Is the label “toxic” destructive to the neurodiverse?
Over recent years, the term “toxic” has become common usage to describe people who have a negative impact on those around them, and are considered manipulative, selfish, lacking empathy, etc, for others. There are many variations of this description, but we are all reasonably familiar with it these days.
Keeping our own mental state safe and healthy can often require us to distance ourselves from those who display these characteristics. Life can be difficult enough without complications from those who have these tendencies!
However, the term has become something of an overused cliché, and can often be used as an excuse to simply avoid doing the hard work of self understanding and navigating relationships with empathy and compassion. I’m not suggesting that we no longer recognise the destructive nature of those with narcissistic “toxic” tendencies, but rather to make sure we aren’t part of the problem!
Neurodiversity (ND) is a spectrum that describes the cognitive functioning and processes of the brain. The most common is ADHD, but it includes a wide range of often overlapping conditions such as ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), Aspergers, Dyslexia etc.
For those with some form and level of neurodiversity, many of the cognitive processes with communication come across as offensive, rude, self-centred, blunt etc, without the appropriate filtering exercised in “normal” communications and relationships. This often creates huge issues, which the “normal” person can interpret as “toxic”, refusing to accept that the ND person actually cares and is genuinely confused by the reactions they get.
When ND people question the reactions of others, they may get accused of things like gaslighting, which only serves to worsen the destructive communication cycle. This creates very difficult problems for ND people, often compounding their struggles in relationships. I’ve experienced this myself as an ND person, and constantly see it in others.
Some of us learn to recognise how we come across to others and can adapt and monitor our language and responses, but it’s hard work, and our impulsive and spontaneous nature means we often say things before we realise. Then there’s also the way we act in response to other’s emotions and reactions, which can come across as indifferent or uncaring. We can be forgetful and distracted, or hyperfocused to the point of being dismissive of what’s going on around us.
All of us are complex and nuanced creatures, and for those on the ND spectrum, life can be difficult enough without being labelled as “toxic”. So please, don’t use the toxic label as an easy way out of personal growth and wisdom.
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As most of you know, I post some rather scathing stuff about Christianity.
There’s a few reasons for this, the most obvious being the level of abuse I went through in churches – from subtle forms of gaslighting and manipulation, through to some pretty heavy stuff. Basically, I’ve experienced the full length and breadth of what Christianity can offer.
It’s taken me many years to sift through the mess and discover my own sense of self, my place in the world, and what sort of “spirituality” works for me.
Most of my posts are directed towards the extremists and fundamentalists, who embrace an extremely toxic form of religion that has little to do with the things Jesus apparently preached.
Strangely, having participated wholeheartedly in that type of religion for many years, I actually have a high level of empathy for those in the “system”. I genuinely understand how one can get hooked into it. I appreciate the patience of friends over the years, many of whom stood back and let me go through it all, and some who confronted me with the harsh reality.
In the end, both ends of the spectrum helped me see what I was doing, but it was those who really challenged me, directly but politely, that caused the biggest shift.
Sure, I’d dig my heals in, and do the mental gymnastics needed to justify my beliefs, but eventually, straightforward logic and reason won me over, along with experiencing genuine, unconditional love, with no expectations and conditions.
So for those of you who would agree with how disgusting that form of Christianity is, but get rather disconcerted that I’m painting you all with the same brush, let me qualify things.
For me, the entirety of Christianity has become irrelevant, and that colours my opinions. But I totally appreciate those who have a “real” loving faith that reflects the nice bits of the bible and embraces doctrines that truly benefit themselves and humanity.
Here’s the thing though…
Christianity, in any form of “good” or “bad” is 100% subjective, built on traditions and assumptions, filtered through emotions in a way that builds deep levels of confirmation bias. This means that, for the “good” ones, they look for good in the theology and doctrines. They see through the lens of love.
But Christianity doesn’t make people compassionate and empathetic! Yes, that’s a bold statement, but I’ve found the reality is that the people who find Christianity as a place of deep love and acceptance, that helps them with existential angst, and provides a loving and supportive community, were already like that in the first place!
“Good” people become “good” Christians.
But Jim, there’s so many testimonies of “bad” people getting saved and turning their lives around!
So, here’s the other thing…
When you look closely at those testimonies, and if you have the chance, the personal lives of those people over longer periods of time, we find a very different picture. Nearly all embrace the most extreme forms of fundamentalism, becoming religiously obsessed, with obnoxious agendas to “get everyone saved”. They are the ones who exemplify bigotry, condemnation, exclusivity and division. They preach hell and damnation.
They have taken the things that make them “bad” and wrapped them up in Christianity. This creates a veneer of pseudo love, that other Christians (mostly fundamentalists) approve of. This means that even the “best” Christians accept them, to greater or lesser degrees, as just passionate and “on fire”.
In all my interactions with Christianity over 40 years, through a huge range of denominations, and working with countless people in many capacities, I’ve found this to be true. And yes, there are people who were originally loving and compassionate, but got caught up in “bad” things, so their testimony does have some validity. But even then, most of those in this category don’t become the religiously obsessed I’m talking about.
But wait, there’s more!!
As I mentioned, the entirety of Christian beliefs are a subjective construct, with no empirical evidence whatsoever. But that’s the case for ALL religions! The “spiritual” is something we have no evidence for, apart from anecdotal stuff, emotional experiences, visions etc. There’s nothing to actually prove that ANY religion is true, let alone THE truth. It’s all various degrees of dogma.
BUT, that’s actually OK. Because the real benefits of any religion are in what sort of person it makes you (or helps bring out in you). It’s all about metaphor and allegory, shaped by stories and legends etc. Whether they are literally true isn’t really important – it’s how we live that gives religions any credibility.
So yeah, when we embrace dogma, we are instantly on the “downward” path. Instead, as most “good” Christians do, hold your beliefs lightly, ready to change and grow. Embrace questions, fight through dogma, be open to answers from anywhere. Trust the deep love that is already in all of us (although that can be buried very deep for some).
“Good” Christians don’t care about converting you, getting people saved, and making sure they believe the correct doctrines. They just want to get on with loving people, allowing their loves to speak for themselves. They innately live with empathy and compassion, with a belief system that reflects the simple example of the unreligious aspects of Jesus.
So get out there and just live life to it’s fullest – with love, compassion and empathy, and quietly believe whatever you want.
[Note: I use “good” and “bad” as descriptors, rather than specific moral judgements on the people. In some ways, I’d prefer to use “beneficial” and “detrimental” as they have different connotations, but that’s a whoooole other topic!]
There’s an incredible number of Christians who are taking it back to the basics and focussing on simply living like Jesus.
In fact, there are many who no longer call themselves Christian but still hold the example of Jesus as their guiding light.
This is a vast improvement on the traditional religion, which is entirely built on the teachings of Paul, with a dash of colour from a couple of other writers who were popular at the time.
Pualine theology “works” as a religion very well, which is why it’s stuck around for a couple of thousand years, but despite any beneficial effects from its efforts to address existential questions, it’s mostly been the source of destructive divisions, wars and genocides, hatred and bigotry. But yes, there has also been a constant thread of loving, caring and empathetic people who’ve managed to cherry-pick their way through scripture to create something that’s more universally embracing.
But my point here is about focussing on Jesus, and just living by his words and example.
Here’s the thing – “the elephant in the room” – ignored, probably because most people don’t know what to do about it; we have absolutely no idea what Jesus actually said or did – none – zilch.
Yes, we have the gospels, but that’s it. No other written records apart from a few other gospels that generally aren’t taken seriously.
The gospel writers were not eyewitnesses. This is common knowledge and beyond dispute. We can only guess who they were.
Perhaps these stories were from oral traditions, or there may have been an earlier source document that Mark used, or maybe Mark was the source for the others. It’s all speculation, because there simply isn’t enough evidence to know.
Then there’s the simple fact that these gospel writers were already immersed in Pauline theology – they were writing from that doctrinal environment.
So there is absolutely no way we can honestly and genuinely say we know what Jesus said and did. It’s all assumptions.
This leaves us in a very awkward place.
The apparent teachings of Jesus are really good stuff – I’ve got no argument with that – mostly. There are a few things that are pretty sus and have to be heavily processed through various theological gymnastics, but it is a good basis for life. Plus there’s obscure references to eastern philosophies thrown into the mix if we care to look. But even that can be just confirmation bias.
Perhaps we need to stop, and take stock of this ancient religion entirely. Do we really need it? Is it possible that despite its popularity, it’s basically redundant? Do we have the guts to admit it hasn’t been the amazing cure to humanity’s woes that it promised to be?
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Embracing Universalism was part of my deconstruction journey.
It was the only thing that made any genuine sense and had an ounce of integrity in relation to the foundational premises of Christian theology.
Sure, I knew all the traditional reasons why not “all” were saved, but no matter how I juggled theology with my personal sense of justice, forgiveness and love, any concept of hell, and all that entailed, was more like the work of a psychopath than a loving god.
So Universalism was the obvious solution, and there is plenty of scripture that can be cherry-picked to support it.
Recently, I’ve had a long conversation with a couple of Universalists, which brought to light the problem that I’d always wrestled with about the whole topic.
Universalists are just a group with another set of dogma that sounds much more loving, and yes, it does paint god in a far more gracious and loving light. However, it’s still based entirely on yet another set of interpretations of ambiguous scriptures (which is the basis of every single denomination, sect and movement in the Christian ecosystem).
But what I’ve consistently found, and what I was also guilty of, is the level of patronising arrogance displayed by its supporters!
This isn’t, however, obvious on the surface and you have to dig a bit deeper to uncover it, and when you do, they can get quite nasty, but in a loving, passive aggressive way!
You see, god is sooo magnanimous and forgiving that eventually, everyone will discover how awesome Jesus is and how he made it possible for god to love everyone and save them all. They no longer speak in terms of judgement and condemnation, but the infinite love of their god.
They embrace that sense of superiority that most Christians have and take it to a whole new level. No matter what you believe, or how you behave, ultimately OUR god will have the last say and take you in no matter what. You’ll end up being transformed by his “presence” and love, whether you want it or not.
Our god will eventually give you no choice, and if you challenge him/us on that point, you are just ignorant and we’ll have pity on you and settle back in a smug confidence that you’ll see we were right all along.
All communication becomes reduced to this arrogant, patronising smugness, wrapped in a veneer of pseudo love, that ultimately, is just as ego-feeding as all other forms of religion.
Then they get upset because you challenge them on the point that they are still assuming THEIR god is the only true god, and their entire premise is nothing more than gaslighting.
So yeah, nice try guys, but no cigar.
It’s still the same dogma and subjective beliefs, just wrapped in nicer packaging.
Lately, I’ve been doing social media posts that don’t hold back on the foundational theologies and doctrines of Christianity. As most people know, I’ve been very public about deconstructing my beliefs and the processes behind this.
One thing that I’ve found fascinating is how any attack on a person’s religious beliefs is usually taken as an attack on the person themselves.
This is understandable because of how powerful religious beliefs are. They govern our whole world view – from how we see ourselves, others, the state of the world, and our eternal destiny, so when someone challenges the very foundations of those beliefs, we can tend to get very defensive, because we’ve invested our lives into them.
Many don’t notice that in all my controversial opinions, I never actually attack the person, and go out of my way to make it clear that although I may find their beliefs completely untenable, I also completely understand why they believe them, and respect their sincerity with genuine empathy (mostly… I have my moments!), remembering only too well that I’ve been there myself.
I also try to make it very clear that underneath it all, the real enemy is dogma – the absolute conviction that our beliefs are the incontrovertible truth and everyone else is absolutely wrong. There are many of course, who are willing to concede that there’s room to accept various interpretations of traditional views and biblical writings, as long as they don’t undermine the foundations.
Religion thrives by claiming its inherent and inerrant truth.
But I often get challenged by people claiming that I’m also being dogmatic about my opinions, which on the surface sounds legit, so really, it comes down to looking at the substance of various claims that religion presents, and my own stance on dogma.
The whole idea of challenging dogmatic thoughts/beliefs/religious systems is not to promote yet another “truth” and replace them with its own dogma. It’s about helping people to see that all religious/spiritual and philosophical beliefs are subjective. There is absolutely nothing that can be proven to make any one system the “winner”.
If people ask, I happily present my personal views and why I find them to be the most viable. I’ll even engage in deep discussion as to why this is the case, and also have a Facebook page where I present my ideas.
But I do not hold my views as dogma, because there’s no way I can prove them! They feel right to me at the moment, but I’m also evolving and growing, constantly looking at “life, the universe and everything” to see what I can glean to broaden my outlook, and most importantly, to bring unity and love to the world.
So if you’ve been offended by my provocative poking of sacred cows, it could be that you’re far more locked in dogma than you realise.
Most importantly, unconditional, universal love is the end game, and sometimes we need a bit of a kick to break through our thought patterns to achieve this.
I often see people talking about the dreadful (and even evil) things that evangelicals and fundamentalists believe and practice in the name of God, supported by the bible.
And I agree!
The problem is – we THINK the bible doesn’t support all those horrific things, and that it actually espouses a life of love.
But it doesn’t.
It’s a hodgepodge of ambiguity that has been cherry-picked to justify anything humanity is capable of.
It’s awesome that the loving bits are generally recognised as what Christianity should be, but that’s at the expense of the huge amount of scripture that says otherwise.
We have become so use to twisting and manipulating the bible that we’re almost incapable of seeing how absurd the whole thing really is.
Instead, we fight over interpretations, and who are the “real” Christians – and who is led by the Holy Spirit – and who is deceived – endlessly – for two thousand years – and we are still no closer to the unity we dream of – possibly further than ever – driven by the latest and greatest eschatology, exegesis, and whatever tools we want to make the cherry-picking work!
It’s worth noting that even our desire to simply embrace the teachings of Jesus, carefully avoids many of the harsh divisive things he apparently said.
It’s also worth noting that the texts we use to refer to “what Jesus said” are not even reliable sources anyway. We don’t ever bother to ask how a scribe followed him around endlessly transcribing every word, accurately, on parchment, with ink, balancing his little table, often at night. How often do we stop to consider how absurd that is? And don’t get me started on oral traditions!
It’s a complete mess, and yet we go on and on and on trying to make it work.
You’d think we would have realised by now that it’s time to question everything, and actually learn from history. But that’s unlikely, when our whole identity is built around a 2000 year old religious institution.
This is not to invalidate the work many have done over the centuries to promote unconditional love using the bible as a backdrop. It’s all about recognising the complete and utter subjectivity of a religious belief system that has dominated humanity for 2000 years.
We often see the question asked by pretty much anyone – from the wisest gurus and spiritual teachers, to the simplest of us who take the time to ponder these things.
Why are we here?
What is our purpose?
Perhaps we aren’t “put” here for anything!
Perhaps there is absolutely no meaning or purpose, other than what we make for ourselves.
In fact, accepting that simple possibility, gives us incredible freedom to simply “be” – to observe – and then decide what meaning and purpose we’d like for ourselves.
When we let go and accept this state of meaninglessness, there is no fear, or need, or expectation to drive us – no existential angst – just a peace with this moment – a peace to create our own place in this reality we call life.
This is the key to the deepest and most satisfying “raison d’etre” – our “ground of being”
So, it’s been nearly 4 years since I last posted here!!
Basically, for some reason, Covid seems to have put a stop to my blogging days. Not sure why though!
Anyway, as some of you may remember (probably not), earlier this year I mentioned I’d purchased the domain jimmarjoram.com, with the intention of making it my all-inclusive destination for all things Jimmish – Blogs, music, book sales, and whatever else was kicking around.
It hasn’t progressed much.
My thoughts, and perhaps some inspiration to kick it all off again…
This last couple of years has seen a huge shift in my own “journey” (such a cliché!). One of the most significant things has been my official psychiatric diagnosis of ADHD.
I’ve had to go back through my entire life and reassess pretty much everything I assumed about who I was and why things happened the way they did, with the understanding that I am very neurodiverse. In fact, not only am I rather high on the ADHD scale, I also have some Autism characteristics!
It’s been very strange indeed – one minute being incredibly grateful that I now understand why my life is the way it is, the next, being pissed off that if I’d known, I would have been able to flourish within my personal paradigms and found much better paths in life. But that’s just hypothetical and probably wouldn’t have changed that much, given that it’s only been the last few years that neurodiversity has become a valid thing, with serious research and interventions that allow us to function better in society.
I’ve also discovered that the intersectionality of LGBTI+ and neurodiversity is massive! This has opened up a huge area of research, which I’ve spent the last year digging deeply into. The hope is that what I do with Silent Gays can embrace this in a way that provides far more understanding and hope than I ever dreamed of.
I’m starting to network with people experienced in this field, and I’m working on re-writing the CORE Workbook, as well as a new workbook that is specifically focussed on educating Christians on the reality of human sexuality and gender, in a way that’s neutral, so that the knowledge can then be integrated into their belief systems in productive ways.
Meanwhile, musically, I’ve been wrestling with shedding expectations about what makes “good” and socially acceptable music, and how to create music as an art form without completely losing the tiny little following I have. I’m a bit of a musical chameleon in many ways, because I can easily adopt any style and pump out some beats or ballads, or whatever. But despite that, there’s a deep yearning to uncover the music in me that’s the purest form of expression I can put out there.
Of course, many artists (from all fields) wrestle with this stuff, while others are happy to churn out music for the masses – and there’s nothing wrong with that as such, it’s just not me.
So watch this space, as I experiment with my art, and find peace with the technology which, although incredibly powerful in its abilities, can be a distraction for my ADHD brain!
And my other goal is to integrate this site with the new jimmarjoram.com (I blame the ADHD!)
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I didn’t comment immediately after the Christchurch shooting because it triggered a heap of stuff and I needed to give it a day or two to settle. As is my want, my comments are usually outside the status quo, so I don’t want to appear insensitive in any way.
Firstly, the whole thing is horrific at every level and trying to convey anything meaningful through my words is kinda lame really. Simply put, I’ve been in tears for the people affected. And don’t get me started on things like white supremacy and the mental illness that creates such sick paradigms.
All people, no matter their beliefs, are beautiful and “sacred”, deserving of love, compassion and respect. End of story.
However, religion is an entirely different matter and we are faced with the task of whitewashing our religious differences and glibly saying we must respect everyone’s beliefs and co-exist in harmony and respect, or face the fact that our beliefs actually do embrace the possibility of justifying horrific actions. To sort this out effectively, requires a lot of unpacking.
Islam, as represented by your everyday Muslim, is described (or has been re-branded) as the “religion of peace”, and for these millions of people, all they want is to live their lives in peace – as we all do! Christians too make similar claims.
But there are facts – “elephant in the room” type facts.
Islam has never been a religion of peace – ever – under any circumstances (except to, perhaps, other Muslims and even then there is an extremely brutal justice system that is hardly one of a “peaceful” religion). It has shed endless rivers of blood. It conquers and destroys with cruelty and viscous hatred and bigotry.
But let’s not forget that Christianity is also guilty of this, as are most of the major religions. This includes Judaism. In fact the three Abrahamic religions have released more horror on this world than any other force.
But before you jump on me, I absolutely recognise that there are millions of people who live within these religious constructs and despite what they are taught at any level, just want to live peaceful lives.
So we have a massive disconnect here. Many would say we shouldn’t include the extremists and activists in the equations as they don’t represent the vast majority. But the fact is, they are there, and their influence is huge. They have guided these mammoth institutions throughout the centuries more than any “peaceful majority”. Let’s face it, would you really want to live in an Islamic state?
Let’s be grateful that at least in “western” countries the laws are such that we don’t allow overtly violent and abusive religious expressions.
Christianity is only peaceful because of those who embrace the simple teachings of Jesus (don’t get me started on Paul). Those who like to weave the Old Testament scriptures into the picture have a deep sense of God’s wrath and violence (yes, there are many doctrines and theological ideas that try to piece it all together with varying degrees of success). But the same is also true for Islam. Muhammad’s teachings are clearly contradictory in terms of being peaceful and embracing all nations, and committing various degrees of horrific genocide on the infidels. To get the type of religion most Muslims like to live by requires extreme cherry picking and juggling of scripture.
Same with the Jews.
Same with Christians.
Islam is one screwed up religion, seriously! And to think otherwise is to be naive.
So what do we do with all this? My heart is to help people be truthful and realistic about what they believe and why they believe it. Are our beliefs really based on being “peaceful and loving”. Does our core religion, as laid out in traditional doctrines, allow for unconditional love, compassion and empathy with every other person on the planet? Are we even willing to look at the issues, or are we happy to just pretend the problem doesn’t exist?
We can ignore it to a huge degree, which is what the various movements towards religious tolerance encourage. Live and let live. Your beliefs are yours, and mine are mine and if we accept that we’ll get on just fine… until another group realise that their scriptures and fundamental teachings don’t embrace this in the slightest. And so another round of brutality, bigotry, hatred and terrorism starts.
Of course I support the efforts for religious tolerance! Its all we have so far that resembles anything like a solution. But it’s time we “grew up” as a species and looked at exactly what we get from religion and how ours benefits humanity as a whole.
Truthfully, religions only reflect the hearts of those who created them, and that’s not always a pleasant reality. All religions are cultural constructs, with the potential for peace or horror, just like humans, strangely enough.
Here’s something I always had a problem with, even way back in my fundie days, although I’d end up thinking the usual “God’s way’s are higher than mine”. I often talk about this still, (and will probably keep bringing it up) and have yet to hear any viable answer to the problem.
But it never went away, and once I’d “deconstructed” enough to see through my confirmation biases, this became a central issue to the entire veracity of the gospel.
Let’s face it, the bible is full of random stuff that should never have been put in there. However, if we claim to be Christian then the words of Jesus are the only thing that matters ultimately. But that implies that the writings of Paul (and lets not forget that at least a third or the letters that bear his name aren’t actually written by him) are really only his personal “revelations”. He never met Jesus, or heard a single word he said. It was all in his head from a mystical experience. So just looking at Jesus is really keeping it simple and pure.
But we do have another problem, just to make it all a bit more confusing.
The gospels are all we have as a record of anything he said, but they aren’t written by eye witnesses (and yes, it’s doubtful that even John was by THE John). They are all assembled from the accounts of one, possibly two, other documents (as far as the latest theories go) that no one has any idea about their historicity. Plus we also have to face the the obvious fact that someone was following Jesus everywhere frantically writing down his every word, on parchment, with ink, in “real time” (so as not to miss any subtle nuances or misquote him). And apparently this guy was even there, in the dark, writing away furiously, while Jesus was praying, on his own, to the Father.
This is no small issue! It goes right the the crux of Christianity. And seriously, if we have no way of verifying that the gospels really are the actual words of Jesus then it’s really nothing more than mythology.
For me, this was one of the key factors for my “leaving the fold”. And as I looked outside the confines of christian theology and doctrines, I found other spiritual and philosophical hypothesis far more rational and capable of making myself and the world a better place.
It’s really become a case of why would I attempt to adhere to a religious belief system that was so flawed from the ground up, creating nearly 2000 years of bitter conflict, endless reassessment, new doctrines, etc, to maintain credibility and relevance.
I keep bringing this whole point up, not in an attempt to undermine anyone’s personal beliefs (although that would be a very real possibility) but to help us all realise that religion in any form is an entirely subjective experience that we create to feel better about ourselves and the world.
https://i0.wp.com/itslifejim.pub/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/parchment.jpg?fit=449%2C314&ssl=1314449itslifejimhttp://www.itslifejim.pub/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/website-cloud-banner-300x37.jpgitslifejim2019-03-11 01:17:392019-03-11 01:17:43Who wrote what?
Toxic vs Neurodiverse
Is the label “toxic” destructive to the neurodiverse?
Over recent years, the term “toxic” has become common usage to describe people who have a negative impact on those around them, and are considered manipulative, selfish, lacking empathy, etc, for others. There are many variations of this description, but we are all reasonably familiar with it these days.
Keeping our own mental state safe and healthy can often require us to distance ourselves from those who display these characteristics. Life can be difficult enough without complications from those who have these tendencies!
However, the term has become something of an overused cliché, and can often be used as an excuse to simply avoid doing the hard work of self understanding and navigating relationships with empathy and compassion. I’m not suggesting that we no longer recognise the destructive nature of those with narcissistic “toxic” tendencies, but rather to make sure we aren’t part of the problem!
Neurodiversity (ND) is a spectrum that describes the cognitive functioning and processes of the brain. The most common is ADHD, but it includes a wide range of often overlapping conditions such as ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), Aspergers, Dyslexia etc.
For those with some form and level of neurodiversity, many of the cognitive processes with communication come across as offensive, rude, self-centred, blunt etc, without the appropriate filtering exercised in “normal” communications and relationships. This often creates huge issues, which the “normal” person can interpret as “toxic”, refusing to accept that the ND person actually cares and is genuinely confused by the reactions they get.
When ND people question the reactions of others, they may get accused of things like gaslighting, which only serves to worsen the destructive communication cycle. This creates very difficult problems for ND people, often compounding their struggles in relationships. I’ve experienced this myself as an ND person, and constantly see it in others.
Some of us learn to recognise how we come across to others and can adapt and monitor our language and responses, but it’s hard work, and our impulsive and spontaneous nature means we often say things before we realise. Then there’s also the way we act in response to other’s emotions and reactions, which can come across as indifferent or uncaring. We can be forgetful and distracted, or hyperfocused to the point of being dismissive of what’s going on around us.
All of us are complex and nuanced creatures, and for those on the ND spectrum, life can be difficult enough without being labelled as “toxic”. So please, don’t use the toxic label as an easy way out of personal growth and wisdom.
Good/Bad Christianity
As most of you know, I post some rather scathing stuff about Christianity.
There’s a few reasons for this, the most obvious being the level of abuse I went through in churches – from subtle forms of gaslighting and manipulation, through to some pretty heavy stuff. Basically, I’ve experienced the full length and breadth of what Christianity can offer.
It’s taken me many years to sift through the mess and discover my own sense of self, my place in the world, and what sort of “spirituality” works for me.
Most of my posts are directed towards the extremists and fundamentalists, who embrace an extremely toxic form of religion that has little to do with the things Jesus apparently preached.
Strangely, having participated wholeheartedly in that type of religion for many years, I actually have a high level of empathy for those in the “system”. I genuinely understand how one can get hooked into it. I appreciate the patience of friends over the years, many of whom stood back and let me go through it all, and some who confronted me with the harsh reality.
In the end, both ends of the spectrum helped me see what I was doing, but it was those who really challenged me, directly but politely, that caused the biggest shift.
Sure, I’d dig my heals in, and do the mental gymnastics needed to justify my beliefs, but eventually, straightforward logic and reason won me over, along with experiencing genuine, unconditional love, with no expectations and conditions.
So for those of you who would agree with how disgusting that form of Christianity is, but get rather disconcerted that I’m painting you all with the same brush, let me qualify things.
For me, the entirety of Christianity has become irrelevant, and that colours my opinions. But I totally appreciate those who have a “real” loving faith that reflects the nice bits of the bible and embraces doctrines that truly benefit themselves and humanity.
Here’s the thing though…
Christianity, in any form of “good” or “bad” is 100% subjective, built on traditions and assumptions, filtered through emotions in a way that builds deep levels of confirmation bias. This means that, for the “good” ones, they look for good in the theology and doctrines. They see through the lens of love.
But Christianity doesn’t make people compassionate and empathetic! Yes, that’s a bold statement, but I’ve found the reality is that the people who find Christianity as a place of deep love and acceptance, that helps them with existential angst, and provides a loving and supportive community, were already like that in the first place!
“Good” people become “good” Christians.
But Jim, there’s so many testimonies of “bad” people getting saved and turning their lives around!
So, here’s the other thing…
When you look closely at those testimonies, and if you have the chance, the personal lives of those people over longer periods of time, we find a very different picture. Nearly all embrace the most extreme forms of fundamentalism, becoming religiously obsessed, with obnoxious agendas to “get everyone saved”. They are the ones who exemplify bigotry, condemnation, exclusivity and division. They preach hell and damnation.
They have taken the things that make them “bad” and wrapped them up in Christianity. This creates a veneer of pseudo love, that other Christians (mostly fundamentalists) approve of. This means that even the “best” Christians accept them, to greater or lesser degrees, as just passionate and “on fire”.
In all my interactions with Christianity over 40 years, through a huge range of denominations, and working with countless people in many capacities, I’ve found this to be true. And yes, there are people who were originally loving and compassionate, but got caught up in “bad” things, so their testimony does have some validity. But even then, most of those in this category don’t become the religiously obsessed I’m talking about.
But wait, there’s more!!
As I mentioned, the entirety of Christian beliefs are a subjective construct, with no empirical evidence whatsoever. But that’s the case for ALL religions! The “spiritual” is something we have no evidence for, apart from anecdotal stuff, emotional experiences, visions etc. There’s nothing to actually prove that ANY religion is true, let alone THE truth. It’s all various degrees of dogma.
BUT, that’s actually OK. Because the real benefits of any religion are in what sort of person it makes you (or helps bring out in you). It’s all about metaphor and allegory, shaped by stories and legends etc. Whether they are literally true isn’t really important – it’s how we live that gives religions any credibility.
So yeah, when we embrace dogma, we are instantly on the “downward” path. Instead, as most “good” Christians do, hold your beliefs lightly, ready to change and grow. Embrace questions, fight through dogma, be open to answers from anywhere. Trust the deep love that is already in all of us (although that can be buried very deep for some).
“Good” Christians don’t care about converting you, getting people saved, and making sure they believe the correct doctrines. They just want to get on with loving people, allowing their loves to speak for themselves. They innately live with empathy and compassion, with a belief system that reflects the simple example of the unreligious aspects of Jesus.
So get out there and just live life to it’s fullest – with love, compassion and empathy, and quietly believe whatever you want.
[Note: I use “good” and “bad” as descriptors, rather than specific moral judgements on the people. In some ways, I’d prefer to use “beneficial” and “detrimental” as they have different connotations, but that’s a whoooole other topic!]
Being like Jesus
There’s an incredible number of Christians who are taking it back to the basics and focussing on simply living like Jesus.
In fact, there are many who no longer call themselves Christian but still hold the example of Jesus as their guiding light.
This is a vast improvement on the traditional religion, which is entirely built on the teachings of Paul, with a dash of colour from a couple of other writers who were popular at the time.
Pualine theology “works” as a religion very well, which is why it’s stuck around for a couple of thousand years, but despite any beneficial effects from its efforts to address existential questions, it’s mostly been the source of destructive divisions, wars and genocides, hatred and bigotry. But yes, there has also been a constant thread of loving, caring and empathetic people who’ve managed to cherry-pick their way through scripture to create something that’s more universally embracing.
But my point here is about focussing on Jesus, and just living by his words and example.
Here’s the thing – “the elephant in the room” – ignored, probably because most people don’t know what to do about it; we have absolutely no idea what Jesus actually said or did – none – zilch.
Yes, we have the gospels, but that’s it. No other written records apart from a few other gospels that generally aren’t taken seriously.
The gospel writers were not eyewitnesses. This is common knowledge and beyond dispute. We can only guess who they were.
Perhaps these stories were from oral traditions, or there may have been an earlier source document that Mark used, or maybe Mark was the source for the others. It’s all speculation, because there simply isn’t enough evidence to know.
Then there’s the simple fact that these gospel writers were already immersed in Pauline theology – they were writing from that doctrinal environment.
So there is absolutely no way we can honestly and genuinely say we know what Jesus said and did. It’s all assumptions.
This leaves us in a very awkward place.
The apparent teachings of Jesus are really good stuff – I’ve got no argument with that – mostly. There are a few things that are pretty sus and have to be heavily processed through various theological gymnastics, but it is a good basis for life. Plus there’s obscure references to eastern philosophies thrown into the mix if we care to look. But even that can be just confirmation bias.
Perhaps we need to stop, and take stock of this ancient religion entirely. Do we really need it? Is it possible that despite its popularity, it’s basically redundant? Do we have the guts to admit it hasn’t been the amazing cure to humanity’s woes that it promised to be?
Are we brave enough to even ask these questions?
Christian Universalism sucks
Embracing Universalism was part of my deconstruction journey.
It was the only thing that made any genuine sense and had an ounce of integrity in relation to the foundational premises of Christian theology.
Sure, I knew all the traditional reasons why not “all” were saved, but no matter how I juggled theology with my personal sense of justice, forgiveness and love, any concept of hell, and all that entailed, was more like the work of a psychopath than a loving god.
So Universalism was the obvious solution, and there is plenty of scripture that can be cherry-picked to support it.
Recently, I’ve had a long conversation with a couple of Universalists, which brought to light the problem that I’d always wrestled with about the whole topic.
Universalists are just a group with another set of dogma that sounds much more loving, and yes, it does paint god in a far more gracious and loving light. However, it’s still based entirely on yet another set of interpretations of ambiguous scriptures (which is the basis of every single denomination, sect and movement in the Christian ecosystem).
But what I’ve consistently found, and what I was also guilty of, is the level of patronising arrogance displayed by its supporters!
This isn’t, however, obvious on the surface and you have to dig a bit deeper to uncover it, and when you do, they can get quite nasty, but in a loving, passive aggressive way!
You see, god is sooo magnanimous and forgiving that eventually, everyone will discover how awesome Jesus is and how he made it possible for god to love everyone and save them all. They no longer speak in terms of judgement and condemnation, but the infinite love of their god.
They embrace that sense of superiority that most Christians have and take it to a whole new level. No matter what you believe, or how you behave, ultimately OUR god will have the last say and take you in no matter what. You’ll end up being transformed by his “presence” and love, whether you want it or not.
Our god will eventually give you no choice, and if you challenge him/us on that point, you are just ignorant and we’ll have pity on you and settle back in a smug confidence that you’ll see we were right all along.
All communication becomes reduced to this arrogant, patronising smugness, wrapped in a veneer of pseudo love, that ultimately, is just as ego-feeding as all other forms of religion.
Then they get upset because you challenge them on the point that they are still assuming THEIR god is the only true god, and their entire premise is nothing more than gaslighting.
So yeah, nice try guys, but no cigar.
It’s still the same dogma and subjective beliefs, just wrapped in nicer packaging.
Poking Religion
Lately, I’ve been doing social media posts that don’t hold back on the foundational theologies and doctrines of Christianity. As most people know, I’ve been very public about deconstructing my beliefs and the processes behind this.
One thing that I’ve found fascinating is how any attack on a person’s religious beliefs is usually taken as an attack on the person themselves.
This is understandable because of how powerful religious beliefs are. They govern our whole world view – from how we see ourselves, others, the state of the world, and our eternal destiny, so when someone challenges the very foundations of those beliefs, we can tend to get very defensive, because we’ve invested our lives into them.
Many don’t notice that in all my controversial opinions, I never actually attack the person, and go out of my way to make it clear that although I may find their beliefs completely untenable, I also completely understand why they believe them, and respect their sincerity with genuine empathy (mostly… I have my moments!), remembering only too well that I’ve been there myself.
I also try to make it very clear that underneath it all, the real enemy is dogma – the absolute conviction that our beliefs are the incontrovertible truth and everyone else is absolutely wrong. There are many of course, who are willing to concede that there’s room to accept various interpretations of traditional views and biblical writings, as long as they don’t undermine the foundations.
Religion thrives by claiming its inherent and inerrant truth.
But I often get challenged by people claiming that I’m also being dogmatic about my opinions, which on the surface sounds legit, so really, it comes down to looking at the substance of various claims that religion presents, and my own stance on dogma.
The whole idea of challenging dogmatic thoughts/beliefs/religious systems is not to promote yet another “truth” and replace them with its own dogma. It’s about helping people to see that all religious/spiritual and philosophical beliefs are subjective. There is absolutely nothing that can be proven to make any one system the “winner”.
If people ask, I happily present my personal views and why I find them to be the most viable. I’ll even engage in deep discussion as to why this is the case, and also have a Facebook page where I present my ideas.
But I do not hold my views as dogma, because there’s no way I can prove them! They feel right to me at the moment, but I’m also evolving and growing, constantly looking at “life, the universe and everything” to see what I can glean to broaden my outlook, and most importantly, to bring unity and love to the world.
So if you’ve been offended by my provocative poking of sacred cows, it could be that you’re far more locked in dogma than you realise.
Most importantly, unconditional, universal love is the end game, and sometimes we need a bit of a kick to break through our thought patterns to achieve this.
The “religion of love” illusion
What is our purpose?
4 years later…
So, it’s been nearly 4 years since I last posted here!!
Basically, for some reason, Covid seems to have put a stop to my blogging days. Not sure why though!
Anyway, as some of you may remember (probably not), earlier this year I mentioned I’d purchased the domain jimmarjoram.com, with the intention of making it my all-inclusive destination for all things Jimmish – Blogs, music, book sales, and whatever else was kicking around.
It hasn’t progressed much.
My thoughts, and perhaps some inspiration to kick it all off again…
This last couple of years has seen a huge shift in my own “journey” (such a cliché!). One of the most significant things has been my official psychiatric diagnosis of ADHD.
I’ve had to go back through my entire life and reassess pretty much everything I assumed about who I was and why things happened the way they did, with the understanding that I am very neurodiverse. In fact, not only am I rather high on the ADHD scale, I also have some Autism characteristics!
It’s been very strange indeed – one minute being incredibly grateful that I now understand why my life is the way it is, the next, being pissed off that if I’d known, I would have been able to flourish within my personal paradigms and found much better paths in life. But that’s just hypothetical and probably wouldn’t have changed that much, given that it’s only been the last few years that neurodiversity has become a valid thing, with serious research and interventions that allow us to function better in society.
I’ve also discovered that the intersectionality of LGBTI+ and neurodiversity is massive! This has opened up a huge area of research, which I’ve spent the last year digging deeply into. The hope is that what I do with Silent Gays can embrace this in a way that provides far more understanding and hope than I ever dreamed of.
I’m starting to network with people experienced in this field, and I’m working on re-writing the CORE Workbook, as well as a new workbook that is specifically focussed on educating Christians on the reality of human sexuality and gender, in a way that’s neutral, so that the knowledge can then be integrated into their belief systems in productive ways.
Meanwhile, musically, I’ve been wrestling with shedding expectations about what makes “good” and socially acceptable music, and how to create music as an art form without completely losing the tiny little following I have. I’m a bit of a musical chameleon in many ways, because I can easily adopt any style and pump out some beats or ballads, or whatever. But despite that, there’s a deep yearning to uncover the music in me that’s the purest form of expression I can put out there.
Of course, many artists (from all fields) wrestle with this stuff, while others are happy to churn out music for the masses – and there’s nothing wrong with that as such, it’s just not me.
So watch this space, as I experiment with my art, and find peace with the technology which, although incredibly powerful in its abilities, can be a distraction for my ADHD brain!
And my other goal is to integrate this site with the new jimmarjoram.com (I blame the ADHD!)
Religious Tolerance
I didn’t comment immediately after the Christchurch shooting because it triggered a heap of stuff and I needed to give it a day or two to settle. As is my want, my comments are usually outside the status quo, so I don’t want to appear insensitive in any way.
Firstly, the whole thing is horrific at every level and trying to convey anything meaningful through my words is kinda lame really. Simply put, I’ve been in tears for the people affected. And don’t get me started on things like white supremacy and the mental illness that creates such sick paradigms.
All people, no matter their beliefs, are beautiful and “sacred”, deserving of love, compassion and respect. End of story.
However, religion is an entirely different matter and we are faced with the task of whitewashing our religious differences and glibly saying we must respect everyone’s beliefs and co-exist in harmony and respect, or face the fact that our beliefs actually do embrace the possibility of justifying horrific actions. To sort this out effectively, requires a lot of unpacking.
Islam, as represented by your everyday Muslim, is described (or has been re-branded) as the “religion of peace”, and for these millions of people, all they want is to live their lives in peace – as we all do! Christians too make similar claims.
But there are facts – “elephant in the room” type facts.
Islam has never been a religion of peace – ever – under any circumstances (except to, perhaps, other Muslims and even then there is an extremely brutal justice system that is hardly one of a “peaceful” religion). It has shed endless rivers of blood. It conquers and destroys with cruelty and viscous hatred and bigotry.
But let’s not forget that Christianity is also guilty of this, as are most of the major religions. This includes Judaism. In fact the three Abrahamic religions have released more horror on this world than any other force.
But before you jump on me, I absolutely recognise that there are millions of people who live within these religious constructs and despite what they are taught at any level, just want to live peaceful lives.
So we have a massive disconnect here. Many would say we shouldn’t include the extremists and activists in the equations as they don’t represent the vast majority. But the fact is, they are there, and their influence is huge. They have guided these mammoth institutions throughout the centuries more than any “peaceful majority”. Let’s face it, would you really want to live in an Islamic state?
Let’s be grateful that at least in “western” countries the laws are such that we don’t allow overtly violent and abusive religious expressions.
Christianity is only peaceful because of those who embrace the simple teachings of Jesus (don’t get me started on Paul). Those who like to weave the Old Testament scriptures into the picture have a deep sense of God’s wrath and violence (yes, there are many doctrines and theological ideas that try to piece it all together with varying degrees of success). But the same is also true for Islam. Muhammad’s teachings are clearly contradictory in terms of being peaceful and embracing all nations, and committing various degrees of horrific genocide on the infidels. To get the type of religion most Muslims like to live by requires extreme cherry picking and juggling of scripture.
Same with the Jews.
Same with Christians.
Islam is one screwed up religion, seriously! And to think otherwise is to be naive.
So what do we do with all this? My heart is to help people be truthful and realistic about what they believe and why they believe it. Are our beliefs really based on being “peaceful and loving”. Does our core religion, as laid out in traditional doctrines, allow for unconditional love, compassion and empathy with every other person on the planet? Are we even willing to look at the issues, or are we happy to just pretend the problem doesn’t exist?
We can ignore it to a huge degree, which is what the various movements towards religious tolerance encourage. Live and let live. Your beliefs are yours, and mine are mine and if we accept that we’ll get on just fine… until another group realise that their scriptures and fundamental teachings don’t embrace this in the slightest. And so another round of brutality, bigotry, hatred and terrorism starts.
Of course I support the efforts for religious tolerance! Its all we have so far that resembles anything like a solution. But it’s time we “grew up” as a species and looked at exactly what we get from religion and how ours benefits humanity as a whole.
Truthfully, religions only reflect the hearts of those who created them, and that’s not always a pleasant reality. All religions are cultural constructs, with the potential for peace or horror, just like humans, strangely enough.
There is a better way!
Who wrote what?
Here’s something I always had a problem with, even way back in my fundie days, although I’d end up thinking the usual “God’s way’s are higher than mine”. I often talk about this still, (and will probably keep bringing it up) and have yet to hear any viable answer to the problem.
But it never went away, and once I’d “deconstructed” enough to see through my confirmation biases, this became a central issue to the entire veracity of the gospel.
Let’s face it, the bible is full of random stuff that should never have been put in there. However, if we claim to be Christian then the words of Jesus are the only thing that matters ultimately. But that implies that the writings of Paul (and lets not forget that at least a third or the letters that bear his name aren’t actually written by him) are really only his personal “revelations”. He never met Jesus, or heard a single word he said. It was all in his head from a mystical experience. So just looking at Jesus is really keeping it simple and pure.
But we do have another problem, just to make it all a bit more confusing.
The gospels are all we have as a record of anything he said, but they aren’t written by eye witnesses (and yes, it’s doubtful that even John was by THE John). They are all assembled from the accounts of one, possibly two, other documents (as far as the latest theories go) that no one has any idea about their historicity. Plus we also have to face the the obvious fact that someone was following Jesus everywhere frantically writing down his every word, on parchment, with ink, in “real time” (so as not to miss any subtle nuances or misquote him). And apparently this guy was even there, in the dark, writing away furiously, while Jesus was praying, on his own, to the Father.
This is no small issue! It goes right the the crux of Christianity. And seriously, if we have no way of verifying that the gospels really are the actual words of Jesus then it’s really nothing more than mythology.
For me, this was one of the key factors for my “leaving the fold”. And as I looked outside the confines of christian theology and doctrines, I found other spiritual and philosophical hypothesis far more rational and capable of making myself and the world a better place.
It’s really become a case of why would I attempt to adhere to a religious belief system that was so flawed from the ground up, creating nearly 2000 years of bitter conflict, endless reassessment, new doctrines, etc, to maintain credibility and relevance.
I keep bringing this whole point up, not in an attempt to undermine anyone’s personal beliefs (although that would be a very real possibility) but to help us all realise that religion in any form is an entirely subjective experience that we create to feel better about ourselves and the world.