#exvangelical

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Okay I’ve put off writing and forever, let’s do it.

Starting with a parade of labels so you know exactly what box to put me in, I’m an ( and ) girl working on for a living (subgenres: corporate-owned, distributed data system) with a background in . I’m married and a of one, though I keep kid offline mostly. I’m a huge nerd that loves narrative media of all kinds but especially and most especially , as well as classical/ancient texts. I’m fascinated by the ways stories use and are influenced by their medium and process of creation. I’m a practicing working against christian nationalism and the evangelical cult. I play (mostly GM) and …

Misinformation is only a small part of indoctrination, propaganda, or mind control. Misinformation may seem like the payload itself, but it's not. It's only the delivery system.

The bigger part is the set of filters the misinformation installs that primes the target on how to process everything — even real information, personal experiences, PAST experiences, emotions, the stories others tell.

These filters leverage confirmation bias so that as they live in this world, the target puts together the pieces of reality in the way the cult wants them to. In this way, the target feels as if they've come to every conclusion themselves. They retain information that conforms to their indoctrinated worldview, and reject or make exeptions for what does not. (A solid understanding of Cognitive Dissonance/Consonance Theory is useful in unpacking how this works.)

[ed to add hashtags]

This is a blog post I wrote 14 years ago which I didn't know at the time turned out to be the beginning of my . I had just discovered that the Bible was literature and God didn't demand for us to not believe in . It was the pushback from other that caused me to "lose my faith", as I couldn't figure out why God would allow so many Christians were simply wrong about so many things. https://www.devlord.io/blog/2010/07/01/natural-revelation-and-the-framework-hypothesis/

The business man puts up the money to build the church, he puts up the money to keep it going; and the first rule of a business man is that when he puts up the money for a thing he "runs" that thing. Of course he sees that it spreads his own views of life, it helps to maintain his tradition.
-UPTON SINCLAIR, THE PROFITS OF RELIGION

A picture of the book _Exvangelical and Beyond_ by Blake Chastain
The business man puts up the money to build the church, he puts up the money to keep it going; and the first rule of a business man is that when he puts up the money for a thing he "runs" that thing. Of course he sees that it spreads his own views of life, it helps to maintain his tradition. -UPTON SINCLAIR, THE PROFITS OF RELIGION