#but evangelical christianity specifically can fuck off

[major-victory]

There sure is something about a Christian ad featuring people expressing fear and concern about "do we have to spend another year looking back at all our previous mistakes?" "Will I ever amount to anything?" "Will anyone ever truly love me for me?"

There sure is something about that ad being inserted into a video where someone is explaining the new anti-LGBTQ "propaganda" law that just went into effect in Russia (on Jan 10), where this person is explaining how you can now be arrested for just wearing a rainbow, how there's jokes about "oh you don't need to plant drugs on someone anymore to arrest them, just plant a rainbow pin on them". On this video discussing how queer people and allies (bc straight ppl are being arrested for this too, already, in russia) are being once again being threatened just for existing

And you insert that ad?

It sure is something.

[sepublic]

Again, with Luz's arc, she has her 'Sheeple' moment at the beginning of Hollow Mind where she essentially assumes that she is more progressive than the average person and incapable of having a bad belief; Only for that to be disproven heavily when she realizes she too can fall for the propaganda and manipulation of a dictator, and helped him in a pivotal way that nobody else has. It's a "You are not immune to propaganda (but neither am I)" moment. This really caps off of Luz's culminating storyline of resenting herself for whatever mistakes and bad consequences she 'caused', which leads to her, in a vulnerable state of mind, thinking she's basically pure evil and just as bad as Belos.

But then S3 has Luz's loved ones, such as Camila, reiterating to her that it's okay to make mistakes, that's just part of living. Luz meets the Titan and he confesses to also making mistakes; He's responsible for the Collector being imprisoned and thus vulnerable to Belos' manipulation. The Titan can personally relate to a very specific form of guilt that Luz has been fixating on in particular, which echoes the previous episode's climax when Luz realizes she just wanted to be understood, after seeing her mother is able to empathize with her. And the Titan is also a parental figure to Luz.

With the Titan basically saying that Luz made mistakes, but she means well and intends to improve and that's what matters -and thus differentiates her from a bad actor like Belos- I think it all ties back to the idea of guilt and repentance. The show is saying that it's okay that Luz messed up, but she needn't self-flagellate eternally for this, she doesn't need to focus on redeeming herself. Not only does this feel like a response to the Evangelical brand of Christianity, but also?

It reminds me of how in progressive spaces, there's often this mistake people make where they expect themselves to be morally pure and perfect; They need to have all of the right beliefs and progressive politics. And if they didn't, if they messed up, then it's basically the end of the world. It's led to criticisms of this type of culture being more concerned about the idea of being morally perfect, rather than actually growing and improving; It, fittingly, can feel like a witch hunt where people are looking for any slip up, so all you can do is deny lest you face the consequences.

So the revelation that a self-proclaimed progressive could be 'guilty' of a bad belief can make someone collapse, which leads to things like white fragility where white people make it all about themselves as they wallow in self-pity and shame over some mistake like a racially-insensitive remark, and that in turn makes it impossible to have a meaningful conversation and critique because of how much they overreact. It makes the discussion about themselves and how bad they feel, and not about the people they’re supposed to be an ally towards.

Now, Luz is obviously not white. But the latent fear of not being a perfect progressive thinker isn't exclusive to white people. And people more informed than me have linked this anxiety of needing to be morally perfect to certain brands of Christianity; There's a link between this and the fact that fallen angels exist, but risen demons don't. You can fuck up once and still be condemned eternally; That's the anxiety at the source of such a trope, and the absence of its inverse.

So given creator Dana Terrace's own past with Catholicism, plus the rise of social justice movements, including amongst youth. And in a way Luz's arc could be seen as a critique for this type of moral-purist approach to social justice that doesn't allow people to make mistakes and grow, and how that is linked to some racist phenomena that makes it difficult to inform white people of what they've done wrong. It is, again, a response to certain denominations of Christian belief (especially the Evangelical kind that informs a lot of the U.S.'s lack of prison reform) and the obsession with this Holier Than Thou status.

And in the end, it's a relieving reassurance; Luz is told that it's okay to mess up. It's okay she had the wrong ideas, but what matters is that she wants and intends to keep growing, and is engaging with this in good faith; She cares more about doing right than being right. Luz isn't doing this to be perceived as morally superior or self-righteous (unlike some people, both fictional and in real life), she genuinely wants to help. She can let go of her need to be a perfect hero because it’s less about the strict details of the story and more the point of it.

By forgiving herself Luz can actually focus on fixing what happened, instead of wallowing in self-loathing; And we see how she can just cause more problems by doing that, which leads to more guilt, in this positive feedback cycle of destruction. But no more cycles here, this show says! Self-love is just more effective than constantly reminding yourself what a bad person you were, are, or could be.

Luz can dismiss the puritanical paranoia that making mistakes, regardless of intent, makes you basically evil (Which means she needn’t repent by cutting ties with the Demon Realm once the day is saved). This makes Luz a foil to Belos, who in his arrogant need to be the perfect hero, refuses to admit he has made any mistakes, and kills people to maintain that lie; He cares more about being right for the clout and sense of superiority, than doing right for the sake of others. He’s looking for ‘wrongdoing’ to punish, and doesn’t think you can help people learn.

This also ties back to other characters like Amity or Lilith or Hunter, hell even Boscha; People who have had flawed beliefs and ideas and made mistakes. But they're allowed to grow and change, they're not forever defined by their past, even if they still hold obligations to the present pains that their victims might feel. And this ties back to the social justice context that prompted Luz's brief rant about how 'obvious' Belos' propaganda seems; It's not about getting it all right on the first try. It's about wanting to improve and fix each mistake, one at a time, and giving yourself leniency for flawed ideas because you are a human being and that's okay. You can be a little confused, but if you've got the spirit...!

[sophieinwonderland]

Not that prev religion anon, but the fact is, you’re not just hurting sysmeds “in their bigotry.” You’re hurting pro-endos too, such as myself, by saying these sorts of things so loudly and with no nuance.

I love the idea of a plural God for others, but not for me. I don’t agree with the idea based on my teachings. But furthermore, I don’t agree with my God being used to… further… plural acceptance? That’s not the point of spreading Christianity.

If you’re looking for actual theological discussions, then yes! Fuck yes discuss! But you aren’t. It doesn’t feel like you’re saying God is plural out of any desire for theological debate or a deeper understanding of Christianity. It feels like you’re using it solely to upset anti-endos into foaming at the mouths loudly enough that Christians will look at you and… somehow go, “Oh, this plural thing sounds good!” And that will somehow make plural acceptance a thing.

I don’t like feeling so used. ):

I'm sorry you feel that way.

But furthermore, I don’t agree with my God being used to… further… plural acceptance? That’s not the point of spreading Christianity.

Right. Of course. The point of Christianity is spreading homophobia and taking away people's bodily autonomy...

Yes, I know that's not true of all Christians. But the point I want to make is that... I think we need to acknowledge that the Church is always used for politics. And there's power in whoever can use it best to their advantage. If it's not us, it will be the pluralphobes.

Can I ask, have you thought about what a plural future will entail?

Or, to be more specific, have you thought about the Church's place in a plural future?

Because I have, and frankly, it's more than a little worrying.

Did you see the article about tulpamancy from Rod Dreher?

Either the tulpa is a wholly psychological phenomenon generated by the mind, or it is an unusual way of allowing a demonic spirit to take possession. Or perhaps both. It is at best a sign of great mental disturbance, and at worst a sign of evil spirits inhabiting a person’s body. Whatever the case, it ain’t good.

Then there was the right-winger not too long ago who infiltrated a plurality panel at a gender conference, and claim she felt a demonic presence. She's STILL claiming this plurality conference caused her to be possessed by a demon.

And in fact, the first time I ever brought up the Trinity being plural wasn't on my Tumblr blog. It was in a catholic subreddit in response to members saying that tulpas sounded demonic. (I regret deleting those comments now.)

Like it or not, widespread plural awareness means that plurality WILL become a topic in churches. And we can't afford to allow the narrative to be shaped by the right-wing evangelicals alone. We NEED to get ahead of this and appeal to churches before it comes to that.

Because I already have a pretty good idea of what talking points they're going to be churning out.

They'll say that plurality is evil. That we're getting children to open themselves up to demonic forces. They'll say that our experiences of plurality are impossible because God designed each of us to be one person, and anyone claiming otherwise is delusional. I mean, this is pretty much what they're saying right now, just on a smaller scale.

So this is my counternarrative. God is plural and Mankind is made in God's likeness. To claim plurality is unnatural is to claim God is unnatural. To hate plurals is to hate God. Coming our of the gates with this will be an immense help in the battle to come.

And I do realize that this only applies to Trinitarians, but that's the large majority of Christians.

If you don't agree with my methods, that's fine. But I think the seeds need to be planted now. We have a chance to gain a foothold in this conversation before it really starts. Because let me tell you, once it really kicks off, the rightwing talking points will spread fast and countering them isn't going to be easy. Changing a firm belief is way more difficult than convincing someone who is undecided.

Every sympathetic Christian we can introduce to the idea that God is plural is hopefully going to be somewhat inoculated against the right-wing propaganda when it comes in full force.

We're going to need every advantage we can possibly get when we're going up against these massive right-wing evangelical Christian institutions.

And I've decided that potentially offending a few people along the way, even a few pro-endos, is going to be worth the long-term benefits.

[trekwiz]

It strikes me that there are 2 different (modern) Israels, and in the US and Europe, we're only really taught about one of them.

You might know this one: in 1947, the UN adopted a partition plan to create Israel. This was intended as reparations for the holocaust--but mysteriously, would not be comprised of land from the perpetrators, the Axis powers. Wikipedia has a good primer:

Here's the important thing to know: that Israel doesn't exist. The plan was never implemented. It would have required that Palestinians give up the majority of their land to create a new country, despite having an overwhelming majority of the population in the territory. Mass theft and expulsion was not reasonable. Palestinians boycotted the talks. Ultimately this country never came into existence; a massive terrorist attack left it moot.

There's a second Israel that has its origins in the 1840's. British Evangelical Christians came up with the idea that Jewish people should be shipped off to Palestine to bring about the second coming. Yes, it's as antisemitic as it sounds. You can read a primer on Wikipedia here:

In 1914, the British promised to liberate Palestine and return it to Palestinian rule in return for military support against the Ottomans. They didn't uphold their end of the deal (no surprise), and opted to manufacture a conflict: in 1917, they promised to create a Jewish homeland, and encouraged Zionist immigration specifically, to strengthen their "peacekeeping" claim to the territory. (Differentiation: Zionists are those who specifically support a Jewish ethnostate on Palestinian territory; one does not have to be Jewish to be a Zionist, and not all Jews are Zionist.)

In 1936, the Palestinians fought back against the British, who still hadn't kept their promise to free Palestine. Unlike the American revolution, Palestinians lost. If you're starting to think this sounds a lot like how Britain treated India, you're not far off.

In 1938, Britain decided to take steps to honor its promise to free Palestine. This spurred escalations from multiple Zionist terrorist organizations: comprised of foreigners who believed they had a greater right to the land than the locals, Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi coordinated against the British and Palestinians.

Haganah formed earlier, in the 1920s, and originally worked with the British to prevent Palestinian liberation. They were eventually armed by Poland.

Irgun was an internationally recognized (including by the US) terrorist organization. They're known for a particularly heinous bombing:

They worked with Haganah to plan it, and you may recognize a specific tactic they used: a phone call to "warn" their victims in advance.

They formed because they believed armed force should be used to prevent Palestinian freedom, and allow Zionists to secure a future country. Their whole cause for existence was to suppress Arabs and make them compliant.

They explicitly believed that terrorism was a necessary tactic to steal Palestinian land for their own benefit.

Lehi is an offshoot of Irgun that described itself as a terrorist organization. It's important to understand that this organization also explicitly wanted to ally itself with Axis powers, specifically Nazi Germany and Italy. Their goal was to create a totalitarian Jewish ethnostate that would operate by the same values that Nazis held.

This all came to a head in 1948. Britain basically said, "fuck it, we created this mess, but we're not going to fix it." They pulled out of Palestine, without making good on their promise to free it.

The Zionist terrorist organizations banded together for one large terrorist attack after the British left: they massacred Palestinians in multiple hundreds of villages and forced them out of the territory--including the use of bio-terrorism to ensure they wouldn't return:

In the aftermath, these terrorist organizations decided to cosplay as a country, now going by the name Israel. Under this new name, these organizations worked together to destroy evidence of their 1948 terrorist attacks.

It's worth mentioning as well, that Israel continues to honor its component terrorist organizations; it still has a military service ribbon named for Lehi--the organization that literally wanted to pal around with Hitler.

Despite the merger and name change, these terrorist organizations have never ceased their violent attacks against the Palestinian people. They regularly escalate the ongoing ethnic cleansing any time they can create an excuse. They were slaughtering Palestinians on a regular basis, even before Israel's October 7 escalation.

Palestine remains oppressed by a terrorist entity that US and European governments are funding and arming.

The only reason you haven't heard about this Israel is because the US government has a vested interest in propaganda that portrays them as a legitimate country: they serve as a military presence for us in the mid-east.

You already know why our government lied about WMDs as a pretext for war against Iraq and Afghanistan; it shouldn't be a surprise that our government has the same motivation for maintaining ties with a terrorist organization operating in the same region, seemingly tied to our interests.

Americans and Europeans: you should be questioning this propaganda and advocating for the Palestinian victims of genocide: your tax dollars are funding terrorism. When you decide "it's too complicated, I don't know enough to have an opinion" or "both sides engage in violence so I'll just equivocate", then you're helping to normalize these atrocities. You're making it easier to spread propaganda in favor of arming and funding Israeli terrorism.

You should speak up in favor of a one state solution, led by Palestinians. The history of these Zionist terrorist organizations makes it clear that this is the only way for there to be justice. The leaders of the Zionist entity should be brought to trial, and Israel permanently disbanded.

[aroaceconfessions]

cw: religion, specifically purity culture in evangelical Christianity and the miserably inadequate sex ed that comes along with it

Being an aroace teen with no libido in the midst of purity culture is WILD, because the youth pastor will be going off about saving yourself for marriage and only dating fellow Christians and not looking at porn and whatever, and meanwhile I'm just sitting in the back of the room drawing on notebook paper and wishing I had more snacks.

Like??? In hindsight it's GLARINGLY obvious that I am and always have been aroace. But back then I legitimately didn't understand how anyone could possibly feel romantic or sexual attraction. I never felt "broken" or anything -- I thought other people were the weird ones. I thought that having crushes or being sexually attracted to someone was largely made up for the sake of adding drama to books and movies, and that people couldn't possibly be that way in real life, because I wasn't that way and I was totally normal, right? I just kind of assumed that one day I (afab) would fall in love with a man and we'd get married and have kids and ride off into the sunset together, because that's the picture the church always painted for me.

I'm an adult now. I've deconverted from my parents' religion. I've accepted my identity as a childfree aroace person who may or may not be cis (still working on that part). I've actually EDUCATED myself about other peoples' sexualities and gender identities, as well as things like basic bodily hygiene and pregnancy, which nobody ever taught me about in any meaningful amount of detail. Fuck the system that kept me ignorant and made it easy for me to judge other people for having basic, perfectly natural desires. I feel like I've FINALLY woken up to the fact that I am an individual, who's allowed to have opinions and interests and wants and goddamn emotions. I can be an ally to my queer friends and use their correct names and pronouns and such without feeling like I'm sinning or betraying God or whatever bullshit that religion wanted me to believe. Literally just finding that one little label for myself led me down a path towards FEELING LIKE AN ACTUAL HUMAN BEING. And while I've definitely still got a ways to go, I am so incredibly grateful for all the progress that I've made so far.

Education on these topics is so fucking important. For EVERYBODY. And I desperately hope that someday it'll become the norm, so that no more kids are failed as badly as I was.

Submitted July 8, 2023

[unpopularfanopinion]

So recently I came across and anti-shipper who apparently really dislikes when anti-shipping and anti-shippers are compared to conservatives and purity culture, and wrote a rant about it. They cowardly have replies and reblogs turned off but I still wanted to respond.  I won’t tag them and don’t know if they’ll see this(but I hope they do)

<i> Antiship is not the same as being a puritan/supporting purity culture. Puritans are conservative Christians who shame people for having sex before marriage and tells Queer people, polyamorus people, and people who are in open relationships that they're "sinful" and need to go to hell.</i>

Purity culture as practiced by the American Evangelical Christians is at it’s core a patriarchal and misogynistic means of control and repression, especially of women.  It teaches that sex and sexuality is an inherently sinful and harmful aspect of human nature and must be repressed.  It also teaches women that THEY are responsible for the sexual misdeeds of the men around them. If they are assaulted it’s their fault because they were immodest and drove their attackers into lust. This behavior is mirrored by anti-shippers when they go after ships(that the anti-shippers do not like) and claim that the mere existence of these ships will cause people to commit sexual assault and abuse and it’s the fault of the shippers(not the abusers who are just easily mis-led babies and not responsible for their own actions I guess)  This is one reason why people compare anti-shippers to puritans and purity culture. Because they share the idea that sex, and expressions of sexuality= evil/sinful/harmful and therefor needs to be controlled and police.

<i> When proshippers call antis puritans, they're also being aphobic to the antis that identify as Asexual/Acespec, Aromantic/Arospec, and aroace/aroacespec. Being Ace/Aro is not the same as being a puritan and doesn't mean the hatred of sex/romance. Ace/Aro people don't go out of their way to harass Allos for being openly sexual. We honestly don't care what Allos do with their sex lives. Also there are Ace/Aro people who are sex favored and do have sex.</i>

As a member of the Aro/Ace community you can fuck all the way off with this and you can just keep fucking off. You are correct that being Aro/Ace doesn’t mean being sex-repulsed and sex-negative or being a puritan. Being aro/ace is not related to being anti-ship in anyway shape or form. But if someone is trying to use their asexuality as an excuse or reason to harass shippers and tell them not to write erotica or express their sexuality, claiming that it is somehow inherently harmful or offensive the asexual person is in the wrong and are engaging in one aspect of purity culture. Specifically the part about attempting to control and police other people’s sexual expression.

Also out of curiosity are you familiar with the Aro/Ace micro-identity of aesgosexuality? Here’s some info on it as I don’t want to go into detail here https://gayety.co/what-does-aegosexual-mean Unsurprisingly quite a few aegosexuals are involved in and enjoy shipping and consuming erotic fic.  Tell me what would you call it when people call members of the Aro/Ace community pedophiles and groomers because of the ships they like?

<i> Another thing to point out that proshipper love calling antis conservatives even though conservatives are more likely to say the same things proshippers say. And conservatives will harass anyone that says something they don't agree with like proshippers do. These people need to learn not to harass people and just block anyone that doesn't agree with them. Because why call yourself anti harassment when you're actively harassing anyone that disagrees with you. </i>

And this word salad is a very poor attempt at DARVO.  Could you try to include any examples? Because I have never once seen pro-shippers say anything close to what conservatives say. But right now I can very easily point to examples of anti-shippers calling ships that have nothing to do with incest, pedophilia or grooming, as incest, pedophilia, and grooming.(ie. child-hood friends to lovers is incest, height difference between two adult characters is pedo, autistic characters are minor coded and any ship with them is pedo)  If you’ve been paying attention to the news you might notice how this compares with conservatives recent insane culture wars at labeling anything LGBTQ or gender non-conforming as pedophilia, and grooming. Again we see anti-shippers mirroring conservative behavior by labeling anything they don’t like as pedophilia and a danger to children.

Also when you claim pro-shippers “harass anyone who disgrees with them” do you mean, an anti-shipper says something mean, stupid, and posibly slightly bigoted in a public space and get mocked, rebutted ad shouted down for it? Or someone an anti-shipper has targeted for harassment doesn’t fold and actually fights back? Do you not see how that is similar to when conservative bullies say something bigoted, face consequences for it, and then go whining about the “woke” mob canceling them?

Conservatives and anti-shippers both share a mindset where they center their sense of morality and ethics one themselves and their own personal feelings of disgust.  If they feel disgust at something, then whether or not it’s actually harmful to anything, it’s evil and wrong and needs to be policed or eradicated.  They lack the ability to just left other people just enjoy their own interests and live their own lives in a way that’s different than them

If you don’t like being hit with the puritan, purity culture or conservative label then maybe you should take some time to learn about the impacts of purity culture beyond the very superficial understanding you display here. Learn about sex-positivity and sexual fantasies. And maybe stop regurgitating various right-wing talking points and behaviors while pretending to be progresses

[soup-mother]

weird number of ppl who act like all the religious issues of the world come exclusively from american evangelicals. it's the exceptionalism again but just like..come on.

it's the belief that all the bad things are some unique abberation that everything can be safely blamed on and everything outside of that is all good and sunshine and progressive rainbows, which is a massive fucking joke.

like the problem with Zionism is not that it's supported by American evangelicals, it's the settler colonialism justified with "god said so" that's inherent to Zionism. I'd say a very very sizable proportion of zionists AREN'T american evangelicals actually, and acting like the "important" zionists are all evangelicals is letting israelis off WAY to easily, yknow...the people probably most relevant to zionism? you're trying to act like every issue comes A) uniquely from Christianity and B) uniquely from one specific kind of Christianity.

yknow catholics are anti abortion too yea? yankee evangelicals are just loud about it.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Neo-Burlesque Era of the 2020’s

Stephen Jay Morris

6/29/2020

©Scientific Morality

            So, here we are in the year of our Lord, 2024, via the Twenty-First Century. This is very similar to the era known as “The Roaring Twenties”—the only difference being is the economy. During the 1920’s, the economy was in prosperity mode. It was party time, with nonstop divine decadence, bathtub gin, and screwing a “Flapper” in a Model T.  All was centered around sex, jazz, and booze. In response, the fundamentalists and evangelical Christians wanted to halt all sin and implement “God’s laws” across the nation. To them, it was viewed as the “End Times” because “young America was reviving Sodom and Gomorrah.” The White racists were worried that America’s borders were being invaded by illegal aliens who were mostly comprised of Anarchists and Communist spies. Is this sounding familiar?

Well, the Christians succeeded in outlawing alcohol by government-implemented “Prohibition.” However, that only served to ensure that organized crime became powerful and filthy rich. The 1920’s didn’t end well. The U.S. economy crashed in 1929 which ushered in The Great Depression. The rich got richer, and the common people got fucked. They were dirt poor.

So, how will the 2020’s decade end? Here is my educated guess.

            The American people suffered from a global pandemic between 2020 and 2022, known as Corona Virus, or COVID 19. Conservative and Christian coalitions expressed their state paranoia by claiming the federal government was forcing citizens to wear masks, quarantine themselves, and take emergency vaccines. The political right was feeding fear to the masses with one alarming exaggeration after another.

            Donald Trump, then President of the United States (until January 2021), was a B.T. Barnum type who cared only about himself; specifically, his money and popularity. Somehow, he paid off churches to promote him as the second coming of Christ. It worked. His base was comprised of right-wing fanatics who believed in conspiracy theories. To date, 30% of the America population are Trump cultists. At the time of his election (2016), he had zero government experience. He was a real estate tycoon whose six businesses had failed. He was the worst businessman in history. Despite all this, he got the stamp of approval from Christian churches across the country, which designated him a decent guy. The most popular thing for which he was known was a TV reality show called, “The Apprentice,” which aired from 2004 to 2017. At the time, the Millennial generation’s mentality was based on computer technology and the Internet. They had been weaned on cell phones and computers. A TV reality show host was not impressive to them. Many were a-political and anti-religion. However, many other generational types, like Gen X and Baby Boomer conservatives, were bound to Trump. President Trump knew how to manipulate Americans, particularly working-class, white people. He came out of the entertainment industry. Americans are entertainment addicts and hedonists.

            Today, the work ethic in America is dead. Over the decades, Americans have wondered why they should work hard at all. Hundreds of businesses go bankrupt every month. The truth is, you only work hard for your boss so he can get rich. The plan is that you, the worker, are so occupied with working hard that you haven’t time to rebel against the capitalist system. After their long, 8-hour day, Americans want to have fun. We live in an entertainment society. It’s all silliness and sick jokes. A burlesque society predates a fascist society. Consider the 1972 American movie, “Cabaret,” a fictional movie depicting Germany’s era during 1920’s decadence: sex, cross dressing, and drunkenness. The Nazis promised German Christians they would put an end to it, and they did.

In America, people want to escape economic hardships by having fun. But the Evangelicals want to control all primal urges and create a clean-cut society. They loath sex unless it's purpose is to make more white babies. They hate sex, but they love violence against “evil people;” that is, whomever they perceive as evil.

At this moment in time, it’s all about fun and recreation. It’s not about wholesome entertainment. It’s about action movies and energy drinks. Video games about war and violence are still a hot item for the younger set. So, I declare this time in American history, “The Age of Neo-Burlesque.” That is my label for the decade.

            Now, what will happen in the 2030’s? I predict that the pendulum will swing to the left. The moderate left will have to compete with the ultra-left. They will have to offer rational programs to help struggling Americans. The ultra-left will need to reorganize and try again. The political right will be despised by working class Americans and become a pariah to them.

At last, a Hollywood ending!

[chiwhorei]

Anime Fandoms and Their Corresponding Denomination

Every Christian is just a fandom rat like the rest of us.

This was too fucking funny I need everyone to see it. My husband and I are stuck in the car and matched Christian denominations to their Anime fandoms. Because that’s what religion is anyway, right?

Let’s start with the big ones:

Dragon Ball - Catholics

they think they’re the OGs, the fandom gatekeepers, polarizing and unwelcoming to anyone not already born into their fandom

One Piece - Protestants

the defectors, they’re convinced they’re the real true fandom. Moral superiority because they’re marginally better than their predecessors

Naruto - Pentecostals

Loud. Constantly trying to convince the other denominations that they’re one of the Big 3. They’ve got plenty of content but they’re too cringe and unwilling to acknowledge they haven’t paid they’re dues yet.

Some more specific denominations:

Yu-Gi-Oh - Evangelicals

Younger guy on the scene, constantly changing and repackaging their tropes but never saying anything new.

Fairytale - Lutherans

They’ve not done anything to me personally, but there’s something not right with this congregation. Some of them are chill but they’ve got a silent majority of weirdos that take things way too seriously

Pokémon - Baptists

More accesible bar to entry but you will get a harsh slap of reality when you notice how toxic the fanboys get.

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Orthodoxies

The quiet OGs, too cool to let new fans in. Even if you try, you don’t get it and you’ll never truly be in the know.

My Hero Academia - Hillsong, Mega-Churchers

They got a taste of mainstream acceptance and capitalized off of it. All the cool kids go to baby’s-first-church and get their nut being part of the pretty, shiny Christianity. Peel off the first layer and they are gatekeeping as bad as the OGs.

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures - Methodists

Hello LGBT’s. They’ve always been here, no one’s got beef with this fandom. You can sit with us energy.

And since I’ve already gotcha:

Cowboy Bebop - Quakers

Leave them be, they’re just enjoying their thing. They’re not bringing any dogs to this fight.

Avatar the Last Airbender - Mormons

The singularly American denomination. No one else really acknowledges them, even though they want to be part of the fandom space so bad. Don’t realize you can’t have your cake (mainstream and safe backed by Nickelodeon) and eat it too (accepted in the anime fandom at large, even if they have quiet, individual support)

Code Lyoko - Scientologists

You don’t even go here. You had some cool ideas and wild lore but you are literally not allowed to sit with the other fandoms

Sword Art Online - Heaven’s Gate Cult

I don’t think I need to explain this one. IYKYK

🙏🏼 peace be with you 🙏🏼

[harrypotterfuryroad]

can you talk about your thoughts on the Witch Trials podcast? I liked hearing JK’s interview but not much of the rest of it

short version is that it was way too both-sidesy about everything when the two sides did not warrant equal weight

like it kinda posed itself as a primer on “the debate” but it never really covered why the trans movement has a problem with jk rowling. you have contrapoints on saying things like “joanne’s words are very hurtful :c” without detailing what specifically he’s reacting to

and it felt like the producers didn’t really have a grasp of things going into the whole project. they started with a recap of how evangelicals lost their minds over harry potter in the 90s (which for the record i thought was really good reporting) and they had the correct takeaway message of “this group is not really reacting to the books but more leveraging their popularity to push their own agenda and interests”

and i figured they would obviously see the parallels between then and now but they don’t even make the connection, they just act like jk rowling was the center of two media kerfuffles by sheer coincidence

the parts where she actually got to talk were good, but megan phelps roper was kind of a softball interviewer. felt like someone with more journalistic experience would’ve gotten a better interview from her

when megan tried to tie in her own experiences was where the wheels really started to fall off. she doesn’t seem like she’s really grappled with or processed a lot of what happened to her, to the point where i don’t think she even realizes she was part of a cult. her framing of it was “i was raised in a religious family and they taught me hateful beliefs but i don’t agree with them anymore” which like, is ok if you’re a standard middle america christian kid, but you’ve got a bit more to go through if your grandpa is fred fucking phelps. i’m not blaming her for existing or anything, like i know everyone heals at their own rate, but maybe put the podcasting on hold until you get some perspective on cult dynamics

like her takeaway from the experience at this point seems to be “that group taught me to be mean to people, maybe i should be nice to everyone” which led her to give people like natalie wynn a bit more credit than they deserve here. the podcast briefly covers the forstater case and the june 2020 essay, but hardly gets into detail, especially against critics. megan takes everything they say at face value and never makes them explain or defend why they’re saying that jk rowling is a harmful bigot. like beyond whether or not you agree with the claim, it’s just basic journalism to get them to provide evidence

side note but the fact that she pretty much let contrapoints run the show and say whatever he wanted and portray himself as the victim and he still got eaten alive by pride flag pfp twitter users says way more than the podcast ever did

so yeah bottom line it felt like they didn’t really have a throughline for the whole podcast and they were just kinda figuring it out as they went. the recap of the 90s stuff was interesting bc i was like 8 when it all happened so i was kinda only peripherally aware of it and it was nice to have the hindsight perspective, but they just didn’t do anything to connect the dots

[ohnoitsthebat]

Messages like this one usually don't bother me. I am who I am, and anyone that knows me well or even pays attention to my posts and reblogs knows that I am not a hateful person. I always show respect--but to those who respect me and my existence. my disdain for Christianity (specifically American evangelism) has never been something that I kept secret. I have friends of various religions, and ones that have no religion at all, and we all manage to get along just fine.

I'm too tired to get into it at the moment, but one of the reasons why I have no respect for Christianity is because they have no respect for me. Time and time again, they have endeavored to erase my existence, yet I am supposed to show them respect? I think the fuck not. Y'all have shown that you would prefer it if I and my kind were dead, and I will be damned if I sit back quietly and allow you to disrespect us. Cry about it.

I am bothered by one thing, and that's the fact that a follower sent this to me. I'm disappointed--I thought my followers and mutuals understood me and my sense of humor and knew me better than that. The person has been blocked, and if I receive additional hate messages, I will turn the anon option off until people can grow the hell up.

This is the reblog they're referring to, if anyone's interested. Just a little FYI: I used to be a Christian, and I thought that things like this post were hilarious. But some people just want to always be the victim and make it about them, when it's not, I guess. Shrug.

[cryptwretch]

hey, i wrote a ridiculously long post about some of my personal feelings about bg3. it's stuff that's been on my mind for a while but never really fully voiced. a mutual made a post earlier that got me thinking and talking about it, which made me want to write about it more, and i ended up basically writing an entire fucking essay. sorry. anyway, it's below the break. major spoilers, particularly for shadowheart, and also since i'm tagging this and more than my usual audience of like six mutuals can hypothetically see it, cw for religious trauma and internalized homo/transphobia.

i really enjoyed bg3 while playing through it the first time, like, to a ridiculous degree. i was obsessed, i was entranced. all my free time was spent with it, and any time i wasn't playing was spent zoning out and thinking about going home and locking myself in my cave and playing it for as long as possible (and all this is after having played through act 1 in early access at least twice). and then, you know, i beat it, i started a new playthrough, played that for a few hours and then i fell off of it pretty quick after that. the spell wore off. and then i started really thinking about it and i realized i don't actually think i like it all that much.

i know that sounds kind of silly, and don't get me wrong, i'm not saying it's a bad game, because it isn't. it's a fantastic rpg, i was entranced for a reason. there's just so much about it that rubs me the wrong way. i noticed this at the time and pushed through anyway, but now, in retrospect, i can't really get away from it. and so much of that has to do with the inherent baggage of the world it's set in, fucking Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms.

so i fucking adore shadowheart. like, so much, for a lot of reasons. i latched onto her like a lovesick puppy (haha get it, like that one ambient line she says) basically immediately. since i love her so much, she and her story will kind of be the focus here, specifically due to my personal experience of playing her romance route as a selûnite cleric, which is something i know a ton of people did too and probably enjoyed, but was deeply disappointing to me for personal reasons. of course, given the setting, i don't really know what i was expecting. this is far from being my only beef with the game, but it's the thing i think about the most.

shadowheart starts the game as a cleric of shar, goddess of night, loss, secrets, and forgetfulness. shar is a capital E Evil deity, which means something concrete in Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms, where Good and Evil aren't abstract concepts, but literal cosmic forces. shadowheart, however, isn't very evil at all. she's secretive, standoffish, pragmatic, but not evil. she disapproves of cruelty, she actually generally likes it when you help people even if she's not very enthusiastic about it. if you're familiar with The Lore, this, along with her suppressed memories, is kind of supposed to be your early hint that she's not a "real" sharran, that her devotion is artificial, forced onto her.

this is one of the big things that drew me to her in the first place. i am a transgender woman and a bisexual, and i was raised by highly conservative evangelical christians. basically, this means i was raised to be something that i fundamentally wasn't, and beyond that, i was raised to hate and fear people like me. when confronted with the idea that i was different, that i wasn't what i had been raised to be, i would recoil, get defensive, retreat into denial. i spent my entire childhood and much of my young adulthood deathly afraid, because deep down i knew i wasn't like them. i knew i wasn't straight, i knew i wasn't masculine, and i knew that if these things were true, i would be punished for it, in this life and the next. and i saw a lot of that in shadowheart. shadowheart isn't like other sharrans, but she's been raised to be one. she desperately wants their approval, and the approval of her dark lady. she wants to prove herself, to fit in, so very badly. i couldn't help but see myself in her. this is also why i just cannot get behind the idea of encouraging her to stay a sharran and become a dark justiciar at her big turning point. i simply can't separate it in my head from my own experience. like, yeah yeah, evil woman hot, of course, sure, whatever, but to me, it's just condemning her to a life of losing herself to zealotry and hatred, eternally and irrevocably devoted to the people and goddess who stole her childhood and molded her into something she was never meant to be. i just can't abide that.

but that's not really what i'm talking about, and i'm probably gonna sound like i'm contradicting myself a bit going forward. sorry, just bear with me, hopefully it'll all make sense.

i played as a selûnite cleric specifically with the intention of doing shadowheart's romance plot, and i did that because i thought it might make it a little spicy, throw some extra conflict in. it did, kinda. i've posted before about how she calls you "selûnite" with so much venom it sounds like a slur and it's kind of hot. there's not actually a whole lot of reactivity to it, but you can have a few extra conversations or debates about your doctrinal differences, she taunts you a little bit in the ruined temple of selûne the goblins are camped in, you know, that kind of thing. it's fun, but not game changing. otherwise, the romance proceeds basically the same as it would have if you weren't a selûnite, up until the big decision at the end of shar's gauntlet, and that's where it ceased to be fun for me. i basically did not pick any selûnite dialog options with her at all from that point onward, because it simply felt wrong.

at the moment of the decision itself, i picked only options that let her make the decision for herself, which led her to spare aylin of her own accord. but after that, the options started to feel like the insufferable Definitely-Not-Gloating of a christian who has managed to successfully convert someone. those options basically recontextualized the whole thing in my head, the whole relationship. i went into the thing thinking, you know, "oh wow, two priestesses of opposing goddesses falling in love with each other despite it all, how cool, how romantic, how will they make it work," etc. but like, this is Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms. my goddess is ontologically Good, her goddess is ontologically Evil. again, i don't know what i expected. was i hoping maybe we'd both abandon our churches, or we'd develop some kind of heretical synthesis of the two doctrines? there is kind of a nod to that sort of possibility in dialogue, where you can tell shadowheart in the early stages of your relationship that you're like two sides of the same coin and you compliment each other. but in the end, those are really just utterly silly things to hope for in this setting. there was only a couple of ways it could have gone. either we both succumb to zealotry and kill each other, or one of us converts. and when it came down to it, everything in me was just absolutely repulsed by the realization. the selûnite options made it feel like the conversion was the whole point, that it had been my character's goal the whole time, and i hated it.

i know that sounds extremely silly, trust me! i was talking about how shadowheart staying a sharran is basically her bad ending! but i'm going somewhere with this, and it can all be traced to the setting too.

the thing about sharran doctrine is that there really isn't anything actually evil about it, looking at it for what it is. sharrans embrace loss and seek comfort in darkness, teaching that acceptance of loss is a good thing, and one can come out of loss stronger. it's a logical choice for people in mourning, or after unexpected life events. one can easily imagine a real world polytheist praying to shar or an equivalent after losing someone important to them or losing their home or something like that. but this is Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms, and shar is capital E Evil. in The Lore, shar is a twisted sadist, full of malice and pettiness and hatred, and her church reflects that. they take a predatory stance, preying on people experiencing loss, and aren't above engineering the kinds of events that would draw potential worshipers to her fold, which is pretty much exactly what happened to shadowheart. she was the daughter of a selûnite couple, stolen and raised sharran just to make a point, out of pure spite. selûne, on the other hand is capital G Good, just like her church. she's all about guidance, compassion, moonlit nights. her doctrine is easy, unoffensive (shadowheart loves to point this out and mock you for it), and it draws lots of followers on its own. sharrans and selûnites fucking hate each other, mostly because shar and selûne fucking hate each other, mostly because they occupy opposing roles in the cosmology and that's that. because shar is Evil, her church is also Evil.

i guess what i'm trying to say here is that in my head, which simply does not think that way, i expected nuance that could never have been there. of course my character Saved shadowheart. she's Good and her church is Good, and shadowheart is a Good person who is just misguided, misled into Darkness, who just needs to be shown the Light. what does that sound like to you? why would this leave a bad taste in my mouth as someone with my particular background? the whole thing struck me as insufferably christian, disgustingly evangelical, completely reflective of that worldview and entirely uncritical of it. and like, at the end of the day, this whole setting, and dungeons and dragons as a game system, is built on and wholly dependent on that very attitude.

once again, I Don't Know What I Expected. i went into the thing with unrealistic expectations despite what i already knew about this setting, which i've been familiar with since i was a teenager. that is on me, i'm kind of the idiot here. lots of other people have talked about the problems this setting has since this game came out, especially the infamous case of the goblin children that there are no consequences for murdering (because they're Evil, you see). this is just something that really stuck out to me, personally, i guess because of how much i saw myself in shadowheart. the funny thing that makes me feel especially silly about this whole thing and this whole post is that it all probably wouldn't have even occurred to me if i hadn't been playing a selûnite. if i had been like a rogue or whatever and had let shadowheart come to the decision by herself the same way, i probably would have just felt like a loving partner who could be there for her through a difficult transition (lol hm). but i was the rival cleric instead, and my doctrine, Good and True and Objectively Morally Correct, had won. i'd Saved her, and I hated it.

[vvatchword]

Something that’s been bothering me for some time is the idea that you can make a piece of media and include bad themes and not even fucking know. This realization was kicked off by mulling over BioShock Infinite, which I have been doing a lot of lately. Most of BioShock Infinite was good, and I’ll be eternally grateful for the catharsis that I’m pretty sure only 1% of the world’s population could ever fucking have (exactly how many queer atheist exvangelicals from the American South long to come to terms with the individual and societal ills they caused?), but the bad parts were OHHH so bad. Like fundamentally broken bad. And although it’s been a hot minute since I’ve dug into Ken Levine interviews, I didn’t realize anyone could be as fucking tone deaf as the “violence from the oppressed is as bad as the oppressor’s” and “barely-explored black woman dies so white woman can have character growth”. I’m going to look into his background. I desperately want to know if he’s a trust fund baby or something because that’s some rich centrist white boy bullshit.

How, man. How do you put that media out in 2013. Like even back in 2013, when I was fresh out of Christianity, I’d rolled through enough Tumblr spats and Atlantic thinkpieces to get a feel for the unfortunate ways that isms pop out in media, and Daisy Fitzroy is Exhibit A. We’re talking about a theme that goes way back, too--slavery-era plus some: the black person who exists as a sort of tool or Macguffin or learning experience but has no identity beyond revolving around the white character. I will never forget Robinson Crusoe, when some guy runs up to Robin and is like, bro I want to be your slave plz :) and even I, a sheltered fundamentalist 11-year-old, was like: excuse me what

I think I fell into that common trap of thinking that because someone’s art could empathize with ME they could empathize with other causes I treasure as well. How could Levine, an urban Jewish man perhaps ten years my senior, somehow tack into evangelical nationalism in such a way that I felt like I had beaten my own face into a washbasin for ten hours? How the hell could he not with a black character? What does he think a black player is going to see? What do black players see all the fucking time? What do you think that feels like?

One of my greatest fears since childhood is that I’ll fuck up and hurt somebody. The problem is, of course, that I am a perfectionist and a people-pleaser, and the minute I sniff out a Thing That Might Be Bad, I’m like: HOW CAN I MAKE SURE I AM NOT DOING THE BAD THING SO I AM NOT EJECTED FORCIBLY FROM SOCIETY. Probably because a) I struggle desperately with social cues and b) there was such a big stretch of my life where I was hurting people and believed things that were just profoundly wrong--even though I actively, deeply didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to be that person, but I was. I was actively making the world a worse place. I hurt people. I made people cry. I know this for a fucking fact. 

I finally got a bit of perspective as I was watching user txttletale (I refuse to @ that person rofl). See, every time I find someone on Tumblr who has a perspective utterly alien to my own in such a way that I feel like I’m being wrenched around by the shoulders, I watch them. txttletale is a Leninist from a third-world country in South America and oh holy god. I have found brand new ways to feel guilt.

I have to come to terms with the fact that I’m going to hurt people even though I don’t want to. I am going to believe things that aren’t right and they may be subtle or strange or even completely invisible unless introduced to specific contexts. There will be future comprehensions for which my current ones are unforgivable. It’s impossible not to have a perspective that has unforeseen consequences.

This is both a relief and a responsibility.

All you can do is your best. All you can do is try and treat people with respect and change your actions once you realize you’re fucking up. I can definitely do that.

[gxlden-angels]

Shiny Happy People Thoughts: Episode 4

TW: The Duggar Family and their crimes

- All gang here we go again

- To recap, we left off on the discovery of Josh Duggar's business hard drive with CSAM on it and the affects of anti-sex and strict enforcement of hierarchies

- The episode starts with the phone call about the investigation and the discovery of CSAM linked to Josh Duggar's business IP address

- This episode is known for being the hardest to get through so be warned if you decide to also watch

- They use the term "child pornography" but I will be using the terms CSAM or child sexual abuse material

- Jen of Fundie Fridays described the Snark community's look into the investigation

- Fucking Covenant Eyes

- I think I talked about it before, but it's an anti-pornography and accountability software program where your porn use is sent to a trusted program partner

- There's a lot of talk about having to be happy at all times, which was also enforced in my households. My dad never enforce it, but other family members would insist on me smiling or they'd make me smile (meant as a threat)

- Theres also clips of Josh and Anna's courtship and how they weren't even allowed to kiss before marriage

- Bobye, Jill, and all of the other victims are incredibly brave for speaking up both during the trial and now in this docuseries

- Jim Bob ran for senate in Arkansas during said trial, which is fucking wild. I knew he did, but I didn't realize it was during the trial. They genuinely believe the issue is Josh was caught and arrested rather than the fact that Josh did these horrible crimes

- There's a firm belief in individualism and handling issues at home so they don't have to acknowledge the greater patterns of abuse in these circles else they make their christianity look bad

- It explains the "Culture War" and what's essentially meant to be a new version of the crusade. Even in my small town black churches we sang song after song about being soldiers in the army of Christ and being willing to die for him

- The greater "Culture War" is for white, cishet evangelicals. My family might follow the exact same principles, but they would never be accepted by these groups in the same way because we're black

- A lot of black people hold the fear though that if they stop following these groups/mindsets, their children will be the next victims, rather than the black kid that got overlooked. There's no positive outcome, just a fear of the worst negative

- This is why there's been an attack on education as a whole, especially in places like Florida. They started with homeschooling, grew up and graduated, then became politicians and leaders and lawyers that could make public school just like their homeschooling or gut it so much that anyone not in these groups or people that can't homeschool their kids lose significant power and educational opportunities

- I was never homeschooled, but I was told by my churches that school will teach us things like evolution that we should ignore. The pastor and his wife at one church homeschooled their kids and advocated for it

- They are specifically referring to white, homeschooled, IBLP-trained evangelicals but this shit influenced the entire christian culture of the bible belt in the US

- There's a reason these people are gun-carrying, anti-choice conservatives and why they're making up lies and attacking schools for being "leftist indoctrination camps"

- Its all a fear tactic. I even got this talk when I was in high school and planning for college. We were told to keep close contact with the church and to not even join other christian groups your parents don't know in case they teach the "corrupted" versions of christianity

- Its Madison Cawthorn. It's Matt Walsh. It's the current Supreme Court. It's Donald Trump. It's all of these people that plan to take away autonomy from people so they can enforce this christian hierarchy throughout the world

- I'm at the Paul and Morgan part of the docuseries. Their interview was about their marriage and the role of the wife. They say it's a choice to submit to their husbands, though they feel like christian women always should

- The editing was incredible in this part. It goes from them talking about the role of the wife and being a light in the world to the jump cut of Morgan screaming about how it's impossible to "be a they/them"

- This part is what is making Paul and Morgan pitch a fit because they feel like it made christianity look bad, but all they did was edit in their own words from their YouTube channel

- "This is the Joshua Generation" gave me chills

- Its Girl Defined and the Rodrigues family and tiktok influencers and so on and so forth and all of them are white evangelicals who are trying to enforce this strict hierarchy and claiming it's the only way to save people

- Its why people say be careful when looking into cottagecore and tradcore and the "soft life" movement because a lot of it is ran by evangelicals trying to make strict hierarchies look trendy

- Its incredible to be a stay at home mom and traditional housewife, but only if it's your choice. All of the insistence that feminism is "destroying motherhood" and whatnot is all a ploy to take more women's autonomy. It's why feminism advocates for things like maternal leave, universal basic income with benefits for parents and children, universal daycare, universal healthcare especially for birthing parents. All of it should be a choice you can make for yourself

- The insistence on a family of a Working Father, a Housewife, and 2 or 20 kids was spread by a cult leader who never even had a wife or kids. Gothard sexually abused multiple minors during his time as an IBLP leader

- Josh Duggar was of course found guilty.

- It hurts knowing that his victims were expected to forgive him and let him back into their lives

- A lot of the family and friends are completely shut out of the picture now for advocating for Josh's arrest

- Amy Duggar reading from IBLP hurt, especially with the cut to Anna Duggar, Josh's wife

- They talk about why she still advocates for him and stays with him. She doesn't have a way to leave since this is all she was raised for. Find a nice, godly man and have his babies. No proper education. No source of stable income for herself. No privacy

- That goes double for her as the wife of a well-known person. She will never get privacy because she only sees herself as property of god, Josh, and the TV contracts Josh signed for her and unless she gets serious therapy and a safe, long term environment where someone takes care of her, thats all she'll ever see herself as

- My therapist pointed out to me today that whenever I burp, I completely change as a person for a split second. Despite all the work I've done and my transition as a transmasculine person, I still attempt to hide my burps, cover my mouth, completely straighten up, say excuse me very articulately, and even raise the pitch of my voice

- I know that seems like a weird tangent but it's an example of how even the smallest of things gets trained into you. Burping wasn't feminine so I got called a pig and a man in an insulting way when I burped loudly enough to be heard. I still burp in that polite way that makes me nauseous so I won't be heard unless I'm completely alone

- You can't just leave these cults. It comes with you. It stays with you even in these little habits and I was lucky enough to get the chillest parent of the family. Anna cannot and will not leave unless she is forced, and even then she will still be stuck. She won't suddenly have 12-13 years of education. She won't have the skills to get a good paying job in the current economic landscape. She won't have people to save her. This is what cults do. This is what they want. They want her to be helpless because it's a message: Next time, don't let him get caught

- "My only hope was to cling to my faith."

- That's all she has. It's all that belonged to her. Everything else was her father's or her husband's

- Tia Levings describing the situation of getting her kids and leaving the husband that was going to get his gun was honestly the hardest story to hear

- I never experienced abuse like that, but I remember hearing over and over "well why wasn't she under her father/husband's watch" "why didn't she just leave?" "Why didn't she just trust in god?" and have this fear set in me of what if I never left? Is this where I would've been?

- Around my teen years I got very uncomfortable around most couples in my family. The husband would joke about wives submitting and the wives would snap back about how it's a choice they could take away. The husband retorts with a bible verse about how they shouldn't. They laugh it off and the tension sits in the air. They seem to hate each other, but they made a promise to god.....

- The lawsuit against IBLP and Bill Gothard and it being dropped because of the statute of limitations leaves such a helpless feeling, but I hope this documentary helps at least a bit

- "His eyes were open"

- "It was just a man the whole time."

- Brook and Emily's stories really hit. There's a sudden realization that these people are not gods. They are people that wanted power and they got it. They abused and crushed people, not because they are powerful gods of knowledge, but because they wanted to abuse

- WAS

- "I ended up in jail anyways."

- That's how it goes. I felt the need to lash out when I first got out. I didn't do well with my therapist at the time. She was a practicing christian recommend by my doctor who used to go to our church and also treated all of my family with insurance she took. She thought my family was a lil strict but couldn't quite believe me when I said it was so much more than that

- I did lash out, mostly towards myself. I'm not going to talk about my self harm in detail here. Lara talks about lashing out via shoplifting. I will say this is normal. If you feel like you need to do a 180, I won't say do anything and everything, but you might have to. I am a firm believer in harm reduction over flat out denial at all times. Sometimes it all just needs to get out. Sometimes you need to regain a sense of control

- I didn't realize until I started seeing my current therapist that I realized what I was raised in. I made jokes about my family being a cult before then, but it never actually hit until I said "Oh. I never had a childhood, did I?" and teared up for the first time in his office

- I honestly couldn't say the stuff about deconstruction better myself. It's exhausting but so so freeing. A lot of the people in the docuseries used instagram and tiktok. I use tumblr as my platform of choice.

- I honestly have to thank the religious trauma tumblr tag for getting me to where I am today. If you look at my main blog, you can even see that my first few posts are scattered with bible verses if I didn't already delete them. I hope my blog helps someone else the same way that tag helped me

- I get a lil personal here sometimes and probably should save more of it for my therapist, but I think it's helpful sometimes. I think he'd agree. My therapist knows about this blog and thinks it's good

- I've heard about Jinger's book but never read it so I can't say anything about it. I also haven't seen any of the casts' tiktok pages so I can't say anything about them either. I might look later but this episode was a lot so Ill leave it for now

- I figured Bill Gothard would decline further comments. He denied everything and will most likely never see a single punishment. It's how these things are built

- I think the final statement from Jim Bob and Michelle help really seal just how terrible both of them are. They rather side with their child who abused than the victims that spoke out because it makes them look bad that all of this got out

- Final thoughts? Great series. Very therapeutic. Very validating.

- Its the small stuff that gets you. Hair needs to frame your face and honor your father. Be a soldier for Christ. Be fruitful and multiply. I still have awkward pictures of my permed hair and scratchy easter dresses

- I also told my therapist about this show and my recaps here and he thinks it's great. I'm glad I did it. It's really motivated me and helped me see just how far I've progressed

- I'm glad I also learned Nope is on Prime cause I rarely use prime video lol I mostly use it for twitch and prime delivery on cat supplies in bulk

- Good luck all you blasphemers, apostates, heretics, and sinners out there! Be good people, commit to the bit, and love without remorse!

[tangent101]

We only hear the first part because American Individualism wants to glorify isolation. To be told that Heaven, something that Evangelicals want to bring about the End of the World so they can all go to it, is caring about your fellow men and woman... that's unconscionably. How dare people tell us we have to be nice to other people and actually care about the downtrodden!

After all, American Evangelicalism is born of Puritanism, a religious belief that was about as unChristian as you can get. We have Christ stating that a camel can pass through the eye of a needle more easily than a rich man getting into Heaven and we have Calvinists and Puritans stating "God puts His Chosen into Rich families to reward them and they get a Get Out of Hell Free card and can do anything they want, they're getting in, but if you're poor and suffering you're destined to go to Hell unless you're such a hard worker who never complains and believes all the Puritan lies that you'll be allowed in the Slums of Heaven - basically, out of sight of the Chosen, but you at least won't be tormented. Oh, and you'll probably be put to work peeling grapes for God's Chosen to earn your keep in Heaven.

American Christians believe that you only have to be kind to True Christians. That is, people in your specific Church who are well-off and thus Chosen of God. Anyone else? Fuck them and torture them, God approves. They ignore the words and the message and create something that is just about them.

When Everything Everywhere All at Once said “The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on" 

When the Good Place said “Why choose to be good every day when there is no guaranteed reward now or in the afterlife… I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.” 

When Jean-Paul Sartre said ”‘Hell is other people’ is only one side of the coin. The other side, which no one seems to mention, is also ‘Heaven is each other’. Hell is separateness, uncommunicability, self-centeredness, lust for power, for riches, for fame. Heaven on the other hand is very simple, and very hard: caring about your fellow beings.“

[gaykarstaagforever]

God Christian media is fucked.

Whether Hollywood or Evangelicals are making it. Everyone is making the same stupid confused crap that doesn't understand even the most basic things about our supposed traditional religion.

WAR BETWEEN GOD AND SATAN!

The Bible says Satan is an angel and works for God, from Genesis, through Job, through Revelation. That story about him being the rebel Lucifer and fleeing with a quarter of the angels is from Revelation (sort of; kind of not even there), an intentionally confusing book written in metaphor that is specifically about political stuff that was happening 1500 years ago.

Jesus casts out demons, but those are neutral "spirits of the earth" who are selfish jerks who hate God. There's no complex hierarchy there.

And even if we take The Dragon stuff from Revelation as being about The Devil, the entire point is that God has already won, and the Devil is just screwing with us to lead us astray and piss God off, becausehe loves us. So the only fight is between us and the temptation to reject God. The war is already over, from the moment it started, in a timeless God-sense.

HELL IS WHERE THE DEVIL AND DEMONS LIVE AND SINNERS ARE PUNISHED!

Not in the Bible. The Devil and his minions live in some cave or pocket-dimension adjacent to Earth. The Lake of Fire is a part of Heaven where God dumps sinners AND the Devil, to "burn off" their sin, and / or condemn them to prolonged separation from God, which is innately miserable. And it isn't clear about whether that is an eternal thing or just a temporary learning experience. God actively lets the Devil out of it at one point to do some kind of weird mission for him, so obviously it is more complex than you think.

The Cythonic Underworld God / Hades as a realm of punishment thing is 100% Greek paganism. It doesn't fit with the rest of this, especially post Jesus. Especially since the whole point of it in Greek paganism was that you could be perfect and get stuck there merely because you made the petty gods mad, for some stupid reason. Because their worldview was that everything was inherently unfair and a power-struggle between massive horny jerks. Why does the God of Love need something like this?

GOD DEMANDS WE PROVE OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS BY FIGHTING ON HIS SIDE IN THE WAR BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL!

Ha ha ha. You narcissistic shithead.

Jesus died because you suck and God was making a big point about it. You are loved by Him because He decided to love you - you haven't earned it. You CAN'T earn it.

Jesus hung out with rejected freaks and argued with religious authorities to prove what love actually looks like. Emulating THAT is your one and only directive. Culture-warfare and demon-fighting are directly COUNTER to that directive.

God fights demons with angels, when he decides to do that. He doesn't need your stupid help, loser.

How can you miss the ENTIRE POINT of the religion?

GOD STILL LOVES CERTAIN ETHNICITIES IN AN EXTRA-SPECIAL WAY!

No He doesn't. The New Testament is very clear about how Jesus opened things up to everyone. Christianity has zero place for racism.

...Especially if the race you're thinking of is white people. That makes no sense whatsoever. You're only allowed to participate in any of this in the first place because of His benevolence. He certainly doesn't think you're special. Because no one, and everyone, is.

GOD CARES ABOUT SECURE BORDERS AND HATES MARXISM -- !

No He doesn't. What He DOES care about, though, is you using Him to justify your own petty selfish garbage. And He doesn't like it.

CERTAIN SACRED RELICS CAN BE USED AS WEAPONS!

This is a Medieval thing that came, again, from a Greco-Roman pagan thing about gods giving heroes cool magical weapons. And fine, it's fun, and not inherently bad.

...Unless those relics are body parts of dead people. Now you're getting weird and gross and defiling bodies with it.

Plus in the Bible, empowered relics are always special tools given to specific people to do specific things with them, for a limited time. And when they inevitably misuse them, they get punished, usually with death. The relics in the Arc of the Covenant were sacred because God declared they were, not because they shot lasers. It's all by His leave. And He clearly isn't about anyone using them to become President of Earth. The Devil tempted Jesus with that and Jesus told him to kick rocks.

You can do great stories following these rules. The Bible is filled with them. But all of those always focus on inevitable human failings, and end with a message about how God is the best, do what He says, idiot.

Almost like that's the whole point of the religion, as compared to sexy blonde straights helping Jesus battle demons to earn a condo on Heaven's Waterfront.

It is endlessly frustrating that Fundamentalists and ignorant randos have the exact same incorrect ideas about how this goofy made-up religion is even supposed to work.

Sigh.