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Post by Feminist on Jun 8, 2021 17:08:03 GMT
Anybody read this book? It’s from a former Westbrook Baptist Church member. So many, so many, so many similarities to PRism!
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Jun 9, 2021 4:25:41 GMT
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Post by carmensandiego on Jun 9, 2021 4:25:41 GMT
Anybody read this book? It’s from a former Westbrook Baptist Church member. So many, so many, so many similarities to PRism! Sounds like a great book!! Could you share with us a few highlights?
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Post by Feminist on Jun 10, 2021 1:42:48 GMT
Anybody read this book? It’s from a former Westbrook Baptist Church member. So many, so many, so many similarities to PRism! Sounds like a great book!! Could you share with us a few highlights? I will try. The founder of Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) was the author’s grandfather. His teachings were based on John Calvin. They had a small, family church, maybe 80-100 members. They believed they were the only church that had the truth, and they took many of the teachings PRs would agree with and just acted differently on them. They would picket with signs like “God hates Jews”, “God hates America”, “God hates fags”, and so forth. She was (what we would call) a 200 percenter until she was in her mid twenties. She actually started seeing the light because of her Twitter posts, and the kind replies of a Jew who she had targeted on Twitter. With these online relationships, she started to see “them” (non WBC’s) as real people. She finally started realizing that WBC wasn’t absolutely right about everything. There are many similarities to PR ideas, and some differences. For example, differences were that they were educated thru college (living at home, of course), and women worked outside of the home. Similarities - when she left with her sister, she said she was terrified of leaving - her family would cut her off, and she thought God would strike her down. They were KJV only, adhered to many doctrines we grew up with, and I just found it so interesting how similar the theology and applications were to us. www.amazon.com/Unfollow-Memoir-Leaving-Westboro-Baptist/dp/0374275831/ref=nodl_
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Post by profit on Jun 16, 2021 1:30:05 GMT
Thank you Reverend questioneverything for sharing that talk from the WI book festival.
You can feel the pain in her voice, especially when she talks about her mom. It is a shame that such a strong relationship can be broken by an idea. Relationships in the PR denomination and in churches like Westboro Baptist church are conditional. When you talk to your "friends", know that they are only your friends because of your status, not because of who you are. That isn't a real relationship. And what a shame when that status can break familial relationships. Lots of similarities between what she says and what I have seen from some families in the PR church. When you think about it, it is a selfish and cowardly existence. Some ideas she expressed: 'Pretend ex-members don't exist.' 'When someone leaves we would say, what sort of monster could pretend to be one of us?'
Is it a growth strategy? If you shelter the members, maybe they won't stray. I noticed Megan said she was on Twitter often arguing with people. But it was through that portal that led her astray, but since then the good folks at Westboro have become more strict with their use of social media. Don't want any more of the up and comers making an escape. It seems PR folks have already learned this lesson, hence the restriction on their children socializing outside the church. Got to keep those numbers up.
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Post by fellowhuman on Jun 16, 2021 17:09:14 GMT
Thank you Reverend questioneverything for sharing that talk from the WI book festival. You can feel the pain in her voice, especially when she talks about her mom. It is a shame that such a strong relationship can be broken by an idea. Relationships in the PR denomination and in churches like Westboro Baptist church are conditional. When you talk to your "friends", know that they are only your friends because of your status, not because of who you are. That isn't a real relationship. And what a shame when that status can break familial relationships. Lots of similarities between what she says and what I have seen from some families in the PR church. When you think about it, it is a selfish and cowardly existence. Some ideas she expressed: 'Pretend ex-members don't exist.' 'When someone leaves we would say, what sort of monster could pretend to be one of us?' Is it a growth strategy? If you shelter the members, maybe they won't stray. I noticed Megan said she was on Twitter often arguing with people. But it was through that portal that led her astray, but since then the good folks at Westboro have become more strict with their use of social media. Don't want any more of the up and comers making an escape. It seems PR folks have already learned this lesson, hence the restriction on their children socializing outside the church. Got to keep those numbers up. I don't think it's strategy, exactly. I think in general there is a balance in our interpretive narratives between certainty and meaning on the one hand and openness to anomalous information on the other. Our ways of interpreting the world are necessarily simplifications of what we experience, so at some level of analysis they are wrong. The PRC is the result of people collectively repeatedly choosing moral, directional and interpretive certainty over any proposed uncertainty. I, on the other hand, am very high in the openness personality trait and repeatedly choose to break down my interpretations of the world as I encounter new information. This leaves me morally uncertain and with tenuous sources of meaning. When I talk to PRs, I get very little discussion around what facts I must be missing. The conversation tends to go quickly towards "but what does that mean for your life" and "how do you deal with not knowing x" and "how do you replace y beneficial thing". These are questions it took me two years of deconstruction to even consider thinking about. When I think about what is, I am very analytical. For others, it seems, "what is" and something like "what works" are almost the same question. It's understandable to malign "cult-adjacent" (thanks dontdoxmebro) leaders online; emotions should be expressed and objections should be made. I expect, though, that they are heroes in their own eyes just as I often am in mine. More likely than them having spreadsheet concerns, I mean. Back to what I was saying: theoretically someone could be absolutely open to information and find answers that held true no matter what objections were presented, but that would basically be a mind that held every individual fact in the universe, say, a God. For us mortals, we deal in trade-offs, and are mostly driven to trade by forces outside our conscious control. Unfortunately, in our globalized world, restricting information is dangerous. It is also dangerous when people lose their sources of meaning and direction. What do we do? I guess I put up a post on exPRC and then get back to my job. You can do it, world!
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Post by fellowhuman on Jun 16, 2021 19:14:45 GMT
I guess it is a strategy... but the goal isn't, I think, numbers for their own sake.
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Post by throwaway2018 on Jun 17, 2021 2:45:19 GMT
Thank you Reverend questioneverything for sharing that talk from the WI book festival. You can feel the pain in her voice, especially when she talks about her mom. It is a shame that such a strong relationship can be broken by an idea. Relationships in the PR denomination and in churches like Westboro Baptist church are conditional. When you talk to your "friends", know that they are only your friends because of your status, not because of who you are. That isn't a real relationship. And what a shame when that status can break familial relationships. Lots of similarities between what she says and what I have seen from some families in the PR church. When you think about it, it is a selfish and cowardly existence. Some ideas she expressed: 'Pretend ex-members don't exist.' 'When someone leaves we would say, what sort of monster could pretend to be one of us?' Is it a growth strategy? If you shelter the members, maybe they won't stray. I noticed Megan said she was on Twitter often arguing with people. But it was through that portal that led her astray, but since then the good folks at Westboro have become more strict with their use of social media. Don't want any more of the up and comers making an escape. It seems PR folks have already learned this lesson, hence the restriction on their children socializing outside the church. Got to keep those numbers up. I don't think it's strategy, exactly. I think in general there is a balance in our interpretive narratives between certainty and meaning on the one hand and openness to anomalous information on the other. Our ways of interpreting the world are necessarily simplifications of what we experience, so at some level of analysis they are wrong. The PRC is the result of people collectively repeatedly choosing moral, directional and interpretive certainty over any proposed uncertainty. I, on the other hand, am very high in the openness personality trait and repeatedly choose to break down my interpretations of the world as I encounter new information. This leaves me morally uncertain and with tenuous sources of meaning. When I talk to PRs, I get very little discussion around what facts I must be missing. The conversation tends to go quickly towards "but what does that mean for your life" and "how do you deal with not knowing x" and "how do you replace y beneficial thing". These are questions it took me two years of deconstruction to even consider thinking about. When I think about what is, I am very analytical. For others, it seems, "what is" and something like "what works" are almost the same question. It's understandable to malign "cult-adjacent" (thanks dontdoxmebro) leaders online; emotions should be expressed and objections should be made. I expect, though, that they are heroes in their own eyes just as I often am in mine. More likely than them having spreadsheet concerns, I mean. Back to what I was saying: theoretically someone could be absolutely open to information and find answers that held true no matter what objections were presented, but that would basically be a mind that held every individual fact in the universe, say, a God. For us mortals, we deal in trade-offs, and are mostly driven to trade by forces outside our conscious control. Unfortunately, in our globalized world, restricting information is dangerous. It is also dangerous when people lose their sources of meaning and direction. What do we do? I guess I put up a post on exPRC and then get back to my job. You can do it, world! In my experience you’re exactly right. Many of the PRs I know take comfort in the idea of an answer being a possible solution to a question more than whether or not that answer is correct. I really struggled to train myself to accept “I don’t know” as a satisfactory answer to a question. God of the gaps, more or less, is a big downfall in PR logic.
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