Thought Dump #1

[Casualfanboy16]

This post is going to be less focused on a particular subject, but rather just some strange things that I have memories of while growing up in Christianity. It's going to be a whole smorgasbord of things I found strange, unusual or whatever. So, basically just a dump for my thoughts from past experiences in the faith.

 

Christianity and how it thrives on emotional manipulation...

This one is rather obvious, but Christianity is really good at playing with your emotions: tugging at your heart strings, instilling fear, rising up anger in some cases (think hate preachers like Greg Locke or just any of them that hate pagans, witches, lgbt people, etc) and in general using emotional manipulation to get people to follow something they otherwise wouldn't if they really put thought into it and started questioning. One such example of this is the power of music. Music is really good in this aspect: happy songs brighten your mood, sad songs make you cry or whatever, etc. Especially in a church environment with large groups of people, emotions can run high, like some kind of emotional rush or jumping for Jesus or feeling the presence of the holy spirit through the music playing like he's all around you or something like that. This effect also happens in large groups in all kinds of places: sports games, concerts, etc. It doesn't have to be musically-related. Not sure what the name for this is, but I'll be sure to check after posting.

 

Let's also not forget preachers on their elevated stages, preaching to the crowd that is often placed at a lower level than them, which kind of puts the audience in a lower position compared to that of the preacher, who usually remains on stage or stands at a podium to maintain something of the preacher being the "higher power" while the audience is placed at a lower elevation to be made to look up towards the person speaking as if they were below them. Even if it's just a little bit more elevated. Again, this is done outside of a religious context too to give the speaker more importance by placing them at a higher position,  even if it's done just at a slightly higher elevation.

 

One personal example I can think of with Christianity was when I went to this church event to this cabin place in the woods, which I did enjoy to some extent. We couldn't have our phones on, which was understandable because they wanted us to connect with God and others (I still snuck my phone in and watched YouTube anyway. No way was I going to miss Minecraft Live. You can't stop me, Jesus). Anyway, the part of this whole trip that stuck with me the most was the note burning. Essentially, we were encouraged to write something that was troubling us and throw it into the fire as a way of dealing with it, I guess. You could also talk about it openly  as well. I did write something, but I don't quite remember exactly (although I could very much guess). I remember one girl telling really horrifically traumatic stories and breaking down into tears while the girl beside her comforted her. I think she had to walk away for a bit to stop crying. It was something that I had recently thought about in my processing of past experiences that will stick with me forever.

 

Christian media and how a lot of it seems to be poor-quality trash...

Onto the next part, I will be discussing Christian media, specifically the horrible movies we watched in school. One such example is the God's Not Dead series. We only ever watched the first one, but I learned of it's sequels through YouTube videos and I will never watch the others for my own sanity. Looking back, I initially never noticed the glaring flaws and warped view of atheism this movie presents, but ever since seeing reviews covering this dumpster fire, I picked up a few things. One: The antagonist of the movie isn't an atheist. He just hates god for taking one of his parents away or something. He doesn't fully disbelieve. Also he dies at the end and instead of calling a fucking ambulance right away, the Christian guy who stops to help him basically gives him a death-bed conversion on the road as he's dying. Holy shit. DUDE, HE IS DYING DIAL THE PARAMEDICS! There's a whole lot more wrong with this movie which I won't get into for the sake of time, but something that shocked me was that the main protagonist of this film is the same guy who stars as Spencer in Good Luck Charlie??? WHAT?? I didn't expect him to show up in a Christian propaganda film my mind was shattered after that revelation. That last part was a bit of a deviation from the problems of this movie, I know, but just something that shook me to my core lol.

 

Anyway, really hated how they also made the atheist professor an absolute dick. Like everyone who was Christian or coming close to converting were portrayed as wonderful people while the atheist professor embodied the angry atheist stereotype and they really went to just making him a dick for no reason other than to go "The atheists are mean to us. I cry because somebody thinks God isn't real NOOOO " and shape this harmful stereotype that atheists are angry and spiteful towards religion and God and can't be fully moral human beings because everyone knows you need to believe in God to be a moral person because if you don't you're just an angry person and you want to sin or whatever, obviously lmao. 

 

That being said, there are very rare exceptions to this: Veggie Tales and  The Prince of Egypt (I've only ever seen clips of the latter, but it seems fun). Veggie Tales tho. It has its moments, I'll give it that and it doesn't alienate it's audience it seems because even people who don't believe in God find it iconic and I think that's what Christian media should strive to be. Not alienating or othering other people who have opposing beliefs, but providing their perspective in a way that's not proselytizing or trying to convert you.

 

Some small bonus things that just get to me for some reason,  probably just nitpicking at this point...

When Christians raise their hand up during songs. I just find it weird and uncomfortable when some of them do that and I only see it happening in churches I just don't like it for some reason. Also the idea of just having faith and not constantly questioning everything you've been taught. Very cultish if you ask me. Even Christians who do encourage thinking harder about this and asking the big questions still ultimately seem to want you to come back to the faith and I don't vibe with that either. Televangelists, need I say more lmao.

 

I'm sure there's plenty more I can cover, but I'll stop here. I plan on posting about other topics like the phrase "Love the sinner, hate the sin" and "Ex-Gays" and such whenever I have the time, so look forward to my thoughts on that because oh boy do I have them alright. Anyway, thanks for reading this all haha. See you on the next post.

 

-Casual