apostatesque

[apostatesque]

I logically understand what people are getting at when they say stuff along the lines of "christianity is fine when it's love based and not fear based!" but... 99% of churches will self identify as being love based regardless the actual doctrine they're preaching.

And certain doctrine are fear based doctrine no matter how you dress it up. Hell (especially eternal conscious torment) as a concept is fear based. It doesn't matter if you scream about brimstone and hellfire for hours or if you gently preach about how lucky we are to be loved enough to be saved from that fate (if we only give up our entire lives). "Love me or burn for all eternity" is coercion. And coercion is not love.

"Fear based" churches genuinely believe the most loving thing to do is to make sure people are aware of what's at stake. It's a parent using corporal punishment and saying "I'm only doing this because I love you", despite study after study indicating that any "benefit" of changed behavior comes with long-lasting harm... because it's abuse. It's not a metric that will actually promote any kind of meaningful change because of how prevalent the belief of "the ends justify the means" is in christianity.

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kids who werent raised christian being like "lol baptising children is whack if they tried to do that to me i would start doing things to make it look like i was possessed" no you would not. you would bask in the pride and approval coming from the adults around you and you would quietly wait your turn because you were told from birth that sinning sends you to hell and baptism is The Promise that youre dedicating your life to jesus that youve had hyped up for years and watched other people be fawned over as they cry happy tears about it and you do NOT want to fuck up your One Big True Promise To Love Jesus Forever So You Don't Get Tortured For Eternity when you are literally 8 years old. im begging yall to remember its a thousand times easier to see the church's bullshit for what it is when you're not actively in the church. eight year old you is not thinking about trying to fight back against an oppressive religious group indoctrinating children because You Are The Children Being Indoctrinated. stop acting like you would've magically known better if it were you.

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Look, we joke a lot, but really, "you were born evil, wretched, worse than the scum of the earth, and it took killing a god to make you salvageable, so now you'd better be grateful to that god and thank him 10,000 times a day for it and fill your thoughts with him 24/7 and abide by the letter of his every word, lest you suffer unimaginable torture for all of eternity" is a truly horrendous thing to believe about yourself and other people

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It's so annoying that challenging almost anything within Christianity is really like challenging all of it. Like for a lot of people, challenging the conservative teaching on homosexuality involves challenging the validity of scripture and the goodness of God. In theory it should be easier to get people to change their mind on a single piece of theology, but doing that feels like it is going to require to topple the whole damn tower

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Me: maybe I'm being too harsh on christians

Conservative christians: Genocide is morally ok when god does or commands it and you cannot comprehend why because you're an unknowing human. Also you can't call anything immoral if you're not christian because god is the arbiter of morality. You only have personal preference, not morals. So there!

Progressive christians: the antichrist is real and the rapture is coming so please become a christian before you go to hell! Unless you already have the mark of the beast and then it's too late for you :( Jesus loves you!

Me: ... I'm not harsh enough.

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"In my experience, if someone wants privacy that means they are doing something wrong. Otherwise they'd be open about it."

This is something I recently heard a Christian in my life say in a group conversation. And no one batted an eye. Except me. Here I am, batting an eye. Heck, maybe both eyes.

As I sit here blinking with meaning, I am grateful for the privacy I have fostered for myself. After leaving Christianity, I had to do a lot of therapy to even consider that my life belonged to me and I could choose how much to share with others.

In fundamentalist Christianity, I grew up under constant surveillance; theoretically by God but actually by my parents. I was trained to accept that I had no privacy and to desire privacy was wrong. And as an adult, I still struggle with setting boundaries with fundamentalists in my life because of statements like this.

It took me a while to stand firm in my boundaries and value my own privacy. But having boundaries has helped me feel safer talking to people whose default mode is to disrespect and condemn privacy. It has helped me start to repair and rebuild relationships in a healthier way.

Privacy does not imply guilt. Everyone is allowed to have some privacy in their life. Yes, it is good to share parts of our lives with others. But the insistence that we must submit to surveillance and interrogation or be wholly condemned is deeply troubling.

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I might not be a girl or a woman anymore, but I will never forget the way that 8 year old me had to wear a t-shirt under her summer sundress. She was told that it would be her fault if a man saw her shoulders and was tempted to sin.

I have seen little kids out in “immodest”clothing: tank tops with dinos, polkadotted short shorts, unicorn crop tops. You know how many of those children I’ve had sinful thoughts about?

None.

Imagine being such a spineless fucking pedophile that you blame the child for daring to have a body.

Remember when the men said to Christ, “the scantily-clad woman is causing us to have impure thoughts!”

They waited to hear “she must cover her body.”

Instead, Christ replied “if your hand betrays you, cut it off; and if your eyes cause you to sin, gouge them out.”

It’s high time to bring that back.

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i’m sorry but even if your personal version of mormonism excludes all the “if you’re a good mormon your skin will turn white when you die, no matter your race” and “dark skin is a sign of the devil” bs, your religion is still racist.

the idea that israelites sailed across the atlantic ocean and formed a population in north america that could be attributed to native americans is racist.

the idea that jesus christ appeared to native americans and converted them to christianity pre-colonial times is racist.

the idea that the arrival of christianity to north america with european colonialism was a prophesied “reintroduction” of christianity is racist.

the foundations of your religion are racist.

the foundations of your religion are historical negationism.

the foundations of your religion justify american colonialism as the will of god.

try as hard as you want, it’s impossible to remove racism from mormonism. it’s racist by nature.

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[apostatesque]

If you're trying to unpack and heal from Christian religious trauma, a thing you really need to understand (if you don't already) is that you were probably misled about Judaism a lot. Christianity generally tries to paint itself as the self-evident successor of Judaism, and one of the ways it does this is by painting Judaism as Christianity Without Jesus.

In reality, Judaism is practiced very differently from Christianity, and Jews have a very different relationship to their Bible than Christians have to theirs. Just about everything you'll hear about Judaism from Christians is total hogwash - literally, it's Christian propaganda. Christianity as most of us know it was shaped by the Roman Empire's political agendas, and that's a huge reason why it's the way it is.

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But I bet you've had a conservative Christian do this.

[apostatesque]

The ultracatholics on this website aren't actually trying to "debate" you. They think they are trying to save you.

What is actually happening, is they're saying inflammatory things that get strong negative reactions from readers. People yell at them in response. This generates a feeling of being attacked, so they can continue to see themselves as an underdog.

This entire dynamic can be shortcutted by simply blocking them and moving on with your life.

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"not all christians"

Then fucking be louder than the ones screaming violent hate the way the rest of us breathe oxygen. Because until you're loudly opposing them, continuously, even when it's "inconvenient", you're complacent in their hate. You're complacent in their abuse. That's on your hands. Hope you're ready to answer to your god for that.

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[Image ID: a tweet by Rachel Myers @rachelsaheretic 

Say no to that coffee invite, don’t respond to that old church friend who is reaching out “concerned” because of your new beliefs, set a boundary with how much of your story you share with those who won’t value it. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for your journey.

End ID]

[apostatesque]

i’m sorry but even if your personal version of mormonism excludes all the “if you’re a good mormon your skin will turn white when you die, no matter your race” and “dark skin is a sign of the devil” bs, your religion is still racist.

the idea that israelites sailed across the atlantic ocean and formed a population in north america that could be attributed to native americans is racist.

the idea that jesus christ appeared to native americans and converted them to christianity pre-colonial times is racist.

the idea that the arrival of christianity to north america with european colonialism was a prophesied “reintroduction” of christianity is racist.

the foundations of your religion are racist.

the foundations of your religion are historical negationism.

the foundations of your religion justify american colonialism as the will of god.

try as hard as you want, it’s impossible to remove racism from mormonism. it’s racist by nature.

[apostatesque]

Something I find deeply, deeply misery-inducing about the majority of Christians is that they feel the need to make excuses for God.

I cannot have a conversation about anything difficult with them, or the state of my faith, without them trying to explain why things are what they are or how God “isn’t really like that” or “not all churches are like that” and it’s fucking irritating. If God exists, and I still believe he or she or they do, then God can make their own apologies. God through a Christian lense is like light distorted and refracted through a thousand dirty stained glass windows until it’s unrecognisable, even monstrous, but nobody is allowed to point that out.

Last night I had a religious-trauma-induced panic attack and my boyfriend, who doesn’t believe in God or life after death, held me and comforted me and told me I was safe all night. I’ve never known love like his before, and especially, ironically not among the “Saved”. I can’t go to church anymore because it makes me physically ill. And yet, when I tell Christians about this they say his love is a gift from God and it’s really about God showing me his love through my boyfriend. Shut up. Shut the FUCK up. Don’t take agency away from my boyfriend. Don’t tell me what God is doing. God doesn’t need your excuses or apologies or explanations. They’re an insult.