Godsmacked

Religious Trauma Syndrome is similar to PTSD. Negative beliefs taught at a young age have lifelong ramifications. In this episode, we are diving into what causes religious trauma.

Trigger warning: we're talking about lots of yucky stuff, and we're not psychologists!

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Katie Dooley  00:09

Hi Preston. 

Preston Meyer  00:13

Hi, Katie.What's wrong?

Katie Dooley  00:16

We have a sad episode today.

Preston Meyer  00:19

It's a little rough for sure. You're gonna welcome everybody

Katie Dooley  00:28

I know that's what you're doing. You're gonna give us more of a soft open.

Preston Meyer  00:32

Yeah, nothing.

Katie Dooley  00:33

All right. Well, welcome to the holy watermelon podcast. Speaking of rough, that was a rough soft opening.

Preston Meyer  00:46

Yeah, a little bit. Might have to make some edits.

Katie Dooley  00:50

Thank you can think of our topic today piggybacks off of last episode a little bit? A little bit. It's kind of how we

Preston Meyer  01:01

we kind of we kind of had a flavoring allusion to what's coming ahead. Wow. Yeah. My

Katie Dooley  01:11

palate is so exciting. It's not actually today. Trigger warning. We are talking about religious trauma for

Preston Meyer  01:21

Yeah, so an awful lot of society seems to agree that religion is good, or at least benign for the most part fair, but broad strokes like that gets you in trouble. Because there's an awful lot within religion that has caused some serious damage over the years and so we're going to talk about religious trauma Color

Katie Dooley  01:45

Me shock already being insensitive.

Preston Meyer  01:53

So we've we've already talked before about how some religious groups really lean into authoritarianism. Some people call them cults or danger, religion or danger

Katie Dooley  02:03

cults, yeah, to separate from regular call for sure. And

Preston Meyer  02:07

they do damage in pretty obvious ways that we've talked about. But now we want to explore some of the more subtle or more common issues found in mainstream religious societies.

Katie Dooley  02:20

Journey free.org defines religious trauma syndrome. And I should clarify so religious trauma syndrome from my understanding isn't like an official mental illness like you find PTSD in like psychologists books, but they are starting to identify it as a separate entity. And it's,

Preston Meyer  02:40

it's a thing that psychologists and therapists are talking about, but it's not in all of the Brain Stuff. Exactly.

Katie Dooley  02:49

So religious, again from journey free.org religious trauma syndrome is the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination. They may be going through the shattering of a personally meaningful faith and or breaking away from a controlling community and lifestyle. RTS is a function of both the chronic abuses of harmful religion and the impact of severing one's connection with one's faith. Right. So those are two important parts that a there's the doctrinal pieces and the community pieces, but also removing yourself most likely from all your friends and family. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  03:32

so we're gonna explore each of those points with some depth and and see how,

Katie Dooley  03:39

how it happens. And signs of it, I guess.

Preston Meyer  03:43

And the symptoms of religious trauma are pretty similar, similar to that of complex PTSD. In fact, a lot of people who are studying religious trauma, or having a hard time distinguishing one from the other, and some are just saying, No, it's just it is PTSD. It just happens to be triggered by this particular thing. And that's not terribly unfair, but I because of what we're talking about as the holy watermelon, we're looking at the religious aspects, whether you want to distinguish it from PTSD or not, there's the reason it comes to be is specific and kind of unique. Well, and

Katie Dooley  04:26

I think with religious trauma syndrome, as opposed to a comp, complex PTSD is that it's very systemic. And very preventable. And I'm not saying that there are pieces of PTSD that aren't systemic or preventable, but when you literally have international organizations perpetuating what we're about to talk about, it makes it an interesting case. I guess that's as diplomatic as I can put it.

Preston Meyer  04:56

Yeah. The scholar The classification is tricky. And it's probably gonna be tricky for a while. But the fact of the matter is, it's a real thing. Absolutely. But the symptoms are pretty obvious an awful lot of the time. And so we're going to talk about those was the first one on our list.

Katie Dooley  05:20

Here's why our list is confusing, confusing, confusing thoughts, and the reduced ability to think clearly. And these are also from journey. free.org. So

Preston Meyer  05:29

that's how I don't want to word this question.

Katie Dooley  05:34

I mean, that's like step one, in any indoctrination, is that you don't trust your own?

Preston Meyer  05:40

Your own thoughts? Yeah, if you're trying to free yourself from any system of thought that has been imposed on you for any real long period of time, breaking free of that is going to be problematic and is going to cause confusion,

Katie Dooley  05:54

especially when this isn't targeted at one specific religion, and won't be very sensitive Preston so you can slap my hand. But when it actively, most religions discourage you to think critically.

Preston Meyer  06:07

An awful lot of them, I can't say for sure most of them being more than half. But that's not a thing, I would say. An awful lot of them easily the Abrahamic faiths. Pretty often, mainstream Christianity has an awful lot that actively discourage critical thought. So there's a few that are more or less within the mainstream that encourage it. The Catholic Church has a weird relationship with critical thought that there's like when it comes to science and evolution, for example, they're totally on board with the scientific community. There's a lot of other places where things get tricky and cause bad relationships.

Katie Dooley  06:54

Wow. Just talking around it, love it, we're

Preston Meyer  06:58

gonna get into it as we go on. So

Katie Dooley  07:02

number two is negative beliefs about self, others in the world. And this can take the form of dissociation identity, confusion or crisis, depression, anxiety, grief, anger, feeling isolated, feeling lost or directionless. One thing I read in a lot of interviews that fall under this, there's really a lot of like, what surprised you when you left. And one thing I saw come up a lot is that these people who left their religious group were so surprised that atheists and agnostics could live happy, fulfilling lives. So that false hundreds of the negative thoughts about others is that you think if they don't have and this is just what comes up in research, and I think it's because they're the most vocal group but ex Christians or ex evangelicals, you know, think didn't realize that if you didn't know Jesus in your life, you could be a happy, healthy, kind, good person.

Preston Meyer  08:03

Way too many Christians. I have heard speak over the pulpit saying that there is no way that any non Christian could ever lead a fulfilling life, which, like that's, that's absolute garbage. I don't know how they can believe that. I don't know how you can go through your life and associate with your neighbors and believe that

Katie Dooley  08:25

I think I talked to I think I talked about this in our atheist episode is that I think people just assume they're Christian.

Preston Meyer  08:31

Yeah, I that is definitely reality for a lot of people. I don't know. It's weird.

Katie Dooley  08:38

I think if we picked someone that would didn't listen to the podcast and ask them what my religion was, they probably picked Christian.

Preston Meyer  08:46

Probably. Yeah, if you were just ask a stranger. Hey, what religion do you think I subscribe to? Or

Katie Dooley  08:51

even someone who knows me well enough to kind of know my personality and work ethic and some of that stuff but not know me so well, that we've talked about this or they've listened to the podcast, I would get I probably put money on it.

Preston Meyer  09:07

That's not an unfair assumption.

Katie Dooley  09:10

Anything Do you want to add to that point before I move on? Now, let's leave a lot to cover this video. Number three is a lack of pleasure or interest in things you used to enjoy. I think this is just a pretty general trauma response. Yeah. I look kind of love this one. Number four is feeling behind the times with cultural happenings. For sure

Preston Meyer  09:31

if you've if you've gone to church for years, and they say you're not allowed to read Harry Potter because it's of the devil, and then you go out into the open world and half of the people around you love wizard

Katie Dooley  09:43

know you're out of touch, or not having I mean groups that aren't allowed to have TVs or watch TVs and go on the internet. Oh, that's huge.

Preston Meyer  09:54

So about 14 years ago, I was hanging out with someone My friends and third dad brought home this guy who had left a Hutterite colony. And he ended up going back later on, but because he couldn't handle it, right, which is a problem that will explain a little more as we go through here, but his first night away, we watch Star Wars Episode One The Phantom Menace with him, didn't lose his mind. So to make it worse, somebody told him, this was a actual representation of the world outside of his little bubble, okay, that's mean that this is a thing that is actually happening somewhere. This isn't computer generated effects, space travel. I don't believe that he left the house believing that this is true. But in the moments immediately following this declaration, you can't feel anything other than completely out of touch with the world around you.

Katie Dooley  11:00

I've just finished reading an orthodox by Deborah Feldman. And it's a biography about her leaving the ultra orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York. And she talks about she's older. And when I mean older, I mean, like 19. And she goes to her first movie, and she like, couldn't wrap her head around. Like she couldn't understand that it was fake or real or like who these people were that they were playing other people. And I think it was Mystic River. She talks about that she's into this day. She's like, I have a really weird relationship with Miss Tucker, because I watched it in a context where it wasn't a movie. And we're like, so you look on screen and you go, who's in Sean Penn, Mr. Curry thing? You go. That's Sean Penn, but like she can't, even to this day. Like she doesn't see him as Sean Penn. Because she knew she watched it like it was a documentary like she can. Yeah. Mind blown.

Preston Meyer  11:56

Yeah, that's a problem. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  12:01

I think after that, she figured out what movies were but

Preston Meyer  12:05

but first time today, it's yeah, that messes with you for a while mistake

Katie Dooley  12:10

or was not like an easy movie to just, you know, it's not Wally, you know? Sure. It's, it's pretty heavy movie. So High School Musical, you know, you're really like jumping into the deep.

Preston Meyer  12:25

Sure. And there's a few other symptoms of PTSD that overlap here too. Nightmares are common flashbacks for sure. General emotional difficulty, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, sexual dysfunction, substance abuse, and sometimes even extreme violence. It's making these transitions can be really rough on people. Yeah. And that all comes from the trauma that you experience within these religious groups that broadly get categorized as good, or at the very least, but not.

Katie Dooley  13:02

Absolutely. And I mean, part of the problem is that, I mean, especially the ones that would cause religious trauma, because obviously, not all religious groups would cause religious trauma that you're supposed to be isolated. So it'd be really hard to even know that you've needed help, let alone being able to ask for help.

Preston Meyer  13:21

Yeah, well, the worst of the groups rely on you being isolated for their success. So that does make things a lot worse. And so of course, these problems appear more often in authoritarian and dogmatic groups than anywhere else, not only in the cults that we've previously addressed as the danger religions, but they're really quite common in Islamic groups, and even more common in Christian groups, specifically, well,

Katie Dooley  13:49

and again, I'll toss in Orthodox Judaism, halter Orthodox, for sure, because I just read that great book I highly recommend. Yeah, but it doesn't look too different from ultra conservative insert Abrahamic religion, right?

Preston Meyer  14:07

The biggest issues that tend to cause lasting religious trauma are toxic environments that focus on doctrines of you're not good enough or you're not good at all. And you're not safe and you can never be safe. I've seen churches do this and it's, I don't know how you stand at the pulpit and say something like that. And think that that's an okay thing to say.

Katie Dooley  14:29

There is I should show it to you when we are done recording. There's a I think it was a refinery 29 dock, a little mini documentary on the Christian mainstream music industry. And they interview like x musicians, and they basically say like, it got really hard to sing about how shitty you are as a person all the time. For

Preston Meyer  14:55

sure. So anyway, it's a world of Christian music is Oh, weird world for sure.

Katie Dooley  15:01

Maybe that'll be an episode.

Preston Meyer  15:03

Yeah, maybe it's weird because there's some Christian music that I really enjoy. And worship music is not the worst Christian music that there is out there. But it is the hardest to listen to. Because it's so repetitive.

Katie Dooley  15:20

Fun. Katie fact, I really enjoy religious Christmas, Carol. Sure. Like if you made me pick between like a secular Santa Claus Christmas Carol and then something about Jesus, I'd pick something about Jesus. They're just better songs.

Preston Meyer  15:36

All right.

Katie Dooley  15:38

I know now always surprises people and like I can appreciate you like, right.

Preston Meyer  15:47

Yeah, so it's, it's frustrating, because phrases like you're not good enough, can be useful in some situations. And as part of a constructive and helpful dialogue, but, I mean, that's a CAN NOT A is, they're usually not okay. Especially when they're repeated too often, especially when it's like drilled into constantly, then you're gonna have a bad time. And things like Original Sin and other mainstream Christian doctrines like that. The nature of hell, which does actually has a lot of variety, depending on who you're talking to about it. They're frequently used to reinforce very traumatizing ideas.

Katie Dooley  16:33

We'll get into that. But yeah, I, I definitely know, kids that were scared of how, yeah,

Preston Meyer  16:39

but an awful lot of parents whether or not their priests agree with them, have used hell to terrify their children. And that's not okay.

Katie Dooley  16:50

You're just asking for religious trauma? Yeah,

Preston Meyer  16:53

really. So there's a lot of ways that abuse fails to be discouraged in religious communities. And I want to address that a little bit, too.

Katie Dooley  17:04

I want to be sassy, you don't say?

Preston Meyer  17:08

One, there's always pressure to preserve traditions that any deviation or modification is treated as disrespect. And any sort of progress is seen as a spit in the face to those ancient righteous people that people like to look up to when they talk about the people who have gone before them.

Katie Dooley  17:26

Yes, because it hasn't changed at all in 2000 years.

Preston Meyer  17:32

Right? That's, it's nonsense. Traditions are constantly evolving. And we'd like to hope that they're improving and in an awful lot of situations they are our society in general, is a lot safer than it was 1000 years ago, for example, but to say that any sort of change or any questioning of why this tradition is upheld, people saw

Katie Dooley  18:00

I mean, it doesn't it doesn't even make sense in the context of, I mean, simply adapt or die. Right. And I think, you know, we'll we'll see. Obviously, this will take time, but it's already starting where churches that don't accept LGBTQ plus people are not going to last

Preston Meyer  18:18

year we're seeing a lot of them dwindle. And

Katie Dooley  18:21

this is a huge problem. And we'll talk in more detail about this later, but a huge problem in the Catholic Church with their sex abuse scandal. It's like adapter die. Alright, figure it out. They had the other third party look into all the sex abuse. And their findings were like, let the priests get married. Like that was literally the result was like, let them not be celibate, and marry and they're like, No, we can't do that. But people leave the Catholic Church in droves because they don't want their children.

Preston Meyer  18:54

Right. Well, it's it's so weird because the Ukrainian Catholic communion still look up to the Pope as the head of their church there. But they're slightly separate. Because they're the Ukrainian Catholics that they've they've joined the Catholic communion after establishing non traditions. Ukrainian Catholic priests can

Katie Dooley  19:14

marry Ukrainian Orthodox compared to beginning orthodox orthodox is

Preston Meyer  19:18

a lot more reasonable.

Katie Dooley  19:23

It's it's funny because it has the word orthodox in it. Right? So progressive Church,

Preston Meyer  19:28

the triggers, they never implemented the law to begin with, as far as I'm aware of where they said priests can't marry, which

Katie Dooley  19:35

is probably why the Ukrainian Catholic clergy are allowed to do it because they go, he's allowed to get married across the street. It's

Preston Meyer  19:43

fine. I guess they establish the tradition and then join the union. And so the Catholic community never stopped them from doing which is really odd. But so we do have Catholic priests who have wives and still work work in their communities. And it's just super obvious that it's working

Katie Dooley  20:07

there. Anyway, so that's my commentary on that point.

Preston Meyer  20:14

So this sort of absolutist devotion to tradition often leads to abuse of any person who points out any reason for change. Some people are shunned and excommunicated. Which there's an instant trauma maker right there. Absolutely. Yeah. Some people suffer physical disciplinary action, potentially an instant troublemaker. Yeah. Pretty high risk. Some people are forced into remedial indoctrination, that's gonna cause some problem. And some people are lucky enough to only be permanently blacklisted from opportunities to serve in their community.

Katie Dooley  20:51

Oh, boy.

Preston Meyer  20:55

Yeah. Which doesn't help build trust. Yeah, it's a problem. But abuse is not only used to ensure obedience to the dead. We also have a whole bunch of systems in place that perpetuates simpler abuses. Some will simply use your differing opinion as evidence that you lack faith. And in the worst situations, this has led to sexual abuse and murder. Yeah, which I don't know how you make that leap, in your mind intellectually, intellectually or emotionally. But it's happening, it's hitting the news. Some will use your lack of commitment to the group as evidence of other sins. And so of course, that will lead to fewer opportunities to serve, which just that builds a terrible spiral, where you're then obviously less committed to the group because you're not serving. And then people assume greater sins and then just gets worse and worse. Yeah, that

Katie Dooley  22:01

falls into the you're not good enough, or that you're not trying hard enough to whatever be holier whatever.

Preston Meyer  22:11

Yeah, that's being part and being an active part of a community is not supposed to be this heart. No, and I

Katie Dooley  22:23

think in my guess we'll probably be more specific on it. But any commitment to any community is supposed to ebb and flow. Yeah. Right. Sometimes you're really into it, and sometimes other stuff gets in the way. And in some of the stories I read, people would say that, like they couldn't give any more when they had to step back and take a break. And then they were guilt tripped into law, you know, like, what's happened to your faith or whatever. But you can only give so much to anything. And yeah, to be a healthy human beings have interests outside of your religion, I presume. And yeah, so some moments of your life you'll be more dedicated than others.

Preston Meyer  23:06

Financial offerings, especially in Christian traditions, though, certainly not exclusively, are directly connected to promised blessings. And unfortunately, this usually leads to manipulating gullible poor people into into donating more and more money and staying poor with the promise of some farcical windfall in the future. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  23:30

there's a few groups we see this in a lot. Send us your seed money. I was gonna say, Yeah, prosperity, gospel churches. Scientology is obviously a big Yeah. Yeah, up to par and too busy to realize what's happening, right.

Preston Meyer  23:51

Next one, I've got on my list, multi level marketing schemes. There's so often pressure to join multi level marketing schemes within religious communities, especially Christian churches, as far as I've been able to see, though, I'm sure it shows up other places too. And if you express any distrust in a company, you're accused of not trusting the people that you see every week and end up being pushed away by the crowd that did end up buying in which just seems ridiculous to me that there's that much pressure not and there is I've seen it, but it's ridiculous because how can your tiny business survive when you flood the market with eating providers?

Katie Dooley  24:37

Yeah, you need to tap new markets, right? You would want to be the only one in your church that sells the product if you're the only one at church that sells Tupperware you make him bank

Preston Meyer  24:49

by but you know what the real problem is? Pyramid Schemes rely on

Katie Dooley  24:54

a downline okay, then you and like you can have two downlines at your church. Ah, that's it.

Preston Meyer  25:02

You got to have more downlines. I know by selling the product anymore, you're just making money off of other people's product. Yeah. Well, not just other people selling your product, other people buying your product and hoping to sell and they probably won't. Because that's how those MLM schemes really work. It's not okay. And so if you're in a hard financial position, and turn down one of these opportunities, you're shamed or shunned for being lazy. I can't get work or join my, my company and be a salesman for me. No, bro, that's not cool. Oh, well, you're so lazy. That's not okay.

Katie Dooley  25:44

I promise you, that's not the problem.

Preston Meyer  25:47

Right? But an awful lot of people get treated that way. And then you lose this, you lose trust in your community. And then things get worse. It's problem.

Katie Dooley  26:03

Why are you doing how are you holding up?

Preston Meyer  26:06

There's so many complaints about churches. And I know they're all valid. I've seen them. But it's it's draining.

Katie Dooley  26:16

I mean, maybe we'll wrap this up on what people, congregants, clergy, churches can do. Oh,

Preston Meyer  26:25

we have to we have to end on a pause.

Katie Dooley  26:29

This is gonna be a long our folks. But try not to.

Preston Meyer  26:36

We've also got way too many people that are actively discouraging their neighbors from getting the medical and professional help they need. Why don't you just believe more, God is going to take care of you. Or God would have prevented this if you just had faith,

Katie Dooley  26:55

or sometimes they this one, I think is almost even worse. This is all part of God's plan. You were meant to get sick, which your child was meant to die. I don't

Preston Meyer  27:06

know how people can go through saying that and believing it.

Katie Dooley  27:12

I think even the act of saying it is traumatizing.

Preston Meyer  27:16

planned for you to suffer. Right? That's not cool. Because

Katie Dooley  27:20

obviously whatever you're going through is traumatic. So to have someone come back at you basically saying you deserve it. It's just very traumatizing.

Preston Meyer  27:29

Well, it's, there's a difference between saying you deserve it. And God planned this for you. That's true, however, but in an awful lot of people's minds. If you genuinely believe in God, they are the same thing. And that's, that's harsh. Gross. Yeah. There's loads of people with full time jobs working for churches or other religious societies, and they're sick, they're underpaid, and the excuses that you're serving God, and you should do your duty to volunteer every waking hour, and your needs will be met. Don't you worry. God takes care of the sparrows and the dandelions he'll take care of you too. And then it turns out, your needs aren't being met.

Katie Dooley  28:13

God also put like doctors on our earth and like labor laws on or Brains, brains, he instilled the minimum wage, because if he's all knowing, and all seeing and good and someone was divinely inspired to make a minimum wage, if you

Preston Meyer  28:33

believe God controls everything, then you have to believe that God supports different minimum wages in all jurisdictions.

Katie Dooley  28:42

So those specific free time very good stick of you.

Preston Meyer  28:56

I wrapping I don't believe in the same God that every other Christian believes in but to say that every other Christian believes in the same God between each other is also ridiculous.

Katie Dooley  29:06

That sounds like a problem within Christianity.

Preston Meyer  29:10

We've got a huge variety. It's a spectrum, you know, take a shot. Yeah, there's way too many people who are either deliberately or sometimes even just carelessly, taking unreasonable advantage of people because of their faith. And this causes problems in pretty much every case. It's especially seen when people in authority belittle their subordinates but there's an awful lot of people who just like to say, Hey, I'm better than you because I have this much faith. i Hey, I'd saw you put less money in the pass around bowl than I did. So. My faith is better so I'm better than you do. People suck.

Katie Dooley  30:02

That's what this entire episode is about.

Preston Meyer  30:05

Right? And sometimes you'll even see people use another person's lack of faith to excuse their own deviant behavior. Which, I don't know how you can take that logical step. Like, I know how it sounds when people say it, but I don't know how you can get there intellectually, yourself.

Katie Dooley  30:25

Give us an example.

Preston Meyer  30:28

Oh, he's, he's so awful. He's, he's a homosexual. So I'm going to step outside of the boundaries of what I know, my faith teaches and beat him with a rod. I mean, if you've read the book, which, as a faithful person you're supposed to have done, you'll know that's not okay. But it happens literally every day on this planet. It's really sad pressed and it is really sad. It makes me mad sometimes. But that's the world we live in a slightly weirder example. That's less extreme. I remember one time when I was a kid, I didn't want to go to church. This one day, it's like, I don't really feel like it today. And my mom was so mad. She's like, No, no, if you're going to really honor the Sabbath, you're gonna go to church. And if you're not, then you're going to work all day, which is an X, an absolute contradiction, because the same law that says you're going to honor the Sabbath also says you will not permit anybody within your gates to work on the Sabbath. And that's a contradiction.

Katie Dooley  31:46

But she got some free child labor out of you know,

Preston Meyer  31:48

I ended up going to church. I would have picked the labor, but she was happy to act unnecessarily hypocritical to get what she wanted out of the situation. And that sucked. Yeah, but that's actually not even weird in Christian communities.

Katie Dooley  32:08

I'd say probably in any Abrahamic community, probably, probably. If you can work it. I mean, how do you think the priests get away with it? Yeah, as

Preston Meyer  32:22

long as you get what you want, you're gonna be alright.

Katie Dooley  32:26

I mean, what?

Preston Meyer  32:29

Yeah, it's, it's really frustrating. But that's, that's the world that we have built for ourselves. And we have the power and the opportunity to change that world. If we want to make that choice.

Katie Dooley  32:47

So now, we're gonna have even more fun, and break down the different traumas, I guess in a little bit more detail. Yeah. So we're going to start with the actual doctrine that causes trauma. And before they this episode, this is basically my entire understanding of religious trauma that something in the doctrine was so disturbing, it basically it causes PTSD. I didn't organize, it's just okay,

Preston Meyer  33:16

that's fine. I just feel like I've kind of monopolize the voice. So just kind of let you do your thing.

Katie Dooley  33:25

So I have a quote by Laura Anderson, who is the co founder of the religious trauma Institute. And she talks about she says, we're talking about in a way brainwashing doctrines taught over and over and over with consequences that are eternal and terrifying. So deep rooted fears of hell can cause PTSD. Absolutely.

Preston Meyer  33:46

If I don't do as I'm told, I'm gonna burn a lake of fire forever. No, that's, that's gonna mess with some people for sure. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  33:55

So while we have Java joked, excuse me, while we have joked about the movie, a thief in the nights, I talked about, I think we've talked about our revelation episode. It's from the 70s It's super hokey. I kind of went to a watch party on Discord one day. But I've read multiple about multiple people that obviously in the 70s, saw for the first time, that were like deeply disturbed by it, including parents and sister. And so I found a quote, I think I found this on Reddit. But this lady says, a few days or weeks after the film viewing and came into the house and mom wasn't there. I stood there screaming and tear. When I stopped screaming, I began making my plan, who my Christians neighbor who my Christian neighbors were, whose house to break into to get money and food. I was 12 years old, and I was preparing for Armageddon alone. So she had thought her mom had been robbed her she was probably at the grocery store. But that's immediately what her 12 year old brain went to, is that the rapture had happened and she had been left behind, which is also a book series targeted towards children and I I can see why that would be deeply traumatizing if you actually thought you weren't good enough to be slurped up into heaven and that it's impending. So that's pretty scary.

Preston Meyer  35:14

Yeah, it's, it's a mess.

Katie Dooley  35:18

So the stories shared on the forum all kind of have similar thesis is, is that even though people have left their faith, and maybe they don't believe in how our purity culture anymore, the physical and mental random notifications, even thinking logically say they don't believe it anymore. It's like imprinted itself on their minds and bodies, they can actually, they can logically say, I don't believe in heaven or hell, but they can still wake up at night terrified that they're gonna go to hell. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  35:51

it'll still come in nightmares, things like that. So, pretty messed up. And PTSD is, right there.

Katie Dooley  36:02

No joke. Individuals have from early childhood that they're empty of goodness, strength, or wisdom and must rely on God for anything of value. So this goes back to our first point of doubting your own your own brain and your own critical thoughts.

Preston Meyer  36:19

If it's not good, it's not from God, if it's not from God, it's not good. Which is not an okay way to go about your deal. Get

Katie Dooley  36:25

into this. And the next section is purity culture, but then you're being told by perhaps a church leader that it is from God, and it's really, really bad. It's really bad. Yeah. And they don't know what to think or do anymore.

Preston Meyer  36:42

An awful lot of churches. I've seen people teaching that if you don't vote for a specific political candidate, there's no escape from eternal torment. It's mostly people using their faith to defend the far right. Especially in places where the Liberals approve or accept the legality of abortion, and the conservatives don't then use if you even give a liberal a time of day, you're supporting them so much that you deserve to go to hell. I don't know how you can go through life like that.

Katie Dooley  37:26

No, I didn't put this in the notes. But I've obviously been thinking about it in our research, and I didn't do anything specifically on this. But and I've talked about this on our Discord, kids and the Passion of the Christ. Like I've seen videos, like, you know, Easter pretty graphic Easter plays, and there's like five year olds in the audience. That feels traumatizing to me,

Preston Meyer  37:52

watching somebody yet whipped and tortured. Yeah, in real life. Yeah. Okay. I don't know how that would not be traumatizing.

Katie Dooley  38:00

I mean, we just don't often talk about it in the scope of religious trauma, right? We write we usually talk about the rapture, or hell. And I mean, I don't know if you have any insights on why we do or don't talk about that. Maybe it's because it's, you know, it happened, it was a thing that happened, where it's like, people are waiting for the rapture and waiting for how. So, you know, you see what I'm saying the difference there. This

Preston Meyer  38:25

imagery is usually like, if you want to take a child to a passion play, and they see whipping and torture. Usually, it's all about the Jesus suffered this so you don't have to, but the but is always included. If you're not good and do what you're supposed to do. His suffering doesn't matter for you, you have to suffer the same kind of torture forever in hell. So it gets tied directly into the hell fears.

Katie Dooley  38:58

Okay, so maybe that's why it's not talked about as its own entity, right. Anyway, I think so. All right. So Bibles graphic, it really is.

Preston Meyer  39:08

Most, I mean, most of the Bible is stuff that if your kid can understand it, then it's acceptable for most of it, but an awful lot of it is way too graphic for kids. So

Katie Dooley  39:24

the next, next traumatizing thing we're going to talk about parody,

Preston Meyer  39:27

culture. Purity culture has messed up a lot of people. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  39:31

I absolutely. I think it's still messing up people and even in non religious ways. Yeah, for sure. We were definitely taught that abstinence was the only guaranteed form of birth control.

Preston Meyer  39:45

If you've read the Bible, it's not

Katie Dooley  39:49

for Mary She was so abstinent, right.

Preston Meyer  39:54

And then bam, baby, but I mean, the huge amount of emphasis As we put on abstinence is actually really problematic for literally any rape victim.

Katie Dooley  40:07

Yes. And I mean, I say purity culture is very much detrimental for women. I know how much men are affected by it not

Preston Meyer  40:16

nearly as much, no. Well, okay, they're not affected as much in a traumatic way, right? Typically, when men really adopt the purity culture, they end up being more abusive. to women. Yes, not to each other. But

Katie Dooley  40:33

so does that always comes back to the poor women? Yeah. But there's like a bunch of really gross analogy is like, Who would want a piece of use chewing gum? That's a favorite.

Preston Meyer  40:44

I've heard it in church more than once. And the next time it happens, somebody's gonna get hurt. Really, for like, you're gonna talk about my throw hands?

Katie Dooley  40:54

Can I come? Sure.

Preston Meyer  40:57

I mean, I don't know when it's going to happen. But the next time I hear the gum analogy in church on the throw hands very like,

Katie Dooley  41:06

oh, man, I'm so excited. Which is gross, because it has no bearing to your worth, right?

Preston Meyer  41:19

Well, the thing that bothers me, in addition to it being a really gross analogy, is that it's absolutely contrary to the doctrine of Christ.

Katie Dooley  41:28

He liked Mary Magdalene.

Preston Meyer  41:31

There's, unfortunately, no evidence that that's the case let's not be liked or that she was a whore that she was a whore, I'd say popular Catholic doctrine that actually has no basis in any reliable source. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  41:44

Dang, that wrecks, Jesus Christ Superstar form a little bit.

Preston Meyer  41:53

But even if she was, even if she was, doesn't matter, who she was, before she changed her life around.

Katie Dooley  42:02

Do sex workers need to change their life around? Well,

Preston Meyer  42:06

this one became a faithful disciple of Christ. Okay, without any I'll give her an injection on anybody else. She Mary Magdalene became a faithful disciple of Christ,

Katie Dooley  42:17

I'd actually say. So there's obviously like, I mean, just treating women like they're objects. And this goes for both men and women. But not teaching kids sex ed, in my mind is literal child abuse. Yeah. And maybe in the moment, it's not traumatizing because they don't know. But one day they're gonna have sex. And that's gonna be traumatizing.

Preston Meyer  42:39

Yeah, there's remember, one on an episode of 1000 ways to die. This super conservative couple. They they'd never kissed. I'm sorry.

Katie Dooley  42:52

I'm gonna tell you. Okay. Tell me.

Preston Meyer  42:57

They'd never kiss before they got married. So they couldn't have sex tonight. They got married, because I was way too extreme. Absolutely. It took us a month to try. Because they just couldn't get over those boundaries that they had put up in their heads that sex is bad and not healthy. And you just shouldn't be doing it. But eventually, they got around and figured it out and finally understood what they needed to do. And they both died of heart attack. Because it was so much stress. And the blood pressure didn't help. They died. I don't know if there's any truth to it. I feel like more than half of the deaths and 1000 Ways to Die are fake even though they tell you they're real. But the fact that there are an awful lot of people who can relate to that level of trauma around sex is a serious real life problem.

Katie Dooley  43:57

Absolutely. Because you're told forever that it's bad. And then one day thanks to a Reagan signing a paper. It's supposed to be good. Yeah. But this is a terrible story. Some people might want to pass hard. It comes from the book unorthodox, which I was like, shoot, I read it in like a day. If you can't tell I'm on a kick. Anyway, and so this didn't happen to the author, Deborah, but she was talking to one of her friends at and you get super conservative, Orthodox. Same thing. Sex is bad. No, they didn't even learn about sex. She didn't even know she had a vagina.

Preston Meyer  44:35

That's not a healthy way through.

Katie Dooley  44:37

She had a vagina. She talks about the book. And anyway, so she and her friend were talking about sex. And this friend, they didn't know what hold put it in. So they had anal sex. And he ruptured her anus and she almost bled to death. Wow, right I shouldn't say that, like, I'm excited. But like,

Preston Meyer  45:04

that's traumatizing. Yeah, that's long term trauma right there. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  45:08

Wow. So everyone should go to sex ed. And it shouldn't even be your parents who've had this conversation.

Preston Meyer  45:16

Yeah, no, it's we've done the sex ed with parents thing for 1000s of years, we've come up with a better way. Don't do that anymore. Take advantage of the newer, better way. And

Katie Dooley  45:30

I guess the other piece, I want to talk about will eventually we'll do a full episode on purity culture, because I think it warrants when the other big piece is that for women, your body doesn't belong to you, it belongs to your dad and your father. You that's the same thing it belongs to your dad, and your husband, and then to God. So you have no body autonomy. Yep. And

Preston Meyer  45:53

it's weird how many women buy into this and vote to preserve this every couple of years? At the fact that it's even a legal issue. That's still being debated blows my mind. You know,

Katie Dooley  46:10

I had someone posted on Facebook today about the tree that owns itself. Have you heard about this? Anyway?

Preston Meyer  46:17

And it's always, always somebody comments, this tree has more personal autonomy than most women.

Katie Dooley  46:22

I know. I didn't comment on it. Because all the comments were like, Oh, that's a really cool story. That that is exactly where my mind went. I was like, for sure this tree has more rights than most women. Because it can't be cut down. Yep. But there's a huge chunk of the United States where women can't get abortions.

Preston Meyer  46:42

Now, to be fair, nobody's gonna give those same rights to another tree in the future. I

Katie Dooley  46:47

mean, that's fair. But like, why can we not revoke these trees rights

Preston Meyer  46:53

because it has rights, you can never take away rights. But most of the time it's, it's not fair. People have definitely taken away rights, but it gets really tricky and it's actually kind of hard to do. But giving rights we have so many people fighting against giving people rights. It's it's a mad world it is. And

Katie Dooley  47:19

purity culture piggybacks nicely into

Preston Meyer  47:22

just the general religious progeny of religion. It's, it's really frustrating. We have evidence of religious misogyny as far back as ancient Hellenism in Greece. Zeus is the worst. He'll rape anything with a pulse. The stories tell us many, many instance. Without pulse

Katie Dooley  47:43

I feel like even dabbled in some of that. No, I don't mean necrophilia. I mean inanimate objects.

Preston Meyer  47:48

I got nothing coming to mind. But it made me think of something.

Katie Dooley  47:52

He seems like the kind of guy that'd be like cool whole.

Preston Meyer  47:57

I mean, that's. And a weird side note on that is, I still think it's super weird how much the Zeus from the Disney cartoons looks like Donald Trump.

Katie Dooley  48:15

I have to google that. Now. I can't picture him off the top of

Preston Meyer  48:18

my head. It's not a perfect likeness because Zeus is muscular as hell. But there

Katie Dooley  48:25

were they right wing, cartoonists have made Trump muscular as hell. And it's real weird.

Preston Meyer  48:34

So in these old Greek stories, where they talk about how men deal with the gods, because of course it was men. They taught that men existed as companions of the gods until Prometheus stole fire from the gods for mortal men. And so Zeus gave them Pandora. And after her all of womankind, and her jar, not a box, as much as I love the pun that we've used that word for lately, her jar contained all evil, and she is personally responsible for unleashing it on humanity. Because women are meant to be objects. And that's actually how that story goes about is that they were meant to distract men from trying to achieve greater things

Katie Dooley  49:27

and doing a good job does it

Preston Meyer  49:31

mean me maybe I have been to you and I'm

Katie Dooley  49:34

not distracting it.

Preston Meyer  49:39

In Christianity, the apostle Paul is very worried about more or less the same thing that women are distractions, and that men are falling victim to them as well as homosexual men.

Katie Dooley  49:53

How can you men can control yourself even a little bit?

Preston Meyer  49:58

That's a great question. And that's not a fair question. But it's a good one. An awful lot of men have great self control. An awful lot are the most dangerous people you see in the world because they have no self control.

Katie Dooley  50:14

To stop, put it on the women. We're not distractions, you're distracted, right?

Preston Meyer  50:19

It's ridiculous. And a lot of people like to take opportunities to praise Paul for his position, saying that we need to suppress women and shame them instead of worrying about what Jesus said. When he just said, If you can't look at a girl without sinning, cut your own damn eyes out.

Katie Dooley  50:44

Can we preach that more often? Can you do to How old are your Sunday school boys?

Preston Meyer  50:48

I have the Sunday school it just for adults. So Oh, when it was

Katie Dooley  50:53

like what age though? Like young adults or like 40 year olds,

Preston Meyer  50:56

any any adults?

Katie Dooley  50:59

Can you please talk about that on Sunday?

Preston Meyer  51:02

I don't think that it really can fit nicely into what I've got coming. Okay. But we'll see where it can come. Okay. Absolutely. Okay, I have done it before. Okay. And I've had people be very happy that I brought it up. Oh, good. I'm happy women. No surprises.

Katie Dooley  51:22

Can I just say, Brian tonight just started dating but at your wedding. I presume a huge portion of your guests were Mormon, half. So unlike Solon, check me out with a child and his arms. And I was like, okay, guy.

Preston Meyer  51:45

Yeah, the one you were there for? I'd say probably about

Katie Dooley  51:47

okay. I assumed it was like me and Lindsey were the only two that weren't. But in the mission, Lindsay side, too. She was like, Did you just see that? I was like I did.

Preston Meyer  52:00

That's unforced. Yeah. Anyway.

Katie Dooley  52:01

So that guy needs to go to your school class. I don't know if you were,

Preston Meyer  52:07

in fact, looking at just talking about a variety of religions here. Muhammad is even quoted as when saying why women should cover up. It's because the men around us are rapists. So let's cover up the women instead of you know, beating the shit out of the men. Maybe I like UNIX. Yeah, sure. I can appreciate their necessity in some instances.

Katie Dooley  52:34

If you're gonna rape lady kebab balls. Yeah. Usually

Preston Meyer  52:38

when I think of Unix, I think of voluntary Unix. But no, no as a disciplinary measure ation? Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. And it would happen a lot less. It's weird that it's not more common. Forced castration for criminals,

Katie Dooley  52:57

even if it was like, I think it can be like a chemical castration, where you're not actually cutting balls, you just make it so they can't get a boner anymore. Yeah, there'd be a lot fewer rapists. I

Preston Meyer  53:07

think. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be touching other people, but the way they touch them would change. Not necessarily when

Katie Dooley  53:15

even just having the ramifications of live losing your penis, essentially. Oh, no,

Preston Meyer  53:24

I don't know, this much product. It's it's weird that instead of learning discipline, which clearly men need, and not just men, let's be real, there are some, some trashy women out there to to add to the list of terrible, terrible men. But instead of learning discipline, it's easier to just make sure women are seen less often. And it naturally follows that if they're seen as in, if they're seen less often, they'll be seen as inferior, because they're actively prevented from taking visible leadership roles, which is the world we live in today. Where nobody thinks that a woman could be President of the United States because she's a woman. And women can't lead because we've just been telling them that for 1000s of years. Nonsense.

Katie Dooley  54:21

I think it was the Trevor Noah show. One of his people went to a Trump rally and started interviewing people. This is like anyone else this is it before his first election, and must have no this is like pre Biden anyway. And no, I lied. This was pre his up before he went up against Hillary. And he asked a lady at the rally if Hillary can be president. She said no, she couldn't because she's a woman. Which I think he already thought was weird because of a woman saying it was like, Well, why not? He's like, Well, she said women are too emotional. He's like, you know, a woman has never stopped In a war, right?

Preston Meyer  55:01

Never ever,

Katie Dooley  55:02

never ever. He's like, You know what? Every war Yeah, she was like we were in tune. Well, she'd start a war or something. He's like, you know, every wars been started by a man.

Preston Meyer  55:14

Yeah. People rely very often on terrible arguments. That's one of them.

Katie Dooley  55:21

Didn't I say that? But I think Queen Elizabeth the first invaded Spain or did they start that with her? She fought a war with Spain. I just don't know who instigated it. Anyway. That's completely irrelevant to this conversation.

Preston Meyer  55:34

No pair of women has ever women can fight against men. That's that's obviously a thing. But I don't think there's ever been now they would

Katie Dooley  55:42

talk about, right.

Preston Meyer  55:48

It's crazy. This world we live in is nuts. But in the Quran, Muhammad goes a little bit further than even Paul did. And actually advises men to beat their disobedient women folk. Of course, there's some scholars who say no, no, we choose to translate that differently. Most people translating the Koran say, ya know, they're talking about you need to beat your disobedient women folk. There's

Katie Dooley  56:18

some and I don't know if this is just like, specific to a group, but there are like Trad, wife, Christian groups that are totally into corporal punishment. And kids, I just don't I don't know if that's in the Bible, or if that's an entire terrible, terrible interpretation, or, like Gothard from the Duggars. He's all into Corp. He's fine with corporal punishment. So

Preston Meyer  56:42

I don't remember any corporal punishment being advocated against wives in the Bible, you've actually read the Torah more recently than I have. Did anything jump out at you on that subject? No, I don't think so. Yes, just crazy. Scientology you had brought up earlier, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology actually said, a society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of future generation is a society which is on its way out. Obviously, this man did not have a healthy relationship with women at any point in his life.

Katie Dooley  57:27

He like abandoned his wife and kid for because he just didn't like them anymore. I think he Yeah, his he was not successful at the marriage thing. So do not take advice from L. Ron Hubbard, right.

Preston Meyer  57:41

An awful lot of I don't want to say Islam as responsible for this, but an awful lot of nations that are happy to describe themselves as theocratic Islamic states have a really hard time allowing women to go to school. And there's no solid cause for this and the Quran, or even the Hadith that I'm aware of. But it's a thing that keeps happening. I,

Katie Dooley  58:12

well, there's that. And then, I would say, the homeschool system, predominantly in the States, but I'm sure it happens here in Canada, that they, I mean, they stay in school, probably. But they get a completely different curriculum that doesn't set them up for life. I don't even think. So the new Duggars on TLC is a show called Welcome to Platteville. And they're also Quiverfull. But they don't have quite as many and

58:39

quiver half full or half full.

Katie Dooley  58:43

And my favorite daughter, her name is Mariah because she totally left the fold. But yeah, she says like the schooling they did, doesn't even qualify them for their GDS. Although she finished grade 12 air quotes, she has no high school diploma. So I mean, while she's not, I mean, she was homeschooled. So being physically pulled out of school is the wrong, wrong phrase to use here. But while she's still going to school, unlike in some of these Islamic nations, she is good as well.

Preston Meyer  59:14

was, you know, rare that she is being deprived to a proper education.

Katie Dooley  59:19

But yeah, that is a much more eloquent way to put it tonight. Thank you. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  59:23

And it's it's not just any one religion, it's an awful lot of religions are seeing this as their reality. And it's a huge problem.

Katie Dooley  59:34

I think, again, especially in, you know, in in here in Canada, we have the public school system, the Catholic school system. And I think just from the size of the Catholic school system, it's a little more monitored. But when you get some of these privatized religious schools, that's where some big gaps in the proper education start to happen. Obviously, these parents think that the proper education as a religious said, Vacation. But that's not set them up for university. And I, I don't know why I'm on it this time, because the entire book was about it. But on Orthodox, same thing, she got a great Jewish Hebrew education. But she, you know, wasn't prepared for university. Right? She's prepared to make babies and cook for her husband.

Preston Meyer  1:00:25

Yeah, there's a real problem where, broadly speaking, which you know, I say don't do but I do. Occasionally. Broadly speaking, people in charge, people with power are not going to give you the education that you need to realize that change needs to come into effect. A lot of people like to say this to talk down about public education. And there's some truth to it. But it's way worse. In private schools, especially rigid religious schools, and of any religious organization who sets up a homeschooling program for you is definitely going to lean into that too. Well,

Katie Dooley  1:01:04

I mean, yeah, public school is not perfect, but at least you'll get the school of life. A little bit of the School of common sense, because you're just dealing with so many different types of people. You're not going to be blindsided when you turn on a TV for the first time,

Preston Meyer  1:01:20

right? If you're homeschooled, you're very likely to hear all kinds of stereotypes about different groups of people, usually, your minority groups. And if you're not exposed to them, because you're homeschooled, you've got no contrary evidence, and you end up believing it because you've heard it so many times, because that's the agenda of who's schooling you. But in a big city with a diverse population, you're a lot less likely to have that problem where you start believing the stereotypes because you have loads of evidence of people who fit the descriptor and don't fit the stereotype that's being shared. We

Katie Dooley  1:02:01

have a family member, I'm gonna speak very vaguely, who occasionally says some pretty Islamophobic things, but they're from rural Alberta. And so often I'm like, Have you even met a Muslim? I don't think you know what you're saying.

Preston Meyer  1:02:24

A little while ago, this lady's saying, talking about this time when she convinced the Muslims that they had been worshipping a moon god, you don't know. We were watching. We're watching a movie together I shared with you. That's what it was. She was bragging in this video about hers, her spoils of victory, teaching the Muslims that they had been worshipping a false moon god for ages. And it's just like, you don't know who the Muslims are. They don't worship a moon god at all. They worship the same God that Christians do. So

Katie Dooley  1:03:02

you've convinced them to not believe in your God? That's not good, right?

Preston Meyer  1:03:08

Sounds kind of weird.

Katie Dooley  1:03:11

We've digress. Our last point, which we've kind of talked around, is that many religions teach that men are both women in heterosexual relationships. And this is I think, this is from the religious trauma Institute. If you feel that you have no choice other than being submissive to your husband or domande to your wife, it might be time to reconsider the structure of your relationship. Yeah, actually, here's a question for you. If you can answer it. Because we always hear about, you know, peer to culture and misogyny as it's toxic to women. Do men feel pressure to be dicks to their wives? You know what I mean? Like if you're a I

Preston Meyer  1:03:53

never have felt pressure to be a dick to my wife. Feel that

Katie Dooley  1:03:59

kind of a dick earlier tonight.

Preston Meyer  1:04:01

But with not with not being funny.

Katie Dooley  1:04:07

He's lovely to us. Please don't have us.

Preston Meyer  1:04:14

She has plenty of opportunities for escape. But I I don't think there's a lot of real pressure in any circles where I travel to be,

Katie Dooley  1:04:26

you know, yeah, you're the wrong I should have done more. Now. I'm just thinking about like, if you're really nice guy and really loved your wife, and she wants to go to university and the pastor's going well, you should put her back in your place and you go

Preston Meyer  1:04:42

Yeah, we'd might throw hands. Probably not become violent, but we definitely have some pretty harsh words.

Katie Dooley  1:04:51

Is that you know, is that happening to men? Probably and sort of what extent that they feel pressured to be this hard ass husband And when they don't want to be,

Preston Meyer  1:05:03

there have definitely been loads of men who have been called to bring their wives in the line, for sure. And probably a lot of them. I can't say for sure most of them I would say, with confidence, an awful lot of them have absolutely done as their pastor has told them to do because of that relationship of authority. Gross, yeah, it is kind of gross.

Katie Dooley  1:05:29

Carry on with the growth.

Preston Meyer  1:05:31

So, the next bundle of things, we got people who are abused for variance of opinion, we got people who are abused for being born without a penis. And we've got people who are abused because of the color of their skin, which is nonsense. And there's an awful lot of layers why people are terrible to each other. Usually, it's just a tribal mechanism that relies on encouraging the simple minded to use only their eyes and not their brains to determine easy lines of separation. But people have very often been abused or simply neglected in the religious communities because of differences in ethnic origin. One of the first examples that comes to mind, having grown up in a community with an awful lot of Latter Day Saints is Brigham Young. He decided that it made sense to ordain children to priesthood offices, including making his 11 year old son an apostle, but decided to undo Joseph Smith's work and deny priesthood ordinations to anybody with even a drop of African blood in them. So

Katie Dooley  1:06:41

everyone, because you know where humans came from, right? Africa that's

Preston Meyer  1:06:48

what the science is showing. Yeah, but that's, that's good. All Brigham Young 66 wives. So you know, how we felt about women do

Katie Dooley  1:07:01

I? I saw a flowchart of Brigham Young's wives once. Yeah, it was terrible. Of how like, so obviously, he was a polygamist. Yeah. But he they don't like bigamy, right, where women can have multiple husbands.

Preston Meyer  1:07:20

That's polyandry. Polygamy is having two wives. Okay. So he definitely likes

1:07:27

polyandry. To when you can have 66 He liked bigamy times.

Katie Dooley  1:07:32

30. Sorry, polyandry. But he married other men's wives. Yeah. Well, there's some are so that is Pollyanna. It is and then they they show ages, and we're sisters, and they were mother and daughter and my kids.

1:07:50

Anyway, yeah, it's weird. It

Katie Dooley  1:07:52

is weird. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about racism.

Preston Meyer  1:07:55

Yeah. And so the way that Brigham Young related to black people was not positive at all. And to be fair, to Brigham Young, and Joseph Smith, and the early Latter Day Saints leaders. They were not alone in this idea that because all black people were the children of Cain, who were was, you know, the evil of the sons of Adam, that all black people were inferior. This is widely believed among most Christians in the 1800s. And the cause and effect there is definitely a huge problem. Yes, has led to a lot of abuse, and is not at all reasonable. And thankfully, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has reversed Brigham Young's policies on racism only about 50 years ago. Not soon enough, but it happened. So at least we got that. When prompted, most people will describe the physicality of their god as matching their own physical ideals, if not their own actual self image. That's why Jesus is classically depicted as European when you look at most religious art, because the Europeans and the European artists didn't really have much of a model reference apart from Europeans. The same is true when you go to Korea Jesus is going to look a little bit Korean. And you hear a lot about black Jesus in the States and other parts of the world as well. But mostly where I've heard of black Jesus in the states it's it makes sense that you project in the absence of a true model yourself on to the God you worship. Back to the Korean Jesus. I think it's really important to state Jesus was way more Asian than any of my Phillip You know, Friends, and I will fight anyone who wants to contradict me on that.

Katie Dooley  1:10:03

He's so aggressive person. I love it

Preston Meyer  1:10:07

this topic of trauma, it makes me very uncomfortable. Oh, I mean, said that. If it makes you feel ugly, you've got issues. The Philippines are islands in the ocean. They're not part of continental Asia, but they are on the Eurasian tectonic plate, but they're not in Asia. The Middle East, including Jerusalem, is in continental Asia. So Jesus is Asian. That's the way it goes, Oh, that's

Katie Dooley  1:10:40

very semantical. But

Preston Meyer  1:10:45

you know what? I'm okay. If somebody wants to draw Korean Jesus and say this is the real Jesus, it is as accurate as saying, British JESUS IS THE REAL JESUS. Because they're both on opposite ends of the continent from each other. Jerusalem is in the middle of

Katie Dooley  1:11:02

some black. No, he was a brown, or Arabic guy of

Preston Meyer  1:11:08

Arabic isn't a fair descriptor. The Arabians are a different nation. But I mean, when it comes to skin tone, yeah. People who have grown up surrounded by just white folks would definitely have a hard time distinguishing the two.

Katie Dooley  1:11:24

Well, that's where the word Caucasian comes from. Is Arabia. That's where the caucus mountains are. But

Preston Meyer  1:11:30

that's not the same thing.

Katie Dooley  1:11:32

I know. I put on a job. We're like, Oh, are you Arabic know, people who are Arabic, just have white skin.

Preston Meyer  1:11:42

I mean, not white, white, but pale, fair, fair, compared to say the depths of Congo.

Katie Dooley  1:11:52

Or, I mean, even just other places you think of in the Middle East.

Preston Meyer  1:11:59

So it's, unfortunately, it's way too easy to step from my God has this skin color. Because if if your God has a body, you're not usually imagining and without skin. So that skin, it's a great Attack on Titan, here we go. So it's not hard to go from my God has this skin color to anyone who doesn't have this skin color is inferior. And that's a huge problem, especially when you jump to the next step that an awful lot of people do. Where if you have this inferior skin color, you clearly have a deficient spiritual potential. And that is evidenced by your skin color. That's not okay. Well, there's an awful lot of reasons why a lot of people have been hurt by religion. And there's no reason for any of these things to still be part of our culture. But we have an awful lot of people who want to perpetuate these problems.

Katie Dooley  1:13:06

So to end on our hopefully positive note, how does it get fixed? What do people need to do? One

Preston Meyer  1:13:15

we need to recognize trauma when it appears. And we need to acknowledge that trauma is a perfectly natural response to the repetition of doctrines of a violent, angry, all powerful God, who is dissatisfied with your race, your gender, your subculture, or the entirety of humanity. Teaching these things should probably stop. Trauma is perfectly natural response to repeated exposure to pastors use threats of eternal damnation or demonic possession to maintain control their flocks that needs to stop. Any person who doesn't conform to strict rules of sexuality and gender expression are at greater risk. We need to acknowledge that and maybe take better care of them, because they face extreme pressure to mask or change their identity, which also causes trauma.

Katie Dooley  1:14:09

Oh, absolutely. Well, and we didn't even touch on conversion therapy, which I won't open that can of worms, because we're, we're well into this episode already. But absolutely, that's a huge part of it. atheists don't do conversion therapy.

Preston Meyer  1:14:27

No, no, are the atheist countries that actually really try and suppress religion? like Russia, for example, just kill their gays. No conversion therapy? No. China has a hard time. We got a lot of countries that don't like gods and don't like gays. There's like

Katie Dooley  1:14:47

all I remember hearing a statute and finally 20 countries that have legalized gay marriage. Now it's like 198. That's terrible. And

Preston Meyer  1:14:57

it's a short list. Leaving a religious group can add to religious trauma because these communities as damaging as they are, also offer some measure of support to their members and sustain a worldview that brings personal stability and promises of safety. So leaving these groups means abandoning that support, and is usually accompanied by greater anxiety and depression. And actual trauma. Trauma is a real thing. And it it ruins lives. But therapy exists for religious trauma syndrome, much like PTSD. And there are loads of resources online to help connect you with the help you that you might need. And it's important to know that religious trauma is a lot more common than you think it is. It's a real thing. A lot of people feel it to one degree or another. And you're not alone. If you suffer from religious trauma. There's people you can reach out to.

Katie Dooley  1:15:55

I also feel like this is a disclaimer, we probably should put the ban but we're not therapists. No, not at all. Not even though if you can't tell,

Preston Meyer  1:16:03

like as much as I want to point people in this in a specific direction to get help for religious trauma. I'm not even qualified to do that. Right.

Katie Dooley  1:16:12

Speak to your local mental health service provider.

Preston Meyer  1:16:16

Yeah, there's help out there. People will acknowledge your troubles and they will help. Absolutely. Well, that was hard. It was hard, but it's I think it's important to absolutely to share. Thanks for joining us it's it's been a bit of a ride will lighten things up a little bit next.

Katie Dooley  1:16:42

You can find us on our Discord server if you want to continue the conversation. We are also on Patreon doing a bonus episodes in early releases and we have a really interesting interview coming up. Probably in a couple of weeks from this episode. I'll just teaser out with a cult survivors. So type a little bit into this title of into our call episode. And of course so Patreon if you want to support and keep our podcast going. And our merch store on Spreadshirt every little penny we get helps us keep this podcast running.

Preston Meyer  1:17:19

Thank you so much. Peace be with you