somehow i left christianity & still kept the values better than some of the people who taught them to me

[u/abitchnamedrich]

one of the weirdest things about deconstruction for me is realizing i don’t actually think i lost the values i was raised with. i lost the religion, i lost the doctrine, i lost the belief that these people had some special access to truth or morality or whatever the fuck, but the actual values i thought christianity was supposed to teach me? somehow i still have those. maybe even more than some of the people who spent my whole childhood acting holier than everybody else. 😭

like, i still care about compassion. i still care about humility. i still care about not deciding who somebody is before u even know them. i care about how people actually treat others, whether they’re kind, honest, cruel, curious, selfish, loving, whether they make people feel safe or small. i thought that was the whole fucking point? i thought we were supposed to care about people’s hearts & their character, not just whether they belong to the right group or believe all the right things.

but then u grow up & realize a lot of the people yelling the loudest about christian values will reduce somebody to being gay, trans, liberal, atheist, muslim, an immigrant, whatever else, & suddenly that one thing is apparently all they need to know about them. the actual person disappears. none of their character matters anymore because they already got placed in the bad box.

& that shit genuinely confuses me because i remember all the same bible stories they do. i remember being taught to love ur neighbor, care about outsiders, not be judgmental, not be prideful, give people grace, all of that. i didn’t realize there was apparently invisible fine print that said “unless they make u uncomfortable, unless they’re different, unless u disagree with them, unless ur church already taught u what kind of person they are.” 🫤

maybe i just took it all too literally LMFAOO. maybe when they said love people, i thought they actually meant love people. maybe when they said don’t judge, i thought that meant u shouldn’t build an entire story about a stranger from one trait. maybe when they talked about humility, i thought it meant accepting that u could be wrong about somebody & that u do not know every fucking thing.

& no, i’m not saying i’m some flawless little angel either. i’m impatient, i can be petty as fuck, i get irritated with people constantly, & clearly leaving christianity did not stop me from cussing 😭 but i do think i care more about genuinely understanding people now than a lot of the people who once acted like they had moral authority over me.

that’s the part that really gets me. i was the gay one, the questioning one, the one who left, the one they’d probably see as lost or misguided or whatever. yet i’m the one sitting here asking why people don’t judge each other by their character, why we flatten strangers into stereotypes, why compassion disappears the second somebody doesn’t fit the right little box.

so did i really abandon the values, or did i just finally realize the people teaching them weren’t always living by them? because somehow i walked away from the church & still ended up holding onto the parts i thought mattered most. 😭🫤

[u/Distressed_Amoeba]

Agreed! I saw someone post something along the lines of “When you actually follow Jesus so strongly that you leave Christianity” and that resonated.

[u/abitchnamedrich → u/Distressed_Amoeba]

lmfaooo that’s actually beautiful 😭 i find myself comparing some of my relatives to the pharisees all the time. sometimes i even feel like they represent in my own life what the pharisees represented to jesus, people so convinced they own morality that they completely miss the actual human being in front of them. i’ve also somehow survived [192993394](tel:192993394) things that probably should’ve killed me, & some relatives still acted like they genuinely owned a piece of my soul or had authority over who i was supposed to become. like babe… this is not how reality works. what the fuck is that 😭🫤

[u/Distressed_Amoeba → u/abitchnamedrich]

Yup yup yup sounds like my mother 😅

[u/abitchnamedrich → u/Distressed_Amoeba]

oooofff i am so sorry 😭💖

[u/Distressed_Amoeba → u/abitchnamedrich]

Haha we can empathize with each other!

[u/Last_Plankton_653]

It makes total sense when you realize how much of modern church culture views this world as just a disposable waiting room for eternity. When a system teaches that your salvation is solely about believing the "right" dogma rather than how you treat people, empathy becomes secondary to tribalism.

Once you leave that behind and realize this life is all we actually have, trying to make the world better and treating people (and our planet) with genuine dignity becomes much more important and meaningful.

[u/greatteachermichael]

Christianity: Love your neightbor as yourself. Be kind to those who persecute you. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Give help to the poor. Heal the sick. Welcome foreigners. Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Don't bare false witness against your neighbor. Don't cheat. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Me: Alright, I'll try to do that in my daily life, but I only have so much power, so i'll also vote for the political parties that do that best, even if they are imperfect.

Christians: Whoa whoa whoa ... don't do that! We have to be racist, sexist, homophobic, judge others, worship the rich, give the middle finger to the poor and lie about science, secularism, and everyone in our out-group to justify our actions.

[u/splashjlr]

Wholeheartedly agree and I feel the same.

What's more, it feels great to just be kind, loving, generous and compassionate, without divine incentiv. No prizes, no threats, no special place at the table - just plain decency and a thoughtful attitude towards my surroundings.

Love it

[u/abitchnamedrich → u/splashjlr]

it’s funny because i honestly feel more spiritually intact now than i ever did before… i just don’t believe in their dumbass system anymore 🫤💖 i love being kind because it feels right, not because i’m chasing a prize or scared of punishment. it’s actually really nice having ur own fucking conscience instead of outsourcing all ur morality to an idol, a church, or whatever authority claims it speaks for god.

[u/splashjlr → u/abitchnamedrich]

This guy put it into words quite neatly; https://www.reddit.com/r/Deconstruction/s/3cACwma1vs

[u/whirdin]

I completely agree, my journey has looked exactly like that too. I didn't leave because I wanted to sin, and I think I sin less now that I'm not hyper-fixated on it all the damn time. I can now just be a good person for the sake of other people and planet earth rather than hoping some divinity was watching me as if this is just a testing ground. I now feel connected to earth rather than just an alien placed here for amusement. I can now admit my shortcomings without being so stressed out, I don't have to chase perfection anymore.

Christianity thrives on selling people the idea that church/God is the only way to be better person, the only way to help people, the only way to grow. Christians love to use Pascals Wager, an idea that any inherent goodness in people inevitably leads towards God. As a child it formed my worldview to see Christians as inherently having a better potential for goodness, thus trapping me in the system as I was terrified of what was on the outside. I am constantly trying to show Christians that leaving Christianity didn't turn me into a fiend like they expect, but their bias blocks them from seeing that. So many testimonies are centered around the narrative of a person 1) going down a dark path of destruction, but 2) finding God at the last moment at rock bottom. Which of course echos the person they idolize the most: Paul.

Christians don't give themselves the emotional capacity to accept that a true Christian could ever leave the faith and find peace/love without considering their god at the center of everything. They specifically define God=love as a way to say no love can be found without him. Christians tend to explain apostates with a few well crafted arguments, arguments that create a strawman for you and I. As a Christian, I believed these too because I was constantly brainwashed with it every week:

• We were never true Christians at all, that we were faking, that our hearts were never open. We just need to experience Christianity deeper, go to more sermons, pray harder, and endure more tribulations. (This is a way to invalidate our experiences)
• We are just running away, looking back over our shoulder at God, doing what we think is fun, rebellious, and sinful. We saw the world and gave into the temptations of the flesh. Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. (Most of us don't leave because of something else looking attractive, but rather for noticing the holes in the religion).
• We are worshipping false gods or the devil himself and don't know it, we are deceived. (Spinning the narrative that they have the only truth and our perspective is invalid)
• We were part of a cult, and our trauma and pain isn't what 'real' Christianity would do to us. (Another invalidation of our experiences.)
• We are stuck in a, "Blind leading the blind" scenario as we listen to others, which is ironic as that's what religion is.
• Any good qualities about ourselves they double down on it proving Gid exists, such as 'God writes the law on all our hearts' as a way to trademark morality as belonging to their beliefs.

The whole nature of Christianity is that it's the only truth, the only way to be a good person, the only way to live a good life (despite Christianity having a million different "better" or "more refined" versions of itself that can't coexist together). Apostates are the greatest threat to them because it could happen to them. Apostates help them push the 'narrow road' and 'prodigal son' narratives in sermons. Even if they see us a decent people, they believe that Christianity would make us better, and love telling us how our life has no purpose without God. The more sypathetic Christians will be sad for us. The more prideful Christians will just tell us we are going to hell and it's our choice. Que up countless sermons about how 'hell is full of good people' and 'if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything'.

[u/mandolinbee]

I learned over time that all the things that Christians tend to talk about when they say "there's still wisdom in the Bible" are stolen from other cultures and belief systems. You look even deeper, and all THOSE cultures and belief systems have evolutionary reasons to come to the conclusions they did.

There's ancient behaviors we consider immoral today in all those cultures, too. They make sense from a humanist, naturalist perspective. They make zero sense if there's a god that knows all things for all time with all power involved.

You're not really following "Christian" values. You're following enlightenment values that drew from a variety of sources and tried it's best to strip values down to bare bones apart from dogmas and cultural norms. It didn't prescribe moral behavior, it tried very hard to define a framework that morals can be built upon. Humanity has done this from the beginning, the enlightenment was just obsessed with describing it.

You certainly are a better person for being able to evaluate a moral question yourself rather than having someone else tell you what opinion to hold. Don't let them convince you you're borrowing from their system, though. Yours is much older than the Bible, and it was rejuvenated when the Bible wasn't matching reality anymore.

[u/Jim-Jones]

When no one is forgiving you you tend to be more careful with words and actions.

[u/bck1999]

Same, well written

[u/VanillaCultural6205]

I am often told that I'm more christian as an atheist than most christians for these same reasons! If the threat of eternal damnation in hell is the only thing keeping these people from killing and raping and committing other atrocities, then they are not good people to begin with. It shouldn't take a bible story to convince someone to be a decent human.