Mx. Luna Corbden 🐸Listen up, this is important:
Doubt isn’t the opposite of unquestioning faith.
Curiosity is.
#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #exJW #exvangelical #cult #LDS #Mormon #AbuseCulture
(Editing these to indicate 🧵)
NegativeNullThink of this in context of dealing with friends and family members who are still in a high-demand group.
Think of this when strategizing politically against cults of personality.
How can you stay curious, and how can you make them curious?
Then,
Think of this when recovering from a coercive environment and unpacking your mind of what they put in there.
Think of this in how you treat yourself.
Doubt is not the opposite of unquestioning faith; Curiosity is.
🧵
#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #exJW #exvangelical #cult #LDS #mormonism #AbuseCulture
I wish I’d had this insight to give as advice to all the many people over the years who have asked me how to help family members who are in a cult or high-demand religion.
THEY made doubt the opposite of unquestioning faith. But doubt isn’t a value. It’s a result of values. Nobody wants to identify as a doubter. Even skeptics aren’t operating out of doubt. Doubt isn’t an end point. It isn’t a goal. It’s a means to an end.
Curiosity tho? That flows. It moves. It’s dynamic. It has a resolution, and in cases where it doesn’t, it’s satisfying on its own.
Curiosity inspires critical thinking.
🧵
#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #exJW #exvangelical #cult #LDS #mormonism #AbuseCulture
I didn't leave Mormonism because I doubted. I left because I got curious, and the thing I got curious about led me to answers that contradicted the Church's story about God.
They've built all kinds of walls against doubt. "Doubt your doubts" is their current thought terminating cliché on the matter.
They've even built walls against being curious about very specific things.
But they haven't built any walls against curiosity in general, as a concept. If you can make a coercion victim be *curious*, you might get them to thinking. More importantly, if YOU can stay curious about them, you'll approach them with love.
🧵
#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #exJW #exvangelical #cult #LDS #mormonism #AbuseCulture
Curiosity towards people leads to empathy. It breaks down dehumanizing walls. You can't be fascist towards queer people or immigrants if you're *curious* about them. No, people are fascists because they have all the answers already. Curiosity opens the mind to love.
🧵
#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #exJW #exvangelical #cult #LDS #mormonism #AbuseCulture #antifa
Both unquestioning faith and doubt have two things in common: They are intellectual dead ends. They stifle. That is why high-demand religions and cults of personality need to pit these two concepts against one another. A person's only choice is between two stifling positions. Doubt offers no more freedom than faith does, and at least faith gives you answers.
But curiosity does offer freedom. And that is something they want their members to never even taste. Because once you taste it, you want more.
🧵
#ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon #exJW #exvangelical #cult #LDS #mormonism #AbuseCulture #antifa
moved servers ➡ @@corbden “Doubt your doubts”… haven’t heard that one before, sounds like it would be pretty effective sadly.
JWs literally use “independent thinking” as their scareword which always seemed a bit on the nose to me.
Hence, our understanding of the Scriptures is bound to be refined from time to time. The vast majority of Jehovah’s people rejoice over such refinements. A few become “righteous overmuch” and resent the changes. (Ecclesiastes 7:16) Pride may play a role, and some fall into the trap of independent thinking. Whatever the reason, such murmuring is hazardous, since it can draw us back into the world and its ways. ~ The Watchtower | July 15, 2006
@smitten Interesting! And while they're not naming curiosity, it wouldn't be too hard to pivot from "independent thinking" to curiosity I'm guessing.
But it kind of puts them at a disadvantage. When greater societal values are things like freedom and love, these groups in modern times have to work extra hard to skirt around those ideals without being obvious about it. Curiosity has good press in greater society, and a group like JW and Mormons who are "in the world not of the world," somewhat sequestered and somewhat not, have a hurdle there. They'd risk tipping their hand I'd assume.
@corbden Curiosity is the greatest reward too. It gives you permission to explore and search.
It's sad that my entire extended family (all Mormon) don't seem to have any curiosity in life at all. It's beaten out of them. It makes me very sad.
Hat. AuDHD cat 😷🌺🍉🌻🔻@negativenull @corbden when I was a child who asked "why" my mother would default to "i don't know, lets go look it up and see if someone else does"
This is the mid 80s. We sometimes made emergency library trips but usually when i was a little kid
somewhere in rhe house was some reference which would answer the question.
Curiosity was expected and treated as equal with not hurting anything unless i had to and not being mean to animals.
This is the mid 80s. We sometimes made emergency library trips but usually when i was a little kid
somewhere in rhe house was some reference which would answer the question.
Curiosity was expected and treated as equal with not hurting anything unless i had to and not being mean to animals.
@negativenull @corbden my parents are not perfect. But honestly i think thats a good foundation.
I didn't realize before
Curiosity is why people find out how to be better people.
I didn't realize before
Curiosity is why people find out how to be better people.