They often operate on the “just-world fallacy” too. I.e. if people are poor, starving, arrested, deported, raped, it’s because they deserve it.
‘Its all part of gods plan sweetie’. Had my mom feed me this line when I wanted to help a homeless person
“Yeah part of Gods plan is me helping him Mother. Now be a good woman and obey like the book says you should.”
Sometimes I wish I could do that, just ignore all logic and believe what you want.
So those people starving in Africa? Oh no God’s plan.
People getting killed in Gaza? Also God’s plan
That Kirk guy getting shot? Evil left, nothing to do with God.
Immigrants trying to find a better life in a different country? The worst people, nothing to do with God.
Aunt Marget died of cancer? Poor Marget, she was just unlucky,
It did not help she had no health insurance? No thats not it, that’s communism
But if something bad happens to them, it’s because God is “testing them.”
Maybe evangelicals who preach the prosperity gospel believe in “just world”? However in the Book of Job it is made pretty clear that doing everything God asks of you doesn’t help you at all, and might even be a reason that you get shit on. Jesus repeatedly says that his kingdom is not on earth. Anyway…
Reminds me of being a pastor’s son at ~5 and asking the Sunday School teacher if Satan could be saved, since God wants everyone saved. I was sincere–it troubled me that there was a creature that was without hope. Now I understand I should be happy that fucker is burning eternally. He should’ve never messed with God! That’s just normal adult stuff! You live and learn!
Buddhism has a more Christian example of Christ-like behavior concerning a “living being Satan”. That is to say, if “living being Jesus” was real, he would be a Bodhisattva, perhaps akin to Kṣitigarbha.
In the story, Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha vowed:
“Until the hells are empty, I will not become a Buddha.
Only when all sentient beings are saved will I attain enlightenment.”
It is a vow to never abandon any being regardless of their state.
I like that idea. Boundless love and compassion doesn’t stop at the bounds of some hell. It is boundless. It has boundless time, so it will spend an eternity reaching out to even cyclic hells.
I’m a Buddatheist who grew up with both cultural Catholicism and later Christian Evangelicism.
I like how this hints at the nature of the self. If I leave someone behind am I not also leaving myself behind?
For me, ethical acts are those that increase the freedom of the self and others. We all suffer. That’s a fact of life. If we dissolve our concept of the self and acknowledge our link to others and the world itself we can see ourselves more as threads going through human experience. If we are kind to ourselves and “others”, we have a better chance at reducing that suffering.
Imagine the time a stranger forgot their wallet and you paid for their coffee. A version of that experience could still exist in that person’s mind long after you die. It could get blended with other experiences and reinterpreted. It could be told as a story to a friend who was inspired by the act. The cascading effects of that person being properly caffeinated on that day could have world changing effects. In a similar way, I carry the shared experiences of my own ancestors and even strangers who have shared their stories with me. They are still alive as a small part of me because my true self is humanity or even some animating life force of the universe or something like that and the name that people call me just refers to the limited perspective and incomplete view I have of existence. Essentially I see existence as blinders limiting my perspective like a race horse, but the true self is a satellite view of the track. When I act, I do so based not only on my experience, but the collective experience of every perspective and experience that has been conveyed to me in every way, but I am still one human body, in physical space, subject to time. I hope that when I die, those blinders will be lifted and I’ll exist as pure conscious perception of everything that ever was is and will be. Able to see through anyone’s eyes, in any time. To feel any and every feeling felt my an animal or human. To view the entirety of existence as a completed masterpiece from outside time itself.
You can probably see why I like the Buddhists.
I find that when you acknowledge the interconnection of things compassion becomes easier.
I hope that people rediscover that within themselves and others.
Buddhism sounds like this incredible ascetic ideal to the Westerner, until you hear about Buddhist terrorists.
Buddhism in the western world is a sanitized and very narrow part of the positive aspects of the religion. Like taking the teachings of Christ and ignoring absolutely everything else about Christian religions and what they have actually practiced.
Really if you look at any religion and pick only the good parts of their teachings, it doesn’t matter much which one you choose as they’re basically all promoting nice things like love, compassion and self-control. The problem is none exist in a vacuum; they’re all affected by their histories and the societies where they’ve been practiced, and knowing humans… it’s always a huge mess no matter where you are.
I find that when you acknowledge the interconnection of things compassion becomes easier.
A universal truth.
I will join the first religion that allows me to re-unite with my beloved cat, after I die. Stupid christianity tells me that my animals don’t have souls, when in fact, they are far better beings than most humans.
Nice. I like 99% of what I’ve encountered from Buddhism.
Like so much else, the religion in theory strays from the religion in practice
U Rarzar works for the Ma Ba Tha (Association for the Protection of Race and Religion), a Buddhist organization comprised of both monks and laity. The organization is well-known for its social welfare programs and its advocacy of Buddhism. It is also known for its persecution of the Rohingya Muslims. Buddhist organizations such as the Ma Ba Tha have circulated pamphlets and flyers espousing the dangers of Islam and the imminent Muslim threat. U Rarzar is in charge of the organization’s bi-weekly magazine. In his mind, Muslims, no matter their ethnicity, are a threat to Buddhists. According to U Rarzar, “Muslims and ISIS are the same. It is just the difference of a name."
I said 99% for precisely that reason. Because I haven’t encountered much of it, but know it exists. Now I read another article, so let’s say like 94% now.
Of course! Because heaven and hell are made up and facts don’t matter!
That’s an interesting take.
Let’s confine the statement to the bounds of a materialist’s reality for a moment and see how it holds up.
A child somewhere in the world just had their arms blown off withnessing their mother and father evaporating before their eyes. In the mind of this child, is it in: a) normal Earth life b) heavenly Earth life c) hellish Earth life
A woman somewhere just discovered their partner has been cheating on them with just about everything that moves, and they have HIV. She has always been loyal for all the many years they’ve been together. In the mind of this woman, is she in: a) normal Earth life b) heavenly Earth life c) hellish Earth life
A soldier somewhere just fired on a little kid they mistook for an enemy. They go to sleep that night haunted by what they’ve done, finally realizing they are the bad guys and everything they are is a lie. They’ve done unspeakable horrors to so many innocent people, and it is all rising to awareness. Is this solder’s mind in: a) normal Earth life b) heavenly Earth life c) hellish Earth life
Heaven and hell are manifested here in Earth within the hearts of all beings.
You’re talking about two different things. They were talking about heaven and hell as real, physical places that you go to after you die. You are using heaven and hell as metaphors for the real things that happen in life.
They are the same thing.
Lucifer/Satan never even actually kills anyone in the Bible, whereas Yahweh commits literal genocide on multiple occasions.
It should also be noted that the serpent never even told Eve that she should eat the fruit, just that she COULD.
Side note that always puzzled me… 1) why would God create a tree that has fruit that teaches you the difference between good and evil? 2) why would god put this tree in the garden in the first place? 3) why would anyone (particularly an omniscient) ever think that the people who have no concept of right and wrong (before eating the fruit) are going to be able to resist it? And finally, 4) WHY IS KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL A BAD THING??
It’s all just so fucking idiotic that it hurts my brain.
The biggest one for me was, “Why doesn’t he want them to know they’re naked?”
He gets all pissy because Satan ruins his perverted, non-consensual peep-fest and decides to curse literally everything for all time. Fucking gross.
Yeah. He loves you so much. But also, if you don’t do exactly as he says, you will literally burn in a lake of fire for all eternity. Why? Because a couple people ate some fruit that I tempted them with and, let’s be real, always knew they were going to eat anyway.
That’s an abusive relationship if I’ve ever seen one.
Don’t even get me started on how stupid it is that he had to send himself to earth, as his son, to die painfully, in order to save humanity? Like what dude? Do you not literally make the rules? Why would you make it so you have to do such bizarre convoluted shit? Just wave your hand.
Also weirdly into the importance of being willing to sacrifice your children as an act of necessity sometimes (literally both Abraham and Jesus, plus the plagues, David, etc…).
Yeah… If you start looking at the Bible with Yahweh as the bad guy, and Lucifer as, maybe chaotic good or just chaotic neutral, it starts to make a little bit more sense.
Edit: To be clear, it’s still all bullshit lol
lmao Satan is chaotic neutral and God is lawful evil. Jesus, assuming his character is different from Yawheh, is neutral good.
IIRC, Yahweh evolved out of El, who the OG hebrews considered the best god of the Canaanite pantheon.
The Old Testament starts making more sense when you realize that there were other gods in the pantheon at one point. Like all the whining about Ashera is because she was El’s ex.
He did. Pretty much everything about that shit was taken from somewhere else.
Christianity stole from Zoroastrianism too.
“The plagues will continue until morale improves” kind of vibe, hey?
If we believe that the various Satans (in the original Hebrew, literally “adversary,” and rendered without the definite article so there are probably multiples of them) are in fact one and the same with the Devil (singular), this link-up doesn’t even occur until the Book of Revelation which is firmly a new testament thing and wholly unsupported by any of the old testament or ancient Hebrew sources from which it’s derived. Making all the assumptions required on basis that this is so, then whoever he was killed a lot of people in Revelation. But not until then.
In old Hebrew tradition, the Satans are sort of the prosecuting attorneys for god. They work for him in order to tempt the faith and righteousness of various people. Several mortal people are also given the moniker of “Satans” when they’re working against the interests of god or various other individuals.
Meanwhile, the notion that Lucifer is also one and the same with the Devil or any kind of Satan is a much later interpolation made when the church(es) of the era wanted to insert a bogeyman into their religion and they needed a justification for it, some time in the AD 200s. Lucifer is identified as the king of Babylon, a mortal, when he has attracted god’s ire in his sole appearance in Isaiah 14. The situation has become so warped that his name was finally removed in the New International Version of the bible and he’s simply referred to as the “morning star, son of the dawn.” (Isaiah 14:12, if you want to go have a look.)
Modern pontificates will also insist that the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 is also somehow the Devil, which is dubious. Even if he were, and god were speaking allegorically for precisely half of his rant as we are thus demanded to believe, god smokes him at the end of the passage anyway so it’s a moot point.
Maybe.
On the other hand, there’s no actual evidence that any of this is real in any way. So there’s that…
Oh, one other point of order on that as well: Obviously even if it’s not all bullshit (spoiler: it’s all bullshit), Revelation is supposed to be a prophecy of the end of times which obviously hasn’t happened yet. I’m pretty sure we would have noticed if it did, what with the sounding of the seven trumpets, the worldwide earthquake, the 200 million horsemen slaying a third of mankind, etc.
So even if it’s all somehow inerrantly true, the Devil hasn’t killed anyone yet.
Revelation just reads like a dude who got dosed and is tripping without knowing why. John probably ate some bad mushrooms.
Also, if I recall, many people attribute his apocalyptic vision to what was happening in Rome at the time with Nero.
Holy shit, I’m not religious at all, but 5 year old u/potoooooooo is the CUTEST fucking thing.
Ugh, children really are innocent/wholesome, and its the adults around them that inject poisonous ass ideas into their minds.
I was “raised Christian.” The top reasons I despise religion is the a) hypocrisy from top to bottom, b) a person can go through life wrecking others others in ways that may be devastating, permanent, and/or traumatic that they have to live with forever and are supposed to just accept it like some mind of lesson from god, yet the person who does all the damage gets to go to heaven if the ask for forgiveness in just the right way.
Yeah, the whole “love each other and forgive everything” lessons of my youth have been replaced by “fuck you, I’m getting mine” christians.
E: also, the victim complex. Constantly fuck with other people, try to force your religious rules and views on them, and then when criticized or those people otherwise defend themselves or their position: “You’re attacking me! You’re attacking our faith! You won’t let us practice our religion!”
Actually American Americans are the “Pharisees”. They just hate to be called to be called out by Jesus.
They act like Pharisees. They talk like Pharisees. I hope they will be judged like Pharisees.
Does anyone actually think these pseudochristians are actually pure in any way?
They do. That’s why they’re so hateful to anyone who contradicts them.
I figured most of them for the “religion is a useful tool to manipulate others” instead of actually believing in any sort of purity - other than rationalizing their shitty treatment of others.
I think the rationalization of shitty behavior is key. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and there is no end to the mental gymnastics or cognitive dissonance people will go through to remain the hero.
It’s almost Occam’s Razor. It’s easier to believe someone is a selfish hypocrite than some kind of moral-less grifter.
That’s not to say there aren’t grifters, just that the vast majority have drunk the kool-aid and keep drinking it because of a warped sunk-cost fallacy scenario. If I stop drinking, I have to admit I was bad and wrong, so I double down and stay the good guy.
Of course, everyone will be judged eventually. Pretty sure it says that in the Bible too.
Yeah, the whole “love each other and forgive everything” lessons of my youth have been replaced by “fuck you, I’m getting mine” christians.
Ah yes, the Boomer Christians.
point B was my favorite part of The Brothers Karamazov.
Ya you nailed it. Good people are punished and bad people rewarded.
You need to read your Bible more often if you think you’re the first person to have noticed that.
I recommend Isaiah 30:8-17.
Lol, the Bible is full of contradictions that are all rationalized and interpreted by the wants of the individual and leader. No desire to dig into that any more than I already have.
So… it’s just like people are then?
Not quite? You can have a person that does all those things on their own, sure… they aren’t part of a “club.” But when religion using that bible makes a group of people all doing the same thing it can be very destructive.
I guess the real question is whether using a Bible makes people more likely to mess up, and less likely to notice, or vice versa.
I understand that the former is what you are currently experiencing, but in order to form a statistically valid conclusion, you’d kinda have to be scientific about it and do a proper null hypothesis test, wouldn’t you.
This was one of the fundamental experiences of whiplash that shot me straight out of the Christian community. Giant pile of child-fucking hypocrites.
Meh for me it was the child fucking.
I’m an atheist, but I would probably guess that those type of Christians aren’t real Christians at all. It seems to be common in America for people to associate “traditional family values” with Christianity. Which very basically translates to racism and homophobia. So they hide behind Christianity like they’re holyier then thou. These people aren’t Christians, their bigots with disassociative disorders. You were raised by bigots.
I don’t agree when you say “racism and homophobia”. American Christian values are racism and homophobia and misogyny.
You can be all of those things and be Christian.
Oh I was raised by bigots. Both full narcissists. Its why democrat and republican mean nothing to me. My democrat dad switched to a republican without changing one racist bigoted opinion. Made sure everyone knew how generous he was. Only he was generous when no one was around to see. Then he was cruel and mean. When I stopped being his victim he disowned me. Of all those christians he was hanging around ninety percent of them were just like him. They were incrediblly mean to people and always justified it using the bible. If their afterlife were a real thing then they wouldn’t be that way. The reason why they can be that way is that they know its all a scam. If jesus ever existed that jewish dude wouldn’t be someone they cared for.
I long for the day they are taxed for their donations and then we will see how christian they are. Whats left might be worthy of my repsect. But I doubt it.
Yeah so I was raised in a reasonably devout household, and I’ve never really been able to resolve this.
Its related to the fundamental attribution error - we judge others by their actions but ourselves by intentions. Except its more than that because religion creates this us vs them dynamic, where anyone who is “us” has good intentions, but anyone who is them does not.
Let’s suppose a “good” person is one who performs acts of altruism, has integrity, and a high level of emptiness self awareness.
In my experience these “good” people are a small part of any group. Any race, creed, city, social group, whatever.
With that in mind, I don’t think religion makes people good - rather its a system of beliefs that allows people to perceive themselves and their friends as good.
Really I think this explains why religion is so prevalent. Ultimately being “good” isn’t a very good gig. Imagine doing destitute because you’ve spent your life performing acts of altruism. OTOH if it merely allows one to form a cohesive group of “good” people, i can see how that would be perpetuated.
I only realised this after I was well past my “Angry Atheist” phase: There are good verses in the Bible and there are also bad verses. Most of the Christians cherry pick. How they cherry pick depends on who they are. In my opinion, there aren’t any real or fake christians. There’s only good christians and bad christians.
The toxic manipulation of how American Evangelical churches teach the Bible is to intentionally remove context and just point to a through-line of whatever supports the topic of the week. The same out of context OT verse can mean 30 different things to these people.
It’s like the challenge was how to hold in one’s mind “being Christian” and simultaneously going down a checklist of actions and words listed as defining Christianity and doing the exact opposite. Though, By 320 CE, that was the status quo.
Jesus’s whole way at talking truth to power was to acknowledge and show compassion for those marginalized and hated by the Romans and the Pharisees. His main problem with the Pharisees was literally the hypocrisy of them saying they follow the laws of the religion, and then not doing any of that. It was dangerous to call them hypocrites due to their political power.
Sound familiar yet?
It’s almost like those words mean exactly the opposite. Like with Doublespeak.
Literally so hard this. I was raised by christians and they were disappointed when I turned out to not be a christian adult. I tried so hard to point out the hypocrisy of them teaching me to always treat others with respect and to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” but being hardcore right-wingers and trump supporters, being racists af and hating trans and queer people. They still don’t seem to get it.
“If Jesus was here, he would join the front lines”, my incredibly Catholic relative that needs to re-read the sermon on the mount.
After decades of arguments, the best I managed was slightly changing the language used. Now around me my dad calls black and brown people Democrats instead of slurs. Thinks he’s damn clever too.
Social media, that’s why. The brain being cooked in dopamine all the time by algorithm and fake news fries the brain. People forgot how to be nice.
Grew up in the south before social media existed. It’s the cause of a lot of problems, but this one predates it by a wide margin. It definitely made it worse, but there is no greater hate than Christian love.
No one forgot how to be nice. They just dont have to be online, because they know they can get away with being a cunt. Social media has outed a lot of people for being cowards.
There are anecdotes of people changing for the worse. I remember a poster who said his parents became Trump supporting bigots, even though growing up they taught OP not to be racist.
I have no doubt thats true. The problem is that people are complex and just because they support one thing, doesnt mean they support all things. Id bet if you asked most people in 2016 why the voted for Trump, most would say something about the state of politics and “draining the swamp” sounded like a good thing.
I guess its up to you if you see a difference between not caring/not being aware and supporting. I suppose the end result is the same, but it might make a difference when you talk to them?
I saw someone else post in here about talking to their dad about the someone being raided by ICE. The dad said “maybe they were criminals?” and the commenter then launched into a tirade swearing and abusing their own father. Now, maybe the dad was a big Trumper, I dont know. The comment didnt make it clear. But IMO, if you want to change peoples minds or open their eyes past what their own self interest, then calling them names is the wrong way to go. Its only going to force them to double down, and well, we already saw what happens then. We got another 4 years of Trump…
Social media has really made it so that most of us, are just unfiltered mega cunts. We dont talk to people most of the time. We talk at them, looking for any kind of small mistake, so we can jump on them and abuse them. Looking at Reddit for example when Trump won, when Brexit happened, when Trump won again, and you can see the utter shock and surprise because the echo chamber convinced them that they were in the right, and everyone else was wrong. IMO, what happened was that anyone who supported Trump or Brexit was just shouted down, abused, called names. So no one ever took the time to explain to them why these things were bad. One of the worst things that ever became popular to say on line was “Its not my job to educate you!”.
Maybe the poster you remember, wasnt being 100% honest. Maybe his parents became Trump supporters because they fell for his bullshit? Maybe they supported some idea of what he was saying(draining the swamp/lowering taxes/etc etc) and the other stuff they didnt know about or care about? We need to learn to talk to each other again, without being snarky, or cunty, or even just feeling attacked because someone disagrees with us. We need to get out of the habit of assuming the worst, and a lot more of us need to get out of the habit of taking out years of repressed anger from being bullied onto other social media users.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk lol. Sorry about the long read. Have a great weekend!
Christianity is OK, until it interferes with a billionaire’s interest…
This is kind of like game of thrones when the lannisters aligned with the church. Inevitably, the fanatics try to seize power.
But, in GoT, the Lannisters were the fanatics
I think they’re referring to the later plotline when that old preacher dude makes a power grab and has Cersei walk through town naked and shit.
Honestly it’s been so long since I’ve seen it (and even longer since I read it) so I’m prob getting it wrong.
that old preacher dude makes a power grab and has Cersei walk through town naked and shit.
Cersei had committed a litany of horrific crimes and was forced to pay penance. The walk of shame was intended to reprimand her and to wake her up to the degree to which her people reviled her for her corrupt leadership.
She could have come out of it wiser. She could have returned to the palace, experienced contrition, and looked to repent further for her abuses and excesses. Instead, she bombed the church and killed thousands of people.
I don’t know how else you describe that except as fanaticism.
She wasn’t a fanatic, she was cold and calculated.
The “fanatics” were the religious faction that was gaining power.
She wasn’t a fanatic, she was cold and calculated.
Eh. She was detached (often because she was drunk) and ruthless. But she was also obsessed with the Targaryans, initially because Rhaeger rejected her for Lyanna Stark but eventually because she needed to justify incest with her brother. She was absolutely a fanatic. A racial purest, obsessed with the perpetuation of her bloodline. The “at least she was a loving mother” line others attributed to her was far more about her fixation on continuing a permanent line of Lannisters.
The “fanatics” were the religious faction that was gaining power.
The Sparrows were a branch of The Church of the Seven composed of impoverished working people ravaged by the endless wars between the Houses. They were certainly orthodox in their beliefs. But the “fanaticism” tended to be described as disrespect for the aristocracy and militant organization outside of the major Houses.
Hell, the most notable aspect of the Sparrow leadership was that it was not beholden to the throne. The High Septon under King Barathon was as much a party to the intrigue and debauchery as anyone else in the council, and this passed as normal behavior. He wasn’t above having people tortured or executed for apostasy. He just knew when to look the other way as it served the King. Breaking from the corrupt practices of the captured church was only labeled “fanatical” in so far as it ran afoul of the demands of a weakened central government.
Stannis and the Red Lady were significantly more fanatical in practice, given the number of people they burned alive and the amount of out-and-out witchcraft they performed. The Sparrows were just factional in so far as they refused to “bend the knee” in the same way as their predecessors.
As I said, It’s been years (decades even? fuck) since I’ve read the books and watched the show, so I’m a bit out of my league here.
I will concede your points as the material is clearly fresher in your mind.
I’ve often wondered if I would have grown up to be as vehemently atheist if I had grown up in a place without american “christians”
Don’t worry. There’s plenty of other diseased religions in other areas!
Helps if you read it as “care about others[parishoners]” not “care about others[foreigners, minorities, and other faiths]”
Ministers love to talk about charity when they’re passing around the collection plate. It never comes up on tax day.
That is a good point while honestly I can’t think of a vague group like “others” without thinking of including my e.g. mom and also a random person from who knows where. We are brothers and sisters. And I don’t understand how i could have learn anything else from Jesus’ teachings and I am now a non believer.
Last night’s Southpark kind of hinted at this topic a little bit. I’m curious to see where they take it, but I won’t post any spoilers here because I don’t know who has seen it.
kind of hinted at this topic a little bit
lol.
I love South Park, but it’s about as subtle as a freight train.
supply side jesus.
yeah, in jesus’s image, right. I wonder if jesus gave a fuck about other people…
Man, I think I was an atheist for years before I actually knew it. I disagreed with several things without even noticing for a long time. I’d skip going to church, (hell I would show up sometimes for the beginning and leave just so people would know they saw me that day). I hated LGBT people for a good chunk of it. That kinda stopped after I met some.
Then when someone close to me came out as trans, I didn’t even blink or feel weird about it. But the old beliefs still kinda hovered there for a while still.
That shit is hard to shake when it’s indoctrinated as bad as it was, mostly because of the fact that the fear of hell is reeeeal. It took a movie bringing up the fact that something that I believed was original to the Bible has been around well before it got put into the Bible. That finally shattered holding onto it, and everything else has been catching up ever since.
I’m finally becoming someone I’m not ashamed of.
That started 9 years ago. I still have a group of friends to get back to that tolerate me back then somehow and I need to reintroduce the new me.
Then when someone close to me came out as trans, I didn’t even blink or feel weird about it.
Calling bullshit on that, mate. Anything out of the ordinary, you are going to be curious about. People blink and feel weird when someone swaps playstation for xbox. If you had said that you didnt hate them just because, that would fine. But this “I totally didnt blink at something Im not used to” is a cheap virtue signal.
I dont care who you are, or what the issue is. If some suddenly isnt who you thought they were in some way, youre going to blink. Youre going to have questions. Wanting to understand things isnt bad. And honestly utterly fucking sick of every single person on the internet pretending that they arent the same human being that the rest of us are. If nothing else, youd at the very least be worried about them because of all the stories you hear about shitty parents disowning their kids for being LGBT. But not you, you didnt even blink…
And honestly utterly fucking sick of every single person on the internet pretending that they arent the same human being that the rest of us are
I don’t even know what this part means.
As for the rest of it, maybe I’m not using the word “blink” the same way. Your way is probably more correct. I was using a more substantial version than “blink” seems to mean, but maybe that’s just a regional or friend/family group difference.
But for reference, when I hear it used, it’s more in a sense of being shocked to the point of just kinda a brief mental shutdown, during which one would just blink while they process.
That’s just how I’ve heard it used, but on its face it does sound like it should be a much more minor reaction.
In which case, yes, I did blink. But if I had heard it a couple years before that, I would have had a much bigger reaction. Plus the fact that it was becoming more obvious shortly before they came out.
Either way my point was that at that point in my life I was coming out of religion enough that my reaction was more immediately supportive of my sibling rather than reacting negatively toward them in favor of the religious rules I had before.
I dont care, dude. You want the digital applause for being “one of the good ones”, you go, girl.
This is almost exactly what brought me out of christianity. I was institutionalised into it from birth. So, I always just glossed over the most obvious problems that people would bring up. If anything, it entrenched me further.
However, I started realising that I had more love and compassion for people than, not just christians, god claims to have, by their own admission.
How can I love a stranger than an all loving God?
It was all downhill from there.
