#this video is excellent at talking about Christianity in a historical and factual way w/o all the bs

[ooc-miqojak]

Having read those books as a kid? Yeah, that's holy-shit-fucked-up, actually. Those books were EXCELLENT horror books, but very fucked up for a kid to read, and not at all accurate. Good sci-fi horror though, in a way? It could have been good post-apocalyptic horror, if they'd...not twisted it to appear Christian (because it's not). Do not recommend, though. Fuck everyone involved with writing them, actually. Christianity is NOT rooted in scare tactics (bad people tacked that on along the way), and writing terrifying horror books to scare kids into being 'good Christians' is beyond fucked up - and so is trying to make your kid think they were left behind bc they weren't "good enough for Heaven," - ugh, bad 'prank.' But hey, the core of Christianity is 'don't be a dick'. Jesus himself literally said that the #1 rule was loving God, and #2 most important rule was to love all other people like your own family... so people who don't do that? Not Christians, simple as that. This video is actually an excellent historical and secular look at how Christianity began (by people being SUPER eager to literally put themselves in harm's way and/or die for you, even if you were a complete stranger), and how it got popular in the west, in time. But Christianity rocketed to power at first? Because it is an ALL inclusive faith. That means everyone. Gay, or straight. Black, brown, white, trans, gay, atheist... it doesn't matter what you are, or how you identify! Everyone is equal and deserving of the same love as anyone else (he said to love and show kindness especially to enemies! So even if they considered someone an enemy, they should be extra kind to them!). And at the time, that was a HUGE departure from how things were done - women and slaves being told they're equals? Jesus let a WHORE TOUCH HIM? People who liked to oppress others were aghast, and women and minorities and slaves all celebrated - because Rome was pretty misogynistic, and sure loved slavery. So to have a religion where all were equal? Where a man wasn't the master of even his own wife, but her equal, whom he should love as he loves himself?? This was a wildly accepting religion for its time, and people were ecstatic! (Most were... some thought them calling each other 'brother and sister' and meeting at night meant they were having secret incestuous orgies while cannibalizing people...) So yeah lots of Christians got murdered, and were happy to die for God, and eventually Constantine was the first political leader to be like 'oh shit I can manipulate people with this Christianity thing' and claimed God endorsed some battle of his because of a 'vision' he had - and this was within like, living memory of Jesus' death. It was not long at ALL before the people in power gave up fighting this religion that promoted kindness and brought the smallfolk together... to use it for their own gain, and twist its message. Be critical of these fake Christians - because just like all are welcome at Pride? All are welcome to a real Christian.

Oh, and don't forget to remind those fake Christians that the King James Bible? The most popular version of the Bible? King James was hella gay. Super into dudes. He LOVED men. He was 'notoriously gay.' And if you want an interesting video about him, since it's Pride? Here ya go -

When I was a kid my family pretended to get raptured so I would think I was left behind on earth while they all went to heaven.

I was like 8 years old and my sister and mom had gotten really into the Left Behind novels (bible fan fic about the rapture). In the books when the rapture happened the clothes that people were wearing when they got raptured were left behind in neatly folded piles.

One day when I was getting home from school my family decided that they would leave piles of neatly folded clothes around the house, and then hide in the basement.

The intended effect was that I would get home and see the clothes then, think that my family had been raptured and that I wasn’t good enough to get into heaven… or something?

The problem was that I had never read these books, and didn’t really think about the rapture very often. There was no reason that I would see some laundry on the floor and think “The rapture happened and I’ve been abandoned by God! I’ll never see my family again!! Oh nooo!!!!”

I just sat down and watched cartoons and eventually my family got bored and revealed that they were all hiding in the basement.

It’s a good thing I didn’t understand the joke, otherwise that shit would have been traumatic.