#Christian indoctrination

[cjoatprehn]

Happy Escapril! I hope everyone’s having a good day so far. I’m dropping my 3rd poem this month with @adventurerswritingguild third Escapril prompt combined with an AWG specific prompt from their lists! Day 3 is “Eye Contact” with “hand / god / knife.” I shocked myself once more with my writing. There was such emotion this nearly became a short story than just a poem. I channeled several songs and a Rick and Morty quote for inspiration.

Songs and Episode Playing:

Dynasty by MIIA

VILLIAN by Neoni

Freaks by Jordan Clarke

Randy McNally (No Love Like Christian Hate) by TX2

Heaven Was Full (I'm Headed Straight to Hell) by TX2

Step Over a Body by TX2

Rick and Morty S03E06: Rest and Ricklaxation

Trigger Warnings

Religious Imagery

Death mention

Biblical Scripture

Familial Abuse

Christianity Indoctrination

Animal Death Euphemisms

Zombies mention

If There’s (a) God…

By CJOAT

Will update with spoken poetry video later today. 👍🏽

9:01 PM: Updated with a clearer stitched screenshot with Alt text. Dropping the spoken poetry video below:

[#escapril Spoken Poetry] If There’s (a) God… by CJOAT for @adventurerswritingguild’s Escapril

Please leave a like and/or comment on my videos—it helps knowing I’m not getting buried and some people enjoy them.

For my work to cause such a viscerally deep reaction in a relatable or impactful way is my whole drive for creating. When I was younger, it was just to create things that mashed folks smile, like Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night did for me. Now, since I’m aware of many difficult and often traumatizing concepts that folks go through but it kept being swept under the rug or shunned for any reason—I want my work to provide the space for discussion of the uncomfortable.

“Art disturbs the comfortable, and comforts the disturbed.”

That’s my main goal with my work. A driving force to not only comfort but build for better in society.

This deviated from the point of this update as it’s now 9:15PM; but I’m happy to have vocalized it. Today was rather turbulent, so I wanted to get it out.

[giannic]

For about three years I have been fascinated by this monologue and oral witness statement by Tay Porter, a woman from what I reluctantly call my home town, Galesburg Illinois. I suppose I can say, honestly, that Knoxville and NOT Galesburg was my home town, because that's where my parents brought me from the hospital, Saint Mary's, around the end of April 1961. The hospital was in Galesburg; our family's first home was in Knoxville , about 10 miles to the east. Galesburg was where I went through hell. I have tried sharing the story of my abuse by my church, in the comments under Tay's video on YouTube, but twice, someone has gone & deleted every single comment. It's as if someone wants to erase my existence from public memory. Strangely enough, in the article on my father's life after he died, there was mention of my mother but no mention that any of us children were born. That was in the Galesburg Register Mail, in an edition that rolled off the press sometime in late October or early November 2016. The article took up the bottom half of the front page & half of the back page. Likewise, a couple years later, around 2018, my father's sister and her children were honoured in the Knox College alumni magazine, but no mention was made of my sister Margaret or of me. We were graduated from Knox too. But for some reason we are again left unmentioned. Could it be because my mother was an immigrant from Mexico?

[deservedgrace]

one of the cult scholars i listen to said "most children are not being raised to die" months ago and i still think "being raised to die" sums up growing up in fundamentalist christianity so well.

my friends and i didn't know if we would grow up to be adults. we would have conversations about wanting the chance to be an adult and knew we were """selfish""" for wanting to live if it wasn't in god's plan. we were raised to believe that we would either be killed for being a christian (in the us no less) or that jesus was coming soon (rapture/end times theology). we knew it was "sinful" to want something outside of god's plan but we couldn't help ourselves.

we were members of the lord's army. we were to obey orders and lay down our life if necessary. "this life is just a test" they'd say. "our real life is our eternal life with the lord." none of this is real, it's just a test. if you pass, you get into heaven. if you fail, you're sent to eternal damnation and hellfire. this is an open book test, we've been given all the answers already. if you fail, it's your own fault.

being raised to die means that your future doesn't matter. jesus is coming soon. jesus is what matters. "set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. for you died, and your life is hidden with christ in god."

i've been out for years. i'm in my late 20's. i still don't know how to set my mind on earthly things. i still struggle to believe i have a future.

[eeriedragone]

The Voice of Reason

[audreyrose7]

I wouldn't be so pissed at Christianity if it wasn't for indoctrination. Religion should be something that you choose and when you're literally a two-year-old sitting in church you can't possibly choose it, you can't possibly understand the gravity of the cult that you have entered. You'll listen to the sermons you'll read your Bible you'll sing the songs you might never question what you're doing or you might only question it 30 years later, either way it's a big deal and you should be able to make it informed choice instead of having your choice taken away when you're a child.

[pubby-mill]

so why would i try

mdni

for those wondering if this is a vent or a horny post, the answer is yes

[shit-people-probably-didnt-say]

We need to study what causes extremely religious people to talk like that

[angelic-shadow]

I see where people are coming from when they say "they won't teach about x subject yet they'll reach religion?" or "they shouldn't be talking about religion in schools" but it still kinda misses the point. The problem isn't that they're teaching about religion in schools at all. the issue is that they only teach about one religion (Christianity) and they talk about it as if it's the only religion or the only good religion, and depending on which school you go to they may force those who aren't Christian to partake in Christian activities. The solution isn't to stop talking about religion in schools. The solution is to talk about all religions, to talk about athiesm and agnosticism, to talk about religious trauma, to talk about the history of religion, to talk about cults, to talk about bigotry that some religious groups (especially jews and muslims) face and to give *all* religious people a choice to practice.

I don't want schools to stop teaching about religion. I want schools to stop telling kids that there's only one religion to follow, I want schools to teach about all religions, all beliefs, and to allow non-christians to have to freedom to practice their own and to not force them to partake in christian practices.

[quasarkisses]

I truly, deeply and personally resent christianity. I'll say it with my whole chest. I despise the stigma that persists in progressive spaces around speaking out against the Socially Dominant Cult despite the inescapable chokehold it has on my rights and safety

reading the bible in an earnest attempt to overcome this and find compassion for the christians surrounding me only made it worse. I feel bad for them.

I wish more people would ask themselves, "Who told me that?" about their faiths and beliefs. about everything, really.

[shortkingvi]

thinking about midnight mass again and the expendability of humanity by religious zealotism and the social sacrificial nature of blind religious loyalty and how yet, in spite of all that,,,, the beauty of community and love and forgiveness and peace,, god……….

[fallloverfic]

I've seen some very odd takes about certain language used in the scene where Mizrak rebukes Olrox at the end of Castlevania: Nocturne, which I think might be due to lack of knowledge about the historical context of certain things.

CW: historical racism against First Nation groups

I know reading academic articles isn't for everyone, but I have to wonder if a lot of people in the Castlevania: Nocturne fandom have not watched things like, say, Disney's 1995 animated Pocahontas, which, for all its many, many flaws, features the song, Savages. I'm not going to quote it in full here, you can find the song lyrics elsewhere (though the European colonizers do use the lines "vermin" and "barely even human", among other epithets). It's not a great song for a lot of reasons (among them being it tries to "both sides" things). But to look at the scene in CN where Mizrak, a Christian working in a European Christian church with at least some Europeans, calls Olrox, a First Nation man, an animal without the understanding of how Christian European colonizers (typically as part of or at least backed by some Christian churches) have viewed First Nation peoples and treated them, and certain epithets used for them, and how European Christian dehumanization of "new world" groups and non-Christians generally worked/works?

Well.

[squarebracket-trickster]

Sorry guys, rant incoming. I considered deleting this but I put too much effort in.

"girlboss" "girl dinner" "girl math" "boy math" "gen z are making fun of us for wearing x" "here's how to dress like gen z:" "girlies" "girl's night" "boy's night" "me and the boys" "90s kid"

"I don't feel like an adult" "I'm 34 and I can tell you, I still don't feel like an adult either." "My parents seemed like real adults when they were my age." "I still feel like a teenager."

Maybe you'd feel more like an adult if you started calling yourself one. Maybe you'd feel more like an adult if you stopped trying to dress like a teenager. Maybe you should move your bed out from the wall and get a wallet. Maybe find a calendar app that works for you.

You are an adult. Even if you live with your parents. Even if you do part-time shift work at minimum wage. Even if you haven't graduated college. Even if you are single. These are adult things to do. Because you are doing them. And you are an adult. Start treating yourself like an adult. Fake it 'till you make it if you have to.

In other, writing-related, news:

That trend on TikTok of 20-40 something women authors (and writers yet to be published) promoting their books like,

"Omg! I can't believe I've sold X number of copies!! I never thought I would!" "Ahhhh imagine publishing your book and all your dreams come true and now you get to meet famous authors and work with big names in the industry!!" "Would you read a book where [proceeds to list a bunch of oversaturated tropes that tell me nothing about the actual plot]?"

It reeks of infantilization. If you didn't believe anyone would want to read your book, why should I? You made it on the NYT bestseller list! Stop acting like a mega-fan who got to meet a celebrity. You are their peer! "Would you read a book--" What if I wouldn't? Why does it matter to you what I think of your book? And for the love of god stop hiding behind tropes you know are already popular. "Here is my book: This is what it is about." Have some goddamn confidence.

It is fine to mention in passing "this idea was really far-fetched so I didn't know if it would appeal" or "I was struggling with self-esteem when I wrote this". It's fine to fan a little bit. It's fine to discuss the tropes in your book. But why are you building your brand as an author off of your inferiority complex? You are using your poor self-esteem as a marketing tactic to seem "humble" and "relatable" but it's coming across as unprofessional and desperate for reassurance. You are an adult. You are competent. The more you act like it the more you will believe it.

And of course, I haven't seen a man promote his book this way...

On another note, do any of the 20-40 something women writers who do "write with me" videos on TikTok actually enjoy writing or are they just doing it for the aesthetic?

They all have gorgeous minimalism writing spaces full of white and pink and a macbook beneath a window. Their makeup is done and they are conventionally pretty to start with. But their entire video is just them talking about how little progress they made, how many pages they deleted, how often they got distracted, how frustrated they are. And like, yeah. We all have those days. But what about the good lines you can't wait to share? The days when the words just flow? The cool stuff you learned while researching? Why don't you ever make videos about that?

Is this some other attempt to seem "relatable" by only talking about the "bad" side of writing? Because again, it's coming across as lacking confidence at best and, at worst, that you don't actually know how to write. And that is not the brand you want as an author.

Again, its always women. Why must women market their self-esteem issues in order to sell their art? Why must we be perpetually awestruck children (girlies, book girls) in over our heads?

[deservedgrace]

I think being raised to be prepared for the world to end and/or to die at any moment (via end times/jesus coming back or persecution because "the world hates us and wants us dead and has no morals") was maybe um..... not great. I think that perhaps that might be bad for you.

[heavenintheclouds]

I thank God that even if I was in a conservative home , I've never been homophobic, racist or any bad shit conservative thought us when we're young. Cause God little child me was like "why would I hate someone because they're gay , didn't say God to love everyone?" Like little me was not into that like REALLY