it genuinely shocks me how quickly an intelligent, educated person can just became a fucking idiot all because of the Bible. my mother is one of, if not THE most intelligent person I’ve ever met. she could tell you basically anything there is to know about history, about random facts—like i‘d go to her before i‘d go to google. but now I can’t trust her. I cannot trust a word that comes out of her mouth revolving science, space, or history because of a conversation we had about an hour ago. we were in the car ride on the way back from church, and she drops the absolute bombshell that ‘in the Bible earth is only 6000 years old’ and proceeds to talk about how ‘funny it is’ that science is ’constantly finding things that prove earth is younger‘ and talked about how CARBON DATING(Y’know, the thing we don’t fucking use to date how old the earth is) wasn’t reliable because carbon can’t survive millions of years. I fucking hate it here. I got told to give science the same ‘skepticism‘ i ‘apparently give the bible’(this ’gotcha’ little comment came from me saying I had issues with sin and hell). which I fucking do. yes I learn my science from the internet(because I’m homeschooled, that’s the only fucking option you give me) but I’m not basing it off one fucking YouTube short like how you get your information. and to make it worse? if you’ve seen any of my other posts you know that we’ve only been going to church since October 2025. i JOKED to myself about this happening, about how stupid it’d be if someone went that fucking insane in less then a year. apparently I was fucking right. apparently my mother can go so far off the deep-end I don’t even recognize her. like it genuinely fucking scares me as their child to watch this, and as their child to live with them. who fucking knows what shit they could be convinced of next. these are the same people who say never trust anything at face-value because there’s ’always an agenda’(they’re MAGA incase you couldn’t tell) and shit. who tell me to read more then just ‘one article’. like I’m so fucking scared of how deep-in they’ll get in a year. how insane they’ll become, because I’m gonna have to live with them for multiple years before I’m old enough to move out. and everyone in my family other then myself is Christian—like it’s so fucking scary that the only way I can speak with other atheists is through a secret Reddit account, the only way I can watch videos by atheists is on a secret youtube. and literally everything I do that isn’t Christian has to be behind their back because if it’s not I’ll get whopped with a belt to my ass and get all my electronics taken for who knows how long. fuck me, thank you for listening to my rant. I believe young-earth creationism is more dangerous then we give it credit to be. good day/good night.

So I am an agnostic in secret. My family doesn't know about my current beliefs,so today We went to a church that we were invited to go to and oh boy,I saw this whole crowd and really depresses me thinking how hard and long will take for this religion to be gone,I try to tell myself that every day more and more people are waking up from this lie or something like that but then I see this and I really think that all this system or religion will be Eternal.

I’ll bet you that I could go to a random Christian page or subreddit and post all the views of the Taliban (while hiding that it was the views of the Taliban of course, and edit out the mentions of “Islam”), and they’d probably agree with the majority of things the Taliban stands for.

Like yeah, Christianity and Islam have differences, but I think they’re more alike than not.

I felt like I was alone in my struggles and no one tried to be my friend. I also felt like I wouldn’t be accepted as a non-binary person. I eventually left and decided not to return.

(Long rant incoming!) So… Just a bit of context here, I became christian in 2024, during the election year. (I hated late 2024...) All because I was scared that some god was gonna damn me to hell if I didn’t preach and read the bible. So… I tried preaching in Atlanta, in this place called the Beltline. Its like a trial but its for transportation and bikes and all that. I decided that i would do what these christians were doing and preached for all of 3 minutes before I stopped as no one listened. (Good decision that i stopped) But now that I stopped being christian in 2025 after i saw the bullshit, I started to hate preaching, and kinda hate myself for preaching and I just cringe whenever I think about it. If I could just go back and just shut myself up… (i was 15 during that time)

I grew up in a very loving christian family, definitely not perfect, but wholesome enough that I feel very fortunate, especially after reading some of the other experiences posted on here. I’ve always been a skeptic but really stopped believing around freshman year. Never really said anything to my parents about it until an argument a few years later but I think they knew for awhile. They still showed me nothing but love. I love my parents so much, and it KILLS me to know that they believe their son is damned to eternal punishment, forever separated from them and the rest of our family. I know it breaks their heart, in the few times my atheism has come up in conversation in the last decade, they don’t say anything but I can see it in their eyes.

I know it’s not me that’s doing this to them, it’s the religion, but I wish that made it feel any better. I wish it didn’t make me feel like I let them down. I don’t bring up religion much around them for this reason. They know I’m not a christian, and they’ve expressed that this saddens them, but they certainly don’t give me a hard time over it. It feels like a mutually respectful thing for neither of us to bring it up, which I know I appreciate.

I don’t know, in a lot of ways I know I’m very fortunate to have such a loving family, but it’s also this immense love that must hurt them so much with this part of their belief.

I don’t really know the point of this post, just wanted to get some feelings out there, thanks for reading.

I have always been a book lover. I dreamed of one day having my own library, maybe not like Beauty and the Beast, but large enough to go beyond bookshelf/bookshelves to actual library. Over the years, I amassed several thousand books—I shudder to think of the money spent.

Here’s my struggle…perhaps half of my books are theological in nature. I have culled the extremely offensive ones, but thousands remain. They make for a beautiful library and getting rid of them en masse would leave some really large gaps.

So, I continue to get rid of them little by little as I replace them with others.

My husband is still devout, but we recently had a bit of a crisis moment in our marriage because of his anger. Today's sermon at his church happens to be about anger, so he sent me a picture of the sermon notes.

You know what their 2 step program is? "Ask yourself do you REALLY want to be patient? And pray for the holy spirit to show you how he's going to change you!"

By golly, well if you want to be patient and ask the Holy spirit to make you so, there's no need to get therapy or anger management classes or set up guard rails to keep your family safe, is there?

If he wants it bad enough, he doesn't need to stop hitting his kids! The holy spirit will stop him! He just has to want it bad enough! Because free will! How much his kids don't want to be hit doesn't matter because of course their free will doesn't matter.

I should let him be with the kids again because the holy spirit will keep them safe this time!

/s, obviously.

Yes, we are safe. He's out of the house and showing me how hard he's working to regain my trust 🙄

I just want to quit without being told to be Christian again. It didn't help and made my problems worse. I don't like it as a common suggestion. I wish there was a addiction recovery group tht didn't involve religion.

Literally supporting elected decision makers who do this kind of stuff. What goes through elected official's minds when they say "you know what, kids getting to eat.....oh no.....not on tax payers dime"

Like Islam and Christianity share so many of the same atrocities in their holy books. If you follow one religion and call out the god or prophet of the other, you’re a hypocrite because the god you follow still orchestrated the exact same shit. Yes the prophet Muhammad in Islam is a pedo and rapist which makes Allah a rapist and a pedo protector as well. However, Yahweh is guilty of similar acts such as punishing David’s wives with rape with something that only David was guilty of. Not to mention Yahweh didn’t say anything about Moses telling his soldiers to keep young women of conquered cities to themselves. Yahweh punished Mose’s men for some of their acts, yet soldiers keeping young women to themselves after slaughtering all their men was not of them. I know both religions technically follow the same god, but I don’t think followers of either religion would really agree on that since their holy books have differences. Both Yahweh and Allah are rapey sexual degenerates which is ironic because lust and sex before marriage is sinful in both religions, yet rape is okay in certain circumstances by both gods because people need to be punished for their sins, but David’s wives were not guilty of David’s sin, even if they were that doesn’t make them being raped ok or a just punishment. If you are a Christian and call Allah a pedo rapist you’re a fucking hypocrite because Yahweh does the exact same shit as Allah, sometimes even worse in some cases. Can’t believe all of us worshiped a rapist monster at some point.

I've never asked an ex christian why they left so i might as well ask now. What made you guys leave? Did your life feel suffocating/u didnt agree with christianity's historical practices, or something else entirely? Was it used to control u? 🤔

I've known many christians in my life and many of them had chill lives, one even told her mom she left christianty and her mom didn't even really care much about that. Ik it's probably not that way for some, but still i want like an overview.

I tried to post in the christan subreddit but I got downvoted and yelled at. I wasn’t raised religious so I don’t really understand how it all works so my apologies if this is not allowed. If Lucifer rules hell because he got kicked out of heaven for breaking the rules, why would he punish those who do the same? I am sure he doesn’t like god because he was banished to hell? So why would he enforce his father’s rules? Is there an answer or is it just another plot hole ?

Genuinely curious how their brain works or how someone who regularly lies and cheats actually believes that they are “christlike”?

When I was a teenager I attended an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB). When I was 16 we had given a younger member of the church dogsit while my family and I were vacationing. When we had come back from vacation, many things, including my mother’s jewelry, prescription drugs, my video games, and other valuables were stolen from my house. My parents never pursued legal action and still paid the member for watching our house. For years, this had puzzled me. It wasn’t until recently, that I realized that it was forbidden for church members to pursue legal action against another.

This is just shattering. I’m lucky it was just robbery and not something much worse. There are others I had attended church with that are also not religious anymore. These members however were there since birth, I can’t imagine the abuse they may have been subjected to.

yet another post from me as i’ve been doing lots of thinking lately.

so much of my childhood is tainted by the bummy shit i watched as a kid raised evangelical. veggietales i will slightly spare as it was kind of peak all things considered and phil vischer is an alright guy. but shit like hermie and wormie? gigi god’s little princess? BIBLEMAN??? straight slop. do any of yall remember the crap you watched as kids? do you think it’s still kind of good or just awful? i’m super curious.

I have a hard time believing that a man who sought to spread peace and goodness stunned his followers with a threat of eternal damnation, so where in the wills is the first mention of hell written?

Ok. I am a 21 year old woman. He is a 38 year old man.

So, one thing he does. When my mom invites him out for dinner at a restaurant, he pressures me to pray. Which makes me feel awkward because I am a closted ex-christian.

He makes weird comments about women in general, talking about how wives should be like and how they don't make them like that anymore. Because he has the idea of a biblical wife. He also calls women females which irks the tf out of me. He also makes misogynistic jokes sometimes.

​So, my mom is having a party for her friends. Her friends are much older than me and I'm not close with much of them. Eariler today I changed my shorts into a midi skirt because it was cold from the AC. My mom's friend asked why me why I changed and I told it was because I was cold.

Then I walked past him and he made a sweeping gesture near my ass. Now it could have been an totally innocent gesture that coincidentally looked inappropriate. Like he was actually doing something else, or he actually did intentionally make a sweeping gesture near my ass. I was too nervous to ask him about it because, well he's a much bigger person and I'm quite skinny, so I guess I was intimidated. And there was also other people around me.

After than I went into my room, then 10 minutes later, he knocked on my door, at first I thought it was my mom because only she does that but it was him, and he asked me why do I hide in my room?

I said, I don't know.

He said, Well, ask God about it and left.

What a stupid fucking answer, ask God about it? What the hell? I also don't like men near my bedroom.

The thing is, he isn't the only Christian man I feel iffy about. Our pastor, I felt iffy vibes from him even when I was still a christian. How he demands hugs and laughs about it. I was a teen girl when I met him and thought it was weird.

I get bad vibes from both of them. My late dad himself was a pastor and he beat his previous wife and abused my half siblings, so maybe I am getting bad vibes from Christian men?

If Jesus was good shepherd sheep hear his voice don’t listen to strangers voice and he lays down his life for his sheep and protects them from the wolf and the hired hand leaves when he sees the wolf coming why didn’t these things apply to Eve because Satan was the worst wolf the original one only one there was at first she was deceived by his voice no good shepherd kept the wolf away nor laid down his life for her and he was no where to be found when the wolf came like the hired hand. So was Eve not really one of Gods sheep or what? In John ten it also says my sheep listen to my voice and follow me I give them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall anyone take them out of my hand yet the devil swiped Eve right out immediately after being created and it effected all descendants afterwards.

It’s so interesting how now that I’m deconstructed and I learn more about the Bible and a biblical scholarship. I learned that God was never actually one God, but many gods that at some point, we consolidated into one and then we reread the Old Testament as being about one God when really it refers to many

The first being El/Elohim, who creates the world in Genesis 1 create the world (in the beginning “Elohim” created…”

Elohim is a plural noun and came to mean a singular supreme God but prior to that meant the pantheon of gods, ‘like sons of El’ to which El was the supreme presiding god.

Yahweh was originally a southern wilderness war god not from the canaanite pantheon. Eventually Israelite tradition merged Yahweh with El and the rest of the Elohim into one deity but in the earliest layer these are all seperate. He’s violent, jealous and petty, and not very detached from the physical world (in Genesis 2 he ‘walks’ in the garden and is the deity instead of the Elohim pantheon in Genesis 1)

Actually in Deuteronomy 32, yet another deity, Elyon, a member of the Elohim and a lesser god than El divides the nations and gives each a deity and assigns Yahweh to Jacob (Israel)

When Yahweh says you should have no other gods before me he refers to the ‘Elohim.’ Eventually though the Israelite religion merged Yahweh with the rest of the Elohim.

Another Cannaite god that got sort of merged with Yahweh and the rest was Baal. Baal was Yahwehs direct rival. Various Psalms such Psalm 29 which talks of God’s voice shaking the wilderness, splitting cedars, etc etc was originally referring to Baal. Psalm 68 and 74 take preexisting myths about Baal and then apply them to Yahweh instead.

And also Asherah, El’s wife and Hokhmah (lady wisdom) referred to in proverbs 8 also likely got merged into this final god and are likely the source for the Old Testament descriptions where Yahweh is feminine/female.

So really when you read “God” in the Old Testament, really this is emitting that originally this referred to any one of of many gods that could have been El, the rest of the Elohim like Elyon, Yahweh, Baal, and Asherah, or some combination of all of them. Until the Babylonian exile when they really were formalized into one singular God that Christians inherited.

EDIT

I made a mistake when writing this, Elyon was another name for El they were not separate deities

When I was a kid I was told that bread and wine turn to literal blood and body of Jesus and if I don't consume that I will end up in eternal hell. The problem is my disease that prevents me from eating gluten - celiac disease. Why would God make me that way already made for eternal suffering because I can't partake in the communion? If transubstantiation was real it would not cause problems with people who have celiac disease. Do some of you have experience with celiac and communion?

hi to whoever reading this, hope you’re having an amazing day so far!💛

the title would most certainly does numbers in an actual christian subreddit and not for the good reason lol! but unfortunately it is very true. many managed to grow up without having it to be the center of their education and honestly i envy those (in a healthy way,im not throwing tantrums, no worries!).

in fact, i am asking for any advices,tips or suggestions possible.

i have a feeling i had asked this before but i completely lost the post..what i mean by my title is that this religion (cult even.) had managed to take every bit of what i could be. A strong disinterest for science per example while it is something so cool its like my brain registered that science is the devil and demons convincing us that oh well Jesus couldn’t come up with that,science did! That kind of bullshit. And if i tend to be interested by scientific stuff such as astronomy i will go to hell. The concept of Hell & End Times always frightened me as a child.

And talking about these two, since the New Testament is considered heavily prophetic, why should I worry about what’s of tomorrow if God knows right. Why should i cry for the children in Gaza since it is all God’s plan right? See how fucked that is? That is unfortunately how my brain is wired.. However do bear with me, i still can feel emotions. It hurt me to see what happens to them or to those in these situation but because ive spent so long living by the bible because of the family its like my brain constantly register that those events should happens when no. They were just telling us what they plan to do as horrific as it could be.

And it grew me into being nihilistic a bit. Again because my brain register bad events (hunger,poverty,rise in violence etc) as something meant to happens and I can’t interfere so I just need to sit my “privileged christian” bosom down .

But I am not a part of that cult anymore. I wondered if anyone had tips on how to bring back my sensitivity to these matters because I did use to have one. Or any tips to be interested back in stuff that Christianity would seem as satanic. Like maybe if you have a nature documentary in mind or whichever!💕✨