Been thinking about how much religion has done to my life.

[NullTuples]

20. I hear you, and agree wholeheartedly.

Last edited Sat Oct 8, 2022, 04:51 PM - Edit history (1)

I was beat, shamed and ridiculed by my folks, extended families and subculture for being an autistic, ADHD, depressed and queer. Basically, I was just different, and treated as though I refused to change. But as far as I knew at the time, there were no names for being those things (there actually were & some people grew up supported for them). I was conditioned - groomed, if you will - to always assume other people's emotional and practical needs were important but mine were not even worth considering because I was "different".

There's a whole sub-area of study in Christianity that is solidly part of the history, but here's a very brief summary: God is perfect. Humans are a step removed from God (but still above all other animals) and thus flawed. Being flawed is due to sin. So, the further from the Glory (perfection) of God one is, the more flawed they are and thus the more "touched" by sin. This is the basis for Christians historically shunning & expressing superiority over: non-white races, disabled people, LGBTQ people, non-Christians, etc. - all are seen as morally corrupt because they are different. And different = sin. As I said this is only a brief summary; I spent a few semesters engrossed in the concepts from their side in college. And the more I did, the less their values appealed to me.

And through it all, Christianity was used by the entire subculture to lay the groundwork for and reinforce these attitudes. I attended Christian schools off & on through college but it wasn't until I met another autistic & fell in love and finally left my folks' world that I began - just barely started - to see the larger world differently. And by that I mean I started out needing to learn that everything my parents did and said was not necessarily the pinnacle of perfection, that there were in fact other legitimate ways to see and live in the world.

People who've not lived through it don't realize that when you live in that world, there are no words for so many things, only intentional shaming, anger and withholding of love. And without words for the things outside of that subculture, only negative feelings, there's really no way to conceptualize the larger objective world any differently than what you've been taught.

This, by the way, is what Democrats are up against with Republicans in America. It's mass brainwashing (pun intended) and with so much in our society supportive of it (from "In God We Trust" to the First Amendment & Supreme Court granting religious opinions special status over others), it will be extremely difficult to change their thinking without a society-sized movement to convince them they are in fact not better than everyone else. Like Trump, that's their Achilles' Heel.