u/LikeASirDude

Sometimes I think about Joseph who collected Jesus' body and put him in his tomb. Since this was his tomb, it's likely it was his intent to move the body to a more appropriate place after the Sabbath. I can just imagine him doing so early in the day, before the women arrive. Then the women arrive and are of course shocked. They go tell people, the other disciples are bewildered. A mythology of this mysteriously disappearing body grows and spreads. And Joseph, being a disciple, I imagine out of fear/embarrassment, says nothing. He's just like, "Oh shit, oh no, this went too far. But I can't say anything now. Better keep my mouth shut. Surely this'll blow over." And now we have Christianity.

By most standards, Christian or otherwise, I'm ex-christian. And in the grand scheme of things, this doesn't matter, but if someone were to ask me, I want some sort of answer.

I still go to a church, fully open and affirming, leadership acknowledges they act within the framework of Christianity but that even they themselves don't necessarily know for certain, or even believe every tenet of Christianity. I like the built in community, that can be hard to come by when you leave. I also have a desire to engage with Christianity in a way where I, as someone more studied in the Bible and Christian history, can help people through their religious process, whether that's deconstruction or understanding Christianity in a way that's not harmful.

As far as I'm concerned personally, I just want to be a good person. Christianity is not the source of my morality, it's just the tradition I'm most familiar with. I do plenty of "unchristian" things, if it's not hurting me or someone else I consider it fair-play. 99% of me says god isn't real, the other 1% says that if god is, I'm just deciding for myself that they're a god of love. A personal decision based on nothing more than my own desire and a verse in 1 John. If a person asked my what I believe about god, I'd probably say, "If there is a god, I think that god is one of love," and leave it at that. Definitely not all powerful, or all knowing, or everywhere, just like I'm not any of those things, but I can love.

I believe most of the Bible isn't fact, but you can pull truth from it if you want, like most mythology, fairytales, and folktales. So if I engage with it, or the Christian tradition, that's what I'm doing, as long as it's uplifting and doesn't cause harm.

So I think I'm mostly a Christian Atheist, with a dash of agnosticism.

Just a general question, after leaving Christianity, what did you do that you may not have done before? Big or small. Getting into astrology, try ouija, watch an R rated movie for the first time...anything.

For me, though I've cursed in mind, I've gotten more comfortable doing so out loud. Not something that ever bothered me coming from others, but I just never did it myself.