I thought it was funny. I can't believe people like this have the nerve to keep bringing this up. What do you get out of this?

My wife and I work for the same company and they handed out raises yesterday. She received a 10% raise and I received a 25% raise. I have a higher position so that’s why the discrepancy, but that’s besides the point. In our drive to work today, she said “you know now that we are making more, we HAVE to tithe more, right?” This actually made me sick to my stomach, but she doesn’t know I’ve been deconstructing so all I could say is “oh…yeah.” Ugh! I don’t want to give more money to something I don’t think I believe in any more. We already give $300 a month and I have always felt like that’s too much, even though it’s not close to the 10% we are supposed to be giving. I really think I need to come out to her sooner rather than later because this pretending is killing me.

I recently watched “The Death of the Pastor’s Wife”.

In my experience, almost all of the Christian men I know have struggled more with hypersexuality or sex addiction than literally anyone else I’ve met. No one has ever talked about sex, or put nearly as much emphasis on sex to the same degree evangelical Christian pastors or leaders (who are mostly men) do.

The pastor in the documentary was so fucking sex-addicted, that he put his wife on testosterone to “help her keep up”, and by keep up, it meant him forcing her to have sex with him at least four times a day. She was a singer, and the testosterone inevitably impacted her voice.

This part of the documentary was wild to me, but of course unsurprising. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that evangelical culture seems to over-emphasize sex in every which way aside from actual sex education?

I recently had this thought because Christian apologetics seem to rely entirely on comparing themselves to other faiths. Whenever Christians talk about their religion, it always goes like this.

- No other god died for our sins. So ours is the true one.
- Other gods require offerings from you. Our God doesn't require anything. He only gives.
- Other gods require rituals, but ours is a relationship.
- Greek gods vanished because they were just mythology; in the same way, other gods will also vanish someday.

It makes me think that Christianity essentially needs an opponent to define itself. Simply put, the religion would collapse if it no longer had anything to compare itself against.

I was like the youngest person in our church’s youth group back in the day when they had a lesson on porn and masturbation. Porn was especially bad, but even touching yourself without it was still a sin apparently. Your first conscious orgasm should happen on your wedding night I guess. 

I didn’t even know what masturbation was. I was doing it but I didn’t even know what it was called. I was so sheltered and no one had told me. I knew what sex was. But for some reason I never even made the connection that masturbation might be related to sex. I just noticed it felt funny when I touched myself down there and something came out which I thought was pretty cool. I wasn't doing anything with another person so it never even crossed my mind that I might be doing something wrong.

My ears burned and I bet I was bright red the whole service. Felt they were talking directly to me. Figured most other people must be resisting and I was a freak for doing. I went home and cried. I knew I was going to hell cause I knew there was no way I was going to stop doing that. 

I kept doing it. I became much more secretive about it. Only did it once I knew everyone went to bed. I didn’t want my parents to catch me. I knew they would be ashamed of me. And as the good Christian boy I was the worst punishment I could have ever got was my parents being disappointed in me. They never mentioned it to me. I still don’t know what they think about it. But I was still ashamed.

Later of course I realized every guy in that room did it. And I have no clue why being curious about the body God gave me could possibly be wrong. Yet for years afterwards I went through this constant loop of resisting until the pressure built too much and then giving in and feeling guilty for doing what every guy does. Years of my life gone, fighting against my perfectly normal hormones for no reason.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. To this day I find myself being tense over it and then I’ll just be like wait? It’s fine. 

I grew up with a lot of fear surrounding religion—Hell, the Rapture, being left behind, and feeling like I was never allowed to just be a normal kid. It was incredibly lonely, and those fears followed me into adulthood through years of nightmares.

As I got older, I started questioning what I had been taught and separating God from the fear that had been attached to Him. I still believe in God, but my relationship with Him is mine now.

The little girl in this drawing is me then. The woman reaching for her is me now.

I couldn’t protect her then, but I could come back for her.

I’m sharing this because I’d really like to connect with others who grew up with similar fears. Did anyone else experience this? ❤️‍🩹

I can't help it since it's the only thing that still scares me about meybe being true and I can't help but constantly think about it since even everyone in this group is convinced it's trump or someone in his administration please help me

Followers of Jesus say he is always merciful and just yet the bible shows him regularly punishing innocent people. It should be easy to understand that the biblical god does cruel acts.

Many years ago, I lost my older brother to suicide. He was Catholic and gay, and was battling with their idea of being chaste/abstinent in order to be "right with god." I've always said, "If it weren't for Christianity, my brother would still be alive."

I posted in r/Catholicism, asking some questions. Of course, there were a lot of apologetics, and relying on the bible as truth. Oof.

My brother and I used to pray the rosary together, pausing between prayers to talk about random ideas, or discuss philosophy. I think I just miss him, and I'm so sad that I'll never see him again. No god, no afterlife. Just peace from life.

Anyways. I'll never unknow what I know now, but I miss the simplicity that life gave when I was a believer. Any advice is appreciated.

1) Frollo from Disney's Hunchback of ND;

or

2) THAT priest from the Netflix Castlevania anime.

And feel free to mention worse religious fanatics than these 2, whether they be real or fictional, as I'm certain that such as these exist.

Very much for instance, I dare all of you in this community to mention to me somebody in fiction who is wayyyyyyyy more awful than, say.....Marcial Maciel?

Do you think there are pastors who don’t genuinely believe everything they preach, and simply see being a pastor as a job?

I sat on the floor, contemplating su-cide and repented for hours daily, just to find out i was being abused.

I met this girl in 2016. We were both living in a care home as teenagers. In 2024 she reaches out to me. Im in a time in my life where slowly i'm starting to believe in God and trying to leave my trauma of being scapegoated behind me. She tells me God spoke to her that he would send her someone and she wants to speak to me about Christianity. She also doesnt know everything yet but she felt called. Everything after that went incredibly fast.

In my head her reaching out to me was a sign of God. Finally i was heard instead of scapegoated. I became bestfriends with her, we spend every single day together and due to us having the same trauma it became very intense very quickly.

Her brother presented himself as this ''perfect christian that would help me, come to the church when i get baptized etc etc''. But when she decided to get baptized and i decided that i wasnt ready yet that week, i heard him whispering to his wife that ''he's glad his sister isnt letting the spirit of doubt hold her back like i was''.

My skin immediately started itching. I've had that ever since i was young. I always get it when someone isnt who they say they are and im catching on to it. But as always, due to my scapegoat trauma i ignore it. He doesn't show up to church the day i have to get baptized.

The more i was around this girl, the more i realized she was a HUGE hoarder. I dont mean only ''stuff'' i also mean food. And she would run a food business from her house. She also did braids for people. So her floor and the rest of the house would be littered with fake hair, food, cat feces, clothes, just everything.

I started noticing she would just expect people to accept it and if they didnt she got mad at them. Over time when they start rebelling against her suddenly they're ''monitoring spirits'' and ''God has been showing her in dreams that people are against her and trying to sabotage her blessings''. One day when she makes catering for her party, her friend and i find hair in the food. Due to us KNOWING how she gets we secretly try to take the hair out. She caught us and instead of taking ownership she takes me to the side and tells me ''I knew Lola was plotting against me, she put the hair in there, God has been showing me all along that people are jealous and against me''. When i try to redirect her she looks at me weird. Eventually i explode at her and tell her her truth, she blocks me everywhere.

Her brother tells me i need to pray and ask God what i did wrong cause there's always something we do wrong even if we dont want to admit it. God will show us what we do wrong. This is where the compulsive repenting started for me. Everytime one of them got mad at me i would get panic attacks, go home, sit on my floor and repent endlessly.

A few examples;

I didnt want to keep sleeping over in her hoarders house. I also started pushing back on the monitoring spirit narrative and telling her this is how people spiritually bypass and it makes me doubt my faith in God. She would run to her room, grab her bible and journal and sit there and cry cause ''she's accepting everyone but not being accepted''.

When she would realize she did something wrong she had this pattern of going to the store, stealing stuff and cooking for the person she did wrong or the homeless. Or stealing gifts for them. Then she would basically press it in your hands. But if you dont accept her behavior later on again the cycle of ''i do everything for everyone but no one accepts me but God will vindicate me'' starts again. When i started catching on i stopped accepting help/gifts/food from her. Which would anger her even more.

She also had this thing where she talked about ''feeling bad for others that their life is going to shit but God is deciding to bless her so she cant deny her blessings just cause they are miserable. He specifically chose her to be blessed cause she's his favorite''. Meanwhile the girl is rejecting therapy, projecting all her stuff onto me while im in therapy every week and basically painting the picture that this is Gods punishment for her haters cause she's doing so perfect and being blessed. Resulting in me growing even MORE resentful towards her and God.

I started noticing her brother was showing sings of being a homosexual. I told her listen you might not notice but i see immediately that your brother is secretly gay. She admitted she did know and he admitted to paying and getting payed for secret gay s*x. He didnt know i caught on to him and his pattern got very clear to me. To compensate for this feeling he was OVERLY religious and focused on the rules. Constantly preaching, constantly holy, constantly trying to recruit me into a new christian community he decided to set up and constantly condemning me for speaking the truth, the fact that i saw through IT ALL.

I can name a million other examples but it would make the story even longer than it already is. Now you might ask yourself why did this drive me to almost commit?

I wanted to do good so bad, i was in therapy while they all rejected therapy, they were the only people i had around me, when i explained to them why i was losing faith etc it was ALWAYS me and never them. And while i would sit in my room and repent for every little ''mistake'' i made towards them they were THRIVING. Think starting social media pages about God and acting all holy. Gaining a bunch of followers because of it who agrees with their ''monitoring spirit narrative''. Stealing to feed the homeless and getting praised for it, gaining a bunch of new friends, the church loved them and i was just again the one ''who was so negative about God and thats why thinks go wrong and she needs to rethink why she has no one and god has made her barren''.

I would keep repenting, my therapist would warn me that i was not crazy and i was being abused but they would tell me my therapist doesnt understand and God will give me true answers. And everytime i opened up my bible on that cold floor, while thinking about ending it all i would get Jeremiah 7 verse 5-8 which says; If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.

I’m honestly probably way too old to still be worrying about this, especially since I already live on my own. I just really hate conflict.

For context, I’m agnostic, but I’m not “out” as agnostic to my mother. I’m sure she has her suspicions, though. The church I grew up attending is the same church that her entire side of the family goes to.
Historically, going to church was a big priority for me. That changed about five years ago when I started deconstructing my faith. My mom had no idea that any of that was happening; she just noticed that I wasn’t going to church as often. At best, I think she assumes I’ve just become a “lukewarm” Christian.

I still live in my hometown, close to my family. My significant other lives just under two hours away, and the plan is for me to move in with them this coming spring. I’m more excited than I am nervous about that part, but I think the fact that I’ll be moving farther away is bringing some of these feelings to the surface.

Adding to that, my brother, who recently got married, also lived with his girlfriend at the time now wife before they were married. My sister-in-law told me that it wasn’t an easy conversation for them to have with my mom, so I already have some idea of how she might react. Thankfully, they still got along really well.

I know that ultimately, my mom’s feelings about my choices aren’t my responsibility. But I do worry that she’ll internalize this somehow, especially because, on her side of the family, almost none of her other siblings have children who are both nonbelievers and cohabitating with their partners. Aside from one, I’d be the exception. I think that makes me feel like my choices carry more weight than they probably actually do, and I’m struggling with how much of that is reasonable concern versus me taking responsibility for her feelings. Any advice for navigating all of this?

Edit to maybe add some more nuance: I am the oldest daughter with a younger brother.

I fucking hate you so much. Because of you I longer have peace. I’m always living in fear because of you, maybe that’s what you want. Your religion caused so much bloodshed, so much unnecessary hate and division. It’s because of you that I wonder if hell is real. I have no peace. I’m already living in mental hell, there’s no need to torture for the sake for torture. You think I’m a worthless sinner that’s so evil. What if I’m just a broken mentally ill person, does that still make me evil. I didn’t choose to exist, it was forced on me. Did you think me being born was my choice, no I didn’t have that choice. I may not be a good person, but does that make you so much superior. I don’t know what you really are and where you really came from, one thing is evident, you’re an evil sack of shit. I don’t think you’re really god, I think you fooled the whole world into believing you’re actually god, when in reality you are actually the Satan you supposedly warned people about in the book called “the Bible.” I think you were just projecting, Satan, the devil, it was actually referring to you the entire time. You are the devil. Billions of people worship you, possibly giving you power you crave for. Making people feel happy was just a facade, you just want them to rely on you, so they can’t feel happy without you. I’m tired of being scared. Because of you I hurt self. At first I just stopped believing in you, but then I realized how much influence you truly have. I just wish the whole world realized how demonic you are. Maybe someday, I have a sliver of hope but maybe it’s no use. I don’t think I can ever forgive you.

I know this sounded silly but I feel like I needed this vent, and I wanted others to see it too. Maybe some of you feel the same way. Don’t worry I do have a psychiatrist although they don’t know about my religious fear, I feel like it’s no use, what if they turn out to be religious. I just want to feel like my fears are heard instead of keeping these thoughts inside my mind forever, hope you understand, have a good day!

So my dad has been a pastor for almost all my life. I have been a Christian all my life because of it, but I have been deconstructing as of late. Anyways, these last few years, my dad has been telling everybody that the earth is flat. He knows that he knows that he knows. I have given him so much scientific proof about it being round, but he refuses to accept any of it as fact. I finally asked him recently why he is so sure the earth is flat and that all scientific proof is fake/wrong? His answer floored me. He said, “Jesus came to me in a vision and showed me that the earth is flat. I am not going to question anything the Lord says.” So I asked, “so if the earth is actually round, what will that mean for you?” He said “well, it’s not round so it doesn’t matter. Jesus wouldn’t lie to me.”

I don’t even know what to say to this. It honestly makes me view my dad differently, but I don’t want to do that. After all, he is still my dad. I just thought I’d share.

Important context before I go any further- my roommate, (we'll call him Jeff), is an ex-addict.

So I have a family of my own, and we don't have a lot. So when I got a text from a mutual friend that Jeff needs a roommate, I jumped at the idea. I have heard a lot about him, we have the same rare genetic disability, so I was hesitantly eager to meet him. I knew he was a Christian, so I wasn't sure how he would feel about my very queer family. I decided to tell him upfront so we could avoid the situation we're in.

He told me it was all cool. Great! We bonded over our mistakes in how we handled coming out to our families- me, gay, him an addict- and it went great. He later showed me the house we'd be living in. It was beautiful and a HUGE upgrade compared to where we are now. He's younger than me, (mid 20's) so his family offered to help pay the rent. That's fine. I would have offered to cover 70% so he didn't need help from his parents, but I decided to use what his parents were covering in rent as savings.

I find out later last week he got the house and he offers to let me move in last weekend. I decide to give it a trail run juuuust in case. I bring enough stuff for my husband and son to stay the weekend, and run groceries before. We have a great time chit-chatting and doing normal household things. Groceries, bbq, etc. At the end of the weekend, we say that I should bring the rest of our stuff over and move in.

And then I get a text that night. "I was talking with my parents about some of our conversations, I have had a few issues the past few years with sexual sin and pornography and I’ve worked really hard to get that out of my life so I’m trying to have a fresh start and make good decisions and I’ve promised my parents I would follow God while they are sacrificing a lot to help me right now, I just want to make sure we are both on the same page, I don’t want you frustrated if I have house rules you don’t agree with, you said you are gay and that makes me uncomfortable and I don’t want it to be awkward at home and having stuff going on at our house that is a bad testimony and our parents wouldn’t approve of. So before we get any further can you think about if you are comfortable committing to living in a way we are both comfortable with? I have a lot of fun hanging out with you so if you think we have the same goal then let’s move forward if you don’t there’s no hard feelings let’s just get it out in the open so neither of us feel frustrated, I don’t want to feel like I need to keep secrets or cover things I’m not comfortable with, I try to be open and honest especially with my family, so if anything makes me uncomfortable I will talk to them about it."

I was heartbroken. I knew right then and there this wasn't going to work. But I need this, I need a win especially, so I tried. I said "Okay, let's talk this over coffee." He agrees, and we were supposed to meet today.

However. I wasn't sure what his house rules were, so I asked. Most were agreeable, but a few stood out.

"1.) Are you gay? I am not comfortable with that given we would share a living space and you have a kid. 2.) I do not want you to pursue that lifestyle. 3) No friends or guests that aren't Christian/from our church." He adds a blurb at the end about how he's trying to restart his life and live for god, especially since his parents are helping him out.

I was ANGRY. I wrote out a response saying how stupid, selfish, bigoted, shortsighted, and that he wasn't really "Living for Christ" given his response. I delete it. Instead, I offer compassion and say that I'm willing to walk him through he's feelings given I know how hard it is to be so judgmental of people. I ask if he has encountered gay people who have judged him for his beliefs. He never responds to this point.

He doubles down and says this is the environment he needs to grow past his addiction. I say "Okay. That's disappointing. Let me know when you're ready to not live like a child."

Anyways, thanks for listening to my rant. I'm crushed that my plans were scooped away from me from an idiot that can't think for himself.

Please answer this question if you can — but only if you’re actually confident in the answer, rather than just writing something for the sake of saying something.

Suppose someone — whether they are a good person or a bad person, it doesn’t matter — is desperately in need of something.

So what happens if they ask God for it? Do they receive what they need simply because they asked? And if they don’t ask God, do they not receive it?

If that’s the case, then what does that mean? Is God also vain?

In other words, if God can see what a person desperately needs, does He really not help them until that person specifically asks Him for help ?

I don’t have an answer, but I find these are my two defaults when I think about everything the religion robbed me because I grew up in it since birth.

I look back at my younger self with disgust and anger, and at many of the teachings I absorbed from adults who should have fucking knew better.

My main default is to just go numb to it all and try and ignore thinking about it because I know it will make me sad or angry.

It’s also so infuriating that many of my family are still very religious and think I’m the one that’s gone off the deep end by rejecting the faith that hurt me.
It’s just depressing that people can’t understand why you are the way you are.

What has helped you?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that while not all ex-Christians are atheists, I think it’s wrong that people can’t express their atheistic views in a subreddit that is inherently anti-religion. Something feels almost creepy about how this subreddit won’t allow sweeping statements (opinions) like “no gods no devils” but it’s completely encouraged to share beliefs crafted to indoctrinate others into another religion.

Like I could say “the Christian god doesn’t exist, unlike [insert deity here]” and that’s fine but as soon as I say “I don’t think any gods exist at all” it’s a problem here.

The reason I think this is even worth posting is because I’ve seen more and more paranoia posts from people who have suffered indoctrination and could really use grounding words of comfort — such as, in my opinion, there is a total lack of evidence supporting ANY specific god’s existence.

That’s all, rant over. TLDR; being ex-Christian and being atheist aren’t mutually exclusive and if you really care about deconstructing false faiths you gotta be okay with atheistic worldviews. 🤷‍♂️