#deconversion

[seraphimfall]

there is an insane amount of antisemitism floating around right now.

i just want to say:

this blog loves and supports jewish people.

this blog does NOT conflate the israeli government, or the atrocities it commits, with jewish people.

this blog is disgusted with those who use or express antisemitism.

this blog knows that if someone needs to invoke antisemitism, they do not actually care about helping palestine or the palestinian people.

this blog will do its best to ensure that it remains a safe space for all.

[alienbycomics]

Content Warning: religion and transphobia⚠️

Happy Trans Day of Visibility 🏳️‍⚧️ I made a comic reflecting on my church upbringing as an eXvangelical trans person. The Jesus conservative Christians claim to represent looked lot more like many of the LGBTQ+ friends I know and love. Just some food for thought 💖

Here’s a link to a supplementary post: Jesus and Gender Non-Conformity in Christian Art

[dukeofankh]

I cannot express how jarring it was after being raised by a "Porn Addiction Coach" to get into a relationship with a woman and come face to face with the fact that she did actually want me to sexually desire her.

Like, in Evangelical Purity Culture, male desire was basically poison. It was a threat. It was this constant temptation that would destroy everything. And even after leaving, in the sort of queer, feminist spaces i spend most of my time in that wasn't something that pretty much anyone was spending time actively dissuading me from feeling.

But my desire is good. It's not something that I'm being accepted in spite of. It's a positive thing. It's a bonus. Not even just vanilla stuff, all the stuff I'd convinced myself were these weird terrible desires that were shameful to have.

It honestly took me over a decade to fully accept that. To stop dissociating during sex and confront that I was, in fact, being a massive perv and that was fantastic and preferable and that I could accept that into my self-image without shame or self hatred.

But it's important to do. It's important to leave relationships that don't welcome that part of you. To know that your sexuality is valuable and valid and worth owning and celebrating. Because the alternative is just...not being. Either existing as yourself and repressing the part of your identity that is sexual or allowing that sexuality to exist but turning off your self while it does.

[sagewing]

It may have taken me a month to get around to finishing this but here's the second page to this comic! This dives a little more into my reasons for leaving christianity, so be nice in the reblogs/comments. I'm not afraid to use the block button

Bluesky

Check out my comms!

[doll-face626]

Catholicism is weird

[hulahoopsoupgroup]

the seven deadly sins are such bullshit fear tactics. if youve left the church, embrace them.

be proud of who you are. be happy when you look in the mirror and see how hot you are. yeah i see you flexing in the mirror after a workout. nice progress btw honey you look nice today.

dont worry about getting seconds, or thirds even, at dinner. dont worry about eating what society says is "too much" or "too little". eat until youre full. set aside what you cant finish for later so you dont waste food.

its okay to be greedy. its okay to want things for yourself. sometimes we see things that people have and we're like "dude i wish i had that." thats just human. envy and greed on that level are normal.

take a rest day. dont bother going to church this sunday. take a shower, read a book, drink some tea, eat some good food, pet a cat or dog. take care of yourself; its not lazy.

be angry with those who wronged you. punch a punching bag, write about how much you hate them, go work out aggressively and take care of your emotions in a way that doesnt hurt yourself or others. its okay to not forgive the people who hurt you. you arent doing anything wrong, babe.

embrace your sexuality (or, if it applies, asexuality, cause yall need love too). stop feeling shame for wanting pleasure. go read or watch something that turns you on. explore your body. ask your partner to try something new. if youre asexual, then fucking step on the people who say you need to have sexual attraction to be human. you dont. you dont need to be allosexual (or alloromantic) to "qualify as a human." we all experience life in different ways. find your way to experience it.

thought crime isnt real

do no harm but take no shit

[oxytocinatrocities]

Just a hunch.

Matt 25:31-45

[winged-thinged]

I lived for a while bending over backwards to try to justify how my liberal beliefs fit into my Catholicism, cherrypicking scripture and arguing with tradition. It's definitely possible. But you know what? It's exhausting, constantly fighting for a place in a community that ultimately does not want you and isn't interested in changing.

When I was a theology student, I snarled at people who suggested that what I was really doing was asserting my beliefs and then assigning them to God (because I knew that gay people were natural and good, and God was good, so God must think so too, right?). I talked a lot about "ongoing revelation." About "indwelling" and human reason. I had to justify it to myself, because I wasn't willing to question the foundation that I had built myself on.

Because so little of my belief was actually built on what the Church and the Bible said, many of the traditional debunking arguments just didn't work on me. I didn't think that. I was sure that I was right and those other Christians were wrong.

But all that work eventually begs the question. Is it worth it? Why call yourself a Christian at all, when you have already traveled so far away from the foundations of Christianity?

And so I took a good hard look at what most of the Christians around me actually believed and how they acted. I finally let myself ask the question: what if I do them the courtesy of taking them at their word? What if I take their claims seriously, instead of imposing my own ideas about right and wrong onto the god that they believe in?

And what I immediately felt was revulsion. If God was actually like what the Church teaches, and not like the image I had been building up in my head all these years, then I wanted nothing to do with him. I remember, shortly after asking myself this question, I took communion for what would turn out to be the last time. I couldn't swallow. I wanted to vomit. The idea of taking a deity who believed and acted like my community said he did into my body, letting him touch my soul, was despicable. I decided then and there that, if God was real, I'd rather go to hell than worship him. I walked away, and I have never looked back.

I am so much lighter, now, not having to twist myself into knots justifying how my beliefs fit into a Catholic structure. I cut out the middle man. It is enough to simply use my mind and my heart to observe the world decide what's right for me. I'm perfectly capable of philosophical and moral reasoning on my own. No divine revelations required.

[aliteralactualfactualgremlin]

Thinking back to how in christianity nothing was my own

My “gift” of singing and playing the piano? That’s not anything I worked for that was god. And because it was god's, to use that talent for music of my own rather than praising him was “a waste of my gifts”

My “gift” of wisdom and a keen ability to give people the advice and counsel they need? Yeah that’s only because god was speaking through me

Any good I could do was immediately taken from me and instead ascribed to god because, as a human being, “I’m so terrible nothing good could ever come from me except through divine will”

At the heart of traditional christian religion is such a deep seated loathing for all things human that in its followers that will either manifest as a hatred for others or a hatred for oneself

Guess which one my younger and emotionally vulnerable self fell into the trap of

[joyfulexchristian]

Resurrection Day?

I kind of wish I had a specific day when I officially wasn't a Christian anymore. It would be so satisfying to celebrate the day I came back to life. But when I look back, it happened in drips and drabs. I let go of Heaven before I let go of Hell. I let go of God before I let go of Jesus. I stopped hating the world before I stopped hating myself.

It really did feel like I came back to life after leaving Christianity. I'd died to myself every day for the sake of Christ since I was a child. Stopping that cycle felt impossible. And I felt like I had to do it on my own. I had no community of exChristians at the time.

But I did have people around me who hadn't given up on this life. They didn't die every day. They didn't accept that the whim of a god could decide their worth. They LIVED, regardless of godly permission.

I am so glad that finally accepted that there was no good life for me in Christianity. So I turned away from Christ and toward life and found other people making the same journey!

I am deeply grateful for the encouragement I got along the way, and for the opportunity to do that for other people making their way back to life!

As Easter approaches, I'm thinking about celebrating my return to life after years of living under death-and-doom-obsessed Christianity, even if the actual anniversary isn't clear.

Maybe I'll just pick a day and celebrate my resurrection anyway! Would it be rude to choose Easter? (fully kidding)

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[seraphimfall]

i’ve read so much tradcath bullshit the last two years. i can confidently say tradcath men fit into one of two categories:

“protestant-raised and converted to catholicism because of his crippling porn addiction and racist tendencies. reposts crusader and conquistador memes. is hated in his local parish.” tradcath

“catholic-raised band kid who ate his lunches with the religion teacher. smells like mildew. cut off all his friends that came out as gay after high school. now larps as an aquinian scholar and cries after jerking off.” tradcath

[descisco]

anyways, fuck religion

[apostateoverrubies]

It's funny how certain religious people act like accepting LGBTQ rights will lead to paedophilia being normalized when they've already let that shit slide for centuries.

Then again, what else do you expect from people who value religion over the rights of children?

Don't let them trick you into thinking they care.

[asicksenseofhumor]

[notevenbread]

there's this argument i see sometimes with Christians regarding the existence of Hell and how weird and fucked up it is that god sends you there of 'well, actually GOD didn't send you to Hell, you sent YOURSELF to Hell'

but like. god MADE the whole system, no?

imagine a scenario where your government goes to war, and they implement a draft that randomly picks from any citizen over 18 who has never enrolled in college (including the scenarios where they were unable to attend because of mental health or poverty or something) to send to fight. would you say that the government sent you to war, or that you sent yourself to war, by not going to college?

[the-jesus-pill]

If no one has told you yet

💗 I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself

💗 You are not selfish for setting boundaries

💗 You deserve to love yourself

💗 You deserve to live a peaceful life

💗 You are not evil or broken

💗 Things will get better

💗 There are people out there waiting to love you properly

💗 You have all the time in the world to do what you want to do

💗 Things will be okay

💗 You are strong enough to carry on