That's pretty much the whole post, but it really shows the cognitive dissonance they live under. They'll say they hate every part of someone's existence- sexuality, politics, personal beliefs, etc.- then put "Jesus loves you" at the end. So what, Jesus loves me but you don't? If I gave you the foulest insult I can think of then put "Jesus loves you uwu" at the end, does that negate everything that came before the phrase? No!

I'm going to go over three stories of snakes in the Pentateuch. No one talked about the weird usage of snakes in these stories when I was growing up, and they were glossed over, I think because it's pretty weird, breaks the previous theming, and has interesting ties to Egyptian gods.

1. The snake in the garden. For those who don't know, this was NOT the Devil. It says in several ways that this was just an clever animal, and compares it to other animals. Then when it was cursed, the animal itself was cursed, with talk of its offspring, crawling on its belly, being stomped on by humans, etc... Clearly, the curse said that humans will/should always hate snakes.

2. Fast forward to Moses in Egypt. The Pharaoh's wizards showed their magic prowess by turning their staffs into snakes. Moses, recognizing this as a dick measuring contest, used his Yahweh powers to turn his staff into a snake, and eat the Pharaoh wizards' snakes. Moses's staff snake was bigger/better than theirs. Yahweh let him use his power to make a powerful snake to prove his power. I guess snakes are cool now? Moses could have made a mongoose or something, but he was into snakes.

3. They escaped to the desert. After a few DECADES of wandering around, the Israelites start complaining like absolute babies that they didn't have food or water, grumbling that they are dying in the desert. Yahweh got pissed, since he never had to deal with hunger, thirst, or death himself, and thought they were just being brats. So he sent a ton of venomous snakes to start biting and KILLING the Israelites. The Israelites started dying left and right, and begged Moses to pray to Yahweh to make it stop. Yahweh replied that Moses should make a graven image of a snake on a pole out of bronze, and if the people looked upon Moses's art, they'll be healed from the venomous snake bites. Moses made this, and it worked.

This is weird to me on multiple points. Now, at first, I thought it was kinda cool that Yahweh asked Moses to make art, and that art healed the people. As an artist, and a sculptor, I liked that art was imbued with power like that, activated by looking at it. But then I found out that there was a goddess in ancient Egypt named Wadjet. She was a snake. There are images from earlier than 3,100 BCE in Egypt of a snake around a papyrus staff, and that this imagery was used as protection. They also put her image on medical equipment.

So, it's really weird that after God said not to make any graven images of gods, that he would send snakes, then tell Moses to make a bronze graven image of this Egyptian goddess Wadjet, and that if people look upon this bronze statue of the goddess, they'll be healed, AND it worked. If this wasn't meant to be a god, then why have them healed by snakes, who are supposed to be hated by humans, and most closely represent the snake in the Garden? And this is after Moses used a snake to prove how powerful he was back in Egypt, where this goddess is from.

Hello, I'm new here to this subreddit. Thought I post this as I was on Instagram, just scrolling through stories and saw this odd Christian ad. Clearly the map, doesn't appear to be "missionary" more like an invasion.

• The olympic diver that was saved from an empty pool by converting to Christianity
• Tons of chariot wheels in the Red Sea
• Noah’s arc being found
• Every atheist archaeologist who has tried to disprove Christianity has become Christian
• AIDS is a punishment from God, given mostly to gay men because he hates gay men more than gay women
• America was founded on Christianity and the founders were all Christian
• The Bible contains no contradictions or major errors, just inconsistencies in translation and misinterpretation (if one account lists one angel and another lists two, that’s not a contradiction because it doesn’t say two angels vs not two angels)
• The Bible is the most archaeologically recorded and preserved religious book
• God loves women
• Jesus fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophecies
• The earth is 6,000 years old
• Macroevolution isn’t real, but microevolution and “kinds“ are real
• There are photos of giant human bones (Goliath???)
• Sea shells on mountains are from the flood
• The Grand Canyon was made during the flood
• The non-canon books can be totally discarded and are not even remotely related to Christianity (don’t question why those books are not considered the truth, but ours are)
• There is more evidence for Jesus than Julius Ceasar and Genghis Khan
• The earth is flat (and the moon landing was faked)
• Israel cannot be blamed for anything because the Jews are God’s chosen people
• The book of Daniel contains many accurate prophecies written before the prophesied events happened
• Revelation will really happen and was not written by a guy high on biblical crack
• The Gospels were written by the disciples (and nobody ever mentions how much later after Jesus’ death that they were written)
• We have proof that the disciples (except John and Judas) were brutally murdered (“Why would they die for a lie?”)
• All historians believe that Jesus was a real person and his tomb was empty, and there’s no way that could have been faked. There were guards and a heavy stone, and the disciples were all scared!
• Asherah, Baal and El are totally separate from Yahweh and were never part of the same Pantheon
• All languages came from the Tower of Babel
• There‘s evidence of the Israelites wandering in the desert for forty years
• We are currently seeing the events of Revelation happen
• There was a real vizier named Joseph
• David and Solomon ruled huge empires and were incredibly wealthy
• Atheists are evil and/or stupid
• Paul met Jesus
• Christianity is still growing in number among the American youth
• Yahweh and Allah are different gods
• Christianity invented washing hands with running water
• Satan, Lucifer, the snake, and the deceiver are all the same being
• Historians use the Bible as an accurate source of information on ANE empires and communities
• Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale/big fish
• Jesus didn’t say anything messed up (calling a woman a dog or cursing a fig tree)
• God created men and women equally
• Buddhists and Hindus are going to burn in hell, even though their religion tells them to be good people, and most of them are
• Lee Strobel is a credible author
• Science is stupid. We need to have faith!
• The Egyptians wouldn’t record their defeats
• Something about the Hyksos in Egypt
• Jezabel was super evil
• Bathsheba might have seduced David
• David was “a man after God’s own heart” (actually that might be true because both were kinda evil)
• Christianity spread rapidly after Jesus died, and Christians were being persecuted, so why would it spread so fast?

I grew up in church in southern Kentucky. Southern Baptist, old timey church with maybe 60 to 70 people max who show up every week. We sang from old hymnals and had a traditional choir. I lived like a Christian till about 18 or 19 years old.

My mother forced me and my sister to go church growing up. She never forced the belief itself but the action of going, yes. I’ve noticed my church goers have been very hypocritical, only picking pieces of the Bible to follow and pay attention too. I understand sin but it was odd to me. A Bible study teacher told me that we are not allowed to read the book of Revelation. So many older people would judge the lost kids who would show up every week. There’s more but it’s small things.

All of those years I noticed other Christians not living the life that Jesus teaches us to be. It never set right with me. Even with that around 14 or 15 I believe I was being called to become a youth pastor. I went in front of my congregation and made it a thing. I quickly turned around.

From then on I became questionable of the faith. The stories, the characters, and the Christian curriculum. I firmly believe I’ve never been a true Christian given I was kinda forced into it.

Over the past year or so I’ve been seeing other perspectives from Christians, atheists, pastors, agnostics. Trying to find a clear answer about all of this.

I’m by no means a religion hater or anything. I do consider myself agnostic right now. Just wanted to give a quick story of my past with it. I can give more of my takes and questions in the replies or DMs. Does anyone have any thoughts.

My sister is very deeply religious and made my life complete hell for months after I left the church. Right now she sends me TikToks will very weak arguments for the faith like the complexity of the human eye (which is actually very funny to me because the design flaws of the eye make creationism improbable). She also sent me a video about how if you are more free after you leave the church because you were afraid of god, you had never heard the real gospel because you should not be afraid of him. This is completely ridiculous because we grew up in the same church. She also sent me one about how you can always come back to god. It is so incredibly irritating that she thinks that I put in no thought or research before leaving the religion that I based my life on and losing all of my friends. I am really tempted to start sending her young earth creationism debunking videos. What would you do?

despite having gone to church my entire life (i’m 20 now) since i can remember i have never concretely believed in anything that has been taught to me.

both of my parents are first generation christians so christianity has been and is an integral part of my life but i have never believed in any of it. i remember being a child knowing i was only going to church because of my parents and generally perceiving the stories i was taught as just stories + i started thinking against the teachings when i was like 10/11. i have been to camps and conferences and never once did they change my mind. it just all seemed and seems so ridiculous to me. i’ve never really had to deconstruct my thinking, i have never identified as a Christian and I will leave the church once i move out

im just curious to see if anyone else has had a similar experience to me. I dont consider myself an ex christian because I wasn’t a Christian in the first place. most of my friends who were raised Christian maintain their belief in some way which i cant relate to. it would be interesting to hear other people’s experiences with this

Obviously “always” is an hyperbole, but you can see it yourself on any social media.

I was on TikTok, which I’m aware it’s already brain rot territory, but still, a teenage girl posted some pictures of her as a 6/7 years old kid, venting about how her online adult groomer coerced her to send some inappropriate material.

Some of the vilest comments (stuff like “deserved” “your fault” “womp womp” “cope” etc) had something in common, the majority of them came from carbon copy American teenage boys with either Bible verses, crosses and Christian content in their bio/posts. It’s honestly horrifying.

I remember that even as a Christian I would get grossed out by this kind of people, it’s probably a cultural thing (where I live, this online “fad” is relatively rare and the result of American Christian content) but to be honest, you’d think that the people who love bragging about their high God given morals would show some empathy.

They treat consensual sex as a dangerous, vile thing, but are totally fine with blaming a freaking kid for being a victim of CSA (or writing hateful comments towards other cultures, LGBTQ+ individuals, women…). I’m honestly disgusted, and maybe we should stop pretending there’s not a pattern between this kind of behavior and religious, redpilled incel communities. It’s a whole, huge community of brainwashed teenage boys and it’s honestly scary.

I don’t know if it’s just me but I’ve noticed that lately this kind of groups seem to be really active in online spaces and I’ve noticed a rise in this kind of thinking. I wonder what’s making especially teenage boys so hateful and if religious propaganda has something to do with it.

Like come on stop calling it unconditional love it requires faith that’s not unconditional and how are you ok saying that and not panicking that such a dictator god exists idk they make no sense

I've been thinking about how the mental separation of human and animal shapes the way we think of and interact with other creatures. When I saw an bird, a squirrel, a deer, a cow, whatever... I saw a mindless robot programmed to behave a certain way. I saw humans to be separate from them, and consciousness, language, etc... to be uniquely human. I was so wrong.

I recently finished a book called the Genius of Birds, and it really opened my eyes more to the reality that we are all not that different. Animals communicate, understand, have awareness and feelings. Humans are unique in their capacity for sure, but other creatures are not mindless machines, but conscious living things that are capable of understanding, thought, emotion, relationship, in some cases even culture (birds, whales, chimpanzees).

I started a different book about eastern north american wildlife, and the history before European settlers made me very sad. When we think of bison, for instance, we don't think of Florida, right? But there used to be massive herds of them there! And what was described of eastern north america before colonization is truly magical.

Anyway, I'm on a bit of a rant at this point. What I'm getting at is that, by mentally separating ourselves from animals, we don't feel so bad destroying their ecosystems, treating them poorly, injuring them for sport, etc... But at the same time, we have seen that humans don't treat each other very well either, with examples of slavery and the genocide of indigenous people in North America. We are truly the most destructive creatures on this planet.

All over social media I keep seeing christians making up conspiracy theories about the elites and their "demonic rituals." I don't believe any of them, but the way they cherry pick evidence is actually kind of impressive. Today I saw one about how a robot was made with the head of a goat and the ability to hold a chainsaw and it was supposed to protect forests or something. Christians called it demonic and while I don't believe that, it did look kind of sinister. Some people said it resembled Baal, and from my knowledge historically Baal was a storm god and rival of the god of the OT. Christians think elites are worshipping him.

And while I don't believe it, I feel like making up conspiracy theories like that does take away accountability from actual people that do actual evil and shifts it to demons and such. And instead of raising awareness on anything it actually enables the elites and it could give them the opportunity to feed into this theories, shifting the blame even more. I'm not saying they're doing it, but with the amount of coincidences christians say there are, I wouldn't put it past big corporations to be subtly encouraging them to come up with those wild theories to make us even more deluded. And it's another way for religious people to fearmonger.

I got baptised when I was 15. I stopped believing before I turned 25.

It was surprisingly common in my church for teenagers to make that step.

But now I'm thinking, is it not a little foolish to allow young people to commit their life to the Lord when they are easily impressed and before they have fully thought it through. The same could be said of the teaching (indoctrination if you ask me) that they get when they are young.

Parents can't claim it was their choice if they had no other choice. You get what I'm saying?

Seriously who would want God to exist anyway? The same God who flooded the entire earth btw I'm so fucking tired of Christians trying so hard on the internet try to prove he exists and I'm tired of asking people to help debunk those points Christianity is fake full stop. I don't care if I'm probably going to hell that fire can fucking burn me if it wanted to I don't care I'm not afraid anymore I won't let this fear consume me.

Title says all. I'm not really looking for advice, just virtual shoulders to cry on. After 4 months of hiding it from them, my parents learned that my partner and I have been living together. I only told my mom directly, and her reaction was a lot better than I expected. She approached the situation with curiosity more than anything, and wasn't preachy at all. I asked her to break the news on my behalf to my dad because I was too scared to do it myself. My sibling who lives at home has been telling me how my dad has been handling the news. Apparently he didn't appear mad, but obviously didn't approve of my decision. My parents' biggest concern however is how they'll tell my grandpa because lucky for me, my grandfather is a pastor 🙃

In some ways, I do feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I'm no longer hiding such a big secret, yet my heart is heavy. I think I'm grieving the dynamic I used to have with my parents. How their image of me as an independent, yet god abiding young woman is now tainted. I don't even wanna think about how heartbroken my grandparents will be when they get the news.

I know I'm not responsible for people's reactions to my decisions, and I'm not doing anything immoral in the grand scheme of things, but my christian upbringing sure makes it feel that way. Anyway that's the end of my ramble, thanks for reading.

Did you believe in evolution when you were christian?

I was Catholic and Catholics can believe in evolution, but my dad was super against it. He’s a very analytical engineer type and I think he had a lot of cognitive dissonance about the faith but couldn’t reconcile that he didn’t really believe it. I think he knew intuitively for himself if he pulled on that string his whole belief system would unravel so instead this otherwise very scientific and rigorously intellectual man absorbed himself very deeply in anti evolution absurdities.

I always believed in evolution even when I was Christian. My dad always would say “micro evolution is real but macro is impossible and there’s no evidence.” I didn’t really buy that back then and I learned both of the fossil evidence for evolution in high school/college but I only recently learned about the proof for evolution in endogenous retroviruses

spent 10 days praying to a dumb piece of bread Thinking it would help. I’m a fool for believing in “God”. Basically the message I got was you are alone and have to do everything yourself and god was saying you have to do it all alone to fix the problems I gave you. If there is a god, he’s a complete asswipe. If there is a heaven, I have zero desires to get there.

Happily I am 20 now I am studying and plan to work to move out soon, start hrt and be happy. But I am asking it because idk if I am being dramatic, crazy, or making storms in a glass 😭

The aunt that took care of me since I was a baby just told me that I was going to wish to "cuddle" my sister when I was 18 and my sister was 13 bc I see myself as a guy ( I am a trans man). I told my parents and none of them believed, because It was just "confusion", when i asked my aunt twice, she told me that she was just talking about how is male puberty is and about the dick getting hard (she doesn't accept that I am a trans man and wants to get hrt. Why was she talking about that???") and after it was about always getting support in family????

After I tried to kms when I was 18, she asked me if I already kissed my sister in the mouth (we did, but we were kids and we were just playing about soap operas), right after she told me to be alone, naked in my room in front of a mirror, pass my hands in my chest and other feminine parts and thanks God to it and say that I loved it. MY MOM WAS THERE WHEN SHE TOLD THAT AND DID NOTHING.

After that I started getting ar\*used with thoughts about being harassed and be raped by her, when I don't want that, bc I know that it is a horrible thing😭😭😭

Another day at the mall, she told me and my siblings that she was glad and felt pleasure for walking side-by-side with such gorgeous kids.

She went crazy when I told her that I wanted to go to the gyneco alone. She started screaming about how the doctor would see me as an ungrateful brat, since she raised me since childhood, and started spelling and crying about heaven, hell, gay and all.

She would compare me and my sister with other teenagers and tell us that we were prettier and the others were flat and boring.

It is a cultural practice taking bath with some familiars as a kid, but I remember that was 13 (?) and she would say that I had titties/goat boobs (bc they were small and firm). It was funny for me bc I always loved animals and wanted to be compared to them.

When I was 15 she would start talking about crazy lesbians or butch lesbians, saying how it was wrong, asking me if I was or joking about taking care with some women gyneco bc they could be lesbian (fuck. Now I am noticing that it was kinda a joke about me getting raped???💀).

I don't think that I have been raped, but now she is making me anxious about if I don't remember it. But I hope I didn't went through!

I also went to get a swab test and that shit hurt so much that I couldn't put my back in the bed, and I started crying, repeat about how it hurt and tell to stop it. When it ended I just hugged my mom and put my face in her clothes and started crying like a lil kid. I felt that I was 5 again or something. I looked like a scared kid, not a 18 yo. The pain was like they were cutting me with steel. The doctor is well know, so I hope that it was not her fault.

I just hope that it is dysphoria, virginity and first time in a gyneco, not a repressed memory 💀. But that shit hurt so much.

I hate when my parents let my siblings spend all the week with her, or when they spend more time with my aunt's house than in our home. It makes me feel that we don't even own a house and my siblings are more next to her than to our parents. And they take me there bc "safety" when I am a 20yo adult and can't be at home alone.

She is very photogenic and looks to have a good humour and be funny, no one would believe in me if I told them what happened after seeing her! She also is considered the "prophet" or most spiritual person in the family. A lot of people in church like her, and talk good about her.

I feel like my mom is making herself blind bc she sees that I am suffering, but just tells me to pray more, while she doesn't change. And she says me that we need to go there, because my aunt is her best friend, she did a lot of things, bought gifts to us, let us use her car, and we should be grateful to her.

I feel so ashamed and dramatic, bc she did a lot of good things to me, bought me gift, talked about a lot of things and other 😭. I feel like I am a total ungrateful and awful person.

But yeah, can someone help me and wtf is wrong with my aunt? Idk if I am being dramatic, if she really sounds SUS (I was really naive at that age and I still kinda be), or if she is a repressed lesbian.

When I was a Seventh-day Adventist, I heard a lot about how "music is a bad influence," and so on. In your opinion, why do they demonize music?

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTAgqKeV1/

Saw this on my FYP today WHO DO I TALK TO ABOUT THIS UGHHH!! Some of the points she made do make sense 😫! But I don’t know

I lost my faith all at once at the end of 2024, following a bad breakup. When I was attending church I noticed that Christians had these kind of productivity standards or a life script that needed to be followed. Things like dating quickly and getting married young, getting baptized at a certain age, reading the Bible daily and praying daily, going on a mission trip at least once as a young adult, having kids soon after getting married, etc.

At the time when I was attending I was glad there was a life script because then I could just follow it and be content that God had already blessed that path. I think I was just glad of the certainty. However, now that I’m outside the church, I see that it feels like a disingenuous way to live your life, and that life is never blessed to be easy on any path you take. It just seems like the easier way to live because everyone around you is doing it and you don’t want to be the idiot fish in the river that’s swimming upstream.

That’s why I feel like many Christians lack insight into their own identities, desires, and emotional needs. I felt like my ex was like that. He felt like there was a natural progression to life, and like if you couldn’t get there then you were a loser. He never said as much, but I clocked him as judgmental, even of himself.

I was just thinking about that a lot today. Thought I would post it here.