So what does a good believer do? Here’s some tips from a cult survivor:
1) Recognize faith is not a virtue, no, not even when its put toward your god of choice. Having faith isn’t like having empathy, it does not improve you on the experiences of people around you. The amount of faith someone has/professes is no reflection on their goodness.
2) Enforce your religion’s own rules about false prophets among your own congregation. I’ll let you pick which law (man’s or god’s) you apply.
3) If you see abuse, report it to the actual law and media. If that means you get ostracized, excommunicated, or otherwise marginalized, ask yourself if you want to be accepted and loved by people who allow such things to happen. Do not trust your congregation to handle it internally. Chances are they already know.
3) Advocate for the elimination of unfair privileges for religious institutions, such as the revocation of tax exempt status, the use of religion in court-mandated alcoholism sentences, and the use of religious conversion as a merit for prison release.
4) Speak out against people using governmental power to enforce religious behavior, especially when its your own religion.
5) When others of your faith claim to be oppressed, call them liars to their faces. Be mean about it if you have to. Speak out against moral panics.
6) If your congregation has any punishment for apostasy, of any kind, of any severity, find a new congregation.
7) Recognize that your virtues are yours. You and the fundie are both picking and choosing, you picked the kind parts, you choose the good parts, Take the credit. Do not engage in “no true Scotsman” behavior.
8) Do not support missionary work, charity-for-conversion, or any attempt to bring people “into the flock” when they’re at their lowest point. Speak out against these actions and other predatory behavior.
9) Re-read your holy book, only this time imagine that all the non-in-group characters are actual people with lives, dreams and hopes, and don’t make any excuses for the plain reading of the text. Think about what that means about the founders of your faith, and for the character of the deity in question. Recognize the fundies are on-board with what you just read. Consider if you should be.
10) If they’re divine when decrying others and only human and deserving of forgiveness when they get caught doing wrong, never listen to them again. If you catch them lying to you, never listen to them again.
If you’re tutting and generally being silent, then you’re enabling.
dailybridgerton
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
janainaart
snowghoul
baratheonpilled
