#ex christian

[deservedgrace]

The double bind of "if bad things are happening to you it's because you're not a christian and god is punishing you" but when you are a christian and bad things are still happening it's "bad things are actually a gift from god because trials make your relationship stronger" is actually wild. If a romantic partner was like "I'm going to cheat on you and treat you badly so we can overcome it together and strengthen our relationship" we would rightfully call it abuse. If you punished someone for the grave offense of *checks notes* choosing not to engage in a relationship with you, people (hopefully) wouldn't be like "just get in a relationship with them to stop the abuse". You don't owe a relationship to anybody, but especially people who are abusive and harmful!

[winged-thinged]

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

[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.

[gibbearish]

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.

[creature-wizard]

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.

[escaping-amish]

I love how he finds the words to describe the concepts that float around my head daily ❤️❤️❤️❤️ love him!

[weaver-z]

I heard this metaphor growing up, and in my case, it backfired supremely, because I went out into my neighbor's backyard where a rose bush was growing, and the one I tested had like 30 petals (it was yellow, but definitely a rose of some kind), and as a very logical lass, I came to the conclusion that you could have premarital sex AT LEAST ten times before your future husband would even notice something was up. Moral of the story? Test your metaphors on the weirdest and most neurodivergent child you know before writing your weird religious propaganda.

[the-rad1o-demon]

So far, chances of KOSA being enacted is 31% according to the site linked below.

Let's get that fucker down to zero, guys!!

Stuff to help us do that is linked here!

The call scripts linked below were originally for Congressional representatives, but now that the bill is in committee consideration by Senate Commerce, you should call your Senators instead and you can use the scripts for them. Also, when calling your Democrat senators, make sure to add that Senator Blackburn explicitly stated in interview that it would be used to "protect children from the transgender." I think it's pretty clear that this is not meant to protect children. It's just going to harm children further, especially trans children.

(Article below with a video of the interview embedded.)

Please help stop this bill in its tracks. Reblog, donate, call your senators, and keep an eye on the bill's chances of being passed. We can't stop now. 31% is still kind of a big number. We need to shrink those chances by a lot more.

[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

[theblasianwitch]

Stole this from a friend with permission

[ungodlydandelion]

"But she gave birth to you, you owe her!"

My mother wanted to be a mother. It was her dream to be a mother. She poured all her energy into being a Good Christian Mother.

She did not want me. She wanted motherhood. I was a side effect of her dream. Once I was old enough to disagree with her, she hated me. I wasn't making her look like a Good Christian Mother. I was loud, disobedient, needy... almost like a child. Not quiet and pretty and grateful for crumbs.

Yes, she birthed me. For herself and her partner. For the people who were already born. Not for me. As all mothers have for all of time. It's not the birthing that makes a mother worth honoring, it's the parenting.

[intheholler]

[winged-thinged]

You do not have to stay up and wait. The end of the world is not coming. You do not have to act as a witness. Nothing bad will happen if you close your eyes. Go to sleep. The man called Jesus is dead. The terror of that night was over a long time ago. Humans hurt each other all the time. It doesn't mean anything. There is nothing you can do about it right now. It's late. The world will still be there in the morning.

Go to sleep.

[queerism1969]

[ardent-apostasy]

forceful reminder as we come up to easter weekend that you were not born bad. that it is good that you are alive. that you were not born to be evil, or born to die for the cause, or born to be broken.

[theshoesofatiredman]

It's really fucked up how Christianity teaches that some people can only be reached for Christ when they hit rock bottom. Christians will pray for people to endure tremendous suffering simply so that the non-believers can hear the voice of god. Truly an abysmal failure in imagining a loving god.

"he's so loving because he caused me to experience the greatest pain of my life so that I could finally listen to him"

Absolutely insane move on the part of an all powerful, all knowing, all loving deity. You're telling me the ONLY WAY was the road of agony? Unrelenting love, kindness, and divine revelation weren't options?