#because that's the usual pattern when dealing with either evangelicals or this type of atheist

[the-library-alcove]

So my best friend is a Bisexual man who was raised in a conservative Christian home that homeschooled him and amount others things taught him that LGBT were going to burn in hell and deserved no rights. He has since left the religion and moved to a different part of the country that is a lot more pro-lgbt and a lot less religious. He’s a lot happier now having embraced both his sexuality and atheism! But according to you, you he’s still a Christian. Even tho his family rejected him and he’d rather be homeless, which he currently is, than to return to them. Christianity abused him for no other reason than he’s bi but you don’t care and still put him in the same category as his abusers. Do you not see how fucked up that is?

Culturally Christian Atheist whining that he doesn't understand that he and his friend are still going to have deep-seated influences from their upbringing on how they view the world and saying that the mere statement that, no, you didn't spring forth from the ground as a fully formed adult with zero influences is somehow "putting him in the same category as his abusers".

It's judgement neutral, yah dummy! If you're feeling that it's an attack, that's on you, but FFS, this is something I get from every fucking Culturally Christian atheist to the point that getting this whine is itself part of being a culturally Christian Atheist--because you're acting like a Christian who has been mistakenly labeled to be a "Catholic" and now has to throw a tantrum over it!

But shit, dude, I'm a culturally Jewish atheist! See, it's that easy to acknowledge your background! Can you stop acting like an Evangelical with a persecution complex when I point out that you have a historical background that's going to inform how you view things and interact with the world? You're not a video game character who spawns when the protagonist enters a new zone! I'm not saying that you're still religiously a Christian! Honestly, I'm proud of you for walking away from that faith--statistically, you've probably left Evangelical Christianity, which is the closest thing to a fully fledged Religion of Evil on the planet! But it's still going to leave marks on you and your mindset that take a lot more work to identify and acknowledge and remove than just going "I don't accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior!" And I can tell that you've still got work to do--because you're whining like an Evangelical that you're being persecuted for someone making an observation about your cultural background, including, for starters:

Taking my statements out of context to attack me.

Treating this as a black-and-white issue.

Treating my statement as a moral attack.

Assuming that you have all of the answers already and other perspectives are a danger to be attacked and dismissed.

Treating me as an outsider to be attacked for pointing out something, rather than someone trying to help you fix a problem.

Among others. You still have some deeply embedded cultural programming that comes from being raised in a Culturally Christian background environment that includes behaviors like that. But rather than try to remove them and get rid of those vestiges of thinking, you're instead proving my point. And while you aren't as obnoxious as some other Culturally Christian Atheists I've run into, this belligerence and resistance to actually listening because you're convinced that you already have done all of the work and possess Truth is so Culturally Christian it hurts. Like, I feel sorry for you. Still going to block you, because there no more point in trying to have a conversation with you than the missionaries who have told me that I exist to be a blood sacrifice to bring back Jesus, and for the same reason: You have your Truth, and damned be anyone who says anything that contradicts it.

EDIT: Also, checking out your blog and seeing you deliberately going after Jewish bloggers even more than you go after Christians, to say how much you hate them for existing and mocking our own origins?

Yeah, that antisemitism is also part of your Culturally Christian background. Ask yourself why you hate Jews so much and so specifically.

[imuybemovoko]

So I just read an article that talked about brainwashing techniques employed in POW camps in North Korea. (It’s linked here.)

I’m inclined to take this article with a slight grain of salt, but there’s something very eerily familiar about the ten steps it lists for brainwashing. It reminds me quite a damn bit of the way your more fundamentalist churches will tell you to share the gospel. I’m going to take a quick run through them and show what I mean. For reasons I’ll explain as “about half shitty site design and about half trauma” I’m having a hell of a time finding specific examples of what I’m talking about here because it involves navigating confusingly executed ministry websites crammed with the exact shit that spent a childhood and five more recent years breaking me. For that reason I’ll make a shitty gospel tract in paint.net with a slide or two to illustrate each point. I’ll probably be annoyingly close to the real thing. Trigger warning here. If this is going to bring something up that you’re not ready to deal with, please do not read any further. 

With that in mind, what would our shitty gospel tract be without some kind of eye-catching title? I’ll take more of a Jack Chick kind of approach to formatting here; Ray Comfort has also been known to make terrible comics following a vaguely similar pattern and typically with far less diverse plots. (Hate-reading Chick tracts is honestly oddly fun sometimes because of the variety and the absolute over-the-top fearmongering about entirely innocent aspects of life and culture.) I’m shooting for a bit of parody energy, so for a title let’s go with:

God’s Blast Furnace Because that seems like the exact kind of cursed energy we should be going for here. I’ll go for a 2x1 aspect ratio here because that also seems pretty typical.

Chick tracts like... usually include people terrified by either God or the flames of hell. I chose the latter. The idea is as much fear factor as you can shove into one tiny page. If you think I’m exaggerating, prepare to be disappointed. Ray Comfort and a lot of campus ministry resources take a less... “in your face” approach to the hellfire bit, but they’ll make damn sure to mention it and how much it’s going to suck to be burned forever. But this is a parody, so if it’s somehow possible to be more over the top than Chick, that’s the goal here.

1. Assault on identity.  In most evangelism guides I remember, one of the first things you’re supposed to mention is that God created the earth and humans and wants us to worship him. Finding specific examples would be a bit of a mindfuck for me because this shit is honestly kinda triggering, but they have a strong tendency towards heavily focusing this in the beginning of their approach. A simple scroll through Chick.com’s tract inventory or, if you can find it, this kind of resource on other sites will show that this assault on identity is extremely important in their approach. Since our parody tract is going to include all of these steps (this is a common but far from universal approach; Ray Comfort tends to include them all but Chick will hyperfocus one or two in every piece of literature), let’s make the first page. The idea here is that they’re saying “you are not who you think you are”. If someone tries to tell you that you’re created by a god rather than a product of evolution, this is their true message. They’ll even mask-off this one, saying “these people think they’re accidental descendants of apes, they’re denying that they were created by God”. So for our parody, let’s do exactly that. I’ll introduce two characters, one Christian and one dreaded “other”, and I won’t bother giving them names; in the real industry, approaches vary. Chick typically gives names, Comfort typically doesn’t. They also tend to grossly caricature unbelievers, so I’ll do that too. I’m going for the “tiny graphic novel” approach here, so I’ll make a panel.

Notice how 1. the unbelievers are presented as strawmen, 2. the Christian is presented as totally normal and even wholesome, 3. he presents this like it’s a self-evident truth, and 4. the response by he unbelievers is angry denial. This is very common and based on prevailing perspectives about unbelievers. You’ll notice an approach quite like this in movies like God’s Not Dead as well, where they make a caricature of Christians that’s way tamer than they present in real life (the kid in God’s Not Dead is super vanilla and a lot of Christians are at best passive-aggressive about it) and a caricature of unbelievers, particularly atheists (they have the most problem with atheists for some reason) that’s straight up aggressive and hostile. In Chick’s tracts, sometimes they wear shirts not that different from the shittily-drawn ones I put on these two unbelievers. I also tried to give the one a mohawk, though the perspective probably isn’t that good. 

Some literature you’ll find in the wild takes a much more detailed approach to this, attacking established scientific facts such as evolution, but others simply present the creation narrative or something akin to it as self-evident and move on. I’ll take the second approach here to save space. Thus, having our unbelievers respond with “how dare you” fits even better because there’s a strong tendency for Christians to think they’re challenging the entire worldview of unbelievers (again, particularly atheists) by even presenting this “fact”. This sets us up perfectly for point 2. 

2. Guilt. In the evangelical view, and in these evangelism resources online, a combination of guilt and fear is very important. Point 2 of the ten in the article is summed up as “you are bad” in the paragraph detailing it; in these forms of Christianity, and very strongly in evangelism techniques, this should be summed up more like “not only are you bad, but the consequences for that are going to be unending and extreme when you die”. This is the strength of the hell narrative in a sentence. On someone who believes it or can be led to believe it, the impact is profoundly damaging. In every “properly-done” evangelism, it is included. Jack Chick goes fucking mental with this narrative and it features in most of his work with vivid pictures of fearful people being yeeted into the flames after pleading for their lives. Ray Comfort also hammers this point fairly hard, framing it as a natural consequence of a life not lived for Jesus and using a metaphor likening death to a long fall and his message to a parachute. In our tract let’s take a mixed approach. Our Christian will yoink Comfort’s parachute metaphor and, much later, we’ll show one of our unbelievers being Chicked. More on that later. 

I’ve started to establish a dichotomy of a type that Chick often uses here where he shows one person getting saved and one getting yeeted into hellfire. “lol sex is epic” is going to dig his heels in like the scary atheist and “there is no god” is going to have his world absolutely rocked by this news. Also, a common caricature is that unbelievers haven’t heard the hellfire bit before. "there is no god” gets this treatment while “lol sex is epic” digs in and gets mad. (It seems to me that the reader is likely meant to find this fitting because he’s the one with the mohawk.) Chick might draw shadowy demons around “lol sex is epic” here, but he doesn’t in every case. Also, note that I’ve brought our title, “God’s blast furnace”, into it here. “there is no god” is walking right into step 3 here. 

3. Self-betrayal. The trick here is to get you to agree that you’re bad. You don’t necessarily have to agree to the hellfire thing; Comfort doesn’t hit that very hard during this phase of a conversation. His approach, which I’ll more or less emulate here, is to get the person to admit that they’ve lied about anything at all, stolen anything at all, or had any lustful thought at all (and, with the latter, referencing Matthew 5:28). Most humans have done at least two of these things at least once (some don’t steal and some are asexual, and there’s most likely overlap, but I feel confident in saying literally everyone lies at least about minor things from time to time), so once he has the confession, Comfort will catastrophise it with a line like “ok so that makes you a lying thieving adulterer in heart” and then pressure the person into answering whether a “just God” will call them innocent or guilty based on this standard. Many people say “guilty” here, as desired. (He paints the ones who say “innocent” or question the standard as dishonest when he makes videos of this.) With guilt thus established, he then asks whether this means a person goes to heaven or to hell. Again, in a typical conversation, the other person answers that this means hell. Ray has triumphed in this moment, because whether he says it or not, the connection is made in the person’s mind that as one guilty of these “sins”, they are bad and deserving of hellfire. So, for our tract, let’s have “there is no god” ask some questions and learn just how “dire” this is from our Christian, a la Ray Comfort. 

“there is no god” betrays himself; “lol sex is epic” stays mad. 

In evangelism, at least in Ray Comfort’s approach, step 3 most often comes in tandem with a lite version of the compulsion to confession, step 6. I’ve condensed this process a bit to fit it into a single panel. “there is no god” now proceeds into step 4. 

4. Breaking point. “there is no god” is now in the trap. This has him questioning everything about himself, his life, and the world. I’ll change his facial expression for the next few panels to illustrate the change. In real life, it takes a lot of repetition, scare tactics and/or other abuse, application during childhood or a moment of great weakness, or a combination of more than one of these to get this done. Since these tracts are a caricature of reality, this is always shown as a fast process. The fast process is also seen as normative because of the belief that God is self-evident, but I am aware of almost no Christians who had this kind of shift because of a single conversation. To my knowledge, this is a months- to years-long process even in most cases of childhood indoctrination. In any case, the victim reaches a point where their view of the world has begun to shatter around them. Or, as the article puts it, asking “who am I, where am I, what am I supposed to do?” We’ll have “there is no god” ask this latter question and add an interjection from “lol sex is epic” to add weight to this. 

“lol sex is epic” gets mad again and says something that many Evangelicals caricature as a common saying of unbelievers, particularly atheists, and progressive Christians (who they have mad beef with for a variety of reasons. Like, I genuinely think they hate progressive Christians more than atheists sometimes). This shows that, in the evangelist’s eyes, “lol sex is epic” has missed the point. Meanwhile, “there is no god” has arrived right at that breaking point, questioning his moral character and asking desperately if there’s a solution to this problem. Our Christian is right there to provide an answer. 

5. Leniency.  Our Christian is going to give “there is no god” the out he’s looking for, declaring that God has given him a solution in the form of Jesus Christ. To show the remaining steps I’ll separate a few things out more than tracts often do. Let’s have a bit more rage from “lol sex is epic” and, for now, have him leave the scene because his use as a character is over until the “and then they both died” bit.

“lol sex is epic” is now gone. Meanwhile, our evangelist has a captive audience for the other steps of this process. 

At this point I’m going to list a couple of steps for each panel because I’m not completely sure how to parse it out the way I’ve been doing thus far. In my perception of this, I tend to view these more easily as far fewer steps. I’ll probably draw this as two or three panels, followed by one where “there is no god” is happy about the decision he’s made. (And wearing a new shirt.)

6. Compulsion to Confession.  Part of the process of salvation is a confession. The fledgling Christian must admit to their status as a sinner and their need of a savior, often in prayer but sometimes also in person to an evangelist or spiritual mentor. This is framed as a relief, a part of casting one’s burdens onto Christ or, as the article puts it, “ the target is faced with the contrast between the guilt and pain of identity assault and the sudden relief of leniency. The target may feel a desire to reciprocate the kindness offered to him, and at this point, the agent may present the possibility of confession as a means to relieving guilt and pain.” The person has been carrying a “lifetime of sin” and a “guilty conscience” and is now letting it all go for the first time. The Catholic church goes absolutely nuts with this, institutionalizing regular confessions. “there is no god” will be presented with a call to confess to Christ. 

7-8. Channeling of guilt; releasing of guilt. The groundwork for this was already laid in the beginning; I forgot to include that part in this tract, but many evangelists will touch on their beliefs about the beginning of the world and the fall of Adam. Thus, they establish the concept of an in-born nature towards sin in all humans. They can give this concept to their target in the form of framing sin as an inherited curse that they can’t avoid having, but isn’t their fault (their actions are but the curse isn’t) and thus can be considered the source of all their “evil” motivations and actions. In this process, a lifestyle of sin is what they channel their guilt into, saying, “I feel bad because I’ve been living this way and not believing in Jesus!” Then, they can use this curse of sin to say, “it’s not me, it’s my bad nature.” Thus, this sense of guilt is channeled and released. This is repentance described in a paragraph. 

9. Progress and harmony.  At this point, the target is encouraged to choose Jesus and the abuse and negativity will stop. They must now make an active and conscious choice towards belief. The fears of hell will be abated. (At least for now).

10. Final confession and rebirth. Evangelicals go full mask off with this, touting a “born again experience” as proof of someone who is truly Christian. Often, the previous several steps are confessed in what’s called the “sinner’s prayer”. I’ll paste it below for a full explanation before I draw the panels for this. At the end, the person invites Jesus into their lives and grants him lordship over their life, then thanks God for this occurrence. This is the end of this process, though the church behaves in ways that reinforce every step of this. You know, for maintenance.  The sinner’s prayer, in one of its several, similar forms: “Dear Lord, I’m a sinner. Please forgive me. Come into my life and cleans me of my unbelief. I believe in you and in salvation through the blood of Jesus. I turn from sin and trust in Jesus alone as my Savior. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.”

Here we see the Christian offering the solution and the broad outline of the sinner’s prayer. Also, “there is no god” is greatly relieved. I’ll make one panel of him doing the sinner’s prayer, then we’ll touch on the “after they both die” thing. Our Christian character is also disposable and this, in this case, is his final appearance.

Here he is getting saved. (His shirt changes alongside this.) And, of course, he ends this with a desire to go tell literally everyone about this. That’s normative in evangelical circles too.

After this, we’re back to more fearmongering, this time involving a dichotomy meant to imply hope, as I yoink a page right out of Chick’s playbook for a couple more panels. 

Here we see a (shittily-executed) great white throne with our Christianized “there is no god” and our angry unbeliever standing before it. The circumstances of their deaths are outlined (fuck you Jack Chick that’s a creepy vibe) and their condition now is clearly explained. Notice how “lol sex is epic” is still angry. But not for long...

The mask drops:

They never portray Jesus putting it exactly like this but this is the kind of energy, at least it’s how it comes across to me when I read these after deconverting. Tracts tend to give a more detailed reaction to the “but I was good” and “give me a chance” things if their damned victims say these things. They assert that deeds aren’t enough and no one is good. Convenient for brainwashing, there’s also an artificial sense of urgency in that this life is listed as your only chance to accept this message and avoid having your flesh boil away before your eyes over and over again for all of time. 

Chick is a big fan of showing the damned being dragged or frogmarched to the pit by angels. 

And here, mohawk man gets the big yeet. 

After this, particularly if they take the Chick approach and include the hell yeet scene and/or the thing at the throne of judgement, they’ll tend to have some questions like this:

Again, parody. They’re not this goddamn on the nose with it.

I could translate this entire thing in one image:

So this has been a painful little look at what goes into a gospel tract/the brainwashing inherent to the gospel message as understood by fundies/evangelicals.

I hate that I used to think this way and unironically tell people this kind of shit. It’s manipulative and stupid, and also deeply cringey. If you’ve read this far, I’m sorry/congratulations. 

Oh, and one final thought: People who don’t generally do this with tracts use verbal, often shorter, versions of the exact same process. CRU reduces it to five points in their resources (and this is a common approach): something like 1. God made the world, 2. we screwed things up and deserve the big yeet, 3. but Jesus makes a way to fix this shit, 4. He died on a cross and rose from the dead so we could be saved, 5. so believe in him and live forever in a realm that doesn’t have to be filled with fire all the fucking time. They’ll tell you to do something involving counting on your hand while explaining this shit. It’s goddamned cursed, and you’ll notice it goes through the exact process I mentioned above. It literally intends to break you down and mold a new person out of the shards and ashes this produces.

Evangelists are assholes.