After watching the video we realised that we were in fact raised in a subculture where plurality was not only accepted, but even encouraged. I'm honestly surprised by our mind's ability to not connect the dots. Maybe that's our old way of separating our former religion from "these all wrong demonic beliefs", because only when the person on the panel said "Christianity", it clicked in our brain that what we were seeing was no different than any other kind of multiplicity.
We were attending an evangelical church since our early childhood. We were being told to listen to God's voice sinice before we've started going to school. People there treated hearing God not as a special gift, but as a goal for every Christian. Go out on the street in our country and say "God told me to choose college in city X" and everybody will think you're crazy, but do the same in our church and people will think that you are a really good Christian, and some of them will be jealous of your ability to communicate with God so well. I don't think everybody was plural there, but majority of really devoted folks certainly were. They were sometimes asking for a moment of silence and encouraging people to try and hear God's words, they were telling that his voice is similar to our thoughts or that he can speak through images or feelings too. Religion's become for me the most important thing in my life in my early teenage years and I've talked to God on a daily basis. Later I and some other people in the system had an existential crisis, when we came to the conclusion that he's "not real" and we converted to atheism. Our God had an existential crisis too, because he realised that he's not almighty and he can't save us from suffering.
And similarly to what they've said about Puerto Rican culture, not all plurality was viewed as good. Talking to God / Holy Spirit / Jesus Christ was accepted and desired, but everything else was demons and evil. Most evangelicals, at least those we're familiar with, have very strict beliefs about afterlife. Souls are belived to stay in heaven and not be able to travel to this world and interact with people here, so if anybody told about their experience in speaking with ghosts or saints or something like that, they would be belived to be possesed and in need of exorcisms.
So yeah, we are a living proof that culture may influence somebody to become plural. Ironic. I can't believe that I honestly couldn't imagine that culture has any impact on one's singularity/multiplicity while not having absolutely any amnesia about all of our religious experiences. And couldn't imagine culture where plurality is the norm while having been a part of such culture for years. It is a shame, but also kind of funny.
(Also on a sidenote, when site reloads itself, it automatically scrolls all the way up, while communicates like "please re-enter the message code" appear at the bottom. We've almost forgot to scroll down this time and would not know that our comment has not been posted. It would be great if you could make the message appear at the top of the page or make it automatically scroll down after reloading after sending a comment)
After watching the video we realised that we were in fact raised in a subculture where plurality was not only accepted, but even encouraged. I'm honestly surprised by our mind's ability to not connect the dots. Maybe that's our old way of separating our former religion from "these all wrong demonic beliefs", because only when the person on the panel said "Christianity", it clicked in our brain that what we were seeing was no different than any other kind of multiplicity.
We were attending an evangelical church since our early childhood. We were being told to listen to God's voice sinice before we've started going to school. People there treated hearing God not as a special gift, but as a goal for every Christian. Go out on the street in our country and say "God told me to choose college in city X" and everybody will think you're crazy, but do the same in our church and people will think that you are a really good Christian, and some of them will be jealous of your ability to communicate with God so well. I don't think everybody was plural there, but majority of really devoted folks certainly were. They were sometimes asking for a moment of silence and encouraging people to try and hear God's words, they were telling that his voice is similar to our thoughts or that he can speak through images or feelings too. Religion's become for me the most important thing in my life in my early teenage years and I've talked to God on a daily basis. Later I and some other people in the system had an existential crisis, when we came to the conclusion that he's "not real" and we converted to atheism. Our God had an existential crisis too, because he realised that he's not almighty and he can't save us from suffering.
And similarly to what they've said about Puerto Rican culture, not all plurality was viewed as good. Talking to God / Holy Spirit / Jesus Christ was accepted and desired, but everything else was demons and evil. Most evangelicals, at least those we're familiar with, have very strict beliefs about afterlife. Souls are belived to stay in heaven and not be able to travel to this world and interact with people here, so if anybody told about their experience in speaking with ghosts or saints or something like that, they would be belived to be possesed and in need of exorcisms.
So yeah, we are a living proof that culture may influence somebody to become plural. Ironic. I can't believe that I honestly couldn't imagine that culture has any impact on one's singularity/multiplicity while not having absolutely any amnesia about all of our religious experiences. And couldn't imagine culture where plurality is the norm while having been a part of such culture for years. It is a shame, but also kind of funny.
(Also on a sidenote, when site reloads itself, it automatically scrolls all the way up, while communicates like "please re-enter the message code" appear at the bottom. We've almost forgot to scroll down this time and would not know that our comment has not been posted. It would be great if you could make the message appear at the top of the page or make it automatically scroll down after reloading after sending a comment)