Hello Love!
If you missed it, please read part one of this post here.
Now onto today!
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If You're Being Gaslit By Religion Right Now:
If this is happening to you, if you’re being minimized, told that religion isn’t that bad, told that your trauma experience within religion isn’t ‘what it really is’ - please know, you’re being gaslit by people who can’t yet embrace the reality you’ve experienced and that’s not your fault - and what they are saying isn’t true. What you feel and what you’ve experienced IS REAL. How you’re responding to it makes perfect sense.
The damage religion has done over it’s long history (essentially as long as humans have been alive) is great. Devastating. Incalculable.
Yes, to seek guidance from something higher than ourselves, to want to believe we are being cared for or watched over, to want to ‘know what the rules are’ so we can follow them and then be rescued from our pain/rewarded with eternal blessings - makes total sense. This human life is deeply chaotic.
Our desire for understanding, for control, for answers as to why outcomes are what they are so that we can try to change our behavior in a way that gives us the best chance at pleasure is natural.
There is deep pain in this existence, and having the brains we do - we want to understand.
We want a solution.
We have self awareness and we have the capacity to look into the future and make up stories. Our pain isn’t isolated to our moment - it can be stretched and morphed and multiplied. We can consciously harm others. It’s a lot. Of course we want answers, security and some assurance that we are doing the right thing, on the right path to getting rid of what is harming us/being saved.
To see patterns, to create superstitions, to want to believe we have some hidden insights into the ways of things again so that we can feel secure, like we can control outcome and get our needs met/get out of pain and suffering is as natural to a conscious being as breathing. We want to feel good. We want to feel safe. We want to grow - and we have the awareness to understand that life is really complex and chaotic and so deeply beyond our control in so many ways - that we are going to cling to ANYTHING that settles that fear.
Religion fills all of these gaps for us. It's so deeply soothing to so much that makes us hurt.
Religion Has Been An Excuse For A Lot Of Harm:
It also follows that people who are in fear, who are living with this awareness of chaos, lack, pain, suffering and absence of control would use stories like those of religion as a weapon against those they would seek to undermine/exploit/see as a threat to their survival. Religion has long been a tool people who seek power have used to convince those they want to overpower to submit to this overpowering. It’s long been a way people who feel that dominance is the only security have manipulated, shamed, guilted and otherwise intellectually trapped people into complying with societal structures that fully disempowered and marginalized the people they were taking from.
Religion has been the excuse for colonization. Mass murder and genoside. The reason given for invading places where the true desire was to take resources or acquire dominance in some way.
Religion and all its rules and regulations have caused the development of so many shadows, in individuals and groups, that have led to expressions of trauma and abuse that cause all of us to feel shock, horror and disgust when those shadows are revealed. Religion has pushed so many people to behaviors of abuse due to having to deny, repress and hate parts of themselves in order to fit in with the culture of their doctrine.
Religion doesn’t have clean hands by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a doc upon which many altruistic, good and deeply moving acts have been launched and equally so it’s been the birthplace of some of the most extreme human atrocities.
People are attached. For good reason. Religion has filled so many holes and provided so much comfort. Christianity specifically has been historically viewed as righteous, pure, holy and dignified - so any attack on it is seen as blasphemy and a destruction of what’s been so ‘good’ about the Western way of life. It’s been seen as a part of the departure from the dark ages, something that set the enlightened world apart from and above the lower impulses of the more ‘primitive’ or 'unevolved' ways of life.
This in and of itself is a major issue that of course needs to be addressed.
Basically, as we can see, the topic of religion is a huge one.
It’s massively complex.
I know that in a lot of ways people who see the harm being done by religion want it eradicated altogether. This is a legitimate take. Others feel that there’s good to be extracted, that we shouldn’t ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater.’ I get this too. I’m not sure we’re going to come to any kind of consensus on this any time soon - and I don’t think we need to in order to address the very REAL issue of sexual shaming, suppression and harm done via religion and Christianity specifically.
'That's Not What Religion REALLY Is:'
Now again, when people come forward and say that they’ve experienced deep shame, pain and self loathing due to religious doctrine, and they are met with statements like ‘that’s not what Christianity really is.’ ‘We aren’t all like that.’ ‘That is just a part of it, but Jesus still loves you - he just condemns what you ARE’ - and so on, this again is simply a form of, often unintentional, gaslighting. When they say that Christianity is really ‘what Jesus taught’ and not necessarily all that other stuff, all the other stuff that blatantly states that for a man to lie with another man is a horrendous sin that will send him (or her/they/them) straight to hell - they are engaging in magical thinking that doesn't have anything to do with real reality.
When people say ‘this isn’t what Christianity is/that’s not what Jesus taught’ I feel this is a weak argument.
Who among us perceives Christianity to be JUST what Jesus supposedly said? Who among the Christian population actually LIVE that? This isn’t a REALITY. This is a convenient platitude people are using to cover up the fact of the matter - Christianity in practice bares little to no resemblance to what is written as the words of Jesus. No one should buy this. If Christianity is really just what Jesus says, then no one is living it. If people who claim they are Christian are living in alignment with the values they profess to hold that come from the Bible - then they aren’t living just what Jesus said.
Christianity isn’t based on the supposed words of Jesus. Not in practice. So again, if someone is saying this to you as though you’ve misinterpreted what Christianity ‘really means’ - please again know this isn’t in alignment with reality. You feel how you feel because you were directly or indirectly told that there was a broken or bad part of you - that automatically made it so that you are rejected, abandoned and punishable. No matter how it was phrased, no matter how much it was a ‘we don’t hate YOU just the SIN that you are as a person’ - it was harmful and you have reacted how you’ve reacted for a good reason.
I’m not going to stand here and tell anyone what to do. I’m not going to tell anyone to question their religion. I’m not going to demand that anyone question religion in general. Again I understand how deep and complex this is.
But I also think that for ANYONE who’s been made to feel less than whole for ANY part of you that was rejected by religion - it’s not you. There’s nothing wrong with you. There never HAS been anything wrong with you.
Specifically to the LGBTQ2S+ community - your value should never, ever, ever have been questioned. Your humanity should never, ever, ever have been up for debate. Your humanity isn’t a philosophical question. The fact that we are even having ‘conversations’ around this shows that we have a long way to go. You should never have to be unsafe because of something fundamental to you. You should never have had to face ANY judgement or mistreatment or rejection or abuse for being what you are. It was never, ever you that was flawed. Never you that needed to change. Never you that was causing harm. Ever. You are worthy of your safety, of acceptance and of having your humanity honored all the time. There is no debate to be had here. There is no philosophy. You are a life and you are sacred. That’s it.
I’m so, so sorry you haven’t been treated this way. I’m so sorry for what you’ve had to go through. It’s not your fault. It’s not fair. It’s not ok.
How Do We Move Forward?
Now my question for society - why do we think it’s ok to even have a philosophical debate around who is deserving of having human rights, being safe from harm, having access to medicine, having access to housing, having access to careers, being allowed to be with who they want to be with, and so on? If we really take a step back, why are people who don’t hold these identities bringing forth their ‘opinions’ on how and where rights should be distributed to people who hold these identities? Why do these identities bring these peoples fundamental right to safety and provision into question? If we are using religion as a reason - can we take a step back and ask ourselves if this is REALLY something we want to bring forward with us as we continue to evolve out of the dark ages - the dark ages where these books were written? Is this really something we want to cling to, even though it’s written in a book we want to hold as pure truth?
Does this resonate as truth?
Maybe we need to recognize that if OUR way of life DEMANDS that another can’t have basic human rights, can’t express themselves in ways that harm NO ONE, can’t BE WHO THEY ARE - that our way of being is what needs to come into question, not the other way around. Again does the idea that our way of life being ‘threatened’ by another simply living another way - not inflicting their way upon us, not demanding that our way change in any way to accommodate their way, not taking rights away from anyone - make any sense? Can we really justify holding people back from loving who they love, expressing how they feel they want to express, identifying how the feel authentically relevant by saying that these actions inflict harm on those who are hetero-normative? If we really take a step back, how does a group of people getting to live in a way that is authentic for them, just as we are living in ways that feel authentic for us, have ANY effect on anyone?
Maybe we need to consider that if we really want to say ‘Christianity is just what Jesus says’ - then if we want to live that he said “the most important thing is to treat one another as you would treat yourself.” That’s the takeaway.
Maybe we need to consider that even if we want to hold the bible or any other religious doctrine as truth, that to hold it as PERFECT truth means that we need to really re-consider how we are living. Again, most of the Christians I know don’t follow the bible to a T. There are MANY, many rules in the bible that people have long since let themselves off the hook of following - women work and don’t cover their heads and cut their hair. We mix materials in our fabrics. We sit on chairs after menstruating women have sat in them. We don’t fully rest on the Sabbath. We don’t do A LOT of things the bible says we MUST do - so why are we holding onto this specific doctrine that says that some people don’t get to be treated as human due to a fundamental aspect of their being? Does this sound like love?
Maybe we all need to stop looking to the fever dreams of men who died hundreds of years ago for guidance on who deserves basic rights and freedoms.
I know again this is hard. I understand. I’m not here to shame anyone for believing what they believe - simply to pose some questions.
And again, the biggest thing, if you’ve been harmed by these teachings, I see you, I hear you, you’re not alone and you have nothing, nothing, nothing to be ashamed of. Your humanity should never, ever have been questioned or up for debate. You deserve a world where you can be safe, love who you love, express how you feel and have access just like everyone else. That’s reality. You were never wrong or flawed or broken.
You’re worthy and always have been.
<3
thanks and blessings
love is the fulfilment of the law and prophets