American Cult Story

29:13I was in my office building. I didn't buy it until August of 2020. So you were a closet atheist for two years. Yeah. Because it was just, it sounds, no, it doesn't sound ridiculous because people that when it's something that like, that was how my whole life was brought. I mean, I must've had so much grief. I had so much grief and I felt like, first of all, and it's kind of embarrassing. embarrassing no don't be embarrassed you know what i mean not really that's not the number one but it's it's just there was so much grief and there was so much separation from you know people in my family that i realized was there so it so even though it's in my head intellectually it was a pretty easy thing in terms of verbalizing it that took a lot longer i'm just really this is the first time you've ever told me about the monkey conversation.

30:10I kind of forgot about it until you said that. Right. But I'd forgotten about it too until our caller, our gay triad told us. And then it triggered that. But what's so interesting about that is we'd had a lot of conversations prior to that you and me where I was in the scientific data-based world of it and your worldview was biblical. And you'd roll your eyes at me and I'd kind of roll my eyes at you and then would realize, okay, we can't talk about this and we'd move on. it's interesting timing wise because i bet that was around 2018 2019 when we had that conversation it's interesting that you remember that and that you knew like this is fucking bullshit right like i'm living a lie kind of that's wild yeah because yeah i remember it really distinctly that's a really good caller that's a really good and that's a good reveal from you pumps it's like tell our listener about the grief because my mom when you first called me and me you aren't religious anymore first of all i fell over because you were the most religious friend i had i couldn't believe it so of course i called my mother immediately like mom you're never gonna believe this angie just called me and told me she didn't believe in god or heaven and my mom was so compassionate and she'd read all about this she said well you know jennifer she's gonna have a lot of grief because it's like a death of something right he had in her life that was, you know, ubiquitous from birth on.

31:30And it's a whole process, like the grieving process that she's going to go through with this. She was right. Yeah. So tell us about the grief. First of all, you know, obviously being indoctrinated religiously, it's really easy for me to, you know, put cognitive dissonance and denial and put stuff in boxes and compartmentalize and all that. So that's how you kind of do it for a while. And then it's like the rug gets pulled out from under you. Because it's like everything from birth to, you know, decades into my life. That was something that I leaned on. And that was supposed to fix everything. And so and then I think what more than that, because I had begun to realize, you know, before I started really deconstructing my faith, I realized that prayer was not a dependable coping mechanism.

32:29Like I had realized that, but I think what it is for me anyway, it was, you know, kind of like you're walking in a field and you don't know where you're going. Like you're in a labyrinth, you don't know where to go and you're not sure you'll get out, but you, you've got to try. And then I also think for me, the biggest thing was that was something that was so ingrained in my family. That's what bound our family together. And it was so prevalent every day, all of those things. And I knew that it would put distance between myself and my family. So it was guilt for that and grief for that. But then it was a choice that I, I have to do this for me.

33:11Like I've done this for you forever and ever and ever and i've been a good foot soldier done everything i was supposed to do and but i kind of i mean i hate i don't want to be like oh i had to choose me kind of cliche but it was just like but i have to choose this for me and and and there's just a lot of grief about the family thing because by the time i actually started deconstructing it i knew a lot of it was bullshit. Right. It was the family ties. I think the most. Well, and I mean, this is my observation and you can confirm that if this is true or not, but my observation of your family ties, I've never seen a human being more scared of their family.

33:53The terror in which you felt towards being a certain scripted way that they wanted you to be. I'd never seen an adult so terrified of their parents. I mean, this is well into your forties. And I was like, you're a grown ass woman. Why are you so scared of your mom and dad? But it was a sheer like, you know, like junior high. Like shaking inside my body. Yes. My mom caught me smoking. I came to your house and you gave me a hug and you're like, you're physically shaking the rat. I've never, I've never seen anything like it. So that would have to exacerbate the fear because the fear-based part of your religion was very pronounced.

34:35It was a very fear-based heaven, hell reward thing. Yeah. But you know what I have to say now, knowing you for all of those years, religious and not religious now, you're a lot less scared. I think your feet are so much more firmly planted when you're not putting all that magical thinking in and when you're critically thinking and you can like look at consequences and here's the deal and I'm accountable and I think I feel a lot better internally. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. So yeah, Jennifer was my first call but I was crying. You were. I felt and I remember I that's why I called my mom immediately because I knew, I mean, like that your, I mean, your identity was your faith.

35:25I mean, it was very much your identity and I was shocked. Oh my God, listener. I mean, you could have blown me over with a feather. She was like, I've got something to tell you. And we've had many phone calls throughout our friendship where it's like, I have something major to tell you. And they've all been major things. Right. Never in 25 million years would I think I would have ever gotten a call from Angela Dawn. She was an atheist. She was relentless about inviting me to Bible study in the first part of our friendship. And I finally had to be like, stop inviting me. I'm never going to go. She's like, okay, well, we want you to be on our team.

36:05And I was like, don't want to be. And then we were able to agree to disagree and went on. Oh God, the recruiting. But I just never, I was so shocked. I was so shocked. And I know to this day. And what's funny is we weren't, we were friends, obviously we weren't day to day to day. Like we have been, you know, listener, you go through phases with friends where you talk five times a day and then you go through a few months where you only talk three or four, especially you've been friends 25 years. We weren't day to day talking. So when she called me and she said she had major news. I knew it was major news.

36:39I mean, I thought it was like, I mean, I don't know what I thought it was like, you know, somebody was pregnant, you know, somebody got knocked up, something major. I just never, ever, ever thought that ever. Was your mouth hanging open? Cause we weren't together. I was, no, I remember exactly where I was. I remember exactly what I was looking at. And, and I mean, I had to call my mom because my mother had predicted when we were first friends because you were so religious and I was so not religious. And the thing that bugged me about you was your religiosity. Like I talked to mom, I really like her, but she's a total Bible thumper.

37:15Like she always wanted me to go to Bible study. Her family's kind of nuts. They're always like, praise Jesus. God is good. When I'm just over there, they're like really, really, really religious. And my mother would say, well, you know, Jennifer, as you age, people tend to get more religious, not less. So I imagine your friendship will, will, you know, recede as you get older. And it was the opposite. Like I never thought, but I always knew like one thing I really liked about hanging out with you is you were very smart. And I always believed that you were a critical thinker. And those of you that are listening that happen to be religious right now, that's not what Angie was.

37:55Angie was the earth is 5 ,000 years old, evolution, there's no such thing, spiritual warfare, devils and angels. Now she wasn't an annoying, she came up a lot in our friendship because she was worried about my soul. But I was able to draw boundaries with her. And when push came to shove in her life, when she had serious, serious problems, it was me, the atheist that she reached out to because she knew that it was a judgment-free zone right with me as opposed to the religious friends and i will say this and and this is absolutely true which is why i know that just having little micro conversations with people changes people i remember we had talks about like how old moses was and noah it was no right i mean we would have those little and i would be like i would defend it you know, it's just little cuts that I would like later think about.

38:52So I know when you have even the smallest conversation, you can kind of, you know, just a little bit of reality. And if it makes people think, I mean, and here's the thing I'm going to say, like there's no desire on my part, or I don't think I'm pumped to convert uber religious people to not being religious. That's not the point of this conversation. Where this intersects with what's happening nationally right now is the people who have this black and white worldview, heaven, hell, demon, spiritual warfare, exorcist, all this crazy shit, right, are completely different than like people that are Christian light that have this private prayerful spiritual moments in their life that have nothing to do with anybody else.

39:37And it's completely separated from their belief or observations of scientific facts. It's the larger point that this is a cult-like thinking. It's definitely like this compulsive cult-like thinking that happens to have been co-opted by this political party. Right. That's where, like, because I don't really, Christians have the strong desire to recruit other people. As an atheist, I don't have any desire for anybody else to, to be an atheist. Now I have to say within that, my least favorite people to hang out with are overtly religious Bible thumpers. It drives me crazy. Much like you talked in the last episode pumps, right?

40:25Blast God is good. It's a God thing. It's just because to me, I'm just like, well, just put a sock in it with the magical thinking I've had it. yeah well and i also think like and i i think it's like the non-smoker now judges smokers yeah yeah with me for sure but one thing it's like if if you draw a piece from it and it makes you feel better i'm all for it yeah but if your actions are so hateful and demean other people i think you have to look inward and if you do it you use religion to justify it right right and use religion is both a weapon and a shield. Yeah. All right, listener, a new season, a President's Day Sale completely on the horizon.

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44:22The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance. Okay, up next we've got Kyle. Good morning, Kylie. I just had to leave you a quick voice memo. I think the girls that I've had it, um, I have a new term for you guys. I can't take credit for it, but I did find it on the internet somewhere and I don't know where, but moving forward, I personally, and I think all of you guys should, um, refer to the mega women, your Candace Owens, Erica Kirks, all them bitches as the twatsies. They are full on twatsies. It's honestly my new favorite term. I've been using it the entire week.

45:02Big fan. I get a lot of reactions. And yeah, that's my new term this week. I think you should adopt it. Love you guys. Bye. Love you back. And the Twatsies. And here's a prime example. Here's the Twatsies. Here's a prime example. They use their faith as a weapon to weaponize against people that were raised like pumps that has the ability to critically think. She's an attorney, did everything that the Christians in her life scripted for her to do. And it led you to a road of despair, no money, no escape route, torture. I mean, not that you were physically tortured, but psychologically and emotionally, my God, you went through it.

45:47And their message in the name of religion is so dangerous for women because I just don't believe that these women are religious. I think it's a cold. And I think you pumps, I think you were kind of in a cold. Well, and I think when I taking a bird's eye view from it, I look at you can't criticize it. Well, that's earmark of a cult. And what bothers me the most now, like all the things that bothers me, even more than somebody telling me to have a blessed day, the way that the misogyny and the sexism. It's so internalized. It's just a part of it. That bothers me the most because I was straight down the fairway with all of that.

46:34And it was me that had to take control of my life. A man is what was like taking my life to shit. You know what I mean? Like, so to sit there and act like women should be trad wives and submit to their husbands. It's like, what if your husband's a complete fucking freak and fucks up everything to a spectacular five-star nuclear meltdown on an hourly basis, then what happens? You don't leave people with a choice. You've got them in a trap situation. And that's how I felt. And that's my lived experience. So that bothers me the most of all of it. When Fox News and Jesse Waters get on there and they demean women.

47:16And I'm like, there are women sitting in there that feel so trapped and do not feel empowered to leave. And I've been that person. So I always, that's what drives me the craziest. So twatsies, I'm all fucking in, although I think that's too nice. If you said it, I would be happier because it always brings me just the biggest, I get so tickled every time you're just like, she's a twat. That's like my favorite thing ever. Okay. I have Googled and I have an AI overview of the signs of a cult. Are you ready to go through them? Okay. Charismatic and authoritarian leader, a leader who claims supreme knowledge, demands unquestioning obedience, lacks accountability, and often seeing themselves as above moral standards.

48:06I would say this resembles not only the church you were in, but also the family structure. 100%. 100%. Next up is isolation. Members are pressured to cut ties with family and friends who are seen as threats, making the group the sole source of support. How many times did your parents tell you not to hang out with me? Well, not just you in my job, but when I was kids too. I mean, a hundred, but like even when, as, as a child, you know, don't run around with that kind of thing. Here's another one. Thought control, critical thinking, questioning and dissent are forbidden. Members are taught to use specific phrases or slogans to shut down doubts.

48:49Yeah. I mean, it's check, check, check, check, check. Fear and guilt, fear of the outside world, divine punishment or shunning is used to keep members in line. Members often say they were quote, never good enough, which is what I talk about a lot. They keep evangelical Christianity and he keeps my peers and you, it was always this, this real, uh, I couldn't understand it. Like, you know, I'm just really working on my relationship with God and, you know, I need to do things that please him. And I'm just like, when I just wake up and I'll be an asshole and see if that fits into that thing. But it was always this like made up extra things that, that you all had to do to be right because you weren't inherently born good enough.

49:35Could you imagine the first time I heard, and I mean, no indoctrination at all. The first time I heard like the whole, so you were born bad. God made you and he made you bad. You were a bad baby. Right. And the only way that you can get better is to get rid of sin is to accept Jesus, his son, who he sent on a suicide mission. And I'm just like, that's it though. That's what it is. I'm just like, what? Like, but also his son is him and he's the son. That was like a, I was like, what? I mean, I was just, I remember like this. I had my very first boyfriend, he was so, they were so serious to recruit me.

50:24And my other friends, I'd kind of asked them questions about it and they were like want to tongue talk and do weird shit right well my very first boyfriend of course you know your first boyfriend you're so in love with right so in love religious and i remember them talking about like how you're born bad and you're born a sinner and i had never heard such a thing like that you're born in here i mean i kind of my parents didn't say you're born great but i was inherently taught to kind of see the goodness in people right and that that being bad was kind of a choice like a conscious choice and that you needed to choose the light right so when i first started hearing all this and then what the the suicide trip the suicide mission and then like the father son holy spirit but it's all the same and then here's the thing too that got me i was told god knows this was a recruiting technique right for somebody who was zero indoctrination god knows you before you're born he knows exactly what yes throughout your whole life and then he knows where if you're going to heaven or hell and i'm like then why the are we doing all this yeah i remember asking my mom as a a child like i don't know how old i was but i was old enough to remember so let's say middle schoolish 11 10 11 12.

51:45i was coming here from church and i was like so if a baby dies before they can make a conscious decision are they going to go to hell and it she didn't say yes but she kind of fudged around it and i remember thinking that's i mean as a child the baby was going to hell no she couldn't bring herself to say that but it was more like well there's kind of an exception or carve out because when you point blank ask someone like is a baby going to hell that dies of a health complication at birth you know that's kind of but i remember having that conversation with her and i could tell that the answer was yes but it just as she was saying it it just was so bad that she backtracked and made a carve out i can't remember what the carve out was but i remember because i just remember thinking because every time it would come up after that the born bad stuff i remember thinking about that okay here's some more us versus them mentality unique exclusive truth girl put my face on that lack of transparency loss of individuality constant pressure to perform shunning of former members i see i think it's a cult i just i 100 percent think white evangelical biblical christianity is a cult well i mean if we're judging by that and the behavior and you can't question i mean like i where's the i also think it's cool for me to start saying this is my friend angie she used to be in a cult i think yeah i was making fun of jenny thomas the other day because clarence thomas's wife used to be in a cult now she's super maga and then i thought well can i really throw stones at jenny thomas obviously i can because she's a lunatic but i did think i did have that thought you did i did so you kind of feel like it was a cult yeah there were there were definitely parts of it that were culty but i'm not really everything but you know what so but we no no of course not um because i have a friend um our mutual friend um and she has this she's really cool and she's a christian like she is i think like methodist or something but she's like very woke, very progressive, but she has this like really beautiful sense of faith and we've talked about it.

54:05And I'm just like, I think it's fucking crazy Liz. She's like, I know you do, but I just, it's my thing. And I, you know, it's just something that, that grounds me. And I love that for her. I genuinely love that for her, that she has that. And, but she also doesn't see my beliefs as some threat to her beliefs, nor do I see her beliefs as a threat to my belief. And that's where I think you get to where it's not culty at all. I agree. Right. And I think a lot of people have that type of, uh, of kind of silent faith. That's a super personal thing for them. And I, for me, I'm all about that. I think where pumps and I come from to probably a lot of our listeners are like at Eastern West cause like, God, y 'all beat up on Christians all the time.

54:50Right. Why are you doing that? Because the Christians we are around are awful. They're MAGA. It's the same thing. And it's getting louder every fucking day. Yeah. We're trying to. Okay. One more, Kylie. One last one. Okay. The last one will be from Dylan. Okay. So what I've had it with is when you go on your streaming platforms, you're like on Hulu, Netflix, whatever. And then you get to the episode, whatever you want to watch. By the way, you're paying for this service amongst a thousand others. and then you get to press play and it says which ad experience would you prefer what it's like the most gaslighting shit ever like you're paying for the service they're abusing you constantly with ads you're paying presuming you're not going to get any ads and then not only are giving you ads but they're being like here what would you like a pine cone or a pineapple up your ass like it's like literally pick one or the other and they're the exact same thing at the end of the day it's so fucking stupid i don't get it at all and i'm sick of it across the board anything that's like pay to stop giving you ads it's the most toxic abusive shit ever anyways i know you guys kind of talked about this before but anyways as pumps would say what the fuck okay first of all dylan has a very attractive voice very like i just all i can think about when he talked is i bet he is hot agree and very soothing like i could like lay my head on his shoulder i feel like i want to objectify his voice yeah and i don't know if that's woke i don't know if that's progressive but i know that that's what i want to do with his voice yeah it's a great voice.

56:31Here's the thing. I've had this exact same meltdown. Like I had a full fucking meltdown over this on a podcast. And I was just like, because I bought it. I'm going in there. There's all these ads. I can't get out. And I was just like, wanted to like jump off the empire state building. I was so fucking mad about it. This kind of shit makes me fucking crazy. I'm buying that I'm paying for your service. If I'm, it's not free. If I'm watching the free part, that's fine, but I'm fucking paying for it. And you're going to shove it out at my ass. Had it. Could not agree more. Hate it. I want you to bottle up all of that frustration and grievance that you have right now.

57:11Okay. And remember it. And the next time we go to an event and you tell me that I have to Irish exit and I can't lollygag and I can't small talk. I want you to remember that feeling that you just had the meltdown that you just had and i want you to know oh this is what this feels like for her especially because i promised to be the helper i brought her about it you pre-brow beat me right i got in trouble before it even happened right Right. Right. And so I just, I want you to, I want you to remember that feeling the next time we go somewhere together and, um, just bottle that up and just put it right here.

57:58I will do that. I will do that. Thanks for sharing with us about your deconstruction. I have people that message me that I've kind of gone through the same thing. And I think it's really prevalent as you get to be an adult. Yeah, I really do. And I think you need to talk to your therapist about when you say stuff like, I was embarrassed or I was ashamed. You had no agency over that. You didn't get to pick that. That was forced upon you. No, you're right. And we didn't talk about that a lot. Do you need to let go of that? Because that's like, you were emotionally blackmailed. If you do not believe this, you're going to be tortured in hell forever.

58:38Yeah. spent some it's kind of fucked up sleepless nights worried about it for sure yeah all right is that it kylie is that it are we out that's it all right we will see you next tuesday and thursday

58:59listen up patriots gaytriots and natriots we have a new podcast that has dropped it's called iHIP News. It's Monday through Friday, every day, 15 to 20 minute hot takes on the political landscape of the United States of America, always served with a side of petty grievances. We are on all the available platforms, Apple, Spotify, Google, whatever you get your podcast and YouTube. Please go rate, subscribe and review so that we will chart upwards with America's greatest legal mind pumps and pumps what does an eagle say caca a little bit more enthusiasm caca that's it that's that's caca that's the patriotism that this country means right there