#religion critical

[balkanradfem]

So I've found Alyssa Grenfell on youtube. She shares her experience of leaving mormonism, and the inner workings of the religion. I had very little ideas about what mormonism is, only that it's a high-control religion, very difficult to leave, and has people knocking on doors trying to get converts. I've been interested to find out more, and I ended up watching almost all of her content, and some of the information I've got from it opened my eyes on other feminist topics, and I believe is relevant to the current discourse!

So if you, like me, don't know how mormonism works, it started when a guy decided that he too could be a part of the bible; he wrote a bible part two: mormon, and proclaimed himself a prophet. Then he started a religion based on his writings, decided it was more important than the bible itself because he 'translated it from gold tablets god gave him', and started gaining followers by convincing people he's the prophet. Once he had managed to get a following, he soon started to sexually exploit the wives and daughters of these followers, to the point where he had 20-40 wives and had married 14yo children. Families allowed it to happen because he would promise them to be royalty in the afterlife. He eventually got into a lot of trouble for stealing and raping children so he was killed by an angry mob, but the religion continued.

The religion is same as christianity except more rules (no coffee, no alcohol, no smoking), eternal worship of the predator who wrote it, followers are pressured to follow the rules exactly, and, the vital part, the followers have to give 10% of their income to the church. They developed a culture where once every young mormon kid comes of age, they have to go on a 'mission', which means they're removed from their home, and have to spend 2 years (1,5 for women) living in a foreign area, knocking on doors, sharing the gospel, trying to convert people. The conversion rate is extremely low, but at that point kids have invested so much time, effort, energy and passion for the religion, they become devoted to it and start to feel alienated in the world that rejects their religion. And even with the low conversion rate, every new convert means another continuous source of income for the church. So it's very profitable to send out young adults to make these sales. The kids are told that if they don't complete their missions, they will not be able to marry, and marriage is presented as their only life purpose.

So how rich is the church at this point? 230 billion dollars. I've been shocked to hear this because I had no idea. Alyssa explained that the mormon church is as rich as Pepsi, they have more money than Disney and McDonalds. So you might be wondering, like I did, well what are they doing with all that money? I've been left to wonder this for a while, until I watched the video called 'Why are so many influencers mormon?', which explained it. I didn't even realize a lot of influencers were mormon. But, this video showed me something both disturbing, and eye opening.

Before I go into that, I have to point out how patriarchal and misogynistic this religion is. Women are not given any options except marriage, and it's presented as the only righteous way to live. They're groomed for marriage from a very young age, encouraged to start writing letters to their future husbands at the age of 9. They're taught cooking, sewing and childcare, and to coddle any males in the family. It's taken for granted that m*n won't respect women, to the point where male children are allowed to harass grown women and their families will not intervene or consider it a problem. Chastity and purity are promoted to the level where members of the religion are expected to wear special underwear at all times, which hides their entire torso, shoulders, and legs down to their knees, and their clothing is expected to cover this up completely. They're rejected by the religion if they dare to have sex before marriage, or drink alcohol or coffee, or in some cases, tea. The church has a history of allowing and promoting polygamy, in the sense that a male was allowed to have as many wives as he wanted; they've since stopped this, but refused to break up the existing marriages. They're also promoting anti gay and racist propaganda, which Alyssa observed in school where she'd been teaching; a gay kid almost ended his life due to extreme homophobia.

I know all of this is somewhat common in all areas of society, all religions, and all cultures, but in mormonism it seems to be written into the core of it.

So now, why are so many influencers mormon? I didn't even know they were. The influencers themselves are not promoting the fact that they're mormon, nor does it come up in viral discussions. Ballerina farm is mormon. Tradwives are mormon. Whataboutaub, Rachel Parcel, brooklynandbailey, tanner_mann, thebucketlistfamily, Taylor Frankie Paul, Sarah Beeston, Ruby Franke, these are all mormon. Most of the Utah-based influencers are mormon, and there's a bigger amount of successful and popular influencers from Utah, than from LA or NY.

For me it immediately explained why this viral content is like that. Why we're having such influx of highly patriarchal, anti-feminist, very dangerous and sexist content, put in front of the eyes of young women. Why it's being promoted as an ideal way of life. How are these women able to share this life as if they truly believed it was good and ideal. How could they think it's harmless? If they're using the internet to the extent that they're creating content, how would they not be exposed to any feminism at all? And they wouldn't because it's against their religion to engage with content like that, or with people talking about it. Because being raised in a high-control religion, they would truly believe their lives are the ideal. They would be presented with it as their only option, the only way of life possible for a woman.

It's heartbreaking because I can now understand why it was so easy to push Ballerina Farm to give up her entire life ambition to get married and carry children for a male she didn't even want to go out with, the pressure from the religion to do so would be immense, she would have been raised to see this as the only option, everything else in her life would be considered pointless. She wouldn't have an actual choice, she'd be groomed for this from the moment she was born. Mormons don't advertise 'looking for your soulmate', they only instruct women to marry a mormon male who completed his mission and make it work.

So how does the immensely rich mormon church play into this? I couldn't see it until Alyssa explained in a very detailed way how youtube content advertising works. I didn't know about this either, but here's the overview:

How much you get paid on youtube, instagram, tik-tok, or other online content platform, depends on what type of content it is, based on how much advertisers are willing to pay to put adverts on it. For instance, you get paid much more for finance content, because banks will pay premium prices to be advertised in a finance-related video. If you're making content on cooking, you get paid way less, because it's not such a lucrative field. If you're making content on christianity, you get similarly low price as for cooking, christian church is not that rich. But, if you're making content as a mormon, that's showcasing some aspect of a mormon life, even if you don't specifically say you're mormon, the price goes way up, to the point where it's as lucrative as finance. The mormon church is making sure that the mormon influencers are being paid premium prices for their content, because people who get massively interested in the influencers, eventually find out that it's the mormon life being advertised, and some of them consider taking on mormonism. Which gives church more converts, which means the church will earn more money. The content we're watching is one huge advert sponspored by mormon church, and we don't even know it.

Alyssa figured this out because her content falls under the keyword 'mormon', and her comments warned her that the church is advertising on her videos, even when she's making mormon-critical content. She then realized that she too was being paid a premium price for her views, just because they're mormon themed. She went on to discover that even just being an influencer in Utah will fetch a premium price, because most of mormons are based in Utah. For more detailed and comprehensive explanation on this, watch her video!

Advertising is not the only way the mormon church is spending their money, they've also built a shopping mall, and are basically spending their money by investing and gambling and everything any corporation does with their profits. It's making me mad, and also makes the members of the church mad when they discover where 10% of their income goes, because they're told it's being used for charity and community service, and not advertisments and building malls.

For me this solves a mystery of how is it possible, in this day and age to have such influx of tradwives and influencers of 'traditional life', they're being sponsored by an organization making a profit off of it, making sure that anyone making this content is so well paid, they're able to live off of it, and keep creating more of it, and in the process of doing that, groom young women into their lifestyle.

Learning more about religions, specifically high-control religions, makes me realize just how much of it is happening all around us, but invisible, not naming what it is. It's similar to MLM's, the people inside are constantly trying to lure more people in, to make profit for those on the top, while the organization keeps changing names and hides their business structure in order to save their reputation. People can get influenced by it, and sucked in, without even knowing about it. Somehow most MLM's are also in Utah.

Mormon church also asked to no longer be called that, in order to stop being associated with the words like 'cult', which people have identified it as. Now they're working under more secretive names, and hidden business practices, so we wouldn't even know what we're being influenced by, and why is the content in front of us what it is.    

[alyceinwonderland777]

The irony of Christians who are convinced that aborting a mass of cells that is not even a human being is "murder" but see nothing wrong in the fact that, according to the Bible, Abraham tried to kill his son because "God asked him to". So let me get this straight, if I get raped and decide not to carry a pregnancy resulting from violence, I am a monster but it's totally fine if I kill my child and justify it by saying that "God asked me to do it"? Got it. 🤡

[hadesoftheladies]

christianity is sometimes funny to me because you have a whole multitude of theology on the doctrine and problem of sin, which is basically human error, and you have a bunch of "scholars" genuinely asking "why do humans err? how can this be? god must kill his son to fix us." and it's like we err because we're finite in every way? and we have to learn to be bad or good like it takes effort and trial and error? sin nature is literally just human finitude like a baby isn't born evil because it has to learn how to walk.

"why do we default to selfishness?" you are talking about self-preservation and capitalism and only one of these is evil. the other would be god's fault.

"but what about the large scale inhumane evil and wars and terrible systems? the genocides and violence? what is wrong with us? why can't we just get along?" lmao that's just men.

i know you really want human evil to be innate and universal for your theology to work and your god to not be out of a job, but you're complaining about human finitude, capitalism, self-preservation and men. that's literally it.

the dark forces you're talking about that compel humans to do evil are literally just men.

[craecm]

y’know someone i love exploring?

abel.

in christianity and indeed, anyone intrigued with the ‘lore’ of the bible, there’s a high focus in the cain and abel story, on cain. and that’s totally understandable! a man full of guilt and jealousy, a murderer, and our ancestor. he deserves a lot of attention, he’s very fascinating.

i mean there’s so many mediums of art that have focused on this idea - of us originating from cain, a man who cursed and twisted his family line.

he’s a great point of discussion and interest, but so is abel.

the idea that i believe the bible is trying to build is that abel was an innocent man. just a younger brother who worked hard for god, and glorified him by offering all that he could. that he did not deserve, in any capacity, to die, and that was the horror of cain’s actions (bc we all know the bible does actually promote murder if the right circumstances are met).

but i’d like to introduce a different idea instead. the idea that abel knew cain was jealous, angry, less capable. that he fed off of doing better than him, being the golden child, and so on. that when god told cain to do better, abel felt cocky. it certainly changes how both cain and abel can be viewed.

viewing the murder as a true maddening moment from cain’s point of view, where he has no way to deal with this jealousy except through physical means, because he cannot deal with being toyed with anymore. and then, after it all, god calls once more for that brother, and cain is enraged. why is everything still about him?

then, abel being the worse of the two, but still cain is said to have doomed his lineage. how screwed could we have been if abel survived? would he have been blamed too? to what degree can god find fault in human nature?

though, i do certainly like the idea that perhaps abel simply did not understand how he was making his older brother feel. that he was only doing his job, that he trusted and even looked up to cain. perhaps he only truly wanted to impress cain, and god was in the middle of it all. and then to be murdered by him, after only being invited to take a walk? how terrified he must have been.

its also the fact that abel was a shepherd. he brought murder into the world, as a victim of such, and so the first murder foreshadowed the most important. jesus, as a shepherd also. the first sacrifice for the later sacrifice. but he was only a man, who had nothing but his mother and father, brother and sheep. that was all the world was then, and still he was not safe.

lastly, the fact that abel was replaced by seth.

not to say that the passing of a child disables someone from having another, but the wording gets me here. “in place of abel”. this idea that abel’s space is something that can be filled.

in essence, abel was born to work. he had a duty of it, seeing as his father had just recently been condemned to toil the soil to earn food, rather than have it readily available. in his oppressive job, he worked and gave everything he Could give to god. did he enjoy the glory? we do not know, but one of his own, one who was going through hardship just like him, murdered him for it. did it matter? no, not truly. another would take his place.

[magicalgirlypop]

i would like to issue a formal apology to reddit atheists for dunking on y'all, PLEASE come back we need y'all more than ever. at least the most you people did was be annoying on the internet, not make laws to take away women and minorities' rights. please these religious freaks need a fraction of their own medicine more than ever.

[aslitheryprinx]

I hate hate hate when Christians (specifically American Christians) try to say that they're oppressed. And then you're like ok why are you oppressed? 'because we can't follow our beliefs' and the beliefs are that gay marriage should be illegal.

Not being allowed to oppress a group you're against does not make you oppressed...

[alyceinwonderland777]

⚠️TW⚠️: ZIONISM AND HARASSMENT

Could you please report this woman's profile? With the excuse of no longer being Islamic, she spends her time harassing Muslims and justifying and supporting the atrocities that Israel has been committing for more than 70 years.

I myself am an ex Christian and very critical of Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, etc.), but I certainly don't go around harassing those who follow them nor I justify genocide or ethnic cleansing. You can call out toxic and/or abusive behaviors and be critical of religion while at the same time still act like a decent human being. I used to follow her because I thought she was a decent person, but today I realized what a disgusting person she is.

Furthermore, the fact that she supports Israel as an Afghan woman is extremely hilarious given that Israel hates ALL COUNTRIES THAT ARE PART OF THE ARAB WORLD, not just Palestine.

If any of you follow her please unfollow her now. she does nothing but give a bad name to those who are simply critical of religion.

[femsologamist]

I took a intercultural communication course for the credits and the kissing up towards these types of cultures/religions and people that believe that crap was aggravating

“These women those to cover up for themselves!!! It’s not always forced!”

Obviously the fear of losing their community and the natural cognitive dissonance of religion has no bearing on these women and girls coercion into covering 🤡

“it’s another culture, be respectful” idgaf 💀 if it’s oppressive to women, it’s a problem, i don’t care if it’s ur customs. girls having to cover themselves, not being allowed to go to school, being violated, not being allowed to be heard, literally being all around disrespected but you expect me to just be cool about it because “it’s culture”.

women do not deserve to be treated as lesser than in the name of anything. idc if it’s your religion, i don’t care if it’s tradition, it’s a bunch of bullshit.

[dreaminginthedunes]

Gods before:

Diverse. Female gods: beautiful, powerful and scary. To create someone new, male gods have to procreate with female gods and there were many, many stories about their encounters and couplings (either good or bad).

Gods now:

Male. Male god births male human. Male human births female human. Female human somehow gets knocked up then some male god just appeares inside her belly now. She births him through magical means, none through that ugly female part. She is worshipped because she is the mother of that male god.

[craecm]

genuine question, promise im not trying to start anything

when you say you're religion critical and that theistic people should bear that in mind before following, do you mean you're critical of/oppositional to religion on the whole, or just christianity? no shade either way, but i tend to steer clear of people on the blanket anti-theistic end and have no issue with people critical of christianity. or like any other religion really unless they're being a dick, i just don't tend to see anti-theist (blanket) types that arent going to find some excuse to be a dick about me being pagan or jewish almost ever lol

i do tend to be christian-critical mostly, due to my own experience with religion. most of the time however, i simply do this by breaking down the bible a lot, and discussing certain myths of organised belief. due to focus on the bible, most abrahamic beliefs do get discussed to some minor degree, but i mostly try to cover topics without being outwardly rude. i only provide insight into some opinions that could discredit certain bible related theistic ideas. i do very much make my posts thinking on christianity, it’s just this may cause some overlap. i will never outwardly state someone should or should not believe in anything, that’s your choice <3 and above everything i am critical of religion as a construction; as a conolising power. faith and belief however, are much different.

[aslitheryprinx]

Every time I see a post talking about evangelical christianity I have to exercise so much restraint to keep from trauma dumping in the tags.

So much of my shit mental health comes from being raised evangelical and the rest comes from being undiagnosed neurodivergent.

[godteri-takk]

One of the reasons why i dont want my angel and demon OCs to be biblical (only bible inspired to some degree). Getting back to the angel realm is like Corals (secret) main goal.

hey uhhh but fr the concept of fallen angels existing but risen demons being an impossibility is kind of a great summary of sin in christianity

[prokopetz]

My issue with the Problem of Susan is that 90% of the people talking about it are trying to derive C S Lewis' theology and gender politics purely from the text of The Chronicles of Narnia, without any apparent exposure to his earlier work in theological science fiction or Christian apologetics, and if you are familiar with those sources it rapidly becomes apparent that this man was a fucking space alien. Like, no matter what conclusions you've arrived at based on Narnia, I guarantee you what he actually believed is way weirder.

[mbat]

ok im gonna be a little critical of religion here so if you dont like that dont read. also im pulling this from the weirdest of places but

earlier i watched a video that was talking a lot about christianity, specifically protestantism and its influences on american culture, how theres this whole thing about how everything you do should only be for god, not your own pleasure or any of that (extreme simplification and paraphrasing), and so all of that was still on my mind basically.

and now im rewatching the steven universe movie. hear me out, we already know the diamonds hold deep authority, theyre practically gods of their kind, i dont think that i need to explain why. and they definitely let that get to their heads, they treated their subjects like things that only existed to serve them and their wants and needs, and their subjects needed to be loyal or else.

and im not going to get into all the ways that could reflect my point, but im just thinking about how spinels story reflects my point.

she was in love with pink diamond, not romantically, but in the way one worships, because she was made to. everything was for pink, about pink, she was excited when pink got what she wanted (her colony) even when pink clearly didnt want her to be a part of it, she would do everything pink wanted of her.

even standing in place unquestioningly for several thousand years, waiting, not moving even when she questioned because surely pink would come back for her?

(but when the rug was pulled out from under her it changed her irreparably.)

and i guess my point is how people will do anything that they think that their god wants, even if it causes them the utmost misery, even when it ruins their whole life, all for that approval, the possibility of a reward. the only difference is that spinel at least knew pink was real, had felt her touch, spoken to her.

theres a lot of reasons im not religious, but that one is a big one that i just cant get over. i cant imagine spending every day of my life wondering if im doing right by someone ive never met, who i have no proof exists, and whos rules arent even agreed upon and only told to me by other humans.

i cant imagine being the person who is told to stand in place for 6,000 years, and i dont move an inch because im hoping for a reward that isnt guaranteed to ever come.

[momgothic]

Well yeah a lot of things are written as an allegory for christ, and at no point am i'm ripping the religious connotations away from the music, just the opposite in fact. i am literally saying that the oh hellos are USING biblical symbolism. but that also doesn't take away from the fact that what they are singing about isn't strictly jesus h christ.

also, the oh hellos are very openly CRITICAL of the religious institution. like, the Four Winds EPs are actively critical of religion the entire time. obviously, music is open to interpretation, something that i study a LOT but also once again, context is important. looking at the four winds eps from the lens of religious criticism you get stuff like this:

Rose, which is about the difficulty of language losing its meaning and being used to spew hate under the guise of faith

Constellations which is about realizing that everything you've grown up knowing has been incorrect the entire time

Or Glowing, which is about the fact that we, as a society of people, are built upon a set of ideas that are at least, systemically wrong, and at most need to be completely rebuilt, and that moving past that set of ideals and the pressure it has on US as a generation of people trying to escape those ideas that have been built into the very core of our foundation can be fucking overwhelming, and all you can do is try your best.

especially when we, as people who grew up with this idea that religion is always good, and learning as we grow that it in fact has a lot of fucking blood on its hands and dealing with the ramifications of that institution that is so INTEGRAL to your upbringing and its place in society is a LOT TO DEAL WITH.

and that maybe just MAYBE the broader hegemonic ideas that have maintained power for the past few centuries (ie, religion) aren't all they're cracked up to be

also

this tweet was liked by Maggie Heath, the lyricist for the Oh Hellos (imo the best fucking lyricist of this generation)

omg soldier, poet, king is NOT a Christian worship song

folks on tiktok being like YALL DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS ABOUT JESUS??? and "better take it off my dnd playlist now!!!"

it's not about jesus holy fuck, i mean, it is, but it isn't.

Dear Wormwood is a concept album that uses biblical symbolism to talk about an abusive relationship. The Oh Hellos have a whole ass THING about retelling stories (biblical, mythological etc) to use to deal with your own story which is like...a whole thing in storytelling anyway (the new testament is a monomyth yall, Hero's Journey 1.0, in that regard everything is biblical)

Dear Wormwood is put in the context of someone writing letters (inspired by The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis) to their abuser. "Soldier, Poet, King" is from the perspective of the protagonist, on the receiving end of the abuse, who (after the song "Exeunt") is escaping from the abuse and attempting to continue their life outside of it. The person who is the soldier, poet, king, is the protagonist. "your city" is the abusive relationship. "Wormwood" is the devil of this person's life.

If you look on Genius, yeah the story is about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. In context? It's about the Second Coming of the protagonist. The rebirth they get after escaping.

The ending song of the album, "Thus Always to Tyrants", the last line of the album is

Where I go, will you still follow? Will you leave your shaded hollow? Will you greet the daylight looming? Learn to love without consuming?

The protagonist is attempting to mentally escape from the abuse, worried about carrying the trauma into the next relationship.

Soldier Poet King is not about Jesus. It's about fighting. It's about escaping the cycle of abuse. It's about the power that resides in stories, about people who have experienced this before and succeeded. It's about using those stories and learning from them.

Keep the shit on your dnd playlist, it's sort of the whole point.

[shellem15]

Can I just say, I really appreciate how Critical Role plays the Devil trope straight. There's been this phenomena in a lot of modern media (I'm not going to mention specifics but I'm sure a few examples pop up in people's minds) where Hell and the Devil aren't scary or malevolent forces. Hell is portrayed as being basically the same as our world just "edgier", and the Devil is a pretty decent guy actually. Heaven are secretly the real bad guys!

But Critical Role doesn't do that. In Exandria, Asmodeus *feels* like the Devil. He's malevolent and manipulative and terrifyingly powerful and he hates you, personally. We never see that type of portrayal anymore! And it's amazing! And he still manages to be sympathetic and tragic without losing his edge!

And the "Good Gods" are portrayed as flawed without being secretly evil or something! Like, actual nuance? In my Heaven/Hell dichotomy? What!?

It's just such a breath of fresh air after so many "The Devil was right, actually" stories. So props to Matt and Brennan and the cast.