unorthodox dabbling

~ they/them | exchristian agnostic | 21 ~

[m-goodwin]

hey there! call me m (they/them)

this is a side blog for thoughts about deconstruction and reconstruction after Christianity (main blog is @ryland-lockehart, if you're interested in gay stuff and fandoms lol). I might add a few takes of my own here and there, but I'll usually just re-blog things that resonate with me. It's nice to know you're not alone <3

a few things about me:

I was raised non-denominational (so, Southern Baptist with smoke machines), was almost confirmed into the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) during university, and now I'm agnostic.

My deconstruction was difficult and fast, lasting about a year, but I lucked out being an online student, so I had many free hours to pick apart my belief system. I've moved beyond that journey and am now reconstructing my spirituality and worldview, which is no easier than deconstructing them was.

Due to the realization that I hold a good bit of religious trauma, I have a love-hate relationship with Christian mythology and art. When I discovered Anglicanism a few years back, I fell in love with more liturgical Christianity. That interest in rituals and church history is still rooted deep.

How this shows up nowadays is my hyperfixation on secular biblical / Christian studies. I'm still interested in the quest for the historical Jesus, early Christian history, and both canonical and noncanonical texts.

The ritual part still comes through in my interest in mysticism -- particularly the study of various religious mystic traditions, as well as nonreligious mysticism and spirituality.

TLDR; I'm another 20-something American who left the church, but is fucked-up enough that I'm still entrenched in the study of Christianity, despite my issues with the theology/history. Welcome to the blog!

Additional facts under the cut for anyone who's nosy~

I'm androgyne and sapphic

I have ADHD

I practiced head covering for over a year completely of my own volition when I was in college

I've lived in nine states and visited four continents

[angelsaxis]

the thing about evangelizers is that it is fundamentally rude to walk up to strangers and try to convince them to change religions, but even non/loose christians who don't evangelize don't understand this

[angelsaxis]

you are minding your business and a stranger approaches you with a spiel dressed up to look like love, but their main points are:

whatever your life is now, its not actually good. i am not relying on any facts about your life in the slightest to make this conclusion

because of that, you're not actually happy at all -- again, with zero evidence

the only pathway to true happiness is MY religion. your life experiences up to this point are irrelevant.

there is zero likelihood that you left christianity because of trauma

your lifestyle, whatever it is, is fundamentally wrong

your religion or theology, whatever it is, is fundamentally wrong

your belief system, whatever it is, is fundamentally wrong

your culture, cultural ties and expressions, and deeply-held cultural beliefs, are all fundamentally wrong to the point that, if you do not change, you will suffer possibly in this lifetime AND the next and deserve every ounce of pain if you don't change to my religion

again I cannot stress enough that there are two reasons why people suffer: they're either being Prepared for Greatness (that we'll never know about and that, because we'll never know, can get our hopes up but also can't rely on or expect because thats wrong) or You Fully Deserve It, regardless of what the suffering is.

my religion and my god "save" people but also does not even guarantee basic safety to people who need it and you're ludicrous for expecting that

you're also missing the point and explicitly in the wrong if you expect material help of any kind at all for either yourself or others who are suffering

[uncleromeo]

if you don't do anything else today,

Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.

have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.

and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.

black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.

if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.

This is Juneteenth.

white people CAN interact with this post. share it, spread it.

[lyraeon]

who taught you that suffering in silence was noble, and how would you shutting up have benefited them?

[lyraeon]

this also counts for all those times you kept your mouth shut and didn't complain because you were being polite, and people would gladly have changed things if you had just asked. your suffering was not noble. you do not get a cookie for it, you do not get a tally mark next to your soul's score for grinning and bearing it. your suffering serves no purpose. break free of it. you deserve comfort.

[crabussy]

"being a human is so boring why can't I be one of the COOL animals" okay hey. I hear you. but I actually really super love being an omnivorous persistence hunting primate with a stomach capable of dissolving many literal poisons and the ability to smell geosmin (released in the soil after it rains) at five parts per trillion. I super enjoy being a bipedal terrifyingly agile mammal with some of the most efficient sweat glands in the animal kingdom. I find a lot of joy in being an endotherm with mimicry abilities that rival most other animals with vocal chords. it's sick as hell I'm having a lot of fun

[dumpsterprophet]

Christian doctrine is like very fucked up at its core. and it's hard to explain how fucked up it is because people will say "noo it's not the doctrine or Bible it's the people being bad!" but like all of those things are Christianity. The people, the doctrine, the texts themselves, the way those texts were chosen and put together. Also I don't care how nicely you say you think someone is going to hell, it's still not kind or just. The way you say that doesn't matter.

And sure there's people with a version of Christianity that removes many of the problematic elements, but it's such a minority of people and is it even really Christianity at that point or something else?

I remember learning that churches that don't require difficult demands of their followers struggle to maintain members. like the problematic elements and the control ARE what make people join and stay. It seems nobody is "on fire" for things that aren't problematic.

I dunno.

[gloomydude-deactivated20150419]

[son-of-rap-bear]

It doesn’t end there:

[funimationentertainment]

another addition

[cs-inactive1-deactivated2020060]

do you ever just like. feel unbelievably proud of someone you’d never even heard of previously

[eroscestlavie]

oh my god

[fruitcakebro]

…at least some of the kids are okay.

[ghostofbriggiesmalls]

Yesterday I saw a post about how proving yourself wrong is one of the best experiences in life and the example was about how you maybe achieve something you didn’t think you could do. I completely agree. This is an amazing feeling.

There’s another kind of proving yourself wrong that’s underrated. I tried to articulate it on that post but couldn’t find the right words. This post captures it, though.

Having a core belief challenged, taking the time to try and figure out if you’re right or wrong about this thing, realizing you’re wrong, and growing from that is deeply uncomfortable. But it’s one of the best experiences you can have. Not the most fun but it’s just catastrophically human and few things in life are better.

Sometimes it’s about something little. Maybe you assumed the homeless guy on the street was going to be aggressive or rude. But then he just wanted to say hi to your dog because he missed his from home. (This happened to me. His name was Smokey and his wife’s name was Trish. Every time I saw them while they lived near me they would ask about my dog and would ask to pet him when I had him with me.)

You realize that your assumption about the situation was totally off. And yes, the “proving wrong” may have originated outside of you, but you also have to let yourself be proven wrong and to challenge yourself. You have to actively try to prove yourself wrong in this situation. You have to take a step back and say, “woah, what if the way I’m walking through the world isn’t right?”

And this post captures that better than I could articulate.

[luxifers-light]

Perhaps you’ve done this in the past, or you know someone who does it, but Christians praying for advice then proceeding to flip the Bible open to a random page and pointing to a verse and relating it to their situation is pretty much how tarot works

[gingerswagfreckles]

Talking about atheism honestly feels like talking about antisemitism in how people will completely hallucinate a culturally dominant oppressive force that is censoring them when in reality it is the complete inverse power dynamic and social consensus. It also feels the same in how you have to constantly tip toe around objective reality to avoid being labeled as an evil extremist while the other side gets to run around saying any random thing that is completely obviously provably false and you have to take their immediately provably false claims seriously Or Else you're the bad guy.

[i-need-to-remake-my-blog]

for all the apostates who were taught growing up that it was selfish and sinful for them to care about themselves, to try and keep themselves safe, to be self-focused in any capacity: self-preservation isn't selfish. survival isn't selfish. kids being self-focused isn't selfish, it's literally just how humans are at that age. being self-conscious isn't selfish. spending time alone isn't selfish. buying things for yourself because they make you happy isn't selfish. so much of what we were taught is sinful and selfish actually isn't. you deserve to survive, you deserve to thrive, you deserve to be happy and love yourself and, yeah, you deserve to be selfish!

[afloweroutofstone]

Stupidest opinion on Tumblr to reach an apparent consensus level is that criticizing organized religion is wrong, and that such critiques just boil down to cultural Christians disliking Christianity. Which, ironically, is one of the most Christian-centric takes conceivable

[conservativemalarkey]

I keep saying it but I feel so fucking bad for anyone who left a religion that wasn’t Acceptably Evil White American Christianity, especially if they left because of homophobia or transphobia 

religious trauma is lonely enough without having to deal with racism/bigotry/the left’s curious insistence that Religion Is Good If It’s Part Of Your Cuuuuulture, even if it’s sexist/homophobic/etc.

[novascotiaducktoller]

also since i seem to have many opinions tonight: i think more people are becoming aware that the idea that 'womanhood = safer/purer/better and manhood = harmful/ugly/worse' is radfem rhetoric, which is good. but the root of this ideology is conservative christianity, and i dont think enough people are aware of this.

as someone who is afab and was raised in extremely traditional catholicism, the idea that women are inherently less sinful, have more self-control, and generally better people, was used as a method of control on every level. the reason women have to dress at a level of modesty that men were never held to? it's because men don't have enough self-control, so women have to control them through their dress. women have to stay home and raise/educate children? they're naturally more nurturing and more capable, and a man could never care for children. women shouldn't wear trousers? masculinity is ugly, and women should dress beautifully. women can't become priests? theyre naturally closer to G-d, so there's no need for them to be priests (although this might be a more niche opinion idk, my church was reeeeaaaallly weird even by tradcath standards).

like. this is a method of controlling women and simultaneously absolving and demeaning men. it gets a million times worse when you take into account transness in these circles - amab people are told that they couldn't possibly be as 'good' (in their distorted version of good) as women, and afab people are treated with suspicion and hostility for not wanting to be the 'purer' gender. there's a reason that there's a massive radfem-to-tradfem pipeline!

conservative christianity wants to uphold gender essentialism, colonialism, and white supremacy, and so does radical feminism - it's the same ideology, just wearing a different hat. next time you want to tell someone in a relationship with a man to 'get well soon', remember whose words come out of your mouth.

[kidgrimm]

not a fan

[g-o-d-l-e-s-s-h-e-a-t-h-e-n]

Christianity does not own kindness. Christianity does not own goodness. To be caring and compassionate are not some exclusively christian traits. You can love the people around you without it being commanded by god. You can care so deeply about people without it being because of jesus. You can be kind and good simply because you enjoy it. Doing good because it makes you feel good doesn't make the good things you do any less valuable. And you don't have to feel bad that you derive happiness from doing good, you don't have to feel bad if you do good things specifically to make yourself feel good.

And you're not broken, you're not inherently evil, you don't need to be saved, you're not a metaphorical slave of sin who needs to be freed. You're human. There's so much goodness stored in your being. There's a reason why humanity is so often synonymous with being kind towards people, often strangers. It's because, and this is what I believe most, humans are inherently good, and kind, and caring, and compassionate.

[the-library-alcove]

How many mass graves and extinct cultures are needed to convince Christian apologists that missionaries and missionizing are inherently xenophobic?

The answer is apparently always, "At least one more."

[the-library-alcove]

It just like... look. If your religion has an explicit instruction of belief that it needs to take every other religion out there in the world, wipe them out, and replace them with itself, that religion is xenophobic. And the people who engage in the fulfillment of that process are xenophobic. It might not be as explicitly nasty a xenophobia as ethnic genocide, but it's still an instruction to commit cultural genocide.

[instant-wife-microwave-only]

You can acknowledge a religion’s awful past and still be in that religion. You can call out people who support harmful behaviors in your community.

You guys like to talk about abrahamic religions in a critical light (only the majority white religions of course), but don’t talk about the problematic origins of neo paganism, or any other religion.

This is surprising but: no religion has a great track record. None. If you can acknowledge problematic roots and grow from them, and you mean no one harm, and you prevent others from causing harm

Should you feel bad for identifying with a certain religion?

[the-library-alcove]

"You guys like to talk about Abrahamic religions in a critical light"... I'M JEWISH. I'm a member of the OG Abrahamic ethno-religion! And my own people get literally preyed upon by Christian missionaries, to the point where they have missionaries in legit Deep Cover in Jewish communities. The rest of your comment is a Whataboutism deflection, a bullshit variation on Tu Quoque (i.e. "everybody does it, so shut up about it"), and an attempt to make the harm seem historical and not of current importance. All of which is so intellectually dishonest that I have to assume it's on purpose.

[best-blurst-of-times]

[ironbite4]

Teachers have tried this and are amazed when their classes don’t go feral like in the book.  It’s almost as if the book was supposed to be satire and not a treaty on the nature of humanity.

[thedarkbutbeige]

[spaceshipoftheseus]

there’s a timeskip

THERE’S A TIMESKIP

THERE’S A TIMESKIP

THERE’S A TIMESKIP

after losing control of the signal fire there’s a FUCKING TIMESKIP and when the next chapter starts everyone’s hair is several inches longer and their clothes have rotted to shreds and they’re still just kind of chilling!!!!

IT TAKES THE TERRIBLE IMPERIALISM MIND-POISONED EXCESSIVELY BRITISH BOYS IN THE ACTUAL BOOK SEVERAL MONTHS TO COMMIT A SINGLE ACT OF INTENTIONAL VIOLENCE, EVEN THE ONE (1) CHILD WRITTEN AS AN ACTUAL SOCIOPATH

AND then when they DO turn on each other it is because

THERE’S AN UNSPECIFIED WORLD WAR HAPPENING

AND A PILOT’S CORPSE CRASH LANDS ON THE ISLAND POST-DOGFIGHT AND THE CHILDREN MISTAKE THE PARACHUTE FOR A MONSTER AND SPIRAL INTO PARANOIA

BECAUSE CHILDREN INHERIT THE LEGACY AND TRAUMA OF VIOLENCE FROM THE ADULTS WAGING WAR AROUND THEM

HURR DURR IN THE REAL WORLD IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN LIKE IN LORD OF THE FLIES -

IT DIDN’T HAPPEN THAT WAY IN LORD OF THE FLIES EITHER YOU JUST HAVEN’T READ IT SINCE HIGH SCHOOL IF EVER AND DON’T REMEMBER WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THE GODDAMN BOOK

[randomslasher]

[mayfriend-archive]

#tbf the dude wrote it to be a dick

yes. yes he did. i’m also gonna direct you to the real life ‘lord of the flies’ which occured in the 1960s, when six tongan schoolboys got stranded on a desert island for over a year before being rescued by an australian fisherman (who, it should be noted, later took on all six as crewmembers because the reason they were out in the first place was because they wanted to see the world, and named his ship the Ata after the island they were stranded on). nobody died. the only injuries that occurred were accidental, and when one of the boys broke his leg falling down a cliff, the others braced it and looked after him so well that it healed perfectly. if they argued, then they would literally go to opposite sides of the island until they’d cooled off. after leaving the island, they remained friends for the rest of their lives. here’s a photo of them as adults, with their rescuer (who is third from the left) and other members of his crew.

i read about this in rutger bregman’s human kind, a book i cannot recommend highly enough, but if you don’t want to go and read a whole book about the inherent goodness of humanity (which again, you really should) then the relevant excerpt can be found here.

[mayfriend-archive]

[9q3]

Its so funny when american conservative christians fearmonger about “globalists” trying to make a new world order and everyone on earth being under one governing body or whatever but when you ask them if they think everyone on earth should convert to christianity without skipping a beat they will say yes. And they will not even realize the irony in that