Helvede

Mx. Luna CorbdenWe're moving from the "surround yourself with yes-men" to the "execute the no-men" phase of pursuing excellence.<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenAn excerpt from the most recent issue of ICSA Today, on how to help someone escape coercive indoctrination, by Dr. Janja Lalich, one of the cult researchers I quote in Recovering Agency.In short, DON'T PREACH. DON'T ARGUE. Instead, show someone what having a choice looks like."Effective Intervention Approaches"1. Creating Safe Spaces for Ambivalence: Rather than demanding immediate recognition of abuse or control, effective intervention allows people to safely explore their doubts without threatening their entire meaning system at once. This might mean supporting someone in questioning specific practices while temporarily accepting their continued commitment to the group’s core beliefs."2. Reconnecting with One’s Pre-Group Identity: Helping individuals reconnect with aspects of their identity that preceded their involvement in the totalistic environment. This isn’t about erasing their experience but about expanding their frame of reference beyond the bounded system. I describe this as doing something that will hopefully tug at their emotional heart strings, reawakening thoughts, feelings, memories that have been suppressed by the group’s indoctrination processes."3. Addressing Practical Constraints: Understanding that bounded choice operates through both ideological and practical constraints. Effective intervention often requires addressing concrete obstacles to leaving—financial dependencies, fear of social isolation, lack of practical life skills—along with psychological barriers."4. Building Alternative Support Systems: Recognizing that totalistic environments become self-reinforcing partly because they meet real human needs for belonging and meaning. Intervention must include helping individuals find alternative sources for these needs."<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/MindControl" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#MindControl</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmo" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmo</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmormon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmormon</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/USPol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#USPol</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/ReligiousTrauma" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ReligiousTrauma</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenThis honestly reminds me quite a bit of the troubled teen industry. They both bear similar MOs.<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/scam" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#scam</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/documentary" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#documentary</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/HBO" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HBO</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/HistoricalCyberpunk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HistoricalCyberpunk</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenI'm watching this docuseries on HBO called Telemarketers, but it really buries the lede. It's actually about police union corruption, how police unions hire ex-con telemarketers who can't get jobs elsewhere to use the names of officers killed or injured in the line of duty without compensation to scam money out of old ladies' social security checks to pay for political protection to run amok in society, and how those same call centers also run scam PACs.Only the first episode is about telemarketers."Police State" is not an exaggeration.<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/scam" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#scam</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/documentary" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#documentary</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/HBO" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HBO</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/HistoricalCyberpunk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HistoricalCyberpunk</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenYou have the right to consent to a conversation.I learned this with my abuser, who didn't think I had this right. I also didn't think I had this right, part of my childhood conditioning, but once I realized I did and started to assert boundaries, I quickly learned that he didn't think I had this right. He accused me of all kinds of things (like abuse, manipulation, avoidance, punishment) when I said things like, "I don't want to talk about this right now. We can discuss it tomorrow when I'm feeling better." I was drinking his kool-aid, so he did manage to pull me back in many times, until I fully absorbed that I DO in fact have the right to withdraw my consent to talk.You can consent to touch. You can consent to sex. You can consent to being in the presence of someone. You can consent to talk to someone. Anything else is coercion.If someone does not like you withdrawing consent (for anything), and this is a dealbreaker for them, then the responsible thing for them is to make decisions about their own damn self. Maybe they need more sex, or more talk, or whatever than you can consistently give them. The mature thing is for them to accept the situation and decide their own boundaries. Maybe even, "I need someone who wants the same things I do, so I will find a different relationship." No fuss, no drama.It's also ok to discuss this with them, not as a threat or as a way to change their behavior, but in order to negotiate the needs of both in the relationship.That isn't manipulation, so long as you're not trying to *control* someone's behavior... that's just you accepting someone as they are and withdrawing your own consent or setting more distant boundaries of your own.Ultimately it comes down to: Are you trying to make someone do something or be a way they don't want to be? Or are you accepting themself as they are and making your own choices for your own life?<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/Abuse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Abuse</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/psychology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#psychology</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/consent" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#consent</a>

Mx. Luna Corbden<a href="https://infosec.exchange/@macbraughton" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@macbraughton</a> Thank you! Yes, people with actually good intentions eventually take accountability and change. I did that, and am still doing that. That's the proof of intent — awareness, action, outcomes. <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a>

Aurin (ki/ki/kis) :autism:<a href="https://defcon.social/@corbden" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@corbden</a> I feel like abusers prey on, and infiltrate, various activist scenes, subcultures and movements for similar reasons. They pretend to be good people trying to make the world better, they say the right words and they surround themselves with people who want to believe them and believe in the good in humanity in general.Activists can be incredibly naive, I know I certainly was. I couldn't consider why an authoriatarian person (as abusers are) would want to hang out in and do lots of work for, say, anarchist groups (or queerfeminist or veganarchist or climate justice etc). but it's like shooting fish in a barrel for them, precisely because no one suspects. and they do gain power, sometimes even easier because there is not supposed to be an official hierarchy. but there are inofficial ones and they can be very entrenched and insidious. I'm not trying to derail, just pointing out, like you say, these mechanisms work the same whether it's abusive families, cults, etc. and for example, they love playing the martyr. sure, christianity is the prime example and very on the nose about that, but a lot of secular and even anti-religious activist groups have their own versions of that going on. where ppl virtue signal via the woke version of ascetism, boykotting (except they don't even organise proper boykotts most of the time) as a form of self-flaggelation rather than as an organic expression of a heartfelt value. or bragging about how much state repression they suffer. or have their version of purity obsession...it's really important imho to recognise these patterns and see them for what they are, no matter how they're dressed up cause it comes down to the same old thing, the rest is smoke and mirrors.and that's the biggest red flag for me: someone who relies on smoke and mirrors, or is all talk and no action, who says one thing and does the other, who's a hypocrite. or else, you get the vibe that they enjoy punishing people (for righteous/woke/etc resasons, supposedly) for the sake of punishing ppl. or bullying or shaming or controlling. they dress it up in whatever way suits them but the cruelty is the point.<a href="https://climatejustice.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenA real "tell" of if someone is operating from an authoritarian mindset – vs just mentally ill, behaving from ignorance, or has out-of-control anger – is to watch how they treat those above them vs those below them in whatever hierarchies they inhabit.If he hits his wife but not a police officer? If she screams at her children but not her husband?If he can control his drunken rage towards his boss but not people of color?If they don't direct their misbehavior upwards the same way they do downline, then they CAN control their anger. They CAN control their mental illness. They DO know how to treat people they respect... ...the key here is that they don't respect those they see as beneath them.And that's the real crux of their worldview, of their moral system. They have fully bought into Abuse Culture.And make no mistake, when I searched inward, I found that, while I don't do this as blatantly as the abusers in my life, I did find some of these views inside myself, particularly in the way I treated children and in unpacking my implicit biases based on race, gender, and other vectors. Because abuse culture is programmed into all of us.(HT to Lundy Bancroft of Why Does He Do That for making me aware of this dynamic.)<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/abuse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#abuse</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenEssentially that's what my <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> model does. It addresses those beliefs, not just within an individual survivor, but for all of us, in how we help abusers with our language, beliefs, preferences, in who we choose to defend, in our moral systems, in our laws and biases.I've taken what I've learned from my own abuse recovery and therapy of many years, my studies on psychology and trauma, but most importantly, from learning about cults, high-demand groups, coercive persuasion, and religious trauma recovery, and merged those into a unified theory.There really isn't much difference between domestic abuse and cult membership.And cult recovery involves deconstructing those beliefs, making yourself aware of them so that you can consciously choose which to keep and which to throw away.I've been out of Mormonism for 24 years, and I still find beliefs I have not been aware of this whole time. I've been away from my worst abuser for almost a decade, and still find beliefs he instilled in me that I have not yet examined.The undue influence techniques used by cults are almost identical to those used by abusers and manipulators. These techniques are used at the societal and political levels as well, and can also demonstrate how racism, sexism, etc all work.I can't tell you specifically which beliefs you have in you, but I can show you the purposes they serve... there will be beliefs about who you can and cannot trust, what you should be afraid of, what punishments await you for misbehaving, and a couple dozen others. Knowing that framework can guide you through discovering your own induced phobias, milieu control, and thought-terminating clichés.(Brief plug for my book, Recovering Agency, which outlines 31 manipulation techniques in context of Mormonism, but that can be applied elsewhere.)<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/ReligiousTrauma" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ReligiousTrauma</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/Abuse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Abuse</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/PTSD" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#PTSD</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/CPTSD" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CPTSD</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/cults" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#cults</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/MindControl" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#MindControl</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenThere's an aspect of <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/CPTSD" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#CPTSD</a> I don't see much discussed or even studied, but you can bet that whoever is causing the CPTSD thinks of it this way, either with conscious awareness or not:Behavior modification.That's what really separates PTSD, say from a random act of violence, from complex PTSD that affects almost every area of one's life.CPTSD is a result of a behavior modification program. An abuser or abusive system conditioned you to believe and behave a certain way, often many sets of behaviors across most areas of your life. That's what makes something a cult or a high-demand group. That's what makes for a domestic abuse situation – it's in the things they force you to do.The recovery focus tends to be on the trauma itself -- ok we're in sympathetic nervous state, let's unpack triggers, get coping skills, EMDR, meditation, calm you down. Fine.But rarely (outside of cult exit counseling) have I seen much focus on the BELIEFS an abuser or system has instilled in us. Beliefs that modify behavior. That sense that if I touch a hot stove I'll be burned, but it's not a stove, it's normal everyday things that I can't avoid and I'm wandering an inescapable maze of pain-points.Address the beliefs themselves.It's a major gap in how PTSD is treated in our culture. EVEN the helping professional community is so bogged down in these abuse culture assumptions (that trauma is "in the past," that the abusers are no longer present, that it's just a nervous system thing, just process the trauma events) that they often ignore the set of interlocking ever-present beliefs, and they ignore the very aspects of society we're just supposed to tolerate (bad workplaces, chronic stress, toxic religious beliefs).What did my abuser make me *believe* about myself? What did my toxic religion make me believe about the world? How do I view reality through an abuser-provided lens?<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/ReligiousTrauma" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ReligiousTrauma</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/fascism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fascism</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/antifa" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#antifa</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/Abuse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Abuse</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmo" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmo</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmormon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmormon</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/PTSD" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#PTSD</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenI'm at the stage of my work researching and writing about abuse and religious trauma, where whenever I read something like, "I'm sure they had the best of intentions," I become appalled and amazed at the dissociation people carry, their utter naiveté, like all the abusers are somewhere "out there," mysterious beings we never meet and only hear about, but never the people we know or occupying positions of power we respect. If one or two of every ten people is on the Dark Triad of personality disorders, and even more are abusers, then statistically, naw hun, there's a very good chance they did, in fact, do it intentionally or were driven by dark impulses. That draconian policy is there for a reason. That clergy you're writing to begging for leniency is actually a bonafide asshole. He's not merely ignorant, but is getting off on this horrible process, and very likely laughing at your innocence, how easily misled you are.I see a reflection of my old self, and how such views kept me going back for more, if not from the first person who had finally proved themself as an abuser, then from the next person or system, ready to give the worst people the best benefit of the doubt until they proved themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt. Until I finally saw the connections between them all and learned not just some of the red flags, but ALL of them.I give no more excuses for harmful behavior. Even if I misjudge bad behavior as abuse when it's really just ignorance, letting someone with truly good intentions off the hook helps no one either. Accountability for EVERYONE. Even myself and the harm I've done. I answer for it and improve.Our programming runs deep. That's my goal in talking about the <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> model. If you're not woke to how it all works, then you're a flying monkey, an enabler, a dupe, a sucker, an accomplice. That's how THEY see you. So wise up. There's no other way to fight back.<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/ReligiousTrauma" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ReligiousTrauma</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/fascism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#fascism</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/antifa" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#antifa</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/Abuse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Abuse</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenOut of curiosity, I went to see when in fact "heed" dropped off in usage, and as I suspected, it was during The Enlightenment, just before the Revolutionary War. It tried to pull up again in the mid-19th century, then the 20th century put the nail in it. Again, probably because of its connections to the concept of obedience. To understand someone meant you would obey them, and after awhile that didn't seem so fun. (I just picture some angry old father screaming at his children to heed him or else.) Our society is FAR less authoritarian than it once was. (I saw a YouTube video on outsider artist Henry Darger last night, and jesus we have it good. I'd like to keep it that way and make things even better.)<a href="https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=heed" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=heed</a><a href="https://defcon.social/tags/epistemology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#epistemology</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/psychology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#psychology</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/etymology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#etymology</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/English" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#English</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenEnglish conflates the concepts of "hear" and "understand." Many conflicts get nowhere because we use the common phrasing, "You're not listening to me!" or "You didn't hear me!" when what we really mean is, "You didn't get me, I want you to make sense of what I'm saying."The process of comprehending what someone has said is different than hearing their words. How many times have you said, "You're not listening!" and they were in fact "listening" but not getting it? How many times have you said, "No I HEARD you?" when you did not, in fact, understand?English used to have a snappy word for this: heed. To heed was to both hear AND to understand. And it also meant "obey" which might be why it fell out of favor (which itself reflects an interesting point of cultural values shift). We DO in fact conflate "listen" to obedience, sometimes, especially towards children. But not as much as once was.The fact that all words mean multiple things, and that English has some issues with which things are conflated, can really influence how we think and interact. It's worth trying to unpack that. Then I start thinking towards how we can change English to be better.<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/English" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#English</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/etymology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#etymology</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/psychology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#psychology</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/epistemology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#epistemology</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenA video on why children go no contact.<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/psychology" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#psychology</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/narcissism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#narcissism</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/Abuse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Abuse</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/recovery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#recovery</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/Recovery2025" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Recovery2025</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/SgxW9SfhB5U" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/SgxW9SfhB5U</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenIt's not a MISunderstanding if it's a DISunderstanding.Not everyone argues in good faith. Some totally get what you say, but pretend not to, because you make too much sense and that is not convenient for them.Don't make good faith assumptions about people who are making bad faith assumptions about you.[Edit: This act is a form of gaslighting, coming from a gaslighting victim with long-term mental deficiencies because of it. My abuser definitely used this tactic.]<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenBut that's just a (conspiracy) THEORY!<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/ReligiousTrauma" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ReligiousTrauma</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmormon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmormon</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmo" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmo</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/UTPol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#UTPol</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/HandsOff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HandsOff</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenThere's a reason why cults can get away with just about any crime in this society. And it isn't the First Amendment.Cults serve an important function for the establishment:They get passionate, principled people out of circulation, directing all that Change-the-World energy towards bullshit. Cults protect the status quo.(You'll notice it's generally only the cults with large arsenals that they ever go after. I see you Janet Reno.)<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/ReligiousTrauma" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ReligiousTrauma</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmormon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmormon</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmo" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmo</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/UTPol" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#UTPol</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/HandsOff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#HandsOff</a>

Mx. Luna Corbden<a href="https://mastodon.social/@mister_shade02X2" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@mister_shade02X2</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/@timberwraith" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@timberwraith</a> It's always been this actually, since the 4th century. Western Christianity is more built atop Roman culture than it is atop Jewish. Its Roman values of colonization and dominance encoded into the nearest convenient popular movement available to Constantine, and as his empire crumbled, he managed to preserve those into the future. Christianity's worst features stem back to Roman conquest and have become our own society's worst features. It is a living leviathan that is 3000 years old, that fights for its life within the minds of increasingly unwilling human hosts. <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a>

Mx. Luna CorbdenI'm extracting my <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> posts again, for the book on said topic. So lots of self-boosts. Done for the day. 2023 on defcon.social is complete.

Mx. Luna CorbdenAfter all, the God of the Christian Bible as widely interpreted is awfully authoritarian. You couldn't find a better example of squishy principles, double-standards, might makes right, the ends justify the means, cruelty is the point, justice as defined by punishment, punishment that vastly outsizes the crime, transactional love, exclusion as a definitive value, hierarchy based on birthright as the perfect system, torture as a test of character, speaking love but not practicing it...Almighty makes Alrighty. It's a perfect fit for abusers. They shaped God into that figure, as the Bible was being written thousands of years ago, in how it was translated and encoded into traditions centuries ago, and in how they interpret it today. Whether at the top of the chain as a prophet or pope, or in the downline as a impoverished drunk who beats his kids, authoritarians are preferenced in the religious culture that has claimed a monopoly on love and morality.And nobody really wins. Not the prophet or pope, and not the impoverished drunk or his kids. After a time, the system is the only entity that "wins" as it feeds on every human being involved.<a href="https://defcon.social/tags/AbuseCulture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#AbuseCulture</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/ReligiousTrauma" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#ReligiousTrauma</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmo" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmo</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exmormon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exmormon</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exvangelical" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exvangelical</a> <a href="https://defcon.social/tags/exvie" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#exvie</a>

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