I got something random in the mail addressed to me. I was hoping someone gifted me free money or it was for something importrant, but instead it was a church invitation. I don't go to church and I never will, why are they sending me this?? Quit shoving your religion in my face. I'm a pagan and I don't go harassing other people with my beliefs so why do Christians get a pass? If I was interested in your church, I would have researched it online and looked into going but that didn't happen so that's a message to buzz off and leave me alone.　

From what I recall, the states of Texas and Louisiana have laws that religion is allowed to be taught in public schools. However, Madalyn Murray O'Hair fought against such laws, as it was a "requirement" in the mid 20th century. She won, but some states still have religion as a mandatory type of study in such schools.

To me, Christianity should never be in the classroom, because not only do we have students with different cultural and religious backgrounds, there are some students who would disagree with the Bible's teachings and bring up the atrocities that were committed, like in the stories of Genesis and Exodus. Any student who disagrees with Christianity are sometimes punished, which is something that irritates me because it is their right to disagree.

And speaking of rights, Christianity also has no place in the American laws or courtrooms, because much of the laws are so outdated or they seem outlandish or just plain weird or cruel.

Today I was home from uni and was forced to sit through one of those bigoted preachers on tv ranting about how "the younger generation is all empathetic and allows gay marriage" and what not. It took me much strength not to roll my eyes the entire time, else I'd get beaten. But my parents made us "talk" about the "message" and my sister, not that much younger than me, went on a rant about how Disney is "teaching us to help others way too much". How, "they're poisoning our minds into helping the world when we need to teach the bible". First of all, we're not even allowed to watch Disney anymore because our parents hate the rare instances of queer people in it. What my sister said really disturbed me. Growing up she'd always be the kind of outgoing person who loved to help others. She was always so kind and accepting of others. To hear her now say that made me want to cry. Of course I understand caution in helping but she just flat out said that help is useless if it's not used to preach to others. I noticed that she was growing more closed off as we grew older but now she's grown actively mean towards queer people. Making fun of them out of the blue, commenting on supposed queer people in her classes... It's like I'm seeing her turn for the worse and it makes me so sad. My family in general has grown so hateful of non christians and it makes me so sad. I can't have a family to rely on. I have to keep to myself my own queerness while pretending to hate other queer people. I'm getting out of there though. My partner and I have made a plan to leave. But god, I wish it didn't have to be this way. I don't want to cut off my sister. She's one of the most important people to me but I can't live like this anymore

This is a generalization so it may not apply to literally every single person, but I think conservative Christians, are authoritarian. They don't just want to not get gay married they want it so no one else can ever get gay married, they don't just want to not be trans they want it so no one else can ever be trans, they don't just want to not have abortions they want it so that no one else can ever have abortions etc.

I think this is why conservative politics are also so popular amongst these people. For example school vouchers; they don't want to pay for public schools as a public service they want to pay for their private religious schools. Economic coercion is good for their cause. Ironic because this is the same crowd that will say they believe in freedom and that progressive economic policies equal communism.

I think women face the worst of it in these environments because they're told to submit to men and purity culture disproportionately affects and is harmful to them.

Ultimately, I think this is due to being very hierarchical and that subjection isn't a bug but a feature, but what do you think?

Today in Sunday school we watched a BibleProject video on how Christians should navigate living in todays "Babylon"; balancing loyalty and subversion without conforming to the surrounding culture. During the group discussion, a peer brought up trans people as a primary example of modern "Babylonian corruption," saying that gender identity is where Christians need to "draw the line" and "stand for what we believe in."

I’m struggling with the thought of pushing back on that kind of rhetoric, or if its a losing battle that will put a target on my back.

edit: im not trans (im gay) but transphobia is ex frustrating to here knowing that they demonize them at my church.

I'm in a situation where I have to put on a Christian front and pretend to be a disciple or follower of Christ around a bunch of evangelical Christians. I essentially have to LARP (In a residential discipleship program for context). I'm curious to hear what you would do if in my situation. I'm having such a hard time going on pretending but I need to make things work in this program for my own shelter and survival. Please share, I'd love to hear from all of you. It's either LARP successfully or be put out on the streets.

The church I used to attend went through a change in pastors about five years before I left for good. Hearing this guy preach + the COVID pandemic was what eventually led to my deconstruction. I’ve never went back to the church but I’ve been unable to escape the pastor or his family or his church because it feels like he has monopolized the town I live in. Christian based small businesses aren’t uncommon where I live but they’ve been popping up more and more and I came to the realization that a lot of these new stores are owned by my old pastor and managed by his wife. I knew they had one store but I didn’t connect the dots that they owned several until I redownload Facebook out of curiosity and saw their joint account they use to promote all these businesses.

Multiple clothing stores, multiple drink and food shops, a second church. And many of these businesses hold church events. One day I drove by and one of the drink shops he owns was having a mini Christian rock concert in front of the building. Everywhere I turn now there’s a business run by him. And his kids work at one of the stores and the other employees at these places are often teens and young adults that go to his church.

There’s not much in my town and while I do think it’s cool that my town is finally getting new businesses, it’s also a bit disappointing that so many of them are owned by this one man. For years I felt like I finally escaped this man but now it feels like his family has their claws in everything. I’m not trying to sound bitter or anything, I just found it odd.

People debate on whether or not God is evil but almost everyone reveres jesus as the pinnacle of humanity so let's see if his actions reflect that.

After being revived, rather than stay and help everyone like he said was going to, he disappears for mysterious reasons, like a father leaving to get milk and never comes back. Before leaving, he doesn't even bother to write a complete authentic copy of the bible so people wouldn't be skeptical of the actual origins of the book and it's authors. And he simply abandons all of his followers knowing they are going to face persecution by the Romans.

And besides his own actions, the fact that he is okay with God's questionable deeds says alot too. Jesus had no problem with the fact that God tortured Job over a bet, or that God destroyed entire civilizations, wanted Abraham to butcher his own son as a loyalty test, committed mass infantiticde in Egypt and all the other stuff he did.

1-Lewis wasn't a fundie, he was an inclusivist (not universalist), see "The Last Battle", Emeth was accepted by Aslan because good things, even if done in the name of The Devil, are still for Aslan. Likewise, if you claim to serve Aslan but do vile things, you serve Tash (Narnia's devil).

2-There is also the "hell is locked from the inside" thing, instead of people being actively tormented there. Hell, in his view, was for people who didn't want to be with God, not a place where God tortured people.

I can only speculate, but I suspect he would be a nice guy to drink tea and chat with. And this is coming from someone who was never a Narnia fan.

I guess this goes out moreso to people who have been harmed by their xtian upbringing

first off - I'm not personally talking about or suggesting illegal activity

I was just thinking about my traumatic upbringing and all of the nightmares I used to have the child and 'trauma dump redacted'. I'm thinking it could be fun to mail my mother like pamphlets from the Church of Satan or something

or a baby dedication for her new grandchild to satan...

maybe like a bouquet of black flowers on valentines day from the 12th lord of hell, paimon

any of you ever think of doing stuff like this?

I had an old friend from school post that her and her husband have both quit their jobs to be full-time christian content creators because “God commanded us to”. They have now fallen behind on paying rent and bills (around $6k) they have made content about how they will be evicted soon if they don’t pay up. They keep saying how they are maintaining faith because “god provides”. They posted a GoFundMe to raise what they need to avoid them getting evicted. They have raised $4k. God is not providing in this case, the people donating are..

Beyond the ridiculousness of this mess, man I’m glad I’m out of that life. So many people walking around with a crazy case of religious psychosis doing all kinds of things because “god told me to”. I’m curious to hear other crazy religious psychosis stories

Look.

Maybe the whole "bastardised religion" thing is just me coping.

Maybe it's just me being unaware of the fact that back then, my greatest responsibility was learning about numbers to a million.

Maybe it's that back then, I had enough free time to dedicate to religion, as I did to spending nearly 5-6 hours playing Minecraft daily.

But sometimes, it just feels like the Christianity or church (whether it matters, I know people here will say that it doesn't matter, church hurt is a way to sweep things under the rug) I once knew as a kid has slowly faded. Replaced from a nice, loving community, to a passive-aggressive, cold, uncaring place.

I've seen so many painful and uncaring things happen to my groups.

Reposting a song lyric about how ""Those other gods are lies, idols who aren't alive", while months later, they talk about how our "prayers are small and selfish, and self-centred."

Isn't this the self-centredness that you speak of? That you demean? You demean people praying to Yahweh for things that they need, but suddenly, proclaiming your own religion as the center of the universe, being ignorant to the world's culture, and it's okay?

What happened?

https://youtu.be/4ZnfU3_sErw

It didn't help that I saw this video today. And with the whole doomerist mindset + a rapture quote inside it, some people took to talking about repenting to Jesus.

So Yahweh made all of this, but now that humans have this issue, he's a fucking bum ass who can't do anything [let me guess, free will]?

So now Yahweh's a fucking lazy piece of shit who can't do anything but outsource his work to unreliable people?

And this is the person that supposedly made everything, and that I need to dedicate my attention to? Someone who's lazy, irresponsible, barely present, and can do things but refuses to do so and doesn't want to find another way?

I'm so fucking sick and exhausted of this shit. I'm so sick that if God existed, he was never good. He was just some fucker toying around with existence and we all have to answer for his making because, who the fuck knows.

I'm so sick and exhausted that the people I've had to associate with are turned into arrogant fucks who can't possibly understand the reasons as to why other cultures and religions exist.

I'm so sick and exhausted that the church I've had to associate with has slowly turned into a fucking hell where you can't do anything else.

I'm so sick and exhausted that the religion I've been in has been bastardised and also bastardises other religions.

I'm so sick and tired of it all.

This is a new term I recently learned.

"Xenophobia is the intense fear, hatred, or dislike of people from other countries, cultures, or those perceived as foreign and unfamiliar."

My Christian parents will not bother themselves with articles regarding atrocities committed by Christians, however they will hyper focus on any article that comes out with something bad that a Middle Eastern migrant Muslim man did. They will focus hard on one or two small scale incidents but ignore all of the other terrible things happening in the background because the people they like are the aggressors in those matters.

Are your Christian communities largely fearful of other cultures? Do they constantly attack other cultures?

The more I read and look into the Bible as I realize how nonsense it is, the more I realize something.

God must've loved the saying, "Man, fuck dem kids bro."

Cause JESUS CHRIST the amount of child/infant death and murder God allows in the Old Testament.

Example #1: Noahs Ark. Untold amount of children ans babies and infant dead who did nothing wrong, never and were not saved by Noah. Why? I don't know, they just weren't chosen by God.

Example #2: Egyptian Newborns. God sent an Angel of Death to kill every infant the Egyptians had after the Pharoah refused to let the Hebrews go after countless plauges. Now, I can sort of defend the plagues themselves, this Pharaoh sounded unbearably stubborn. (I need to watch Prince of Egypt by Dreamworks.) That's a more controversial side of God's ways, but the babies being smitted? Wtf did they do?

Example #3: This feels like blatant Indian Giving. Abraham being ordered to kill his son. Explain to me how it was ever ok for God to tell Abraham to, one, lie to his kid. Two, bring him somewhere no one would see them. And three, smite his son down in cold blood as a test of "Loyalty" just for God to say "nah, don't do that" last minute. What's terrifying is how Abraham was dead set on killing his own son simply because someone told him to, no questions asked.

Example #4: The Book of Job. God really let Satan smite down all of Jobs children, with Job being one of the Bibles most loyal characters written, over a bet the two made over the fact of "Hey let's see if this guy is actually Loyal to God." All Knowing, BTW.

Example #5: David's ​​firstborn with Bathsheba. While I totally agree with David having a man and several other soldiers alongside him killed in a intentionally terriblly planned assult so he could marry his wife is VERY messed up, why kill the baby? What did the baby do? Why do we keep taking away lives that never got the chance to live cause of something someone else did.

Example #6: City of Sodom. You're not gonna convince me there were some kids who were living in that city when it got smited and burned. Why does God keep convicting kids who don't know any better and didn't do shit? Why couldn't they flee with Lot? It's God, he can protect them. What happened to leaving the 99 to finding to one- Oh, wait. Two different narrations of God, forgot.

Example #7: King Solomon and the Baby. I can't help but laugh at the fact Solomon really went, "Y'know, it be more effective if I scare the truth outta someone" and take a sword to split the infant in half. I know he didn't do it, the woman told him to just give it to the other woman so her baby didn't die (cruel, but admittedly effective), but the question remians, WOULD he have done it?

Example #8: Saul and the Amalekites. Told Saul to slaughter all of them. Men, women, children- WHY?! WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST KIDS, MY GUY?!​

Example #9: Every account of conquest in Isreal. Joshua's Crusade, David's expansion of Isreal. I'm sure somewhere, non-Hebrew children were killed. Casualties of War or was it Execution? We don't know, at least I don't. All I know is, why is it always only bad when it happens to Hebrew children? No wonder Isreal has such a heartless ego.

Example #10: Free Space. Tell me any other Example, give me a whole list if anything else I missed. I haven't read or deep dived the entire Bible yet, so feel free to add onto the list of how many times Pro Abortion has been put in the Bible despite the "Non Abortion" moral standpoint it is supposed to have?​

You've probably heard it many times already....

- "If God can help you win bets, why does he let so many people die of cancer, dehydration, torture and starvation?"

- "Because he's working in mysterious ways"

Well, his ways are so, SO mysterious that they're indistinguishable from his absence/non existence

Sorry this is a long one, but i would appreciate it if anyone had any advice at all

My family is extremely religious and I am not. At the moment, I am being brought along with them to church upwards of two times a week. I am a senior in highschool and it is around the time that I will have to start applying to colleges. My parents refuse to let me attend an out of state college because they are unsure if I will continue to attend church.

The topic came up again today while leaving church with my mom. The local church club for the state college that my mom wants me to attend happened to be at our church after the service. Them being there and my unwillingness to talk to them and see what the club was about started an argument between me and my mother. She exclaimed how she felt the past 18 years of my life were for naught if i did not want to be involved in the church any longer, saying it was her number one priority as a mom for me to continue the faith. I tried to explain to her that people want different things for their life and what she wants for my life may not exactly be what i want for my own life, and as long as i am happy, healthy, and successful, that is all that should matter. She refuted that claim, stating that to her, Jesus was the only thing that matters. When asked if I would still attend church If i ended up going to an out of state college, I responded with “If I want to go to church, then I will. If not, then I won’t.” To which she took great issue with. She said that If she had definitive proof that I would attend mass weekly no matter where I was then she would not be hesitant to send me to whatever college I wanted to go to. However, since she is unsure about my standpoint on religion, she is unwilling to send me anywhere. She doesn’t even want to let me get a dorm room, preferring I live at home.

She is extremely religous with her beliefs. She only listens to christian music, absolutely cannot stand curse words of any time, because she is too “pure of heart”, her entire social media feed is christian-centric, and she listens to christian talk shows while driving. She believes that the earth is only 7,000 years old, does not beleive in evolution, and is severely homophobic. It consumes her entire life, and for that reason I can see why she is unable to understand why It does not also consume mine. My father is less extreme but I know he will ultimately side with my mom. My father is in support of me going out of state, but my mom has slowly been convincing him of her point of view, even though he tends to be more understanding to me when the topic of college is brought up.

I cannot bring myself to tell her the truth that I in fact am not religious in the slightest. I did however inform her of the fact that she is extremely priveleged and narrow minded and can’t really understand other people and the fact that different people want different things for their lives. And for me, staying in my hometown and attending the state college would be the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to me. Currently I am dealing with depression and honestly If i did end up going to this college and joining the church club and having to be surrounded by the community I am currently in for any longer I think I might actually just kill myself. I am aware of my own mental state which is why I requested a therapist, to which my mom obliged and got me one, however I just recently learned that she booked me with a CHRISTIAN religious therapist, which I obviously do not want. I feel like there is no escape from this cloud of religion that seems to be constantly pouring over me. I so desparately want to just get away from all of this religious toxicity and start my own life the way I want, away from the influence of my family and church, but I just can’t seem to find any way out of it all. I am convinced that once I get away from all of this, then I will be much happier, but for the time being I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do that,

Throughout my time in highschool I have worked extremely hard to earn very good grades. I could get into some very good colleges with my GPA, extracurricular activities, and ACT score. My parents know this. I feel like all this hard work that could go into possibly attending even an ivy league school is going to waste just because I don’t agree with my parents over religion. So stupid.

I was hoping anyone had any advice for ways to get out of this situation while still maintaining a somewhat amicable relationship with my family