How “Heresy” Became a Tool for Control

The origin behind the word they use to shame you

There are certain insults Christians love to throw at me. “Heretic.” “False teacher.” “Dangerous.” “Deceived.”

I used to flinch when I heard those words. They triggered the old childhood fear that anything outside the narrow Christian box would land me in hell. I spent years being terrified of even thinking the wrong thoughts, let alone speaking them out loud.

But now? When someone calls me a heretic, I smile a little. Not because I’m trying to be edgy, but because I finally understand where that word came from and what it originally meant. And spoiler alert, it did not mean “evil” or “rebellious” or “misleading people away from God.”

It meant choice.

That is literally what the original Greek word hairesis meant: choice, opinion, school of thought. Nothing sinister or demonic. It was just the freedom to choose what you believed.

In ancient Greece, people followed different haireses the same way we follow different thinkers or authors today. One teacher emphasized virtue, another emphasized reason, while another emphasized the soul. Everyone thought for themselves and no one was threatened by the diversity of ideas.

Heresy only became a problem when Christianity became a system. Heresy is a social construct. It’s an entirely manmade concept!

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Not because I want to hide anything. If I could publish every truth I know on the front page of the internet, I would. But I have been censored, flagged, shadowbanned, and threatened enough times to know I cannot share everything publicly. Platforms are not neutral. They are controlled. And the people who control them do not want these conversations happening out loud.

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