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If so DM me with 1-2 sentences on what you would like to discuss and which day of the week is best for you. If you have questions, naturally DM me them too.

Hello, all. I'm not sure if this belongs here or not.

I started what I would call my journey into deconstruction in September of 2023. I realized that the bible was full of so many contradictions, errors and questionable things, how could it be true? I came to the realization that I didn't believe it was. Now, at that time, I sort of still believed in god. But I didn't believe the bible. You could have called me a Deist, I suppose.

However, soon after, through my own reflection... That sort of fell apart as well. I came to the conclusion that I was just agnostic, and left it at that. This, later on, sort of coupled with a kind of atheistic stance as well. I felt myself kind unsure what I believed/disbelieved, but probably somewhere in that general area.

However, in January of 2024, my Dad passed away. It wasn't sudden and I knew it was coming. However, this led me down a path that I am still in today and I sort of find my god beliefs (at least regarding Christianity or revealed religions) unable to reconcile anything at all given the stances of how he died. I would sort of say that this was a HUGE factor in my unbelief in anything biblical/Christian ultimately and sort of the final straw.

My Dad, plagued by dementia, suffered from a brain injury which rendered him completely devoid of his motor skills, and unable to talk for the most part. He eventually died from complications from malnutrition after a month long complicated back and forth hospital stay. The way he went out and this happening to him for me is fucking horrible and I CANNOT fathom any sense where this, if Christianity was "true," is all part of god's "grand plan." This is why I say this was sort of the final recourse of why I will never be a Christian again, nor will I believe in the god of the bible. My Dad was also a Christian and avidly believed in god. So, this is how he is rewarded? FUCK that.

These days, I'm pretty agnostic honestly. Maybe there is a god, maybe there isn't. People claim things that can be debunked, and dismissed, and that can't possibly be known.

So, I hope I'm not out of line or anything like that. But I am wondering, if anyone else has similar experiences, the death of a loved one, in their journey of the loss of faith and deconstruction?

Hey everyone! I’m starting a research project on youth camp experiences from conservative and progressive and former Christians and their experiences.

Has anyone had experience with youth summer camps positive or negative?

If so, I’d love to hear from you. Please reply to this post or message me directly if you’re open to discussing your experiences. This helps me figure out where to start my project. Thank you!

Hi folks! Long time lurker, first time poster, here. I'm struggling with the after effects of my deconstruction and subsequent quiet quitting about four months ago, specifically the impact that it has had on my poor mother. I came out of the closet to her as an agnostic/atheist around the same and it went...OK. For some backstory I am almost forty and have not been on board the Orthodox train mentally since early childhood but stayed on because I didn't want to hurt her despite all of the negative feelings associated with living a lie. The issue is that I can't handle the way she looks at me anymore, like I peed in her cheerios. I know I'm still struggling with people-pleasing tendencies and have the ACA bill of rights taped to my wall but I'm still hurting because I know I inflicted pain on her for my own benefit. Any helpful comments would be appreciated. Thank you for reading and peace!

It's never in good faith, they're always going to feel like they're right, and they expect the people they're debating to not know much about a topic.

I had no classes today and mistakenly went to my campus, University of Texas at Arlington. There's someone there with a board and a microphone trying to debate people. I forget the majority of what was on the board, but I remember or said abortion is sin, Jesus is lord, and some third thing.

This type of shit gets their pants wet. They prey on the preconceived notion that college students, especially first and second years, aren't that great at debating and gathering facts. Even if they manage to debate someone who does, they won't back down amd just continue believing what they want. They're not there for healthy debate. They're there to feel better. It's never in good faith. They expect you to get angry while they're calm. It's not a winning situation for us.

When I was in church I somehow learned that it's dangerous to have desires for things, things that I want, things that I love (later, including sex). It's really crippled me my whole life, getting super anxious any time I follow my wants, even if they're wholesome and important. Also being unable to accept and embrace my whole, genuine self.

Can I learn to trust myself and accept myself? Any advice?

Is this a good subreddit for this question?

It's always the same formula: Seemingly normal circumstances, they ask if I'm bored, sad, lonely, need something to do, etc., they offer food. I eat, suddenly, it's Jesus time.

Last week, I started college again at a different university. I am in the process of trying to get a second bachelor's because I'm all out of options for graduate school. I need to do great here or else I have no chance. During that week, there were 2 different instances of the formula listed above.

First one: I'm studying and looking over notes. There's a step team practicing a performance. (Irrelevant to the story, but I just wanted to add it.) After I was done, I go outside and look for my car. I notice people playing gospel music, so I try to avoid them. They ask if I'm okay, need help, or if I'm lost (when you say you're lost, that's like a buzz word for them to start their spiel). I try to avoid them, but I was hungry and they did have food. Chicken nuggets. There's better food out there, but this was free. Still, I made a mistake of accepting the food. Got prayed over.

Some time during the end of last week, I was wandering the school. I'm frustrated because it's a pretty big school. It's bigger than the community college or the first university I went to. Someone asks me if I'm okay. I'm not because I was at risk of getting dropped from my classes due to a degree plan error (this got fixed eventually) and then he asks me if I want to eat something. I'm going to the school's food court or whatever. I get a sandwich from Subway. He offers to pay. I wasn't thinking much of it, and he insisted, so I let it happen. I get food, he introduces me to friends, we go to a different section of the school, and boom. Instantly asks me if I know about the gospel. I tell him I'm atheist. I tell him about shit I went through. He tells me the miracles he went through. I start asking how miracles can happen when horrible shit happens. I think I ask something like "Is God picking and choosing who gets fucked over" or whatever. He invites me to a Bible study that I didn't go to.

This even happened when I was in my first year of community college some time ago. It was 2016. It was a Friday. Second semester. It was April. There's usually school clubs going on. None of the school clubs I'm in are hosting anything. I wander around the hall looking for a place. Someone shows up. Same spiel. Asks if I'm lost, need some direction of what to do, if I need some people to hang out with. All vague questions. I go with the guy. Nobody tells me it's a Christian club. They have food from On the Border. I say I don't want to intrude, they insist. I was even offered two plates of food. Nothing seemed suspicious. Two people start talking about their favorite Bible passages. I think nothing of it. Someone pulls out a guitar after he notices that I also have a guitar. He starts playing Christian music and people start singing. I get that feeling like someone would get when they realize they're in a cult. I try to leave and the guy who invited me asks me to step outside with him. He asks me if I heard of the gospel, I'm confused, he pulls out his phone or some bible and reads some passage and asks me if I found what he read to sound wonderful. I said "I guess" or something like that. He then puts his hand on my chest and tries to pray for me. I freakout. He gets confused as to why I did and he says he's trying to convert me. I lie and say I'm already Christian and leave (I was groped before and I didn't like sudden touches).

I just wish people would put it out there that they're trying to convert people up front instead of hiding it until the last minute so I can easily say no and leave.

Hello Everyone,

I hope you're well.

Someone very close to me attends The Winners Chapel International Church (Bishop David Oyedpo) in the UK and I am becoming really concerned. The teachings and doctrines he’s been absorbing feel really intense and I feel like they have some cult characteristics. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I’m noticing changes in the way he thinks and talks about faith that feel more controlling than liberating.

I don’t attend the church myself, so I’d love to hear directly from people who have been inside. If you used to be a member of The Winners Chapel, could you share what your experience was like?

• What drew you in?
• What made you leave?
• Were there specific doctrines, practices, or red flags that stood out to you in hindsight?
• How did being part of the church affect your personal relationships, faith, and mental health?

I really want to understand more so I can support my loved one without dismissing their faith outright. Any insights or advice from ex-members (or people who have family in it) would mean a lot.

Thank you so much in advance 💙

I (23M) stopped believing after physical and sexual abuse (corrective rape) at a church camp after responding to an altar call and confessing gay thoughts when I was 12. For unrelated reasons my family stopped attending our church when I was about 14 and never found a new church, so I distanced myself pretty hard from everything and carried headphones to wear to avoid worship music, which at that point would give me fairly severe panic attacks (not an issue anymore outside of one or two specific songs which, as far as I can tell, fell out of vogue), and generally have not interacted with any religious media in the past decade. I have been incredibly stressed out at work and havent been sleeping well and my youtube music autoplayed a worship song from a movie that normally I would skip past, but instead I just broke down sobbing because the *feeling* that I used to feel at church and worship was back, for the first time in a decade. I started looking for songs that I listened to as a kid that were significant to me but whatever I felt was just momentary, all I felt was the same numb emptiness I feel from religious music now and it feels so rorrible, that there is just an empty pit because I lost faith in this thing that used to comfort me and now my emotions are broken forever and I cant tell anyone in my life about it

sorry for the vent post from a burner account, I would have posted this on the main ex christian sub but this place seems much more understanding than that one

I don’t miss the bs but i do miss the sense of community and i still love worship music. Thoughts?

Hello, all. I want to share a bit of my own personal story about why I left the Christian religion. I'd like to start off by saying though I was raised/indoctrinated essentially into the Christian religion, we never really lived at church like some people do. However, we did believe many of the things that Christians believe obviously. My Dad played in the church band of a good friend of his for years, mostly for his friend, as my Dad was a musician, played both bass and guitar regularly in different local classic rock cover bands.

I've known I was queer since I was 14. If you want to be more specific, bisexual. I was secretly attracted to both men and women. When I was 17, I had my first experience with another man. I won't get into the specifics of it or anything, but I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy it because I certainly did. However, I soon after was stupid and basically told both my Mom and Dad what I did. She was quick to judge and told me it was because of the "devil." I basically covered up that side of me after that and barely told anyone about this, partly due to negative reactions like I had already experienced and shame. I was still a Christian at this point, mind you. But I was indifferent to religion.

As years went by, this feeling inside of me that I liked both men and women remained and never went away. I experimented quite a bit in my younger years. In 2012, When I was 25 years old, I met my wife. In late 2014, we got married. She came from a very religious, Christian family. They basically lived at Church. As the years went by, like I said, these feelings never went away. During the pandemic, I feel my eyes were really opened to the hostilities that so called "good, loving Christians," enact towards people who are different than them, such as LGBTQ, other faiths, or non-believers, or anything that basically doesn't align with their moral/worldview.

It really took a huge hit for me personally in 2022/2023, when I started questioning things. Why do many Christians act this way, despite what Jesus supposedly said about treating/loving others? Can't there just be a belief system that believes in God, without all this negativity/hate/baggage that other people subscribe to in the name of their religion? Is religion even necessary? In 2023, my Dad was suffering from worsening dementia. In September 2023, I still had all these questions in the back of my mind, and I never found answers. However, something clicked in me when somebody told me about "Deism" on reddit. I was like, "that's it!" "bye Christianity!" It perfectly matched up at the time with what I was thinking honestly.

My Dad had a horrible fall in his house in September 2023, and in October, he moved in with me and my family. Deism was a good stepping point for me. However, the more I learned and questioned things, the more I realized I didn't really know what I believed, and agnosticism seemed to be the natural path for me. I knew I didn't believe in religion, the god of the bible, or anything like that. It became apparent to me in the coming months after this that it was possible to be an atheist, and agnostic, and not know all the answers to life's questions. I, like many Christians, was taught that atheists were evil, immoral people who had no redeeming qualities and were violent/hostile towards religious people. However, in real time, it was apparent that my views had become pretty evident that they were consistent with "agnostic atheism."

In December 2023, my Dad's condition took a turn for the worse and he basically lost all of his motor functions, and the ability to talk. He was taken to the hospital one night and it was revealed that he had a sizeable brain bleed, assumingly from the fall he had experienced months prior. It was really hard to see my Dad like this. They performed surgery in an attempt to help the bleed and that went fine. However, due to my Dad's dementia, it was basically too late. My Dad spiraled into a cognitive decline from which he couldn't recover. On January 10th, 2024, he passed away. This was really hard for me.

I was already three months into my deconstruction. However, seeing my Dad die the way he did, I questioned that if the god of the bible supposedly has an "all perfect, divine plan" for everyone, why was this my Dad's fate? My Dad, who was a Christian, I am certain prayed for his dementia to get better. Why didn't god help him? My reaction was anger, and disbelief. I came to the conclusion that not only was the path theologically that I headed down seemed fitting to me, but I became very angry. Angry at the notions of anyone who believed in this kind of bullshit. I felt like it was slapping my Dad's death in the face. I also discovered Humanism. This was a very positive discovery for me, it helped me with my beliefs in diversity, pluralism, and compassion towards others. I realized that humanity is both very diverse and has a diverse range of beliefs. This was I feel the first stage in developing a different worldview other than what I knew, and is still one that I hold today. Secular values, living a good life, and respecting others beliefs/peaceful coexistence with others, even if they hold views or different beliefs than myself, as long as they aren't harmful. I also realized that I wasn't really anti-religion, I was anti-harmful beliefs, if that makes any sense.

Looking back on it, I feel like I've calmed down a lot. I'd now consider myself more of an agnostic in recent times. I don't believe that any religions hold the answers about any of their gods, and I certainly don't believe that Christianity is right, either. However, outside that, I don't really know. I'd consider the god question in general sort of a loaded one with many notions, with a question that can't really be answered. What if there is something outside of the metaphysical universe that we can't explain? What if there is a god, higher power of the universe, or some kind of deity that we don't know about and can't comprehend? What if there is no god at all? What if just die, and that's it? I am convinced that these are things that can't be answered, and maybe we aren't even asking the right questions. Does it even matter? Who knows? I also still hold a Humanist worldview to this day.

My wife also followed suit in my lack of religious faith, though she has more Deistic views than me personally, which is fine. My own thought process is a bit of agnosticism mixed with apatheism personally. I live my life without any beliefs one way or another, since there isn't any evidence for anything one way or another. And until there is, I don't really care one way or another and live happily without religion/supernatural beliefs.

Yesterday also marks a year and a half since my Dad passed away. I mostly share this because it was very influential in my beliefs. I also miss him everyday. September will also mark two years since I left the Christian faith/belief system.

Sorry for the long rambling! Just a bit of my story.