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Your own personal Jesus
I have never been able to understand that concept and I’m half convinced evangelicals think there internal narrative is god.
Some do. There’s a concept in some kinds of Pentecostal mysticism called Gifts of the Spirit iirc, including the Gift of Discernment, which means being able to intuit (technically god’s telling you and it feels like intuition) whether a statement is true or false
I grew up in a non-denominational (Pentecostal but worried that people will think they’re poor if they say so) church that didn’t use any of the Gifts lingo, but still taught that you receive that same set of supernatural abilities
Uft. That’s a lot.
Cuz, you know, if you think God is telling you, personally, what’s true and false and right and wrong, you’re just doing whatever you want but with divine mandate. That’s some really intense sicko shit.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it reeks of colonialism. God is with us is a bone-chilling sentiment
I think most fanatics think this way regardless of culture, religion, time period, or location. It’s not a colonialism thing, it’s a religion thing. You can make the invisible people who are always right say anything you want to, and a lot of people make them say “Your cause is just, your enemies are ontological evil, and you look great in that necklace made of severed ears”.
Religion basically gives you an invisible friend who tells you everything you do is the right thing to do, and since you believe your invisible friend cannot ever be wrong you can do whatever seems like a good idea to you. Which is fine if you’re a morally centered, decent person, and really bad if you’re a bloody minded monster.
