r/Deconstruction

Hi, 30M here. I'm in the process of deconstructing out of fundamentalist evangelicalism and think I'll probably never return, though I am more open to returning to Christianity more broadly. I'm basically planning to start living as a non-Christian while I continue to investigate the truth claims of Christianity.

How have you guys navigated sexuality and dating during the later parts of your deconstruction and post-deconstruction? I'm a virgin who has been waiting until marriage who now feels increasingly free to experience sex outside of marriage. I still intend to get married and have children, but am not sure that I am committed to dating for that intention alone in this immediate phase in my life. I kind of want to "have some fun" and get some experience under my belt....you know, the stuff I would have been doing 10 years ago if I had not been a fundamentalist evangelical. This would be for a yet-to-be-determined limited period.

Some general concerns I have are deciding to be a Christian again and regretting I don't have my virginity anymore, my lack of experience at this age heading into the secular dating pool, and concerns about damaging the stability of my future marriage by sowing some wild oats for a little while.

Any advice or experiences from people who are or who have gone through a similar situation as a part of their deconstruction would be appreciated! Any feedback, criticism, or advice is welcome.

I’m still pretty early in my deconstruction, but I think I’m becoming more comfortable describing myself as a cultural Christian. I believe there is a God or some kind of creator, but I don’t believe I know what that is, and I’m not convinced the Bible has the answer to that question.

At the same time, I don’t feel the need to completely separate myself from Christianity. I think the Bible contains some great lessons and can provide a good moral foundation. I also think church can be a great source of community, tradition, and connection that I can attest to, as I was raised going to church every Sunday and being involved. There are parts of Christianity that I still value even though I no longer believe all of the supernatural or doctrinal aspects of it.

This has also been interesting to navigate within my family. My husband still identifies as Christian and believes in Jesus. Recently, I asked him more specifically what he believes, and when he answered “religion and Jesus,” I kept asking questions because I genuinely wanted to understand what those things mean to him and which aspects he believes.

Looking back, I realize it may have felt like I was trying to debate or challenge his beliefs when I was really trying to understand them. As his wife, I do want to understand his worldview, but I’m also realizing that not everyone feels the same need to dissect and question their beliefs that I currently do.

We also have a young child, so I’m thinking about what Christianity, church, and religion will look like for our family as my beliefs evolve. I don’t necessarily have a problem with raising our family around some Christian traditions or attending church.

I just don’t believe Christianity is a requirement for living a full and meaningful life. I’m also okay with the unknown when it comes to what happens after we die. I don’t believe in heaven or hell.

I personally believe our consciousness is some form of energy, and since energy can’t be created or destroyed, I think it continues or transforms in some way after we die. I don’t know what that looks like, and I’m comfortable not knowing until that day comes. But that’s probably a conversation for a different thread lol.

Finding this community has been really refreshing because I’ve been feeling isolated in my thoughts.

I’d love to hear from anyone who landed somewhere similar. Are you still culturally Christian after deconstructing? What does that look like for you, especially if your spouse or family still believes?

So I'm currently deconstructing and I had a very long, deep conversation about faith with my pastor. One question I asked was if he started questioning enough to turn would he ever turn away from the faith. Mind you he has a wife two daughters and has been a main pastor at this church for almost 10 years. He said he would convert but I have a hard time believing that honestly. This made me realize that the reason many people around me don't question Christianity the way I do is because it would completely ruin/shatter their life structure. Does anyone else see this too?

I would consider myself agnostic but some stuff in the bible kinda makes sense but i know hell is illogical what if god is apparently two steps ahead of us and we are just stupid and i do deserve hell and god somehow makes sense but i just don’t know i don’t want god to be real that means hell is real original sin is real LGBTQ stuff is a sin and he does not intervene when people need help but would cause a genocide what if im wrong and god needs to do evil stuff to full fill something what if i am right to do panic attacks about a fear of hell i constantly feel like i need to hide in a corner and cry because i am just ignorant or am rejecting god therefore for god to be just to put me to hell

Hi, I don’t really have anyone in my life I could talk to about this and I found this subreddit and think maybe someone here might relate. I didn’t really know it was called deconstruction at the time but about 6 ish years ago I just stopped involving myself in anything related to the church and Christianity. I grew up in a very very very religious immigrant family and it was shoved down my throat from a young age. There was so much control attached to it as well, it was weaponized against me. When I moved out of the family house into my own space I finally had the chance to think and breathe and the first thing I wanted to do was to take a break from all of the shackles the version of Christianity I grew up with placed on me. I walked away and didn’t look back.

Fast forward to present day, I don’t necessarily know what I identify as, agnostic seems most accurate. I don’t know what’s really out there and I don’t know if there’s really a higher power. Some days I believe there is, other days not so much, but I’m okay with not knowing. I don’t feel the need to be so certain anymore. However, I find myself in this space of “what’s the point?” and “what are we doing?” so often that sometimes I wish I could believe in it all again because I do miss the sense of purpose it gave you to believe you were living for something larger than what you could see in front of you.

I’ve kinda been going through an existential crisis for the last maybe year or two, really weighed down with existing and finding meaning in life when it seems everything is meaningless. Has anyone felt this way and how do you cope?

For additional context, I’m a woman in her mid 30s. No partner, no children, meaning most of my time is mine. I try to keep myself occupied with hobbies I enjoy outside of work, but when I stop moving, or when I’m faced with difficulties in life, I find myself sometimes wishing I could go back to believing again because it gave me something to hold on to. But I simply can’t. And I don’t think I really want to. I just want to feel less alone, I guess.

Edit: I just want to thank everyone that took the time to read and respond to this post. Deconstructing can often feel very lonely and isolating and losing a huge part of the community once found in your faith group is difficult to deal with. Thank you all for making me feel a little less alone today. I appreciate it.

(Fairly new to this subreddit, I've mostly followed deconstruction discourse on Instagram and wanted to ask a question to folks who seem willing to discuss these topics properly.)

I want to ask a genuine question about the scope and direction of modern deconstruction, especially from folks who have spent years navigating this process.

​Coming from a mainline/historical tradition (Methodism) rather than the American evangelical/fundamentalist world, I often follow deconstruction discussions with a mix of deep empathy and confusion. On one hand, I completely understand why people walk away from high-control environments characterized by rigid culture-war politics, hyper-literalism, authoritarian pastors, and transactional "fire insurance" theology. Walking away from an environment that treats honest questions as sin is a healthy, rational reaction.

​What surprises me, though, is how often the broader critique seems to stop at the borders of 20th-century American fundamentalism while assuming it has dismantled the entire 2,000-year Christian tradition.

​Much of what gets cited as the core reasons for leaving, such as literal 6-day young-earth creationism, the rejection of textual criticism, anti-intellectualism, or a flat "carrot-and-stick" view of morality, are modern anomalies. Historic orthodox Christianity (from early Church figures like Augustine and Aquinas to classical Anglican, Methodist, and Eastern Orthodox traditions) has centuries of rich philosophical depth, allegorical/literary hermeneutics, and rigorous wrestling with doubt that looks nothing like modern American evangelicalism.

​For those here who have spent serious time in the deconstruction space:

a. ​For those who remain theists or Christians, did discovering the wider historical Church give you a framework to rebuild, or did the burnout from fundamentalism make walking away from theism altogether feel like the only clean break?

B. ​When unwinding from fundamentalism, did you find that older, historic perspectives on theology offered any helpful clarity, or did the whole theological system feel too tied to the subculture you were stepping away from?

​Genuinely curious to hear how different people delineate between rejecting a toxic subculture versus rejecting the philosophical tradition as a whole.

TLDR: Looking for audiobook recommendations that re-examine the concept of prayer from a non-traditional view

Hey, so, I'm reaching a point in my deconstruction where I really need to re-examine prayer (as a concept), and I’m looking for book recommendations (specifically ones that have audiobooks available).

Prayer is so important to my wife, and she genuinely believes god has supernaturally intervened, and caused courses of events to happen to answer prayer. But, I cannot reconcile a God who can do that, and choses not to. The problem of Evil, yes. But also, the problem of prayers being "answered" for things that are evil.

I’m looking for books that explore why we pray from non-traditional angles (mysticism, post-evangelical, biblical scholarship, philosophy, or even psychology). Basically anything except standard evangelical apologetics or classic theodicy.

Any recommendations for books that have actually been helpful for you in re-examining this?

TLDR: I don't realistically see myself ever becoming confidently sure of any religious belief. Are you confident and if so how and if not how do you cope

So a few years ago I started questioning my religious faith being a Primitive Baptist. I knew the worldview was narrow and tight so I wanted to debunk other religions and prove mine correct. Rather than get there it spiraled to a point where I want to investigate world religions and different denominations and sects and try and seek truth and peace but I also know there's too many viewpoints out there to adequately give them all my attention and that's concerning because it shows me I can't be certain. Then there's my original faith Primitive Baptist which I see some issues with I think but maybe I'm just not adequately educated on that either; so say I can narrow it down and get things grounded, I watch people like Matt Dillahunty, Jay Dyer, Peter Dimond, Larry Wessells, Gnostic Informant and others and I can't help but feel overwhelmed with their skill and knowledge and precision and I sometimes feel maybe I'm too dumb to know the truth; see when I was younger I was told and I'm sure some of you can relate the truth is simple but I can't see that being correct anymore; well what do you guys think? I've also noticed it goes beyond just getting it right I am concerned about not having a guiding telos or purpose in my life, wasting my time, and what happens after death. So how do you guys deal with this like have you just found something you truly believe in and if so how? If you still have your doubts how do cope with not having it all figured out? Thanks.

I grew up as a pastor's kid in the SDA church. My parents were very conservative, even by SDA standards.

My dad was a pastor that was very strict musically. Music has to be a certain way. Now, myself, I grew up around music. I grew to love jazz, and gospel and how the two were infused. I loved the rhythm drums brought.

However, my dad was very adamant about NOT having drums in the church. He was even against the style of piano playing I had. I remember he once asked me to play for his church when I was a little older and I had to directly just tell him no.

I would also get asked to play (for money) for multiple non-adventist churches on Sunday. My dad was so against that. I had to go play and make my money behind his back.

My brother also sang in a gospel choir at one point. My dad wouldn't listen to his performance because it was too much for him.

Now, as I got older into my later teenage years and younger 20s, I'd simply ask... "If God speaks to us, why can't we agree on anything?"

Like within Christianity:

1. How are there thousands of denominations?

2. Within Adventism, how can we not agree on something as simple as music?

My brain then logically asks:

Why don't we just ask God what he wants? Like duh? We all say God speaks to us? Right? So let's literally just call him and sort this out.

No Christian has been able to answer that question... Yet they all appear to simultaneously believe God speaks to us.

This makes me strongly consider the argument of humans being Gods themselves. The argument for an external, universal God, that we all humans connect with and universally communicate with is bullshxt to be quite frank.

Cause if we were all talking to the same God, the message and interpretation would not be so diverse.

Anyways, this was the beginning of my long deconstruction journey. Overtime, many more pieces began to crumble.

Good day ladies and gentlemen i backslided until i fall down so now i want to reconstruction again and am scared of Hebrews 6 verse 4 to 6 even Matthew unforgiving sin so i fell to deep and i m still trying to get back up but God is no longer talking to me..i understand but am perishing due to my sin after receiving Jesus so what advices would you give me i know God can not be mocked and he is the God of hearts he knows even before we sleep so...I did any one Deconstruction to Reconstruction as Righteousness Man fall seven times before he get up but now am facing camality so anyone help me to reconstruction again i dont want to gradify things of the flesh now i take blame for my own actions..Afterwards i called back my energy back to me now i m old version of myself not knowing what is what

I never grew up super religious or super Christian. My parents took me to church on Easter and Christmas, and all the Christians I knew in my life were very hurtful people. In the summers, I would sometimes go to vacation Bible school because I had a best friend who was a Jesus freak. But no matter what, from childhood, I always had a skepticism for religion because it made no sense to me. Throughout my adulthood I tried Buddhism, atheism, agnosticism, spiritual practices, then somehow ended up surrendering my life to Jesus in April. All this being said, the strongest belief I’ve been able to come to is that all religions are true in their own way and false in others. I question everything in life, even my own thoughts. I believe in God, there is a “holiness” and “truth” that I see in “following” Jesus in the way he lived, but I genuinely do not believe in this “let’s believe everything in the Bible” bullshit. After months and months of “dedicating myself to the Lord”, I’ve just gotten stronger and stronger in confirming that Christianity is a cult. And I’m not sure if it’s because of my strong education of psychology, but I can see straight through the performative manipulation. The charismatic church leaders and their equally charismatic serve team members, whether it’s due to genuine belief due to naivety or it’s because they’re in on the manipulation of it all. I’ve had pastors talk to me and it’s almost as if they can tell I see straight through the bullshit. Anyways, I did go to church today, and it was like a “metaphorical snap” occurred and I just sat there the entire time like, “What the fuck am I even doing listening to this shit and being here”. So obviously, there’s this sense of guilt…. Because Christianity itself instills a lot of fear in so many ways: guilt of sin, guilt of conviction, guilt of leaving the faith, etc. I just wonder… would it be terrible of me to just suddenly stop?

Hi it’s been a minute.

I think I’ve fully deconstructed. And I don’t think I’ll be reconstructing.

My journey started, lamenting a lifetime of earnest devotion to God- from my first conscious memory under 6 years old, through critical development of middle school, high school and college, all through young adulthood - I lived and breathed allegiance to God. I sung scriptures spontaneously for hours. I weeped over gods beauty, or my failures or.. whatever made me feel emotionally close to him for that day. I made every social, professional, and personal decision through the lens of faithfulness to God. I cauterized my thoughts during natural sexual development which has fucked me up more than i can describe. I alienated myself from friends, social circles, and culture all for “his name”.

I became one of the most theologically adept people I knew. I could articulate every point about first century Judeo-Christian apocalypticism, the Abrahamic covenant, its role in restoration in the ages to come. And not for puffery sake, but it sculpted my heart and my attitude towards god. It’s was the firm foundation to which I lived an exceptionally “set apart” life.

And my anger and rage peaked over the last 5-6 years, anger towards the church as an institution, the proliferation of a vain, pointless religion inextricably tied to western conservatism and capitalist greed- or the glazing of the modern state of uknowwho despite its well documented war crimes- or the universal, systemic stifling of outcries of vulnerable people by capital-drunk churches, the silenced petitions of children, women, and men all of whom were credibly subjected to the most perverse abuse of spiritual authority imaginable.

My doubt and cynicism peaked over the last 5-6 years when I acknowledged the pitifully vacant and morally rotten religion being worn proudly as a shield towards “the critical world”. A phenomenon of a group of people who claim allegiance to a doctrine -to Christendom- and then the stark, statistical anomaly of those who actually practice their profession. I noticed the sheer idiocy of a group who, en mass, profess allegiance to a doctrine enshrined by “enduring suffering for the sake of others, considering others better than yourself, treating others how you’d be treated, loving your neighbor as yourself, welcoming the foreigner” as it summarizes the bulk of Gods commands, only to spit in the face of those sentiments to cheer in cacophonous roars, the attitudes and policies of self preservationism. My money. My guns. My land. My country. My future. My security. Mine. Mine. Mine. Bible verse. Cross in my bio. Fuck out of my country. God bless em. Fuck off my property. God is good.

And so I spent recent months reckoning if a massive failure to properly adhere to the principles of Christianity was an acute social failure or a sign of some malignant ideology. And what did I find? The failure of mass believers is perhaps the only historical consistency in Christianity, along side a minority remnant that actually quietly and admittedly- profoundly - live a life “worthy” of the call. Any other ideology with this track record would be widely advertised as ineffective and a failure of thought.

And so what should buttress this apparent ineffective and failure of a religion except perhaps… moral origin? People may fail though the standard if gods holiness prevails! So what if everything we hold as morally good did come from our god? That would anchor us in his teachings while the world fails around us. But historicity fails to support this as well. Aside from glaring moral incongruity from Judaic law - and the sloppy argument of “Gods morality evolves with culture” - there is no modern moral congruence in much of the Torah. You don’t even have to look far to see that, compassion, for example, originated from eastern religion, documented well before YHWH ever makes “his name known” through his covenant to Abraham.

And so I have weighed it. And I have found it lacking. I’ve grieved it. And now I live in the grey.

It’s the only honest place to me.

Would love for you guys to have a watch of this and tell me what you think. 😄

I unfortunately have absolutely no one to speak to about this and it’s making me lose my mind.

One thing I will say is the new ager/spiritualist had A LOT of patience. Being outside of Christianity now, I can’t believe this is what I used to listen to and actually swallow it up. Can’t say it’s what I used to sound like because I believe there’s always a part of me deep down that knew it made no sense and so therefore would never regurgitate it.

Hi! I'm an ex-Jehovah's Witness and an author. I began writing and creating after my father refused a blood transfusion and died when I was 13. During Covid I became homeless and slowly have rebuilt my life my nothing. I've been very active in the exjw space since then and I've written books and done some things that some people call "activism." I wrote this and thought I'd share. I hope that's cool.

A Religious Deconstruction Manifesto

by Micah Allen Losh

I.

I believe in challenging power. The closing line of the book I wrote my son is: "...As you drift off and when you wake up remember this lesson: Teachers, rules, laws, and parents all must be questioned."

I don't seek followers and I'm not an authority figure. I'm an artist documenting my religious deconstruction aloud. I spent 37 years in a doomsday cult and I don't believe I'm immune to propaganda, logical fallacies, or flawed thinking.

I believe authenticity will repel and draw the right people.

I believe in effort and pushing myself daily without any expectation of success or progress. "Consistent effort toward a goal will yield results," "What stands in the way becomes the way," and "The steamroller doesn't determine whether or not the object will be broken. It's up to the object," and the Finnish concept of sisu are all concepts I've used as a foundation for my life.

I've realized that not matter how intentional or consistently I behave that everyone will experience me in a different way than I believe myself to be. I don't even exist. I find that liberating.

You cannot grow and be comfortable simultaneously for multiple reasons: comfort seeks preservation, growth requires rupture, and safety is not comfort. You can learn to become comfortable with the feeling of discomfort.

II.

I was kept in a trauma loop by ex-Jehovah's Witness content. Many psychiatrists believe that by ruminating on what was taken from us we do not experience it as a memory. We experience it as a live, happening-now danger. There is physiological evidence that supports these claims.

I think it's interesting how Watchtower teaches that goodness equates compliance. Every time I've suggested something that is non-compliant with exjw norms it seems the exact same reflexes trigger. The Governing Body laid out and controlled every aspect of your life and if you believe they didn't consider who you'd be away from the group that's credulous at best.

I believe they say apostates are angry to disenfranchise you from your anger. Anger is a gift. Anger is one of the stages of grief. I believe the Governing Body wants you obsessed with the past. An inverse position to your former position doesn't change an existence dominated by changing Watchtower policy. If you don't grieve it's unlikely you'll leave.

I find the notion of a change from men who cover up pedophilia and allow people to refuse blood transfusions to be repugnant and absurd. Scientology, Mormons, and the Catholic church have all been exposed. Do you see any of them closing their doors. I believe the idea of Watchtower crumbling is rooted firmly in delusion. It's possible they might end but it's not plausible.

Being polite isn't the same thing as being kind.

III. Power Dynamics in Post-Cult Spaces

Imagine breaking free from a cult and entering a recovery forum run by your former oppressors? The former elders, ministerial servants, and pioneers. The very people who actively policed your personal life and surveillance-monitored your family, signed the paperwork to disfellowship your friends and enforce your isolation, and maintained the metrics and kept the compliance machine running smoothly.

Why, the second they throw away their lapel pins, does this community immediately treat their opinions as high-value content? I watch a community of survivors look directly at their former enforcers and say, "Please tell me how to process the trauma you helped create." It seems to be a psychological contradiction. Can you truly deconstruct a system while you are still treating its middle managers like celebrities?

Conditioning doesn't disappear because you physically walk out of a Kingdom Hall. We were trained to look at the stage, sit quietly, and take notes from men with titles. Our brains were hardwired to equate a loud, confident voice at a podium with absolute truth. You enter a recovery space and it feels familiar, doesn't it? Our compliance muscles flex automatically. A former enforcer’s loud voice and organizational vocabulary feels safe and familiar. It feels like wisdom.

We were told to avoid 'independent thinking.' We were told your heart was 'treacherous.' What if people were lying in wait to replace the Governing Body-sized hole in your heart? How can you develop your own internal compass in that environment?

Because someone ran an audio-sound desk, read a Watchtower, or scheduled a cleaning roster doesn't make them anything close to resembling a therapist. Running a congregation under the direction of a corporate hierarchy requires zero emotional intelligence or psychological training. It requires compliance. It requires boot-licking. They lost their status, titles, and their automatic respect when they threw away their lapel pins. They possess no clinical training to handle complex PTSD or nervous system dysregulation. They treat a profound neurological injury with their amateur, box-checking mindset that ran field service meetings. Guiding you to freedom, or using your trauma to maintain their lost relevance?

Wouldn't true deconstruction mean destroying the stage entirely, not changing who's on the podium? I certainly do not seek to be your leader or the voice of exjw. Shouldn't you be gathering tools, healing your nervous system, and celebrating your life, your passions? Why look to those who held clipboards and washed windows? They do not have the keys to your freedom. They worked to keep you in your former cage! It's likely all they possess are the blueprints of what you escaped.

Stumbling across ex-JW content didn't save you. The algorithm showing you a video or a thread didn't save you. You had to look at that information, weigh it against reality, and make the conscious decision to believe yourself over the organization. If you don't trust your own mind to do that, you are still handing your power to whatever screen is sitting in front of you. Your heart isn't treacherous. The only thing that saved you is your own critical thinking. If you think that isn't true, what will you do if you ever stumble across a copy of The Book of Mormon? You can't look at information and decide for yourself. You'll become a Mormon, right? These people have no authority. Only what you give them.

IV. Common Logical Fallacies in Post-Cult Spaces

Leaving a high-control group like Jehovah's Witnesses means leaving the theology behind. It doesn't automatically mean we left the cognitive wiring behind. After years inside an environment that actively penalizes independent thought, our brains adopt specific shortcuts to survive. It's highly likely we will copy-paste these exact same mental habits into our lives after leaving the cult—simply changing the vocabulary while maintaining the rigid framework.

Here are the specific patterns I keep seeing repeated in activist and ex-JW spaces:

• The Tu Quoque (The "Look Who's Talking" Evasion): Dismissing a valid critique of community behavior or "activism" by pointing out that the original cult is still far worse. This does not magically cure a lesser rot. Using the cult's extreme behavior as a baseline to excuse poor ethics, grifting, or manipulation in activist spaces is a direct evasion of accountability.
• The Binary Fallacy (False Dilemma): Insisting that others must entirely validate the mainstream activist narrative. This is direct algorithmic thinking inherited straight from the Watchtower. You can fully acknowledge the harms of the Watchtower while simultaneously pointing out the flaws within the community that left it.
• The Genetic Fallacy (Source Dismissal): Judging the validity of an argument solely based on who or where it comes from, rather than evaluating the logic of the argument itself. Truth is completely independent of the person speaking it. If an idea or behavioral critique is objectively accurate, rejecting it simply because it triggers a reflex or reminds you of old authority figures is an emotional reaction, not an intellectual one.
• Appeal to Emotion (Trauma as a Shield): Using shared pain, trauma, or emotional distress to shield an invalid or irrational argument from logical scrutiny. Empathy is vital for healing, but intense emotion cannot alter objective facts or validate flawed reasoning. When trauma is used as an absolute shield against critique, the community stops being a space for recovery and instead becomes an intellectual safe space where bad ideas cannot be challenged.
• The Straw Man (Caricaturing the Critique): Misrepresenting a critique of community dynamics, blowing it out of proportion, and then attacking the exaggerated version. This is done because a caricature is much easier to defeat than the actual critique. It takes zero effort to argue against a caricature. [1]
• The Ad Hominem (Circumstantial Attack): Attacking a critic's personal background, current lifestyle, tone, or perceived motives instead of addressing the core logic of their statement. This is the ultimate tool of intellectual bankruptcy. It shifts the focus from what is being said to who is saying it. If someone audits your personality or character to dismiss your argument, they've already admitted they lack the logical tools to dismantle your point.

V.

The Virtue of Apathy: Every so often I discover I’m disliked, strongly disliked, or hated. I consider this a win. Why waste another thought on them? While it can be painful when you genuinely liked them, cared about them, or wanted to help them I believe you should strive to stop thinking about the person. With continued effort I I’ve found this becomes easier.

People who tell you your positions, intentions, or emotions are intellectually dishonest. I believe people who value you should inquire your beliefs and why you hold them. I do not seek an echo chamber. I’m friends with people of faith and I have no respect for faith. Many of them probably believe I’ll burn in hell while I have strong opinions about their journey. I’ve mocked faith with a purpose and it was never to mock people or disrespect them. It seems many people are more inclined to place you in a box so they can “understand” you instead of asking you questions and comparing your actions.

I think post-cult spaces have brought out the worst in me. I’m not blaming them for my actions or filled with regret. I’m a smart ass that enjoys debate. If someone engages in a good-faith debate I’m polite. I like talking shit and after facing some truly horrible things in my life I truly don’t care what people think although I’m sure some might not believe that. While mocking people you consider to be stupid is fun it is also like shooting fish in a barrel. It can be painful that people view you in a way you don’t believe yourself to be.

VI.

I accepted a year apart from my son, seeing him only twice. But it taught me to accept anything. I have used my father’s death to expose my former faith and I have essentially lived on my phone in an attempt to escape horrible living conditions but it can take me away from my son, my passions, and the people I love.

The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen has flown across the world to see me twice. I’m planning to visit her. I have wonderful friends. I’ve shared my art and thoughts online and I’ve received love and hatred. Exactly what an artist seeks.

My son is amazing. On our first Christmas I bought him a Jason puzzle and he asked if we could put it together. We got further than last time. We sorted the edge pieces and we sorted the rest by color. I’m gonna buy a frame for it and we’ll work on it more. I tell him about my mistakes, what I’ve learned, and why everything was worth it. It’s the price of his freedom. When he said the puzzle had a lot of pieces and that it would take awhile I quote Marcus Aurelius to him. “What stands in the way becomes the way.”

I teach my boy about Stoicism. When people ask me about him I often reply “He shall lead millions” in a deadpan voice. Dad jokes can be deadpan and slightly sinister.

It took me six months to realize that the past has been robbing me of the present. That’s a mistake and it’s a lot quicker than 37 years in a cult.

#religiousdeconstruction

hey guys. This is going to be long so buckle up.

As the title says, I’m spiraling about having to become a pastor. Ive posted about this multiple times in the past two years ago. For context i‘m a 21 year old woman who’s currently in Nursing School right now. Nursing School itself is hard and a lot of work but it’s work I feel proud of and called to. A few years ago though, I had a breif thought pop into my head about becoming a pastor. It was brief and even back then I thought about how I didn’t want to do that. but a little while latter I started have non-stop intrusive thoughts about it .

I started hearing the word Semenary repeat in my head over and over again. And I don’t mean throughout the day. I mean the word would loop in my head almost every minute until I couldn’t think straight or focus on anything else. I prayed about it SO much. And just when I thought I had clarity my mind would be like, “What if you’re wrong? What if you really are called to this and you have to do it? Otherwise you’re not a real Christian and you'll most certainly burn in Hell.”

I spiraled about it for a good two years on and off. I prayed about it constantly. I fasted about it. I thought about it endlessly and broke down many times. One time I was praying and I got things strong feeling of peace and Serenity and thought I felt God telling me that this was not my calling and I didn’t have to worry anymore. And for a time a felt at peace. But then my pastor did a sermon saying that just because you feel at peace doesn’t mean that it’s actually God’s will. I started endless ruminating about it again after that.

This year things got better. I’m not diagnosed with OCD but I heavily suspect I have it. Ive taken advice about accepting uncertainty. I knew I felt a calling for healthcare and I knew i still loved God, so I accepted that although I didn’t feel called to be a Pastor and nor did I want to be, I was always going to feel a little uncertainty about it and that’s ok and that I wouldn’t go to hell.

Then I listened to a sermon from Church for the first time in months. This semester I had Sunday clinicals so I didnt attend church a lot. In that sermon a woman from my Church, who’s in school to become a liscensed minister gave a sermon about callings. Immediately I felt dread because I knew the can on worms this would open up.

She talked about how God had been calling her for years but she ignored it and missed out on so much. She said now she’s in a season of her life where she answers whatever God calls her to do no matter what, even if she’s nervous. The sermon felt like it was describing the two year spiral I had. She talked about how sometimes we ignore God’s voice and when we do that we miss out on so much.

I immediately felt guilty and doubtful and started wondering again, “What if I really am called to be a pastor? If I don’t do it, it means I don’t love God and I’m selfish and I’ll burn In hell.” But the thing is, I didn’t ignore God about this topic. I prayed about it 1000x. I watched sermons on the topic. I re-read Bible verses over and over again. At a certain point in my life it was all I could think about. Deep down I Knew I didn’t want to do it, but being a Christian means doing lots of things you don’t want to do if you actually love God. But then I thought about it potentially being OCD. OCD is ego-distonic and often makes you think about the very things that go against your values or desires. I remember being in High school and someone had said that women can’t be pastors accoridng to the Bible, and I remember thinking back then, “Thank God because I dont want to be one anyway.” I remember having thoughts like “I’m so glad I’m not being called to this very specific thing because if I am it means I have to do it or else Im not a real Christian and I’ll burn in hell forever.

I feel like part of me treats it like a Compulsion. Like a year ago when the word semenary blazed through my head non-stop, I gave in and started looking for programs. For a moment I felt relief and thought that this meant the obsessive thoughts would stop. But every time I called and looked into programs I felt nothing but dread. And Ignored those feelings because “faith over fear.” The temporary relief that I felt didn’t last long at all. I felt dread and sadness every time. I was so close to signing up to Liberty University and every time it got closer to registration, I just felt dread and anger. I knew I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t feel like I felt conviction to be a pastor, but the “what if?” question always came up. I have a hard time tolerating uncertainty because of my fear of making God upset and Hell. I think about hell every day.

Ultimately i‘m heart broken because I thought I had finally accepted the uncertainty. I felt assured that God was not actually calling me to be a pastor and that I could still love and serve him even without forcing myself to go to Semenary and preach. I also accepted that my mind ruminates a lot and that I have to be ok with uncertainty and the “what if.” But that all feels gone now. My stomach is in knots and I broke down crying after that sermon. Help and advice would be much appreciated!

Tl;dr- I’m an agnostic Christian (23F) confused about the truth of the Bible and Jesus’ divinity. I currently believe out of fear, and I’m scared other people are going to hell because they don’t believe. And I don’t want to think that way. I definitely don't want it to be true either. I also have no idea how I’m supposed to interpret the Bible, and I feel guilt and confusion for questioning its “inerrancy.” All in all, I don’t know what to believe, and I grow more confused about my faith each and every day. And I have no one else to share my feelings and views with, so that has caused me to feel more isolated, depressed, and nihilistic.

Hey guys. I hope you all are well. I’ve been going through an existential crisis for a few months now, and I truly don’t know how to move forward in my spiritual life. I believe in Jesus and His divinity to an extent, but I don’t think I do for the right reasons. I used to not be scared of hell, but I’ve been super scared of it for a while now. And I’ve had thoughts like, “What if I believed the wrong thing? What if I’m not truly saved? Why do I even need to be saved? What if I’m wrong for not wanting to preach the gospel to others?” And the kicker-  “Do people really go to hell for having different beliefs?? I don’t want anyone to go to hell.” And I’m just tired of it all. I don’t want to believe in Jesus out of fear, but I’ve been deconstructing a lot recently, and many things don’t make sense anymore. 

For one, I’ve been questioning the Bible a lot. I haven’t read it in a while now. I was pretty consistent with reading it the first half of last year, and I was reading a Bible plan that was beneficial for the most part. It helped me view the Bible as a guide to understanding God’s love, instead of a moral code and a history book. That helped me a lot, but quite a few messed up things happened to me in 2025 that are still affecting me to this day. And for that reason, I have felt very distant from God, His love, and especially the Bible. I’ve grown tired of my Christian loved ones telling me that the Bible has all the answers, even though it can be so confusing to read at times. I don’t want to feel like I *have* to read the Bible. I want it to be a tool to help me with my spiritual health and growth, but it’s hard for me to see it as the be all and end all of my relationship with God. And that brings me to my next and probably most important point: 

I don’t know what to believe anymore. I would say that I no longer view the Bible in a Fundamentalist way. I don’t see the Bible as historically and literally inerrant, and that gave me comfort for a while. I would like to still believe that, but then I’m hit with contradictions. The contradictions I’m referring to have to do with the apparent allegorical stories. I want to believe that Adam, Job, Noah, and Jonah are allegorical figures rather than real people. But doesn’t Jesus refer to them as real people at some point? I def know that all 4 characters are referred to as real somewhere in the Bible, and that’s the type of thing that’s hurting my faith. Like the genealogies in Chronicles or Jesus talking about Moses, despite there not being any evidence of the Israelites in Egypt. I don’t know what to believe. Initially, seeing certain parts of the Bible as allegorical helped me a lot, but now I’m unsure if I should see it that way. But I’m scared because if everything in the Bible occurred *exactly* as it was written, it makes God look so bad. And I just don’t know if that God is someone I can believe in. But then my previous fears come up that I’ll go to hell for not believing in Him.

I was also raised in a Nigerian household in the American Bible Belt, and my parents made God look…interesting to say the least. They’ve said these phrases to me throughout the years:

“God doesn’t owe you anything nor does he owe you any explanation. He’s God.” 

“God is angry with you.”

“If people want to challenge your faith, you can just brag to them that ‘you know the truth.’ You’re going to heaven while they aren’t.”

“Those who don’t believe in God are God’s enemies, and they deserve to burn in hell for that.”

“If you’re not having faith, then you’re not pleasing God.”

“Job brought his destruction on himself. God didn’t owe him anything.”

And many times they’ve implied that the Bible always trumps people’s real life experiences. To get a bit more personal, my cousin died August last year and he was just 19. But my mother still goes around saying that God satisfies us with long life and that maybe my cousin did something to cause his premature death. I could give more examples, but yea…

Obviously, my parents beliefs have truly messed with my perception of God. I’ve come to learn that my parents, while they mean well for the most part, are dogmatic narcissists. But it’s still been hard for me to shake off some of the things they’ve said. I keep feeling like God is disappointed with me and is even mad at me for questioning Him. I don’t think He’s actually mad, but sometimes I feel like I’m not allowed to question Him. I’m not allowed to be confused. That I should continue to believe what I believed before, but I just can’t. I feel like I shouldn’t because I think my former beliefs put me in a box and caused me to be very naive.

I want to go to the Bible for answers, but I have no idea how to read it, how to interpret, and what parts I’m supposed to take literally or not. I hate being so confused all the time, and I keep asking God for help, but I feel like He’s just ignoring me. And before yall ask, I haven’t been able to go to church or Bible studies for a while due to my current life circumstances. But even then, I haven’t been feeling my main church as of late. Nonetheless, I haven’t been able to leave my house that often anyways. I would love to go to therapy, but I currently can’t for reasons I can’t disclose right now. So I truly have no one to talk to or share my experiences with. Anyone I try to talk to either dismisses my feelings, counters my feelings and views with Bible verses, or doesn’t fully understand me. And I’m just tired of feeling this way. Sometimes I wish I could go back to being the naive person I once was before my life hit me like a freight train because I genuinely felt much happier then. 

But to clarify, I’m okay with not having all the answers. I knew that even when I was more naive. No one is ever going to understand God perfectly. But I just wish He could make sense of some things and not let us be confused all the time. I want to know how to properly read the Bible as a helping tool, I want to know when God speaks to me, and I want to believe that He isn’t as hateful and awful as the Bible depicts Him. I want to believe in the divinity of Jesus if it’s rly true. But if it is true, I want to know and believe that God shows mercy to those who don’t believe or don’t understand. And if it’s not true, I want to know what else I can hold on to. I used to think that Jesus truly was the way, the truth, and the life; however, I’ve seen people live genuinely happy and free lives without believing in Him. So once again, I don’t know what the *truth* is, and the more I ponder it, the more nihilistic and depressed I get. And I'm just tired.

I grew up in a pretty far right evangelical household. Church on Sunday morning. Youth group Sunday night. Awanas. Summer church camp. Youth group trips. Bassycs on Wednesdays. Campus life. So I was pretty involved. I learned purity culture. Being gay is a sin. Basically condemn and hate others who are “sinning”. I also had a narcissist mom and grandma who shoved forgive forgive down my throat while they never took accountability, made me a villain and assigned malicious intentions to me that were not correct at all because they never even knew me. I have been harmed by my family of Christian’s, Christian leaders, people of the Church, and no matter how much I prayed to God for my mom to change and just love me and stop treating me so terrible and to change her heart, it never happened. I got into an abusive marriage. Met my ex husband at 17. I finally left at 25. Stopped going to Church at 28. Went no contact with my family at 30. I am now 33. And I have done a lot of research into Christianity. I believe it is truly harmful and I don’t know how any intellectual person can believe in it. Even still. I pray to Jesus and God when I’m scared. I want so badly to believe that he is real. But I just can’t. I am really struggling. I know Jesus was a real man. I don’t really think God is real. I believe religion was made by men for men to control everyone else especially women. I don’t trust the Bible at all. After many years I thought today ok. I’m going to listen to the sermon that was shared today at the church I used to go to. And you know what it was about today? Billionaires. Billionaires giving 2 billion dollars to this church this man was preaching about today. And that they got their name on the building and that our church needed to donate more money. And that there is nothing more important than donating money to your home church. So that just about did it for me. I feel so lost. I don’t really know why I’m sharing. I don’t have friends or family. So I thought I’d just share it here. I’m living in a Bible Belt county. I’m the odd one out for not believing. The rare left or atheists that I have met have shown more empathy, love, kindness, and a helping hand more than any far right trump loving evangelical Christian that I have encountered. They are full of hate and judgement. While stating they can do whatever they want as long as they ask for repentance but want to judge everyone else and control what they do and shame them. The hypocrisy is sick.

It's not like I don't believe in Jesus anymore or struggle with any doctrine, but after more than a decade of going to church, I'm just tired of people. The churches that I went to claim they're living in heaven, but based on my experience, they aren't much different than joining any other kind of community. People go there to find meaning, to socialize, or to join a group to defend a certain doctrine, but I'm just tired of that drama. Church splits, suspicious leaders' ambition, and echo chambers are the reasons why I treat churches as just the same old thing that's been happening in the past yet remains unresolved. I can't tell if which one is true when leaders in a city can't work together but claiming God tell them do this and that, or having this and that inspiration or vision from above. If God is one why different groups of people wanted to go different way? or this whole thing is a scam, people just use religion to sell you a space to relax on Sunday, just like a business offering a service?

Maybe it also has to do with getting older, where peace of mind is very important and I don't need a huge circle of companions. That's why I'm cool with going to church once a month and never wanted to get involved with just one group of people. It's like investing, I buy index fund not individual stock despite the management of a company keep pitching me the benefits.

Leaving all the drama, I found other hobby like cycling, hiking and other sport are worth my time more.