#deconstructing my faith

[shift-shaping]

very funny when someone who tries to tell you porn addiction is real is already marked with shinigami eyes. like oh really? i never would have guessed a transphobe would buy multiple strains of fundamentalist christian propaganda. anyway

like i cannot stress enough that porn addiction is a fake thing made up by fundamentalists to make you demonize sex. it is not a real thing. you can have all manner of compulsions, sure, but a porn compulsion is no more harmful than a compulsion to doomscrolling or washing your hands or brushing your teeth. which is to say, it's not great to have a compulsion at all, but a compulsion to pornography is not uniquely concerning in and off itself.

research on this subject is very clear that porn and porn consumption itself is not the issue. what causes distress and shame is the culture surrounding porn and the way our society demonizes people for normal sexual feelings.

porn is morally neutral. you are not a bad person for enjoying porn. the real-life porn industry is a shitshow, but there are many ways to enjoy pornography that are entirely harmless. support your favorite independent porn producers.

[deservedgrace]

I don't think that framing "Marginalized™️ Atheism/Deconstruction" and "Cishet White Male Atheism/Deconstruction" as inherently ~separate and distinct~ is super effective (and disclaimer I'm specifically speaking about my experience with christianity, atheism, and ex christian atheists/deconstructors), but also... okay so I was raised in a cult, and cults are oppressive for all its members. Nobody gets out unscathed, everyone experiences the abuse tactics, everybody is a victim. But within the cult there is a hierarchy, and cishet white men are at the top. So while the cult is oppressive to everyone, and everyone is harmed in some way, it is also uniquely oppressive to queer folks, to BIPOC, to disabled folks, to women, etc etc. And the thing that happens to some of those cishet white men is they leave an oppressive cult, where they are considered the "default", and they go into the ~real world~, where they are also considered the "default", and even in atheist/deconstruction spaces, their bodies and experiences are often the leading voices.

The men that leave go from an oppressive patriarchal culture to a far less oppressive (to them) patriarchal society. The white people that leave go from an oppressive racist culture to a far less oppressive (to them) racist society. The people that leave go from an oppressive culture that does not value marginalized voices to a different, less oppressive culture that also does not value marginalized voices. And if you personally do not experience [xyz] oppression, it can be difficult to even realize there are things surrounding that you have to deconstruct unless you listen to the voices of the oppressed. But some cishet white men go from being considered the "default" in an oppressive culture, to being considered the "default" in a less oppressive culture (to them). Their experience of "overcoming systemic oppression" comes from leaving the church, and it can be really easy to fall into the trap that the church, specifically, is the sole oppressor and enemy of everyone.

Of course this doesn't happen in every single case and it's also not exclusive to cishet white men. But those blind spots are why I think it's important for everyone to listen to a variety of voices when they're deconstructing, especially if those voices are talking about oppression you wouldn't have experienced firsthand.

No, our deconstructions are not inherently different, but the experiences and circumstances prior to it often are. It's okay to acknowledge that and beneficial for everybody to listen to each other's experiences.

[theshoesofatiredman]

So much of Christian teaching around thought crime is dependent on the idea that we are fully in control of every thought we have. And when it interfaces with mental health it becomes extremely dangerous. Like the below:

"Anxiety is a sign you're not trusting God's plan for your life."

"If you're depressed that means you're not relying on God to be your joy."

Neither of these things are true and they don't reflect how either anxiety or depression actually work. Illnesses have been used for hundreds of years by religion to demonize people. If you would scoff at someone saying a person's cancer is because of specific sin in their life, you should hold the above statements in similar contempt.

There are real treatments for depression and anxiety that help people. It's not a matter of a person's faith and claiming so IS HARMFUL TO PEOPLE WHO SUFFER FROM THOSE ILLNESSES! Judging people as sinful or of little faith for their illnesses makes it harder for them to receive real life bringing care from professionals trained to provide it.

[artist-issues]

Here they go again

And I get to play the mind numbing game of "Twenty One Pilots: Are They Deconstructing Their Faith After All, OR Saying What They've Always Been Saying But This Time With Antlers"

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Need asoiaf fans to be disabused from the notion that anyone “deserves” the Iron Throne. Not a single person deserves it, doesn’t matter how good they are. And I’d take it a step further and say that no one deserves to be king or queen or lord. We shouldn’t be equating kingship/queenship with a happy ending. This series does so much to criticize this awful system so it’s particularly jarring that people will go “I want my fave to get their happy ending and sit on the iron throne”. That’s…kind of antithetical to what the series has shown us so far I think.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I need your thoughts on the Christian Chorus Line in Cassandra. I assumed immediately that Taylor was referencing the Hillsong Church group who were all tied to Scooter, but someone else pointed out Kanye had a church/has a church. I lean towards the Hillsong crew only because I think 2016 is so tied to the sale of her masters that they are two parts of the same event (what tore her apart and eventually led to her building what she has now).

Oh I absolutely don't associate it with either of those churches whatsoever. First of all I had no idea Hillsong was linked to Scooter (I'm assuming through his famous clients like Bieber?) but somehow that totally tracks because it's such a shady organization imo. I have next to zero knowledge about evangelical cults churches beyond their influence in the political sphere, but I also don't live in the United States so they don't have nearly the influence where I live.

I took the "Christian chorus line" as representative of the critics who moralized the whole Kimye situation and immediately condemned her and treated her like, well, a scarlet letter. All the holier-than-thou commenters who accused her of lying, of being manipulative, of being greedy, of being inauthentic, etc. Chorus lines are synchronized, dancing to the same beat, singing from the same songbook etc. To me, the "Christian chorus line" of it all is a play on that, meaning the self-righteous critics who all jumped on the hate bandwagon and repeated the accusations against her like a mob mentality.

And it reflects the way she's used religion/piety as a stand-in for the same themes in the album, e.g. the Sarahs and Hannahs and town elders convening in But Daddy I Love Him, or the rolling stone/propriety scenario in Guilty As Sin? IMO she's not at all calling out an actual physical establishment, but applying the same zealotry of evangelical religions to the zealotry of the critics/media/fans who turned against her or tried to exercise control over her.

I definitely think the song as a whole is a heartbreaking reflection of the time in 2016 though, and along with Who's Afraid of Little Old Me and Mad Woman probably the most vulnerable she's been in her music about how difficult that time was for her.

[chelledoggo]

my spiritual/deconstruction journey been like

(context: came from an evangelical background and still constantly in the process of unlearning the fear/anxiety)

[hua-fei-hua]

Why do you hate YOI for f/f reasons? Is it like, jealously? Thats honestly kinda embarrassing if so

lol yeah it's a dumb reason, i know. i was fifteen when it aired; i think i can forgive my fifteen-year-old self for being a little embarrassing.

[mbrainspaz]

Christians going "Yeah I'm christian, go ahead and persecute me! I'm used to it!" is so sad and funny at the same time. Especially in America. You're not gonna get that from me hun. Like I'm gonna waste my energy talking to christians after I had to spend a decade deconstructing my own faith. Either you'll figure things out eventually or you'll double down until you're fully entrenched. As long as you leave non-christians alone that's your business.

I know if some burned out queer cowboy hobo had told 20 year old christian kid me what their adult life was really gonna be like...

"kiddo, I know you're a vaguely nationalist christian fundamentalist now but just wait until every aspect of your blessed social order fails you and you spend a little time homeless. Oh—you thought you couldn't be homeless if you just worked hard enough? Honeyyy. Your first 'christian' bosses won't even give you lunch breaks even though they live in mansions with their trophy wives. You got a degree so you could sell their scammy fake diet pills and live on instant potatoes with hot dog bites and sleep on the floor by the fireplace in your first drafty apartment like it was 1813. Also you have mental illnesses. Spoilers. No, you can't just power through ADHD. Yes it is a real thing. So is the family history of chronic depression your dad hasn't told you about yet. You think that's bad? Wait until he disowns you during the pandemic. Don't worry about the pandemic yet, but yeah, that's how you ended up homeless. Why didn't you just buy a house? With your christian husband? Ohhhh. Ooooof. Well let's gloss over the next few economic disasters but basically you're gonna nearly marry a guy next year until he loses his temper and destroys your trust. It's for the best though because he kinda turns into one of those right wing gun nuts a few years down the road. Dodged a bullet there! Literally lmao. Oh you... you want to know why you didn't become a missionary? So the church actually doesn't let 'single women' do mission work. Yeah... yeah it is to stop you from leading the single male missionaries astray. You kind of already knew where that was going. Don't worry, the misogyny only gets more blatant from here. Just wait until you're 25. Hey, remember how fun it was to sit with your parents in church? You get to do that for so many more years because there are no other unmarried 20-somethings in fundamentalist churches. If you leave and go to a different church your dad will disown you. He does that like 6 times though, so it does lose its sting. What were the other times? Um... okay so it was 'going to a church he didn't like,' 'being too single,' 'not praying enough' (don't ask me to explain that one, I'm still confused), 'having too many pets that might scare away the men,' and 'not voting for trump.' Oh! By the way, if you get a chance to go to a state fair and throw tomatoes at that guy in say... mid 2015, don't pass that up. You'll regret it. Especially while you're stuck living on a ranch with looney white nationalists in the aftermath of the 2020 elections. Oh shit—right! You don't even know white nationalists really exist! Wow. You've really never had to overhear a single conversation where white boomers fantasize about going downtown to do armed 'patrols' of black neighborhoods. By that point you'd realized you were very alone in a southern town that had already tried to off you in a multitude of disturbing ways. They weren't keen on the idea of you being queer either. I know you already know but you—yeah, you just assumed it would be easier to hide and go along with the status quo. Naaah. Nope. Not worth it. You only really wanted to do that so your parents would love you and that was a loss from the moment they put conditions on it. You could never have done enough to earn their love. They don't have it to give. That's on them though. Ok big question time: Do you still believe in god? Yes and no. Give it like... 14 times of people saying 'it's god's will' whenever something goes their way and another 20 of them accusing you of consorting with demons whenever you disagree. The pattern becomes pretty clear. Maybe you do still believe in god but definitely not your parents' god. And definitely not any god that would be on the side of empires and bigots. In fact, not any god that would let those powers claim him... if he had any power to stop them."

"But I do at least get a bunch of animals?"

"Oh yeah. Smeags is still alive. Right now I've got three dogs and a freaking horse that looks exactly like our favorite childhood stuffed animal."

"A HORSE!?"

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

Thinking about him* again

*that Abraham Joshua Heschel quote:

It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society.

It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.

When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless.

[punkinspice]

If you don't mind my asking, are you still Christian? I have seen your posts over time about leaving cults and whatnot, and I was curious how that impacted your faith.

Hello! I don't mind you asking at all, and I am happy to talk about it, it's just that it's a very touchy, complicated, controversial and long answer that I don't always know how to answer it in a way that makes sense. (this may get really deep)

If I were to be 100% honest, I will admit that I personally no longer believe in or identify with being a Christian or the Christian faith.

As to what I believe in currently, or what I'd call myself now? I really don't have an answer to that. I guess you could say I'm currently leaning more towards being an agnostic and sometimes atheist? But honestly, the things I may agree with today, may change tomorrow. and I'm sure the things I will believe in currently will be completely changed in a year. And.... I am ok with that. I want to be questioning and to have an open mind to things, opinions and questions and to have the permission to be wrong and to change my mind on things as I learn new or more information.

This is not a choice that I've come to easily, or glibly. It's been a process I've been in the past 3 maybe 4 years of my life, and I think in the last year is when I've chosen to leave the faith. It's a place I never thought I would be in and it's involved a lot of pain, confusion and trauma and healing in my life. There is a whole ton more I could go more deeply into, but I don't feel this is the right post to do that, and I don't quite have words yet to explain or describe everything.

As far as the cult thing goes, there were and are a lot ways that I was raised and taught to believe in, that by definition, was a cult. There were a lot things that were abusive and still traumatize and cut into me deeply and I am in the process of recovering from and untangling the things that were taught to me and it still brings up a lot of trauma for me, of which I am thankfully getting help for.

I also joined a well known Christian organization around the age of 21/22, and was in it for over 2 years, until Covid hit and I had to go home. And the more time I was out and after a ton of research and studying, I will be honest and say that that organization is a cult, and it did leave a lot of mental and financial wounds on me that I am going to be recovering from for a long time. Did I learn a lot from that experience and grow from it? Yes I did, but it is an experience and chapter of my life that I am glad is over.

I know that from the short examples that I've given it's really easy to say that that really wasn't true Christianity, or it was just people poorly misrepresenting the word and love of God, or worse, blaming me and saying that I was never a Christian to begin with, which I can't even begin to explain how much and how deeply into the faith I truly was, and how hurtful that allegation is.

...And maybe all of that is true... And maybe it isn't....

There is a lot of pain, betrayal, anger and grief that I am still healing from and will be healing from for years to come. I don't want to live in a state of bitterness and anger and blame of the things that were done to me. But I also want to admit and be honest about the wrongs that were done to me and the abuse that was done to me in the name of Love.

I need time and separation, but mostly I need love and understanding. It's one of the most painful and isolating experiences I've ever gone through in my life, and so utterly earth shattering and life changing and most of the time you can't even talk to your family or friends about it because you are so afraid of the way they will react and what they will take away from you.

A lot of this is very surface level of my journey through this "deconstruction" of faith if that's what you want to call it. There's so much more that I could go in depth in, but again I don't always have the words or mental fortitude to really get into a lot of things.

If you still have questions I'll try my best to answer. I know this is a really sad and hard thing for a lot of people to hear, and yeah.

It is sad. It's devastating.

There are days I wish could go back to the way it was, or that I could fully go back into the faith.... but I can't. And, despite the excruciating pain and grief that I've been going through, I ironically feel so much more freedom and peace than I ever did in religion. Which I know is hard to comprehend... it's hard for me to explain.

I'm sorry for the ramble and the heaviness. But I guess now's as good a time as any to finally admit this about myself and where I am at.

My final thought is to please have so much grace and understanding to people in your life who are going through a similar process to me. If you have friends or family in this same process, please just be kind to them. They didn't ask for any of this, and many times these doubts and questions came from things out of their control, and they're simply trying and surviving the best they can. There is so much pain there that I'm sure they haven't expressed to you because they are afraid of losing everyone and everything that they love, simply because they do not believe in the same thing anymore. So just love them, and hold space for them and don't argue or defend, as that will only push them away further. And also be open to them. They may have very important and valid insights to things that you may have become blind to. If you really believe in a loving, kind and gracious God then he would be doing those things for these people 10 fold.

[fluffyllamas-23]

wow I haven't been on here in a hot minute lol. Sorry for just kinda dipping with no warning, but a LOT has been going on. Anyways, hi, hello, hope everyone is thriving

[caffeinatedopossum]

Thinking about that time when I was pressured into giving my testimony by not only my peers but also one of the religious leaders at my church even though I kept stating I didn't want to and was uncomfortable.

And then when I finally did, the testimony I told was about how I'd learned that not all Christians were good people and about how people had used god, Christianity, and their authority to hurt me and people I loved and how I was having to seperate the way they acted from the beliefs I held and then everyone looked at me like this:

[buckyschair]

this might be a little niche for a pet peeve but i hate it when people experience the privilege of being a member of the ruling class and then say shit like “so grateful for god’s goodness and his blessings on my life!!” like actually bitch. you are benefitting from being on the lucky side of a system that creates inequality. of course shits going well for you ?? it’s not The Lord TM

[thatdamnokie]

and what really sucks? what really sucks is being given the exact same advice over and over again to the degree that whatever is said, i can predict down to a t. read your bible, pray, and suck it up. that is the only advice. work harder. be better. brute force it however you have to because your literal eternity is at stake.

[sniffanimal]

had some Mormon missionaries come to the door and my polite disinterest seemed to come across as "please come back Wednesday to talk to me" 🙃