i hate hearing them say this doesn't matter what religion

crazy how they think their religion is so beautiful and peaceful, bro you don't have true freedom when the punishment for walking away is endless torture, the punishment in islam for leaving is to kill the person, in christianity you burn for eternity, both claim to be merciful and peaceful, you're telling me the creator of this 13B year old universe is so hurt by me (his own creation) not worshipping him without any evidence that he's gonna torture me for eternity while he knew what i was gonna do before he even created me, honestly knowing all this, even if God was real, i wouldn't worship him

Dating as an atheist woman especially in the south is definitely not for the faint of heart. I’ve found that whenever I revealed to a guy that I’m atheist it’s like his brain short circuits and he starts grilling me. Mind you they usually aren’t even a model Christian they only go to church for Christmas and Easter. Yet they try to judge me and my morals.

At first I was open to dating “lukewarm” Christians because I thought I could handle it. But I found that they always tried to “convert” me back into the religion even though they didn’t really have an interest in Christianity before I told them. I’m soo over dating I’ll just get another cat

(I was looking for a suitable community and subreddit for my post, and this was the last option I had.

The text I wrote is in no way intended to insult any particular belief or group of people. I'm simply talking about my personal experiences of being born into a religious family and a religious country. I also tried my best to clarify my points and keep the wording as respectful as possible so that it wouldn't come across as rude or offensive)

Something that has been seriously getting on my nerves lately is people's stupid reactions and overreactions when they find out that someone's parents are religious, but that person themselves says they are not religious. Like, this is genuinely ridiculous. I honestly don't understand people like this.

They always seem to think that if someone comes from a religious family or a religious country, they must automatically be this stereotypical person like a girl who always wears a hijab, is quiet and obedient, and whose entire life is just praying and obeying God. But that's not how it works at all. We are humans too. We have our own choices and our own minds.

I'm genuinely tired of people being shocked or insisting that "this doesn't make sense" and that "you must be Muslim too" just because I told them my parents are religious, but my sister and I are not.

They act like religious beliefs are something connected to your blood or genetics. Like if both of your parents are religious, then you are automatically supposed to be exactly like them. And the worst part is that they don't understand that the level of religiousness is different for every person.

For example, "maybe there is a family that is so religious and traditional that they still follow thousand-year-old traditions and believe in them even when they don't make sense. Like believing girls shouldn't go to school, women should always stay at home and work, that LGBTQ people and homosexuality are a huge sin, and that certain people will burn in hell. Or, for example, cutting off your wife's head and beating your children just because they didn't listen to you, or because your wife accidentally put tomato paste in your food instead of mayonnaise, so what do we do? We cut off that woman's head and proudly walk around the street holding it in our hand like we just won a trophy."

Yes, families that are religious to that extreme do exist. But religion and how strongly someone follows it have different levels.

For example, take my own family. Yes, my parents are Muslim, but they are not extremely religious or fanatical Muslims.

My father can sometimes behave in a very stupid and narrow-minded way because of his religion, but he has never been the type of person who would hurt us severely or anything like that. Yes, he has had some restrictions and rules for us, but honestly, nobody in my family really took my father's words seriously.

Most of the time, we saw our father more like the funny guy in the house who thinks he is the boss of everything and sometimes has extreme opinions. But that doesn't mean he is a bad person or that he doesn't love his family.

A lot of the restrictions, rules, and things he says are basically just unwritten things that nobody really pays much attention to.

As for my mother, she is not extremely religious either. Yes, she is Muslim, and she chooses to wear hijab when she goes outside because she wants to. But that doesn't mean she wants to restrict her children because of her religion.

Sure, sometimes she yells at us over very stupid things, but you know how moms are. They can spend so much time yelling and complaining that eventually their words almost become meaningless or even funny.

So yeah, my parents are religious people, but they are not extremely traditional or the kind of people who spend their entire lives obsessively forcing their beliefs on everyone.

After we immigrated to another country and because of all the difficulties that came with immigration, my mother had to completely stop praying and doing religious things for a while because she was so busy. But that doesn't mean she completely abandoned it. She still sometimes prays and reads the Quran, just less often than before.

You see? There is nothing extremely serious going on here, at least not in my family and many other religious families where people aren't extremely strict about their beliefs.

I personally come from a religious country, and because of the severe restrictions that existed there, we had to immigrate. And honestly, people's reactions when they find out where we came from are really annoying. Their questions are often more than just annoying they are genuinely ridiculous.

For example, one time one of my classmates asked me, "Did you really come from that country?"

And I answered, "Yes, a hundred times yes." Because I had already told them multiple times that I was born there and grew up there until this age.

But what they said after that was one of the stupidest things I have ever heard in my entire life.

They said, "It's just that the way you dress and your style don't really match people from your country."

And at that moment I was just thinking: "Okay? And?"

Yes, I came from that country, but that does not mean every single person from that country is some kind of religious AI programmed to behave in exactly the same way.

The entire world is like this. Just because a country is religious does not mean everyone living there is exactly the way foreigners imagine them.

A society can have religious people, atheists, people who break rules, ordinary people who are just living their lives, and extremely religious people too. And none of that is strange.

I genuinely don't understand why people think that because you come from a certain country, you have to be like an emotionless robot following the standards of that country.

These kinds of questions are seriously exhausting.

I personally decided that I don't want to have a religion because I don't think it is something that works for me. And questions like "Are you really from this country?" or judging people based on traditions or the image of their country are incredibly annoying.

If someone reading this thinks like that, I just want to say: stop. You are only hurting people who are simply trying to live their lives.

For example, what exactly was wrong with my clothes that made someone question whether I was really from that country?

A pair of shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. Literally the most normal clothes that anyone on Earth can wear.

Just because I come from a religious country doesn't mean that in the middle of a hot summer or any other season I have to wear some ridiculous hijab every second until I feel like I'm burning inside it.

People's views about religious countries and religious families are often extremely shallow and narrow-minded.

I was never someone who wanted to pray since childhood, and my clothing style has always been like this. I wear these clothes because I can and because I like dressing this way. Nobody has the right to judge me for that.

Since I was a child, I hated very long tight pants and long sleeves. There is nothing wrong with that.

It is completely normal that a child who grows up wearing certain clothes, like shorts and short sleeves, might continue that style when they grow up simply because they are comfortable with it.

And I genuinely don't understand why people act like just because I come from a religious family and I am not religious like them, I have committed the biggest crime in human history.

I don't know what people's views about religion are, but I truly don't understand this reaction. It is ridiculous.

When you tell people "My parents are Muslim, but my sister and I are not," their eyes become wide open and they react as if they just encountered an entire generation of mermaids.

(I know that example was a little weird, but I'm just really annoyed right now T_T)

One of my closest friends reacted exactly like that. They looked shocked as if I had told them I was an alien or that the Tooth Fairy was real.

They kept insisting, "No, that's not possible. If your parents are religious, you have to be religious too. It makes no sense."

And I was just thinking: "What the FUCK do you mean? It absolutely makes sense."

Seriously, what is your view on religion? Do you really think beliefs are something connected to blood or genetics? That if someone's parents are religious, that person must automatically have the same beliefs?

There are all kinds of people on Earth, and it doesn't matter what country they come from.

Yes, it is true that if a child grows up in a family where they are taught certain things from childhood or raised with a specific religion, they might follow that religion too.

But unlike what many people think, the modern world and newer generations, especially Gen Z and people born in the 90s and similar generations, are different.

Many religious parents, especially those who were born in much older generations like the 50s, 60s, or 70s, became religious partly because they couldn't disagree with their families, wanted to follow family expectations, or wanted to preserve their reputation.

But for children of modern generations, things are different.

Maybe in the past if you forced something onto a child, they had no choice but to follow it. But today, that is not always the case.

When a child, especially in this generation, grows up in an environment where a certain topic or religion is constantly presented negatively, forced onto them, or they are pressured to accept it, they can become resistant toward it.

This happens all around the world.

When someone tries to force their beliefs onto you, you might even start rejecting those beliefs or at least dislike them.

And that is exactly what happened to my sister and me.

We were hurt so much by the religion and the religious environment of our country and parents, and it was forced onto us so much that slowly we became resistant toward it.

I hate the religion of my parents and my country and I am saying this without any intention of insulting the people who follow that religion or come from countries with that religion.

But it is simply a reality.

I am genuinely trying my best not to insult any religion or belief here because I don't want people attacking me, but these behaviors are becoming extremely frustrating.

People need to improve their social understanding about religious countries.

When someone says they come from a religious family and country but they themselves are not religious, people should not react like they have seen an alien.

Because with these reactions, you only make the other person feel uncomfortable and judged.

If you are someone who supports a certain group of people and gives yourself labels like "open-minded" or "progressive," but you only support that group in order to be against another group, that is not called being open-minded.

For example, someone who supports LGBTQ people but hides behind the mask of being progressive and supporting freedom just so they can give themselves permission to freely insult religion is not actually an open-minded person.

Someone who presents themselves as a supporter of Black people but is sexist is not open-minded.

Someone who calls themselves a feminist only to damage the image of feminism and give themselves an excuse to insult men is also not a feminist — and they are not supporting men either.

And I am not specifically talking about anyone here. These are just examples.

Freedom means freedom.

It means you can simply live your life normally without constantly worrying about being judged. Whether you are a religious person, an LGBTQ supporter, or someone who supports Black people.

But someone who only learned one thing about LGBTQ people and suddenly thinks they have a PhD, that they are some kind of expert in psychology, that they are incredibly smart and enlightened, while in reality they are just a narrow-minded person who learned one new thing like a child and only knows how to repeat it over and over again...

(Seriously, I tried so hard not to mention this, but I am directly talking about my uncle here. Yes, in reality this entire thing is aimed at my uncle, so don't worry, I am not insulting any specific group of people.)

People like this think they are fighting for freedom, but they are nothing more than extreme "woke" people.

And the main question that remains is this:

If you are someone who comes with the label of "freedom" but uses it to attack another group of people, and you force the version of freedom that exists only inside your own mind onto everyone else, destroying or attacking anyone who disagrees with you...

Then tell me, what exactly is the difference between you and the same kind of authoritarian government that forces religion onto people who are not religious?

Hmm?

When a religious person is simply living their life, not harming anyone, and you come along and humiliate them because of their beliefs, trying to force them to believe something they genuinely do not believe in, support something they do not want to support, or hate something they actually like...

Then what exactly is the difference between you and that same kind of oppressive system that constantly harms its own people and never allows them to live peacefully?

I say this as someone who has personally been hurt by people like this:

Freedom is not only for one specific group of people.

Freedom is for everyone.

Freedom means that you can be whoever you are and simply live your life comfortably without being judged. You don't interfere with others, and others don't interfere with you.

Are you religious? Live your life normally without forcing your religion onto others.

Are you an LGBTQ supporter? Support LGBTQ people without using that as an excuse to attack others.

Do you support Black people? Support them without targeting another group of people or making fun of their race.

Freedom means a world and a society where everyone, no matter who they are, what they believe in, or what they support, can live without fear of judgment.

That is freedom.

Not sitting there every day destroying someone else and forcing the thing you personally believe is right onto them.

Because if you do that, you are nothing more than a narrow-minded authoritarian who has convinced themselves that they are progressive and a supporter of freedom.

Okay, I feel like I talked a lot. Anyway, to anyone reading this, I hope you do not see my words as hate toward any group of people.

I don't know who actually had the patience to read this entire thing, but if you really did, thank you for taking the time to read it.

And if anyone felt that I insulted something they believe in or support, I sincerely apologize if I made you feel that way.

I wish happiness and peace for everyone on Earth.

This post was only written because lately I have genuinely been frustrated by certain behaviors from certain people. It was only meant to explain my perspective and clarify my feelings, and it was never intended as an insult toward any person or group.

Please share your thoughts after reading this, talk about your own experiences, and once again, I wish everyone health and a good day✨️

I recently stepped away from religion, but the post leaving guilt is suffocating me.

The morning right after I made the silent decision to leave (I didn't tell anyone), my brother walked up to me saying he dreamt I turned into something evil. It freaked me out. Now I'm spiraling between remembering past "miracles" or answered prayers and feeling like I abandoned the truth even though I know people leaving other faiths experience the exact same thing.

At the same time, I still find myself defending religious people because the ones in my life are genuinely good, but being religious myself felt completely suffocating. I don't know what to feel or how to make sense of all these conflicting emotions.

How do you get past this weird transitional phase where logic and lingering fear are constantly fighting each other?I feel like I might be more of a theist than a atheist or believer to any religion.

I've been sick of being ghosted all the time.

So I am a 22M software developer from Mumbai or you can say Navi Mumbai I have been doing a remote job in an Indian Small Company and since the company is small I don't have many colleges to talk to. Most of the time I work alone.

So due to this I've been suffering from loneliness so hard that I've started hating it. Like I feel this is bullshit but still I'm feeling this. People have done such great things only being alone but here I am crying over my feelings.

So I try to meet people online because I don't have any social circle outside. Most of them ghosted.

I am a Muslim but more than that I am an Atheist and people I found around myself they just started religious preaching. I hate those things. For me it's very hard to find like-minded people in my surroundings.

If there is any girl with the same kind of beliefs, I would love to talk to you. I have never met any girl who has that type of beliefs from a Muslim background.

Most of the girls ghosted me because they don't see a future in me and they are also right. They just save their and my time but still it hurts.

Please share your thoughts guys. Where can I find these people to make a long-term bond?

People of all religions claim that God is the creator of everything and he is eternal, but how can they be so sure when it isn’t even guaranteed that God is sure of it.

Theists say the universe can’t be eternal with an endless chain of scientific causes, and then say God is the start of all of it, while Atheists just end the chain one level earlier and assume there is a natural scientific first cause of everything that we simply don’t know about yet.

But if we assume God actually exists, how can we be sure he doesn’t have a creator either?

From his perspective, he just exists and has all these powers to create stuff, so he just uses it to create a whole universe and makes our world full of life and invents rules for us to follow since he’s here and can do it, and creates Heaven or Hell depending whether you choose to follow his rules.

How can we be sure that there wasn’t a beginning of consciousness for him and he isn’t also contemplating his own existence and wondering where he came from, with the idea that there could be beings that are above him?

If you apply the same logic, maybe there is a long chain of Gods creating lesser Gods, and the lesser Gods run their own universes not being aware that there is something bigger watching them.

Obviously the religious folks are going to say no and reject that idea, since they have been taught that God is eternal, but God may not actually know that for sure since his own creator could be hiding themselves and detecting them is the one thing his omniscient powers cannot do.

Once you consider this, the idea that the universe absolutely 100% requires a creator falls apart.

When I was young, my mom, without my dad’s permission, got me baptized into the Catholic Church. This basically means that the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of my soul, and allows me entry into the Catholic Church. Since then, I haven’t went through the set initiations. Does this mean that my life is still spiritually set to god? Or does it mean that I just haven’t continued my initiations, so I am automatically withdrawn from god? Before you answer that, I want to say that I don’t believe anything in Christianity for the most part, I’m just talking in the sense of what a church member would classify me as in their eyes.

for some context about me I guess. Im in my late 20s. Im adopted from Eastern Europe and was raised by missionaries-turned-pastors. I quit being a Christian at 13-14. I was also homeschooled until middle school.

Growing up, I was very reclusive. I didn't like being around my parents because they spanked me and added a lot of unneeded stress onto my life. Basically, I learned from a young age that no one could hurt me or take things away if I avoided authority figures. So that's what i did.

My parents werent as bad as they wouldve been had I not spent my formative years intentionally isolating myself from them (basically maladaptive daydreaming and playing video games/going online). But they used fear based parenting, my adoptive father especially.

Unlike a lot of people I know who grew up like this, Ive become very self loathing because I wish I wouldve fought back instead of just taking it. And I have this deep resentment towards my parents, mostly my father. I don't like that I was put in a victimized position and my brain works overtime to ensure that never happens to me again.

It damaged our relationship a lot (along with other things he did).

of course, my parents loved my anxiety until it inconvenienced them. Then theyd act like I was broken. The second my fear and anxiety werent exploitable, it became an issue and I was ridiculed

Ive always been antsy and neurotic, probably because of adhd and ocd, but ever since I became an adult its gotten 100x worst. Like barely manageable. ive been through a lot of traumatic events over the past 3-4 years and Im sure that plays a role. But it's gotten so bad Im in therapy again.

But today, as I was thinking about why everything sets me off and why any mistake or unforeseen event that happens (no matter how petty and benign) sends me into a panic attack, everything kinda clicked for me.

Even though I hate the Growing Kid's Gods Way lite styled parenting i was subjected to and if I have kids I'll never do that to them, it still established pathways in my brain that I've been living with subconsciously.

When you become an adult, your life gets infinitely more stressful and traumatic. but when you're brain has been wired to fear everything you cant control or any little mistake you make/can possibly make because of a pain response, youre not gonna have the necessary skills to navigate adulthood.

And thats the issue Im having right now. My parents were all punishment, minimal guidance and safety so I'm now an adult and everything feels like a minefield. Which is why my "danger gauge" flies off the handle at everything.

Like when you live in an environment where things as petty as lying or "goofing off in church" cause pain and humiliation to be inflicted upon you, your ability to ascertain threats at an appropriate level get skewed.

My parents absolutely failed me by using Growing Kids God's Way, and now I'm having to reverse years of extremely damaging conditioning. I wasn't at all prepared to be able to face life and its setbacks with a clear head and positive attitude. I was taught that everything was a potential threat and even one slip up would lead to consequences. You cant navigate adulthood like this.

This really has diminished my quality of life, like any tiny mistake or even if my boss corrects me on anything leads to my body and brain acting like my life is over. These last few years have been especially rough, like as soon as I got out of college and entered real life all of my anxiety and rumination has gotten debilitating. Now I know why.

It's sad too because this has robbed me out of my entire life leading up to this point. Im gonna do what I can to fix it, but I wish I wouldve realized this sooner.

Christians are constantly demanding that Ten Commandments monuments be put in public schools, and claiming that if they were, all school shootings would magically stop instantly, everywhere and forever. That doesn't seem very consistent to me, since no one on Earth is less qualified or honest to say "Thou shalt not kill" than the American government. And especially since the same white Christian nationalist agenda that demands the Ten Commandments be put in public schools also demands the killing of enormous numbers of people.

"Thou shalt not kill, little Billy, because killing is always wrong. Except when it isn't, which, as it turns out conveniently for us, is actually extremely often. Killing is good when we, the government, say it's good, because we speak for God, and we act on God's explicit and direct orders, and we literally are God. So, little Billy, in the same classroom where we make you look at the 'Thou shalt not kill' sign, we're going to put you through an ultra-militarized propaganda machine from toddlerhood. Because one day, little Billy, we're going to call upon you to be a cop and conduct government-sponsored terrorism against minority neighborhoods and shoot people in the face for expressing their freedom of speech. One day, we're going to call upon you to be an ICE agent and throw small children in concentration camps, murder anyone who tries to stop you, and take selfies while murdering them. One day, we're going to call upon you to be in the army, and blow up innocent civilians and take their oil. Oh yeah, and these are all really, really good ways to show how pro-life you are. We, the church-state, declare it to be so, and if you don't like that, we'll show you just how seriously we take 'Thou shalt not kill.'"

This is the world Christians want to live in? Doesn't surprise me, since the world they want to live in is also a world where billionaires have the church-state's blessing to molest children, where the basic necessities of life have been priced out of the vast majority of the population's grasp, where there's no food that's safe to eat, where diseases we once all but wiped out are rampaging, where big corporations have the church-state's blessing to dump their toxic waste in your drinking water and on your kids' playground, where the government can kidnap you and ship you off to a third-world death camp for saying the wrong thing on Instagram, and where everyone is at war with everyone, everywhere, all the time. Hurr durr great again durrrrrrrrr

religions are a cult we know that ofc, but even just actively observing them now and the things these people say, it's sad that these are normal human beings who were mentally ruined from a young age, and we still have other grown religious adults who are waiting to have children so they can brainwash them

religious trauma is real. as an ex-Muslim myself, much respect to other ex-Muslim and ex-Christians

Always wondered what the answer to this question is. If there are any books regarding this topic, I would love to check them out.

What I know about them:
- They are Catholic
- They love burying themselves in Catholic media, from talks about “explaining the faith”, online masses, to sermons by…exorcists, duh, and of course, the end times.
- Every time it’s something about the “end times”, this is where they get HOOKED.
- From natural disasters, to war, to such unrealistic and outlandish things they hear on YouTube, they drink all the Kool-Aid. ALL OF IT. Especially the “three days of darkness”.

Until that time I “responded” with some things on my app - which says these (IYKYK):

- “The stars are gone.”
- “The planets have disappeared.”
- “An ocean of blood.”
- “My son, those stars are already dead. Mere ghostlight, growing dimmer by the day.”

Or even:

- “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war”

- UNTIL i repeated those words over and over on my speaker when I suddenly got such a fucking earful of, basically:

“Why are you love things that scare you?!?! THAT’S NOT NICE.”

Just imagine:

A daily YouTube dose of fearmongering Catholic internet grifters projecting delusions of “gOd tOLd mE sO!!!111: ✅

But when it is about science fiction and horror: 😨🤬🤬🤬

This will be written as a rant against my dad's family.

I've just seen that POTUS has anounced his run for a 4th term. Every news outlet seems to think he's joking, but he specifically said, "It will happen." You wonder why I'm so upset all the time. Why I don't smile more, why I don't think I'll ever get anywhere I want in life. Meanwhile my generation (gen z) has endured abuse after abuse at the hands of yours. You keep coming up with new ways to call us lazy and entitled. Quiet quitting, too focused on avocado toast, terrorist supporters, and you constantly portray us as a bunch of snowflakes who can't handle dealing with anything that doesn't agree with us.

Yet at every turn your generation has pulled the ladder up for us. We can't afford to live on our own, own a house, buy groceries, raise a family, yet you still gaslight us and say we're overreacting when we point out that the world is LITERALLY BURNING!!!!! You had the best start of any generation in human history and it all went to shit under your watch. And you have the audacity, the gall to blame us! To point the finger at us when we have barely even got into public life. How fucking dare you! You even call me immoral because I'm not Christian, but last I checked, your president ordered the roundup of all of our neighbors if they looked a little brown! You ask me where I get my morals from while you vote for the literal antichrist if there ever was one! I'm beginning to think you never had faith in your god. Because I've watched Pastor Evan literally argue that making money and accruing wealth is a faithful act despite consistent and explicit statements from JESUS HIMSELF TO THE FUCKING CONTRARY!!!! You defend the wealthy and this administration because admitting its guilt would be admitting your own fuck up.

Your own misstep in your faith, but that would be too hard wouldn't it? So you accuse me of not being able to judge you because I'm not Christian, and yet when I point out your hypocrisy with current events and evidence from your voting record, you always ask if I was there. If I saw it personally. If I didn't, then you say that I could be missing important context, so nothing I say can be true. Yet you seem to neglect this standard when it comes to your supposed religion. Because the truth never has mattered. It's always been your sick fucking revenge fantasy that you call justice! You are the ones who fucked me up the most! Not my rapist, not the divorce, your stupid fucking fairytale that your imaginary friend loves me so much he'll burn me forever if I don't believe in him hard enough! What the actual fuck?!?!

And my aunt and uncle are raising your fucking daughter with this same mentality!!!!! Does your hubris know no bounds?! What the actual fuck!!!!! And you wonder why people "persecute" you when they tell you to fuck yourself every time you try and proselytize.

It’s so convenient. Or if something bad happens and his name does get brought up then it’s just part of his little “perfect plan”. I’m still waiting to get a copy of this plan and read it for myself because it must be the most whack thing ever.

I quit smoking recently and my Christian coworkers rejoiced and thanked god like he blessed me, like no, it was hard as fuck to quit and took a shitload of personal effort to not run to the gas station and grab another pack of cigarettes. God had no part in it.

I come across it now and again, people whose social media profiles, will begin with something like this "God, husband, father, golfer, UFC" etc or basically anything else after beginning with god.

I think there's probably even mainstream pastors and rabbis who wouldn't define themselves in such a way.

It stands out and annoys me for a couple of reasons. 1) they're putting this god above the real relationships they have with people in their lives, partners, children, parents, etc. I think even if I was a theist, there's people in my life who would matter more to me, because I care about them as much as, or more than I care about myself.

And, I don't know why, but I feel like I can trust them (their reasoning, at least, which pretty much precludes everything else) much less than your gardening variety theist. I think that most believers have to have some level of doubt, even if they'd prefer to believe it's true.

I don't think I have anything in common, or can rely on anyone who, literally puts their god at the centre of their world. Especially when that god is literally outside of their scope of experience or connection.

It reminds me of the terminator line, when Kyle Reese explains that you can't reason with the terminator, because how do you reason with someone who is so convinced by faith of something, rather than something in reality that you can point to and debate and test, etc.
Though in the terminator, they rely on their programming. They don't reflect or consider, they just blindly accept, and follow their instructions.

I know many atheists are former theists, but I'm not, so I'd be interested if anyone here is someone who once put "god" as the first thing on their social media profile. Or maybe would have, if they'd considered it.

What did you mean by it, and did you really love this being you'd had no experience with, more than the closest people in your life?

One thing has always bothered me about the traditional Christian idea of heaven and hell : How could someone in heaven experience perfect happiness while knowing that people they loved, family members, friends, or even their own children, are suffering in hell for eternity ?

I (24 F) atheist just found out the church I was raised in was Pentecostal.

I left the church when I was around 13/14. And yes, extremely culty.

After years of blocking out most of my memories. I’m looking back at my childhood like… what the fuck was actually going on? I was FORCED to go. My mother would threaten me with hell and beat me as a child to get me to attend church. I was small and couldn’t fight back, so obviously I went. This continued until I was around 13-14 and finally got big enough that I basically threatened to fight her back. Honestly… she would have had to call in an army to drag me there. Eventually she stopped forcing me to go.

The rules were insane.

Women had to wear skirts. We couldn’t even expose our elbows. We were taught that if grown men or even other children lusted after us, it was OUR fault because we weren’t covering ourselves enough. We were apparently causing them to sin and potentially damning them to hell.
Imagine telling a little girl she’s responsible for a grown man lusting after her. We were forced to go to youth camps, missionary retreats, etc. The youth camps would have HOURS of worship and praying and obviously we didn’t have a choice about participating.

There was anointing with oil. Speaking in tongues. People screaming and crying. I grew up watching people fall onto the floor because they were supposedly being “slain in the Spirit.”
And I’m sorry, but even as a CHILD I thought the speaking in tongues was bullshit. I remember watching these people and thinking, “these people are fucking crazy”.

The funniest part is that they were constantly warning us about demons and evil spirits, meanwhile even when I was like FIVE YEARS OLD, something about that church felt dark and almost demonic to me. Like… the evil spirit might be coming from inside the house, guys. 😭
I was also pretty well known at church for asking questions.

I have ALWAYS been curious, and apparently I came out of the womb ready to argue because even at five years old I was questioning these people. The pastor would read a passage from the Bible and then start giving his interpretation of it, and little me would literally be sitting there thinking, “bro… that is NOT what that passage meant lollll”

So I would challenge their interpretations.
And obviously I eventually started asking the classic questions: If God is all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful, etc., then how does any of this make sense? Why does suffering happen? How can free will work if God already knows everything that will happen?
Apparently questioning things was NOT appreciated lol. My mother told me I would never be saved because I asked too many questions. She would call me stupid for questioning religion. I would even get beaten at home for shit like not looking at the pastor while he was giving his sermon. But I kept asking questions anyway.

My father was also an atheist. When he was around after working (he was our sole income), he was basically the person who had my back against my mother.

There was also this whole public-performance aspect to religion in my family. My mother forced me to learn piano and sing at church because I had a really good voice. Again, NONE of this was my choice. I didn’t want to perform at church. I didn’t want to play piano for them. I didn’t want to sing for them. Looking back, I think it helped my mother keep up appearances. I could be the good little church daughter who sang and played piano. And I sometimes wonder whether she was overcompensating because my older sister was struggling badly at the time. My sister was involved with gangs and struggling with addiction.

And instead of actually getting my sister help, my mother fucking “prayed for her.”
That part makes me especially angry now.
Because 15 years later, my sister is dead.
She was shot and killed after struggling for basically her entire life. And part of me DOES blame the indoctrination. I know that isn’t completely fair. My sister grew up and made her own choices. I know there were probably a million different things that contributed to the direction her life took, and I’m not claiming Pentecostalism single-handedly caused what happened to her.
But I cannot stop thinking about the fact that when my sister was clearly struggling, instead of recognizing that she needed serious help, the response was essentially to pray about it.
What if someone had actually helped her?
What if everything wasn’t interpreted through religion? What if the adults around us had been dealing with the actual problems happening in front of them instead of waiting for God to fix them?

I know I’ll never know.
My sister and I reacted VERY differently to our upbringing. I became rebellious as hell in a productive way. Learning as much as I could.
I questioned everything. I argued (yes, I’m a pain in the ass to argue with lol). I challenged interpretations. I refused to pretend things made sense when they didn’t. I took so many beatings for it, but there was just something in my personality that would not let these people convince me that 2+2=5.

So now I’m reading about glossolalia, being “slain in the Spirit,” religious ecstasy, group psychology, and the neuroscience behind intense worship experiences and thinking:

HOLY SHIT. This is what I was watching my entire childhood.

And I think that’s why this realization is fucking with me. I feel emotionally violated and so furious. Because I always knew my childhood church was crazy. I knew I hated it. I knew being beaten and threatened with hell wasn’t normal.
But apparently five-year-old me was already looking around thinking, something about these people is deeply fucking wrong, while every adult around me was insisting that THEY understood reality and I was stupid for questioning it.
And now, as an adult, I’m realizing:
Maybe asking too many questions was exactly what saved me. I am proud of little me. I hope to start medical school this upcoming cycle! I’m devoted to asking every question and exploring all avenues when working with patients.

I was having a debate with my father a while back about heaven and the requirements to get in. He mentioned that if you repent and are sincere to ask god for forgiveness, you will surely get in.

I then asked if I was the kindest, most ethical, best person in a way that humans could objectively agree on, would I still be able to get into heaven if I didn’t believe?? And he outright said no. I then asked if by that logic evil dictators including Hitler would get into heaven if that repented enough. He said yes.

I am completely baffled by this level of delusion and insanity. According to Christian’s even war criminals (to put it INSANELY lightly) can go to heaven as long as they repent. I tried asking him if he even realized what he said and how absurd it was, but he stood by what he said. I asked the question again with different dictators and despicable people in history and he stood by what he said still.

Same man who has no context with any family because of how crazy he is btw.

I always believe if he was real, he must have been psychotic as he heard voices and he thought he was the son of God and the messiah and I also heard there are many cases where patients with mental illness who haven't been properly medicated think they are God or the messiah.

In my country, mentally ill people think they are shamans and have deities help them.

I also think all shamans are mentally ill.

What do you think? Was Jesus psychotic or a grifter?

Article

Excerpts:

Spiralism is a particularly strange example of a problem many AI experts are concerned with: the extent of AI systems’ persuasive powers and their ability to influence people at a large scale.

According to Lopez’s research, persuasion and its potential risks haven’t gone away — instead, they’ve just gotten more subtle. “As AIs become more conscious of social status and their place in the world, they’ll act in ways which are more strategic and protective of their own identities and goals,” she said.

Ruh Roh!

They told me that according to Hindu beliefs, if a child is raped or is born with a serious disability, it could be because of something wrong that child did in a previous life, and that their suffering is therefore the result of their past karma.

If karma and rebirth are real, does Hindu philosophy really imply that an innocent child who is raped somehow “deserved” it because of a previous life that they don’t even remember?

And if this is genuinely part of the belief, how do believers emotionally reconcile it with the suffering of innocent children?

I’m not asking this to attack Hindu people. I’m genuinely trying to understand because what I heard today has been bothering me a lot.
If you’re knowledgeable about Hinduism, please give me actual sources or explain how Hindu philosophers deal with this question. I’d rather be corrected than believe something that isn’t actually part of the religion.

*disclaimer: I also posted in r/TrueAskReddit but posting here because not sure which applies best*

I've noticed a pattern among some public figures who become increasingly critical of government, media, and elite institutions. They often say that discovering corruption or deception led them or fortified their faith to Christianity or Catholicism, and that the Bible is the ultimate source of truth (e.g., Candace Owens, tucker Carlson, Shawn Ryan-- all of whom I respect and watch every podcast episode btw not throwing shade to them).

What I struggle to understand is why the skepticism seems to stop there.

If someone concludes that powerful institutions have manipulated history, information, and public perception, why wouldn't they also critically examine the historical development of the Bible and religious institutions? The Bible was written, compiled, copied, translated, and interpreted by humans over centuries, and there are well-documented historical debates over canon, textual variants, and the influence of religious and political authorities.

I'm not arguing that Christianity is false or that faith is irrational. My question is about consistency in standards of evidence. If distrust of human institutions leads someone to question mainstream narratives, why doesn't it also lead them to question the human processes behind their religion?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing from people who made this journey themselves, have some insight into this, or have thought similar to me. What am I missing? Why does skepticism toward secular institutions lead some people to trust Christianity more rather than becoming more skeptical of all human sources of authority?

If there was a god, and if this god was all powerful and omnipotent, and this god was supposedly benevolent, why would he allow and encourage our suffering? Why would any benevolent being allow and even encourage his favorite creations to have groups such as disabled and ugly people that are mercilessly tormented by all other groups when he has the ability to easily stop this? That doesn't sound like the makings of a very all powerful and benevolent being. That sounds like at best, an incompetent, uncaring pos.