nomowyrm

[nomowyrm]

Any religion preaching that everyone can not be saved isn’t a religion I want to be a part of, and any religion preaching that everyone can be saved is ultimately pointless as a religion.

[nomowyrm]

[nomowyrm]

One of the breaking points for me with Christianity was realizing how much I had to contort the truth to make it look good. A few VERY common refrains from Christians are the whole "don't let the actions of one bad Christian keep you from God" or "broken people do not accurately reflect God's heart", all ways of saying that religious trauma is not actually Christianity's fault— I'm sure you've heard it before. But I reached this point where I couldn't stop myself from asking "how much longer do I have to make excuses for you?" The amount of fuzzing the corners and rephrasing of things I had to do in order to present Christianity as Good Actually was exhausting. The mental gymnastics I had going on were so extensive that at some point I had to just accept I was lying for and repackaging an inherently abusive program.

"How much longer do I have to make excuses for you?", I screamed at the sky

[nomowyrm]

I just went browsing the queerstake tag for a little while, just, you know, curious about what's going on in there.

But I couldn't do it for very long. Very nearly every post is just.... pain. Mormon kids who want to do the right thing but also feel the need to be true to themselves. People who are struggling, who don't understand how the people that are supposed to be their community can treat them the way that they do.

Sometimes there are little posts of joy and acceptance, happiness among themselves. They've found some small community here on tumblr, and for that I am glad.

But it just reminds me of the weeks before I stopped being Mormon. It didn't feel like a process, not really. I believed, full stop, I knew the church was true. But I also knew that love was love and that it was good for people to live by how they felt inside, be that sexuality or gender. I knew that people deserve to be happy in this life and spend their days with a partner and in a body that they love.

And it really was just a step off a cliff when I suddenly realized that I just... didn't believe the same things as the church anymore. That my beliefs of kindness and understanding and love were things the church could not and would not accept or change for, and that if it did change for them, then it wasn't the true church anyway.

It was a relief, more than anything, to let go of the pain and confusion the church was putting me through.

It was a relief, to know that there were people and communities out there who would share that love and understanding I wanted, without any strings attached.

And if any queer mormons are reading this, just... please, know that there are other communities out there. Better ones. Kinder ones. You won't be alone, if you make that jump.

[nomowyrm]

A few weeks ago you made a post about circumcision, saying it should be made illegal and that there's no reason to do it in America. Hi. I'm Jewish. What you are asking for is government enforced antisemitism. What you are asking for is a way to erase a huge part of our culture and traditions. As someone who advocates for minorities, I'm sure you understand how this comes across. I am begging you to remember jewish people exist. I understand why you feel the way you do, and I agree that in a lot of cases American Christians are circumcising their children for no good reason and it can definitely hurt the child later on, but it's not true that there's never a good reason to do it and it definitely should not be made illegal. Just because we're not a majority religion doesn't mean we don't exist.

Your children are not your property. You do not get to subject them to nonconsensual surgeries period. People can get voluntary surgeries for religious reasons when they are old enough to understand. I have heard plenty of Jewish people support bodily autonomy for Jewish children. You are using your religion as a shield.

This shit legitimately pisses me off to hear as someone raised in a fundamentalist catholic cult. I have a lot of opinions on religion that I won't get into, but it makes me so upset to hear the legitimate physical harm to children who were forced into religion, that constantly gets excused as "religious freedom". It's sick and I'll never support it as long as I live.

[nomowyrm]

can i hear about the utah mormon stuff? im morbidly fascinated.

Sure! I love to chatter!

Absurdly high sexual abuse (specifically CSA) rates, corresponding with influence from the mormon church (specifically in relation to sex education!), corresponding with absurdly high STI/D rates (specifically in areas where the mormon church has heavy influence in sex education), which is also connected to the CSA reports involving "private meetings" in mormon churches between church leaders and children.

There are numerous anti-porn organizations (including those with "sex therapists" to help "cure" people of their interest in porn), many openly against sex education, based in Utah and involved (if not financed by) the mormon church as well.

That's not even going into the targeting of trans/gay kids, the absurdly high and skyrocketing LGBTQ+ suicides (or the involvement in conversion therapy) in the area. It's some fucked shit.

[nomowyrm]

thinking about how when you experience a lot of shame in your formative years (indirectly, directly, as abuse or just as an extant part of your environment) it becomes really difficult to be perceived by other people in general. the mere concept of someone watching me do anything, whether it's a totally normal activity or something unfamiliar of embarrassing, whether I'm working in an excel spreadsheet or being horny on main, it just makes my skin crawl and my brain turn to static because I cannot convince myself that it's okay to be seen and experienced. because to exist is to be ashamed and embarrassed of myself, whether I'm failing at something or not, because my instinctive reaction to anyone commenting on ANYTHING I'm doing is to crawl into a hole and die. it's such a bizarre and dehumanizing feeling to just not be able to exist without constantly thinking about how you are being Perceived. ceaseless watcher give me a god damn break.

[nomowyrm]

my linktree ♡

[nomowyrm]

You have to let people love you. You have to let people get to know you. You have to let people help you. Being so completely selfless that you try to erase yourself off the face of the planet and never ask for anything and reject everybody's offers of support makes you very hard to love! Unfortunately. Emptying yourself out of everything that makes you, you is not actually what your loved ones want from you, generally. They want to make you happy! They will be so so sad if you don't give them the chance. It's not all selfish. I promise.

[nomowyrm]

That was the moment for me, when I was just driving at work, and all of a sudden it was like everything shifted sideways two steps in my head.

All this time, I’d slowly built my beliefs, changed them, considered them. I had a few things that I knew just had to be true, like, surely in the afterlife it wasn’t just an eternal heaven and hell lesser heavens. Surely an all powerful God given infinite time could ‘heal’ everyone and allow them all into Heaven. Surely there couldn’t be a judgment for gay people, or trans people, that would exclude them from that.

And all of a sudden I just realized that the things I believed were not the things the church preached.

And I wasn’t willing to backtrack to match the doctrine anymore.

So that was just… it. I knew I wasn’t a Mormon anymore. And I hadn’t been one for a long time.

Seriously, I can't believe people think like this. I used to, though. At least for a moment before realizing what I was doing. You can't form beliefs around appeasing everyone.

[nomowyrm]

fellow ex-christians, this is a question i've had for a while: what were your positive experiences of christianity? i'm not being sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek, i'm genuinely wondering, because despite the significant amount of time i spent in the church, i really didn't have any positive experiences surrounding god and actual christian beliefs. like, my good memories are things like going on a fun retreat with a church group, but whenever it came to thinking about god/my church's teachings/his plan for the future, it was nothing but fear and worry and shame.

but there's many people on here who seem to really be grieving the loss of their faith, despite what has otherwise happened to them. it's something that's of course valid, but i just can't wrap my mind around it. so if anyone is willing to explain this, i'd really appreciate it. i'm genuinely just really curious about this.

[nomowyrm]

@deservedgrace I am still thinking about how you said grieving religion is grieving the fantasy of what it was supposed to be. I was like !! That’s the key!!

I couldn’t get over my parents until I let go of the idea that they’d ever be better and accepted who they actually are. This is the same! I feel like I know the way forward even though I’m not there yet.

[nomowyrm]

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.

[nomowyrm]

okay, am I the only one who grew up being terrified of heaven?

when we've been there ten thousand years/bright shining as the sun/we've no less days to sing His praise/than when we'd first begun.

how is that not horrifying? to be trapped anywhere, even in a guilded cage, never able to rest, never able to go home? never mind about being forced to praise some overbearing lord all day long. I'm talking about being trapped somewhere forever. maybe it just freaked me out as a kid because I could never wrap my head around the concept of infinity but can you imagine living day after day in the same stasis, held captive by an infinitely powerful spirit, being forced to serve him, and knowing yourself to be completely helpless? the drudgery, of living there a thousand days and knowing that you can do it all over a thousand thousand times and it won't matter, because you can never

never

leave

[nomowyrm]

Christianity was weird because there were Earthly Truths we believed and Eternal Truths we also believed and they conflicted but trying to align them practically would literally either make you a nonChristian or a hate-crime committing murderer. I couldn’t bear to be either so I just lived with this dissonance haunting me all the time.

Examples:

Earthly Truth: no one deserves torture. All people deserve human rights.

Eternal Truth: everyone deserves unending fiery torment forever, even tiny babies. You are conceived guilty, before you are even born.

—-

Earthly Truth: women can have positions in leadership and you owe them the appropriate respect you’d give anyone in their office

Eternal Truth: it’s sinful for women to lead men at church or in the home. Women are always trying to subvert the natural order and this uprising is part of their sinful nature. Women in leadership are defying God.

—-

Earthly Truth: diversity in our communities is good and makes us stronger

Eternal Truth: God has shown us the narrow way. All outside of it will perish. It’s critical to convert people or they will burn eternally. With eternity on the line, you can justify any means necessary to ensure conformance. They’ll thank you one day, even if you used earthly torture to change them.

—

I was so deeply confused as a kid. I remember knowing I had to obey my female teachers at school but also being suspicious they were flouting God’s plan. I remember telling myself after I was mistreated “you didn’t deserve to be treated that way—here. On earth. By people. In the afterlife though you deserve every torment God can think up.” I remember learning that the Nazis tried to kill all lbgtqia people and I remember being horrified but also sick knowing my religion similarly didn’t think they should exist.

Christianity was always “THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD” but also if you take it too seriously - you’re a serial killer and a Nazi.

It was constantly “I’m going to go against God’s will out of love for my fellow man but fuck! in doing so I’m condemning my friends to real eternal torment. Shouldn’t I try and convince them for their own safety?” *flurry of boundary breaking, frantic evangelism*

I was taught that the Holocaust and Nazis were evil but even as a very young child I saw the parallels between their beliefs and my family’s. I brought it up but was told “no no! We’re not like that! You’ll understand when you’re older”

I’m older and my family is posting social media stories about how excited they are that people are being disappeared to CECOT. Their earthly truths are being erased in favor of the eternal.

This was always going to happen eventually. This is why I can’t stay Christian - even a liberal one. You cannot believe humans deserve eternal torment and reconcile that with innate human dignity. Salvation through Christ is a dangerous doctrine that leads to abuse if you actually live it out.

Everything I thought was wrong at age 6 WAS WRONG.

[nomowyrm]

sin is actually really cool and good for you

[nomowyrm]

I think it’s important to note that regardless of how it’s presented, the original idea is still something that I (and many others, likely including OP) reject outright.

Original sin, regardless of whether it’s presented as “it took killing a god to make you salvageable” or “god really loves you and wants you to be with him despite your flaws” is an idea I consider to be harmful and outright false.

There is no such thing as sin. There is no such thing as heavenly judgement, whether that’s a Burning Hell or a Looking In The Mirror moment.

We can cause harm to others, of course, and do good things for others too. But there is no outside requirement for forgiveness, and I do not need to repent to a greater being, especially not in the specific way they decree, to be saved. The only person I am responsible to for my absolution is myself.

I was raised in a household that believed in that kinder, softer version of Justice and Sin. But even so, it is still required that you must be afraid, in some fashion, of not getting to Heaven, of not experiencing True Happiness. You must be able to fail at this, and God, despite all his power and love and mercy, must not be able to save you.

I have people I care about, people very dear to me, who are gripped with fear about that. About the fact that God loves them, and loves the people they care about. Loves them more deeply than any love on this earth can compare.

And it still might not be enough. They still might fail to be saved, and it will be all their fault. Or the people they love will fail to be saved, and what kind of Heaven doesn’t have your loved ones in it?

Perhaps you don’t have to fail. Perhaps many people can rest comfortable knowing that they’re probably fine. But someone, somewhere, has to be damned, either to fire and brimstone or to Outer Darkness or to your own sad corner of Heaven, because if everyone could be saved then there would not be any need for the religion.

And I, personally, believe that if there were a true Heaven, then it must require that EVERYONE be saved, or else it cannot be a true heaven.

Original Sin says that this cannot be the case. Either it exists, and someone, somewhere, is destined to be damned, or it doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter if you trade the idea of punishment for the idea of personal failing, it’s still harm.

Look, we joke a lot, but really, "you were born evil, wretched, worse than the scum of the earth, and it took killing a god to make you salvageable, so now you'd better be grateful to that god and thank him 10,000 times a day for it and fill your thoughts with him 24/7 and abide by the letter of his every word, lest you suffer unimaginable torture for all of eternity" is a truly horrendous thing to believe about yourself and other people