r/exchristian

Do you guys also get random veggie tale songs stuck in your head all the freaking time? Seriously, if anyone mentions a hairbrush or my GF talks about her Subaru, or I’m cooking a fucking cheese burger. I was at a museum in Chicago and they had a stuffed Water Buffalo. When I watch John Wick I start singing about how God is bigger than the boogie man. Fuck!! God forbid someone talks about a belly button.

Did anyone else grow up with a parent who brought up the "age of accountability" in regards to Christianity? I remember that my mom would say the age was 12 (I don't remember the exact number but I think it was 12). It was held over me and when I turned that age, it made me very anxious and I of course, fell in line with doctrine that started to feel increasingly wrong.

hello folks, preemptive apologies if I'm breaking the rules, because all links on the info page aren't working for me.

I was a deeply ingrained homeschooled baptist as a child, spent my late teens and twenties in non-denominational churches before finally leaving the lifestyle at about thirty and I turn forty shortly. I was heavily involved in church activities, in worship teams, holiday plays, small groups, more than I could confidently name. I am having indescribable difficulty existing as a churchless person. I used to have innumerable peers participating in the same groupthink, but no longer. I once had a safe weekly outlet for my musicality, nope.

so, dare I ask, what is the church for the unchurched? what can I possibly dedicate myself to that gives even the slightest hint of the unflinching affirmation I found from religion? is there an atheist/agnostic organization that even comes close?

in short, am I cooked? I've spent ten years out of church life and absolutely cannot find my tribe.

Christians and evangelicals love to claim that they are pro life and how if someone doesn’t want an un planned kid they should give up the child to adoption and the so called pro lifers always sound like they will take care of the unwanted kid. Well we all know they won’t; and to me they are only pro life to punish people for daring to enjoy having intercourse because to them; abortion is avoiding Gods punishment to continue to enjoy having intercourse without consequence so in their eyes, the child is proof of their eternal shame and punishment. Pro lifers are not pro life; it is pro punishment in their eyes which is also why they want to get rid of birth control because to them the only birth control is not having sex so it’s about punishing people with pregnancy and child rearing. So, so much for the pro lifers who just love children.

So July 4th was going well. Me, my wife and my kids were all swimming at a family members home and we just got done playing board games. Then a family member (my wife’s side) starts asking questions about faith and directing it toward me.

I instantly start to think “oh boy.

Last year I spoke with my wife’s brother about my faith (I’m agnostic). I met my wife as a Christian and after years of marriage that changed. My wife however was a believer but not religious but has grown in her faith. Anyway… my wife and my wife’s brother knows about me being agnostic now. They know I grew up in the church, was saved multiple times and baptized multiple times, was an usher and on our choir. But… there’s too many issues that my mind can’t get around with lack of evidence. So I can’t prove nor disprove god.

My wife’s brother and this family member went fishing recently and long story short I wouldn’t be surprised if he said something.

Fast forward to after he started asking me things I just told him how I felt and believed. There were things I said where he straight up said “yeah I don’t know how to answer that”… like I said if god is omnipresent and omnipotent how do we have free will? And if he is and everything is predetermined then why create a bunch of beings to eventually burn in hell. The conversation went on for hours, my wife was crying at one point questioning things with marriage. She said “I just wish sometimes when I had a bad day you would pray for me”. The family member we were speaking to dropped the “I’m talking to you because I love you” line…

It was like a Christian intervention. And the entire time I’m trying to explain “faith is personal. Don’t be sad for me I’m not sad for myself. I love you all regardless.” and man… it was tough just watching them do mental gymnastics around me being the loving and understanding one that is logically making sense here.

Anyway… had nowhere else to vent about this so here it is. Happy 4th everyone!

There’s something that I’ve been wanting to achieve, and I think I just want to do it for the sake of doing it. Lol

(More as a symbolic achievement)

I’m not an ex Christian , but Im more of a exMuslim.

And our practices are so exhausting to the point where even something little feels like it achievement when I break it lol.

We have this concept of strictly eating Halal food , and back then I was raised in a way to fully commit to it, so I genuinely used to avoid every type of food that wasn’t Halal.

I left my Muslim country to study in a non-Muslim country . And when I did the religious rules became much more exhausting and demanding to practice (simply because I was in a different culture)

And the effort that I had to put became so absurd to the point I did stupid things that made no sense.

It was so stupid and so idiotic that I kept asking myself. Why the fuck am I doing this?

There’s like Chick-fil-A 2-3 minutes away from my classrooms, and I could just simply buy something real quick than Wait until I get home or spend hours looking for a restaurant or grocery store that was distance away, just to fulfill a religious obligation.

So within my 3rd year, I just broke,

I was psychologically terrified from crossing lines that I know I shouldn’t cross and felt wrong to cross as if I’m betraying my entire religion.

But Guess what?

I went down to the Chick-fil-A, I ordered something.

I never thought in my entire life that eating Chick-fil-A would be the best thing I do.

😂😂😂😂

It’s f*cked up, but it made me so damn happy, and it also made me realize how abusive this f*cking religion is

Why am I gate keeping myself so damn hard?

So I tried more things that was unacceptable, religious wise, and I felt even more liberated.

Honestly

I also always wanted to experiment with things like sex.

but I didn’t wanna go there just yet because I wasn’t sure how that would affect me mentally or emotionally (because sex is still kinda of a very big deal to me regardless of it being religiously or non-religiously)

And there were a lot more important things that I had to focus on in my life that needed my attention.

But either way

I f*cking hate arranged marriages, but that’s how most people experience sex, and I don’t feel like I want to get married specifically just to experience sex.

Wondering what your experiences are like…. if you have any ?

Okay so if I have to believe the Christians I have talked with, the Christian god made all humans, and he is perfect and makes everything with a purpose. Some of them also said homosexuality is not preferred, or even a sin. But if God made everyone on purpose, why did he make gays if he doesn’t like them?

Hi, all. I have something I wanna get off my chest as it is just annoying the crap outta me. So, I live with fundamentalist Evangelical Christian mom; she's a Black Evangelical tho, so you can imagine what she is like: constantly talking about Jesus/God, how she gets dreams from God all the time that are supposedly warnings (even though she selectively applies them to future events after those events happen), prays and worships all the time, etc. She also has been falling for conspiracy theories like how NASA fakes space missions because "God never intended for us to go to space, it's too far away". Bruhhhhhhh. Anyway, onto the main thing I wanna rant about is how she thinks her religious interpretation allows her to assume and assert things about other religions, non-religious/irreligious people, and even other cultures. An example of this is how anytime Buddhism ever comes up (rarely does tho), she always says that it only makes sense that Buddhists worship Buddha, as if it's up to her to decide how Buddhists practice their own religion! The buddha never even claimed to be a god, yet this man gets shit from arrogant Christians like my mom, omg. Anyway, get a load of this (what I really wanna mention): we were watching Molly of Denali on PBS Kids and there was a scene in an episode where a guy was telling a folktale about how a muskrat helped a lonesome traveler who was trapped in the middle of the ocean by going underwater to bring him enough mud so that he could use magic to turn it into a chain of islands. Upon seeing this, my mom jumps to the conclusion that this is witchcraft which they passed down to their descendants through these demonic stories. I was immediately disgusted by this thinking. She doesn't know a damn thing about Alaskan culture or history but assumes that this magic was witchcraft?? Why, just because they weren't Christian?? I am truly disgusted by this thinking. Even if it was witchcraft, I can't help but think that it's her god's fault for that because if he was real, he let so many cultures throughout decades and centuries across time develop cultural practices that he hates so freaking much? How does that make any sense? She acts as if all these cultures apparently knew Christianity was a thing before Christianity as a religion even existed but just refused to adopt it because of sin! The amount of ignorance & arrogance you have to have to make claims like this is so beyond me, y'all 😩

Ephesians 6:4 comes after the famous verse of "honor your parents", but I don't remember a single mention about parents not annoying their children, it was always about children needing to obey their parents, and we know very well why they did it. I remember once, my father kept joking about throwing away his pet dog, knowing that I love animals and wanted to be a veterinarian at the time, and I couldn't tell him to stop, because he always said I was "too soft". One day, I got sick of these jokes, and called him dumb, an insult that he was constantly calling me. What did he do? He hit me and forced me to kneel in a corner, threatening to make me kneel on rice or corn, and spoke again about honoring father and mother.

This is such a stupid and idiotic question and such a easy one to answer.

Out of all religions Christianity causes the most harm. Its as simple as that and yet I see people asking this question for some reason.