@SrRochardBunson Started fairly typical evangelical, but went into deep into charismatic in college. It wasn't great before, but it that really damaging. Just a complete break with cause and effect.
Like you, I still find the splinters of old thoughts still around, years later.
Very interesting. I was raised hardcore Chuch of God. For those not familiar, it is a VERY conservative, #pentecostal and #charismatic denomination REALLY into "the Gifts of the Holy Spirit".
We were there twice on Sunday and at least Wednesday night. I think the part that still sticks with me the most is the #ReligiousTrauma caused by their belief in hell. I legitimately thought that if I was a perfect kid & said a cuss word immediately before getting hit by a bus, that I would suffer and burn in #hell for #eternity.
WTF?!?
@SrRochardBunson @AdmiralFrosty Assemblies of God (the other big #pentecostal denomination in the USA) believes exactly that same shit. In fact that was the point at which I started to break with the church. Way back when I cane across this slightly irreverent tract (which contains several now dated cultural references):
I read that and my thought was, those preachers study the original languages and they had to have known that there were three completely different words with different meanigs that were all translated as "hell", but in over two decades of going to church I never once heard that fact talked about from the pulpit or in Sunday school. Basically, according to their own book, the "hell" that we were all so terrified of is reserved for the devil and the fallen angels only, not for humans. But of course that was the big secret that they did not want to reveal because fear of "hell" was about the only thing that kept some people in the church. My question was, if they were willing to mislead us on something so core to our beliefs as that, the thing that had given us nightmares as kids and was a constant background source of terror and #ReligiousTrauma in our lives, then what ELSE had they been lying to us about?
Quite a bit, as it turns out, but I can't contain it all in a toot. But once you start to realize that preachers lie all the time, even about fundamental things, it really helps you put things in the proper persperctive.
I also started #deconstructing around 2000. I suspect a lot of people did, and for the same reason: The Internet had just become widely available, and suddenly with the click of a mouse we could look into things they would not let us discuss in #church. And when you start to realize your religion is not the nice, neat, tied up with a bow thing you had been led to believe, that can set you on the path of #descontruction.
@Lunatech @SrRochardBunson @AdmiralFrosty Ha! That’s why #scientology discourages or forbids going on the interwebs. 😜 That Babbler is great -though I suspect MAGAts don’t have much use for logic, nor Jesus for that matter.
What you refer to as #deconstruction sounds like intellectual curiosity & honesty. Is it a formal process or program, or a personal journey of de-programming?
@Str8nger @SrRochardBunson @AdmiralFrosty For me it was not any kind of formal process, but for others (particularly those coming from extremely rigid and controlling sects and cults) it may well be. The one thing about many of the fundamentalist churches that differentiates them from some cults is that if you start asking the wrong questions AND you are not a big contributor, they are more than willing to kick you to the curb, because they don't want you polluting the flock with your "stinking thinking." However if you have been a big tither, or are closely related to someone who is, or to someone who holds a position in the church, then it is different. In my case I was not in any particularly favored position and at the time I had no income and therefore nothing to tithe, so when I started asking questions about some belifs they held that I didn't agree with, I was very pointedly told that I might be happier elsewhere. Well as it turned out I was much happier once I turned away from religion!
@Lunatech @SrRochardBunson @AdmiralFrosty Assume it must be difficult to leave because it usually also means losing your community, friends & maybe even family. Thank you for sharing your experience. Glad you escaped.
Just listened to this & it confirmed what you said about cherry picking from TOT & Revelations to control, and even tied into how we got to MAGA.
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/23/1150775806/revisiting-the-waco-siege-30-years-later
@Lunatech @SrRochardBunson @AdmiralFrosty
Basic fact is few (percentage wise) that participate in institutional religion (as "flock") bother to do more than cherry-pick. Granted, that's born of the general laziness of humans, but it's reinforced by the potential terror that can come from questioning, really digging into things and thinking things through.