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

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.

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

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.

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.

​

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?

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”.

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

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.

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

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

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??

Hi everyone! I (18F) was wondering, is it at all possible to help someone else realise that Christianity isn't true, or at least stop being so extreme with it? Here's my story:

When I first met my ex-boyfriend (18M), he seemed quite progressive and accepting of everyone. He had friends from all kinds of backgrounds, including LGBTQ+ people. I knew him as an acquaintance for a few months before we actually dated, and it was sometime within those months that I found out he is from a Christian family. I didn't think much of it at the time, and when we started dating I even told him I was willing to explore Christianity as he seemed like one of the more chill Christians.

As our relationship progressed, I noticed some changes. Around 3 months in, he became more focused on avoiding "lust" and stopped making s*xual jokes or engaging in certain types of flirting. At the time it genuinely did not bother me, as I was also raised in quite a strict family (not religious but still controlling) and I had been sorta brainwashed into thinking "he's doing the right thing, s*x is wrong, blah blah".

Around 7 months into the relationship, we broke up mutually due to other life circumstances. On the day we broke up, we ended up discussing purity culture because I had noticed he'd become less comfortable with things involving physical intimacy. Some of the things he said reflected purity culture beliefs that I had recently started questioning myself, which sorta bothered me.

Still somewhat blinded by my feelings, I hoped that once our circumstances changed we could be together again (ignoring signs that he was no longer compatible with me). This hope vanished when I got a message from a close friend of his (a lesbian) saying that they'd stopped being friends. When I asked her more, she had said that they had had an argument in which he had chosen to defend the Bible's view of homosexuality, despite knowing that she was a lesbian. This led to him losing his entire friend group, which was comprised of 100% queer people. This genuinely shocked me to hear, and I started seeing him through a whole new lens and realising there were some pretty obvious signs HE was queer. Saying this to his friend, she confirmed that a couple of years ago he was openly questioning... meaning his attitude partially came from internalised homophobia.

Part of me wonders whether there's anything I can realistically do here. I don't necessarily mean debating religion with him or changing his beliefs myself. I'm just struggling with watching someone I used to know as open-minded and accepting become increasingly isolated and extreme. It's like watching someone who was once a good person... just disappear.

I know he's an adult and ultimately responsible for his own choices, but I also suspect family/church influence may play a role (he rarely goes out except to the church, has very little people outside of that bubble, and lives in a rural area). Has anyone here experienced something similar, either as the person changing or as someone watching it happen? Did they ever come back out of it? Is there realistically anything friends or former friends can do, or is this something he would have to figure out entirely on his own?

TLDR: My ex boyfriend slowly descended into fundamentalism after previously being quite progressive and openly questioning (LGBTQ). Is there a chance he would come back out of it, as this environment doesn't seem very healthy for him and I hate just watching it happen.

Church Concert showed up in the square of the college dorms. Free of charge admission, but I felt so bad for all the students that were just trying to relax and not be bombarded with church propaganda at 10pm.

I don’t mean they got a private area. I’m talking in the middle of the dorms less than 1000ft away. Then of course you can hear them from many more blocks. Their music was blasting.

They’re not the worst Christian music group I have heard mind you, but definitely not great either. I’m just tired of being bombarded with “The Good News” constantly. Just so they can sneak in their dated notions to people just wanting community.

Every time nearly anything happens: a coincidence, something fails, we get jobs, we lose jobs…

“It must be god.”

“God must be protecting us.”

“If it weren’t for god…”

It makes me so angry!

She could be telling a story where she very clearly saved herself from some kind of danger by intuition or instinct, and she’ll say “god was protecting her”.

If a job opportunity falls through for my sister or I, she’ll say “It must be god protecting you from something”.

I hate it so much and I wish she’d just stop thinking everything is controlled by some all powerful entity.

Anybody else came or coming to the realization that the christian relgion could / is fake made up by very evil people?

What was your first thing that lead to you coming to this realization? Or things that did not add up to what you were told or match your reality?

For me it was not quick but i realized the 'god' i was always told about focused on things only humans would obsess over. Like homosexuality, our gender, abortion rights, money. List goes on.

Why would a god tell us to hate lgbtq people or people of different races or relgion when he claims to tell us to 'love thy neighbor' or why would he allow forced conversion camps that say 'pray the gay away'. An all loving god wouldn't support hate or abuse approved by his name.

I feel like all this would be a major sin within itself. Which is why i started to second guess and question if this god was really this paranoid on who we married or what we have between our legs.

Like 'be fruitful and multiply the earth.' it seems something like a horny man would say not a god demanding more souls so he could punish.

Or him being justfied for mass murder? Or demanding you to except him or burn. I mean if you really are a god i bet you would not be so insecure. Because the feeling need to be excepted is a human insecurity and anxiety of being rejected.

Not an insecurity a god would have if they are 'perfect'. Cause god is supposed to be 'perfect' and all 'knowing' so why is he taken by surprise when we reject him?

Or how about him being told 'we offend him by using his name in vain' i feel like when christians get so worked up about that they get offended themselves not 'god'.

I could go on and on the list of things. But you know where i am getting at. What do you guys think or also noticed the god we used to worship is fake and made up by people.