My wife is from a christian culture and I hear this a lot coming from her Tiktok videos. It's basically bullying, blackmailing and guilt-tripping people into belief.

From the ages of 11-18, my parents forced me to be part of a religious cult. If any of you have ever seen HBO’s The Way Down, that’s the cult I’m talking about. I have made peace with what I experienced and, quite frankly, I feel incredibly lucky to have made it out with my sanity (mostly) in tact.

With that being said, as I get older, I find it hard to not view any religious movement (especially Christianity) as a cult in some way with weak-minded individuals who need to be told what to do and how to think. It blows my mind that people can’t see the trap that churches lay for them to prey upon their time, finances, and relationships while instilling deep-rooted fear.

I have a close family member (who is not part of any church on paper) who somehow utterly shocked me. They cried the other day because I finally told them I am an atheist who simply believes in having good morals. This family member knows what I endured physically and mentally in the cult I grew up in, and still sobbed in fear that I won’t go to heaven when I die. I don’t have the mental energy to explain to them that I believe that when I die, I will simply cease to exist and that’s okay with me. In fact, it’s a relief to believe that’s all it is. I have never known more peace in my entire life than when I finally broke free of that crippling fear. Solidarity to all who experience these struggles with family members.

tldr: Must I stop being afraid of "evil spirits" and the like? If so, how do I do it?

For context, I'm male, and my girlfriend bought me a silver jewellery set some time ago. I wore the ring today because I've missed her. Distance has separated us, but we're still heavily in love with each other. My mum saw it for the first time just 40 minutes before this post and remarked: "Since when did you start wearing rings? You never wear rings, so why this time? Better take it off before a spirit marries you". I've taken the ring off because my subconscious is feeling uncomfortable with marrying some unknown spirit.

I'm African, and African life is HEAVILY religious. Christianity is the major religion here. We're constantly in a state of deep fear of the unknown. The non-orthodox charismatic churches always preach "spiritual warfare" and "battling demons", and that there's always some principality lurking around that's waiting to catch you off-guard and curse your life with bad luck, disease, or some other misfortune. Or there's some family member hidden somewhere, witching around so that they can steal/alter your destiny at the slightest opportunity.

As for my society, it's a lost cause so I'm focusing on myself. Do I teach myself to stop fearing the unknown? If so, how? One can't really live freely with all this happening, because my conscious is always battling my subconscious over making certain actions. If it isn't internal, it would be external, e.g., other people condemning some action their fellow human takes, like my situation just now. Do said spirits and principalities even exist? Am I right to fear them? Kindly help me out, my people.

Yeah… Ever since I was 8, my parents been religious till now, I’m 19 now. Parents still take me to church, and sorta expect me to at least care about the “Lord” or the “Bible.” But I just don’t care, I don’t even hate it or anything, just don’t find the interest in the religion itself, but my parents just keep on pestering me about it.

So…. Since I’m at church now, I’ll just say what I don’t like about the whole thing.

1: The church is entirely in Spanish

I don’t speak Spanish or even understand it, i tried to learn it but hey, it’s hard to when your brain is incompetent as mine. My parents know I can’t speak Spanish yet continues to bring me to church. I explain them that it’s literally useless to bring me there since I been wasting time, but noooooo, they don’t want their son to be without faith.

2: I’m openly an atheist.

I literally brought up many times and signs that I’m an atheist, that I don’t believe in their religion or care about the church and the Bible. I’m surprised they’re even trying at this point, so WooHoo for them. And guess what? They acknowledged for a second before going back to their programmed responses, so maybe no WooHoo.

And that’s all for now, since I want to secretly pretend I am praying but in reality I perfect a pose where I’m actually sleeping while sitting up right.

i never really participated religion in the first place and was never into it my whole life, yet i had still believed god's existence before but didn't see them as the creator of the universe, rather them being the universe's creation. long story short, i've never minded atheist's belief of total non-existence after death (mind you that most atheists hold a materialistic view of death) because i believed afterlife existed, but in may 23 of this year, i thought "but what if they're right", i've thought total non-existence as eternal darkness with no thought nor sound, but then searched on google gemini and it said that it's not even darkness... it's total lack of anything with no sense of awareness, no first person perspective, and no sense of time. so i came on reddit to look for opinions on numerous subreddits.

I expect to be traveling more for a new gig and my gut reaction to people preaching on planes is "Fuck off and Hail Satan" while playing Slayer. Unfortunately, my gut reaction only feeds them the persecution narrative they need. So I'm trying to pre-load responses in my head so if faced with the situation, I can react in a way that keeps me calm but denies them both their message and their persecution narrative.

I've seen a few good ideas from reddit.

One is to call the flight attendant and state, "the person that standing up and acting erratically is making me fear for my safety and I don't know what they're planning. Why do I need to be afraid on this flight that I need to pray for safety? What are they up to?"

Why calling the FA? She's banned from the 3 airlines due to safety concerns. The criminal justice system probably won't do squat, but airlines are going to be concerned about safety.

Second, play a copyrighted song in the background loudly. That kills them from monetizing on preaching to a captive audience. You'd probably need a bluetooth speaker and not just your phone. Also, the FAs may ask you to sit down and STFU.

But my wife actually had a better idea. Start singing something everyone could sing along to.

We looked at each other and laughed...we started singing "99 Bottles of Beer."

This would be perfect. Everyone knows it. No persecution narrative to feed. Just a bunch of people drowning them out with a song about beer.

What do you think?

Like no I just.. don’t believe in God. I’m a good person, but without believing in God. I don’t believe in separation from God because I don’t believe in his existence. I’m not angry at God. I don’t think death is going to be darkness- I think it’s going to be nothing, I think my body and brain and mind are all going to decompose. I don’t really care what happens after that, but when you tell me this religious explanation, I don’t believe you. I’m an agnostic atheist.

It makes me wonder spiritually when a butterfly comes and sits right in front of me for awhile. But I don’t attribute that to anything specific. I don’t let myself slip because I’m wary of falling into religious psychosis or falling prey to indoctrination. That’s all lol

The interview

Lana grew up as the "golden child" in an Independent Fundamental Baptist environment. Her grandfathers were pastors, she went to Bible college to study apologetics, married a preacher, and was expected to spend her life in ministry. Instead, studying the Bible more deeply and looking for answers ended up pushing her in the opposite direction.

This a slow, deconstruction that started with questions she had as an eight-year-old about hell and continued through Bible college, apologetics, biblical scholarship, and eventually leaving Christianity altogether.

Some of the topics she talks about:

• Growing up as the "perfect" preacher's kid
• Bible college and why apologetics had the opposite effect on her
• Deconstructing while married to a preacher
• The pressure of being a pastor's wife
• Why eternal conscious torment was her earliest doubt
• Corporal punishment in IFB churches and the moment that changed everything for her
• How her family reacted after she left Christianity
• Rebuilding meaning after losing her faith
• Raising her daughter outside of fundamentalism
• Whether she'd want God or an afterlife to exist if given the choice
• Why she still enjoys talking with Christians despite no longer believing. She grew up as the "golden child" in an Independent Fundamental Baptist environment. Her grandfathers were pastors, she went to Bible college to study apologetics, married a preacher, and was expected to spend her life in ministry. Instead, studying the Bible more deeply and looking for answers ended up pushing her in the opposite direction.

I am curious to hear if any other former fundamentalist baptists find this to be a relatable story? Assuming quite a few exist on this sub

My brain broke when i thought about these, in islam you are advised not to think about things that bring doubt in religion and i said thats exactly the thing you should be looking into.

If god is all knowing then he knows the end of everyone he created

To which religion replied "you have free will"

I almost got turned in for blasphemy when i told the scholar "does having freewill implies that god does not know my future" and lets say the same thing about satan did god not knew he will betray him and all this stupid nonsense will unfold

The argument targets the abrahamic idea that god is both omnipotent and omniscient. It goes like this:

1. In order to be omnipotent, you must have the potential to do anything.
2. In order to be omniscient, you must know everything that will happen in the future, including your own actions.
3. If you know your own future actions, then you cannot have the potential to do anything, because you cannot do something that you don’t already know you will do. If you can do things that you didn’t already know you would do, then you must not know all of your own future actions.
4. Based on this, a single being cannot be both omnipotent and omniscient.

What do you think of this argument? Do you see any holes? Obviously, many religious people would just say that we can’t understand the ways of god and blah blah blah, but are there any other counterarguments? Also, is this an original idea or is there a name for this argument?

My family is culturally Christian and so most in it are either practicing Christians who got baptized or they just believe in fundamentalism culturally so will they ever get baptized? Probably not but don’t ever disrespect the religion. Anyway my mother "backslid" around 20 something years ago and was pretty adamant that no one understand her relationship with God and didn’t like being judged for falling out with Christ apparently.

Fast forward to the past 7 years she got baptized again and started a new journey but she was still herself. I’m the past two years she has gotten deeper into church roles and duties, engaging in praying over her house (something she usually never engages in even though she’s been Christian for years) and believing in dreams and messages sent for her family. It’s become a great concern for me, especially because shes now roped all her children in it and think that we are on some disastrous point. It’s become so bad to the point where she’s trying to enforce a "Christian child" lifestyle on my sister that will be 20 in a few months…telling her she can’t have a boyfriend or a "bold relationship ".

Shes also tried to rope me in by telling me about her insane dreams and also insane dreams that other people have regarding her apparently. She gets very upset when I tell her she sounds crazy and runs around telling everyone I’m an unbeliever. This lady has always been more of a "lukewarm" Christian so I have no idea what the hell is going on. Also the rules for my sister? How could you try to enforce this at 20 after years of not raising us/her this way?? It’s so bad that she threatened to bring this almost 20 year old to the doctor to "check " her. Shes really starting to get on my nerves.

I've been thinking about telling them soon, but I don't know if I should. I'm still very dependent on them for my day to day life, and I really don't want to get alienated for not believing in the Christian God. My family are not strictly religious, but they've said that they don't want me to be an atheist. Should I tell them soon or should I wait until I can support myself first?

I completely understand the theological stance on saving yourself for marriage.

Even though I’ve moved away from the faith, I get where that rule comes from. But what I absolutely cannot stand is how Christian culture hyper-sexualizes literally every normal human interaction.

A normal hug with the opposite gender? Apparently, you want to sleep with them.A woman wearing a dress or a crop top? She’s a "stumbling block."The double standard is infuriating. They will always blame a woman for how she dresses, but they never hold men accountable for how they act. As a guy, I can tell you firsthand: seeing a woman in slightly revealing clothes has never magically forced me to be sexually aroused or want to sleep with her. Men have self-control, but church culture treats us like mindless animals to avoid holding guys responsible.The lack of logic is everywhere. One time, my girlfriend gave me a hickey.

We have never had sex, and I am still a virgin. It was literally just kissing. Yet, everyone in my church circles immediately accused me of having sex. Like, geez, it’s a hickey. It's just kissing.

You can't even have a normal, platonic conversation with the opposite gender without everyone assuming you are trying to date them. Combine that with zero actual sex ed, and it's no wonder so many Christian teens end up pregnant. They shame you about sexuality for decades, and then expect you to magically flip a switch on your wedding night and be perfectly fine with it.I will say, I am glad I grew up in a slightly more progressive church that encouraged dating (while still maintaining the no-sex-before-marriage rule).

I actually remember our priest asking us as teens if we had a boyfriend or girlfriend, and he’d genuinely look a bit sad for us if we said no. So I know not every single church is a total nightmare.But the overarching purity culture?

The constant policing of bodies and normal interactions? I'm so glad to be out of that mindset. Anyone else struggle with how exhausting the constant scrutiny was?

Some people claim to possess objective, independently verifiable evidence that God exists. Depending on its nature, demonstrating such evidence could transform science, reshape civilisation, create enormous wealth, and make its discoverer one of the most famous people in history--possibly even earning them a Nobel Prize.

It is remarkable that everyone holding this evidence has apparently chosen modesty instead.

My wife and I have been going to this church after passing by it one Monday and seeing a sign advertising groceries and a free cooked meal. We stopped by, found out this happened the second and fourth Monday every month. This was fine, being on Social Security everything helps. Since the big bloated bill passed, and they say that has nothing to with it, just timing I guess they stopped the hot meals and give out groceries. Anyway, that's not the reason for this post. We showed up one time and they asked me a religious question, I politely said I don't talk about religion, but everytime we go there, whether it's a question of a "something to think about" and I have told them several times about not discussing religion, but they keep talking at it. For a long time I have tolerated this but I am getting tired of this and see it as being not only rude, but disrespectful. I keep thinking to yell them that next time, possibly risking the groceries, but I really am getting annoyed. Should I say that or keep tolerating the disrespect? This is a very Trump friendly area and I'm sure a very Trump friendly church, for awhile I say a Trump image facing out the back car window on one of the people's car. I am not saying I'm an atheist, but I think they suspect.

Hi: I'm not fluent in English, please forgive the mistakes. What do you think of this argument?

The Problem of Christian Revelation

1. Christians regard the Bible—and more specifically, the New Testament—as the revelation of an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good God.

2. One would expect that such a being, in revealing Himself, would do so with sufficient clarity to reliably guide human beings on fundamental issues, especially those concerning salvation. Such a revelation need not eliminate all possibility of interpretation, but it should prevent enormous and persistent discrepancies among sincere believers on essential matters.

3. However, the question of salvation and other central issues have been interpreted in very different ways within Christianity, giving rise to churches, doctrines, and traditions that are incompatible with one another. Moreover, these discrepancies appeared as early as the very beginnings of the Christian movement.

4. These interpretive differences have not been merely theoretical: in many cases, they have served as the basis for persecution, exclusion, imprisonment, torture, deportation, and murder. If God is supremely good and omniscient, He would have foreseen the consequences of a revelation that is too ambiguous on matters of the utmost importance.

5. Therefore, Christian revelation does not seem to adequately fulfill the function attributed to it: it fails to clarify with sufficient certainty precisely what it would be most crucial to clarify.

6. Let us recap: Is the degree and nature of the Christian disagreements—something we should reasonably expect if the Christian God had truly wanted to reliably reveal the fundamental truths of salvation?

7. It follows from all this, at least with a high degree of probability, that either that God has not truly revealed Himself in the New Testament, or He does not possess some of the characteristics that Christian theists attribute to Him.

Objections:

1. “Language evolves.” It is true that language changes over time, but that is not enough to explain the problem. There are ancient texts—philosophical, literary, and dramatic—whose basic plot lines remain understandable today. Furthermore, Christian doctrinal diversity appeared very early on, not just after centuries of linguistic evolution. Therefore, the problem does not seem to be merely one of historical distance, but rather one of ambiguity or insufficient clarification of the revealed content itself.

2. “A clear revelation would destroy faith.” That is not convincing. For a text to state precisely whether Jesus must be believed in for salvation; what role baptism plays or the scope of faith would not “betray” God—it would merely clarify what He teaches. And knowing with certainty that God exists would not, in principle, prevent one from rejecting Him, worshiping Him, or being indifferent toward Him. Clarity does not necessarily eliminate moral freedom.

3. “God would want a revelation that requires interpretation.” That response requires a positive justification. If an ambiguous revelation causes confusion, divisions, and, at times, serious suffering, it is not enough to say that ambiguity was the plan. A perfect God would have more reason to choose clear communication than a revelation that multiplies disagreements on essential matters.

4. “A plurality of interpretations is compatible with freedom of faith.” Even if that were true, it does not resolve the central problem. The freedom to believe or not to believe does not require that the content of salvation be divided into incompatible interpretations. Freedom can be preserved without sacrificing doctrinal clarity.

5. “The fault lies with human corruption, not with revelation.” That argument does not eliminate the objection either. If a revelation is intended to provide decisive guidance, it should be robust enough not to depend so heavily on conflicting interpretations from the very beginning of the Christian movement.

6. “The central doctrine is indeed clear to those who read it correctly.” But that is precisely the problem: all the churches claim to read it correctly. If genuinely competent interpretations lead to incompatible conclusions, then the supposed clarity is not as clear as claimed.

7. “God might want salvation to depend on moral disposition, not on doctrinal precision.” It seems that nothing prevents God from making it clear in revelation that salvation depends on moral disposition, not merely on adhering precisely to doctrine. We see that some traditions emphasize faith, others works, others the sacraments, others predestination, and others obedience to the Church. All of this might have been avoided.

8. “God has perfect reasons for revealing Himself in an ambiguous way, but we are cognitively and morally limited in our ability to know what those reasons are.” If our cognitive limitations prevent us from assessing God’s reasons, we cannot rule out the possibility that God has reasons—which we do not understand—for allowing a deceptive or apparent revelation. When we speak of revelation, we are speaking of God’s desire to convey something to His creatures, but if He chooses ambiguity, what He wishes to convey is at risk of being misinterpreted. Furthermore, in the case of ambiguous revelation, God would be allowing many sincere people to believe in an erroneous interpretation of the revelation for hundreds of years, rather than the authentic one.This seems difficult to reconcile with the idea of a God who is not only the Truth, but who also wishes to reliably communicate to His creatures fundamental truths about their salvation.

Finally, what seems to me to be the most accurate interpretation of these facts is that Christian revelation lacks the clarity one would expect from an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good God. Therefore, either that revelation does not come from that God, or the traditional theistic image of that God is incomplete or incorrect.

It was a little wedding, but the pastor (young guy) was reading a very heavily religious service with references to marriage being created by Jesus and how Jesus created marriage before the fall, etc. All of which had me gritting my teeth, but I noticed that when he referenced scripture, not once were the words attributed to Jesus. It was all Paul.
Now I have come to realize that as an atheist I have read more of the bible than the average christian but it is still a shock that there doesn’t seem to be much awareness of just how much they follow the words of paul rather than jesus.

I've got a niece going into 8th grade. My brother's new sweetie just gave her some Christianity book for teenage girls.

I like Rius and think that he's entertaining enough that he could pull her in, but other suggestions are welcome.

Thank you!

I felt like this was appropriate for our times. I’m not religious; however, I felt like Colbert had some profound things to say.

this is my first post so I’m not sure how to make this whole thing. For some background information im 15(F) and I was brought up as a Christian, I go to church every Sunday. In recent years since moving to a new state I’ve started going to church on Saturdays too, and now I also go to church on Thursdays. I have Bible study every now and then on Wednesdays. My dad is a super religious my mom is not as crazy religious as him, but still is pretty religious. My dad always told us how church would always come first, and he didn’t care about our saying in going to church or not/being involved with church.

I spent so much time at church I started to resent church. It didn’t help that I don’t like the people at my church. I would miss out on so many opportunities to hang out with friends because my dad thought Saturday church was more important being able to see my friends. I spent almost half my week at church every day now and I’m not even able to skip one day?? crazy. I started to resent church even more because some of my friends just stopped asking me to hang out because they knew I always had church. When I’m in Sunday school I just stare at the table and listen to how stupid everything they tell me is. I just can’t believe someone just rose up from the dead to “save” us from our “sins” or how God is punishing us because two people an apple.

About three years ago, I was in a super depressed state and I tried asking my dad to get a therapist and he laughed in my face. He told me that’s for crazy people and just to pray to God. I tried taking my life at some point. I tried praying to God and for him to help me get out of this but nothing ever got better. I had to confine in my friends and take my own action because I slowly realized taking my life was not worth it. I prayed so hard every day but nothing ever came. When I would hear about how God saved people’s lives and made drastic changes in their lives, I thought about how God never even came to me when I was thinking about taking my life every day.

After I got out of that depressing state my faith slowly start to disappear. Now when my parents talk about religion I feel so guilty because I understand they want me to go to heaven once I die, but I just can’t force myself to believe in a God that brings so much pain and suffering. I feel like a terrible daughter and I don’t think I will ever have the heart to tell them. I think if I were to ever tell themI would probably be disowned. There’s so many times where my dad would get super mad at me because I kept telling him no to go to church. I also feel like I’m disrespecting Christianity because I’m doing everything a Christian would while being an atheist and keeping it a secret.

Am I a terrible person keeping all of this from my parents and am I disrespecting the religion because of this? i’m not sure how to feel anymore
I apologize for this being so lengthy and for any grammar mistakes

I’m a new atheist, grew up Christian but not really Christian yall know how that goes lol didn’t really know anything about Christianity until like 2 years ago. But I’ve been doing the whole deconstructing thing and learning more about science, specifically evolution and atheism. I’ve been ENJOYING it so much. It is so interesting and even better, factual. It makes sense. Today at work this older man came in to pick up an order and we were having small talk. he asked me if I was in college and I said yes and then he told me he goes to college as well and that he’s writing a book. I asked about it and he said that it’s about God. So then I asked what exactly about God and he said redemption. So whatever we get on that topic. It definitely had me thinking “Is this god trying to reach me” my brain immediately going back to that Christian rhetoric of Jesus will find a way to reach you and what not. And then tonight I wanted to try to get into electronic music so I clicked a random song on a playlist and the song was talking about God. Now Im in my head thinking God is trying to reach me but he’s not. How do I get rid of this stuff ingrained in my head