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@scaryapostate
Freedom FROM religion is mandatory.
[id: screenshot of a text post by user B Scott Bean @/bscottbean, in dark mode.
text reads:
"I don't want them coming in and trying to change our culture," my Mormon mom, speaking specifically about Muslim immigrants, during our drive to Costco. "So what do your missionaries do, then?" I asked. It was a silent car ride the rest of the way.
/end text id]
christianity being a real facet of peoples lives instead of something you grow out of is killing me what do you mean youre 19 and still believe that mission trips are a positive force in the world
so. not to doxx myself (i've talked about this here before though) but i live in Kansas. and my license was just revoked very suddenly and immediately because i'm trans and had changed my gender marker.
so now i cannot legally drive or vote until/unless i let them force me to carry around a card that misgenders me and outs me as trans, because i certainly don't look female anymore.
so hey if you have the means and want to help with any of this, please consider donating to the ACLU of Kansas because they are at least going to try to do something to push back against this, and i'm such a panicky wreck that the only thing i can do to get through my immediate gut reaction to having my license revoked tonight (i cannot stress enough that i received the letter today saying that my license is no longer valid tomorrow) is focus on the fact that there's at least one entity trying to protect me and my fellow trans kansans.
More info on what's been happening in Kansas:
"The legislature did not include a grace period."
"God never gives you more than you can handle" is survivorship bias. People who got more than they could handle are dead.
ājesus died for youā well i didnāt ask him to do that and my therapist says i am not responsible for other peoples actions
America has a weird relationship with cults where theyāre terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovahās Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)
To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.
Theyāre a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what youāre allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. Theyāre a cult.
The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassanās (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.
BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.
The more points a groupĀ āscoresā on the model, the more of a cult it is.
I think this model is the best one for several reasons:
Itās more nuanced thanĀ ācultā orĀ ānot cultā and doesnāt make false equivalences between groups
Itās versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.
It focuses on whatās important, which is what the cult does to its members, and those membersā experiences, and not on irrelevant details like how uncommon their doctrines are or whether they have a charismatic leader
This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever theyāre confronted with criticism.
#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of
yah that goes in the post
The creator of the BITE Model considers abusive relationships to be two-person cults.
As someone who grew up in the Mennonite church around one of the biggest Amish populations in the countryā¦ both Amish and Mennonites are cults. Outsiders view them as āquirkyā and āharmlessā because theyāre not DEATH cults. Doesnāt make them not cults.
I want to go back to the āabusive relationshipā parallel because it might also be useful to reverse this: to think, rather, of what we call cults" as āabusive/toxic/coercive group relationships.ā
I think sometimes words can actually obscure rather than clarify, if weāre not careful, and I think this case is important because the problem weāre talking about here is not āa group of people have a joint belief in a kooky thing or even behave in ways that are different from other groups of peopleā.
Itās the BITE Model stuff. Itās control and coercion backed up with threats of social isolation and other consequences. Itās group-based abuse and yes, it can end up with a weird fucked up lateral mutual abuse where everyone is reinforcing this dynamic on everyone else, but the important part is itās that stuff thatās evil, bad, poison.
And I think pulling this out is useful because if youāre in a group of humans where this is happening, it literally doesnāt matter how mainstream/normal the bases of your beliefs or group-ness are. This is how social justice social-circles get ācultyā and what we mean by that is this stuff; this is what we mean when wellness stuff gets ācultyā, and what we mean is this.
What makes Scientology a dangerous cult is not that they believe weāre all trapped and anguished souls of long dead aliens. Thatās not that much weirder to believe than that an omnipotent cosmic being made us out of dust; just because the one has been around for several thousand years and the other comes from a few decades back doesnāt actually change the character of the story except to make one more or less respectable.
The dangerous cultyiness is the control and coercion and isolation and, more than anything else, the punishment and retaliation for leaving the fold. Itās because this is a toxic, abusive group relationship.
And yes, this means youāre going to abruptly discover many groups of Respectable Religions are culty as hell, and thatās gonna feel all kinds of uncomfortable. (It also means youāre gonna find groups of other belief-based things - philosophy, politics, nationalistic stuff, whatever - that is likewise, and is likewise gonna be uncomfortable, and some of them are going to be on āyourā side).
It means you might even find yourself perpetuating some culty behaviours, because this shit actually doesnāt arise necessarily out of Nefarious Purpose but a lot of the time just from the fact that human social behaviour REALLY inclines us to want everyone to Act Right and Understand Right otherwise itās Dangerous, and our monkey brains arenāt helpful.
At which point one has to go ooookay self are we being a shitty control freak about this? Are we narrowing what people are āallowedā to do and feel into a rigid norm weāre comfortable with? Is that reasonable in this situation? And so on.
Because toxic groups come from humans, too, not just from ideologies, and weāre all human.
Itās just ā¦ really worth drilling down to: yes, these are parallel to the signs of abusive relationships. Because they ARE a kind of abusive relationship. Because abusive behaviours and toxic interpersonal systems arise out of human tendencies, not out of specific definitions either of the ideologies followed, or the makeup of the relationship.
So I heard there was a new video with "new light" for the JWs, decided to see what was going on reddit and read some crazy shit so I want to see it for myself and I'm live tumblring it right now
The video is titled "2024 Governing Body Update #2"
Ok first of all, Mark Sanderson with a beard, I know the beards are allowed now but it feels weird lol, all these years without and now..? WAIT people from before the Flood and the ones died at Sodome and Gomorrah + the ones who repent during the Great Tribulation could potentially be saved?????? Ok it's too slow let's go for 2x Please can he get to the point Wait so there can be more than 1 judicial meetings for someone?? And a minor can do a serious misconduct and not be automaticaly disfellowshipped?? and the have to face only 2 elders??? So they're less about judging and more about helping people to repent??? Omg they're going to go visit the people who got disfellowshipped a long time ago to get them back THEY CAN SAY HELLO TO DISFELLOWSHIPPED PEOPLE COMING TO THE MEETINGS?????? (except if they are apostates) SISTERS CAN WEARS PANTS???????????????????????? BROTHERS AREN'T OBLIGATED WEAR THEIR JACKETS OR TIES ANYMORE?????
ok finished WTFFF???
Please it's so crazy idk what to say
The other day I was talking to my jw dad about the beards and I was like "haha finally, what about the pants for sisters??" and we talked about the suits the men have to wear and I was like "it's too much, nobody dresses in full suits like that except banks managers".
And now....?? What it's going on?
You know what, I think since they moved out Tony "thights pants" Morris from the governing body they can now do all these changes now.
Idk what to think right now, after ALL these years, in 2024 sisters can wear pants.
My post must sound insane for someone who is a never-jw but all of these are big deal for us.
I don't feel comfortable wearing any dresses or skirts and part of it is because it reminds me too much of the meetings where I had to wear one.
Ok now, when are they going to drop the shunning, no sex before marriage and blood transfusions pls?
I think about this video whenever I realize how far I've come after leaving the JW organization.
I went from being a self-hating, self-denying bisexual trans kid who kept insisting my boyish tendencies were "just a phase" and that I'd grow out of them eventually, a person who couldn't even function outside of a relationship because I had been taught I was a woman and a woman is nothing without a man, a person who longed so badly to immerse myself in queer relationships and queer culture but couldn't because I believed in my heart that if I so much as thought about two men kissing I'd burst into flames,
To today, where I'm an openly awkward trans guy who just wants to write gay stories and drink coffee and enjoy the life I finally have now that I'm not spending all my free time knocking on doors and handing people shitty magazines.
Even my mom made a change, she was a MASSIVE homophobe even coming out of the religion, she referred to gay relationships as "grody," she never held back disgust when a gay couple were shown kissing on TV, she made every effort to be offensive towards queer folk and even when I was within a similar mindset I found her to be extreme about it, because we weren't supposed to hate the person, we were supposed to hate tha act.
And now, she reads all my books, yes, even the gay ones. She supports me. She was openly approving of Kai and Alan's relationship in my ExJW novel and gave me advice when writing it, she openly mocked the fictional homophobic Dad and stated how disgusting HE was, completely flipping her old comments on the head. She still doesn't "understand" what it means to be trans but she has stated she will support me no matter what and that's what's important to me.
Yes, Caleb's mom, people CAN change.
People CAN go from being self-hating forced homophobes into proud, loving people who acknowledge gay love is valid. I've seen it with my own eyes, and I can guarantee I will see it a million times more!
apparently the jws are having another the end is near crisis over the war in in israel, and iāve done so much healing in just two years that it didnāt even cross my mind that this would be the start of the apocalypse
What Lotās Wife Would Have Said (if She Wasnāt a Pillar of Salt)
by Karen Finneyfrock
Do you remember when we met in Gomorrah? When you were still beardless, and I would oil my hair in the lamp light before seeing you, when we were young, and blushed with youth like bruised fruit. Did we care then what our neighbors did in the dark? When our first daughter was born on the River Jordan, when our second cracked her pink head from my body like a promise, did we worry what our friends might be doing with their tongues? What new crevices they found to lick love into or strange flesh to push pleasure from, when we called them Sodomites then, all we meant by it was neighbor. When the angels told us to run from the city, I went with you, but even the angels knew that women always look back. Let me describe for you, Lot, what your city looked like burning since you never turned around to see it. Sulfur ran its sticky fingers over the skin of our countrymen. It smelled like burning hair and rancid eggs. I watched as our friends pulled chunks of brimstone from their faces. Is any form of loving this indecent? Cover your eyes tight, husband, until you see stars, convince yourself you are looking at Heaven. Because any man weak enough to hide his eyes while his neighbors are punished for the way they love deserves a vengeful god. I would say these things to you now, Lot, but an ocean has dried itself on my tongue. So instead I will stand here, while my body blows itself grain by grain back over the Land of Canaan. I will stand here and I will watch you run.
You can believe in magic, but watch out.
It's fun learning astrology until you start to make broad assumptions about real people's behavior based only on their birthday.
It's fun to speculate about alien civilization until you say early cultures weren't competent enough to build their own pyramids or until scientologists stalk you for every penny you have.
It's fun dressing symptoms in mystical language like "empath" or "indigo child" until you go through life undiagnosed, unaccomodated and feeling less and less human.
It's all fun and games until Tiktokkers tell you hallucinations are actually attunement with a higher dimension and that you should stop taking your antipsychotics.
It's fun to think about possession and changelings until mom starts trying to "save" her child's soul or dad kills his family for having "serpent genes."
It's fun to see natural formations as if they were manmade until you start believing cultists when they say flying saucers are Antarctic Nazis.
You can believe in magic. It's fun to believe in magic. Believing in magic is valuable stimulation. But watch out. Remember your reality checks. There's a lot of cults and scams and white supremacists out there who want to sell you something, and that longing for magic to believe in is how they get you.
I just saw this and Iām cackling:
Evangelical Atheists, playing checkers: I donāt believe in God!
Rabbi Sherwin Wine, barely looking up from his 3D Chess: That statement is meaningless because āGodā is a trivial term that lacks any coherent definition.
Aldjdhal @tikkunolamorgtfo
I said this a couple years ago (one year ago?) and most of the comments on tumblr actually did not know this, so to reiterate what youāre up against: a VERY mainstream belief among American Christian fundamentalists is that they are the only ones who experience love. They raise their kids to think that everyone āliving in sinā (all other faiths, atheists, and LGBT people) goes through life sad and empty, falsely believing they know what love feels like, and will never know until theyāre āsaved.ā Itās not as simple as them diminishing the humanity of others out of hate, but being deeply brainwashed to believe others are automatically mentally less human. They are also very good at convincing new converts that they really are experiencing this ārealā love for the āfirst time;ā the same way members of all cults can become wholeheartedly convinced that theyāre receiving psychic alien messages or communing with spirits. Cult conditioning is simply that powerful.
The flip side of the redefinition of āloveā is also that Christians genuinely believe they can āloveā someone by calling them to repentance for their sinful lifestyle. They genuinely āloveā their gay kids by not supporting their ~homosexual lifestyle~. They genuinely āloveā people in foreign countries by continuing to send missionaries to colonize āspread the gospel.ā āLoving other peopleā gets twisted into ādoing what you think is best for other people,ā regardless of if itās actually good for that person or if that person wants you to do that.
Happiness get redefined too. As a child I was taught that while āpeople without the gospelā may claim to be happy, they couldnāt experience true happiness, because ātrue and lasting happinessā only came from the gospel. Other people could only experience temporary worldly pleasure, like the kind you get from buying something cool or riding a roller coaster (yes that was an actual thing that was said) or āindulging in sin,ā but it would ultimately make them unhappy in the long run.
I was told that, since those people had never known the true happiness of the gospel, they mistook worldly pleasures as happiness, but in reality their lives were empty and less meaningful and deep down, they could sense something was āmissing.ā Also, apostates were all depressed and angry alcoholics who couldnāt be truly happy bc theyād rejected the gospel.
One of the techniques cults and high control groups use is redefining words to make the definitions suit their purposes. Love and happiness are just two words that get redefined this way.
thereās no hate like Christian love, but it also seems like thereās no missery like christian joy
Itās your friendly neighborhood cult survivor, here to add some context.
The joy that theyāre speaking of is religious ecstasy, an altered mental state that produces an intense high, that is relatively easily brought on by social pressure. It is also possible to reach it with meditation, intense exercise, witnessing moving beauty or music, or even heat exhaustion.
Thatās part of why evangelicals hate meditation and secular music. When you find out that a live performance of āWhiter Shade of Paleā gives you the same emotional hit that your speaking in tongues episode, thatās not good for the collection plate. Evangelical cults police pleasure and secular entertainment because a pleasure-starved audience is all the more hooked by that big emotional swell point in the sermon, and while there are many, many great artists inspired by religion, the cultural contributions of American Evangelical Christianity peaked with Bibleman and Stryper.
The admonishments against drug use are similarly motivated, because a lot of those induce the states associated with āspiritual experiencesā and the rubes realizing that spiritual experiences come from chemicals and not spirits is bad for business. Even more embarrassing that the chemicals work every time while the frenzy is so hard to induce.
They have to make you miserable, because happy people wouldnāt need what theyāre selling.
For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Self worth is not delusion.
Finding worth in myself independent from the Christian god was difficult after years of giving all glory to him. I was told that nothing good came from me, that I was merely an inadequate conduit for the perfect and infinite love of the deity that I was born to serve. I was told that if I ever began thinking of my self or my works as good in and of themselves, that I would be missing the point. In order to be a better conduit for the Christian god, I had to be wholly dependent on him. That was the only path to being the best instrument I could be.
Growing beyond that dependence required reviving my sense of self worth. Thinking of myself as something, even something small and relatively inconsequential, was the first step to bringing my self worth back to life. As I deconstructed and (eventually) deconverted, I slowly allowed myself to notice my good attributes and actually attribute them to me instead of a deity. It felt dangerous, like I was stealing something. The real theft was in the deception that I was not capable of being anything beyond a living sacrifice. And the only way to stop the cycle of thievery was to stop returning to the altar where I'd given over all of my self worth to the Christian god.
I can't get back what I've given. But I can forgive myself for the losses I'd inflicted on myself as a fundamentalist Christian. And I can grow a new, stronger version of my self worth that can inspire and propel me to heights previously unreachable.
me?? gay???
itās more likely than you think!
