The other day, I was talking to my husband about the whole church thing, and how I didn't want to go back to being abused for being poor in the evangelical world. I told him, I was looking at this one local church but when I realized, they held multiple Dave Ramsey classes, it was off the list of possibilities. Dave Ramsey has helped spread many of the lies, that have too many churches turning their backs on poor people. He doesn't admit the reality of this economy. I think the lady in this video "Simply Christine" is a deconstructed fundamentalist, she was raised in the Christian Nationalism and homeschooling world. She is right about the individualism that is preached in churches. The pastors who love the system and this world never address the greater machinations affecting people's lives. I would love to read the book she mentions about capitalism and Protestantism.
The Catholic church seemed a bit different when it came to poor people. I told my husband once "Well you can go to a Catholic church and be dirt poor and no one is going to put you down for it." That's how it was for me anyway. Maybe because some of their religious take vows of poverty? The view was kind of different. One book I always wanted to read but haven't gotten to it yet is this one. I see the shortcomings of later wave feminism, but Caliban and the Witch is supposed to deal with the "creation of Capitalism". Both books would be interesting to read, I probably can get both from interlibrary loan later.
Anyhow as I wrote in the church article, most churches and pastors now seem to be in the sway of the ruling class. They have no discernment. Very few seem to care even as the economy is imploding. I am sure there's a few exceptions to this as ones in poor communities are probably trying to help their own people and even the Revelations of Jesus Christ pastor, the week they were going to cancel EBT went out to help people get groceries. If a church has Dave Ramsey classes, that's not the place for me. I will get the usual lectures and "everything is your fault" messaging and this vlogger mentions that how these churches tell people everything is your fault. I think that's done more harm to Christianity, where some forget Jesus fed people and gave them encouragement.
As I wrote, megachurches are starting to fail. Some say there is a religious movement now where people are converting into the Orthodox and other churches. It would not surprise me. Much of evangelicalism has problems. If the American economy sinks down even further, I doubt Dave Ramsey is going to do as well. I am surprised his message is still selling in the churches, maybe because all the poor people left?
I read his books, and his other nonsense. He has done untold harm to the poor and shut down hearts towards the homeless, poor and working class. He gives false hope. His whole program rests on stable high incomes which in the real world are rarer and rarer. Yes there are things people should do, be responsible, don't waste money, avoid credit cards, but he never questions a system that puts people into such huge debts or makes it so hard to survive or how the job world is ruled by nepotism. It kind of makes me sick they sold this guy in churches when everything he preaches is the opposite of Jesus Christ.
Here's his latest book, that's a creepy title. Did Jesus say go out and be a millionaire?
Hmm thinking of a bible verse here...
Matt 19:24 And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
I said to my husband, "Religion is a business now in America, and well business doesn't go for the broke people without money!
It's interesting when she talks about how health care was part of church charity and reaching out to others and how Martin Luther's influences are related to today's for-profit health care. I laughed when she compared the obscene wealth used on megachurches relates to the sale of indulgences in the Catholic church to build grand cathedrals but with "far less artistic merit".
She talks about the change where personal belief became far more important and Calvinism. I never subscribed to Calvinism and its denial of free will. Her comparison of Catholic theology and practices compared to Protestant ones are interesting too. [Remember in my case, I've been both] I questioned the hatred of images, being an artist that was always difficult for me when I was in evangelical land. Was it okay to draw Jesus even to show kids bible stories or was one breaking the second commandment? I have some icons in here now and watched videos on Youtube about paintings in English churches from the Medieval era that taught bible stories. I missed stained glass as an evangelical.
Her comment "what do you have left when you have no fun, no art and white walls...work, hard work" [24:23] stands out to me. She goes on to talk about the Protestant work ethic. She's right about Dave Ramsey going on about belief, it includes God but also believe in this system. I think people are no longer believing in this system. I've lost belief in it. Why wouldn't I? The young seeing no viable future, also are realizing something is very wrong and that they have been lied to about how the world works. I wrote about my time in churches, but one struggle I had was everyone trying to impose these belief systems, and I am talking both liberal [UU] and conservative churches that did not pan out in my life. I am not talking about God/Jesus here, I do still think there is a God, but about the essentials of HOW this world works. Dave Ramsey is full of it and selling false dreams and sadly influencing church people to disdain the poor.
Think this out in a world where most are now "failing" when it comes to the old rules and only a few superstars do okay, do you think people are going to believe in the system? I try to catch the edge of new things in religions, but I hope there are changes to the churches. I do think evangelicalism is going to have more people just leaving or even bible reading Christians who just don't want to go anymore and listen to some preacher give us the economic lies who will judge us by how much money we have. This isn't what Jesus Christ taught.
One quibble I may have with the video is I don't think we have "capitalism" anymore, well "capitalism" has always had those who exploited people, it seems all financial systems all hit the barrier of bad human traits. We have some new version of capitalism today with all the monopolies and the marriage of government and corporations having become complete, where the government bails out banks, and silver markets and all sorts of stuff on behalf of the corporations.
I do agree with her about the history and theology that impacted the crazy workaholism here, the rejection of leisure and this all getting mixed in with a false piety especially in Protestant traditions. This country has gone downhill with a lack of culture, she's right and bland food. This is what happens when a whole place just runs on people being consumers and nothing but and everything being about business, even the religion in many cases.
Doug Wilson is one of the worse, I knew about him years ago. She goes on about more culture and her marriage to a man from the Congo and getting to share in their culture. I have talked about this before, but I have lamented on this board, having no culture, "people" or heritage, this is something many especially white Americans do not get to have. We are so far removed from our European roots or are such a multiple blend now, there's no culture to have. What do I know of Hungary? Almost nothing. Like her I was in churches that forbid dancing, even art was a bit suspect too.
Sadly she is right when she says "If you are poor it's because you are lazy and you act like a victim" as being a predominant view in churches. She is right many churches teach that God is teaching people lessons via poverty and it is their fault. Remember these aren't Jesus's teachings this is stuff the churches have come up with. She may differ from me on some issues, but I agree with her that Jesus questioned the powers of the day. He defended the poor. I hope like her Christians realize how far they have strayed from the basic teachings of Jesus too. Almost every evangelical church I have been in, had some semblance of the prosperity gospel that they taught.
This is part of the upcoming Covid comic zine, which I know is taking me too long to do but remember I am a very disabled woman who is diagnosed with chronic fatigue. You know what is weird this panel was based on a cartoon in my journal drawn in 2020, maybe I thought pandemics always mean economic collapse and war. We could see the early signs couldn't we? They got away with Covid, and all that entailed so why wouldn't they go to town with the financial end of things? I had dreams about the above. I'm sure some New Agers would tell me such dreams are not a good thing and I need to stop manifesting "bad things" but it's what I dreamed about.
I expect the streets to fill with the homeless soon, though it seems they are making the homeless "disappear". Put the picture together, if they are laying off millions of people and the prices have gone this high, where do you think things are going to go? Where is all the money going? Up to the tippy top, someone is profiting off all these out of control prices. Even mainstream news has mentioned the loss of 1.1 million jobs but then took the real news down. One question I used to think on X, was where were the other poor people? Maybe most have had their internet shut off. The real poor people were shut up or shut down, so they could build more astroturf and controlled opposition accounts, with guys saying the homeless were all drug addicts or the poor ate too much avocado toast to brainwash people and make them feel all alone.
The young lady in the video, trying to find a dishwasher/restaurant job probably is in trouble because the restaurants are shutting down. We have lost so many restaurants locally. Some are getting smart and realizing people can only afford take-out and can't afford tips and a sit down place anymore. It's sad her own aunt wants 800 a month from her in rent. That's a bit much for a rented room. Yes many young will realize welfare won't help them. I had no money coming in and got turned down in the 1990s, "you're abled-bodied". She has figured out her college degree is utterly worthless. I'm still in shock the college dreams are still selling. I do find her family pathetic in not sharing food with her. That's white families for you now, sink or swim, they can sit there eating a T-bone while she nibbles at her ramen noodles. That kind of crap wouldn't go down in the Latino or African American families. They still care about each other in most cases.
Hey I had relatives visiting China and England, while I was wondering the streets of Chicago dumpster diving for canned food. Her future is being ruined. She is not building experience. At age 22, I had graduated and gotten my 14 dollar an hour juvenile home job by August. She's doing worse than I was. That age is the make or break age that builds or tears down the future. Potential is now being ruined in America. Consider this, even I had seeds planted in my 20s, that have blossomed into the art shows of my 50s. What are the young going to be left with now?
The guy with the beard has a point, make stuff affordable again. I remember economics class, doesn't more crap sell if more people can afford it? Why don't they want to sell stuff?[because they are secretly dismantling this place? hmmmm] The teacher needs to get rid of the expensive nails and is paying way too much for car insurance. I relate to the African American lady talking about the "run away train". I always spoke of it as being on the edge of the abyss, don't look down or you may fall in. The month becomes nothing but a marathon to pay bills. The bills are all more than what anyone is making. We have cut everything off. I haven't seen a "new" TV show or any network news now in over a year and half, or maybe two. I probably will never have cable again. I watch only old stuff on Pluto. I read news online. I hope he will keep his phone shut off and pay what was left and let the rest go. I pay one subscription around 14 dollars for my Cloud storage which is necessary for our zines and my book illustration projects. I don't know how anyone with kids or who owns a home is supposed to do it. With the air conditioning lady, yes, where is the money supposed to come for emergencies, or repairs or car repairs? The whole system stinks. There is a point where it does not work for people anymore and this system isn't.
The astroturfs and bots berating all the poors outnumbered the rest on X, I got tired of them. Rich people with no clue. Some wisely supported medical freedom but were annoying on other topics. There were always those farm people who preached self-reliant living not realizing us poors didn't have land to grow food on or barns to store animals in.
Yesterday I got a new bill, a premium for Medicare D that used to be 9 dollars is now 78. Some idiot thinks the disabled are rolling in money. I am approaching the place where there is essentially none of my disability check left. Add to that the CPAP monopoly sending me a bill for 422 dollars, they claim that's "WITH" insurance. These bills used to run in the 100s not the 400s. They actually send me a form, when I applied for financial hardship, where they wanted me to sign my entire bank account over, where it said on the form they could take up to 5,000 dollars out of my bank account at any time. I wonder how many old people needing CPAPS and nebulizer's aren't so careful to read this form. Lung problems don't help one discern predators. The form is so bad, it seems fraudulent. I called them up, "Process my financial application but there's no way I am signing my entire bank account over to you, since I could end up homeless if you clean my account out!"
I told them I want emailed from now on, my captioning kept failing during the course of this conversation. I am too deaf to use voice mail jail too. The eye doctor secretary got mad at me because I thought they would bill me and I had no money on me to pay the 17 dollar co-pay, Sometimes I think just pay what you can and let the rest go. I can only do so much. It is a bit ominous how some bills are getting higher.
We had just enough money to get a chicken and some vegetables for our holiday meal, I was glad to have two friends visit in the last two days so that was really nice. One we made art and collages so that was fun. Today my husband made some money to pay my phone bill, his phone got shut off, I'm not sure if we are going to turn it back on or not. He made just enough to go get something to eat tonight. The captioning worked far better on that phone, Sigh. Sometimes when really down and out, I make some strange food, lunch was a masa biscuit, 1 egg, and kidney bean curry for each of us.
It's weird on my social media, I posted videos like this, people either seem to ignore them or the ones with more money tell me the videos are "too negative". I know a lot of people don't like facing things like economic collapse, it doesn't make you too popular at parties. Many don't want to think about this stuff. For some of us the collapse already is here. It's worse for some others, I still got the power on, am housed, and got other basics though food is always a problem.
Some of the reactions were strange, I guess some saw me a doomer. One very "Q" friend has told me that rescue awaits, and the quantum financial system is going to be put in, and we will all be prosperous during the new Trump-led golden age. They are middle class from what I can tell, their family is very close too, I am not so optimistic. The left outside of William Barber and a few words from Bernie Sanders who sadly was a Covid vaxx sellout never mentions the poor and working class even now. The streets are filling with the homeless, no one can afford groceries but none of them seem to care, the extreme identity politics still run the show. Even the church I left, the UUA, only talks about trans people anymore, their magazine shows up at our apt still. you would think there is no other social issue on the planet to be concerned about. The Christian churches all push David Ramsey [still!] and act like packing a lunch for work instead of eating out, will bring endless money to your door. Of course, those programs assume there is decent income coming in. Poor people understand there will be little understanding for our own circumstances in most evangelical churches. David Ramsey won't admit the economy is crumbling. He thinks one can pick off a job off the job tree.
Maybe the healthy can go get a minimum wage job in a group home or nursing home. I did that gambit in the past taking the jobs no one else wanted to survive. I noticed all the wealthy Christians around here, were just telling a woman on my social media asking about financial help, to go take a Ramsey Financial Peace class. We are surrounded by closing businesses. There's a breakfast restaurant that opened up and died within a month.
It's kind of scary to me, watching normal [non-disabled, conventionally good looking] people on all these videos hitting the financial skids. How bad is this all going to get? Why are Americans putting up with it? I guess the billionaires, have perfected the art of misdirection. Will we get another no kings fest without no mention of the economy again? I'm tempted to make signs, "The Economy is Crashing and None of You Care!" for the next one. How about "The Billionaires won and control this protest, that's why none of you mention the Economy!"?
My husband will be going on Social Security for age, but there's some time before it and it feels like we are both limping into the end of the race. Why are things so hard? Life used to be more than drudge, I do try to find fun where I can have it and the art world and my friends add joy to my life, but the sad faces at the grocery store are a bit much to take. Some seem so shut down. It didn't used to be like that.
You know what scares me, is we don't drink, no one smokes, never did drugs, I buy the cheapest food I can--[the same stuff from Aldis], I got clothing from thrift and get what I can from "Buy Nothing" board and there still isn't enough money. I am facing the fact my disability check due to inflation is now almost worth nothing, and yes it scares me. As I have written, my husband doesn't like my ideas about moving to Appalachia, , or a more remote area of my own state, rented rooms or finding somewhere to go. He sees us in another Chicago scenario. I've done things like go on Zillow searching for cheap apartments in my state. They were all HUD apartments which sadly we will still be over the newest cut-off, in very bad dangerous areas or very remote, with no hospital within hundreds of miles. I saw a few studios for the amount of money I was thinking of [700-800] in college towns and apartments that were less than 400 square feet. It is kind of weird they made even small towns expensive. We have gone round and round, "Where should we go?" but we would take the lack of money anywhere we go. It's better to be in an area where you know a few people. Our present apartment is safe. You can't take that for granted now either. I dread getting new doctors especially with my level of medical complexity and don't want to leave my functional doctor behind who has probably saved my life from kidney stuff alone.
One thing I have noticed as I have researched places to go, is a lot of cities seem to be crumbling, and are having serious problems with homelessness, crime, and basically collapse of the infrastructure. You aren't going to see this talked about in the news. Have people lost their minds from being online, where they don't LOOK at the real world anymore and just believe the reality told there. One city I lived in for college, is now taken over by the homeless, it's so bad, I saw videos of this one guy on Youtube, feeding the homeless in that town and there were hundreds of them. My old small town, had a homeless shelter, that got closed, the rich MAGAS drove them out. I think they may be trying to rebuild something else. Things look bad. One town in my county, I considered moving to for cheaper rent, seems to have such a burgeoning crime and homelessness problem I am now not interested in moving there. I joined a local board on social media to see what life was like there. Hmm lets do a random glance today, Oh there's two shootings, looks like some bad stuff is spilling over from a larger town. Some thief is shown at a gas station. I'm glad I investigated this place a lot before moving there. My husband sometimes cynically says, "They've ruined everywhere".
People have enough of their own problems, with everyone sick from the vaxx, they fear for their own survival. I made a list of everyone I know sick or deceased from the Covid vaxxes and it was dozens of people. I lost neighbors, church people, and endless acquaintances and some friends. These numbers are increasing as time passes by too. People are dying a lot younger. I have outlived multiple people I never expected to. I miss old nice neighbors. One I said hello to for years and was felled by a stroke in their early 60s, the lady who lived upstairs from me died of a massive heart attack in 2021. One person I cut ties with may have died. I knew in one case they definitely took the Covid vaxx. I even wonder if death notices are being put up. In some cases, it just seems like people disappear. You wonder "What ever happened to...."
Imagine this across the landscape, I belong to multiple "anti-vaxx" boards where people talk openly about all the people they have lost, some even seem to have whole families wiped out. This level of grief for a society isn't going to be doing good things to that society. I think America as a whole has a PTSD problem from the abuses of Covid/Covid vaxx. Now add in the financial abuses and pressures, it sometimes seems to me, if they press the screws much more the whole society is going to crack up.
I refused to ever touch credit cards again after a certain point and haven't had one in 15 years. However the medical debts now will pile up. Having a company abuse me over sleep apnea supplies is very scary, some of my huge weight gain came from untreated and diagnosed sleep apnea. I have to make the decision to put off some medical appointments so I can catch up on the hundreds I owe in medical bills. I may delay going to the kidney doctor, the ear doctor, I have to see them, so I go down the list to see who or what I can put off. The sleep apnea machine is scary as it uses filters up and goes through masks, but if they are going to charge me 200 dollars a mask what am I supposed to do?
Much of the rest of the world knows America is going down the economic tubes. Even if Trump is deporting people, I am tired of rich liberals who support endless illegal immigration. I have noticed they don't seem to care about poor Americans who are homeless. I still stand by what I wrote about immigration years ago.
Legal immigration has a place, but in a country that can't even take care of its own, we can't take in millions per year. I can't stand ICE's tactics, but how come none of these liberals get the point that one reason Americans can't get jobs or survive is millions from other countries pouring in. They support the H-1B programs and other things that take jobs away from citizens and LEGAL immigrants. There too, you see the liberals protesting against ICE but they never seem to give a damn about the economic damage happening to fellow Americans and citizens. Maybe some immigrants are leaving reading the signs in the wind, this place is economically collapsing and self deporting while they still have somewhere to go. Maybe the news is getting out finally about how hard it is to survive here. People around the world realize things are getting bad here. Read this reddit thread, many overseas realize life is easier elsewhere now:
How is any of this sustainable? One can see the future and it's not too bright. They are making home ownership impossible. They are making having families impossible for the young. Many of the elderly and disabled are ending up homeless.
I myself while trying to plan for the future have been put in an impossible situation, HUD blocks us out even as poor as we are, my husband couldn't make an extra dollar again even working for a newspaper. The other place that we are on the list for raised the rent nearly to what we pay now and there's a time limit on the years the apartments remain "affordable" and then are raised to what they call "market rate rent". Food is insane. This good friend of mine sent me some gluten free foods from a local Trader Joe's she lives near. It is nice to have olives, nuts and rice crackers, foods I can't otherwise afford. I live in a food desert, there's not much to eat here, and no Trader Joe's. The health food store that is some miles away in another town, is going out of business, I suppose because no one can afford to shop there. I did during better times, but the prices rose so high even during working class times, I stopped going there.
Jobs are more insecure. No politician or planner cares about making up for the jobs lost via AI. Some believe AI is a fraud and I've wondered if it is the excuse for deindustrialization and the end of oil. Are you noticing they don't care about the betterment of society anymore? I noticed this, the left doesn't care, the right obviously doesn't care. They aren't even pretending. Everything is about screwing people over, ruining their lives and extracting every drop of wealth for the ruling class. You know it and I know it. Everything is to serve the ruling class. Covid served all their needs and desires as they expanded depopulations and helped to monopolize business as they wiped out millions of small businesses.
I don't think there's another CPAP company I can switch to. Think about that. They have no competitors. They are national, and that is scary! I could be denied care for a very serious disorder, that could bring back weight gain and heart problems. Life is being made worse, and the liberal world was destroyed by Covid. Sadly since more of them took the clot shot, there's more of them dying or getting sick. They only care about identity and corporate sponsored issues instead of the rising numbers of homeless. The right wing world, well, I was long ago tired of them with their reality denying lectures, and hatred of the disabled and up by the bootstraps myths. I know many people will just brush me off, "Oh she's a conspiracy theorist". Hate to tell you but crap we talked about 20 years ago on those boards is all coming true today. Do you think sell-outs like Michael Moore who pushed the Covid vaxx while he made millions cares? Where is that guy? Is he even talking about the economy? Hmm let me go look. Sheesh, just the usual no kings crap. What a disappointment he was!
Notice everything is to serve the ruling class, the oligarchy, the 1 percent. The world society, business, money, culture, is all being formed for their needs not yours or mine and they have plenty of servants to help make it happen. Do you see anyone fixing anything? Do you see anything being done for the betterment of society? All the technological advances are invested in surveillance and control not for alleviating any human suffering.
One thing I have noticed is most of the pundits except some independents on Youtube and elsewhere, never mention the reality about the economy. They aren't even telling people the truth. They are gaslighting even worse then when I wrote about it some months ago. I have a rule for any new pundit I listen to, if they don't admit the true state of the American economy, big potatoes or small potatoes, I don't waste any time with them.
This society changed for the worse when they forced the young into serious poverty. I want to write an article about how the economy may have impacted declining family relationships too. Look for that next. There is a problem with older people who do not care, that their adult children are having worse lives. What kind of life can you build as detailed in the video above, if you are dependent on your parents well into your 30s? What happens to your life if you "work hard" and your job doesn't pay enough to cover your bills and you are always desperate with a hand out. Keep in mind as I have described my poverty sagas, I have a husband who worked all the time for years. Lives are being ruined.
Why do people even believe in this system anymore? I am not sure the young even know what to extent they have been betrayed, they think this is normal to have life always put on hold because everything is too expensive. Blackrock and health care costs will extract the wealth of the wealthy boomers as they die off, and all the nice stuff like our decked out Senior centers, nice restaurants, libraries, parks etc. that we take for granted now, will all simply vanish. We have already lost magazine stands, cafeterias, bookstores, and most third places. Even church has become something only for people with money. Many of the small ones are closing.
It will be the Victorian/Gilded age with the rich being even more powerful. We are reliving the Gilded Age, but on steroids. Go read this book, I am up to page 177 but my eyes are bugging out reading it. They are doing the same to us now. Extracting all the wealth, redoing small crowded "tenements", making food impossible to afford but the bowls of gruel. Time to wake up! Seriously go read this book, here's an online copyHistory of the Great American Fortunes by Meyers. It's my second time mentioning it but it will help you understand what is happening. Many of their ancestors today are directing things. Notice what is done to ordinary people for the achievement of this wealth.
Those younger than me, don't remember the 1970s and 1980s and how different things were, how many vacations one could take, how leisure was part of everyday life. I became a poor adult, but I remember all that stuff, and got to enjoy it. Even family visits were different in the days before working people had to work so many hours. I notice on the video above, even those making 6 figures are pressed to the wall. They often live in very expensive cities and have expectations that increase the money. Their taxes are high, they have to pay huge money on insurance and medical bills. The lady being told to pay 1600 instead of 800 for medical insurance, probably will have no choice but to drop it unless she is a big earner. Some people live on 1600 a month or less. Are these insurance companies dumb? Don't they get that most people simply won't have the money and will drop the coverage? Maybe they will all go out of business. One can only hope.
I did wonder if I don't come up with the 70 bucks a month if I will get dropped. Oh I also have to pay a bigger Medicare premium over 200 dollars, when I say nothing is going to be left of my check, I mean it. If I was not married, I probably would be homeless. I wanted to protect us both from homelessness finding housing in case the worse would happen to either of us but the way American society is set up, they don't care. This place is designed to push you into the streets. This is why we have giant homeless encampments everywhere. Look, if my old small town, which used to be a stable working class place has a homelessness problem, that means things are getting really bad. People don't have the family and social networks that used to protect each other.
I do wonder what the solutions are. One thing I am noticing is we can't depend on the powerful and the famous. Most of the pundits, academics, people like Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, etc, serve the ruling class. They don't want to admit what is going on and the people who pay their salaries or give them deals don't want them to admit what is really going on. I suppose some could work locally and try to build up local networks. I've faced the problem, I can't even find a church that isn't brainwashed by the likes of David Ramsey condemning most poor people to walking out the door, because they can't take anymore shame. Some are fortunate enough to have good friends, I am. I try to focus on them and art to keep my head above it all. I and my husband always have projects. You have to know we do think of what life could have been with economic stability.
I do think people need to admit what is happening and talk about it. That's not too popular. I am glad a few are speaking out on Youtube. I did notice information was "controlled" in talking about the economy, this probably got me shadow banned on X as much as talking about any Covid vaxxes, fat people or conspiracy. I doubt things would be better on BlueSky though, I probably would go over there and be censored for not being a vaxx lover and not supporting trans, and probably would be told the economy is just fine. I notice liberals ranting and raving about ICE, and Trump but still saying nothing about the economy and lying to us and telling us it's wonderful due to a rising stock market. With the liberals, are they all rich? I don't know. Maybe the poor have figured out both sides don't care about us finally.
I think ICE sucks for rounding up citizens and legal immigrants and fear them being used to round up dissenters one day. However I wonder about liberal people who are in such denial about the death and destruction all around us from Covid and maybe it's spilled over into deep denial about the state of the economy. The right wing is going around saying all the homeless are drug addicts even as the job layoffs skyrocket into the millions. The corporations which both of these sides serve seem more hell bent on crushing us all and abusing power to the point you wonder how they expect to stay in business when no one has any money. They use fear to control us all. No one is left alone to live in peace anymore. As I have said to my husband, "I am fine being poor as long as I have a few simple art supplies, library to go to and can get my needs met", but I added, "They never leave us alone". Every step in life is a threat.
Many other people of other countries see Americans as weak and suck-ups for even putting up with this crap. I've seen the posts online, "What's wrong with Americans?" I wonder why American's aren't departing out of the system. In earlier times, people formed communes, religious communities and other alternatives but all the doorways to those seem to be shut and/or cost money. Sometimes I think the elite just decided America the corporation is to be shut down, and that's the process we are now in. That's the only thing that seems to explain all the craziness. I understand the better off people not wanting to look at this stuff, it's not pleasant, but it's reality.
I'm leaving X. Outside of a few people, it felt like I was talking to an empty wall there. I probably will still 'read" and write a few messages to the few friends but will spend less time there. They took away my account that had 700 followers, even though the password was never lost. "Arbitrary termination" [see their new list of rules] has already kicked in. I have a second account that stayed at around 80 followers. After a period of time observing X, I felt like most on there were "owned" or "agenda" accounts or blatantly fake accounts.
I searched for my own name, and noticed they started a number of fake accounts under the fivehundredpoundpeep name. One insulting one claimed to love Only Fans. I hate Only Fans. This irritated me.
No one was reading my posts anymore and there was no way to recover my old account. Here's the new rules that kick in on January, they are awful.
It's just not worth it. Some of these places are addictive, I have to be cautious myself of internet addiction and dopamine hits. I am working to withdraw more from the internet. I will still post here, and still do messages to friends and emails. I watch a lot of Youtube too, since it's part of my TV, I'm not sure how much of that I can lower. Being deaf, it is far easier for me to communicate via text than the phone and I need to transcribe speech to communicate with people so I can't leave the internet completely. My husband still will be doing some work on it.
There have been some nasty changes to the internet where they seem to want to make the "dead internet" theory come to life. All the bots are ruining it. Many are noticing the level of manipulation too. Long ago, I noticed a lot of people online didn't seem real, there was too many bots and astroturfers. Free speech barely exists anywhere, everything seemed to have an "agenda". This is one reason I greatly reduced my involvement with Reddit, even on obscure boards like one dealing with bible conspiracy, There were fake people all over. Too many had the same opinions and the round-about dishonest way of writing. This reminded me of my banning from the raised by narcissists board even after years on there for having one line that questioned Covid vaxxes in 2024. Some of the stuff got silly.
On X, I have noticed anyone who is spontaneous and "real" is left with a small account, there were even a few excellent researchers and commentators, who were being left with very little audience. Some talked about shadow-banning, that may explain some of it. As you can see from the new rules below, my losing my first account probably was early arbitrary termination. Elon Musk is not trustworthy. How will our information be used by a trillionaire "tech brother?" Some of these characters remind me of the villains on James Bond movies. X was a good source of information about certain topics like Covid, though sadly most of the medical freedom movement appeared to sell out to Trump.
They are trying to build data centers. They are popping up like mushrooms in my state, every small town area is getting one, even my own. They already are making the electric bills skyrocket, and they use tons of water. Some say the system is being collapsed, but who knows. Why are they building so many data centers? I joined groups online against them and if a real world local one starts, I plan to go.
I do not support AI, I hate it, it has brought us endless bad art, fake pictures and poorly written books, and it's full of errors too. I am not AI pure being online at all, but I refuse to use ChatGPT, or any AI knowingly where one goes and looks for a AI tool to use. Some people find my anti-AI stances weird. One guy told me this is progress and it will improve humanity. I don't agree.
AI seems to be making people dumber and even more shut down. Protect your paper books, it seems they are making paper magazines and books obsolete, there isn't a magazine stand for hundreds of miles now within my apartment. The lack of a soul in AI deadens everything it touches, and sadly most disconnected humans don't even see it. I have noticed there are a lot of artists and religious people who hate AI, and we hate it for a reason.
How come so few are asking why we need a data center every 50 miles? You think those digital IDs have something to do with it? I do. It would shock you if I told you how many of these places they want to build and they are going into rural remote areas. They can't even get a working job system or money system as Americans are falling into homelessness or keep a steady source of power without constant war. Some believe and I've mentioned this theory too, that they are shutting down industrial society and the Covid vaxxes are working their depopulation "magic" though far slower than predicted. Maybe the data centers are a boondoggle. I have read articles and posted them here and there about how AI is a hoax. What does it actually DO for us? A whole lot of nothing. Garbage in, Garbage out. Why is AI almost always a woke liberal too and always loves vaxxes?
If I find most of the newest internet developments dissatisfying except for this blog, and some forced shopping online and speaking with online and IRL friends because I am deaf, wouldn't that apply to others? I've been ordering old books from inter library loan for real education like reading "History of Great American Fortunes", from 1936. This book will tell you what is happening now is almost an exact repeat of the Gilded Age. I've read to page 177 but plan to finish it. I suppose the internet is still useful for somethings since I found an archive of it but I want to order a paper copy as soon as I can afford it. I loved the internet for years, like a magic library but everything that is good about it, the tech brothers and other soul-less idiots running this society seem to be wanting to take out of it. However that said, many of us do feel the electronic cage being built around us.
Some points about the internet:
1. Have you noticed how blogging has died? I am one of the die-hards. I can't even find a new ACON blog out there. Most shut theirs down. I'm glad one blog I have co-written with, survives. Maybe I will run out of things to talk about one day. Blogging seems to have disappeared. Only the sponsored and corporate still seem at it. I save copies of this blog since I fear even this platform being taken down one day. I do want to get paper copies of the best articles but money has stood in my way there.
2. Have you noticed how those with independent opinions are ostracized and banned? I can find some real independent outposts of the internet but that got harder and harder. I really wish I could find independent message boards, if anybody knows of any share them with me here. I haven't been able to find those. I think of how Twitter banned me years ago for questioning the vaxxes, I got back on under Elon Musk's sojourn, but I've been "banned" just more via the backdoor. I talked about politics, conspiracy and religion too much for their liking. How come every message board has a control freak moderator that seems to reject all independent posts? You don't have to insult anyone or do anything wrong but if you don't go with their agenda, out you go. I've noticed this on boards for a variety of subjects.
Free speech isn't in vogue anymore in the USA. The left is worse with this, but the right wing can be just as bad. I am tired of being told by rich friends on Facebook, except a few who are conspiracy aware, that the economy is doing great. A lot of opinions out there are programmed out there. The internet is erasing individuality and testing things by the real world. Control of information definitely is an internet agenda.
I'm keeping my hobbies and paper books!
3. How come there hasn't been a back to real life movement, where people disengage off the internet. Maybe it's happening and it's overdue. It's not like they will announce it online! I had discussions with my husband where I have said, "we should return to regular life!" I dream of "going off the grid" so to speak but practicalities have made this impossible. I do force 24 hour periods on myself where I am not allowed to go online except for necessary speech transcription.
I could be forced off the grid one day because I will not take a digital ID, due to religious and other beliefs. One day there could be those who have been ousted from the system. You always saw this theme in many dystopian novels. I refuse transhumanism and other things they seem to be cooking up. If they plan for deindustrialization and returning the peasants to the land, there probably would still be some digital control mechanisms that could be left in place. Remember what I said about that Arch Druid guy who warned of deindustrialization as early as 2012, the job lay-offs and shutting down of companies may be happening for a reason.
4. How come everyone ignores how much WORSE everything has become? The whole Covid thing broke social ties and connections we once enjoyed. Life is harder and more overwhelming. Everyone is scattered. I still feel nervous in crowds from all of the crap and feel the deadening of the vaxxed. They just don't talk as much. People have far less emotions, for the new tech dystopia, they certainly don't want emotions muddying up everything. Do any of you pine nostalgic for the conversations of the 2010s, when people still seemed to have critical thinking skills? I meet fellow awake people, friends with a few, like floating islands of relief in a sea of the braindead. One thing I notice when I talk about the damages from tech and AI, is the majority defend it. Why? Some eagerly await all this nonsense, but the few changes I've seen have been for the negative and for more control and economic ruin.
I found this interesting, I SAW it YEARS ago myself around 2013, and it seems to have happened. This was a post from 4chan,
That said, I started feeling detached from the real world myself. It's a problem. Because I am housebound and in bed often from illness--I'm removing water from myself now in bed, I became addicted to the internet. Disability makes contact with the real world harder.
My worries have been about how much of the real world am I getting to experience? I do have a few friends, I go to an art club, I'm supposed to take a scholarship art class soon. A friend promised to help me get there in late winter weather, the place is near my apartment. How much of life is being lived anymore? Lack of money blocks me from everywhere. Americans didn't notice but they basically charge for everything, there's no free third spaces anymore. Church costs money. One evangelical friend told me I have a hang up about money and finding a church. She owns a home and is able to appear far more together, she didn't experience what I did in churches. The ability to give some money is expected. If you don't have money to support yourself even, it doesn't work.
Many Americans live in a fantasy too. I notice how few notice the growing numbers of homeless and "ruins" everywhere and closed businesses, because they can turn on the internet and be told "Everything is great!" Sure there's a few outliner voices on Youtube talking about the economy, but the mainstreams are maintaining the false reality via the internet. This is 1984/Brave New World crap. I worry "Oh maybe I am too isolated, I need to see more of the real world", but I can't ignore memories and what I see in front of my own face.
5. The internet changed people. It made us too performative. This applies to me. We all want a voice. Maybe this became a way for us to try and gain one. Millions all yelling "Look at me!", the influencers really running with the drive for attention. Maybe I am guilty too. In times past, most lived and only knew people around them, now we are on here, because our social worlds got so compressed except for a few lucky ones of us with friends and mates. We want to be noticed and remembered. We all treated ourselves like brands. I made jokes about how I had this identity online, as the Peep for years, a more outgoing personality. I find myself wanting freedom from the pressure to "perform" and "impress" or show enough intellect to have people take an interest. This blog did get some interest, it hit over 3 million views long ago, and I know it's not just me reading my own stuff but now it is getting kind of old. I've been at it on here since 2010. That will soon be 16 years. I did change a lot of stuff and stayed alive which this blog was started to find out what was wrong with me with my severe obesity. Even last year gave more answers with the celiac diagnosis. I am now in the 460s so at least weight is stable, and going down a little bit.
Even in real life on social media, I had the thought maybe I "show" off too much art, like I am trying to sell myself as an "artist" online. Artists do want to show their stuff, and get satisfaction selling it but I had funny thoughts about this. I do admit some bad stuff on my social media, people there know I am "poor", but I thought about this kind of thing. I don't relate to a lot of people even on economic lines, their lives seem so busy and full, but then you wonder how much do you really know all those friends on social media? Some I am close to, we talk like real friends enough to KNOW each other so some are obviously REAL friends. However I have names I don't even recognize anymore on my social media, when did I befriend them? It's kind of weird.
Most of my high school ended up more financially secure than I did with closer knit families, I could see the root of their non-abused lives. Most never left the town I went to high school in and are surrounded by family, they didn't become a weird economic nomad with no family.
The internet changed a lot of stuff socially. One thing I am contending with, due to the autism and deafness, I am far better in text than I am in person. One close person even told me they noticed this difference. I am not operating at full speed in person, even keeping my balance takes some of the brain power away. The deafness is getting harder too, the transcribe phones can miss things especially if one is in a room with more than 2 people. What does it mean for a person to be a different person in person than online? Some would say the internet was a help for you then. I do worry about coming across as "slow" and "boring" in the real world, there's like thoughts I don't get out, it's hard to explain. One wants to be a good listener too, once the number of people goes over 2, it's like my brain shuts down.
6. Has anyone noticed all these tech advances are not improving our economic lives whatsoever but making them worse? Reading about the monied in the 1936 book, I noticed everything is the same. The ultra rich rip off the poor and suppress the working class. All the wins of the 40s-80s have disappeared with gig employment, lack of jobs, disappearance of unions, and other "worker rights". Do you see AI improving the lot of the ordinary person? It's not and this is never commented on except on anti-AI or conspiracy boards. Few too even analyze the level of control all the technological advances will bring.
I miss the internet of the 1990s, then it was fun, spontaneous, creative, I remember how fun chat rooms were before the advent of power mad moderators. I felt like I was talking to real people on message boards. Remember those self designed web pages with cartoons and personal photographs? Not all of it has been bad. I definitely have enjoyed blogging and the internet allowed me to find out about narcissism and offered the ACON community. The internet allowed me to stay alive and find out about Lipedema, and find out the existence of functional doctors.
There's changes now that are not good. I feel like they are stripping the internet of everything that gave it meaning. It's become so MONOPOLIZED with everything run by giant companies. I don't like talking to machines instead of people and even when you get a person you wonder if it is a real human. Tell me what you think. I do wish I got more action in the comments on here, it is kind of weird I get numbers of tens of thousands of page views per month but so few comments. What do you think of the internet, AI and how it's changed life. Are you against data centers?
It often felt this way but we can miss the people and community we left behind.
Leaving the UU was hard, I had spent 7 years there and had some good memories. I did join a social media board for ex-Unitarian Universalists. Some of their concerns were the same as mine.Many have expressed the same heartbreak. I met one lady who left a church she was in for 25 years.
I have a lot good memories from there, and miss a lot about the church, that's the sad part of things but I guess one can remember the good people and times one had. It was an intellectually rewarding place for many years. It helped me a lot as an artist. Several members are supportive of me as an artist. I sometimes feel bad I took my husband out of there, he still considers himself a member though an "inactive" one now. He jokes about reeling me back in but I don't give him a hard time. We did have some good years there.
They still believe in the Covid stuff and some still support the Covid vaxxes. I changed too, I held more traditionalist beliefs, and didn't support trans and/or climate change and other "woke" issues the UU did, as I wrote about on this article.. Many of the people are very nice people, I miss them, so facing facts we were walking in different directions was never easy. When I do run into them in the community, they treat me well. I still see several in other arenas like the art world.
Some may have expected me to go find another church. I talked about it. I mulled returning to the evangelical world but it got complicated. I stepped away from being a moderator on an ex-evangelical message board because of my religious confusion. Some others remained Christians after deconstruction but I wasn't sure what direction I was going to take.
While I have good memories of my first IFB church we moved away from, the second IFB church was AWFUL, we were ostracized. That place was extremely pro-Trump, pro-Zionism, and lacked community and care of many other churches. Community was far stronger in my first IFB and the UU church.
I haven't stepped foot in a church or church service outside a Catholic Chapel to look at artwork in years. I have been back to my old UU for a few community events for an annual sale they hold. Somethings held me back from trying another church. I put years into the UU, and ENJOYED things there, so I think part of me is why get dedicated to another church only to have it all fall apart? I had the same thing happen in the inverse in two different churches. Conservative church land, I felt uncomfortable being poor and disabled, and wrote about that in the article "The Poor and Disabled in Churches. The UUs while I had huge socioeconomic differences with them, treated us far better, and they were wonderful on disability issues. The right-wing world is not that kind to the disabled. You are always seen as at "fault" and having offended God somehow to even be disabled. How would they respond to the transcribe phone? My hearing issues are a bit of a barrier.
The second IFB church loved war, and praised Trump every chance they got. The place was kind of weird, and very staid, men all wore suits to services and they never held any bible studies and/or church events like dinners unless a member of this Quiverful family had a wedding. That family dominated the church. The beliefs troubled me more and more, I didn't agree with their conservative politics and outlooks, and that's one reason I left.
Being on X is sometimes hard, I get tired of right wingers always putting down the poor and wanting to remove all the Social Security and welfare. The same stuff I wrote about is happening all over again but worse with Trump's second term. When I left the UU over liberal political beliefs and other issues, it was like the inverse happening. The cultural wars are still destroying society. They have affected the churches. If you don't fit right or left, where do you go? Right now a person gets to choose between "woke" land, or "Maga" land, there's not much in between. I would please some liberals telling them I think Trump is a psychopath and an actor [he's already betrayed his base on wars overseas, Covid shots and many issues] and I would anger liberals telling them I do not support the trans movement, climate change efforts and more. There's got to be some people out there like me.
Maybe I am unable to conform enough for ANY church. I believe in Jesus Christ but believe the churches have skewed and changed a lot of what He taught. So I am kind of an outliner. I do see most churches as being part of the power structure of this world. Why are so many churches united for the power-brokers, even the UU lost it's hold on "freedom of conscience" to please the globalists. There were many UUs upset over the changes as I wrote about on the UU article. There are bigger agendas that guide things. The IFB and other evangelical churches always had the right wing pundits leading them by the nose in a certain direction. That Sword of the Lord newspaper was a bit of a Christian Nationalist rag. I do believe the trans movement is related to bringing forth transhumanism. The religious political right steered evangelical churches from helping the poor and defending a corrupt system. As the elite decimate what's left of the social safety net, they've gotten most of the religious right to cheer it on. We are in a spiritual battle.
Some churches definitely have done good in the world, but both conservative and liberal churches are used for social engineering. They are too easily steered by the elite. I told my husband the other day I wanted to buy an Ethiopian Bible to read the books of the Bible that got taken out by the Nicene Council and others. I can't afford much lately so that purchase has been delayed, but he laughed and said, "You talk and think about things I don't think most people do".
I studied the bible and had my bible prophecy and conspiracy blog for years. Some of the stuff I warned about on that blog has come to pass. I am not a prophet, I just combined the bible and conspiracy studies together, but obviously when I wrote about global digital ID passes in 2013, that's happening today. Picture of one of my old posts:
My worldview is different. Most people remain ignorant of the drawing dystopian net and growing totalitarianism that goes beyond the surface complaints about Trump. The left wing is participating too while pushing other agendas. I have read books on Gnosticism and alternative religious themes like Marcionitism. I'm studying the Orthodox church lately and finding it fascinating. As I wrote years ago religion is a special interest of mine.
I've been so many religions, that I have the conclusion some got some parts wrong and others right. There's aspects of Catholicism I miss, I went to go visit this church chapel to look at artwork, and it was beautiful. The fundamentalists take the anti-art or "graven images" thing way too far. Some would be angry at me for hanging up icons in my apartment. I like nuns, monasticism and happily read Merton last year. Obviously, I take some issues with the Pope and other teachings. There's Catholics who think the Vatican went off the rails long ago. I am too Sola Scripture for that, but I think back to spiritual moments when I was young and in churches and retreats. A retreat in a monastery or convent sounds enriching. I'm reading about the Orthodox, my father grew up in an Orthodox church and converted to Roman Catholicism when he married my mother. He didn't tell us anything about it, and I was only in the church of his childhood once, I do remember there being a lot of more pictures on the wall but being a child of around 9 or 10, I just thought it was a fancier looking Catholic church.
Culturally, the fundamentalist world was always hard. I didn't fit the life norm for the churches, and have no family history there or the lifestyle expected of a fundamentalist woman. Being childless while married marked me as a semi-fallen woman. I was married to someone who was into punk rock and who was not a fundamentalist. Fundamentalist churches got weird about the "unequally yoked" thing. I married him before I was a Christian so technically, I was not blamed. It could get negative sometimes and they saw you as failing to "win" your husband over. The UU world had socioeconomic class issues. They were more educated which I liked though obviously I am not a "trust the experts" sort and question liberal academics and bougiecrats. They supported the arts, art and music.
I do think fundamentalism had a negative effect on me as an artist. You always had to worry about your artwork being "godly". I was in some severe churches, that even preached that reading fiction instead of the Bible was a sin so that was complicated. I could love literature and the arts around the UUs a bit easier.
A Jesuit priest once on a message board during my first IFB days called me a diletante. Maybe he was right. Some have been more positive and have called me a "seeker". I said to my husband if religion is like marriage, maybe I am a commitment-phobe which is odd given I have been with him for 30 years plus. I didn't completely jibe with all the church cultures, I never was a complete "fit". My brain was always questioning and analyzing everything. Maybe my time as a "watchwoman" put me in some strange place. Sometimes I have said to him, moving away from that first IFB was a mistake, I wouldn't have had all these religious troubles. I had a church family there. I still have contact with some 17 years later on social media but haven't gotten into detail of how severe my faith troubles got.
sadly these antics aren't that rare, a lot of modern evangelical churches has pastors focused on entertaining.
When I considered looking for a church again, it was complicated. The same problems I left over are still there waiting for me. I still struggle with what a lot of the churches believe and promote. I don't like Dominionism and Christian Nationalism. I am not pro-Christian Zionism. The Rapture is absurd to me and a false teaching. Too many use religion for control. I don't like how many mainstream Christians trash the poor or the related attitudes. Hell still troubles me but it did when I am honest with myself even in my fundamentalist days.
When I watched videos of local services pondering choosing another church, I just got triggered over and over. One church had a Steven Furtick look alike, their minister looked like a doppelganger of that guy. The pastors in the mainstream evangelical churches all dressed alike. They promoted a lack of individuality in their church members. Many seemed like they were narcissists and too focused on being overly charismatic. Some churches had more programs than others.
I saw this weird sermon by a preacher claiming that God wants everyone to be rich like there wasn't one poor person in the room. More than several were emphasizing tithes. It takes a lot of money to keep and maintain those bright, and new building churches with coffee shops and meeting rooms. Things looked more polished, commercial and awful then when I used to visit more than 10-15 years ago. My old second IFB, that pastor is super old, but still at it in his mid to late 80s. His adoration cult doesn't seem to have ended. He's like my mother except he just doesn't have the worshipping family, he has a church that includes many of his family members included. That guy's had an easy ride on this planet. The constant manipulation and crazy backdrop of politics was still there. One church was into flag waving and weird hugging sessions and people raising their arms. Maybe they are happy there, I don't want to begrudge people but it wouldn't be for me. Another church that was a rare Covid vaxx rejecting church, sadly preached faith healing.
One lady gave me really bad Delores Umbridge vibes and seemed to be an amalgamation of every mean church lady I had dealt with. She had a tight blue jacket on and was lecturing church members on not finishing enough tasks. There was an annoying sameness to many of the services especially among the rock music evangelical set. To my horror, most of the time I was BORED. I didn't see much to motivate me to get out of bed on Sunday morning. So I never went anywhere else and watched stuff online. I joked to my husband, "I already have visited all the churches in this town, even for religious conferences that went okay, there's nothing drawing me in".
I realized, to go to church, I would have to hide who I was. One could let a little more of the "weirdo" flag fly in the UU. One member who later left like me, said, the UU was the home for misfits, and I agreed. We ended up there because we thought about things other people didn't. Sadly the UU changed, but there was that freedom aspect to it. I thought to myself, if I returned to an evangelical church, how honest could I be? Would I be playing a part? If they found out some of my religious explorations alone, that could be easily judged. I wasn't interested in that, being put back in that box to please others.
Also having been in too many churches, I think "I've kind of messed this religion thing up and I should have picked one and stuck with it!" While I consider myself a "Christian", I don't know what church to go to. I am in "undecided" mode. I worried about writing this article because I know some people would ask, "How can you be undecided?" They may tell me in a condemning evangelical way that I am a waverer. Some may throw James 1:8 at me, and tell me I am unstable. I have been told already that since I deconstructed I am already hell-bound. I worry about this in the back of my mind. One fellow ex-evangelical told me, "You can't go back".
Some may say the guilt of fundamentalism and other stressors have impacted me. I think for now taking things slowly, praying and reading the bible and other spiritual books on my own, is the best for now. I went through enough spiritual abuse and other crazy stuff, I don't want more. Freedom is important to me, and not being back in a place where I am "controlled" or told what to think about. Maybe being an artist conflicts with fundamentalism, and religion. If your connection to God is based on honesty, who wants locked back in a spiritual prison going through motions.
Yes I did pray to God to bring me a place or show me a place where to go. One friend, says he thinks I have gone over to Christian "mystic" land, I don't know what to think. Things may be more complex than I can even explain here. I was reading a lot of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky last year.
There is part of me that is burned out, while I had a couple good pastors, I have a negative view of others. My last UU pastor was a sincere man, but we disagreed on far too much, especially about Covid, it is weird how Covid almost drew these strange religious lines. I think Covid probably led to a far more church departures than many people even suspect. It upended my world views. For me it did bring forth the very fact there is truly a battle between good and evil and that this world truly is ruled by psychopaths up to no good. Sadly many pastors I encountered seemed disingenuous, like oily used car salesmen. I struggled with negative views of pastors and often had uncharitable thoughts about narcissists. I know people have to make a living but maybe the religious grift and pressures take over. You always are on show and have to remain interesting and kind of non-offensive all at the same time to get enough butts in seats. It doesn't take some personalities to a good place.
I also fear being "corrected" again like a child by more well-heeled church women or told to live in "shame" or going back to that place that is mixed in with narcissistic abuse of being told I am "never enough". You reach an age where you get tired of new Mommies and Daddies, lecturing you about living right and making false promises about life. I just didn't want it. I know Christians who have been rebuked by pastors or put under church discipline. The last set of UUs may have spoiled me a bit with their interactive services, where lay people had a giant role to play in sharing their ideas. I used to think why don't other churches do this? That's one thing they did WELL. Listening to one guy pontificate for hours, just sounded well, boring, and useless. I worried about being too arrogant, but there was a few times I thought of many evangelical pastors, "What does some guy who can't even discern the evils of Covid or who never questions the system have to teach me?" Also why should he hold authority over me? I question the very concept of pastors which would take a whole other religious based post.
A lot of services just seemed dumbed down with the same recycled repeated bible stories and no in-depth teachings. I watch some religious videos online of some system questioning pastors, I may not agree with everything but at least it is interesting. I thought of finding a church to focus on serving others, one with a high penchant for the poor, but given my health problems, that didn't pan out either. When we thought we were going to move, I had my eye on this one church for the poor but we didn't move there.
Some months ago, I decided to watch local services, many churches have them, and see if there is any place that stands out. It was very hard, I felt triggered. I thought "What kind of Christian are you who refuses to go to church?" I knew solitude and lack of a church family didn't affect the faith in the first place in any positive ways and played a role in my deconversion. You can see all my old deconversion articles on this blog. One evangelical friend told me I was "sinning" to be outside of a church. What was ironic is her church seemed semi-decent, her pastor rejected both political parties, and they were open and welcoming to the poor but her church is just too far from where I live. I have watched some of those services. I didn't know how to tell her, I've already visited most of the churches in this town or been in them" I said, "There's just nowhere to go to church around here!"
There's issues I still think about [see that Theramin trees channel] as to why I struggled in the evangelical world. His warnings about abuse, manipulation and other techniques people use to get power over others, still hold truth. I still don't want a "mean" God. There's a lot of people who say they speak for God but I don't think they do. There's thousands of Elmer Gantry's out there. I think reading Russian literature oddly saved the vestiges of faith there were and the whole Covid thing told me, we really are in a battle between good and evil in this world.
Here is my list of churches and religions I have been in. "I've tried every religion but Mormonism, and Jehovah Witness."
Three-four Catholic churches as a child,
I moved a lot as a kid as you all know. We also visited a Latin Mass church that was in a downtown metro city. I was in endless retreats, basilicas, convents etc. as a kid. My upbringing was more religious than most. The church I was in while school aged, had a giant impact on my life. Remember I was educated by nuns in full habit. This was the church we lived across the street from that had a rectory and convent full of my full-habit teachers. I have positive memories of that church though a few scary ones with some strict teachers.
First Unitarian Universalist church.
I joined this church while in college. We had a "rebel" pastor, I still like that guy, he even questioned 9-11 later and warned about the bad path the UU church was on going into woke/globalist/neoliberal philosophies. I had good memories of this church though my work hours often interfered with my participation.
I was in a UU fellowship for a very short time while living at home with my parents, they were attempting to form a UU fellowship in a town I worked in, but it didn't work out. I'm not going to count it as it was only a very short time.
Second Unitarian Universalist church
This was my church after a move to Chicago. This is the one I was married in and I took a lot of classes there and participated in a lot of activities. I had fond memories of the two ministers [it was a co-ministership]. One married us. I used to visit another Unitarian Universalist church on occasion that was in another part of the city.
Back in the Catholic Church
We moved to the very rural town, it was hundreds of miles from any UU church, the UU simply didn't exist there. I would go to a local Catholic church for around 2 years and even took RCIA to return to Catholicism but didn't complete it. The people in this church were nice, I was friends with two ladies that were strong volunteers for the church. I did an ecumenical bible study there, that had people of multiple denominations in the group and taught art with a support person since I was disabled to some adults and kids for a short time as a volunteer gig [a couple hours a week] My First Evangelical/Christian Fundamentalist church.
I was "born again", "witnessed" to by some other evangelical Christians in the Catholic Bible study. I found my First IFB church. My life in this church was very positive, there were a few things I did not agree with such as when my pastor supported Bush and they rebuked me for war protesting with "non-believers", but overall this church treated us very well. I was in there for some years.
I still have contact on social media with this church. They were a working class church, and we had preppers and others. They had an in church food pantry and helped homeless people. My husband was treated well though he never converted in.. This church was a fundamentalist church, and many would see it as strict. It was an independent fundamentalist baptist church. Yes I know, my being on the extreme ends of the religious spectrum IFB vs UU is pretty unusual. Churches were seen as self regulating, no authoritarian church bodies, I liked that part. My church did preach against women wearing pants, many church members did not own TVs, I did due to husband. We had women's bible studies, made quilts for missionaries, had a lot of missions services, dinners, craft classes, and cooking classes. It was a small church of around 70-100 but close knit. I worked on many church things while there as my health allowed. I visited the pastor and his wife's house for years.
My pastor back then while he voted Republican in earlier days, warned that economic collapse and other things were coming to America. These things have happened. I had friends in the church who had the same world view regarding conspiracy and other things. They really had a church family.
My time in this church was so positive, they gave us a "goodbye" party when we left. My pastor there was sincere, had integrity and stood up for me at least on two occasions. I missed this church, and regretted our move that took us away. There were times in later years, I would beg husband to move back so I could be part of this church again.
One fact about this church is they closed just a couple years after I and my husband left. The town we were in had major economic problems and it affected this church. The church did re-form under the same name in a neighboring town a few years later, in a new building, the pastor had moved on. There are still a few members in that old church.
After I moved, I struggled to find a church. Nowhere seemed a good fit. I never could replace what I had. I also changed as a person with age.
Calvary Chapel, I found this church after I moved. It was very small though. I remember the services were kind of dull, but they fed us lunch and the conversations I had there were more interesting than the services. We were in there for a few years. The church was down to very few members, it really was a failed church plant. It would close very soon after we left. Some people in this church were Quiverful which I did not agree with. Think just like the Duggars. One guy ran a homeschool magazine and had 12 kids. Another family I befriended the daughters were part of the Stay at Home movement, I do think they later left home anyhow just from practicalities. Those girls were very nice and oddly very beautiful. One became a wedding dress model.
Homechurching it and visiting multiple churches/religious activities/focus on a self-help group
I had some years where I did not go to church, talked to home churching people on line, and had my time with the false deliverance minister I wrote about before. The deliverance minister did not go to church except one Christian coffee shop. I did go to conferences at mainstream evangelical churches, spent a lot of time at my self-help group [it later went defunct but that was a big activity for years]. I also started going to the book club at the conservative Lutheran church. I visited several churches in the community during this time, including a few Baptist churches. At least three churches were too handicapped inaccessible for me even to get into the places. That was a big issue around here when it came to churches. One church you had to go up two flights of stairs to an upper floor sanctuary. Some churches were on the edge of dying, one church had only 6 members.
Southern Baptist
I attended this Southern Baptist church, that was close to my apartment, for about a year and half. I never really got that close there to anyone, though we would go to some dinners and meetings. The pastor was one of those charismatic types and the whole church revolved around him. He's still there. He always made jokes about women that bugged me, and went to Jamaica every year for a "missions trip". The politics got too heavy. Remember my husband is a Democrat. Second IFB [independent fundamentalist baptist] church.
I've written about this place several times on here. This is the place I walked out of when they praised war with Iran. They were very Christian Zionist even as much as Calvary Chapel and preached other things I did not agree with. It was not like my good IFB church. They didn't do any outreach to the community and while we asked for help once, the response was so negative. I wrote in the Poor and disabled article in the churches in detail how this church treated us.
The congregation was far wealthier. They lived far away as mentioned above, so there was a lack of community. The whole church revolved around the pastor, I would call it a cult. One odd thing about this place is they never had meals, and you couldn't even get a cup of coffee. It felt very stingy. There was one dinner celebrating paying off the church mortgage and a church dinner for the wealthy Quiverful family with 14 kids that dominated the church. One thing that was very strange is no independent bible studies or classes were allowed, all meetings just let the pastor speak. There was no conversation or ability to meet or get to know anyone because you just listened to the pastor even at the "bible studies" and he allowed no cross-talk or questions. This place was a very negative on my Christian faith and while I am responsible for my own religious choices, I see it as big influence in leading me to deconstruct.
Fundamentalism is wrong about a lot of stuff. That would take a whole other post on a religious board.
I would spend some more years out of church but then it was Deconstruction/Deconversion time. I was involved in the ex-evangelical world.
The Third Unitarian Universalist church. I have good memories from this place and liked many of the members. I wrote two other articles about my decision to leave. Some other UUs have talked to me about being conflicted over leaving, so I know this is a complex matter. When I left my UU, I was not the only member who left, there were a few others who were troubled by the changes too. I was on my own with Covid but others were concerned about the changing politics, promotion of trans and other concerns I discussed in these articles.
Now you can see why religion and church got complicated for me. There were many positives in life from my involvements. I volunteered with churches, served on some committees. One thing to remember is the backdrop of my health problems. My level of activity was always affected by that and there were times it was less. I have been housebound in certain weather since my 30s so that affected my church attendance. Some churches and this includes the last UU were very understanding and giving about my health concerns. Other churches were not. I have said this before, but I know I messed religion up, and autistics may do this, I was on this quest always to know what was true, maybe I should have focused on community first. Of course some places I had to move away from and others closed.
My need for a "family" and "community" was a backdrop for a lot of my church activities, and I felt I achieved that a few times while some places it was impossible. I had community in the UU for years while Covid was a cleaver that sliced and diced that, and also the first IFB. The good Catholic church, protected me to a degree during my school aged years too.
Churches do seem to be changing. They are getting too hooked into the world system, instead of being independent congregations following every trend and national media offering. Why did so many churches follow the Covid lies so willingly and it wasn't just the UUs, but most of the others? I figured out it was even rare among Christian ones for the pastors to question Covid or the Covid vaxxes. Sometimes I think pastors get so used to 'selling' their churches, they forget about integrity and thinking things out. That remains an issue for me now, that I want a church and pastor that is discerning enough to at least question some of it. I know there are Catholics, Orthodox and members of other denominations who questioned Covid and Covid vaxxes and that something was wrong.
Too many churches became businesses first. This definitely happened in the megachurch world. There are some saying that Joel Osteen and other megachurches are going out of business. I am not surprised. I do not think the prosperity gospel is going to sell too well in the second Great Depression. My last UU church was small and not run that way, they did try to help the poor/soup kitchen. However the churches I was in before them, we were basically keeping middle class and above pastors in higher life styles than many church members. I had thoughts, "We are so poor, why are these rich pastors asking for 10 percent of our money, we never could afford it". I do think the fact the second IFB did nothing for the poor was not a good fruit.
I consider myself too poor for church now. It's not affordable. The UUs were nice to us even regarding our economic circumstances with the class differences so don't apply that to them, but for most of the evangelical churches around here, I find myself thinking I don't want the economic pressures or judgments that are unloaded on the poor now. I wrote about these issues before but I am of the belief most poor people are leaving churches. What other choice do they have? There does seem to be a certain required class status to be in some churches. Also the pastors who are trying to keep themselves paid and the church light bill paid, aren't so thrilled when some person with no money shows up at the door. They will say different, but I've seen how that goes. I think as Americans go into worse poverty a lot of churches not just the big megachurches from above will be going out of business. Social disconnection has affected churches too. One thing troubling many Americans is how too many churches seem to be letting poor people down. Our reality is not discussed. That's a problem. As poverty increases, I don't know if this will change. Will churches step up to do soup kitchens and programs like they did during the first Great Depression?
Sadly the churches as a whole are influenced and steered by the ruling class. We know the right wing churches have lambasted the poor for years. Even if they offer some charity, one is always told it is their failures and their fault the system has grown so oppressive. Very few pastors question the system, the ruling class, or the billionaires and trillionaires. They don't address why wealth inequality is out of control, there are bible verses that address these things too. One thing I noticed being a poor person, is no one was honest in most churches about the hardships of life. The UU actually was more honest about this but being a very affluent church there was that distance. The Christian ones, all seemed to have a degree of prosperity gospel in most places. Too many teach that good fortune will come in this world if you do everything right. This is not true, and there are bible verses that preach contrary to this. [John 16:33] I have yet to see one pastor even address the economic collapse in the USA except the online pastor with Revelations of Jesus Christ Ministry and my first IFB pastor who spoke of it to come.
I question a lot about the church system now. One thing I do question is why aren't there churches for the poor where the poor can share resources and help each other out? Where they go to church with each other? Jesus Christ talked about the poor and helping them all the time. Some have abandoned many core teachings.
Last month I noticed on X, all these right wing Christians trashing everyone on EBT, they talked about how they were forced to pay for other people's food. People pay far more for tech brother bail-outs and the military than the average 36 dollars a year going to welfare. Then you see the Christians who believe all government help should be done away with and everything done by churches and charities. How is that going to work when one medicine is thousands of dollars? This one Christian Nationalist guy told me, all welfare should be done away with and turned over to the churches and private charities. I said to him, "If the Christian nationalists want us dependent on charity instead of the govt, then they need to change the entire system, job placement, housing, intentional communities like the Hutterites do it, otherwise they need to shut up and face reality for what things cost". Hmm maybe Gilead does plan to do this, but let's be real as the way the system stands, everything costs way too much, and that would never work.
I do believe the Hutterites got this the most right on economic matters. You have to remember I am in and around a lot of different churches even in my repeating needs for food pantries and other charities. We had some years we didn't need any charity but these last few have been rough. I've thought about this, most of the poor are coming in as outsiders. The government is providing the food. Some churches will add some meat, eggs and cheese but when you are on the food pantry rounds you see the same brands of food in the boxes.
The Hutterites at least share resources, employment and food. Should a church have people who are multi-millionaires in it, while others go starve? Should it have a pastor who can afford international vacations while one family can't even afford a box of macaroni and cheese for dinner? Some may say "You sound like a communist", but I don't care. The capitalism we have now is made of monopolies, it is not the small business capitalism of the past that could keep people and communities more secure. We are being ravaged by megacorporations with no loyalty to communities or even America. Is anyone noticing this?
Did any of you read or hear about that experiment where this lady called up churches pretending to have a starving baby, and only a couple Catholic churches, a mosque and a rural church in Appalachia helped her? One thing about the Catholic church, they did treat the poor a bit better than many evangelical churches. I agree with more of their outlook on the poor. Dorothy Day is an example of a Catholic who helped the poor. A rural church with working class poor members would have more empathy.
While I've been helped by churches, I remember being desperate and calling churches and being turned down years ago. It actually happened in Chicago. There was no one to help. Some people think there is more help out there than there is. They say things like there are churches and charities to help the poor, why don't those poor turn to them? I wrote about how there is far less help than you think there is in the Social Services world. Since I wrote this article, the disabled friend who applied for help got turned down. She was turned down and told she was not disabled enough for any help. I felt sad about this. People ask for help and always seemed turned down nowadays.
One thing to remember now as this country goes more economically desperate, a lot of places are closing up shop. I expect to see starving and more homeless people in the streets of America soon. Where are the churches? How many are admitting it's even happening? Sadly for most of the evangelical ones, they've been shoveled so much crap by the likes of Dave Ramsey, Trump and the religious politically right, they were more busy shouting down poor people on the internet. They believe the algorithms and shills online that claim EBT people haul in thousands of dollars of food per month. They think most of the poor are drug addicts and at fault. They support encampments for homeless people instead of real shelter. They do not listen to Jesus Christ.
Luke 12:33: "Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail."
I have noticed a scapegoating of the poor that got extreme on the right wing side of things, see how the billionaires and elite, always profit? You still see the rude ones shout "Get a job!" even as there is now millions of job lay offs. Sadly with so much of our media owned and I saw these trends expand on X, the voices of regular people have been drowned out. I definitely have been shadow banned on X, I stay there to get readers for this blog now but the place is so "controlled". I've come to the conclusion most are shills and bots and meant to persuade people on a multitude of issues. The ones who speak freely, their accounts never grow. The ones who preach for the billionaires, get numbers in the thousands. Sadly the left wing is just as influenced, denying the extreme problems out there with the economy. The churches don't seem to be talking about it at all. I think most poor people are leaving churches. When you can't afford groceries, even 10 dollars in the church basket is a lot.
Here's another recent shocking church moment. This one angered me.
This homeless lady in Kalamazoo Michigan, was parking her car to sleep in a church parking lot. These people came out and told her she had to leave, I guess she came in to ask if she could stay and they were completely rude to her and would not help her. This church looked like it was in a suburban area. The mean looking female pastor videotaping her without a word and lady at the desk couldn't be colder and more rejecting. What is scary is the homeless woman is disabled and lives on SSI, and lives in her car because rent is too high, and they still wouldn't help her. They stared at her with dead eyes with no empathy. I found myself wondering why did they treat her this way? She was seen more as a "danger" than a human being! Later the church apologized. These things are very concerning.
Well I have shared my church experiences, some were good and some were bad. I do think churches are changing and I'm not sure its for the good. I do think when I was younger there was more of an idea of churches calling certain segments of society to account. They weren't so owned and steered by the ruling class. Politics didn't seem so important as they are now. Teachings like "love thy neighbor" were important and I learned many of these things in the Catholic church growing up. Things seemed "nicer". Things seemed more free, while churches always had the grifters and problems, you get worried when there's growing coldness and where church as a business seems to have grown.
Why didn't more of them question what happened during Covid? That bugs me. Are they more owned and ruled by the ruling class or is that just a factor that grew with technology? Things were different in the days when church was part of the community and people spent their lives in a close knit community church they attended for their entire life. I don't know there has been a lot of changes in religion during my life time, I saw it in the Catholic, evangelical and UU church. Maybe some of us don't fit into church culture because there is a certain cohesion expected, that is sometimes hard for the exploring/seeker types to adhere to? I'm not sure. Well, here are my thoughts today about church and my experiences in them. Share your own experiences here.
