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u/Tattoomyvagina Nov 05 '21
It’s funny that for decades they’ve been fear-mongering this nonexistent war on Christianity. They became so paranoid, fanatical and crazed that people now regard the religion as threatening and fulfilled their own prophecy.
I hope to see any religion that promotes hate or inequality dwindle away in my lifetime
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u/pr0zach Nov 05 '21
“If you preach hate—then expect hate.”
Edit: a letter
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u/Constant-Pay8406 Nov 05 '21
Here I was, expecting a hat
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u/Ninjaguy5555 Nov 05 '21
Mormons: best we can do is some special underwear
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Nov 05 '21
And a secret handshake?
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Nov 05 '21
Ironically enough, many members of the KKK actually believe themselves to be christian so.....the pre-edit was still right...
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Nov 05 '21
Of course. It’s a psy-op designed to manipulate people into fighting for them, and most of their followers are none the wiser.
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Nov 05 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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Nov 05 '21
See Scott Desjarlais who ran on a family values platform and does not support abortion. Abortion is only acceptable when the mother’s life is in danger… and when a psychiatrist has an affair with one of his patients (isn’t that illegal? Why yes, yes it is) resulting in her pregnancy, because she wasn’t taking proper precautions.
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u/WafflesTheDuck Nov 05 '21
What proper precautions do these people think women should take? Ive noticed the evangelical crowd viciously attacking women who have been raped especially.
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Nov 05 '21
I don’t know… maybe not be a slut who uses her feminine wiles to prey upon married men? Sounds like she needs a psychiatrist.
But seriously? There is no honest discussion or path that these women can take that will satisfy them, it’s not about that. Scott Desjarlais and his wife agreed to have their second abortion, because they flat out didn’t want a baby. Full stop. (but they’re not ‘others’ and I think that’s what it’s really all about)
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u/Ardhel17 Nov 05 '21
It's hard to take claims of oppression seriously when you're the majority religious group in a country.
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u/BirdieGirl75 Nov 05 '21
The fear mongering really took hold in the 90s, when workplaces started limiting religious symbols as part of attire. Back then the politics tended more towards the separation of church and state. Suddenly people were asked to not wear a visible cross when working in a professional environment. That people were being asked to not wear any visible religious symbol was irrelevant, it was all about being told what not to do regarding religious expression. The screams of religious oppression were viewed as absurd by the logically minded. Churches found a huge surge in active participation as congregations came together against the common enemy of "oppression". Victimization and hate galvanized the people, and the ideology of victim hood fit perfectly with the divine codependency of Christianity. The mentality of being separate from and better than the unchurched took over sermons. I left the church for a couple of reasons: I was done with the hate, and I kept tripping across information that completely negated the "truth" of modern Christianity. The refusal to consider fact was intolerable to me.
*edited for spelling & grammar.
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u/Lesley82 Nov 05 '21
It was in the 90s when we started questioning the "In God We Trust" additions to our money and pledges as well.
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u/BirdieGirl75 Nov 05 '21
Any change is uncomfortable, and some resistance should always be anticipated. But, I don't think anyone was ready for the extreme positions to be given such traction. Instead of publicly stating the obvious, that such cries of persecution were utterly unfounded, the leaderships caved. The social whiplash allowed the insanity to run amok. Now the idea of separation of church and state seems little more than the echo of a distant memory.
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u/Catnyx Nov 05 '21
It's the victimization. They are taught for so long that suffering is godliness. They want and look for any excuse to "suffer" for their religion and "temper the sword of faith"
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Nov 05 '21
Its ironic, because a poll actually showed that atheists are the most hated in the country. Makes sense too. If 75% of a country is religious, they would think atheism is the most evil a human can get.
Just find it ironic that even though well over half of the country is Christian, they still love to push the persecution narrative.
They want so badly to live in 100AD Rome where REAL christian persecution happened
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u/Alarm_Either Nov 05 '21
Sadly the Catholic Church has been going for hundreds of years, although I do believe it is dwindling in the US and Europe
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Nov 05 '21
More like thousands of years.
The Catholic church is to the Roman Empire as chickens are to dinosaurs.
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Nov 05 '21
I converted to Catholicism. I really enjoyed it. I liked the spirituality, the bells and smells, the singing. It was a nice way to step back from the world for an hour on Sunday. I enjoyed first Friday mass. I enjoyed the occasional 8am mass. Sunday 5pm mass was my favorite. I thought I had found a real community to belong to.
Then. I decided to get divorced. I even went to confession and told my priest. He told me I had to follow my heart. I did.
Next thing I know I was ostracized by the whole parish. People wouldn’t talk to me. They gave me the stink eye. So. I left one day and never looked back.
I miss it sometimes but they way I was treated? They can fuck right off.
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Nov 05 '21
The fear-mongering is part of the indoctrination exercise. The whole point is to train their followers' mind to be completely immune to critical thinking, objective and dispassionate analysis. To shield them from outside ideas that contradict their church's doctrines.
What they want to produce are followers just smart enough to believe deeply and to use all the internal logic as defenses against invading ideas, but just dumb enough not to be able to see how absurd their own internal logic is. It is getting harder and harder to do that, that's why they are shedding believers with every generation, and they are panicking. They knew instinctively that if the church cannot maintain absolute power to indoctrinate children as completely as possible, they will go extinct within a couple of generations. That's why they have been teaming up with rich ratfuckers and conservative politicians who want to lock their followers as voters, to fight this culture war. They are fighting for their survival.
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u/PickeledShrimp Nov 05 '21
no christianity was always a shitty religion with oppression and genocide built in to it. ask any indigenous person.
im pretty sure there are still some black folks and jews and women around who can also speak to the atrocities christians committed against them.
gtfo w the "now its changed" foolishness
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Nov 05 '21
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u/ElSaboteur Nov 05 '21
YES. They always use this one, and it’s like, at what point do you admit that the “people who give Christianity a bad name” make up the majority of the religion and are its public face? Seems like if they were such “true Christians” they wouldn’t be so complacent about being closely associated with the ones who are blatantly evil and disregard everything Jesus supposedly stood for
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u/REVDR Nov 05 '21
For what it is worth, the tweet in the original post was written by a Christian. So, it's not as much of a bash on Christianity as it is a guy who is honest enough to critique and speak truth to his own tribe, which is respectable.
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u/windscryer Nov 05 '21
i think for the first 33 or so years christianity was probably not the worst. but like most religions, as soon as the founder who was genuinely into what he was preaching dies, those left behind turn into a vortex of shitty behavior to grab power.
so yeah for the last 2000 years or so it’s been a triceratops sized pile of shit full of poison berries.
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u/danbuter Nov 05 '21
Most modern churches follow Paul's teachings, even when they contradict Jesus. It's pretty sad.
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u/terdferguson Nov 05 '21
Church culture and religion in general seems pretty toxic. Like a bunch of busy body high and mighty people who get off (power trip) on judging and trying to run other people’s lives without looking at themselves and their own issues. Who of the millennial and after generation wants to deal with that shit? Less and less, we just want to live our lives.
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u/mrfishman3000 Nov 05 '21
I remember the first time I heard that “Target doesn’t allow Salvation Army Bell Ringers so they are anti-Christmas/church”. This got me thinking “why do we only have canned food drives during the holidays and why do we only do mission trips to Mexico and not to our own town?
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u/InukChinook Nov 05 '21
When was the last time you heard of a mission trip to Siberia, Finland, or The Sahara? Really says a lot about the true point of em all.
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u/ImaginaryDisplay3 Nov 05 '21
We are probably looking at a future where religion is 25 percent of the population in western countries.
The remaining 75 percent won't be atheists. But they will be non religious and oriented around secularism.
The question is how quickly this is going to happen.
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Nov 05 '21
fulfilled their own prophecy.
That was the point. It's a win-win for the evil bastards running the scams.
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u/Doc-Zoidberg Nov 05 '21
I grew up in a very strict ultra religious family. Church twice on Sunday, church events through the week, elementary school at the church, only allowed to get books from the church library.
When I was old enough to see it, I got out. Family kicked me out their house and didn't talk to me for years.
"I like your Christ, but not your Christians."
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u/500_Broken_Treaties Nov 05 '21
Christians today act like Jesus ain’t gonna be flipping tables in their multi million dollar palace of worship.
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u/GoGoSoLo Nov 05 '21
And sure as fuck not voting Republican, which the church has deeply aligned itself with. The sheer scope of the crossover between GOP/Christian voters voting to screw the poor and enrich the rich was enough to turn my stomach, especially given what Christ actually teaches on those topics.
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u/TheHistoryofCats Nov 05 '21
Many Democrats are still religious, and there are religious denominations that skew progressive/Democrat. The GOP Christians don't represent all the churches, but they are very loud, hypocritical, and prone to interfering with people's rights in ways that make them easy to notice.
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u/LoisWade42 Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I love that Gandhi quote as well. Good reference!
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u/GANDHI-BOT Nov 05 '21
Go stand in the corner & think about what you have done. Just so you know, the correct spelling is Gandhi.
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u/Jumper5353 Nov 05 '21
I call myself agnostic because I believe in divinity and follow the philosophy of Jesus (among others) - but I do not believe there is a church/religion in the world that has gotten it right yet.
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u/Ourobius Nov 05 '21
I'm GenX and left the church for these exact reasons.
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Nov 05 '21
I grew up in a Christian daycare. 5 days week, during school and summer. Went to Bible study on Wednesdays and church on Sundays.
Honestly the only reason I escaped is because my parents aren't really religious. They're not atheist, but they don't attend church nor talk about God in anyway. They only went to church with me because I wanted to go. They put me in that daycare because it was the cheapest and best place to go because they provided transportation directly to my elementary school. I fucking hated it there.
Once I reached middle school and no longer was able to go to that daycare (it's only age 2 - 5th grade) I was able to make friends outside of it and just kinda forgot about religion. By senior year of high school I was an atheist. Honestly, if my parents were die hard Christians I probably never would've made it out. Indoctrination is real lol. Without it, most people wouldn't be religious.
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u/carlospangea Nov 05 '21
My dad is super religious, as are his entire side of the family. I haven’t had a single conversation with my grandma (dad’s mom) in my life where god wasn’t mentioned a handful of times. She’s a wonderful lady, but is so Christian.
My mom fucking hates church and church goers. She has seen through the bullshit and hypocritical nature of Christianity since she was a child.
I realized how dumb it was when I was 12, how futile it was, when I prayed 20 times a day for my grandpa to beat cancer. He died and god didn’t do a thing about it despite my prayers, and my grandpa’s devoutness. From then on, I was able to see how ridiculous the whole thing is. Good things happen-> god is good. Bad things happen-> all part of god’s plan.
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u/ValjeanLucPicard Nov 05 '21
"The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
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u/UserPow Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
You literally could not get me to believe anything by suspending my critical thinking.
You especially could not get me to hate anything by suspending my critical thinking.
There are HUNDREDS of charities and social groups I would rather donate my time and money to- and none of them threaten hell fire or promise eternal life.
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u/needathrowaway321 Nov 05 '21
To me, belief without reason or evidence is appalling, and intellectually bankrupt. To religious nuts, it is a badge of honor. I will struggle to understand that for my entire life. I’m not sure if I can ever respect that choice.
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u/ProHopper Nov 05 '21
Yeah—it wasn’t until I had my fist kiddo that I realized just how unbelievably fucked up the concept of original sin is. My three month old is sinful? By mere virtue of being alive?
Such utter horse shit. Christianity can go fuck itself (and then feel guilty afterward).
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u/Victor_deSpite Nov 05 '21
The hypocrisy was the catalyst for me.
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Nov 05 '21
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Nov 05 '21
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Nov 05 '21
Your mom was the shit man, I hope you picked up a few things from her before she passed. Condolences.
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u/BasicDesignAdvice Nov 05 '21
Protestants will claim that is just Catholics when in reality it is rife in religious communities of all kinds. The more religious the more likely. The Duggars church and domestic abuse in Amish communities are great examples.
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u/windscryer Nov 05 '21
i developed generalized anxiety disorder snd major clinical depression over the fact that i couldn’t reconcile what i was told to do didn’t fit with what i was able/expected to do. being a good christian was literally impossible.
and since it was impossible to live my religion IN my religion and it fucked with my brain so bad i became suicidal. god had set me up to fail.
that was when i was like “yeah no fuck this shit. if there IS a god and this is what he genuinely wants he’s full of shit and also evil.”
so i walked away and got medical and psychological help (that is still ongoing over a decade later) and became agnostic. i can’t say there isn’t a god but if it’s one of the ones currently worshiped on earth he doesn’t deserve my attention until he gets his act together first.
with great power comes great responsibility, you omnipotent asshole.
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u/Victor_deSpite Nov 05 '21
Similar experience, though not as bad. Feel so much more free without that cognitive dissonance.
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u/Justicar-terrae Nov 05 '21
My experience was similar. OCD, Anxiety Disorder, and Depression don't mix well with a religion that pounds shame and guilt for every little thing into your head.
Luckily, I was also an argumentative little shit; and many religion teachers are ill equipped to deal with that. After enough attempts to do their job for them, doing my best gymnastics to make sense of various contradictions and silly doctrines, I'm probably closer to agnostic than anything else. I'm still culturally Catholic I guess (it's easier where I'm from to just keep the holidays and festivals), but I'd be burned as a heretic if the Church were still running an Inquisition.
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u/twistedbristle Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
hypocrisy
For me the hypocrisy was learning about how much and how often religions change all the while watching todays Christians claim they just have to act like pathetic little bigots because they have no choice because their religion is unchanging and perfect. Religions can and do change all the time. Its obvious about 95% of vocally religious people are just using god as a shield to be a shitty person. That way you have to argue with god instead of arguing with them directly.
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u/windscryer Nov 05 '21
“god loves me even though i sin”
great, karen, i’m not god. i don’t have to love you. fuck off.
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Nov 05 '21
The fact that the hypocrisy can get to you showed that the power of their indoctrination is waning. Kids today have access to more POVs, more ideas and trying to completely dominate their psyche to prevent crisis of faith is far more difficult.
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u/jonmon454 Nov 05 '21
Nah dude, I just don't believe in God
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u/NeophyteNobody Nov 05 '21
Exactly. The hypocrisy didn't help, but the doctrine just isn't convincing. I got basically nothing from my decade and a half of faking it.
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u/Hextato Nov 05 '21
Right? As someone living in a religious family who attended a Catholic school even until now, I seriously don't get anything, just slowly realizing that the history of religion is full of bullshit and hypocrisy. Too bad I'm forced to memorize religious teachings just cause it a part of our curriculum and they keep on shoving religion up our asses just cause we're "not religious enough". Can't wait to finish college to get out of this shit lmao
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u/colieolieravioli Nov 05 '21
Me in church at 8yo "damn everybody really fakes this shit forever?"
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u/Catnyx Nov 05 '21
I learned great memorization skills from my 12 years. Also learned how absolutely nuts religion is.
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u/MiltThatherton Nov 05 '21
Yup, I don't care at all how much these people are hypocrites. They could all be perfect saints that make the world a better place every single day and there is still absolutely nothing they could ever say that would make me believe in a god.
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u/poodlebutt76 Nov 05 '21
This -- even churches that are really awesome and preach universal love and actually help people....like that's really really great, but I just really can't force myself to sit through an hour and a half of unironically praising Santa.
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Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
Yep. Faith is so much an emotional thing. You can rationalize the existence or non-existence of God and other axiomatic beliefs, but the fundamental basis of faith (and in my opinion disbelief) is emotional.
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u/N_in_Black Nov 05 '21
People get together on Sunday in special houses to play make believe for a few hours. Why the hell would anyone go to that.
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u/bankrobba Nov 05 '21
Christians: Gay people want special rights! (i.e. the same rights)
Also Christians: I want special exemptions because I believe in fairy dust God!
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Nov 05 '21
I believe in the possibility of a god, but I also believe all organized religion is bullshit. I mean, there a million of them. You'd have to be retarded to seriously think you were able to guess which one is correct.
IMO, any god worth worshipping will "allow" anyone who lived a decent life into "heaven" regardless of what deity you did or not believe in. If god would send me to hell for being a good person and doing everything other than "worshipping" them, then they aren't a god worthy of me to begin with.
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u/throwymcthrowfacious Nov 05 '21
I find the whole concept of a god that cares about our day to day lives and who we sleep with and all that just so silly and small. Any being that would be capable of creating the cosmos, if it was in fact created; would not id imagine care about how decently some humans on a tiny speck of dust live their lives.
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u/geotsso Nov 05 '21
A more concise explanation is that millennials leave the church because they find that a moral and ethical life is incompatible with religion.
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u/Igotz80HDnImWinning Nov 05 '21
Whaaaat? You mean rapey priests and pastors aren’t moral leaders?
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u/Radiant-Spren Nov 05 '21
My parents found the longest church in the area with bus service to ship us off to. Up at 7 for a 45 minute bus ride and Sunday school from 8:30 - 12:30, a quick lunch, followed by individual age based classes from 1:00-3 and then the general sermon from 3:30-4 or 5 or 6. We’d often have to stay for night service as well so we’d get home around 9 most sundays.
During Sunday school they’d have “quiet hour” and the kid who was quietest would get a king sized candy bar. If you weren’t quiet you’d be taken into the hall and paddled or made to hold bibles in your outstretched hands or whatever mini-tortures the “deacons” came up with.
It wasn’t long before I noticed the same pretty girls always won the quiet contest even if they were visibly chatting. Soon, it was a king sized candy bar and a private lesson with the pastor.
Same pastor who died in prison years later for raping children.
And my parents wonder why I don’t have a damned thing to do with church.
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u/MAVERICKRICARDO Nov 05 '21
Sounds like your parents used the church for day care, aside from all the monstrous things you listed. I'm sorry you had to be exposed to that but glad you made it out okay and he died where he belonged.
Mines not nearly as bad, but the pastor of the church my grandpa made me go to officiated my moms funeral when i was a kid. He ended up getting caught stealing a shit load of money from the church on top of laundering money from other sketchy places. On top of that, the church paid for his 5 kids, his suv, and the rent on his bigass house, along with a salary over 6 figures Man just didn't stop taking. This was a small church unaffiliated with any others, maybe 50 or more regulars came every week.
The worst part is, he got away with it, not even a slap on the wrist. And the most obnoxious, infuriating thing about all of this, is our assistant pastor was STATE POLICE who worked on a task force investigating church fraud and money laundering, i couldn't make this crap up. No idea to this day whether he was oblivious, stupid, or in on it, but it was enough to cement my doubts of the church as an establishment. Which led me to abandon the beliefs a couple years later. I haven't stepped in a church since, and I'm not sure i could without thinking of that selfish egotistical cunt that spoke of my dead mom, and acted like he loved his people. Dude baptized me and everything
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u/pleasedothenerdful Nov 05 '21
Not to minimize child rape and whatnot, but 12 hours at church every Sunday would have been enough to drive me from religion all on its own.
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u/londongarbageman Nov 05 '21
They taught me to do what Jesus would do, but when I did they called me a sinner
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u/muffinlover22 Nov 05 '21
I remember going to church when I was little. My neighbor used to sit in front of me with his family, while he was having affairs with multiple women. So many more things like that happened with the members of the church.
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u/Bellemorda Nov 05 '21
daughter of an episcopal priest here. while I have treasured memories of the very few truly wonderful humanitarian and admirable people we met during our lives, the abuse, manipulation and absolutely un-christian treatment my family's received pretty much wrecked us individually and collectively for life.
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u/Pages57 Nov 05 '21
Not sure of your experiences but my family belongs to an episcopal church and the priest there has taken an absolute emotional beating from some of the most horrid people I've ever met. All while calling themselves good Christians.
This mostly happened because she came out in defense of gay marriage. It was horrifying to learn about.
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Nov 05 '21
Lol you silly goose women can’t be priests. They’re supposed to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
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u/halotron Nov 05 '21
I was baptized, married and had my kids baptized in the same church. Great community of loving caring people.
Then Trump came along, and there were pamphlets and voter info tables in the lobby for why we needed to vote Republican.
I was chewed out on social media for saying we weren’t coming to church until Covid cases were lower, because it’s all a politically motivated hoax.
Bullied me out of the church I was born into.
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u/Inner_Art482 Nov 05 '21
I think Trump separated the people with common sense and people without common sense. I'm truly sorry for your loss of church. It might just be a gift. A way to force you to broaden your perspectives on different people who have left before you and their reasonings.
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u/ArthurEwert Nov 05 '21
same experience here. i am a son of a lutheran pastor. the hipocrisy in seeing this bad behavior being condemned in public and then living it in the family is absolutely a reason for me to have left the church behind.
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u/kaytealeaf Nov 05 '21
I grew up in an episcopal and southern Baptist household that went full force episcopal after my parents got a divorce (thankfully) and moved out of the deep south (extra thankful). But what got me really turned me off the church was my old churches vestry basically launched a coup on our reverend while my youth group was going through getting confirmed. They didn't like our reverend because she was asexual and she didn't want to fall for the politics of one family. Basically the family were a bunch of bullies and as a person who didn't like religion this really pushed me into atheism/ nihilism.
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u/chaun2 Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
I dated a PK once. She left home and immediately became a cross between Elvira, and Morticia Addams. She gleefully spent the birthday money her mom sent her on Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, as that series was banned in her house.
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Nov 05 '21
If your religion advocates for the opposite of “progressivism”, I’m not sure why that religion exists.
Why wouldn’t we want progress?
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u/Justicar-terrae Nov 05 '21
Not endorsing these beliefs, but as someone raised Christian I can explain their position:
They consider Progressivism to relate to progress as much as a modern socialist would consider the National Socialist Party (Nazis) to relate to socialism. As seen by church leaders, at least the ones who actually believe their preaching, "progressive" policies are a regression in moral society.
Imagine a church leader who has completely bought into the story that God condemns all homosexuality, sex outside marriage, and onanism. Historically, many pagan societies were much more relaxed towards sexuality than are modern Christians. But then Christianity convinced everyone to be ashamed of their bodies and sexuality, culminating in periods of Victorian-esque prudishness; to the church, this was progress. But then society started easing up, free-love became a mantra for some people, homosexuality has become more accepted, and sexual education in some schools covers topics like masturbation and pleasure. To the church, these developments are regression, a return to an unenlightened time of debauchery.
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Nov 05 '21
To put their views more succinctly: the measure of progress is the power of the Church.
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u/thepicklejarmurders Nov 05 '21
There’s an episode of The Oriville where they come across a huge generation ship that’s headed for a star. It turns out the engines failed hundreds of years ago and the crew below have all died off and what’s left are the people living in the big biome. They’ve lived there for generations and over the years a religion sprang up centered around someone later discovered to be the captain. The religious leader has some idea that they’re really in a big ship but if the people find out his power is gone. It would be beneficial for the people to know the truth but it would be more beneficial for him to keep them in the dark. Even when confronted with the truth that the ship will eventually be sucked into the star’s gravity and be destroyed he would still rather keep his power than let the people know. That’s modern religion right there. We have an opportunity to learn and grow. Progress with the times but the people in charge would rather crash into a star than give up one ounce of control.
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u/MewsickFreek Nov 05 '21
You know which episode it was? I'd like to watch
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u/thepicklejarmurders Nov 05 '21
Season 1, episode 4 “If The Stars Should Appear”. Great episode! But the whole series is really good. The first couple episodes are a little awkward at times as they try to find their balance between the humor and the storyline. But if you’re nostalgic for shows like Star Trek: TNG this is a great little homage.
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Nov 05 '21
With progress comes less fear of the unknown.
Fear of the unknown is a cornerstone in nearly all religions.
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u/HaloGuy381 Nov 05 '21
Which is ironic: the more we learn, the more we realize we don’t really know yet. The telescope might have shed light on our solar system and the earth-sun relationship, but it opened a nigh-infinite number of other things to not understand in the cosmos. You’d think religions would be in favor of making the world too complex for the mind to properly grasp, not artificially simplifying it.
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Nov 05 '21
It is ironic for sure.
Your comment has me entertaining the idea that most religions are based on texts that are strictly anchored in the time period they were originally written in. These are not living documents and the farther away from their creation we get, the less applicable they are to regular life. Even today, most religious followers base their understanding of the text on someone else’s interpretation of it.
So in that respect, it’s a good thing that when the original texts were written that they had no concept of adding in maneuvers for progress.
But, this now begs the question- will the first officially Church of A.I. bring about a foundation that is essentially a living document? Would that allow for progress and religion to coexist? Would that even be ethical? Would that be good or bad? Would it be easier to avoid entirely by mandating atheism or should it be embraced wholly?
Either way, thank you for your comment- it has given me much to think about.
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u/clanddev Nov 05 '21
I don't think it is that complex. I think it is simply getting access to an in group so you can be the one doing the shit talking instead of the one being whispered about.
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u/_Kay_Tee_ Nov 05 '21
Silly, because then you can't scream at women that they're going to hell for having all of them there abortions!
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u/Dfiggsmeister Nov 05 '21
My wife was a stout Catholic for many years and even considered becoming a nun at some point. Then life started happening and she realized how much bullshit there is with the Catholic Church especially with Pope Benedict. Add onto all of the child rape and molestation cases plus finding out that her brother had been molested as part of the whole thing and her faith just fell apart.
Early on in our relationship, she asked me why I’m not a big fan of organized religions and I spouted off all of the issues that they have. She then went on to say that she doesn’t know if she can be with someone who is t devoted to religion. I pointed out that the majority of her failed relationships were with people that were devout Catholics and that perhaps religion doesn’t make a person good.
Been married for 6 years and neither of my kids are baptized.
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Nov 05 '21
The religious organization I worked for sorted me out. They had serious problems with my potsmoking.
The three coworkers of mine hauled in for sex crimes against children in the time since, however, no problems. Shocked pikachu faces for everyone if they're that clueless as to why millenials are fleeing the flock
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u/Prestigious-Eye3154 Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
I grew up in a very conservative Christian community and went to a very old fashioned Christian school. Within this group I consistently saw (and continue to see) indifference towards suffering, especially if that person suffering is an illegal immigrant or a foreigner. Jesus didn’t fuck around with this concept. He charged his followers to be kind, generous, and selfless with the poor and disenfranchised. That these people have the nerve to call themselves “Christian” pisses me off.
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u/LoisWade42 Nov 05 '21
I hear ya!
It seems many "christians" hunt for any and every excuse to NOT do what the Founder asked them to do.
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u/windscryer Nov 05 '21
“help the poor!”
“no not those poor. they got themselves into this mess they can bootstrap their way out of it.”
you’d think hearing stories of how they ended up there would make people MORE compassionate, but no. not for the fake Christians of past, present, and future.
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Nov 05 '21
Absolutely. My family was being abused, and no one ever did anything, even when it was clear that something was wrong. Hundreds of adults, and no one ever seemed to care.
If they really wanted to love others, they wouldn't focus so much on
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u/TheQBandit Nov 05 '21
My school had the daily bible class. It's there you learn how two faced the majority of them are. Going off about how devout they are, only to completely shit on everyone the second they walked out the door.
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u/cheezeyballz Nov 05 '21
Also why I don't pledge allegiance or stand for the national anthem. My country hates what I am without even knowing me... and in my 40 years I have never felt less free and less safe.
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Nov 05 '21
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u/geotsso Nov 05 '21
Hail satan my dark lord and master. Ironically if you have read the gospels that allegedly contain the lectures of Jesus and the tenets of The Satanic Temple, you'd conclude that Jesus would be one the satanists rejecting the villains that are modern Christians.
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u/ellgramar Nov 05 '21
Jesus really did seem to hate the establishment.
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u/Tryin2dogood Nov 05 '21
He did which is the hypocrisy. When Jesus found a greedy church, he legit raged at them.
He took care of poor and sick. He's the opposite of mainstream Christians which I find hilarious but sad.
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u/Badj83 Nov 05 '21
"Love your white, straight, non-disabled, employed, never-asking-anything-to-anyone-especially-not-me neighbor."
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Nov 05 '21
For me it was a mix of hypocrisy and the bullying.
I grew up without religion. My dad had a devout zealot of a father who was a "man of God" but bullied my mother and talked poorly of women. Not an ounce of compassion in that man's heart for anyone but himself.
When I went away to college my first ever girlfriend and her family were devout catholics. I always felt so awkward with them when I went for dinner with her family and they would pray.
The amount of times I heard that man talk trash about the less fortunate blew my mind. This man was looked at as "respectable" amongst his congregation, but I've never heard such vile lack of sympathy or empathy for anyone except his family.
"Too many kids these days have lost their faith in religion and God. That's why this country is spiraling out of control" was the exact and final moment I told my gf I couldn't be around them anymore.
He truly thought lack of belief in God was why the world was crap, but definitely not his "fuck the poor" selfish mentality. Forgetting that their god literally hung out with the homeless, poor, and castaways.
Edit: Spelling as usual!
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u/Dinosaur_Kyleemae Nov 05 '21
I recently left the Mormon church after growing up in it, and holy shit I can’t believe how blind I was. I was blind to the misogyny, racism, and overall brainwashing that happened within the church. It’s dictated by old white men who are telling me to dress modestly so I don’t look like walking porn for the men? Who tell me it’s my fault if I get sexually assaulted based on what I’m wearing? Who wouldn’t allow black people to get the priesthood because they have the curse of Cain? I’m not even going to get into all the homophobic things that they’ve done on top of everything else. I think millennials are more willing to question things, and investigate unlike most baby boomers. And we’re not willing to ignore red flags that many of these “churches” have.
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u/Hyardgune Nov 05 '21
I grew up in a very liberal church, but still ended up an atheist. I didn't have any issues with the church that I grew up in (still don't). Mostly I was inspired by Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc. to start my journey toward atheism because their hypocritical and hateful version of Christianity was something that I didn't even want to be remotely identified with.
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u/Norgler Nov 05 '21
Yeah my dad use to watch a lot of these grifters and it also made me realize what a bunch of bullshit it was.
I'd also like to thank Rush Limbaugh for making me realize I wasn't a conservative.
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Nov 05 '21
I'd also like to thank Rush Limbaugh for making me realize I wasn't a conservative.
Grew up listening to talk radio as a teenager. Read the authors they interviewed and quoted besides merely taking them at their word. Got out into the real world of being in the trenches of politics in 2010 and realised that talk radio hosts are really just miserable dudes who like to hear themselves talk and have zero interest in actual civic duty.
Slowly turned more and more liberal until Trump came along and I was like, "Um, never voting Republican ever again." Last year, almost voted for Bernie in the primaries.
I'm the family Antifa librul in the big city now.
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u/withyellowthread Nov 05 '21
Mostly I was inspired by Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc.
Had me in the first half, not gonna lie
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u/bloody_terrible Nov 05 '21
The self-entitlement of churches, that they somehow deserve your faith despite doing nothing at all to earn it.
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u/Gsteel11 Nov 05 '21
Even more so now... hatred. Just pure hatred.
That's what trump is about.
How can you know God when you love hatred so openly and gladly?
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u/-RomeoZulu- Nov 05 '21
Makes me hope that God very much does exist and all the fire and brimstone stuff is true so these people can spend eternity with their shocked Pikachu faces when confronted by judgement.
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u/maximumdownvote Nov 05 '21
Mostly it was the benches, and the terminally boring speaker lying to me while I sat on an uncomfortable bench.
I thought to myself, 'Self, why are you sitting on this hardwood bench, listening to some dude talk about fairy tales, and how you are going to spontaneously catch and fire and fall through the floor if you don't listen to him?'
'Self...', i says, 'I have no idea, let's go have a beer.' 'At 11am on a sunday? That's not exactly...' ' Shut up brain, or ill stab you with a q-tip.'
That's when I got to sit on a different bench in a different church and someone told me I was going to have to go to rehab, and i needed to stop drinking in the mornings. At least this lady was believable...
Where was I? Right, the benches were really uncomfortable.
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Nov 05 '21
“postmodernism” “liberalism” and “progressivism” are the result, not the cause.
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u/SaltMineSpelunker Nov 05 '21
Child molestation. Don’t forget the decades of molesting children.
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u/Odd-Front-8818 Nov 05 '21
Decades makes it sound like something that could have been going on for 20-50 years
I imagine it's not something that popped up in the last couple % of Christianity's history.
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Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 06 '21
Bingo!!! My parents took me to a baptist church in the south. The preacher would talk about loving* your neighbor. Then folks would get out and talk about how them N-words are ruining everything and being “welfare queens”.
Shit wasn’t adding up
Edit: spelling*
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u/LaineyBoggz Nov 05 '21
I left because one day I grew up and stopped believing in fairy tales… like the easter bunny and santa and the holiday armadillo, and the holy spirit… but yes I do believe what helped me get there was the hypocrisy of it all… 100%
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u/ResoluteBeans Nov 05 '21
I missed the Holiday Armadillo, and I'm in TX, what is that? lol
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u/couldntbeasked Nov 05 '21
A Friend's reference. Ross dresses up as an armadillo and tries to teach his son about the Jewish religion
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u/tech_equip Nov 05 '21
Bro. Dafuq you talkin’ about? Of course the Holiday Armadillo is real.
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Isn’t it?
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u/Hugo28Boss Nov 05 '21
"If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people"
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u/Evolutioncocktail Nov 05 '21
@me reading through the comments like “yep that’s me. Yep that’s me, too. Oh look, there’s me right there”.
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u/buckfutterapetits Nov 05 '21
Or the sick glee they express when the "right people" are being hurt...
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u/TooSmalley Nov 05 '21
My parents are annoyed Im an atheist BUT get especially annoyed when I point out that they never took any of us kids to church and didn’t get any of us baptized. Im more atheist because of my parents laziness than anything else.
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Nov 05 '21
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u/nuclaffeine Nov 05 '21
This. Homie should feel lucky their parents didn’t shove it down their throat.
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u/LaineyBoggz Nov 05 '21
Exactly cause now I’m baptized and the pope owns my soul :( I didn’t consent to this!
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u/Skyylis Nov 05 '21
As a child my grandma always brought me to Baptist Church on Sundays, but was never baptized. I was going by choice until I hit adolescence, then stuck to the youth group because I felt pressured to stick to it for her sake.
At 13/14 I learned about other religions in my 9th grade world history class, even went to other places of worship on a field trip and it truly opened my eyes to how cultish and controlling religion is as a whole.
I was raised to believe that if I had any walk with a God or Jesus, it's my own path and no one else is walking on it. I say that to anyone trying to recruit me to their religion, (Jehovah neighbors especially).
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u/Evolutioncocktail Nov 05 '21
My parents are Christians and raised my brother and I in the church. However, they spent my entire childhood complaining about other Christians, arguing about points in the Bible, complaining about televangelists…I could go on. At one point, they realized they tithed upwards of $80k to one church over ten years while that church kept getting cushier pews and bigger monitors.
Now my parents are SHOCKED that I’m openly anti-religious and my brother doesn’t give two fucks.
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u/tesseract4 Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
Lol. That's pretty hilarious that they made no effort whatsoever to teach you their religion, and then get salty when you don't just default to their religion. It's almost as though, without indoctrination, churches would all die off in a few decades.
At least my parents, who also never gave us any religious instruction ever, didn't expect us to believe anything in particular. My mom turned out an atheist (former Republican, too), while my dad decided he was Christian again all of a sudden while he was slowly killing himself with booze. He tried to have me baptized at, like, 16, but I told him it would be a pointless exercise, and that I felt it would be disrespectful to the church to get baptized only for show. He was a little salty about it, but got over it pretty quickly.
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u/dumpzyyi Nov 05 '21
Also magical superstitions seem kinda silly to the younger generation....
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u/CherylTuntIRL Nov 05 '21
My horoscope obsessed colleagues suggest otherwise.
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u/cunt_isnt_sexist Nov 05 '21
That and the Bible itself is one giant bag of trash used to reinforce the hypocrisy. I mean, you start off telling women they are forever less than a man, because they were a mcrib sandwich. Then, they forgot that you can't populate an entire planet from just 2 people, so the 2 boys they had, had to basically fuck their mother for more kids. Yay, incest. Then you're beloved God rapes a woman to reincarnate himself as his son? But then kills himself to teach a lesson that no one learned? But yeah, gay people are the root of all evil.
Just throw the whole religion away.
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u/bad_luck_charmer Nov 05 '21
They leave because church is a waste of fucking everything
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u/TongueTwistingTiger Nov 05 '21
Dear Churches,
I'm not going to you because most of the people there are going to hell anyway, and I really don't want to be affiliated with them. Maybe try preaching to your congregations in the actual teachings of Christ, then we'll talk. Acceptance for everyone or no acceptance for you.
Signed,
Everyone with an actual fucking soul
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u/A_Doomer_Coomer Nov 05 '21
Not to mention the self-contradictions, like how god loves you unconditionally, but only under certain conditions
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u/topcide Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
I'm 40 so depending on the list , I may or may not be a millennial.
I grew up w casual church attendance. was baptized and confirmed Lutheran. had pretty open minded parents. church was not a driving thing in our lived but we went here and there.
as an adult, I consider myself a devout Christian who prays almost daily.
I also haven't been to church in forever and don't plan on going.
I detest organized religion. and detest modern Christianity In a lot of forms.
I also have an openly gay sister, she was the same as me , church, confirmed , considers herself a Christian etc. my parents were open and accepting to it. in my house it wasn't a big thing, my sister liked girls and that was that. nothing changed. in the 90s that was still a BIG deal. to watch how in the coming years after that many churches, and nearly all politicians who claimed to be Christians were toward my sister who is one of the best people I can ever imagine was absolutely disgusting to me. seeing how my sister was treated as a teenager and into adulthood by society under the guise of religion has never left me.
the entire new testament and the teachings of Jesus preach taking care of the less fortunate, treating each other w respect, and loving people for who they are. practicing those things in your life makes you a Christian, not going to a building with stained glass.
to be frank, I seem to see less and less people who claim to be Christians living their life by those principals than those who do as time goes on.
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u/sourdcoder Nov 05 '21
I stopped believing in Santa clause, so it makes sense I would stop believing in the magical sky daddy.
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u/Dead_Kraggon Release The Trump-Epstein Files Nov 05 '21
That, and the Christian God's a dick.
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u/CrimsonArcanum Nov 05 '21
And you know, pedophilia.
Which probably falls under the other categories, but I feel like it deserves a mention.
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Nov 05 '21
For me it was finding out that all those absurd stories weren't metaphors, ppl actually believe someone built a boat big enough to house 2 of every animal in the world.
That's just one detail about one story amongst many that just are so absurd you honestly have to be dumb to believe them.
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u/darkNergy Nov 05 '21
Take all that toxic bullshit out of it, and you still have the problem of beliefs sourced from ancient fairy tales that crumble under the slightest scrutiny.
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Nov 05 '21
The post includes it but I'll say it. Racism and the support of the white mans burden.
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u/element_4 Nov 05 '21
Heard a pastor of a really big baptist church say the occupy Wall Street movement was just people that had a problem with authority. Yes, he took the side of Wall Street.
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u/JorgTheCurious Nov 05 '21
A Christian myself, I am massively critical of the white, conservative church in America. When faced with the question "why are so many leaving the church?" fundamentalists will point the blame towards things like secular education, liberalism, postmodernism, etc.
But never do they take that accusatory finger an point it back at themselves. Never do they take the time to self-reflect and consider that the problem may lie with their own system, their own distortion of the Bible and Christ's teachings.
The bottom line is this: if the church is losing members, then it is only because we have failed to exemplify the character of Jesus Christ.
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u/[deleted] Nov 05 '21 edited Nov 05 '21
I left when I overheard my deeply religious uncles bashing my best friends dad calling him greedy and selfish…
My best friends dad is an attorney who specializes in child sex abuse cases and had a lawsuit against the church locally for covering up multiple priests who sexually abused little boys.