winged-thinged

[winged-thinged]

Kinda funny in a fucked up way how the christianity I grew up was like, following the direct opposite of BDSM safety/etiquette procedures? You never see the dom, you can't opt out, you explicitly can't have any hard lines as for what the dom can ask of you/what the dom can do if you retaliate, you're automatically "in" by existing, any aftercare-seeming actions just gaslight you into staying, etc etc. Which I guess makes sense for why a lot of ex christians end up exploring BDSM and finding it fulfilling and comforting

[winged-thinged]

The man in question

In defense of living in the real world, though: my cat is here, and he's pretty cool

[winged-thinged]

[winged-thinged]

It’s okay not to have a singular goal in life. With so much pressure to have a dream career or future, we condense people down into permanent states. It’s ok if you don’t dream of a single goal, but of many different ones. It’s okay if you change your vocation or education often. It’s okay if your vocation will never be your passion, but the thing that allows you to practice your passion in your free time. Life should be enjoyed, not perfected.

[winged-thinged]

I need to be so real with you guys. 

It’s possible to be a Christian and just not be homophobic. I was for years. It’s easy. Just take a small handful of passages and ignore or reinterpret them. You already know in your heart that hating other people is wrong. Hell, even the Pope is saying it, these days. (Hate the sin.) God loves everybody. You know in your heart that love is holy. Love is love. You can live life with a grain of sand under the lens. 

It’s possible to be a Christian and not believe in the fire and brimstone. It’s possible to focus on the love. Call it a message of hope, and don’t think too hard about what the hope is hiding you from. Lots of people live their whole lives like this. Just focus on love and don’t take the rest of it too seriously. Reinterpret and reinvent. Hold love in your heart. Hope nobody goes hungry. Trust in God. Blame yourself when what you hope for doesn’t happen. 

It’s possible to be a Christian and disbelieve in the other bad stuff, too. Harder. Ignore and reinterpret, refuse and repeat. Disavow slavery and sex abuse. Lambast literalism. Learn to ask some questions, learn the Church has answers. This one takes some work. You might have to  learn some apologetics. Did you know what the text actually says in Hebrew? Do you know what it says in Greek? It’s not what it sounds like. But you’re one of the special few who gets it. You know that all the other churches (and your church) are wrong. If only they would just stop and listen. God is talking to you in your heart, and She says that men and women were created just alike.

But somewhere, in between going, God isn’t a white man and, I don’t know if I believe in hell anymore, you have to stop and ask yourself the question: Why do I believe in this and not that? What’s the difference? Where is my faith actually coming from, if it’s not the Church and it’s not the Bible and it’s not (it’s not) God? You have to ask yourself: Is the voice in my heart that keeps telling me what to love just…me?

For me, the process of questioning just led me to more questions, led me to ask how I knew even the things I thought I knew, led to the slow building of the inexorable knowledge: It’s not real. It took time. A lot of time. I renounced the Church forever and still held onto hope, looking for God in sidewalk cracks and the spaces in between the clouds. But eventually, I couldn't hide from my heart any longer, and I had to ask myself the question: What if this is it? What if this world is all we ever get? What would that mean? How would we know? How would we be able to tell the difference between that and a world with God in it?

And it was such a huge, sweeping relief. To stop doing all the work that cognitive dissonance requires. To put my belief in God down. I was so much lighter. Maybe some people are happy just half-believing, professing to be Catholic but taking their birth control anyway, showing up to church on Sunday to chat with their friends and then leaving it behind in the church parking lot. That has never been me. I have always been the kind of person who needed to take things seriously. I needed it to be real.  

And there are good reasons sometimes to believe in things that aren’t real. Gender isn’t “real.” Money isn’t “real.” Many of our favorite stories aren’t “real,” but that doesn't mean that they have nothing to teach us. Christianity is a culture, a community. It’s a powerful framework, one that gives you free access to hijack any moral conversation in the country if you can just say the right combination of words at the right time. It’s strategic. It’s meaningful. It divides people and it brings them together. 

But I think it’s important to keep it straight. To be honest about when something is real and when it’s not. Because the Church likes to pretend that it’s the only real thing, the truest thing. It tells you to reject the real world in favor of a promise that won’t ever pan out. To deny science, to reject truth, to cling to your belief in the face of everything, no matter what—and that’s how you get people like my family, who worked hard to help vote a wannabe fascist into power because he promised them he’d ban abortion and because they thought he'd make their poor little lost prodigal child (me) detransition and go back home.

[winged-thinged]

Why are you no longer a Christian/gen?

Many reasons. I was raised conservative and found the mindless hate repugnant and ridiculous. I realized the Earth couldn't be six thousand years old. I couldn't overlook the fact that the passages cited to support Jesus as the Messiah were taken out of context. I couldn't ignore the fact that early Christians clearly predicted the Second Coming in their lifetimes, which would technically make them all false prophets (Deuteronomy 18:22). Apologists were clearly grasping at straws and making absurd reaches to justify their beliefs. And today, it's more clear to me than ever that a number of New Testament writers behaved the exact same way as people in any other fringe spiritual movement that faced unexpected disaster and failed predictions. They use the exact same patterns of cope, the same kinds of ad hoc rationalizations that everyone does. I can't take it seriously when it's Love Has Won, and I can't take it seriously when it's Paul or (maybe some unknown guy writing under the name of) Peter.

[winged-thinged]

I lived for a while bending over backwards to try to justify how my liberal beliefs fit into my Catholicism, cherrypicking scripture and arguing with tradition. It's definitely possible. But you know what? It's exhausting, constantly fighting for a place in a community that ultimately does not want you and isn't interested in changing.

When I was a theology student, I snarled at people who suggested that what I was really doing was asserting my beliefs and then assigning them to God (because I knew that gay people were natural and good, and God was good, so God must think so too, right?). I talked a lot about "ongoing revelation." About "indwelling" and human reason. I had to justify it to myself, because I wasn't willing to question the foundation that I had built myself on.

Because so little of my belief was actually built on what the Church and the Bible said, many of the traditional debunking arguments just didn't work on me. I didn't think that. I was sure that I was right and those other Christians were wrong.

But all that work eventually begs the question. Is it worth it? Why call yourself a Christian at all, when you have already traveled so far away from the foundations of Christianity?

And so I took a good hard look at what most of the Christians around me actually believed and how they acted. I finally let myself ask the question: what if I do them the courtesy of taking them at their word? What if I take their claims seriously, instead of imposing my own ideas about right and wrong onto the god that they believe in?

And what I immediately felt was revulsion. If God was actually like what the Church teaches, and not like the image I had been building up in my head all these years, then I wanted nothing to do with him. I remember, shortly after asking myself this question, I took communion for what would turn out to be the last time. I couldn't swallow. I wanted to vomit. The idea of taking a deity who believed and acted like my community said he did into my body, letting him touch my soul, was despicable. I decided then and there that, if God was real, I'd rather go to hell than worship him. I walked away, and I have never looked back.

I am so much lighter, now, not having to twist myself into knots justifying how my beliefs fit into a Catholic structure. I cut out the middle man. It is enough to simply use my mind and my heart to observe the world decide what's right for me. I'm perfectly capable of philosophical and moral reasoning on my own. No divine revelations required.

[winged-thinged]

I need to be so real with you guys. 

It’s possible to be a Christian and just not be homophobic. I was for years. It’s easy. Just take a small handful of passages and ignore or reinterpret them. You already know in your heart that hating other people is wrong. Hell, even the Pope is saying it, these days. (Hate the sin.) God loves everybody. You know in your heart that love is holy. Love is love. You can live life with a grain of sand under the lens. 

It’s possible to be a Christian and not believe in the fire and brimstone. It’s possible to focus on the love. Call it a message of hope, and don’t think too hard about what the hope is hiding you from. Lots of people live their whole lives like this. Just focus on love and don’t take the rest of it too seriously. Reinterpret and reinvent. Hold love in your heart. Hope nobody goes hungry. Trust in God. Blame yourself when what you hope for doesn’t happen. 

It’s possible to be a Christian and disbelieve in the other bad stuff, too. Harder. Ignore and reinterpret, refuse and repeat. Disavow slavery and sex abuse. Lambast literalism. Learn to ask some questions, learn the Church has answers. This one takes some work. You might have to  learn some apologetics. Did you know what the text actually says in Hebrew? Do you know what it says in Greek? It’s not what it sounds like. But you’re one of the special few who gets it. You know that all the other churches (and your church) are wrong. If only they would just stop and listen. God is talking to you in your heart, and She says that men and women were created just alike.

But somewhere, in between going, God isn’t a white man and, I don’t know if I believe in hell anymore, you have to stop and ask yourself the question: Why do I believe in this and not that? What’s the difference? Where is my faith actually coming from, if it’s not the Church and it’s not the Bible and it’s not (it’s not) God? You have to ask yourself: Is the voice in my heart that keeps telling me what to love just…me?

For me, the process of questioning just led me to more questions, led me to ask how I knew even the things I thought I knew, led to the slow building of the inexorable knowledge: It’s not real. It took time. A lot of time. I renounced the Church forever and still held onto hope, looking for God in sidewalk cracks and the spaces in between the clouds. But eventually, I couldn't hide from my heart any longer, and I had to ask myself the question: What if this is it? What if this world is all we ever get? What would that mean? How would we know? How would we be able to tell the difference between that and a world with God in it?

And it was such a huge, sweeping relief. To stop doing all the work that cognitive dissonance requires. To put my belief in God down. I was so much lighter. Maybe some people are happy just half-believing, professing to be Catholic but taking their birth control anyway, showing up to church on Sunday to chat with their friends and then leaving it behind in the church parking lot. That has never been me. I have always been the kind of person who needed to take things seriously. I needed it to be real.  

And there are good reasons sometimes to believe in things that aren’t real. Gender isn’t “real.” Money isn’t “real.” Many of our favorite stories aren’t “real,” but that doesn't mean that they have nothing to teach us. Christianity is a culture, a community. It’s a powerful framework, one that gives you free access to hijack any moral conversation in the country if you can just say the right combination of words at the right time. It’s strategic. It’s meaningful. It divides people and it brings them together. 

But I think it’s important to keep it straight. To be honest about when something is real and when it’s not. Because the Church likes to pretend that it’s the only real thing, the truest thing. It tells you to reject the real world in favor of a promise that won’t ever pan out. To deny science, to reject truth, to cling to your belief in the face of everything, no matter what—and that’s how you get people like my family, who worked hard to help vote a wannabe fascist into power because he promised them he’d ban abortion and because they thought he'd make their poor little lost prodigal child (me) detransition and go back home.

[winged-thinged]

Yukio Mishima as Saint Sebastian.

[winged-thinged]

god forbid you be traumatized by your religion and have the gall to talk about it. because—okay, it’s not like people treat other kinds of trauma much better, but at least if you’re talking about your trauma from, like, poverty or abuse or something, you’re a little less likely to butt up against the sorts of topics that people stake their whole identities on.

whereas if you have the fucking gall to talk about your religious trauma, even if you’re very polite and restrained about it, even if you’re a good victim and just try to talk very straightforwardly about what happened to you without going out of your way to try to assign blame or anything—people will crawl out of the woodwork like fucking weevils champing at the bit to tell you how wrong you are. normal people, people who (nominally) believe in believing victims, people who would not act this way under other circumstances. no, it’s not like that. no, you must have misunderstood. you’re stupid, bitter, a liar, naive—how dare you try to insult to their truth, their faith, their way of life, their god.

you can say simply and honestly, the church hurt me. this is how. and you will simply get swarms of people going UM ACTUALLY THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN AND IF IT DID IT WAS YOUR FAULT. YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND THE THEOLOGY. YOU’RE DISTORTING AN ENTIRE RELIGION BASED ON ONE BAD EXPERIENCE. YOU’RE A BIGOT, ACTUALLY. like if posting about your experience with child abuse got you a wave of people going UM MY PARENTS DIDN’T DO THAT SO YOU MUST BE LYING. ALSO IT’S MISOGYNY TO ACCUSE YOUR MOM OF ABUSE. no compassion. no validation for the victim’s experiences. no examination of what enabled the abuse, or what currents of it carry on into your community. no space to breathe.

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there's this argument i see sometimes with Christians regarding the existence of Hell and how weird and fucked up it is that god sends you there of 'well, actually GOD didn't send you to Hell, you sent YOURSELF to Hell'

but like. god MADE the whole system, no?

imagine a scenario where your government goes to war, and they implement a draft that randomly picks from any citizen over 18 who has never enrolled in college (including the scenarios where they were unable to attend because of mental health or poverty or something) to send to fight. would you say that the government sent you to war, or that you sent yourself to war, by not going to college?

[winged-thinged]

Maybe it's silly, but after growing up being told that animals literally don't have souls, that I do and that's why I don't belong here, it really is a revelation to see his bright, curious eyes and touch his soft, shiny fur and realize, oh, he's alive! I'm alive! Just the way that he is!

In defense of living in the real world, though: my cat is here, and he's pretty cool

[winged-thinged]

In defense of living in the real world, though: my cat is here, and he's pretty cool

[winged-thinged]

Life isn’t suffering! LIFE ISN’T SUFFERING!!! Life can be good!

I think that if you have to tell people that they’re supposed to suffer, that suffering is a good thing, that it will bring them closer to God, that they’re guilty and bad by nature, that they deserve it, that they deserve to be hurt—that is a giant red flag that you intend to harm people. Or that your doctrine is inherently harmful, and that following it hurts people, and so the only way that you can get them to accept it is to lie to them, to tell them that life is supposed to hurt and they’re supposed to want it.

I spent so long wallowing in dysphoria and depression, never knowing the lightness and joy that life could bring, because I thought that this suffering was all that life had to offer, and that I’d be holy for my suffering, that peace and joy and deeper meaning would come out of it. They never did. Trying to follow the Catholic Church’s doctrine just made me want to die. Dysphoria and depression robbed me of my energy, my will to live and act and exist in the world—and the Church told me that this was a good thing, that this was being like Jesus! I tried over and over again to be good enough, battering my heart against a brick wall, and I was told that the pain and shame of rejection was what made me holy!

LIFE ISN’T PAIN! The lightness, the joy, the peace and fulfillment that I always wanted—that I caught only snatches of, in the peace of a candle-lit service, and called something holy—I didn’t find it in that place that wanted me to suffer. I only found it after I left.

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:/ the weird thing about trauma from a religious upbringing and abusive parenting is that there is no "before" to go back to. there is no finding a "second chance." there's no "person that you used to be" to strive for or fail at, no shiny happy memory of what life used to be like before you were buried.

there's just an endless twisting mire behind you. a story that won't quite sit right. a gray haze, and you. there are happy memories. hard, shiny parts that jut out from the morass at awkward angles, times when you almost felt like you were a person, for once. and there's you, picking your way out of the fog. awake for the first time, and still half-dreaming, feeling like a creature from another land, an ethereal thing ill at ease within the bright, loud, too-real Earth.

all these disjointed memories, half-forgotten and glimpsed sidelong, shaking in your hands. you want to put them down, but doing so means going into that buzzing shaking place without words where you used to not-exist. means vomiting yourself up in gouts and gouts of humiliating sludge. hurrying to catch up and try to build yourself a life in a world you never quite adjusted to, learning how to use tools foreign to your hands while all the time ignoring the whispers, the dream-world beckoning come back.

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Various wings from Roberto Fieri's paintings

[winged-thinged]

The notes on my post about confession are making me very 🥺 god I'm so sorry you guys have been through the same thing—or other similar and yet uniquely awful things—and I'm so grateful to hear all of your stories, I'm learning a lot about how other denominations experience the same things. We really all went through it, huh? Thank you for listening and for letting me feel heard—it was a difficult story for me to tell and a difficult thing to process and sort through, even years after the fact, and everybody is being very kind. I am holding all of your hands rn (but only if you want to)