To the Atheists w/ a Religious Past : That Nostalgic Feeling

[InbetweenDreams]

I'm still In the process of leaving religion but it's a little difficult, I was sort of forced to join a church a friend of the family started and most of my family is apart of it. To them anyone that walks away is "turning their backs on god" and damming their soul to hell for all eternity. I'm a little dense upstairs so it took me a while to realize how much damage religion was causing me, I knew I was gay in my early teens but my family would talk about how evil and perverted gays are, perverted is their favorite way to describe us. I spent so many years of my life trying to be good by suppressing who I am, trying to be celibate or attempting to pray myself straight. I finally woke up after reading a post on reddit about a gay guy that left his church, he said something like realizing he was in an abusive relationship with the church. After that I realized the majority of "good Christians" already fit the mold, they partied when they were young, slept around, had kids and are now ready to settle down so it's so easy for them, they are sacrificing nothing. Due to the pandemic and working nights I've been able to get away from it for the moment and I feel a thousand times better.

It is for the most part very real to them that "you're turning your back on God" and going to be damned for eternity, or it is real for some anyway. For the rest it is just a facade, a certain disingenuine look about their positions which is likely rooted in group mentality. You can bet the Dunning-Kruger effect is at play as most of these people have no clue what they're really talking about, just as you say they've got married, had kids and it is easy for them. What the fuck do they know what a gay person deals with or has to sacrifice? Well they don't. It is very easy to demonize something we don't know, someone who is different, or doesn't fit in. So it is far from it being just a Christians are narrow minded problem, it is very much a people problem.

At any rate I think leaving your religion is the right choice. The more people I talk to and interact with on the subject (more so recently due to the podcast and one guest I had in particular) the better understanding I have about people in general. Frankly the idea that we are going to be damned because we refuse to go to a church where the people who claim to be following a religion are weaponizing it against you and me....and all the other dumb shit they weaponize it for. I have no respect who stand behind religion to do bad things and this goes to people who practice Pagan religions as well.

Something I thought was interesting, a lot of people that join Satanism are actually atheist. It's so many people that were hurt by those claiming to be Christian that they wanted to join a group to oppose them. There was a story of a woman that joined a church of Satan, in her interview she said she joined a church to try out Christianity because that's what most us Americans are told to do. At the same time her son came out to her, she accepted him although a little conflicted with her new religion. Later they were invited to dinner with one of the church families and once they found out about her son they began to do the usual Bible bashing and mocking him. Later that night her son committed suicide, she said if that's God then Satan must be good.

That's a very sad story and I can certainly understand her wanting to do that. Shame on those people, I hope that if they have a conscience that they are miserable with guilt every day until they die.

I sometimes don't think karma exists and it is for reasons like this. These people were not held responsible, a Civil lawsuit would probably got thrown out.

That being said, I also don't think joining a Satanic church is going to be all that effective in terms of sticking to the Christians. Now, if that's the path that someone wants, great! But I wouldn't make that path due to anger and grief, but that's my opinion.

@Karl Rand That is horrifying. I honestly have no words. The fact that this continues and no of those people see the damage that is being done, what were they thinking? Were they really trying to save their grandson?

And speaking of religion and drug therapy/withdrawal, we have AA here. Courts regularly require someone to attend AA meetings which are very much about this whole "God gave me the power" eh, just fucked up. The thing is, even if laws are passed to try to prevent this stuff, it will 1. be seen as an attack of freedom of religion and 2. it will still go on. Somehow the "norm" has to be changed, and perhaps it is compared to 30 years ago but considering the bullshit that still goes on. Sometimes it feels like we're going backwards.