Topics: Religious trauma, spiritual abuse, deconstruction, exmormon, exmo, exvangelical, recovering catholic, excatholic, former jehovah's witness, women's empowerment, feminism, leaving religion, self-worth, high demand religions, high control groups, high control religion, cult, cult recovery, brainwashed, high demand religion, spiritual trauma, church abuse

Brainwash be gone. A podcast for women who've left a high control, high demand religion. In every episode, we deconstruct one specific rule you were taught so you can let go of the harmful conditioning and live an amazing life on your own terms. Today we'll be talking about:
“I know the church is true.”
So many features of high demand religions play into our very human desires to feel safety and certainty, but that is not how things actually work. And in this episode, we are going to fearlessly look at our own urge to find safety and realize that even though we cannot be certain about everything, that doesn't mean we cannot feel deep peace in our lives.
So different churches use different language here. You may be from a group that said, I know this church is true, or you may be from a group that said something else like, Jesus is my Lord and Savior. Or had a specific creed that you recited, during celebrations, no matter what the wording was.
The concept is very similar. And the impact of having a tradition that required you to make public statements with great certainty repetitively certainly had a similar impact for you.
It is something that is supposed to show certainty, complete lack of doubt, or questioning
 in this particular example of the phrase, I know this church is true. It's so interesting that the choice of words was, I know versus I believe, and that wording tries to convince you basically that there is proof that it is not an opinion or a belief, it is just a fact. And that can really cause a lot of confusion when there's not actually proof or there's not actually evidence or it is not something that can even be proven or disproven directly.
A lot of times, testimonies that are. Stated under the category of, I know this is true, we'll rely on personal experience, maybe a mystical experience that someone had, and even if their mystical experience is true, ironically, that actually doesn't tell you that the church is true. It could tell you something about the nature of the universe or yourself as a human being or your interaction with other human beings, or even how your brain works, but it is.
Really an interesting control strategy to shoehorn that all into, I had this experience, therefore I know that this entire very specific dogma is true.
You know, this reminds me a little bit of this concept in police interrogation. This is going to sound like, where are you going with this? In my background in law, there are just some random things that I happen to be aware of and, uh. Sometimes it really comes up when I'm thinking about these things through logically, but there are different tactics and techniques that are common when police are interrogating a suspect.
And one of the things they pay attention to is what does the suspect decide to say? And what do they deny and what do they not deny? What do they ignore? And based on the way a person responds to the way they're asked questions and what they deny and what they decide to double down on, that gives the in interrogator quite a bit of information about what may have actually happened.
What's the mindset of this person? So when I hear a statement like, I know this church is true, and I see a group that. Has habitually decided that everyone's going to say this, they're going to double down on it.
It's going to become our tradition to try to prove our faith and require everyone to. Profess this faith over and over and over again to prove that it is true. I just have a question of why are you so obsessed with trying to convince me this is true? It really indicates there seems to be a good reason to question the premise of this, if everything is based on showing me that it is true.
Before I even ask anything, before I'm even allowed to ask any questions, you are already saying, this is true. This is true. This is true. So anyway, that is just where my mind goes. From professional experience. It seems to be the ultimate situation of they doth protest too much as they say

So religions will say, well, we know that our dogma is true because it is fact and there's proof. But realistically, it shows up a lot more like a cross between a brainwashing technique and a fight song for your favorite sports team.
From the brainwashing standpoint, it is something that is repeated over and over and over again so that your brain's more likely to accept it, literally brainwashing the fact that you are doing it publicly. Creates a sense of responsibility that you've stated this publicly, and then your mind is automatically going to search for reasons that it is in fact true because you have stated it publicly.
It can create a lot of cognitive dissonance if you are questioning or if you are unsure and yet socially. And in this religious tradition, it is not acceptable for you not to publicly stand up and say, it is true. It's true, it is true. I believe this thing, or I know this thing is true. And also just the fact that there's a forced set wording, phrasing for the particular profession of belief, honestly just makes it a lot less authentic.
If people were allowed to use any words that they wanted to express something, then there would be a lot more nuance, a lot more diversity of how they expressed it. It might change over time based on their experience or in that particular moment, but when they do not have that level of control over their language.
And they're forced into that same box over and over again. It's so much less likely to be a realistic reflection of what they actually believe or what they actually think that they know is true. So that is for the brainwashing side, but the reason I say it is also kind of like a fight song for your favorite team or your, you know, like your college alma mater, is that.
Because the group continuously uses the same words, and it is a pattern that is repeated over the years. It shows your culture. It marks you as part of the ingroup because you know the specific wording to use. It's a very clear cut test of allegiance, you know, and there's a lot of us versus them. It can even cause you to feel a little bit, almost like nostalgic.
You know, there are certain traditions that when we participate over and over and over again, there's a familiarity to it that. Just gets embedded in our brain. But have you ever asked yourself what you do actually for sure. Really know to be true. It's kind of an interesting question, and I do not think I ever seriously asked myself that until I encountered some Buddhist traditions where they actually encourage personal inquiry.
Like you actually just potentially for months at a time. Think about what do you actually know is true? And if you seriously sit with a thought like that, you'll start to notice. Okay. A lot of this stuff, I think it is true because someone told me it is true. I mean, even outside of the context of religion, just if we are talking about anything that you think you know to be true, you'll realize, well, someone taught it to me or I got it from a source that seems.
Reliable. You know, like I read it in a textbook. I saw that there was a study on it, but I do not actually know that I wasn't actually there. And you realize there actually are a ton of possibilities. There's almost certainty about nothing, which can be a little bit unnerving at first. You know? It's like, how do I actually know this is not the middle of a dream? How do I actually know that we are not in the matrix? You know, the movie where we are just in this simulation. Created by robots.
It's actually weird. The more you think about it, the more you realize you can be certain of almost nothing.
And for humans, uncertainty can feel terrifying. We seek safety and certainty. We wanna be like, I know for sure this is true, and I'm staking everything on this. High control religions are designed to both provide you that feeling of safety and to take advantage of your instinct, your need for safety to keep you locked in to their control and their system and supporting their, whatever their shtick is.
If you are getting used to the feeling of safety and the illusion of a hundred percent certainty that comes from your religious group saying that they know for sure that these things are true, anything else feels a lot more terrifying, we can get addicted to the feeling of being sure that we are right, and then it is even harder to entertain uncertainty later on.
It can feel harder and harder. The longer we are in an environment like that, that spoon feeds us. This alleged total security and certainty. It gets harder to get out of that, the more used to it you become.
But once we realized that safety and certainty are actually illusions. And there's a lot we cannot possibly know, then we could actually just react differently. What if instead of fearing uncertainty, we just accepted it? How much emotional energy and time gets freed up when you are no longer personally responsible for figuring out a comprehensive theory about the universe? That's a hundred percent accurate. Like what a burden that has been if you've been trying to do that, right, you could just be here. In this life, in this moment, fully present. Not fighting against it, not proving it, not grasping it, not trying to control it, not trying to change it. And that is actually really awesome.
I used to be such a seeker. I. Would try to understand the religion I was raised in. I tried to check out all the other religions to see who was truly right, to find the perfect religion, the most logical dogma, you know, the perfect explanation for everything. And then once I finally realized that it was pretty much impossible to know for sure any of these things, and I let it all go, I felt deeply peaceful.
It's really wonderful. It does unnerve people when they're like, well, what do you believe? And I'm kind of like. I'm not really too sure of anything, but I feel pretty good about that. And I think the more of us that feel that freedom, the better it is for us personally and for humanity as a whole.
So let's talk about some of the logical fallacies that we see in this whole construct. Even beyond the, just the idea that we cannot really know what's. What's definitely true in these sorts of realms. You know, there's a lot of circular reasoning here where you are saying, I know this is true because I feel like it is true and my feelings prove that it is true, but that is not really what proves something.
And there's a false dichotomy where you are saying either the church is a hundred percent true. Or it is not true at all. You know this. Any evidence that supports this proves it is a hundred percent true or nothing. It's just a very black and white setup. It is also what they would call a bandwagon fallacy, where you are encouraging conformity by normalizing, you know, using identical public statements over and over again.
There's quite a bit of hypocrisy to talk about what's true and to have that be the foundation of your discussions, but to completely disallow any evidence that it might not be true or that there's any doubt. It's like. We are having this discussion, but actually there's no discussion.
There's one conclusion. That's all we are talking about, and there's no room for anything else. So it is like here you are told to be seeking this truth as though truth is something worth seeking, which I do think it is, but you cannot reach any other conclusion or actually even inquire about it at all.
And it only validates certain types of spiritual experiences if they seem to support the narrative. But if you have an experience that is outside of that, or calls into question, for example, maybe you have a mystical experience and you realize that you are one with other people, and it doesn't matter whether they're a member of your particular group or not.
That sort of revelation or truth that you now know would not be entertained by these groups. So it really just asks the question about whether this is all based on wanting to know the truth or not, and it seems pretty clear that it is actually not, unfortunately. So what are some alternative viewpoints that you could have about this? I choose to believe, Hey, I'm not so arrogant as to think that I can determine absolute truth, and it is not that I wouldn't use moral reasoning or use my conscience to think through how I wanna behave in the world, but I just do not think that I can independently determine absolute truth and tell everyone else that they're right or wrong.
I do think any real truth would, you know, stand up to questioning and scrutiny. Of course, it would. And I personally do not wanna further millennia of violence by insisting that my group has the one truth, and everyone else, you know, obviously needs to be killed immediately. It's just stop the insanity.
Humans. It's time just saying. And I think that honesty requires us to be truthful about uncertainty. It's like to have integrity and admit, I do not know. Or that you have personal frustrations or that you have confusion about existential questions, that just reflects honesty and emotional maturity, and that needs to be part of any discussion that you'd be having about any of these questions.
I also think that if you are going to form a belief, it really needs to evolve through your personal inquiry and experience, not through social psychological pressures. Or compulsions on the part of a group.
So to reflect, what sorts of statements of belief did your particular high demand religion require of you? Was there certain phrasing, certain prayers or public statements that were required? And what emotions or expectations? Did you experience surrounding that statement? How do you personally define knowing versus believing? Does it make a difference to you? Do you agree that most things cannot be known, or do you think some things can, what do you believe you can know or that you do know currently? What happens inside of you when you imagine saying, yeah, I do not know. Do you feel freedom or fear relief? What comes up for you with that? Do you believe in our mission here at Brainwash be gone? Then please leave us a review on your podcast app. It helps other women find us so we can keep on busting more sisters out.

Topics: Religious trauma, spiritual abuse, deconstruction, exmormon, exmo, exvangelical, recovering catholic, excatholic, former jehovah's witness, women's empowerment, feminism, leaving religion, self-worth, high demand religions, high control groups, high control religion, cult, cult recovery, brainwashed, high demand religion, spiritual trauma, church abuse