hereticcoyote

[hereticcoyote]

there was something uniquely horrifying about realizing it was all bullshit at like age 11 and being trapped there for 7 more years. I was an openly queer, openly non-christian kid at a baptist private school in the deep south for my whole adolescence. everyone knew. my classmates knew, teachers knew, the headmaster knew, even my classmates' parents knew. My parents wouldn't let me leave so I was just stuck there, knowing I absolutely was not welcome, being forced to be friendly to people who hated me, listening to people debate about my rights in front of me, and not say a word. just because I still needed to be accepted. just because I was lonely. I really do feel like I'm still grieving the person i could have been if my sense of self respect hadn't been so thoroughly crushed

[hereticcoyote]

[hereticcoyote]

looks like the government is doing something about cults

[hereticcoyote]

women’s bodies weren’t “made” to do anything, nature didn’t “intend” anything, no human action is “unnatural” and there is no inherent “purpose” to a human life

[hereticcoyote]

I keep circling back trying to understand how it is that so-called Christian "unconditional love" is at once both extremely conditional and also extremely mandatory.

Christian love is not unconditional in the sense that there are no conditions placed on you by God when you are loved. There are, quite famously, a whole book's worth of conditions that you are expected to follow in order to prove your devotion, signs of God's loving presence moving through you. Depending on your denomination, those conditions might be enforced by the threat of hell or just plain social ostracization or Bible study cliques or elaborate rituals of penance and forgiveness. But consistently and across many denominations, once you are Christian, you are expected to comply with these conditions. You must conform. You are not free to be as you once were.

But neither are you free to reject their love. It is universal, and therefore definitionally boundaryless, all-encompassing, and heavily enforced. Welcoming in the lost sheep is not a passive process. It is an active process of going out and hunting for the sinner, of teaching them the example of Jesus's life, of bringing them into the fold. And once they are fully indoctrinated, they are expected to continue to actively practice, to abstain from "sin," and to show a high degree of conformity to the group standard, whatever that means for the particular community. If you don't—you get hunted down and re-educated, pestered and threatened, shunted back into rituals of sin and repentance. There is no saying, "no I'm not interested" that the loving Christian can accept, because Christian love is for everybody. There is no opt out. There is no consent.

It comes of viewing the whole world as sinful, I think—human beings as not worthwhile in their own right but only in so far as they are potential conduits for God's grace—potential converts—everybody a broken people needing to be saved. The Great Commission ("go make of all disciplines") means that everyone must be converted—not welcomed, converted—and this is mandatory for everyone forever.

[hereticcoyote]

[hereticcoyote]

If I was Jesus I would’ve simply said no dad this is your dream

[hereticcoyote]

Actually, I have a really complicated relationship with the word “love” because of how christians twist and redefine it. They say, “love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action,” and I might agree with them, except that what they actually mean is, “love is doing what I think is best for you, despite or even against your own wishes.” They mean, “love is coercion” and “love has no boundaries” and “love needs no consent.” They mean, “I know best,” they mean, “I won’t listen,” they mean, “I will hurt you if I think your behavior, your being, your nonconformity justifies it, and I will tell you it’s for your own good.” And everyone’s a sinner, so everyone, in a sense, is fair game. But most especially the heretic, the lapsed, the queer, the addict, the slut, the nonbeliever, the racialized & criminalized & poor. They say, “god is love,” and “god knows best,” and “I am god’s hands.” And they say, “god loves you, whether you want it or not.”

[hereticcoyote]

what's old is new is new again

[hereticcoyote]

The thing that is so threatening to far right Christian conservatives about minority groups of all kinds is that we show them just how much is possible in this world. When a person spends their whole life denying and punishing themself into rigid conformity, there is nothing more threatening to them than freedom. They see us and know they could choose to be something else, and that’s exactly why they hate us - because if they can change, then their pain was for nothing. Our existence reveals their suffering is completely hollow.

[hereticcoyote]

didnt realize as a kid that its not normal for your school to own a private beach house specifically for overnight prayer retreats

[hereticcoyote]

the amount of faith it takes to transition and believe it can get better is holier than any church

[hereticcoyote]

idk man its all so fucking flimsy. youre really telling me there is no way, no way at all, to allow free will and minimize human suffering at the same time?? why does it have to be all or nothing? and like, i think most of us would be willing to give up a tiny bit of free will if it meant getting rid of like, genocide and poverty and hunger. youre seriously trying to convince me that a literal all powerful being cant find a way around that. and then you add the existence of hell and original sin and every other fucking thing and like! not to sound like a reddit atheist but i think if you have to jump through a million hoops to explain why your god isnt actually as evil as he seems then idk i think your god might just be evil.

[hereticcoyote]

damn i really do have like actual ptsd huh

[hereticcoyote]

I think it should be clear to everyone at this point (especially those of us in the US) that the point of all these awful executive orders is not to actually get legal permission to enact them. theyre just giving orders to his followers. the goal is to tell his base what theyre supposed to believe. its to tell people that it is now normal, even encouraged, to be bigoted and cruel. and these people who call themselves christians treat every word out of this dumb fascist's mouth more like scripture than they ever did the bible. genuinely what the fuck is going on

[hereticcoyote]

the further this country sinks into fascism the more i realize how much damage christianity has done to my life. i just wanted to be happy, man. that's literally it.

[hereticcoyote]

been thinking about how christianity urges everyone to be as christlike as possible, implying that there is one single Correct way to live that none of us will ever fully live up to. and the constant depiction of heaven as a place where you are stripped of everything "sinful" aka everything that makes you you and they think that's a good thing. and how that kinda primes christians to be anti-diversity because in their ideal world every single person is just a carbon copy of jesus. why would we need to be different from each other if all of us are perfect? man id hate to live such an incurious life. i love humanity and art and language. i don't want to shed my humanness because i don't think humanness is a bad thing.

idk i might even feel bad for them if they weren't currently infiltrating the government with the goal of threatening my life.