Pedophiles
Raised Christian. Christian is supposed to be about love and acceptance, but after all the transphobia and homophobia I saw, it was kind of over for me (sapphic)
A lot of Christians claim that there is only one God and that you will burn in Hell for not believing in their religion, which just sounds discriminatory regardless of “I’m just trying to lead sinners on the right path”. It isn’t the right path if you have to fearmonger to lead people on it.
They also claim they’re trying to gently let people into God’s way or something but don’t seem so gentle when they spam “YOUR DELUSIONAL WOMEN (sic)” on trans men’s social media, or ”DELUSIONAL MEN (sic)” on trans women’s.
I believe all religions are the “true religion” and I’m polytheist.
I was never a believer but I was raised by MAGA Christians. The kind that believe in the rapture and show you bad dystopian movies about it.
I tried to believe it for a long time but eventually gave up. I’m pretty sure the majority of the people didn’t believe any of the mythology, they were just there for the racism and child abuse, so I tried to get away. Unfortunately the same stupid bullies have taken over the country. At least I’m not trying to see their side as tolerable anymore.
Hypocrites, draconian believes and the fact that I never felt the so called “presence of God” or of the Holly spirit or anything really
The church’s overall support for trump and anti-vax/anti-mask positions were a strong counter to the doctrine of sanctification, especially as support tended to increase among older populations. Sanctification is central enough to Christianity to be one of the pillars that either proves or disproves it.
What do you mean “ex-believer”? I still use Linux every day.
What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
At that moment, the student was enlightened.
I read the Bible. I started asking questions about things in the Bible that didn’t match science, I loved science (still do), but nobody wanted to answer my questions, they’d just get mad, so I started seeking information elsewhere and came across atheist or ex-religious sources who answered the questions I had. Those sources also helped me realise the damage that had been done to me mentally, which I’m still working on overcoming.
I admit I haven’t read the entire Bible. I’m not a particularly pious Christian, and I certainly don’t mean to try to convince anyone towards or against religion. Certainly, religion has its problems. That said:
I also love science. I’m an engineer, not a conspiracy theorist. I know the dinosours existed, I know evolution happened, I know the Big Bang was a thing. However, that doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t a man who lived approximately 2000 years ago. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great teacher. It doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to learn in any of the Bible’s stories.
Because that’s what they are: stories. They’re not 100% perfect recounts of events that happened. Heck, they’re most of the time not even 1% perfect recounts of events that happened. But some of them still have some wisdom worth sharing, just the same. At least, I think so.
Someone read those books thoroughly and decided they are not worth the cost of staying in a damaging situation.
You have not read them and yet you to want to defend stories you don’t think are true, but might have some little pearls of conventional wisdom? And just gloss right over that the religious trauma caused them serious harm they are still recovering from?
Just pointing out that your luke warm defense of your favorite children’s stories in this context comes across as extremely tone deaf.
I appreciate your response and the other person who replied to you is right as well, but I wanted to add that I can “appreciate” Bible stories the same way I can appreciate other myths or legends, many of which the Bible stories originated from. I love mythology, it fascinates me, especially seeing who borrowed from who, but that doesn’t make them real or worth worshipping.
Absolutely not, I 100% agree.
To your point about who borrowed from who - one of my favourite examples is the story of Noah’s Ark, or less specifically, “The Great Flood”. So many religions and mythologies have a Great Flood story. It’s fascinating to see how similar or different certain people’s recounts were of historical events like that.
Like I say, at this point in my life I’m still of the opinion that a good chunk of the Bible means well, but who knows? One of these days I might run out of sci-fi novels to read and go cover to cover, old testament to new. It’s certainly possible my mind might yet change.
My mother refusing treatment for cancer when it was still in early stages, Jesus will cure it for sure
Two things started the slow 10ish year journey to atheism for me. I can’t remember which happened first.
Some Mormon lads doing their mandatory missionary work knocked on our door when I was home alone. I decided, screw it, kill them with kindness. Maybe I’ll convert them! After I got them some ice water, they started the spiel. It was so stupid, how could anyone believe this? Then I thought, wait, how is what I believe any more believable? That was an unsettling thought that I could never really shake.
I also challenged myself to read the entire Bible (NIV) front to back (which I did, thankyouverymuch). I already had a lot of apologetics for the pentateuch warfare, slavery, etc. but in Psalms there’s a verse that basically goes, “blessed is he who dashes the babies on the rocks.” And like. What the fuck is that. In what possible circumstances is killing babies okay, let alone with God’s explicit endorsement? That also stuck in my head ever since.
There was a lot else in between, but years later I stumbled into a copy of The God Delusion. “Know thine enemy, right?” So I read it on lunch breaks at work. While I now know the book has a reputation for kinda bad philosophy, by the end it had tidily dismantled the last vestiges of the purely “rational” arguments to believe in God I still had. So I sat there, an atheist for the first time in my life.
I remember that exact same verse! I had had multiple traumatic happenings in life and tried to study Bible to soothe my mind and find some answers. I read the whole thing and hoo boy was it eye-opening! I tried reading apologetics to allay my doubts but they seemed like dodging the questions and didn’t provide satisfying answers. Then I started reading stuff with historical critical approach and it started to make sense. I fell away from Christianity. Then I read other “holy” scriptures just make sure I wasn’t missing something and realized that they all had cool stories but that’s about it. So, I decided to rebuild my world view on something that wasn’t based on wishful thinking… and I’ve been a content atheist for 15 years.
The people. Family, their friends, the church people, the religious school people. Everyone. Toxic. And it took me far too long to figure out how wrong it all was and how so much judgement and hate and shame and guilt and manipulation was not normal.
None of my community raised an effective adult. But they sure tried to raise an indoctrinated subservient guilt-riddled sack of shit.
Fuck religion and fuck people who pressure it on others, especially children, and so many of them use it all as an excuse to cover the fact they are ultimately just shitty people.
Thanks to them I feel like 2 decades of my life were stolen from me and I had to relearn and grow up a lot in my 20s to get out of it.
Sure is interesting in religion how there’s a neverending amount of pointing at YOUR need to change, but none of those pointing ever seem to change or improve as humans.
The meanest people I have ever known were church people. My dad left us when I was young, my mom was left a single parent. Seeking refuge in the church, we started attending regularly. In that time I felt things from others, ranging from genuine kindness all the way to pity. However, as things progressed and my mother became more involved with the church, the more people started to talk. From casual mentions, to annoyance that she would show up, to talking behind her back.
Was she super pleasant to be around? No, I think she can be awkward and has a hard time making friends - and those people picked up on that and ran with it. It wasn’t so long until she was excluded from certain events, that there were more “special” bible studies that she would her invite would be “forgotten”. She wanted so much to be included, but she didn’t fit their paradigm of… I don’t even know what.
Oh they preach of acceptance and forgiveness, of not judging, but they are some of the most hurtful people out there. I don’t know what I believe personally, but I’ll avoid going into a church for as long as I can.
Your story is all too common, and I saw a lot of this growing up. I was there as a child overhearing the comments about people. Seeing and hearing my parents and church and school leaders talking shit behind backs, amd being judgy as hell towards anyone and everyone.
Yes, God forbid you seem like a burden or “different” in any way. Their “acceptance” of you will come with a lot of caveats.
I’m glad for your sake and your life you are aware and see it for what it is. You’re better off.
This was the primary reason for me leaving the church, but I had begun my whole “deconstruction” journey years earlier. Between losing my belief and losing my religion, I was there to be a good influence on the true believers. I eventually realised it was useless to do so, that these people who I once considered friends were actually just horrible people. I’m embarrassed how long I really ignored some toxic beliefs and actions just because the people committing them were doing so “for sincerely held beliefs”. Trump and Covid were the real catalysts just because the way and the speed of their “mask off” transition made it obvious even to a socially inept person like me that they were just bad people.
I was a nerd, so I tried really really hard to prove logically that my religion was the correct one… and failed.
I relate to this. I bounced from Christian sect to Christian sect looking for the ones who got it most correct. I ran out of denominations.
I never believed, I was told I had to be christian or I would go to hell.
I grew up as a Christian. When I was around 15, someone asked me “if I hadn’t been born a Christian, would I be a Christian?” Considering it, I opened my Bible and immediately a verse popped out (in classic God fashion) saying “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have”
So then I felt called even more to really explore, based on that:
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- I couldn’t currently defend my faith reasonably
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- If God was actually real, he wouldn’t be scared of people exploring arguments against Christianity, because the faith would be based on something ultimately true.
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- By exploring other faiths, arguments, etc, if I returned as a Christian, I would have a much stronger faith.
The more I explored these arguments, as well as gaining a better understanding of what the Bible actually is (in a historical and literature sense), more and more of the belief system unraveled, eventually to the point I didn’t call myself a Christian anymore.
Then over the next decade I went back and forth exploring alternative denominations in Christianity, as well as other religions (Daoism, Buddhism, Judaism), especially as I still felt a “spiritual pull” / intuition in a lot of situations. So it took me a really long time to separate that intuitive sense of direction from the belief system around the Holy Spirit specifically, and learn where trusting that intuition is effective, and where it can be misleading. That’s been the most complex part of all of this.
I still enjoy exploring other belief systems, components of Christianity, and connecting with whatever that intuition is occasionally, as I do think there is a lot there for human psychological and emotional health that Western modernity sorely lacks. (I suspect this hole in our culture is why a lot of fundamental US Evangelism has flourished btw)
But that’s how I lost my faith - God gave me the push I needed :P
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I was always kinda skeptical but the event that triggered my way out was when I asked my mom how can God expect people, who were raised with other religions, to believe in him instead when they simply have no idea. She said they know about God and it’s their own fault for not believing in him. And that for me was not logical because I knew from my own experience that I only believed in God because that’s all I knew.
But it took a while for me to completely stop believing in any deity or whatever supernatural power because I kept looking for reasons why we exist. Now I don’t care for that. Sure the Big Bang is mysterious and we might never solve it but there is no sense in making things up either. Everything else can be explained by science so let’s just go with that.
If the Christian God wants me to believe in him, he should stop being so vague and contradicting. Turn the moon into cheese. Pluck a mountain out of the ground and float it in the sky. Whatever, he is almighty, he should do almighty things.
I remember posing this question to my mum and dad. Their answer was “that’s what missionaries are for”. Honestly they should’ve just said they didn’t know.
Bad luck for the people not being visited by the missionaries!
Similar here, region locked gods lol.
he should stop being so vague and contradicting.
“He” can’t do that because “he” doesn’t exist. Just like the other 5000 or so gods that humans have invented over the millennia.
Thanks, that’s what I obviously concluded too.
I read the Bible. I watched the way believers treated others, and learned how they saw the world. I realized how poorly adjusted I was for interacting with anyone besides other believers. I left the church and learned how to become a better person. It was a tremendous amount of humbling work, and frankly, I’d rather have learned it earlier.
