some doorway to hell with a condemning God. I would confront it and say, "but you told me to seek after truth and now you contradict yourself."
For those of us who were within narcissistic families, we were told over and over not to trust our own minds and that we are always wrong. We were told not to listen to our own brains that were screaming inside, "This is very wrong!" It has occurred to me that Christianity has given the same message. "The heart is deceitful, don't trust your own mind, don't trust your own thoughts". Where does this lead a person but to be controlled by others?
My entire life I was taught to suppress my own thoughts and emotions. How many of us have our health ruined by having everything stuffed inside and being unable to be our authentic selves? Religion often denies this authenticity. Christianity really pushes this, everything is about "controlling" emotions and "fitting-in" and "obedience". One of the main rituals of Christianity, baptism makes it clear, that we are "defective" and "dirty" before being "washed in Christ's blood". What does this do but give all our power away and ensure a weakness inside where one thinks they are "never good enough" just like our narcissistic families taught us to be? Toxic Christianity and Narcissistic scapegoating families are joined together in a dance of disempowerment.
In the meme, the thin feminine young woman in her blue sweater stands in a dark room with God's Word providing it's own flashlight. Her hair is over her eye. She is told not to listen to her own brain and that God knows all. She stands in a library which represents a depository of knowledge but the lights are turned off. The perfectionism of God, to me was one tool used for gaslighting too. Beyond the issue of a perfect being expecting his imperfect creation to measure up to his standards which are impossible for the majority, there's the issue that next to perfect, whenever something goes wrong, everything will be your fault. God can do no wrong but everything you do will be wrong compared to him.There's no winning in that system. No appeals. For all the mercy Christianity spoke of, I saw very little. There's no mercy for those kids at the border. There's no mercy for the fallen away who are supposed to get the lowest level of hell for doubting it all.
1. "You've stopped trusting in your own judgments..."
When a person it told to stop trusting in their own judgment, [#1 on the second gaslighting list meme] that is something that the toxic personalities brainwash people in, "We know better, We know you better then you know yourself." Shutting off one's own judgment, leaves one very vulnerable to predators. How many are shutting off conscience now to vote for evildoers?
2. "You are afraid of speak up or expressing how you feel...."
With #2, silence was a given. For all the claims of a would be relationship with the Lord, one was supposed to sit there and take it, and not argue. Arguing and thinking were sins. Once I was told in one church, that just being a woman, made me more likely to be led astray by my own brain. Think about that one. That preacher told us women were too emotional to make good judgements. This is why we were to be silent in the churches and we were never to preach to men, just other women and children. It shocks me I sat there listening to that nonsense and did not walk out. I heard different forms of that even in Catholicism where we were given these same reasonings as why only men could be priests.
3. "You feel as though you are going crazy and that there is something wrong with you....."
Here with #3, in Christianity the focus is that there is something wrong with you, in fact a lot is wrong with you and you are a wretched sinner. Outside of a few very liberal churches, this is the main point, you must be saved from what God will do to you for being so "wrong" and essentially from yourself. [your "flesh" in the bible]. Some branches of Christianity like Calvinism teach that human beings are fundamentally DEPRAVED. 4. "You always second guess details...."
Christianity can keep one bamboozled under endless bible studies, memorizations, and debates on doctrine. In fundamentalism, getting one doctrine wrong, was enough to be told the hot place was waiting for you. There are apologetics, arguing how many angels can dance on a pin, or when will the last days finally come for the thinking Christians. These are distractions for adults. "5. You feel the need to apologize all the time...." This is expected and demanded in Christianity all the time. We were expected to be SORRY all the time. In fact even when I was born again, being sorry for being a rotten sinner was the main impetus for bowing before God and turning to his will. Can one really be close with someone they are always apologizing too? The Catholic churches and many mainline liturgical churches have their apologies scripted into rituals of confession. For the Christian fundamentalist, we were to apologize to God, for everything from watching demon TV to drinking a beer to uttering one cuss word. God sure did seem upset by a lot. Which brings in the idea of having to walk on eggshells, a fact of life for most abuse victims. 6. "You frequently feel confused...."
My brain felt like a stew pot, all the time, stirred with a fast spoon. Reality was always bumping up against the religious things I had been taught. I would literally make excuses for God and Christians trying to fit everything into a narrow mold. The world often made less sense through Christian rose colored glass ideals.
The gaslighting in Christianity is extensive..... when I recovered from my abuse, I couldn't ignore the overlaps with religion and how religion gave me the same messages as abusers. I had lost contact with myself which I am still working on finding now. I wanted there to be a god who was loving and kind but I had to face my disappointment. None of this was real. There was no one there. I got nothing but silence. Does anyone who is still in, figure out that those of us who deconverted tried but the "god" didn't hold up it's end of the bargain? And this overlaps too with the abuse process as well, some of us tried and tried for years. We tried to win the love from people who had no capacity for it and simply did not love us. We were too "wrong', well the same goes in religion. How many feel the disappointment for years and remain within? I doubted Christianity by 2007, only 5 years after my conversion in but hung on out of guilt, and gaslighting same as I did too long with abusers.
We are told we must be perfect but we were made imperfect to start with. We are told God loves us unconditionally but then are handed a long list of conditions. We are told someone has to die in our place a hideous horrible bloody death to be made worthy of anything but eternal suffering and fire. We are told Christianity will make us free, but then are told we must be worthy servants and slaves to Christ. We are told all our requests in prayer will be answered but then told maybe the answer is No and to not put God to the test. We are told to have a personal relationship with an entity who never looks on us as an individual and only gives back silence. Our emotions are played with our imaginations, telling us, that this Being truly LOVES us, but we are all subject to hideous medical suffering or the possibility of death or the pain of losing loved ones.
Ask yourself is this about any love or truth or is it a cage of deception and control? My experiences with severe ACON abuse, has led me to some very deep questions about religion and it's messages. Why do so many religions and the predominant one in America [Christianity] focus on our unworthiness?
What good does it do, the constant labeling of faults, does it improve goodness or does it simply bring a conquer and divide ethos to humanity? If Christianity has at it's core a scapegoat, doesn't this mean some gaslighting comes with that too? It is a victim and victimizers set up. While Jesus whether he truly existed or not, had some decent messages about love your neighbor, and caring for the poor and sick, I think about what religion became with the passage of centuries. It became more of a power system, to build empire and keep people suppressed. We are in dangerous times now where Christianity is now serving as a vehicle of totalitarianism in America and where humanity could be facing extinction to a rapidly heating up earth, but instead of facing reality, we are being gaslighted by the majority of Christianity. Having our realities denied. Told to ignore things that are happening. Told Trump is a loving man who wants to make America better.
I saw this quote on the ex-Christian reddit board. I totally related to it. I can't love the Christian god. It hurt me on levels I can't even explain. It took me to the same places, that my abusers did. I no longer believe it exists.
“You know that Christian idea that God is perfect? How he’s always
waiting for you and anything that goes wrong must be your fault because
he can do no wrong and it’s all about you having to come to him and meet
his perfection?”
I nodded.
“That’s called gaslighting.”
That was the moment that really defined me as an atheist. When I saw
that the Christian God I had been begging to save me was at best
nonexistent, and at worst a horrific abuser. ACON healing led to my deconversion, but there's new discoveries I am confronting like this one, religion gaslighted my mind as much as my narcissistic parents did. I was told not to trust my intuition. Intuition keeps us safe in this brutal world. It warns us when things are wrong. It tells us not to give evildoers the benefit of the doubt and to flee, but sadly this religion says "Don't trust your own thoughts." How is one supposed to even stand up for themselves when they have been indoctrinated into their own mind, brain, and intuition supposedly failing them?
Religion can drive one to madness, because some of them focus on telling
you that you must fix yourself over and over, and then they put up more
hoops for you to jump through. Some get tired of being told how they
"ought" to be, and how they don't measure up. Why did humanity
create a God that was so impossible to please? There must be
religions out there, where they worship gods or "divinity" that do not
expect perfection or force the acceptance of an offer of perfection. I
always thought perfectionists were rather abusive. The demanded perfectionism is part of the gaslighting process as well. Religions gain power confusing and gaslighting their victims.
The teaching of hell itself, has brought a lot of hell to planet earth. It's one teaching that is destructive to human empathy. Anyone who is okay with people burning for eternity in a torture chamber worse then any of Hitler's concentration camp ovens because it lasts forever, and think that is "just" is having their human sense of compassion and justice destroyed inside. The acceptance of such a fate for millions or billions doesn't endear empathy and kindness on earth. Inside that needled at me always. I am glad I dared to face it. I definitely have already covered how Christianity affected me in negative ways, where I mourn the friends I could have had, and the priggishness it took me into.
Neil Carter makes a list: I agree with called "How Faith Is Like An Abusive Lover"
1. Tearing you down. 2. Gaslighting 3. Excessive Control 4. Cutting You off from the rest of the world 5. Threats and Fear Tactics 6. Love Bombing Followed by devaluation 7. Moving the Goalposts 8. Projection and Blameshifting.
Christianity affected me in all the ways listed. The whole religion was a giant tear down. I think America may have a special symbiotic relationship with conservative Christianity in our "You are never enough" culture. I was thinking the other day how the self help people are maybe only one step removed from the heaven people but promise money and success if you "obey".
Gaslighting is definitely a part of it all, when you are told even in scripture that you cannot trust your own feelings or thoughts. Excessive control, well that is summed up in all the love of authoritarianism and having the world run on the dominance, and punishment model.
As I moved away from religion and deconverted, I got more and more horrified by the stuff my old IFB acquaintances were posting on social media. Their feelers are all broken. Almost all of their political stances is about denouncing someone they deemed as weaker and less powerful then them. They fully support racist agendas and white supremacy.
Some stuff in support of Trump and Republican politics always bothered me, but I noticed a shift even in them. I left the churches before I left the religion, but I noticed they were posting mean and meaner things. There was even more hatred for the poor, immigrants, and gay people. Trump really has led to a lot more cruelty and empowered closet racists where people did not insult people like this in polite company but now feel free to do so because the president does it..There is a hardening of people in conservative land. Religion and politics joined together to tell them "feelings" are bad, listen to the powerful. Consciences all shutting down like shutters across the land, so now they can lock kids in cages and it's acceptable.
I find myself winnowing the friendship list, to spare myself the right wing triggering. Today I unfriended someone today who posted a Confederate flag in support of it! This woman doesn't even live in the South and as far as I know never has but the symbol of the racist South must mean something to her in her love of Trump. These folks do show the signs of having their empathy squashed. Their religion made it more possible for someone like Trump, to lead them into shutting down human compassion.
I know poverty via disability [and trauma] in general took me into fundamentalist religion. I believe now religion is hitting the Republic of Gilead danger zone in the USA, because of the disenfranchisement of so many people economically. Heaven seems like your only hope when economic hope is lost. There's a reason my old rural town that had a 37 percent poverty rate has grown even more extremely religious. I believe there is a connection between growing religious extremism, and major economic changes in the United States. Religiosity always is whipped up whenever there is a natural disaster, war or other severe changes in a society. It's happening here and yes it's connected to new drastic laws and Trump remaining in power.
In my case, Religious Hopium was like a weed on the river bank, I grabbed as I was drowning. I have more understanding and compassion for myself for how things progressed. I went to religion to "save me" to "fix my life" believing then in the "magic". This was borne out of desperation and a feeling of utter powerlessness.Life was crushing me. Religion promised me hope. Even now as an ex-Christian, I remind myself, don't ever put any hope like that again in any new religious philosophies, it is a dead end. Many people turn to religion to solve their problems in times of extreme trouble. When people feel powerless, religion and "magic" feel like the only solutions.
Sadly I do think toxic religion will grow in it's influence especially as we have an American society that grows far more poor and public education declines. We have a lot of people now left out of the warp and weave of normal mainstream society. When people feel powerless, oppressed and like there are no answers that will work, religion is there to offer it's [false] hope. You hold out for your dreams coming true in eternity, and no longer in this world. Life is lived for the great beyond and not for today.
This is one reason people are letting of science and ideas of "progress" and have more hope in a would be eternal heaven then any hope on earth. Sadly this is one reason I believe fundamentalists and evangelicals do not believe in social justice or even openly disdain it like that one paper 4,000 evangelical preachers signed against social justice. Poor people do turn to religion and sadly often extreme versions. A lot of it is human desperation, wanting to change their lives, have things "turn out" hoping God helps them. That applied to me. Many fictional books display hardworking "salt of the earth" people who emphasize strong faith in God like in The Grapes of Wrath.
I do find myself having cynical views now. This pertains to some of those verses that showcase poor people as having stronger faith and being told the world will always have poor people and rich people having less chance of getting into heaven then a camel through the eye of a needle. Talk about manipulation. My deconversion rests on my socioeconomic experiences as well. I do dedicate some of my life to class issues, and justice issues as people know. I also tend to have some jaded views about some religious circles that seem to glamorize poverty as they seem to always think it is a positive character building exercise or that vows of poverty will make people "more holy" or "closer to God". One definitely understands the warnings against materialism, and greed and how one should love their fellow man, but there's things preached about on poverty I don't agree with anymore.
Karl Marx once said religion is opium of the people, I can go with that. There can be positive sides to some spiritual quests, but I believe religion is used for societal control. The ultra-wealthy and powerful of society have definitely used religion to tell the poor to "stand down" and accept their lot, as God-derived.
In this country, we have the prosperity gospel that has infused into everything. God blesses the "good" people and the "bad" ones, or as David Ramsey and the Republican party tell us over, and over, are poor because they were not "faithful" enough or didn't "work hard enough" or obey enough. The strain of paternalism is active in many a faith-based initiative. Here things get complicated as there are GOOD rich and poor people, and ones who aren't. Money isn't a definer of the other qualities of human character, but one worries about religions that grow divisions between people, connecting money and success to goodness. Churches that teach messages like this just prop up the status quo.
Like many others, I thought God would make things better if I obeyed and lived the "good' Christian life. I was told depression and anxiety were sins caused by lack of faith They emphasized how lazy everyone was, which was not easy for a person who is on disability. A lot of my religious craziness was borne out of desperation and this feeling of trying to climb up a mountain where the dirt always slid back. I never wanted to be rich, I just wanted to survive and live a life with some dignity. However the years in Christianity chipped away at my self esteem in ways I can't even describe.
How much of religion is for social control? I saw too many messages in the evangelical and fundamentalist world where they seem to agree with the message "work will make you free" as they put down unions, worker's rights or any fair and equitable wages for other people. Christianity especially in America has become a vehicle for empire building, that elevates the powerful, that's a problem. I wonder how much of religion was built for self-policing and control among the population too.
The Poor and Disabled in Churches Update on this one: I consider myself a Christian today but I am not in a church, obviously for many of the above issues I described. Many of the poor have been forced outside of the church world. Some may be fortunate to have country churches with sincere pastors. I believe those are rare now. Most of the evangelical world is wrapped up in the prosperity gospel to some degree.
Fear turned me to Christian fundamentalism. Fear of death. Fear of my economically collapsing life. Fear of my extreme 1 in a 5 million body. Religion, my almost dying and fear joined together into a dance with each other. Fundamentalism and Fear go together. My deconversion was not only about freedom, but moving life beyond fear. I got tired of being afraid. The narcissists made me afraid all the time, my then religion taught me to fear hell, I was told to toe the line over and over or fear the consequences.
America is a very fearful place. Falling down the economic ladder with a thud, has this place in a panic. Fear has people operate from the lowest base, cooperation, care and love disappear. An online friend I will call Mr. Tibbles, and I got into a discussion about religion and fear and politics.
He wrote:
Fearmongering is pervasive in US society right now, because it works. People give in to it, so it's a great method of gathering and maintaining power. So politicians and church leaders everywhere are using it. And they're using it to deflect attention, too.
People can see their lives and neighborhoods worsening, but can't see why.
They turn on the TV and there's Fox News, fearmongering, saying it's the fault of brown people, the fault of women, the fault of gays and the fault of bums who refuse to work. And because they don't hear anything different in their communities, they believe it.
I mean, I don't know of any nationwide TV progressive equivalent of Fox News. Do you?
And the fundies use fear because right now it works. The people give in to it. They let themselves be ruled by fear. Just as phobics do. Only, with phobics, the damage is individual. But with a whole people, the damage is society-wide. Entire nations get damaged. Fearmongering kills democracies and sets up totalitarian police states. And all police states run on fear.
But a people can decide to throw off fear. People always see through lies eventually...then they get fed up and stop knuckling under to it...a people then becomes ungovernable and the elites have lost all power over a society.
The same exact way you and I both threw off the Christian Church, and for the same reason. The church promised us heaven but delivered nothing but oppression, intolerance, and a terror-filled hell on earth. I got sick and tired of living in fear of a control-freak God who seemed anything but loving to me....got exposed to other views of the world, views that gave me freedom and got rid of the fear and the nightmares I used to get of being sent to hell over and over again, often through no fault of my own...
The British lost their empire because they became too oppressive, and people worldwide got fed up with it and rebelled. The British use of fear as a governing principle didn't work anymore. Happened right here in the US, in the 18th century as you recall.
The Catholic Church lost their hold on civilization the exact same way. They were benevolent in the beginning. They gave people aid and comfort and kindness and tolerance and acceptance...so the church grew. Too bad they didn't stay kind and tolerant. The bigger the church grew, the meaner they got, until they created The Dark Ages...which worked for a while...until the people got fed up with living in fear and quit, in droves, and launched a continent-wide holy war, and won.
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I wrote back:
This place is utterly ruled by fear. Fear is running this show now and building an extreme authoritarian police state and fundamentalist and evangelical religion is fueling a lot of it. People are so fearful in the United States. I see posts of people from Europe who come here, who are in shock at how on edge Americans are, and they can barely stand it. People from the third world, have talked to me about how anti-social and unfriendly Americans are on a certain level like they are afraid of one another. Sadly I would say this is true.
We are stuck in an obey and command culture. It is ruled by punishment. Even our economic system is formed around the basis of punishment for not having enough money. "Might makes right" and the farther to the right one goes the more this is true. Leftists desire some aspects of cooperation while rightists worship power. Narcissists and sociopaths rule by fear. They don't want freely thinking populaces who feel safe and empowered. They profit off people living on the edge all turning against each other.
Why do evangelicals and fundamentalists support Trump? I left the religion realizing the core of it was authoritarianism. The strong man leader overlaps with a strong man God with no vulnerabilities or sensitivity. Trump advances fear every chance he gets. There is an enemy around every corner and if they can't find an enemy they will make one up. Everyone outside of the white Christian middle class with men at the top of the pyramid are the enemy or outsider. Trump inside is a three year old brat, remaining immature on a certain level, but that's every narcissist. Selfishness rules.
I see Trump as a three year old brat. If people simply made the decision
to not show up that would go a long way. I think some of us have
checked out.
I am scared because he has done worse things then Nixon by far, and
nobody is doing anything. Mueller's investigation was just another distraction, another joke.
I have seen this cowardice in the face of
narcs and sociopaths before you see. Our entire country is being run like a family with a sociopathic narc at the helm. They all operate using fear to run the show. He is a symptom of this culture,
the epitome of the whole screw or be screwed mentality.
The darkness of mankind shows up in the evil assholes they make leaders.
Yeah while some of the elites rule, many of the elites live afraid, always scared of losing their money. One
can tell they have disconnected from society only swimming in their own
circles, out of touch with reality.
There's some good rich people who go around helping people, Bill Murray goes around saying hello to his neighbors. Many of these aren't members of the 1 percent, but they are out there too. Who are the ones getting all the attention though? Who are the ones in charge making the rules? Who are the ones who are always concocting laws to worsen everyone's lives? Right now we have the neo-liberals pushing mega-corporatist Biden to the fore-front. They are blocking out real progressives like Bernie and the slew of younger ones like Buttigieg are being closed out. It's Hillary 2.0 but with sell out Biden. They may want to get Trump re-elected.
Neo-liberals helped to empower these conservatives as they turned more and more extreme. Now we are facing down full Dominionism, the religious right vying for ultimate power above the desires of the majority. Who did this? Why is it happening? Religion helped to pave the way here. I remember all my indoctrination, and I held out, holding against war, and still standing for unions as so much of America at the behest of their preachers marched to the beat of the drum of the capitalists.
Why can't we make everyone's lives better? Why does society have to
focus on crushing punishment as the answer to every problem? Sometimes I have thoughts about how religion made our society so punishment focused. Some who believe in hell, seem to want to make life here as much like hell as possible. Shouldn't mankind
evolve beyond that? It doesn't work anyhow.
Why do people have to
be PUNISHED for losing the job Lotto? Why should someone become homeless
or life ruined because someone behind a desk decided they did not like
them. The USA is backtracking on decades of progress, the meanness needs
to stop. Many conservatives are a
miserable lot, always afraid someone won't suffer enough just to eat or
be housed. Some people who want to progress are dreaming of a different future, but there's so many who want to dial the clock back to the dark ages. Europeans and Canadians are watching this place with horror, they have their own economic and other problems but they see where extreme religion and fantasy thinking is taking the United States.
Neo-liberals destroy a place while being socially
liberally but when it comes to money they are just like their Republican
counterparts, because the rents rise just as high. It is based on Social Darwinism too. Calvinism helped fuel the false morality of the rich narcissists as well. The whole country has been programmed to gaslight themselves believing their poverty is all their fault instead of a crooked system full of injustice.
Many of the young are for progressive and democratic socialism but sadly there's too many living in the past. They think someone can walk the street and ask for a job directly when the reality is most are lost in the online application process and a computer program is weeding out their resume. They get lost in computer files and paperwork. We have a generation directing life for everyone else based on 40 year old precepts that no longer apply and getting reality through to them seems impossible.
One reason the United States is regressing is, at least on one half of the side of the equation, is it has lost interest in science, progress is now seen as a negative. Carl Sagan's warnings are coming true now. The anti-vaxxers have now created pockets of the country again where measles is roaring back. What is ironic is that all the fear and religious talk about "end days" is ensuring more trouble for human beings and more things for people to be afraid of.
You know I left Christianity realizing the darkness within it, politically and otherwise. I woke up one day and have written about this before where I did not want to be on the side of the oppressors. Yes there are Christians outside of the evangelical system with it's horrifying authoritarian politics but the extreme ones are taking our country down. I hope for liberal Christians to align with those who want progress but sadly they must realize that many of the churches are aligned with political and economic oppression. These folks have more power then they should have.
What is ironic is when I was still a Christian, I used to warn from my belief in bible prophecy that churches would join with the Antichrist. While I no longer believe in the Bible now, we definitely have seen religion and politics join together in a quest for evil in this country. It is interesting how this has occurred supposedly at the same time, the statisticians are telling us that more people are abandoning Christianity. People don't realize the trouble, the USA is facing, with the Dominionists on the extreme right.
Mr Tibbles responded: The problem with most religions is they create such ossified, frozen
societies, frozen in time. There's no mechanism in place for altering
rules or beliefs, or growing in societal wisdom, no mechanism for
learning better ways of living together. Any proposal to make changes is
seen as heresy, the work of the devil, and therefore evil. So you get
stuff like the Jews versus the Muslims in the Middle east, locked in
combat for more than 1400 years straight, with no real means of
reconciliation or living together in harmony, since both depict the
other as Evil, and negotiating a way to live together is seen as
compromising with Satan and becoming tainted with evil yourself.
The ironic part is all religions are changing all the time, including
the Abrahamic ones like judaism, Islam, and Christianity. They've all
split into endless variants, and even the same sect changes greatly over
time despite claims of being "the eternal unchanging church". I.e. the
Catholic Church and Vatican II.
I predict that eventually, centuries or millenia from now,
Christianity will fade away and be considered mythology, just as we
regard the Roman pantheon of gods like Zeus, Minerva, Apollo, etc, as
mythology now. No one considers that a real religion anymore, though
2,000 years ago it definitely was.
The dark Fundamentalism had overwhelming influence on you, but I have
read articles showing that Christianity is actually fading very
significantly in the USA. Lots of churches and monasteries all over the
US are closing their doors, nuns and pastors having to take up
non-religious jobs because congregations are shrinking and the money
just isn't there to keep them going anymore.
This article, and this one, among many others, saying 4,000 churches "go out of business" every year in the US.
Neither article explores why congregations are shrinking, but I can
make a number of easy guesses. You and I are both Exhibit A and B for
why. Christianity itself has turned itself into a liability, not an
asset. People are happier without it. Too many Christians including
clergy promise heaven but create hell. I'm just not interested in
participating or supporting that. If I join an abusive church, that
makes me complicit, doesn't it?
It's not all bad. The old stone cathedrals with their stained glass
windows are gorgeous, and that organ music and the choir singing is
pretty wonderful. I have a number of gospel songs in my music
collection. I even have entire albums of Gregorian chants, sung in the
original latin by actual monks and I love listening to it. There are
many beautiful stories and movies that came out of it. "Going My Way",
"Bells of St. Marys".Margaret Craven's "I Heard the Owl Call My Name",
.... and another beloved fiction book about a church kitten called
"Magnifi-Cat" by Carolyn and Edmund Sheehan--heartwarming tearjerker,
that story's adorable..lol And all churches are supposed to have a mission of giving comfort,
wise counseling, and aid especially to the needy. Clergy were the first
therapists.
If the churches could just hold on to that stuff, and drop all the
fearmongering and the control-freak intolerance and abusive stuff....I
think they would be doing a whole lot better in society. But power goes
to their heads,and priests and pastors and ministers and popes can't
change that any more than any other human can. Have any of you wondered why hard core evil is not discussed in the churches?
Not since I was a kid, actually. Always seemed obvious to me, why; because they're complicit in the hardcore evil.
The more power they gained, the more oppressive and fear-based they
became. I read my history of the Dark Ages. They didn't call it that for
nothing.
And nothing turned me off Christianity as much as the whole
pedophilia crisis; not just the acts of some very sick priests, but how
the church responded to it, protecting the evildoers instead of the
victims and further victimizing the victims. "No true church of god
would behave this way." Then I read of similar behavior from the Buddhist monks in Tibet.
And there was that bombing incident in Bangladesh thats in the news
right now....done by self-described Buddhists. So Buddhist extremists
can be hate-filled, intolerant, and violent terrorists too. Every single religion I ever studied has a dark side like that.
I do get people saying "those are extremist fanatic crazies...they
don't truly represent that religion. Most believers are peaceful and
tolerant. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater."
To which I say..well...agreed that all religions have good in
them....they all have bad in them, too. Problem I have, there's an
authoritarianism in a lot of them that really bothers me ethically. But more important...there's all these different belief systems, and
they contradict each other, and none of them fit my own experience 100%.
They all have good parts I agree with. They all have bad parts that
strike me as evil. I don't think joining any religion 100% wholesale absolves me of the
responsibility to figure out for myself right and wrong. I was given a
brain. I'm pretty sure I was meant to use it. So I pick and choose what seems wisdom to me, from wherever I find
it. And knowing there's an inherent contradiction in this; the twin
imperatives of one the one hand, behaving well, and on the other hand of
the other imperative to survive and flourish, knowing that immoral
people have an apparent advantage over moral ones hamstrung by moral
constraints, at least in the short term. This becomes keenest for victims of abuse and exploitation and various kinds of theft, some of which are legalized.
