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Donna Ray's avatar

Rock music played backward contains satanic messages.

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

Oh yes! Was this a Christian-specific thing, or a larger cultural thing??? I guess Christian 😂

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Marla Taviano's avatar

I forgot about this!

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Marla Taviano's avatar

Teletubbies had a gay agenda. Something about the Smurfs. 🤣 I believed the Left Behind books were an accurate representation of what was really going to happen (AS AN ADULT). Earth is just 6000 years old. Robert E. Lee was a great guy. So was Ronald Reagan.

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

Oh my gosh yes, the Teletubbies! Too much rainbow. And "something about the smurfs," that's exactly what so much of this feels like: "something about [insert vague and weird thing here]"

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Marla Taviano's avatar

Soooooooo vague.

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Ivy Zeller's avatar

Yes to all of these. When I was little, the Left Behind books were treated basically like a third testament (though my parents would deny that they believe that).

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Marla Taviano's avatar

UGH. Ironically, I bought the first 3 for my dad for Christmas one year. 🤣 I don’t know that he ever got into them like I did.

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Kristen McClendon's avatar

I LOVED the Left Behind series and Ronald Reagan. So much to unpack with that😂.

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Marla Taviano's avatar

I’m gonna be unpacking baggage for the rest of my damn life. 🤣😫

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Ivy Zeller's avatar

So many conspiracy theories. Looking for demons everywhere (no magic of any sort allowed in entertainment, with some inconsistent exceptions, LOL), young earth creationism, that the conservative radio channel that we listened to was not a hate group (even though I believe it was officially classified as one), that there is some kind of coordinated "liberal agenda," that the Bible should be taken literally (but somehow we were supposed to get the sinner's prayer, abortion is wrong, all sex outside of marriage is wrong from its less-than-clear pages), etc.

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

The "liberal agenda" was EVERYWHERE and conflated with communism approximately all of the time.

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Lindsey Melden's avatar

Unless you’re Tolkien or Lewis, then you can make magic for Jesus!!! 😂

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Ivy Zeller's avatar

Haha, yes!

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Sarah Miller's avatar

I just realized last year that men don’t have one less rib. I was told so often that was a proof of the creation story and just assumed it was actual biology!

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

I love this realization! So many things we took for granted until we realized it was just something they said to sell us on the idea they promoted...

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Lindsey Melden's avatar

I was a little nervous to read the comments because conspiracy theories trigger my anxiety something fierce - but these actually all just made me smile and honestly feel grateful that I’m so far on the other side of all that. 🥰 I’m just giving my inner child extra hugs tonight for being such an honest and earnest little thing.

Not really a theory, but Harry Potter was obviously banned - because witches & the devil etc etc - and I’m still salty that we could read the hobbit all day and night but I wasn’t allowed to go to the midnight HP release parties. Reading tarot has brought me some healing and vindication 😂

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

I'm glad your anxiety wasn't triggered! Yes, so funny how HP was banned but as long as the magic was written by Tolkien, it was okay... 😑 Love taking reclaiming the things we didn't get to do as evies by doing tarot!!

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Chuck Petch's avatar

Yes to all of the previous comments! Some made me laugh that I believed that shit (Left Behind, satanic gay agenda, etc). Some of them made me think, “What?!! That’s not true?!” Like the male missing rib!! And 911 (still unsure--the demolition seemed so “clean.”)

Mine: (1) Elimination of prayer and Bibles in schools was a plot by the libs and Satan to indoctrinate our kids into evil and rid our country of Christianity. (2) Bill (a covert CIA agent) and Hillary had dozens of people killed to prevent them from squealing on all their evil schemes. (3) Halloween was a satanic scheme on our kids. (4) America was founded as a Christian nation but the “false doctrine” of separation of church and state ruined it. (5) Bert and Ernie were gay--trying to promote a gay agenda. (6) The CIA killed JFK (with LBJ, Nixon, and Bush participating in the plot--all were allegedly in Dallas that day--still unsure about that one too). I feel like I should say, “ Friends pray for me!” LOL 😂

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

The things we believed are WILD! Ok I admit, the conspiracies having to do with government stuff (I mean not that the Clintons are secretly having people assassinated, but some of the other stuff) do give me pause, that whole "deconstructing society" thing.

Also, maybe Bert and Ernie really are gay?!?! But as a kid I never gave it a second thought because what kid is thinking about it... unless the grown ups are making a big deal of things??

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Lindsey Melden's avatar

Also, frog & toad, and Timon & pumba hopefully! 😂

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Chuck Petch's avatar

Christine, about the government/CIA stuff, I hear ya. All the known CIA assassinations under then-CIA-chief Allen Dulles make 911 and JFK theories plausible, if unlikely. About Bert and Ernie, yeah, what preschool kid even thinks about it?! I just laugh at how fussed up we church conservatives used to get about a kiddie show that portrayed a diverse neighborhood. News flash to white Christian conservatives: there are lots of people in the world, and they are all our neighbors; remember that little thing Jesus said about “love thy neighbor?” 🙄🤣

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we are still not going back's avatar

Oh my. I might get back to you as more things bubble up, but my parents took me out of public school at 5 th grade and I was homeschooled for a while (before they became missionaries to India and we all moved there) and the curriculum was all Bob Jones University. Recently I learned that Bob Jones University was notorious for fighting desegregation and was part of the beginning of the religious right movement, I think

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

Oh yes they didn't want to integrate and were really mad about losing tax exempt status if they didn't, I think! So fascinating.

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Marla Taviano's avatar

Yes to this. I read an incredible book last year called Hijacking History that’s all about Christian curriculum and how it distorted/distorts history to fit its agenda. I was homeschooled for 3 years and we used Abeka (which is almost as bad as BJU).

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we are still not going back's avatar

Thanks Marla! ❤ I feel so salty about all the incorrect and holey history I was taught. I am trying to read and learn actual history now. Doing a lot of great courses on audible while doing other things. My attention span has gotten shorter lately, too much screen time maybe. Gah! I admire how voracious a reader you are!

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Marla Taviano's avatar

I feel salty tooooooo.

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we are still not going back's avatar

Just saw this in the Washington post though I had to skip past part of it, couldn't take it...

The revolt of the Christian home-schoolers

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/christian-home-schoolers-revolt/

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

Whoooaaaa that sounds super interesting!!! (Hijacking History, not Abeka education!)

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Donna Ray's avatar

I’ve heard that the Bill Gothard home-school curriculum did not allow children to use fluorescent markers. Not sure why. Too much fun? Too flamboyant? Too worldly, somehow?

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Lindsey Melden's avatar

Woooooww

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Marla Taviano's avatar

OMG 😳😳😳

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Caitlin's avatar

I was today years old when I learned the difference between PTO and PTA. And I am a member of my kid’s PTO. In DC.

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

😂 I had to look it up to find out! I just knew there was *something* important ("important") about their differences!

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Kristen McClendon's avatar

Many of mine from childhood are already mentioned, so I’ll go with one my older brother (and ultimate conspiracy theorist) warned me about. When Obama was elected the first time he talked a lot about volunteering and created a website where you could put in your info and it would give you orgs in your area that matched your interests to volunteer with. My brother told me to never sign up for that bc that is how Obama was creating his “Domestic Army”.

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

Oh wow! That is one I have not heard of! That is pretty wild all right. Domestic Army made of soft-hearted people who just want to do some good in their community....

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Mac's avatar

My Christian school science curriculum: Nessie is real and disproves evolution. I was 100% bought in.

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

At first I was like "Nooo! Loch Ness??" but then suddenly vaguely remembered maybe learning something similar... we were all about Kent Hovind and Ken Ham videos growing up and I'm wondering if they also taught this??? Oh dear.

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Pamela Urfer's avatar

I became an Evangelical at age 35 and still got caught up in the Complementarian nonsense. Our Baptist church hosted a seminar with Ken Poured who convinced us Young Married that God had a plan. It involved voting at decision- making times. Each child had one vote. The mother had that number of votes plus one. The father had her number (wait for it!),,, plus one. I almost caught on at that point.

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Christine Greenwald's avatar

Gahh! The voting... INFURIATING!!! So glad we're all out of that!

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