this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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[–] ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I always wonder if it’s worth trying to find good resources on what’s going on or if it’s just a way to completely lose your mind.

These ideas are trickling down into peoples’ worldviews right here in Lebanon and it’s getting harder to track. It’s the ultimate big tent conspiracy theory, and it’s supercharging decades of concerning currents in my own society.

Is there a straightforward sane place to read up or listen about this stuff from an outsider’s perspective?

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Is there a straightforward sane place to read up or listen about this stuff from an outsider’s perspective?

Maybe?

The closest thing I've been able to find is uh, the youtuber Owen Morgan (Telltale).

He started as a youtuber who himself escaped a religious cult in the US, then made a youtube channel originally about cult awareness, identification, de-programming (how to 'unbrainwash' a current or former cult member) a kind of educational channel...

He originally tried his best to be apolitical.

... and then QAnon emerged as a huge factor in US politics, then Jan 6th happened, and well its just literally impossible now to talk about QAnon without politics, as they are so interrelated.

So anyway, Owen did an incredible job, imo, of actually finding (in close to real time) a lot of those insano QAnon preachers and prophets who merged those conspiracies just into a kind of new form of Christianity... he has his finger on the pulse more than anyone else I am aware of, he seems to have lurker accounts in a lot of these groups, and finds their videos and such on less conventional platforms.

But, he basically does a kind of... two-ish vids a week kind of format, covering latest updates within this realm... I don't know that he's ever sat down and made like a 1.5 hr documentary typr thing that would... systematically explain everything in an at least approximately academic fashion.

I also do not know what to tell you for finding info about how this kind of stuff is influencing, or is present in specifically Lebanon.

Anyway, Owen is currently having a grand ole time clowning on the ... gigantic rapture panic that just occured last week in the US, mainly on TikTok.

[–] ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

That’s… concerning.

I definitely don’t expect to find solid resources on the Q fallout in the Middle East. But getting to grips with the actual magical political mechanics that millions of people now believe in? That’s what I want. Everyone around me is using the words “deep state” now, it’s not funny at all.

I think YouTube would nuke my recommendation algorithm from orbit if I commit an hour every week to this guy’s videos. But I’m glad there’s light being shed from that perspective.

I know there was a short podcast series that goes through the cliff notes of the whole thing’s history by Jake Hanrahan some time ago but this stuff has evolved so much since that was recorded like two years ago. That’s more of what I’m interested in, a more journalistic look structured for someone who is a complete outsider.

Your guy is talking from an American Christian perspective, and American Christianity is basically an alien cult to me (I hope nobody takes offense to this, but Christianity here is much more… grand and ancient and focused on bringing people together and not deeply horrifying?). Like you joke about the rapture but American Christians invent a new rapture every other week, while our guys’ rapture is set in stone to be in the indefinite future, and anyone in my society claiming to have a date for a rapture would be referred to a psychiatrist by the clergy. I typically have more bad things than good to say about the church but comparing to what you guys have makes me feel like it’s not so bad at all.

I think the average person is seriously underestimating the horrific damage to people’s mental models of the world this movement? Cult? Politico-occultist messianic dispensationalism? Virulent cognitohazard thing is unleashing on humanity.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 51 minutes ago)

The 'deep state' thing is particularly... I guess funny to me.

Do you know what that term actually means?

It means unelected bureaucrats who are instead appointed with little or no public fanfare, but make a lot of very impactful policy decisions.

Those people do exist and you can find most of them (at least right now, in the US), on just fucking wikipedia.

The actual deep state is the revolving door between ex-corpos being appointed to regulate the other corpos, all of whom are in the same country club.

But, instead of being specific, and doing actual investigations into specific shitty things specific people did... nah, the deep state is now the same as the illuminati, just a group noun for myterious unknown bogey men who are the source of all evil in the world.

American Christianity is basically an alien cult to me (I hope nobody takes offense to this, but Christianity here is much more… grand and ancient and focused on bringing people together and not deeply horrifying?).

No offense taken here, I agree with you completely.

Much like Owen, I myself had to do quite a lot of research and struggled greatly personally to get out of my own insano version of American Christianity... yeah, American Christianity and American Christians are fucking insane, for the most part, compared to Christians in many other parts of the world, most of them act like apocalyptic death cult members, because that is what their idea of Christianity it.

Not a loving message to genuinely care for the poor and the weak and the sick, no, instead, doctrines of judgement, hatred and intolerance.

Just literally yesterday I chatted up an old man just playing with a yo yo... reasonable guy in many respects, but he also felt compelled to tell me he has spoken in tongues (aka rambled incoherently like a lunatic) before, with not only the spirit of God speaking through him, but also the spirit of the Devil.

Fucking totally bonkers nutso cult shit, but this guy and a lot of other Americans think that is totally normal...

...and anyone in my society claiming to have a date for a rapture would be referred to a psychiatrist by the clergy.

I wasn't really joking, I fully agree with you that any American who believes in an imminent rapture should also be in a mental hospital, but uh, instead, they are in charge of everything, so the inmates are running the asylum.

My country is largely literally clinicslly insane, but our healthcare / psychology system just gives a free pass to insane white Christians.

Its part of why the vast majority of mass shooters come from religiously extreme (by international standards) white, right leaning, christian households.

You know that ~40% of Americans believe 'the rapture' will happen soon, that we are currently living in 'the end times', right?

https://www.newsweek.com/shocking-number-americans-believe-living-end-times-1762615

~15% of our country is functionally illiterate.

The average reading level is 5th to 6th grade, only 5% or less are capable of critically comparing and contrasting the same news story reported by different sources to evaluate potential bias.

We are a nation of insane religious extremist idiot cultists, and... the only frustrating part for me is that foreigners seem to not understand that it has always been this way for US, and that we could easily flip over into a theocracy at nearly any moment in our history.

I take no offense at all from another non insane person describing reality accurately, I infact find it reassuring.

We in the US are quite bigoted in our views of foreign religious extremists, when we quite literally have, and have always had Y'all Qaeda right here at home, all kinds of religiously motivated terrorist groups.

But anyways yes, I have originally used the term 'conspireligion' as the term for QAnon in my top level post for a reason, its ... yeah, I have the term cognitohazard.

My country is going increasingly, litterally mad as a hatter mad, and all I can do is apologize that it is escaping containment.