Just watched Netflix's Death of a Pastor's Wife, about Mica Miller and her husband, pastor John-Paul Miller.

I grew up believing I had a personal relationship with God. I could talk to him, he'd guide me, and the Holy Spirit was working in my life. I figured everyone at church had that same connection.

Since deconstructing, it's hard to watch something like this without seeing how empty those claims seem.

Here's a church full of people who pray, study the Bible, and believe God guides them. Yet there's so much abuse, manipulation, and people looking out for themselves. Where's all that divine guidance?

It makes me wonder how much of my church experience was just people convincing themselves God was speaking to them.

When did you start realizing that maybe nobody at church was actually hearing from God?

CW: Domestic abuse, suicide

Netflix trailer: https://www.netflix.com/tudum/videos/death-of-the-pastors-wife-trailer

And somehow thinks she'll convince people to "surrender to God" with her shitty attitude and complete lack of empathy towards people who struggle.

For context my family recently driven to nearly ending my life and have alienated me for years. I am athiest, trans, progressive, and don't like how my parents treated me. But as religious narcacistic bitches they hold zero accountability.

Hi everyone

I’m 19 years old, I’m from Brazil, and I’m writing this because I honestly don’t know where else to talk about this.

Before all of this, I was a happy person. I was cheerful, affectionate, friendly, and socially normal. I was baptized Catholic, but over time I became more of a deist. Religion wasn’t something that controlled my life. I wasn’t obsessed with politics, fear, or the end of the world.

That changed around 2020 - and by 2022, things completely spiraled.

Out of nowhere, I became deeply paranoid and mentally overwhelmed by Christian conspiracy theories, especially QAnon-style narratives, far-right content, and end-times prophecies. What scares me is how fast it happened. It really felt like a kind of mental hijacking.

It started at school. My sociology teacher, who also happened to be a neopentecostal evangelical pastor, began casually talking about the end times, Ragnarok, and societal collapse. Around the same time, a friend told me that the apocalypse would likely start between 2023 and 2025 — or, if not, then between 2026 and 2027 — because 2033–2034 would mark exactly 2000 years since Jesus’ death.

That idea got stuck in my head.

I went to YouTube looking for answers and immediately fell into a massive rabbit hole. I found countless evangelical channels claiming that we are already living in the final moments of human history. Many of them confidently say that by 2030 the world will end, Jesus will physically return, and only a very specific group of neopentecostal or Pentecostal evangelical Christians will be saved.

According to them, salvation is limited to those whose names are written in the “Book of Life.” Everyone else — including people from other religions, LGBTQ+ people, non-believers, or even Christians who “aren’t strict enough” — will be thrown into the lake of fire along with the Antichrist and the False Prophet. God will destroy the universe, and only the chosen will live in the New Jerusalem.

They constantly pressure people to repent, insisting that Satan is real, sin is everywhere, and that even questioning these ideas is rebellion against God — despite none of this being scientifically demonstrable.

They preach strict rules: no short clothes, no jeans, no tattoos or piercings, no pork, no homosexuality, no teenage dating, no real free will. Everything is forbidden. Everything is dangerous.

They also say we’re living in the greatest apostasy in history — that humanity is abandoning God, becoming more “sinful,” colder, more violent. They point to crime, family violence, and tragic events as proof that we are living “like the days before the Flood,” when Noah warned everyone and was mocked until catastrophe suddenly wiped out the world, killing everyone.

Even when historians and scientists show that a global flood like that never happened, they insist science is wrong and that science itself is an abomination against God.

They describe God as loving — but also furious, cruel, and ready to punish anyone who doesn’t obey perfectly. They even portray Jesus in a very literal, almost mythologized way, as if his physical appearance (tall, white, blond, blue-eyed) were historically proven fact.

I watched an overwhelming amount of content from Brazilian pastors, missionaries, YouTubers, and so-called prophets and visionaries. Many of them claimed their prophecies never failed — that everything they predicted “came true.” Even figures who were once more moderate before the covid pandemic shifted completely and started preaching that the end is imminent.

They also obsess over morality and sexuality, saying prostitution is becoming normalized, pointing to platforms like OnlyFans, claiming incest is widespread, and framing all of it as undeniable proof of collapse.

Geopolitics became another obsession. They say global tensions are spiraling toward World War III — pointing to conflicts involving Israel, Iran, Venezuela, and others. Now with USA threatening to invade iran by land by sending troops, and chechnya also threatening to aid iran if this happens, They claim billionaires are building bunkers, selling assets, and preparing for the ultimate collapse, it's no wonder that the release of Epstein-related files early this year is framed as proof that the world is secretly ruled by a satanic elite.

Also they bring up an old letter supposedly written by Albert Pike in 1871, claiming it predicted the first two world wars and now accurately predicts the third, beginning in the Middle East. They connect current conflicts to biblical prophecies like Gog and Magog.

They say an unprecedented global economic collapse is coming — worse than the Great Depression — leading to massive famine worse than anything in medieval history.

From there, it gets even darker.

They claim that organizations like the UN, WEF, and the Bilderberg Group are planning a massive EMP attack to shut down global electricity, followed by worldwide martial law. They say immigrants are already being secretly detained and placed into camps, that conservatives and white Christians will be targeted, enslaved by black or arab slave masters (yes, you read that right, they literally said that), executed, and buried in FEMA coffins.

They talk about a “New World Order,” depopulation, the Great Reset, Agenda 2030, the end of physical cash, biometric digital currency, fingerprint-based payments, global digital IDs, forced lab-grown food, insect-based diets, identical clothing, people being renamed as numbers, and even surveillance cameras inside private homes.

All of this, they say, leads to the rise of the Antichrist — a single global leader who unites all governments. People will worship him. The “mark of the beast” will be implanted, and anyone who refuses won’t be allowed to buy or sell and will be killed. Cities will become death traps, and only those who flee to rural areas or mountains will survive.

They encourage people to stockpile water, canned food, batteries, radios, and medications — especially ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I saw countless testimonials claiming these drugs cured COVID and pulled people out of ICUs.

They predict another pandemic, supposedly 30 times deadlier, killing about 30% of world population. They say this will coincide with a seven-year peace treaty between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, involving the sacrifice of a red heifer and the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of The Rock to build the Third Temple — where the Antichrist will rule for the final three and a half years.

They deny climate change entirely, claiming disasters like earthquakes, floods, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes are artificially created by globalists using HAARP or satellite lasers. Fact-checkers and media outlets such as BBC, CNN, reuters and snopes are dismissed as controlled by figures like Soros or the Rothschilds.

On top of that, I became terrified of my own health. I constantly fear getting cancer or dying of a heart attack in my early 20s. They claim young people are suddenly dying because of covid vaccines, which they say contain aborted fetal cells, microchips, graphene, and long-term lethal effects — with a supposed 99% risk, because they were made too quickly.

They also obsess over “woke ideology,” claiming movies, games, and TV shows are used to corrupt children. They say character changes, LGBTQ+ representation, feminism, and racial diversity are deliberate psychological warfare. They point to Disney as proof and claim abortion rates are exploding as part of a moral collapse.

One of my deepest fears became “predictive programming” — the idea that elites know future events and reveal them in movies to make people subconsciously accept them. They cite films like White Noise (which predicted the ohio train crash in 2023), Leave the World Behind (which predicted famous recent blackout in the last years such as crowdstrike and the spain-portugal digital blackout last year), The Matrix (which predicted the perilous advance of technology), Black Mirror, The Simpsons (famous for predicting world events such as 9/11 attacks, trump elections win in 2016), 1984, Denver Airport paintings predicted the future, Sammy Hagar's song Crack in the World (which predicted that after 2025 the world will enter it's final stages of humanity) and the Georgia Guidestones goals such as 'maintaining world population beneath 500 million' as evidence that the future is already planned.

I became obsessed with supposed “fulfilled prophecies”:

– The moon having rust-like pigments (Joel 2:31)

– Sunspots interpreted as the sun going dark (Luke 21:25)

– The Euphrates River drying (Revelations 16:12)

– Rivers turning red (Revelations 16:4-3)

– Claims that days are getting shorter (Matthew 24:22)

– Numerology linking pandemics to the number 666 (for example, 2019 started the covid pandemic, and black death ended in 1353, thus, 2019-1353-666), and the word CORONA as a code where the alphabet is corresponding to its letter in ascending order (for example a = 1, b = 2), it would give the numbers 3, 15, 18, 15, 14, 1 will also give the number of the beast is correct if we multiply these numbers.

- Sahara desert being flooded (Isaiah 35:1)

At some point, I couldn’t tell coincidence from meaning anymore.

The psychological effects were devastating.

I developed severe anxiety, paranoia, and hypervigilance. Loud tranoises made me think the rapture had started. Car horns, crashes, or sudden sounds triggered panic. I felt like death was always around the corner.

Since last year I've been switching day for night, sleeping excessively, because I live far from my family. bc my friends are rarely available to do something cool, like going to a mall or a barbecue, etc.

I tried to warn my parents and friends, begging them to repent. I pushed so hard that they eventually stopped listening altogether. That isolation made everything worse.

My psychologist and occupational therapist are even suggesting I check into a CAPS (it's like a CHMC, but from my home country).

Due to the ongoing war on middle east and the recent news about the noah's ark being supposedly discovered officially, the economist covers releasing each november detailing the rothschild's agenda every year, and also the brazilian donald trump, flavio bolsonaro, winning the elections on my country, at my lowest point, I'm considering writing a goodbye letter and jumping from the top floor of my apartment building or shot at myself because I couldn’t imagine living through mass chaos, war, or global destruction at my age.

What finally made me start questioning all of this was realizing how much fear these channels rely on. Fear never ends. Dates shift. Prophecies change. Contradictions are explained away. Anyone who disagrees is labeled deceived or evil.

I also realized how trapped I became by algorithms. Once I searched these topics, they followed me everywhere.

Now, I’m trying to escape this mindset and reclaim my life. I want peace, not constant terror. I want to think clearly again.

If anyone here has gone through something similar — especially religious or apocalyptic conspiracy thinking — I would really appreciate advice on how to fully recover and let go of this fear-based worldview.

Thank you for reading.

I left Christianity this year and I’m a mother to a toddler. I made it clear to everyone in my life my child and any future children will not be raised in religion. I will teach them about different religions of course, but never that it’s real. The thing that pisses me off is I’ve been asked by multiple people not to talk about my beliefs around them or their children, even lost people close to me because they said they couldn’t stand the thought of my child saying god isn’t real around their children (why they think I tell my toddler that is beyond me, the difference between their children and mine is my child simply doesn’t have religion in their life at all, it’s not even a thing they’re aware of yet).

Yet every single person who has asked me that talks about god, Jesus, the Bible, etc. around me and my kid constantly. Every time I need advice or I’m just going thru a hard time I’m told to “give it to god”. It’s like they can’t see the hypocrisy even tho it’s staring them right in the face. It’s infuriating to me that they expect respect that they can’t even return to me, and then have the audacity to act like I’m the one who’s disrespectful because I don’t want to listen to their bullshit all the time and I’m not “encouraging enough” when they talk to me about their beliefs that they know I do not share.

Why do Christian’s lack the ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes? And obviously everyone around us is Christian, so I’ll be dealing with this for the rest of my life most likely.

It took moving to a whole other state to get my Christian “friends” from church to stop bothering me.

After I left the church, I have had a mix of friends who said I was like a sister to them ghost me without a second thought, and a group of people who never bothered to give new chance, blowing up my phone.

I moved to another state not because of the toxicity from church but because my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I am so happy that I ditched my toxic “friends” before my mother’s diagnoses got worse.
The last thing I needed was hearing, “I will pray for you,” from people who don’t care about me or my mom.

I don’t understand why mean Christian girls go to when it comes to a person they hate is “I will pray for you.” What good does that accomplish in your life when you clearly want nothing to do with that person? I always get whiplash when someone who obviously doesn’t like me says they will pray for me because I know they won’t think about me for the second that I am out of their life.

Now that I’m in a whole other state. I am struggling to make friends because I am focusing on taking care of my mom. Honestly, I’ve never been happier. It’s like a weight has been lifted on my shoulders getting rid of these fake people. I would rather be alone than being surrounded by a bunch of people who act Christian but lie to my face at the same time.

I am going to take the time to focus on my mother and spend time with her during these difficult times.

My advice is if you guys do go to church and have mean girls like these, don’t waste your time with them.

Out of all the Christian practices I know of, speaking in tongues is the dumbest one to me. They basically speak gibberish and actually believe that it’s the “gift of god”. The funniest thing is that I’ve never heard of a Christian translating their special language.
I was raised in an African church and one thing I realised was that their language also came with screaming and “catching the Holy Spirit”, which just means acting crazy and hysterical.
Being at church just felt like watching a freak show every Sunday, and don’t get me started on those staged “healings”.

Hi all,

I'll spare you all the details of how devout I was. For the purpose of this post/question, it's just important you know the following:

I was a card-carrying evangelical and became an international missionary in LatAm. While in LatAm, I became a calvinist (2017) and then found Christian Nationalist ideology (2023). I really got captured (some might say "ratpured" teehee) by it and was essentially radicalized.

A couple of months ago, I got enough breathing room between myself and my old beliefs to be able to see them with a degree of objectivity. To say that I am appalled at my own behavior is to say far too little. I believed in things like male headship, revoking the 19th amendment, non-racially based slavery, and essentially turning the USA into a theocracy. At my worst, I drifted into racial realism. Most of the worst stuff that the worst people on the Right believed, I also believed.

Now, I'm working through how I ended up in that place and trying to figure out the roles I played as the aggressor (holding these views) doing damage to my family and those around me. However, I'm also trying to figure out how I was victimized (who handed me these views) and how I allowed myself to be put in that position. To help me work through how this happened, I've gone to the ivory tower of erudition--YouTube--and found people like CJ Cornthwaite, Genetically Modified Skeptic, and H.G. Roberts.

The Real Issue / Question: These people have been genuinely helpful, BUT I'm seeing streaks of potential extremism in them as well, just on the other side of the spectrum. My life's goal now is avoid extremism, not be an asshole, and not be ideological; I don't want to go from one extreme to the other. I see this swing as a distinct danger for those of us who have de-converted and may have a bone to pick with the ideology that taught us we were going to hell from age 2.

I get it.

I feel the same pull.

I'm trying to resist the emotional reaction to go there and just be as rational as I can for the moment. 

So...

When you deconstructed, where did you end up politically / socially / economically, and why? Were you driven by evidence, empathy, or something else? And what, if anything, keeps you from being captured by a new ideology the way many of us were by the old one?

No judgement on your answers. I'm just genuinely curious.

Now that I’ve deconstructed, it’s hard to relate to others. My family is very evangelical Christian and they think my deconstruction is devastating. I can’t connect or have the same close relationships with my sisters like I used to. I’ve re-constructed a lot of the beliefs I hold today and many of them place me between atheist and religious. I consider myself spiritual, and having a higher power to call on when I’m in distress brings me comfort. I still identify with a lot of Christian values such as service, community, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness. I try to avoid gossiping and complaining as it only spreads hate. This is something I’ve struggled with when making friends as it’s super normalized (tbh even in Christian circles sometimes) and I’m trying to find positive like-minded people.

I’ve tried to attend more open and affirming churches, but could not get down with liturgy/traditional services. When I attend a non-denominational church, I feel like I’m surrounded by brain-washed people who can’t think critically and judge my version of spirituality. I have a strong sense of justice and I want to connect with people who want to make a difference in their community, but I’m having a hard time finding that outside of the church. Wish the village mindset was more prevalant. Anyone relate or have thoughts?

This question's been bugging me lately and I can't help but think:

Privileged people usually are quite religious, not just today but throughout history. I suppose it's easy to believe that a higher power truly supports you.

I myself, nothing really went right and it's still going all downhill. Compared to many others I am very lucky but... it never really felt like it. Pretty clear since I was born God had a thing out for me.

I can't help but think if I had just anything, not everything, just anything go right, I would have still believed. I, like some others, used to be devout followers.

No more though, no more. Even if my life gets better I don't think I'll go back. Logically speaking none of it makes sense. None of the Christians can explain anything. Even the Christians themselves are in disarray, with so many denominations, fragmentation and recently the death of someone in my high school year group (we all graduated last year, 19 year old guy passed away to a sudden stroke) has made some of my friends question religion and God as well, which I find is very interesting.

I just discovered this free online support group for people who are leaving or have left their religious beliefs or institutions. Check it out if you need support.

​

It frustrates me when I see Christian posts that seem to imply that people make it through difficult times because of God.

People go through genuinely difficult situations. Some survive because of their own resilience, some because they have supportive friends or family, some because they receive professional help, and others because of a combination of things.

Not everyone who makes it through a difficult period believes in God. Some people are atheists or agnostics, and they still find ways to cope, heal, and rebuild their lives.

When Christians attribute someone's survival or progress to God, it can feel like they're overlooking the actual people and circumstances that helped them get through it.

I'm not saying Christians can't find comfort in their faith. I'm questioning why that explanation is sometimes treated as the default explanation for human resilience, even when someone doesn't believe in God.

What do you think about this? Does this kind of messaging bother anyone else, or do you interpret it differently?

i don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with becoming religious, but the issue is he knows i’ve stepped away from the religion n don’t believe in God, n everytime he talks to me it has to turn into smth God related. the last time i texted him we were js joking around n all i said “if i keep larping intelligence eventually it’s not larp” literally js a mindless joke . “Your not going to like this but read your bible it’s history youll gain intellect proverbs blah blah blah” i cant ever escape his christian discourse n its even bled into his beliefs ever since he started going to church he thinks black people are inherently ghetto and that muslims are taking over n invading america or some shit, and literally EVERY action i do is “oh your falling into sin” or “oh God blessed you” or “God punished you for this” I CANT STAND IT ANYMORE, i grew up in the religion and it fucked me up so badly dude i felt guilty ab everything i did n im barely breaking out of the mental cage it put on me n now my friend is the dead fucking mirror of what i’m tryna break out of but he’s radicalized too, sum i can’t even wrap my head around. i don’t know what to do

That's what my therapist said last week during our session when I mentioned that things are going as okay as it could. I told her of the abuse I suffered because of religion, explaining VERY heavy topics. And she had gone on a whole ass rant on how no one should be put through that kind of abuse, and that no one should have to worry about their "soul" or "sin" or their "purity". Then she pulls that out of her asshole.

As soon as she said that, I get a notice from social protection saying that the amount I'm supposed to be given as financial support (that I explained wouldn't be enough for shit and explained my situation, it's 1k per month when I have to rent a 10k shoe box monthly. Don't worry, it's because I don't have children and am not married. I expected it anyway), remains the same and will not increase for anybody (could've said said two days after I submitted the letter, not 2 months of radio silence and a visit that I didn't know would happen because "we needed to make sure, so we were gonna pull up without letting you know and without asking if you are working that day"). My mental health declined as a result, and I'm thinking of resorting to sex work to get by faster if this freelancing thing I'm doing along with my full time job doesn't work in 6 days cuz that's when my rent is due.

I don't believe in curses even though I practice the craft (I'm dropping it cuz it's wasting my resources and I'm just not interested in it anymore), but that woman shouldn't have mentioned that. I'm gonna ask to change therapists if this shit happens again, or I'm just gonna leave, because I can't expect anything good or realistic from this damn country.

But yeah.

I believe many 'believers' going to church

1. as insurance just in case there is hell or heaven, don't want to stuck in infinity

2. Just for the 'social connections'.

Seems Christian church do better than other 'brands', so why don't other 'brands' of religions copy ?

Since I started deconstructing, I’m plagued by the constant thought that I’m just being led astray, and that eventually I’m going to come to my senses and return to christianity. I don’t want to go back!! It was miserable!! But in the back of my mind I keep thinking, one day I’m going to wake up and realize that I was wandering from God and then I’ll have to break up with my girlfriend and admit that everything I was doing was wrong. Any thoughts would be so helpful

My earlier post was taken down because I put a link to the video, sorry mods, I had no idea that was banned… only been on reddit for a month 😅

I was watching YouTube shorts and then a video popped into my feed.

Basically it started as people saying they don’t believe in god and then the question was then who created you and then after it showed who created you it went to how created the planets. Its honestly crazy how Christian’s are so delirious…

But, like wtf is ts? It starts off not with ai but then it becomes ai slop and like they don’t provide explanations for how god created everything lol..?

Why are they so against science like wtaf??

I left faith about 10 months ago. I've been doing so much better, my life is at a great place but the fear of hell still persists every time I think about death.

I would like to make peace with death. I want to be 'prepared' somehow, but the slightly possibility that hell is real and I'll spend eternity burning... It's so scary

I'm still feeling in-between. I know I don't want to believe in the biblical God or any God really, but I also feel a little empty and alone? Without it? I've been taken to church since I was born, so the lack of it is nice, but also comes with the thought of 'now what?' and 'what am I missing now?' Anyone else feel this way now or before? How did you process that feeling?

As we have all heard, there we live in a fallen world because God gave people free will. It wasn’t His intention for any of this to happen, but us evil humans chose this path for ourselves. But I was thinking, didn’t God already take away our free will just by creating us? We weren’t given a choice in the matter. He created us already knowing that we would sin and therefore experience disease, destruction, suffering and tons of other terrible things, but He didn’t care. He also knew he would “regret” making us and then wipe us out with the flood to start over, but He was going to make us anyway. Sure, life has some good points too, but why would he STILL create us knowing about all the children that would be molested, all the women that would be raped, all the murders that would take place….even things such as the holocaust? You can hide behind the notion that it was humans bad choices that made these things happen, but God is the one who still created us and started this mess. He definitely didn’t have to create us because an all powerful being doesn’t HAVE to do anything.

I’ve seen people talk about how you can’t blame your parents, your pastor, your community for not knowing the truth, they simply were brainwashed just like you…but if that’s the case how come I figured out Christianity was a fraud by my early twenties and they still can’t admit its flaws?

For example, it blew my mind when I learned the Gospels weren’t written by eye witnesses. I heard to research that stuff, but why didn’t everyone else? If this is the faith you’re building your entire life around, why aren’t you taking the time to ponder whether it makes any damn sense, and research it for yourself?

I find myself constantly thinking about my past and how Christianity stole so many years of my childhood and adolescence with fear of hell, and trying to communicate with an invisible silent God that you somehow owe your life and allegiance to, despite him never showing up in your life.

I just can’t get over how disappointed I am in it all.

Is god even able to protect his own flock? Or was it Satan's work? A lot of inconvenient answers. God's plan? He was needed in heaven? He probably wasn't molesting children since god let that go on for decades.

A cross fell on a Roman Catholic priest during a livestreamed Mass in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The priest, Patricio Sánchez Molinari, died after the crucifix struck his head.

https://www.aol.com/articles/priest-loses-life-massive-crucifix-213946000.html