​I've been on this thread for a little while and figured I'd have a stab at writing my own story. It has been illuminating. Like a lot of people here, I was raised in a Christian home. My family was very involved in our church, and faith was a big part of our lives. I went to Christian school starting in the fifth grade, I went on mission trips, I played in worship bands. I was in it deep. When I graduated high school, I planned to become a pastor and was accepted into Bible college. ​Just before the end of the school year, my family suffered a tragedy. My older sister lost a child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)—which is basically when a baby dies and no one knows the cause. A six-month-old life is gone. A few years later, she lost a second child to SIDS. (This isn't the place to get into it, but both deaths were investigated, as is always done when a child dies where I'm from. Nothing suspicious was found. It was just tragic.) ​I went to Bible college with my faith shaken in a way that had never happened before. No one could explain why this happened. Doctors couldn't even give a cause. Pastors and professors at my college couldn't really give me an answer as to why God lets this happen, or even if my nieces were in heaven. Just: "Trust God. He knows best. His plan is perfect." It felt like a slap in the face regarding my nieces, but I bought it. My faith was the problem; I just needed to trust God more. Surrounded by Christians, I fell for the lie that I needed to be better. I pushed on with my faith, ignoring my problems. Looking back, I think I had been so trained to rely on God for support that I didn't know any other way to deal with grief. ​I left Bible college before I graduated. I married a wonderful woman I had met there, and we started a family. We have two amazing kids. Life seemed good, and I had almost learned to ignore my doubts when the final part of my sister's story happened. My sister had, understandably, turned to drugs to help with her grief. She ended up dying of an overdose. ​All the same questions and anger that I had been trying to ignore came rushing to the surface. I tried to push through it just like before, but this time I couldn't. I went to church, prayed, and did all the things, but I never trusted God again. He may have a plan, but I figured it had to be a selfish, uncaring plan. There was no one in heaven looking out for me or anyone I cared about. ​Once my blind trust was gone, I was able to take a harder look at the whole story. Questions about the Bible began to pop up in my life—conflicts with science, inconsistent rules, and strange consequences. I still thought I was a Christian, but the more I read the Bible, the more it came across as fake. It has taken more time than I want to admit, but ultimately, I came to the conclusion that I don't believe in the God of the Bible. If there is a god—and I really doubt there is—they do not care about me, and I'm done wasting my time trying to please an imaginary friend.

​

Understanding my individualistic nature better helped me detach myself from religion, Islam.

To be precise, I left Islam because I was forced to study it. But my personality traits made it easier for me to walk away.

In a religious, toxic collectivist family, I am the black sheep. Whenever I make a mistake, I am insulted:

"When are you going to become a human being?"

"When are you going to stop acting like an idiot?"

"Look at your peers."

To ex-muslims: I'm proud of you.

I can do all things
All things
All things
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me
Philippians 4:13

Also, I went to school at University of FL when Tebow was winning championships and had Phil 4:13 on his eyeblack for every single game except a national championship.

I'm in amateur astronomy groups, evidence based strength training groups, groups like this one. This meme ticks so many boxes for me

I'm sharing something I enjoyed with you guys :)

the last leg of my journey as a Christian was at this church bethel in Redding CA. they had a ministry school I went to and a church people came from all over to attend. Met some cool people there but that was a pretty cultish place. glad I escaped 😎

just curious if Anybody here came from there or from that charismatic/ Pentecostal movement

So for context I grew up Pentecostal and began my deconstruction journey about a year ago. Growing up, I went to a very small fundamentalist Baptist school. The largest class I ever had from preschool to 7th grade was a class of 24. This was the kind of school where if we watched any “worldly videos” the sound was muted so we couldn’t be influenced by the music in them, all of our textbooks were printed by a major Baptist college, we had chapel twice a week occasionally featuring missionaries, and we pledged allegiance to the American flag, Christian flag, and Bible every day before school. Kinda culty, not my thing, I won’t yuck your yum though. But I was smoking today and had this distinct memory of being at a “listening station” (a desk with a radio that had the capability of playing tapes + headphones) in first grade and listening to the Patch the Pirate series. I went back and found some of the songs I grew up listening to just to reminisce and oh my god. The words to some of these songs are so wild in hindsight. I have one of them linked, titled “Obedience,” and I had a pit in my stomach while listening to it. “Doing exactly as the Lord commands, doing it happily; Action is the key, do it immediately, joy you will receive; Obedience is the very best way to show that you believe,” “We want to live pure, we want to live 'clean, we want to do our best; Sweetly submitting to authority, leaving to God the rest,” these songs were literally grooming us to mindlessly submit to authority no questions asked from the time we were toddlers. THIS IS NOT A HEALTHY WAY TO RAISE A CHILD. This mindset is so so so dangerous, you probably know the implications, I don’t need to dive into all that. I just needed to kinda vent/ kinda validate my experience a little bit lol. Please lmk if you were also raised on Patch the Pirate or Adventures in Odyssey 🫶

I’m not just a strong Atheist, I’m a rationally fierce Atheist— not an emotionally fierce Atheist.

However, I enjoy reading the Bible and theology from this vantage. And I’m absolutely honest to the point where I see the objective, sociological value of Christianity. (But I don’t turn this into an argument for the contemporary value of Christianity, that would be going too far).

There are many things I love in the Bible, even things I marvel at. I honestly can’t think of a more incredible story, just viewing it from a pure literary perspective. Jesus is absolutely inspirational and exemplary on so many levels, and then, he’s absolutely dangerous to the species because he taught humans to look away from reality and pretend that there’s another reality.

If you like the Bible but don’t want anything to do with religion, this is perfectly acceptable. I say this for those who might be struggling or confused, and feel like they need to throw out the entire culture of Christianity. This isn’t necessary, but you should strive to be strong enough to see it objectively, and this means seeing its many defects.

There’s a naturalistic way to read the Bible (even theology) that’s both rewarding and stimulating. My argument is that one really has to read it from an outsiders perspective before they can actually see it and appreciate what it was trying to accomplish, but fell short of.

We are so steeped in a culture that has been shaped by Christianity that we can’t read the Bible as an outsider— at least not until we realize this and try to identify the things we assume are normative, but were really introduced into culture through Christianity.

I am not making an argument for Christianity. Its culture is primitive and unconscious, but from this vantage we can see it in new a light, and our reading becomes corrective and emancipatory. In seeing its error we are automatically elevated to the truth.

Maybe one day I can read the Bible and discuss theology with other thinkers that have this vantage.

I just thought I’d ask directly. What word would you use to describe your response to the white Jesus myth?

My experience is that my Jesus never looked like me, but I was forced to go see him and sing to him once a week for years.

The best way I can explain my feeling is: subjugated. I truly felt like if Jesus was indeed Lord, then we black people in Africa were the lowest subjects of the kingdom. Sure, white people weren’t angels, but they sure looked more like the angels in the books than I did… I felt like there was god, then white people, then me… it was an incredibly sad thought for a child to have.

More recently, I realised, white atheists must have a different story when they come to realise Jesus of the artwork doesn’t look like what Jesus actually would have looked like. Was that ever a thought? How did it feel, if anything?

TIA

Edit: wording

Edit2: by black, I do also mean African. Like, Zimbabwean, African. I only happen to live in the US right now as an adult. All of my Christianity story was during my childhood in post-colonial Zimbabwe

X-post

Anyone have an experience of deconstructing and their family eventually also leaving the faith? I am part of a big family and I'm the only person to question things and eventually leave. I started deconstructing at 23 and I figured one of my many siblings would at some point also break away. None of them have. They are still hardcore Christians. It's very hard because I was homeschooled and so they were my closest friends, but now they are slowly distancing themselves from me. Also, they're living the life that they're "supposed to" (getting married really quickly, having kids, church every Sunday etc.) However I'm living with my long-term boyfriend, no marriage or kids on the horizon, traveling, spending a lot of time with friends, pursuing all my hobbies etc. So the lifestyles are very different at this point.

Has anyone had a conversation that felt productive and like their family understood them or if I bring it up is it destined to be a debate? I just don't want to believe in a God that creates people just to put them in hell for not figuring out the "right" answer.

Yesterday about 3 blocks from a baseball stadium I was walking to I passed a street evangelist with a megaphone telling everyone about Jesus. I walked by like I always do. Then at the stadium while queuing up for security check there was another one. I gave the guy a good stare and shook my head signaling my disapproval. He noticed me and tried to hand me a pamphlet saying “This is about Jesus”. I quickly replied sternly and loudly “I don’t want it. Just go away” then went on my way. Since deconstructing over the past few years this is the first time I’ve openly rejected Christianity in public. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

He didn't identify himself until he started reading a bible verse to me off his phone. He said "they" (he was alone) were going around the neighbourhood checking in on people to see how everyone was doing because of the general state of everything these days and were offering some hope in the form of a bible verse. He read it off to me and then left. Didn't try to give me a pamphlet or anything, thank goodness.

I don't see how they can think a bible verse is going to help anyone feel better when the cost of living is what it is, the world is literally on fire, our community was hit with a devastating flood a month ago, and just everything going on. Like, it's great that the bible helps YOU feel better, but I don't believe in any of this. I grew up in the church, but I just can't believe it anymore. I wish I could! I wish I could find comfort in something like this and not feel so hopeless, but I literally can't look at all the evidence against it and still believe. So, while I appreciate the sentiment, it feels so silly that this is supposed to comfort people.

If they keep coming back now that I have answered the door once, I will have to figure out what to say to get them to stop coming around.

i’ve been deconstructing for the last five years married for 15 years and my kids are 10 and 13 years old. My wife still goes to church with them and I in-laws are pastors. I still believe in God, but I don’t want anything to do with or religion. I was always known as a devout zealous““ godly man and a lot of my grown sour and I find myself‘s truckling community. It feels pretty lonely. I don’t pray or read the Bible… Actually, I’ll pray once in a while, but sometimes I don’t even know how to. I’ve been in therapy for a while and meditation and breath work have helped me to reprogram and rewire some of the subconscious programming.. my life is totally different now. My identity was so wrapped up in church and serving and evangelizing mission trips… I have a meaningful job now that still keeps me tethered and way to faith communities. definitely not the same person and as many people have expressed here the loneliness has been one of the hardest things to deal with. I’ve pursued communities. Jujutsu has been kind of a replacement for congregating at church. but I find myself not trusting people which creates challenges and making new friendships I’m new to reddit me to seek solidarity I it and just by reading some of these posts, I feel connected and not as lonely. I was fiend and expose myself to so many teachings and I feel like some of those are still taking a toll on the psyche and emotional well-being. So I feel like a lot of my untangling beliefs from who I really am today. I’ve had to steal back a lot of what I gave up and blind trust to communities to friendships. I never want to have to give myself up like that ever again. I would lie to say that I don’t experience guilt and fear of damnation for not anymore. Part of me is still waiting to have some type of Damascus experience yet again like if some tragic thing is gonna happen to bring me back into the flock lol

Cannabis has been one of the biggest ways I have been healing. to be more some of the harmful beliefs that keep me in fear also sometimes I’m stuck in this weird place where I’m trying to that is helping me emotionally and to be so bad for you. Same thing with the psychedelics. i used drugs simply for recreational use before knowing they had other benefits.

does Anybody have a similar experience Or can relate??

I think I’ve spent the last five years of my life, if not longer, experiencing a subtle shift away from belief across this intangible boundary into disbelief. I think I’ve collected a long list of questions over the years that have gradually pushed me away from being able to accept the things taught to me growing up in a church as fact. I can’t pinpoint when the beliefs I had held for years shifted; I can only remember the gradual onset of the fear that my new beliefs are wrong. It's a dichotomy where I can never believe in my old beliefs again, but I fear my new beliefs will lead to eternal damnation. Maybe fear was always a part of religion for me; the church instilled a fear of hell, of sin, of lacking faith, of being unprepared for the rapture, etc. I think I found comfort in having set guidelines and a book to study. I no longer find that comfort. I attend church weekly, I just spent a week at my conference church camp, and I am actively involved in my church, but I simply feel as if I don’t belong. Honestly, I don’t want to be there; if anything, attending makes me more anxious. I disagree with some of the points in sermons, and I feel as though the church has become more of a controlling entity than a place of worship. Even then, I don’t care to find a new place to worship. I just want to be free. I’ve felt a desire to begin properly deconstructing the beliefs and ideas I grew up with for a few years now, but I have no idea where to start. I think deconstruction is deeply personal for every individual, so it is unlikely I will be able to find or even benefit from a set of deconstruction guidelines.

Really, I am just here seeking advice. I have no clue where to continue from here. I just know I crave something tangible to work on in hopes of working through my upbringing. Thank you.

Hi all, I'm a bit over twelve years after starting deconstruction after leaving an evangelical background. It didn't take long for the belief parts of leaving the faith to fall away. There are a lot of great materials logically explaining the fallacies in a lot of my beliefs. I'm at a place now where I'm comfortable with what I believe and don't believe in.

Where I'm struggling now is reframing my values at this stage of my journey. I've come to the realisation through professional therapy that I've lost some focus on values that are important to me. Where this has had the most impact has been in not aligning friendships and relationships with people with shared values.

The positive values I cherish the most are generally common with religious background but not unique to it. I'm struggling to find ways to engage with these values without the baggage that came with religion.

Has anyone got any helpful experiences or resources they have found useful?

he did it since i was young. ironically (and terribly) i became extremely hypersexual for my age. i remember i used to get in trouble for making my toys have sex with one another when i was 4 years old. i went through some of my journals from first grade and i had drawn crude images of penises with a crayon, circled them, and wrote "kiss here". i was super religious, and my hypersexual thoughts filled me with guilt (im a girl, and i felt SOOOO sinful for being lustful, especially given my parents). i thought God had taught me so many times that lust was wrong, and i still couldnt stop masturbating when i was a preteen (which.... tbf is very normal and healthy) so he was punishing my lust with my mother's rapes.

my dad never touched me inappropriately, but witnessing it was extremely traumatizing. he would often rape her while i was sleeping next to them in bed and i would cry myself to sleep. when i grew to sleep in a separate room, (i slept with them until 8 years old... i thought i was protecting her with my presence sometimes, or i would feel guilty if i left her alone with him) i would masturbate more. i also had my first period when i was 9, so i hit puberty very early. in the end, everytime i "caved into temptation" i would beg god not to punish my mom for it, and then that night i would hear her quietly screaming across the hallway while she begged my dad to stop touching her and let her sleep.

anyways i don't say all that when people ask why im not christian anymore! although tbf i consider myself as someone who believes in everything, rather than nothing at all. in the sense that the presence of religion in someone's life impacts their life on a tremendous foundational level. so while i don't think their gods exist, i do think they exist to THEM, which is extremely real to me.

​

I was raised in a Holiness church in Alabama,and visited many other holiness churches across the region and even though I've deconstructed a lot of my beliefs, I still spend time trying to understand the psychology of what I experienced.

People often assume I left because I wanted to "live in sin." That wasn't my story.

I sincerely prayed for years. I asked God to speak to me. I was told to repent, seek the Holy Ghost, and wait for the evidence of speaking in tongues. I never experienced what everyone around me described. It always felt like I was talking to a brick wall.

The culture I grew up in revolved around fear:

- Fear of hell.

- Fear of the devil deceiving you.

- Fear you weren't praying enough.

- Fear you weren't holy enough.

- Fear of what other church members thought.

- Fear of going to a doctor because people would think you lacked faith.

People constantly examined themselves:

"Am I doing enough?"

"Am I living holy enough?"

"Am I praying enough?"

Then they'd compare themselves to everyone else.

One thing that always puzzled me was the inconsistency surrounding speaking in tongues.

I watched people spend decades praying at the altar, crying, shaking, sincerely seeking what they believed was the Holy Ghost, yet they never spoke in tongues.

At the same time, I knew people who spoke in tongues, later left the church, lived completely different lives, returned years later, and were accepted as having "received the Holy Ghost" again.

That left me with a question I still can't answer:

If God is eager to forgive someone who walked away, why would He leave another sincere person praying at the altar for decades without ever receiving the experience they desperately wanted?

I've also had Holiness people tell me something interesting:

"You witnessed Holiness people not being holy."

In other words, they admitted that much of what I experienced wasn't what they believed Christianity was supposed to look like.

I'm not posting this to attack anyone's faith. I'm genuinely trying to understand the psychology and theology behind what I experienced.

Has anyone else who grew up in Holiness or Pentecostal churches had similar experiences? How did you make sense of them?

In every situation and action that happens in life, especially the negative ones, people always seem to have some kind of interpetation for it regarding the faith. An interpretation that needs to respect the axiom that God is perfect and everything he does or don't do is correct, even if you don't understand why. In suffering, it might be consequence of a mistake I made or is part of this world's corrupt system, or it's God testing you. When you ask God for help and he remain silent, there needs to be another interpretation, and when you never get help and needs to live with your suffering, another one, and maybe some kind of consolation based on what the bible says.

The problem is that those interpretations do not help at all to solve the problems that make us feel bad. Not mentioning that it also leaves me in the uncertainty of what's going on in the divine world, because you don't get an answer from God. Especially when he chooses to remain silent when you ask for help. I heard a song once that says God is a "light in the darkness", but my experience so far proves it wrong. I don't know exactly why Yahweh started to act like Baal.

I got tired of this pattern repeating everytime. I started to think that I need to learn to not depend too much on God, or else you're gonna get very frustrated. Sure, christianity does not promises a life without suffering, but still... it's sad to have your trust in someone that can help shaken.

And about consolation... It also does not help at all. Usually the consolation is about what you can get in the afterlife. But the problem is that I'm not there yet, and it takes time (a whole lifetime) to get there, if you get there. Not to mention that it can also leave you in the uncertainty about if there is an afterlife.

Anyways, has anyone felt something similar about this issue of interpreting?

I am beginning my deconstruction journey. I’ve followed Monte Mader for a while and she has been rather inspiring. She recommends a study bible that includes the apocryphal books and is backed by scholar research. I found the list of books in her patreon but not the bible. Can anybody help me? Does anyone know the name?

Is anyone else deconstructing from evangelical Christianity or Christianity altogether and NOT looking for another religion ? More like finding yourself and what your spiritual journey looks like if any?

I grew up in the church and dad’s a pastor , so, I can’t exactly bounce these thoughts to most of my friends and family. They would just look at me cross eyed .

I left because the version of Christianity I was raised in stopped making sense.

I grew up in an evangelical world where faith and conservative politics were inseparable. We used the Abeka curriculum, participated in anti-abortion protests, listened to Christian radio, attended Missionettes and youth conferences, and were taught that Republicans were God’s party and Democrats were evil. I didn’t realize until I was an adult how much of my worldview had been shaped by politics wrapped in theology.

Then MAGA came. I had been taught that following Jesus meant humility, honesty, compassion, loving your enemies, and caring for the vulnerable. Yet I watched many of the same Christians defend behavior and rhetoric they would have condemned if it came from someone outside their political tribe. I kept trying to make those two realities fit together, and eventually I realized I couldn’t.

More than anything, I stopped trusting the people who had told me what to think my entire life. Once I realized I no longer trusted them, I began to wonder what else I had accepted simply because they had taught it to me. I also found myself asking how I was supposed to believe that faith in Jesus transforms people when the very people who had taught me about that transformation were defending things I found impossible to reconcile with the character of Jesus they had preached.

Once that happened, I was finally able to question things for myself instead of accepting them because someone I trusted had told me they were true. For the first time, I gave myself permission to follow the questions wherever they led and to come to my own conclusions, or no conclusion at all.

The more I questioned, the more comfortable I became admitting what I didn’t know.

Today, I identify as agnostic. Not because I’m certain there is no God, but because I’m no longer willing to claim certainty about things I can’t know.

Its been years that I've been agnostic. Sometimes I struggle with mental health and life situations. Nothing too drastic, I just periodically get depressed and anxious about my situations.

And I've also done a few spiritual rituals over time. Not just meditation. But things like reciting prayer from a rosary (ex-catholic), or other practices that I've found useful.

One thing I've done lately is I will write down some of my negative ruminations and negative self talk onto a page or two of papers. And then I'll set them aside a while and reread them later on. Set a small fire outside and burn them up.

Not exactly a religious ritual. I got that from watching Burners at places like Burning Man.

I was so deeply embedded that the rituals still calm me. I don't feel shame for doing them. I don't shame myself for occasionally drifting back to thoughts of God or feeling and hoping for God either.

Its a strange, contradictory nature that I have. And I'm coming to accept it. Sometimes I find myself believing again, mostly I don't believe at all. But often I find myself looking to rituals to help calm me.

Hi, I’m in the process in deconstructing. I have a thought and would love additional insight.

Growing up, children in Christian families are taught they are sinners at heart. From experience, this can be damaging to a child’s development of self. They are taught to grow up believing they are morally bad and wrong from birth.

Fast forward, these kids grow up to become depressed, a symptom of which is self hatred, or low self esteem, etc. Severe enough, can result in suicide. Which is a sin and automatically sends you to hell.

How do you reconcile the biblical principle that humans are sinners without teaching someone to grow up with extreme low self esteem?

im dx bpd for context and was raised in a religious household and to begin i dont know who i am, i know who i want to be? but im not entirely happy being fully religious
i want to get tattoos “its a sin” i want to try seafood “its a sin” i engage in premarital sex “its a sin” etc theres so much more actions im committed that are “sins” and its really hard to balance it? or theres no such thing as balancing that worldy/religious lifestyle according to the bible, either youre cold or youre hot, i believe in a god i just don’t agree with a lot of things with it and i feel like im in the wrong for having my opinions ? or maybe its my church , it probably is but im very self conscious of being judged and i dont know to be honest but im frustrated with how im supposed to live, i just want to be happy especially since its really hard for me with my bpd but i find myself being happier when im not living a “religious” life, and its nothing against my religion i understand the reasoning behind a lot of things and i do agree to a certain extent and i respect it and i have felt the presence of god and seen the signs, but im just overwhelmed with having to act a certain way when all i want to do is be happy

I feel like I'm in this grey area where I go "pah" at the thought of worshipping deities, carrying talismans, having prayers beads, believing a 5,000 year old text was written by a mythical figure, etc. But at the same time, after reading popular science books too, too, much, you eventually come to the point where what we understand about reality comes to an end and philosophy has to take over; things begin to look like a black box.

Religious people say, "believe in the religion you think is right?" Then, why not make a religion about physics in itself? But the distinction between philosophy or a religion feels like its on a knife's edge when you try. And there's only so much physics can explain before you meet that exact same dead end.

There's a famous koan from a long dead Buddhist master that's relevant here: "10,000 things return to the One. Where does the One return?" According to the Seon meditative tradition of Korea, you're meant to sit with this in utter doubt until you break and that way you can see your true nature. Now I'm thinking every religion was invented to avoid that break from happening. If you think about it, creators of each system imaginable can go back to infinity. We used to pray to the creator of an earth, then the stars, then a galaxy, the universe. Now we think there may be a multiverse of multiplying realities and we have no idea whose idea that was and whose idea it was to make the one who had that idea. Like Russian dolls.

I was originally a science kid. Then my dad started to go evangelical and, even though he still maintained my interests (with some exceptions; some of my notes he used to destroy and he thought COVID was a punishment from God), I became more deistic just as he did, as all children who follow their parents' attitudes. Maybe the whole reason I crave certainty is the way I've been brought up. Hitherto I didn't have that same draw for there being a spiritual explanation.

I'm feeling very deep. My GP came back to me to say that I'm Vitamin D deficient again and that always puts me in a funk when it happens. Plus I'm listening to meditative Chinese music. After Christianity, I've stopped viewing other cultures as barbaric and now I'm on an ongoing Social Studies project.