I started from the story of creation to Noah and the arc but I might have to to revisit it again to take notes, writing down contradictions, etc. I’m eighteen, still in high school (last year) and I don’t know what to afterwards since I don’t planned on going to college anymore so I won’t have to deal with the horror of student loans.

I'm new to reddit, but I've been deconstructing my faith (evangelical/fundamental Christian) for 2 years. Deconstruction is not a trendy thing I chose to do, but something I realized was happening - and I painfully fought it tooth and nail. At this point, I'm pretty sure there is a Higher Power, or God, or Something out there that is the creative force of love, and I believe that we are physically and/or psychologically wired to engage them in a spiritual way. However, most (if not all) organized religions have made an image of spirituality that only serves to keep certain people in power and control others with fear and shame. This is precarious position to hold since I'm an ordained minister having served "The Church" in various capacities for many years. I believe I need a new career path since many friends and family, and my previous congregation have all condemned me to eternal torment in hell. I doubt that's a real thing anyway. :)

For the final capstone project for my Doctorate in Ministry at an Interfaith Seminary, I want to create a non-proselytizing, non-religious model of spiritual care. Do you engage in any sort of spiritual practice of your own volition? What have you experienced in terms of spiritual engagement using those practices?

I'll start... I feel spiritually engaged with a Creator I want to know when I spend time observing nature. Leaves that have fallen off the trees have an order and a pattern and season. Birds seem to be in conversation with one another. The tide goes in and out in a predictable pattern. Ants march in an ordered line. It's the beauty and order that points to a Creator, and I feel close to them spiritually when I observe with awe.

Your turn?

I deal with depression, and the idea of a god just listening to me beg and plead to feel safe in the world, and never answer me did so much damage to my mental health that was already never perfect to begin with. The idea that I somehow deserved how I felt and could possibly deserve worse wen I pass just breaks my heart honestly. I now have to deconstruct this thought process and sad I even came into agreement with it. I’m far perfect but holy shit I’m only human and I’ve been through a lot like most people have.

Long story short, I heavily dislike the church & the bible. I think both of those things are very often confusing, toxic and I don’t have very pleasant experiences with either of them. I have however had personal experiences with God that make me think that there is some level of validity to what these people are saying, but when I try to commit 100% and read my bible, attend church and become theologically informed about the Christian faith I very quickly realise that it is NOT for me.

It’s very confusing because I have certain experiences that suggest a supernatural divinity but when I open the bible it’s hard to not get discouraged reading all of the us vs them language of the wicked vs the righteous and gods hatred towards people who don’t follow him. And you never even know if you’re one of the ‘good’ ones as it says not everyone who cries ‘lord, lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven. How can something that claims to love you be hanging eternal damnation over your head 24/7? I read the Christianity subs and everyday there will be another post of someone shaking with fear about going to hell because they swore or looked at a girl a lil too long.

This turned into a rant, but I’d love to know if there is anyone here that has managed to find some kind of balance in their spiritual life? Is there anyone who has fully deconstructed and then reverted back to some kind of Christianity? Or if there is a branch of it that is less … aggressive?

I'm sorry, not sure if this is an appropriate sub for this vent. But the Tl;dr is I tried to be involved in a progressive Christian campus group and found it triggering and a bit cliquish. I felt like a teenager in the worst way, truly an out-of-body experience.

Thing is, I really don't know if it was too "churchy" or if I'm just neurodivergent and probably going to feel like a left out, awkward teen in every environment--churchy or not. Has anyone else experienced this?

In the process of moving from Americanism/evangelical culture with the all too familiar purity culture/ECT/TULIP etc etc. (y’all know what I mean).
How did you get past the voices that repetitively speak shame and self-hatred? Books?

(Meditation doesn’t work for me, gave it the college try but meh)

Hello,
I've been thinking more deeply lately about the effects my adherence to religion and dogma had on me. I grew up Christian but was always in and out of church until High School, when I devoted most of my free time to a church that was outwardly "progressive" but just the same 'ol Christian fundamentalist bullshit on the inside. Prior to getting really wrapped up in the church, I had fun expressing myself with my fashion choices and tastes in music and art. Then, when I got involved in church, I got really hung up on the idea that women shouldn't be vain. I stopped expressing myself through my clothing, and when I did, I tended to feel shame. I tried to only listen to Christian music. I pretty much only hung out with my church friends. I feel like church erased my identity. All I wanted to be, or felt I could be, was a follower of Christ. I wanted to be humble and meek.

I've deconstructed and haven't gone to church in close to a decade, and still, as a grown woman, I feel this emptiness inside of me - the place that the church voided. I have this image in my mind of the church as a pariah, its big mouth over the top of me consuming my soul and leaving me as a husk to be filled with only what the church wanted. I want to diminish that void, but I'm struggling with depression and having a hard time. I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has some coping strategies that have helped with this unpleasant side effect of deconstruction?

I’ve been trying to process the reality behind some of the more mystical experiences I’ve had with God and I’m finding it rather frustrating. There have been times where I could feel such a powerful sense of God’s love or direction that it has literally sustained my faith and kept me from asking the important questions. Now that it’s gone, I’m recognizing that that inner voice belonged to me, that “loving” and ”guidance” was of my own. Which in a sense feels freeing but what happens when you feel stuck and can’t manufacture it? I’m realizing that my ability to comfort myself, to feel joy and to choose to love myself… is REALLY hard to do outside of my faith and the motivating factors that come with it (eternal reward, devotion to God, etc). I am curious to hear how others have been able to learn to love and accept themselves outside of the faith. Any tools or resources would be greatly appreciated!

No question is a stupid question. I'm here to hopefully provide you perspective, and I'll answer all of your questions as honestly as possible.

Keen-eyed folks may notice that I made an AMA like this in the past, but it was months ago so I thought I'd give it another shot so the new people who joined the sub since can give it a short.

No spoilers:

It's in theaters now. It's about an evil man that captures two Mormon missionaries and plays mind games with them.

It's really well written and it explores deconstruction.

Don't see it if your religious anxiety is high.

But if you're feeling at peace and enjoy horror movies, go see it.

What's something that triggered you? My biggest concern was the fear of going to hell

i mean, why would he do it if he's all powerful and all knowing? He looks spiteful and vindictive...

I have just finished listening to the eBook "How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others" by Tanya Luhrmann. She is an anthropologist and the book essentially goes through how the religious experience is created. She herself is not a believer, but at no point does she pass judgement on those with faith. Was pretty weird to read someone describe what was normal in my upbringing in an academically categorized and scrutinized way. Overall, reading it has been helpful for me coming to grips with my experiences growing up in church and my ongoing relationships with those who are still deeply embedded in religious thinking.

So: 1. Highly recommended read if you haven't come across it! 2. Has anyone else read it? In what ways did her descriptions and explanations resonate with you, and where do you think her ideas are incomplete?

Let's rewind to the year known as 2020, not a great year for most eh? well for me exiting 2019 and heading into 2020 my life was looking better than ever, I was 15 and for the first time in my life my family had reached some form of financial stability after my mother had left my abusive dad the year prior, I had my room with literally everything I wanted at the time and the girl at school who I liked seemed to actually like me back, and i had a group of friends i felt nothing but love from, it felt like the bs i went through and endured my entire life (especially in 2018) had paid off and life was as it should be, so safe to say coming into 2020 life was going well right?

So 2020, we barely got to come back to school before March rolled around and we were thrown into a lockdown and wouldn't be back till like September (our lockdown lasted 6 months), Now lockdown was a weird experience for me, after all i was 15/16 during it. For the most part, it was fun, I got to be indoors all day, gaming with my friends online and school was easy, but unfortunately what I didn't realise is I had years of unprocessed trauma which caught upto me leaving me in a dark place mentally and also anyone who was around the same age as me during lockdown will tell you it was gooner hell, I was shooting my 7th load all before 5 pm every damn day (maybe an exaggeration), but mixed in with my sadness I had low self-esteem. I was disgusted with myself all the time, my lust/addiction got so bad id wack off to videos and immediately be grossed out and unattracted to them afterward which only added to my shame and made me even more grossed out all the time. Now for context i grew up in a extremely un-religous muslim household, dad was a athiest, mums a believer but doesnt pray or cover or none of that, so to me i always had a belief in God but no connect whatsoever, so in my shame and disgust one night i looked up and i just called out to God for help, i didnt specify or have a God of any religion in mind, just wanted God andi cant remember exactly but in the coming days i caved into my friends annoyingness and downloaded...tiktok...as soon as i hopped onto the app, i was swarmed with christian tiktoks of "God has a message for you" and "Heres a prayer to repent and come back to God" stuff like that, me seeing this geniunely thought they were signs from God and i eventually followed along with a prayer and repented and announced my belief in Jesus Christ my lord and saviour...thats when i felt it for the first time...that warm fuzzy feeling in my chest, i then began reading the bible and would get those warm fuzzy feelings in my chest for a while and it was great...i thought the Holy Spirit was working in me and till this day part of me believes that couldve been the case. Was like this most of the year, this is already getting too long so lets move on

2021, EVERYTHING that was going right about me life is unfreaking done, i go from my own bedroom to sleeping on the couch to then a airmattress in the living room, my social life is dead, my friends slowly drifted from me, some even began hating me, my family slowly began struggling more and where did that lead me? back in the grips of old vices aka my pmo addiction and no matter how much i tried praying or reading the bible id feel small hints of that warm feeling inside my chest but nothing changed, until december, one night the air mattress im sleeping on...it deflates...yeh...and i sat there on the hard floor of my living room trying to sleep but couldnt so i went to the dining room and sat on one of the chairs and began literally crying and decided to pray while in tears and began reading the bible and decided to quit my addiction once again and would you believe in the short time just before 2021 ended that everything i had lost was slowly restored to me? i thought this was my job moment, i had everything back heading into the new year and that fuzzy feeling was back, wasnt how it used to be but it was back.

2022, argueably the greatest year of my life so far, unfortunately my addiction reared its ugly head through it here and there, but everything was as it used to be i was reading the bible as much as i could but prayed nearly everyday but hold on...that fuzzy feeling was basically gone and i had forgot about it though my faith was solid, i wasnt feeling Gods presence anymore, at least i dont think i did, was basically gone.

2023, right off the f-ing bat, january 2023 i dont think i had been as lustful as id been in my entire life, i had spent like nights and nights awake just going at it, it got so bad to the point i have multiple now deleted reddit accounts of me going on every single hookup page for my city basically begging for some1 to have sex with, it got so bad i chatted up even with a dude at one point and had plans to go meet and f him but my morals at the time wouldnt let me as i was on the verge of getting up and leaving, this made me realise i had gone off the deepend i did things to keep myself busy while listening to the bible, then praying and reading it and the spark was...gone...that feeling in my chest? gone. Anyways turns out we were moving again and i ended up sharing a room with my brother and it was a fresh start,new house new me, i even went 93 days clean of masterbation, and i decided to reconnect my faith again i read the bible and prayed everyday although the spark was kinda gone, it kinda kept me on a much cleaner path.

2024: i started off the year super connected to faith but it kinda just drifted, i now do masterbating in moderation like a normal person one or twice a week, might go some weeks without it, we're still struggling with financials mostly and recently i had a oppertunity to make life changing money the kinda money, the kinda money where i can buy my family a home, permanately and we'll never struggle again and i prayed and prayed to God to guarentee it happens and would you know...it fell through, i've now spent the last 24hrs in a pain infused state where i just feel betrayed and toyed with by God almost like im giving a glimmer of hope and then forced back to suffering, in recent times i tried opening the bible and i feel nothing anymore, i try to pray and i get a glimmer of a tingle in my chest before it burns out and i dont feel a thing while talking and i just lose motivation and then stop, the feeling has been completely snuffed out, while writing this i weirdly feel the glimmer in my chest again this time stronger than before but im just too upset and disappointed to even think about faith and hope again, my social life is basically dead, im unemployed after quitting my job a month ago after being attacked by a customer and the company refusing to take action, this oppertunity came a couple days ago and yesturday it fell through, i now feel lost, a part of me still feels a kinda love for God but at the same time how much pain and dissapointment can one person take? being teased with hope and a bright future just for it to be stripped again, I thought I already had my story of job moment? I can't take it anymore, I don't think I want to follow much longer if this is gonna be my whole life, because I want to but I can't uphold all the things God wants me to while having the weight of the world on my shoulders. If you made it this far and went through the whole thing, thank you and sorry if this didn't really lead anywhere, goodbye.

How are we doing?

I've been wanting to find interviews between current Christians (even apologists) and people who have deconstructed. I feel like it provides a much more interesting discussion than if both sides are from the same perspective. When I search, it's very easy to find videos from Christians about deconstruction (which are obviously very biased) and it's easy to find people telling their deconstruction stories, but I'm having a hard time finding what I'm looking for.

This may just be a very reasonable case of "Christians don't want to hear from a deconstructed person. Deconstructed people don't want to have to explain themselves to Christians." But if anyone has any interesting interviews that they've hear or read that fit my description, I'd be very grateful.

I have been sort of floating around life after accepting I can't believe anymore. There's so many plot holes and history that doesn't match with so called infallible texts. I tried attending a Christian setting (going back to my old Christian school for their concert). When a praise song I was familiar with came up, I felt physically ill and nauseous. I was brought back to those times in a second. Even my body can't take it anymore. But I can't keep going about in this zombielike state. It's awful and I've got no drive to keep living. How do you find that joy again?

After spending most of my life fully immersed in church, fellowship, and a relationship with God- I walked away at 29. (I’m now 37)

Even after all this time I STILL go back and forth struggling with the shame, the guilt, the fear of “blasphemy” and walking away, because hey, what if I am wrong about it?

I logically don’t believe in the Bible. From a historical and psychological standpoint, I do not believe in the Bible. As a human being who has a bleeding heart for those around me, I do not believe in the Bible.

I also cannot have faith in a God that turns a blind eye to human suffering, and as an omnipotent being depends on “lowly” human beings to fight his battles.

I cannot believe in a God that “blesses” me with the basics of survival, but allows atrocious things to happen “to build faith” and to “test” faith.

I cannot and will not partake in a religion that requires me to selfishly put my own salvation above other human beings— that glorifies and justifies being a crap human being just so I can spend eternity with other crap human beings.

A religion that tells me I was born unworthy, and imperfect, that I will always be a sinner- but if I am caught before I repent or ask forgiveness, am baptized, etc, I will spend eternity damned to hell and suffer— regardless of the fact I made the lives of everyone I crossed paths with easier, better, and more hopeful.

A religion that teaches me I cannot question anything, for that is blasphemous and I must blindly accept it and have faith. Be seen and not heard.

I could go on and on about the why’s and how I came to deconstruction. But even though I have ALL these very valid reasons and solid logic, there’s still that engrained fear and guilt. It’s like a trauma loop of “what if”,, and I know I cannot be the only person who struggles or has struggled with overcoming this and breaking free of it.

Looking to hear some perspectives and personal stories of how you overcame this fear and guilt, and broke the chains of bondage (as they like to say in church, pun definitely intended). Especially if you were raised in church and spent most of your life as a Christian.

Not too sure of your pre-Christian days or upbringing, but did you see and realise your unhealthy coping mechanisms before and after?

For me it was anger, blame and running away (fight or flight response) feeling overwhelmed by my family dynamic and home life. The nervous system would just be overloaded as a child due to the abuse and so I had to develop coping mechanisms to escape from the deprivation.

Irrespective of theology, everyone has this innate mechanism and for me it was escapism. Movies, games, porn, travel, friends, you name it.

Whatever could give you reprieve or a break from thinking about thinking or being in an environment with abusive parents was welcomed. They might have been unhealthy but were they functional?

Whether you incorporate some things from the Bible or not, the fact and reality is we are all integrating and taking with us into the future some variation of coping mechanism.

If I took my teenage mechanisms of anger into adulthood, then I wouldn’t be a very functioning member of society.

It feels one needs some sort of healthy delusion or illusion to escape the harsh and brute reality of life.

Does anyone have any thoughts to add to this?

I have been deconstructing for the past year and in that time I met my boyfriend (who is atheist). Before him, I was waiting for marriage my entire life (25F). Now that I am with him, I’m not longer doing that and I’m happy for once and not feeling guilty. However it’s been about a year into my deconstruction and I realized yesterday in therapy and talking to my boyfriend that I have internalized ideologies around sex. There’s a part of me that still feels bad about what I’m doing because I was taught for the longest that people who live this way won’t inherit the kingdom of God (and I remember this being in Galatians 5 because I used to love this verse). And then I remembered a sermon I watched on repeat, it’s called the problem with pineapples and it’s by Levi Lusko and he talked about sex outside of a marriage bed basically burning things down. And then my Christian friend called me a couple days ago and told me the quote that “the devil temps couples to have a lot of sex before marriage but then after they get married, he stops them from doing that” and deep down I’m just thinking, is this stuff true? Anyways, I’ve read alot of books in my deconstruction but I haven’t read anything about deconstructing the ideologies evangelicals have around sex cause I thought I was fine since I have been having sex but I clearly have some views that haven’t gone away. Anyways, would love anyone’s advice or book recommendations, podcast, YouTube videos, etc.

I’m so uncomfortable with this. I have been a Christian my whole life. A Christian apologist in the last ten or so years. It’s like I’ve been invited to leave the matrix. How did I not see before what I see now? It’s all wrong. It’s all lies. I’ve been misled.

What happens when we die? Do we just cease to exist? Does it even matter? I’m afraid of that.

But a bigger part of me feels relief. If this is it, I have to make it the best it can be. I’m ok with that.

Any advice for a very baby deconstructioner?? Thanks

Hi friends.

I'm no longer a Christian and actively leaning towards Judaism, but my husband is a nominal Christian and our children (though at one time heavily indoctrinated by me) are pretty agnostic/no longer interested in the spiritual (for now anyway). They are all between 4 and 13 and we're living in North America. Of course there is a huge societal expectation that I, the mother, will perform the creation of the xmas experience for everyone in the household. Truly, the thought makes my skin crawl. I used to bend over backwards trying to make this thing (xmas) that all of society expects us to do, actually mean something. Putting time, energy, creativity, money, and love into something that we're now only doing because everyone else is...is very hard for me to accept. And yet...I don't want to impose my views on my family in this respect and "ruin their xmas".

It can be tricky enough figuring out how to merely participate in religious-adaject family events in an authentic way. Since I'm the one expected to conceive and execute the entire experience, it's really eating at my conscience and the self-protection I feel toward my deconstruction journey.

Anyone experience similar?

What's the first doubt you ever had? What's the thing that made you leave? would you do it all over again?

My Story

I grew up attending church where I obtained a high-level understanding of Christianity. In my teenage and young adult years, I ended up dabbling in Atheism, New Age Spirituality, and Buddhism. I eventually settled on a form of vaguely spiritual Atheism (if that even makes sense.) After I got married, my wife and I converted to a form of Evangelical Christianity which ended up being a Charismatic/Prosperity Gospel/Word of Faith jumble of nonsense. We then attended a Non-Denominational "Woke" church for a few years before leaving due to a disagreement in doctrine.

The underlying theme for my faith journey was always founded on reading and learning the bible more deeply and stripping away the "interpretations" of men. I wanted the pure, straight-from-God, and unfiltered truth. I took the bible literally because that is the only intellectually honest way you can approach it, in my opinion. What I now understand is that I was slowly making my way towards Fundamentalism, even though I didn't fully understand the term at time. This culminated in the conclusion that all denominations were simply false believers choosing to divide themselves and that no-one was truly following the bible. God's church cannot be divided! I clung to the verse from Jesus:

However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?

- Luke 18:8

It got to the point where my and my family started to follow the laws of the old testament fairly strictly. I was convinced that because I was of Jewish descent, I needed to complete the procedure that all Jewish boys undergo. I did the procedure. The healing process was incredibly painful and traumatic. I'm including this detail to try and outline how committed I was to this faith. I started to distance myself from friends and family because none of them believed what I did. I was all in. The loneliness and isolation I felt was justified because my "true family" were those that believed. We were not attending any church because all of them were poisoned with "leaven" and "false teaching."

I had settled on using the Septuagint as my Old Testament and the KJV for the New Testament. I still not believe that neither of these bibles were fully true/accurate and was constantly searching for "the best" bible. One day, while reading the Old Testament to my family, we encountered an irreconcilable contradiction. This was the first domino to fall.

The Book We Have Is Not From God

It started to become clear to me that there were many errors, contradictions, inconsistencies, and false prophecies in the bible. This led me to a line of reasoning that ultimately led to my loss of faith. 

Here was my line of reasoning:

• God exists.
• Objective truth exists.
• God is the source of all things.
• God is the source of objective truth.
• Truth cannot lead to an error and cannot contradict itself.
• God revealed the truth to man who then documented it.
• Since the documents contain God’s truth, they must have all the properties of truth, namely, no errors and no contradictions.
• Since the Bible is so clearly full of errors and contradictions, it cannot be from God nor contain the truth.

The only follow-up arguments that seem plausible to me are some variation of:

• Argument 1: The original documents were perfect but men have corrupted the documents over time.
• Argument 2: Men did not accurately document the truth when it was first revealed from God because they are flawed humans.

The problem with both of these arguments is that they conclude God allowed a flawed version of his truth to be spread and documented. In either case, the documents cannot be trusted as a source of truth.

The Final Questions

• If God really loves everyone and wants all people to know the truth, why would he make it impossible to obtain?
• If God is all powerful, how could he not find some way to preserve a unaltered copy of his truth to us so we could all access and read it?
• If God allowed men to inaccurately document the truth, does he want to confuse us?

The Final Conclusion

Everything I understand and believe about God comes from manuscripts I do not trust. I cannot continue to believe what I learned from these documents.

Therefore, I cannot continue to believe in God.

what percent certain does one have to be that (1) God exists and (2) Jesus is God in order to consider themselves a Christian?

i am basically 0% certain, yet i still consider myself a Christian.

in 2024, if any Christian is more than 0% certain, where does that certainty come from?

honestly this is probably a better question to present to a group of people who have not yet deconstructed -- but i am just so tired of all the pretend answers.

i think for me this really boils down to my issue with how "faith" was presented me as a kid growing up in the church. and then a young adult. and now a middle aged adult.

it feels like most/all professing Christians would require me to be greater than 0% certain in order to profess that i am a believer -- but i don't think that's possible, when it is so easy to "explain away" most people's "certainty"

happy to answer any questions -- the main one i can foresee is "why do you find value in professing to be a Christian if you are 0% certain (aka 100% uncertain).

my main answer would be community. the community i have found in/from/around church is a community that feels mostly safe to me/my family, and almost like a "code" or a shortcut to "i know these people believe in the idea of loving their neighbor as themselves"

Okay… so I’m 43F married to 42M for 21 years. We get along fine but I have been emotionally disconnected for a while due to some feelings of abandonment and neglect over the years that came to a head when I, against my husband’s wishes, left our former cult-like church due to PTSD. He eventually went to a better church that I respect and support, but I don’t go because of the damage that I incurred over the last one. I’m working it out in therapy, but I’m just at a place where I’m not interested in religion at this time. Anyway, when I decided not to go to the new church, he treated me poorly and added to my trauma for a while. Eventually, he stopped doing that. But some damage was done. I’m not currently looking to divorce because, again, we get along and have a good home environment in which we are raising 2 teenage sons.

But lately I’ve been really working on our finances. We each make more money than ever. I make roughly 2- 2.5x his income and have always earned more due to out respective chosen careers. But anyway, I’ve noticed that as I think about my financial future, I don’t really think about it in terms of “we.” I think about how much I need to invest. MY property. What I will leave to our kids. What MY retirement looks like. And I didn’t even fully realize it. I think one sticking point is that I want to move from our Midwest suburban town to a city near water (either Chicago where I’m from (realistic) or San Diego (my dream)) after my youngest graduates and he has no desire to move and won’t even entertain the idea. He also still has the patriarchal view that God will give him the vision for our family and we will “bloom where we’re planted.” But I know I’m not happy here. But yeah… long story short. This is kind of eye opening for me. My brain can’t even comprehend a future together if the kids aren’t central. And before anyone says anything about it, I’m not actively seeking to divorce and won’t even entertain it while I have minor children. I have some hope that we can figure this out with therapy. But I truly fear I’ve transitioned in my heart and my head is just catching up.

This lady basically just told me that hell has to exist because quantum physics and that people are predestined to go there because” that’s how earth works” 🫨

TW: Physical and emotional abuse

Sorry, this is kind of long. Also, I’m not sure if there’s even an answer to my question. Maybe this is more of a rant.

TL;DR: I can’t be a Christian because I no longer believe what I used to, but I can’t be an atheist because belief in God is too deeply rooted in me due to trauma.

I didn’t grow up in a good family. My childhood until I was 11 was okay-ish, but then my mother developed schizophrenia. She started to become violent at times. She began accusing me of terrible sexual things, aborting and killing babies, having AIDS, etc. None of it was true! But she would force me to take pregnancy tests, call the police on me many times, and I was forced to defend myself against her accusations.

Even though she was physically abusive, her accusations somehow hurt me more. Probably because, at the time, I valued chastity very highly. I tried to do my best to remain chaste as a teenager, and it felt like her accusations ruined that for me.

My dad was better, but he could still be considered emotionally abusive. He yelled at me all the time, belittled me and others, was verbally aggressive (he threatened violence but never acted on it), and told me he regretted that I was born.

It was worst when I was 15–20 years old. During that time, I started using faith in God to cope with the abuse. I was starved for parental love, and God is the ultimate parent. I frequently went to pray at a nearby church after school. It was comforting to believe there was someone who loved me, who cared about what happened to me, who wanted me alive, and didn’t regret creating me.

Of course, I prayed for things to get better at home. At the time, I didn’t even realize I was being abused. Part of this was because of the culture I grew up in—I don’t live in the USA (though, I am not sure if it's better in the USA, maybe I am idealising it); I’m from a post-communist European country, where abuse and mental health are still somewhat taboo. I thought something only counted as abuse if it left broken bones, which I didn’t have. I also had no idea what emotional abuse was.

I prayed for the situation to improve, but things didn’t get better—only worse and worse. So I gradually started asking for less and less. Eventually, I started to believe that growing up in my family was simply my cross to bear, that I should accept it and not complain about it. I stopped complaining and instead prayed for God to always watch over me and for the Church to always be a safe environment for me.

But even that didn’t happen. Instead of God and the Church being safe, the exact opposite occurred. I don’t want to go into the exact events that took place (this post is already too long), but because of certain things that happened to me in the Church, it went from being a safe haven to being something that made me suicidal. I now have religious trauma and can’t attend certain religious events without having panic attacks.

I feel like God betrayed me, abandoned me, and hurt me. They say that only we abandon God, but I don’t believe that’s true. I tried to get as close to God as I possibly could nad it backfired terribly, and it feels like He kicked me into a pulp for even trying.

I stayed Catholic for almost four years after that, but I gradually started questioning and eventually left the Church. I still believe in God, though, and I feel like I can’t stop believing in God, because it would mean I was always alone and that nobody ever cared whether I lived or died. It feels easier to believe that God betrayed me than to believe God never existed.

I don’t think I could ever be an atheist, because I couldn’t mentally handle it. I don’t even really want to be an atheist. I tried to be an atheist for a few months after leaving the Church, but I found that belief in God is so deeply rooted in me that I would shatter if I stopped believing.

At the same time, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be Catholic, I can’t be an atheist, and I don’t think any other denomination or religion would be better because my issue is with God Himself. (I do believe God exists, but I don’t trust Him.) On top of that, I feel like I can’t believe in Jesus’s divinity anymore, though I still believe in a God and that I once had a relationship with Him.

I go to therapy. My therapist believes in God, though she isn’t a Christian per se—her beliefs draw from multiple religions. She thinks I should return to my old belief in God because I was using it as a coping mechanism (not necessarily to Christianity), but I’m not sure I can.

I will preface this by saying that I do not take any pleasure in saying what I am about to say. These thoughts are the result of years of thinking, rethinking, then thinking some more. My conclusions are genuine and while not perfect are as good as I can get them.

In the years leading up to serious health issues in late 2020 I had very much an on off relationship with Christianity. Despite my religious upbringing and attending a Christian college I could never fully maintain my beliefs.

In the early 90’s at my bible college I attended a concert by a well known Christian artist. It was an incredible concert and it filled me with so much hope. It was a rare moment where I truly thought God ‘was in the house’. I think that was the closest I felt to God ever.

Fast forward to the late 90’s and I’m finishing my last year of graduate school (no longer in bible college). A relationship I was in had just ended leaving me devastated. Feeling desperate I stumbled into an on campus church service during the week. It felt like God was welcoming me back. Despite that being a positive experience I’m pretty sure I was clinically depressed for most of my final year of school but I managed to graduate. Fast forward to the years from 2007-2020. I attended church off and on trying to rekindle my relationship to God. However, it was unsuccessful. Everywhere around me I stopped seeing or feeling any presence of God in my life - even at Church of all places.

Then in late 2020 I had serious health issues requiring surgery. During surgery prep under the bright lights of the OR I closed my eyes and memories of my life flashed all around me - and then - 100% silence and darkness. I was hoping to hear God’s voice or feel the Holy Spirit - something, anything to let me know my doubts had been wrong but nothing came. Oddly I wasn’t sad or upset. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Fast forward late to 2023. I was able to visit the Bible college I attended due to being in the area for another event. I went with a former roommate. The school is mostly closed now due to financial issues but some of buildings are still in use by various church groups. Even knowing this nothing quite prepared me for what I saw and felt. As we walked around campus there was an unrelenting silence. In my head there were memories but my eyes could not unsee. I was able to go into the main chapel which also contained some classrooms. With permission from the pastor on staff I was allowed to look around. A lot of good memories came back but honestly, it was hard to be there. Then I entered the sanctuary and memories from the concert I attended came flooding back - I was hopeful for a few moments. As I sat there the unrelenting silence reached its highest point. I didn’t see or feel God’s presence. As I left campus I was stricken with a deep sadness but at the same time an incredible feeling of peace. The unrelenting silence continues on to this day and it’s ok.

Scenario: You get to sit down with a pastor/apologist, or just a really devout “Bible believing Christian” for a good-faith (no pun intended) discussion.

If you had a list of questions specifically related to what is written in the Bible that you could share with said person, that you would like for this person to somehow “reconcile”/make sense of/explain justification for, etc… what would that list look like? 

Has anyone here started compiling one?

Things that come to my mind:

• Regardless of whether taken literally or metaphorically, or otherwise: Things that the bible says that God told people/groups to do, that by today's standards amounts to unthinkable/atrocious.
• Discrepancies in tellings of supposedly historical events (how can one see the bible as “infallible” if there are such discrepancies, and if written off as human error, then how to trust much–if any–of what’s written)?

Note/Clarification: for the purpose of this post, I am interested in particulars of what is written in the bible (define that how you wish). 

I like to imagine a modern human reading the Bible for the first time. They come across some passage like… Numbers 31: 15 Moses said to them, “Have you ^(z)let all the women live? 16 Behold, ^(a)these, ^(b)on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of ^(c)Peor, and so ^(d)the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. 17 Now therefore, ^(e)kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him ^(f)keep alive for yourselves. 19 ^(g)Encamp outside the camp seven days. Whoever of you has killed any person and ^(h)whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day. 20 You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, all work of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.” 

Say what  now ?!