r/Deconstruction

Hello! My husband (26M) and I (27F) are deconstructing Christians in very different places. Luckily, he's been very helpful to me and I to him. We get to be supportive of one another through this very difficult process.

However, I'm struggling a bit because of two things. We both are inching closer to the idea of being agnostic. He is settling very comfortably into this idea because he wasn't raised religiously. He says it brings him peace about a lot of things, especially the death of loved ones, to not have to worry about their afterlife and whether or not they went to Hell. For me, I am struggling hard to let go of the Christian label or the divinity of Christ.

I was raised Southern Baptist in the Bible belt. The fear of Hell and God were intrinsically linked to the identity of my church growing up, regardless of how subconscious those fears may have been. Now, having done a lot of work reading and studying the bible, memoirs, and religious studies over the last 4-5 years, I'm struggling to cope with the idea of Christianity. In addition to everything, watching Christians worship on Sundays (we still attend non-denominational services) then act so callously through the week with political acts or ignoring the suffering of others is really doing on a number on me. I struggle to reconcile their belief systems with their actions, especially here in the South. While my husband has embraced agnosticism, I still find a lot of comfort in the label. There's something scary about identifying with agnosticism to me (maybe because Christianity is all I've ever known).

As far as the divinity of Christ, I don't know that I even really believe in it anymore or if I just... cling to it like the label. I love the teachings of love and peaceable living. But the son of God? I don't know anymore. The resurrection? I'm not sure. It's very difficult and confusing.

Another issue I'm experiencing is the guilt with deconstructing on several levels. As you can imagine, my family is full of very conservative Christians. I feel guilt about leaving the religion without them. I haven't and don't intend to discuss this with them. But the other, and more significant guilt I have is bringing my husband into the religion. When we met, my husband was agnostic. I wasn't interested in most Christian men because they were, in my experience, horrible to me after learning about some of my more traumatic experiences.

As we got more serious, he attended church with me, respected my beliefs, and took genuine interest in them. Eventually, he converted to Christianity. This has caused him a lot of strife and emotional turmoil throughout his deconstruction as well. It makes me feel horrible realizing that, were it not for me, my husband wouldn't have had the struggles over religion he experiences now. I can't stand knowing I've, at least in part, caused him this grief.

TL;DR: As someone who is deconstructing and likely not religious, I'm struggling to let go of the Christian label, Christ as divine, and the guilt of leaving and having brought my husband into the religion when I did.

A few days back, I told an old friend that I met in church and have known for years that I’d officially left Christianity. She’s only the third Christian I’ve told.

Yesterday, she messaged me this long text describing how her chronic condition has worsened and how much pain she’s in. She finished by saying “I’m not sure if you’re comfortable with prayer, but if you are, please pray for me.”

And all I’ve honestly been able to think is, why would I pray for her?

Prayer is this concept of pleading with god to intervene on a situation (or, as I grew to believe in later years of my faith journey, and “invitation” to draw him near to you). It’s begging him to finally answer something I’ve been asking for years - to take my dear friend’s pain away.

He’s heard these prayers and he hasn’t done a thing about it. Why would I pray to someone like that? Why would I humble myself before him and beg him to change something in hopes that he’ll humor me?

i grew up baptist. the church i was in and my parents have a very literal view on the bible. a big part of this interpretation is spiritual warfare and literal manifestations of demons. this always felt so concrete and real to me. im honestly finding it more difficult to let go of this worldview than it was to let go of the concept of god. learning about how the bible was actually developed in an academic environment was where my deconstruction began. but the paranormal aspect just felt real. i have a horrible human brain and it loves looking for patterns and danger. but i dont want to believe in demons or spirits anymore. the way adults talked about the paranormal was so scary as a child. its so cruel to teach your children that there are spirits so evil and so powerful that they can physically torment you or take control of your body.

lately i find myself searching for articles and accounts to debunk famous hauntings and folk tales of demons. i keep searching reddit for threads debunking really specific paranormal phenomena. mentally i file every story i hear into the category of “true until proven otherwise”. i make it my mission to prove otherwise. sometimes i lose sleep because ive come across some new tale of demons and i cant settle down or relax until i find some thread debunking this specific case.

has anyone else experienced this? im trying to be nice to myself about these fears because i recognize theres trauma here. but im feeling really frustrated because i just cant let it go

I just feel like believing is in some sense is hurtful... as in you speak to "God" 24/7.. are looking for signs all the time that he is communicating/working in your life. That causes so much distress.. thinking the Devil is out to get you over frivolous things such as watching a fun horror movie! Begging for divine intervention.. waiting and waiting.. people ask you to listen to god in silence. I just find it strange! Being insulted over and over again when you are suffering terribly and unjustly by them saying "its necessary and causes a greater good" being told over and over again that God is Good and wants you to be happy! Yet you live IN reality and see horrific things happening to Gods beloved children. Such a grave cognitive dissonance. Im just deeply confused how anyone finds solace and peace i seriously think its designed to make you feel a bit insane. I would love to hear your thoughts on this! every negative emotion like jealousy or being depressed is literally a spiritual warfare. HOW can this be good for anyones mental wellbeing? life is already difficult. i have abusive parents who took so much of me and still do till this day and yet people say well god gave them free will! they let god off the hook so much! if god is deeply smart he obviously knew that someone would abuse their free will and yet still greenlit it. Just because god didnt cause the suffering or whatever dosnt solve the problem of why he is so passive!!!!!! towards the victim! make it make sense!!!! my faith seriously tormented me. "one day you will feel no more suffering! he will wipe all tears from your eyes" so cool! so now i have to wait in hell on earth? it all sounds so soooo cruel.

Hi there. I'm new here and new to deconstruction. I've been reading through the recent posts and they are helping me so much. Thank you for being here.

My question is- How did you get over the fear? What helped you get over the fear? I was raised in a very strict, fear based, legalistic, sect of Christianity. I was taught to fear punishment from God and to never question his existence or ultimate authority. In fact, when my father died of cancer at 23 I was told that God was punishing me.

Now that I am questioning, I'm not sure that I can believe in this God at all. I'm pretty sure He would be against me and how I currently think/feel/view spirituality. I also know that many Christians would be against me as well (there's a fear of rejection here). All that to say, the terror is real. The question my anxiety keeps asking me is- what if I'm wrong and they're right? Did any of you experience this and how did you eventually get passed it? TIA

I started having suicidal thoughts when I was only 13 years old. Now, at 19, nothing has really changed.

​I am slowly losing my faith in Christianity because of my family, and especially because of my aunt. They make me feel completely suffocated. They have incredibly high expectations, yet they are the most judgmental people I know.

They want to control everything, "Don't cut your hair, don't wear makeup, don't listen to that music, don't do this, don't do that, do this, do that." Whenever I struggle, they tell me, "Depression just means you don't have enough of Jesus in your life." Or that I just need to pray more

​My aunt’s gaze is the worst. Whenever I try to attempt suicide, the image that flashes in my mind is the judgmental look in her eyes.

​That is why I don't like Christianity anymore. I am hurt and confused by God, I hate Him, but I love Him, too. I believe He understands what I mean by that. It is just so hard to love Him when the people who claim to represent Him act like demons.

Now, I don't care if my aunt tells me it’s wrong to wear makeup, I will still do it. It comforts me more than they ever did.

​Before, whenever I used to say that I needed a doctor’s assessment, they would dismiss me or hurt me. One time, my dad slapped me hard across the face when he accidentally saw what's on my wrists, because apparently, it was "wrong" to do that to myself.

The whole family scolded me for doing it. There was absolutely no comfort or empathy, even when they found out I had bought a cord to unalive myself with. I used to be very verbal about how I felt, but throughout years of this reaction, I learned to just shut up.

​Over these past few years, I started hiding the cuts. But somehow it made me feel fake. Maybe because of how my family screamed at me for being dramatic.

Now, every time I make a suicide attempt, I get confused. I start feeling like I am just being dramatic or seeking attention, even though I know for a fact that I don't let anyone see my mental health issues.

​Whenever I cry, I feel like a completely different person. I feel so detached. But lately, that fakery feeling worsen. I feel fake even when I am laughing. Even during a simple task like studying, I feel like I am pretending. It feels as though I have no real identity, and like I am just trying to seek attention, even when I am completely alone.

I grew up going to church 3 times a week from the ages of 5-19, I am currently 23. My whole life was there and honestly it was FUN I loved going to youth group, and I loved being children’s ministry leader. I loved having so so many people in my life that I could rely on and be of service to. But I am trans and queer and polyamorous and those things all were in conflict with my sect of Christianity (and I would say all Christianity I believe?).
Ultimately I was outed at church when I was outed by my best friend’s father (because he found out we had a bit of a thing going) and pretty much lost it all over night. He went around and told everyone I was queer and that I shouldn’t be allowed to volunteer with the children, from there everyone looked at me differently and I just felt so much pressure I stopped going.
I know I’m looking back on it with rose coloured glasses, I know when I was there I was tormented by by fears of going to hell and was being bullied by adults as a 16 year old.
But today my sister was showing the family a vlog of her young adults retreat and I could help but feel so sad and upset that I couldn’t still be apart of it.

Is this a common feeling when deconstructing or is it a sign? Like if I miss it this much maybe there’s something there

It’s funny that I’m back here again after just a few days, but it was great fun. I’ve learnt so much from my last post and your answers :D that I’d like to tackle another problem. This one’s very short too. I was on a Discord server back then in the self-improvement section and believed the people there because a lot of the advice – like ‘do strength training’ or ‘get enough sleep’ and so on – actually works, so you just give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking, ‘Hey, they really do know what they’re on about.’ Then, at some point, I heard them talking about religious stuff too and I completely fell for it. It all came down very quickly to the idea that there’s no other true faith apart from Catholicism, and then they had these really, really long texts ready, with all this ‘evidence’ to prove, for example, that the Exodus was real, that the Shroud of Turin is genuine, that Marian apparitions are real, and that the ancient scriptures all show that it makes logical, internal sense that the universe is finely tuned (Firstly, that’s not true – most of it would kill us instantly, and if it is designed for one thing, it’s for the formation of black holes.) That, for example, is exactly the point I learnt after a friend who knows a lot about this sort of thing had a look at it and told me, ‘Hey, they’re completely taking the mick out of you.’

And ever since then, I’ve also been keen to further my education, particularly on topics like these (space, origion of live, science etc), and I always say that education is the enemy of ignorance.

And my main question would be – because I always feel, so to speak, a little better about it – that when I used to go to church, "I had divine experiences" , and when I soemtimes attended Catholic services (I had no prior experience of it because I come from the Protestant Church, which here in Germany is quite different from the one in the USA (its better)), whether when they were singing or during evening services – those were divine experiences. I just need some reassurance as to (mentioned in the previous post they can’t possibly be true) if they were "real" → "the feeling of something greater, connection, spine chill and similar" and if I need to be afraid of them." Because if it were true, I’d have to believe it too, as it’s become clear that I really did meet God and if he is real i have to follow him because thats the only way." That is scaring me all the time, i dont want to go to hell.

Whenever I see a religious post, spot a cross somewhere, or something bad happens to me, I always think, ‘Oh God, is trying to tell me something?’. The whole thing is a bit strange, actually, because I’m not religious myself, and I only started believing because I used to believe in something like fate – but that was really just confirmation bias in the end. And i cannot free myself from these things. And yes i have Something close to ADHD, but its not ADHD - meaning these patterns of thinking and feeling are not that uncommon in me at all.

And it’s precisely these patterns of thought that sometimes prevent me from breaking free from certain religious beliefs, for For example, I always think: ‘Oh yes, you can’t explain marian apparitions with science (yet!!!) – at least some of the well-known ones – so it must have been true; or you can’t explain the circumstances surrounding the empty tomb, so it must be historical; and (imagine apologists saying that): it’s not possible to explain it naturally because, after all, different traditions could never have come together and formed something like that and it was all written so early or they just recited what jesus said perfectly and chrcked themselves each other so they could remember everything.’

At this point, as this doesn’t really belong here anymore, I’ll send in my theories on the subject of the empty tomb at the end. And I just want to hope that it didn’t happen, because I simply don’t want to believe that anything supernatural exists.

And especially as, like everyone else, I’ve done bad things → i feel like ’m not a good person because I don’t go to confession. And some things are marks on me forever, for example, the fact that I used to bully people at school and was bullied too (but these were seperate things) – though that was a very long time ago and I can’t find some of them anymore , so I can’t apologise to them. I think these are just school problems, which isn’t good at all still, but in fact I’m also against that sort of thing these days, because I’m involved in lots of projects that help children and promote peace globally.

I’m not even doing it to ‘make amends’, so to speak – that would actually be a side effect – but simply because I enjoy it and I have a humanistic world view and believe that we should help people, animals and nature. That was also something I asked myself: ‘Yes, but what if I do have that kind of view? Surely it must come from God?’ But I’ve already found an answer to that: it’s simply that, For example, as a small child, I’d rather play with animals than see them on my plate; that’s why it makes me really sad to see fish – they’re actually so cute – and I didn’t want to eat them at all. Besides that morality has clearly and proven developed among people and cultures and is constantly changing and different among the world. And yes there are actually People that do not find murder all that wrong.

Empty Tomb Corner🎷🐛🌿🦣

To Arguments, actually there are some interesting ones regarding the tomb.

Of course, we only have some of the material we can work with, and we can't rule out the possibility that bits of text were lost or that something else happened in the meantime, but that's just what a naturalistic explanation entails - it's rooted in reality. But what always bothers me is how it can all fit together: that there was a Joseph, and that there was the story about the women. And I'd really bet that at least one of these things - if not all of them - has been greatly exaggerated to the point of becoming the stuff of legend. Of course, it's not that these people deliberately told something false; it was simply their beliefs, or rather the way the story developed over time.

Or the fact that there really is historical evidence that those who were crucified were not released but simply left on the cross also why would pilate do that???! And even when he was given to be put into the tomb - everything after the burial could still be complete bonkers too. And yet it's still a more plausible explanation than something supernatural having happened; but on the other hand, I just don't understand why people would concoct a story like that. I'm not saying it's impossible at all, it's just incredibly illogical. And to be honest, I think the bit about the women is absolutely true. Because it could simply be that women, who were very important in the early movement, found the wrong tomb or thought it was empty, and that they are simply the basis of this myth. And I would almost go so far as to say that that is the basis of it.

Temporary burial and subsequent reburial Many historians consider this more plausible than the theory of a false tomb. Jesus is initially buried in haste (because of the Sabbath). Later, the body is moved to another location (e.g. a communal grave). The women go to the first site and find it empty.

Joseph of Arimathea existed, but the tomb was only temporary Joseph makes his tomb available at short notice. The body is later reburied. This information does not reach the disciples. Over time, the tradition of a permanently empty tomb develops.

No honourable burial, later tomb tradition This is a hypothesis discussed by, amongst others, John Dominic Crossan and, to some extent, Bart D. Ehrman. Jesus is not laid in a private tomb after the crucifixion. Later, a tradition develops that he was buried with honour. This burial tradition eventually becomes linked to a narrative of the empty tomb.

Several traditions merge There is a local tradition concerning women at the tomb. In another place, reports of apparitions are circulating. Elsewhere again, stories are told about Joseph of Arimathea. When the Gospels were written, these traditions were woven together into a coherent narrative.

And not to forget "my" funny theories:

A hoax, and in reality there was either a real tomb or a fake one

Cannibalism (think of the my body and blood part regarding bread and wine)

People who thought, 'No, this is too important to us; we're actually going to take the body with us!

Jesus did not exist (actually, that one is probably not true, and he most certainly did exist, at the very least)

The Romans changing the location

Mistakes

Eartquake??!

23F and I have been a nondenominational Christian for as long as I can remember. I grew up in a very charismatic church, and I experienced painful things there. I wasn’t abused, but the church culture was not sensitive to those with mental health problems, and I was not shown the empathy I believe should be present in the church. Even my parents, who are deacons, are struggling there.

I left my home church after almost a year of searching, and I found a new community that I more closely identify with. I never felt peace about joining a church before this one, and I believed it to be the Holy Spirit’s confirmation that this is where I am mean to be right now.

The thing is, I’m starting to feel uneasy about being in church at all. I don’t enjoy being there. I feel like I’m totally faking, and I don’t know what to do.
I want to want a relationship with Jesus, and I want to want to pray, but I don’t want it enough I guess. I feel more like myself outside of the church, but I feel guilt and shame for it. I struggle to know whether those feelings are convictions from God or if they are from my religious upbringing.

I fully believe in God. I always will. But I have serious doubts about current church structure and the legitimacy of modern Scripture.

It feels so terrible to even admit. I’ve never said any of this out loud, but I can’t hold it in anymore. I do and say all the right things, and I can play the role perfectly. No one in my life knows about this, and considering I work in ministry (a Christian nonprofit), I feel like I can’t be open about these doubts for fear of being judged or even laid off.

I feel trapped, confused, and lost.
I’m not looking to leave my faith, and I don’t want to walk away from Christ. I know He is real and worthy of my life. I am just having trouble knowing what I believe and how to move forward in practice.

To make matters more complicated, I have feelings for someone who is Catholic, but I don’t sense that he has given his life to Jesus. I’ve gone back and forth between seeing the glimmer of a life where we believe in Christ and His sacrifice, but we don’t belong to the culture I grew up in. I don’t think I want to be with someone who hasn’t given their life to Jesus, but in this confusing season I’m just not on solid ground.

Of course, I can’t properly explain my entire situation through one Reddit post, but anyone who has gone through something similar (especially those who still have their salvation in Christ), I would appreciate your experience.

Thank you!

I made a Reddit account just for this so I hope I’m doing this right.

TLDR: Why do we thank God for healing my baby’s heart when God was the one who created her with a defect and it was a surgeon who fixed it?

My infant just had open heart surgery a couple of weeks ago. My family is very religious (non denominational Christian). I’ve definitely lost faith over the years and considered myself agnostic. However with my baby’s diagnosis, I felt desperate and figured it can’t hurt to pray. I started going to church, taking my baby with me, praying, and asking for prayer. I had been praying for a couple of months and we got some miraculously good news. My baby would still need surgery, but one of the major issues with her heart was healed. It felt unrealistically good, so for a moment, I felt like it really was God who healed her. I was praying every single day that my baby’s heart would be healed in full, and now I was adding a thank you to Jesus for fixing that one piece of her heart.
At the next cardiology appointment, the doctor told us it in fact had not been healed and we were looking at the original diagnosis. I felt so stupid. Part of me was thinking “it’s because God isn’t real or doesn’t care” and the other part of me thought “I’m a joke to God, he listened to me thank him over and over every day for months and didn’t actually heal anything.” My mom told me it’s important to not be bitter and we aren’t promised an easy life. So I kept trying. I kept praying, going to church, etc. Well, the time came for the surgery and she did well overall. It was a terrible time and it was very disturbing to see her go through this. After one horrible night in the hospital, watching my 6 month old child suffer through things even I have never suffered, I heard my mom praying at her bedside. I felt so angry. “What are we praying for? By your logic, God created her to go through all of this. An innocent baby,” I thought.
We ended up going home a few days later. My baby was doing pretty well. I gave updates to family and friends, and so many people told me how great God is. So many people said “praise the Lord”. I’m trying not to let it make me angry, but what are we praising the Lord for? People sent me so many scriptures about how God made her in my womb. I can’t help but think, “he missed a spot.” I understand, when you really really want someone to be there, you look for them in every corner. When people really want to feel like God did help her, they are quick to thank him for any positives. I’m quicker to thank the surgeon who dedicated his life to learning the workings of a heart so well that he can operate on one the size of a walnut.
I also don’t understand, if God wants us to be Christians and wants us to believe, why didn’t he help me and my baby? He would’ve had me hook, line, and sinker if her heart would’ve miraculously healed.
Anyway, I don’t feel like God is real anymore. Or if he is, he doesn’t care about our lives in the way most religious people think. But I’m sure there’s a Christian counter argument to this and I’m open to hearing it. If you read all of this, thank you.

Hello everyone,

I have been struggling with religious OCD for the past few months. I watched a lot of condemning YouTube videos and turned from specific sins because of them (cursing, masturbating, etc). But I realized I did those things not out of pure love for God and all He has done for me but because I was trying to prove that I'm saved. Is turning from certain sins and doing good works a common OCD compulsion? Is wondering about your motives (did I do that because I love God or am I trying to prove I'm saved) a common obsession?

If you've experienced something similar I would love to hear.

I’m wondering and having trouble with the idea of Jesus NOT dying for us. I don’t think of us as sinful. I think of us as innately human and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s good and bad in all of us. I love Jesus (Yeshua) and Mary Magdalene. I also follow ideas of Buddhism and being one and the same as the earth and everything created. But if Yeshua was born and he met Mary and they had their discipleship and he loved us and she taught it too. Why are we taught we needed a blood sacrifice? Personally I’ve always struggled with the whole reason for his coming in Christianity of “dying for our sins.” But he did die, he was murdered. But Mary Magdalene saw him after he was crucified. I imagine he was just a spirit and don’t think he *actually* came back in flesh and I don’t think the whole system is as we’re told. It’s just hard to deconstruct the idea that he didn’t die for us. When I talk about it out loud it sounds ridiculous that there needed to be a blood sacrifice. I don’t know. It’s all so confusing.

For context, I'm kind of in a stage where I still believe in God, but I now believe that he does not care with my suffering, after 8 years of very bad situations and no good resolutions from his part.

Right now, I am suffering because of scars from self harm that will never go away. I even prayed about this a couple of times, but I got nothing but silence. I don't expect much from God about that now, because of what I went through (I wrote about it in another post here) and what he hasn't done, and also because I don't know if I'm on the case of "my grace is sufficient for you", and I also don't know if that's something that's gonna only be solved in the afterlife. Anyhow, I don't pretend to pray for this for over 20 years getting no answers at all. (It's incredible, by the way, how a walk with God just makes you wonder in uncertainty like a shot in the dark, with no guarantees of good things in the end, but that's my experience, and I can be wrong.)

With that said, what do you guys do when you have something that makes you suffer but you know that God is probably not a good option to search for help? In other words, how do you guys help yourselves?

By the way, I'm not searching for therapy about this. Not that I'm against therapy or psychologists, but I don't want them trying to convince me to live a good life with something that naturally makes me sad. I'm not interessed in interpretations, new meanings and all that jazz.

(I'm sorry if I broke any rules unintentionally with my post.)

I have been deconstructing my faith since 18 (I’m now 20 now) and I NEVER told anyone of my family except one and my therapist. I don’t think that I can considered myself a Christian anymore because I no longer believe LGBTQ is bad, not all non religious people are bad, and I’m questioning why sexuality but I decided to go as unlabeled so I wouldn’t stress out anymore about it I’m straight or not. I’m not against religion, I was Christian since I was 11 and if I told my family that I don’t considered myself a Christian anymore, it would break their hearts, especially my grandparents and they’re good people (even though they voted for Trump and liked Charlie Kirk) I had a conversation about what if one of their family members is an atheist, my grandmother said something like they wouldn’t be out of the family unless they’re being toxic but still love them and let be a part of the family even though they’re going to hell…Does anyone either had that moment of realization or sadness they still think you’re going to hell for no longer being a Christian? That’s why I’m never gonna tell them that….

You can leave a restaurant at any time, half way through a meal, before the meal, after the meal.

You can buy a movie ticket and decide not to go and watch the movie.

You don’t have to justify why you are leaving a church for another church or why you want to leave church?

Are you interested in the potential of the church to do good generally for the world? Maybe.

But you’re allowed to be apart or choose to step back.

Yes, it’s good to be around people and community, but also recognise there are seasons of wilderness and God refining us on a solo voyage (see the Bible for reference)

So I argue you don’t need to have any reason to leave a church, by all means stick it out, push through, if you want, see where it challenges you as a person to grow, but don’t let anyone force you to stay.

So I'm writing this here because it's been tormenting me for over a year - like even physically (i have acid reflux very suspiciously closely developed since these things started stressing me). For context why all of this is so heavy for me, I'm quite involved in self-improvement and therefore often try to find a scientific explanation for things.

So - When a Bible scholar (probably also a skeptic themselves) contradicts a well-known figure, e.g., Bart Ehrman — then that's of course more of a substantive/ academic question, and naturally there are different interpretations and possible readings. But when an apologist criticizes that, it's on a completely different level, and that's exactly where my problem lies. It's destroying me because according to them, everything you say is always wrong, and they always have to dig up some detail or another interpretation, or claim that researchers are wrong or lying.

So I need an assessment here. What can I use as a basis to determine that I don't have to believe what believers say? For myself, I've found, for example, that the problem of evil, or the fact that evolution exists and humans developed gradually — which therefore makes no sense in terms of our ancestors having no souls and the modern human at some point apparently has. Or the whole thing with animals and nature that clearly show natural processes — parts of nature, like homosexuality, gender changing; even ethics etc. — or viruses, parasites, cannibalism, diseases. Even though a God who is good, according to texts, can influence people's minds, why doesn't he enter the minds of people who are currently in the process of destroying and governing the world and lead them toward peace??! And of course, we also shouldn't forget that there was a development from apocalyptic punishment to the modern concept of hell, etc. This notion is also, I believe, a big problem for many of us, but it's also something that keeps people in the faith.

And then there's another thing I have a problem with. I hear things, I inform myself about them. I fact-check them. I listen to trustworthy sources from people who aren't ideologically committed to telling you supernatural stories (MythVision Podcast, Paulogia, Mindshift Brandon, Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan, Alex O'Connor, Holy Koolaid, Gerd Lüdemann, Sir Sic, Skeptic Scriptura, Rationality Rules, Professor Dave Explains — of course some of these are NOT scholars but still expertised in their fields(even if some have a more humorous way of adressing things)). And that's exactly when thoughts come up again: "Yeah, but what about apologists and people who affirm the supernatural things? They have a lot of experience too. I must believe them as well and since they found some apparent mistakes in valid research or critical bible science and what they propose anti theistic (in my vision it sounds like they destroyed everything - i cannot keep to any secular believe they dont destroy for me)." And shortly after — let's say a day later — I think about it again and I'm totally uncertain about it, and someone could tell me the very things I've worked against and I'd almost believe it. The only certainty I have is kind of like, "Oh right, there was something about that yesterday." I'm not forgetful at all in general. It's just in this area that I let myself get intimidated, because I try to approach things in a scientific manner e.g. falsifying and affirming things , but in this area it's partly ideology and science mixed together. And I can't really see the difference, even though I'd like to.

Or the empty tomb - It’s more realistic to assume that nothing supernatural happened, but unfortunately there’s very little evidence for many of these natural explanations , and apologists always say, ‘But here and there, and this and that…’ I always feel as though the naturalistic explanations – which also differ greatly from one another – and would have absolutely no merit whatsoever. And I’m absolutely certain that it’s incredibly easy to attribute this to a few errors that have crept into a tradition, or simply to a few beliefs that people have used to interpret things, and that’s how this story came about. But believers always raise objections, saying that we’d be leaving things out and that it would be cherry-picking. And it could never be any other way, could it? Why would women be involved, and nobody would make that up etc.

Another example is when I hear a statement from the Church regarding Genesis where they say, "Yes, but that is compatible with the modern world," and maybe it's not so far-fetched after all that god and evolution work together, etc. That Genesis is nowadays predominantly understood metaphorically was certainly not always the case. Most people definitely believed it was meant literally.

What also needs to be taken into account, of course, is that some things are distorted and simply misrepresented. For example, there are assaults not only in the Catholic Church but also in other (religious) organizations. These exist just as much in Protestant churches, etc. Or regarding colonialism: the Church wasn't the one carrying out large-scale killings across entire countries. But it was involved in other processes, physical resource grabbing, and also partly in violence ofcourse too. But especially by today's standards — and actually even by the standards that should have applied back then — it's already terrible enough to impose a religion on people en masse. Of course it wasn't like that for everyone. Some adopted it willingly, but for the people who didn't want it, it wasn't good at all. And we don't even need to talk about the introduction of diseases.