I grew up in a sect that I like to often describe as Beer Drinkin’ Christianity because it’s really chill about most things including homosexuality and gender. It wasn’t until I had grown out of it and basically gone full agnostic that I really realized how coercive even my version of religion had been. I could go on and on but the funniest thing to me was realizing during an Abnormal Psychology 101 course in college that my Church Camp basically used every last technique they listed for brain washing. It was a fun camp and not scary in any way but yet extremely manipulative in a subversive way.
I similarly left Christianity from a far more fundamentalist sect and yes: the coercion is significant on all levels. It’s scary once you realize what’s been going on.
It’s an incredibly controlling form of human culture and not given its due wariness.
Yeah I told my partner about some of the stuff that goes on and her first thought was ‘they shouldn’t allow kids in religion until they’re old enough to decide for themselves’.
It’s the correct decision that will never happen - Children have no rights+ in modern society.
Any zealous religious parent being told they can’t bring up their child in their religion would throw an absolute shitfit.
+The only “right” of a child is framed in terms of parental responsibilities.
