What would cause someone from a normal background to become a religious zealot?

[Anonymous]

These weirdos find each other on the internet and inspire each other. It used to be that these extreme religious practitioners lived in rural areas and were basically following in the footsteps of their descendants and insular local community.

But now? The most extremes forms of EVERYTHING are being disseminated on social media and infecting others who would lead otherwise normal, mainstream lives. Whether its becoming extreme in your workouts (hi, CrossFit), your religion, or dietary habits.

A bubble exists on social media to expose you to more and more extreme beliefs and practices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP's question is a good one and there are people who study it. Think Jihadi John. IIRC, he grew up in a fairly normal family in Britain and ended up in videos on YouTube beheading people. What's the path people follow from normal dude in high school to terrorist or religious extremist or even just the highly highly devout of the Duggar variety (which sounds more like OP's friend).

The guy in OP’s post isn’t beheading anyone. In fact it seems like OP barely knows him so who can say, but there’s no apparent need to go there.

Not yet. There's a lot of steps between normal to beheading or turning quiverfull how does the switch get flipped?

Seriously? Now this guy you haven’t talked to in years is on the path to becoming the evangelical version of Jihadi John.

Your mistake is that you think “normal” is going to church a few times a year. It doesn’t make me happy to say this, but evangelicals are actually a significant share of the population.

Normal as in yes they go to church but it's not their entire identity. I know many people who call themselves Christians. Go to church.but they don't post the kind of stuff this guy does. Where does the switch happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP's question is a good one and there are people who study it. Think Jihadi John. IIRC, he grew up in a fairly normal family in Britain and ended up in videos on YouTube beheading people. What's the path people follow from normal dude in high school to terrorist or religious extremist or even just the highly highly devout of the Duggar variety (which sounds more like OP's friend).

The guy in OP’s post isn’t beheading anyone. In fact it seems like OP barely knows him so who can say, but there’s no apparent need to go there.

Not yet. There's a lot of steps between normal to beheading or turning quiverfull how does the switch get flipped?

Seriously? Now this guy you haven’t talked to in years is on the path to becoming the evangelical version of Jihadi John.

Your mistake is that you think “normal” is going to church a few times a year. It doesn’t make me happy to say this, but evangelicals are actually a significant share of the population.

Normal as in yes they go to church but it's not their entire identity. I know many people who call themselves Christians. Go to church.but they don't post the kind of stuff this guy does. Where does the switch happen?

Sounds like his identity is also about being a dad and husband. And probably about his sports team. And hunting or some such thing.

[Anonymous]

Let me get this straight.

OP hasn’t seen or spoken to this guy in ages, but she wants DCUM to
1. Agree with her that he’s a religious freak, and
2. Crowdsource the reason why this guy she barely knows is so religious.

OP, maybe if you had thought this through you wouldn’t be getting such a hard time now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me get this straight.

OP hasn’t seen or spoken to this guy in ages, but she wants DCUM to
1. Agree with her that he’s a religious freak, and
2. Crowdsource the reason why this guy she barely knows is so religious.

OP, maybe if you had thought this through you wouldn’t be getting such a hard time now.

In contrast, I assumed OP was running this by DCUM in hopes of getting further insights about this guy from folks here. In so doing, seems like there are always a few weirdos who can't resist impugning their motives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me get this straight.

OP hasn’t seen or spoken to this guy in ages, but she wants DCUM to
1. Agree with her that he’s a religious freak, and
2. Crowdsource the reason why this guy she barely knows is so religious.

OP, maybe if you had thought this through you wouldn’t be getting such a hard time now.

I'm genuinely curious about how this happens, but I can't exactly ask him. Have you never been curious about someone from your past? I'd be equally curious if I knew someone who was straight edge was now selling marijuana etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me get this straight.

OP hasn’t seen or spoken to this guy in ages, but she wants DCUM to
1. Agree with her that he’s a religious freak, and
2. Crowdsource the reason why this guy she barely knows is so religious.

OP, maybe if you had thought this through you wouldn’t be getting such a hard time now.

In contrast, I assumed OP was running this by DCUM in hopes of getting further insights about this guy from folks here. In so doing, seems like there are always a few weirdos who can't resist impugning their motives.

I thought it was a harmless question. I forgot there is a subset of DCUM that is extremely sensitive and constantly feels they are persecuted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went back to read the first post and saw, as I remembered, that OP asked "How does this happen?

So he was just asking a simple question.

People can make drastic changes in their lives and it seems quite normal to be curious about them.

OP is a pot-stirring busybody. Keep reading, OP hasn’t talked to this guy in years, trashes all Christians at one point, speculates about his wife, tries to manage who gets to post here, and does a wild, furious telepathy fail on another poster. Weird stuff.

I have never trashed all Christians. You have issues. A simple question should not cause you to spew such vitriol.

Go back and read your posts. That’s some weird sh**.

I said no such thing. You are lying. In addition to lying you have also called me names several times, and I have not done any of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Raised to be an authoritarian. Maybe rebelled in high school or college, but went into straight "I can't think for myself and have to be controlled by religion 24/ 7."

I am Christian, but a thinking Christian, and I have seen my southern baptist raised friends go this route. Eventually being southern baptist is not conservative or religious enough for them and they go full evangelical / quiverfull.

This is what makes it so odd to me. I would understand if he had been raised that way and returned to it, but he wasn't at least not from what I know when we were friends. AS I remember he's also a critical thinker, so I would think that would cause him to ee the problems with something like Quiverfull and other extreme view points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went back to read the first post and saw, as I remembered, that OP asked "How does this happen?

So he was just asking a simple question.

People can make drastic changes in their lives and it seems quite normal to be curious about them.

OP is a pot-stirring busybody. Keep reading, OP hasn’t talked to this guy in years, trashes all Christians at one point, speculates about his wife, tries to manage who gets to post here, and does a wild, furious telepathy fail on another poster. Weird stuff.

I have never trashed all Christians. You have issues. A simple question should not cause you to spew such vitriol.

Go back and read your posts. That’s some weird sh**.

No, you’ve just tried to kick people off the thread and launched into a really bizarro attempt at mind reading. But you do you.

I said no such thing. You are lying. In addition to lying you have also called me names several times, and I have not done any of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went back to read the first post and saw, as I remembered, that OP asked "How does this happen?

So he was just asking a simple question.

People can make drastic changes in their lives and it seems quite normal to be curious about them.

OP is a pot-stirring busybody. Keep reading, OP hasn’t talked to this guy in years, trashes all Christians at one point, speculates about his wife, tries to manage who gets to post here, and does a wild, furious telepathy fail on another poster. Weird stuff.

I have never trashed all Christians. You have issues. A simple question should not cause you to spew such vitriol.

Go back and read your posts. That’s some weird sh**.

No, you’ve just tried to kick people off the thread and launched into a really bizarro attempt at mind reading. But you do you.

I said no such thing. You are lying. In addition to lying you have also called me names several times, and I have not done any of that.

Pick a gripe, pp it seems you're just here to argue and not actually participate in the thread. And yes I told people if they didn't like the subject to skip the thread instead of derailing. I suggest you stop derailing as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend from college and her husband are like this. Educated people who grew up in normal, suburban families. They were becoming more religious in the early 10’s but the 2016 race accelerated it. Her DH began carrying a gun to church “to protect when Muslims try to attack good Christians”. Never mind that there’s been zero attacks on white Christian houses of worship.

They were becoming mild preppers, all the while delving deeper into bible studies and more evangelical church. Based on her FB feed, they are by now full-in on aprocyphal Christianity, the Patriot movement, the whole nine yards. I don’t know exactly how, but it was incremental over fifteen years. It’s heartbreaking and has torn their family apart.

This is extremist. Not what busybody OP is describing.

Quiverfull is extremism and no matter how much name-calling you do it won't change that.

DP. Did the guy actually say he was quiverfull? Not everyone who has lots of kids are religious. Some atheists or non-religious people I know have 4 or 5 kids and they’re not “extremist”. They just made different choices than you did. Some people want a large family. What’s wrong with that? This is America. You want us to go back to when China limited the number of children a family could have?

The phrases that you see on his Facebook feed are pretty standard for evangelical Christians. They’re just phrases or memes posted on Facebook. I get it can be cringey to post things like #boymom or put a sign in your kitchen that says “live, laugh, love”, but how are these Facebook posts any different from the tons of other stupid things people post like what they ate for lunch or a photo of their pumpkin spiced latte? Extremist to me means they’re harming someone else or posting offensive, racist, or hateful language. Your examples are none of that. Arguably cringey, but that’s par for the course on Facebook. You’re making a lot of assumptions on someone you haven’t seen in a long time based on his social media. Why do you care so much?

His statements are from quiverfull. I consider the quiverfull movement harmful same movement Duggars involved in. I also consider homophobic beliefs to be harmful and extremist.

Did he make homophobic statements? You didn’t mention that in your OP. As to quiverfull I don’t know anything about it except that they have a lot of kids. Like Duggar’s with 20 kids. 4 or 5 isn’t that extreme though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the only “good” Christians in OP’s little world are the ones that only go to church on Christmas and Easter and forget about it the rest of the year. Got it.

It seems you are an extremist as no one is allowed to question anything about your beliefs without being attacked your anger and replies in this thread are appropriate and unless you want to actually answer the question you should maybe skip the thread. Or you can share why you went from maybe attending Church with your family a few times a year or even weekly to posting about it daily on social media, labeling yourself not just as a Christian, but a Child of God, multiple references to being washed in the blood, a quiverfuller, and anti LBGTQ anti you were never any of these things before?

This is mental illness. The Christian family guy may be out there, but he seems more well adjusted than this poster.

Dang that truth telling really has you all a quiver with ire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the only “good” Christians in OP’s little world are the ones that only go to church on Christmas and Easter and forget about it the rest of the year. Got it.

It seems you are an extremist as no one is allowed to question anything about your beliefs without being attacked your anger and replies in this thread are appropriate and unless you want to actually answer the question you should maybe skip the thread. Or you can share why you went from maybe attending Church with your family a few times a year or even weekly to posting about it daily on social media, labeling yourself not just as a Christian, but a Child of God, multiple references to being washed in the blood, a quiverfuller, and anti LBGTQ anti you were never any of these things before?

This is mental illness. The Christian family guy may be out there, but he seems more well adjusted than this poster.

Dang that truth telling really has you all a quiver with ire.

You have to admit, OP’s post is really strange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend from college and her husband are like this. Educated people who grew up in normal, suburban families. They were becoming more religious in the early 10’s but the 2016 race accelerated it. Her DH began carrying a gun to church “to protect when Muslims try to attack good Christians”. Never mind that there’s been zero attacks on white Christian houses of worship.

They were becoming mild preppers, all the while delving deeper into bible studies and more evangelical church. Based on her FB feed, they are by now full-in on aprocyphal Christianity, the Patriot movement, the whole nine yards. I don’t know exactly how, but it was incremental over fifteen years. It’s heartbreaking and has torn their family apart.

This is extremist. Not what busybody OP is describing.

Quiverfull is extremism and no matter how much name-calling you do it won't change that.

DP. Did the guy actually say he was quiverfull? Not everyone who has lots of kids are religious. Some atheists or non-religious people I know have 4 or 5 kids and they’re not “extremist”. They just made different choices than you did. Some people want a large family. What’s wrong with that? This is America. You want us to go back to when China limited the number of children a family could have?

The phrases that you see on his Facebook feed are pretty standard for evangelical Christians. They’re just phrases or memes posted on Facebook. I get it can be cringey to post things like #boymom or put a sign in your kitchen that says “live, laugh, love”, but how are these Facebook posts any different from the tons of other stupid things people post like what they ate for lunch or a photo of their pumpkin spiced latte? Extremist to me means they’re harming someone else or posting offensive, racist, or hateful language. Your examples are none of that. Arguably cringey, but that’s par for the course on Facebook. You’re making a lot of assumptions on someone you haven’t seen in a long time based on his social media. Why do you care so much?

His statements are from quiverfull. I consider the quiverfull movement harmful same movement Duggars involved in. I also consider homophobic beliefs to be harmful and extremist.

Did he make homophobic statements? You didn’t mention that in your OP. As to quiverfull I don’t know anything about it except that they have a lot of kids. Like Duggar’s with 20 kids. 4 or 5 isn’t that extreme though.

PEcause I was actively reading his messages, and yes he did make homophobic tweets and one of his friends actually called him out on it. It;s not the exact number it's the mindset that's dangerous https://www.mic.com/articles/119098/inside-the-christian-cult-that-told-the-duggars-to-blame-their-daughters-for-their-abuse
https://www.mic.com/articles/119098/inside-the-christian-cult-that-told-the-duggars-to-blame-their-daughters-for-their-abuse