I was a fervent Christian (Eastern Orthodox Church). Read the whole bible, went to services, tried to live by all their rules. The priests told me that it was my duty, as a Christian, to tolerate abuse and toxicity from my family no matter how far the abuse went. That this was God's will, and if I feel that I couldn't take it anymore, this only meant that I should say more prayers, make more donations in money to the church, and have more faith in God.
Also, they told me it was my fault that I had been sexually harassed. That all men behave like that, and it was me who "led them into temptation".

I eventually cut ties with the abusive family, cut ties with the "Christians" and went to therapy. Best decisions ever.
Today I am an agnostic and any suggestion of "being a Christian" makes me puke.

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Alexia

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Lil Miss Hobbit

Lil Miss Hobbit

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3 months ago

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I am so sorry for what you have endured. As a Christian I can say with complete certainty that your former church did not follow the teachings of Christ. It was Jesus who said "Whoever has not sinned may cast the first stone" when they wanted to stone a woman 'caught in adultery.' He had the greatest compassion for the abused, neglected and hurt in the world. If he were here on earth today, he would not be found in today's judgmental churches...and neither should his true followers.

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I was an affirmed atheist. I fell in love with a devout Baptist. I chose to open my mind, but I had been raised in a church there is nothing new in the church or the Bible to sway me a different different direction. It was the writings of C.S. Lewis, an atheist who fell in love with a Christian woman, which opened my eyes enough to make the leap. I am still not all the way across that crevasse, in the way my husband is.... but his writings made so much sense to an atheist, it at least put me on a narrow outcropping hanging on by my fingernails, for the last 20 years. The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity (his passage on blind cave fish totally interesting), if anyone is curious about titles. he didn't just write the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

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Elvira394

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Lil Miss Hobbit

Lil Miss Hobbit

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3 months ago

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Thank you for sharing this. The authenticity of the true Christian faith is almost non-existent in churches today. We must discover for ourselves the love of Jesus and not just blindly follow what we are told.

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No. Why?

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Stardust she/her

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No, never..... why?

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K- THULU

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I was brought up as a Protestant, went to Catholic schools. Even though my family was never super religious, my mom has always been more religious out of all of us. My family converted to Catholicism gradually. I guess you could say I'm agnostic now.

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Mama Penguin

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I was a Christian. I was brought up with Bible stories being taught in school despite the school being non religious, supposedly. I believed in God. Then aged 19 I read the Bible for myself. All of it. Not just the cherry picked stories I had been taught about. By the end I was no longer a Christian.

Today I am an athiest.

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het

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Yes, but it was largely due to peer pressure so I’m atheist now. Why do you ask?

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me myself and i (she/her)

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I decided to do a longer answer, just for the sake of clarity.

I have always been fascinated with the spiritual. Even as a young child, I felt that there was more to the world than what we can just touch and see.
I felt, in the deepest part of me, that the world was good and I was good and that everyone should love each-other and learn to get along.
In my teens, I discovered that the world wasn't good.
Even worse, I am not good.
In my teens I struggled with hate and anger and depression. This ultimately let to self-hate and suicidal thoughts.
I felt so unlovable and I knew, logically, that I didn't deserve to be loved. I was very hostile toward my family and friends and I didn't treat them well.
But even though I was angry and sad all the time, I kept searching for a piece of hope in my darkness. Surely all of life can't just be one suffering after another? Surely there is something that makes it worth it?
I found that hope in the story of Jesus. He WAS really good. Really honestly not angry and bitter like me. And people didn't like it. They hated him for it...and yet somehow he managed to love them anyway. He loved them to the point where he conquered death for them so that they someday could be truly happy and hopeful too.
The gut-punch part for me has always been that the message of the Gospel is an open invitation. For anyone. For literally anyone. That just because I was suicidal and mean doesn't mean I will be denied that eternal healing I long for. I am excepted because Jesus vouches for me on his goodness. I don't have to do anything.
I don't even have to attend church or read my Bible or hand out tracts. I only have to trust the promise that he will make everything new someday.
That is hope to me.

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Lil Miss Hobbit

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I was born into to a Christian Household and have grown up loving and following Jesus with all my heart. I was starting to struggle with my faith this year, and went on a youth camp and that helped me a lot, but then me and my friend were talking on the way to class, he gave me a really good website and the first devotional that cam through, was so motivating.
It is free for email. and you don't have to fill in phone number or house address. https://unlocked.org/subscribe/

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Twilight

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Yes, why?

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Lil Miss Hobbit

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I'll sum it up in bulletpoints instead (as I am also a lazy writer).
-Born Catholic

-Began to disagree on some subject with every priest in my Church

-Went to a different Church, still didn't like it

-Didn't agree with the Catholic Faith

-Went to a Catholic school where the teachers were very manipulative and spoke terribly of other religions

-Being a teenager, I studied and read a bit on different religions before the teachers caught me with a book and told me that other religions were Satanic

-I learned that Judaism was originally monalatric (I think that's the spelling, correct me if I'm wrong) meaning to worship one god, but believe there are others.

-Didn't become Jewish or anything of the sort, but followed monalatry, which I agreed with the most in a perspective of a god

-Looked into Christian Gnosticism but didn't agree with THAT

-Someone said "Follow Christ, not religion." So I based my beliefs off of that (did not follow Christ, as cool as the dude was) and followed myself, my basic morals, and beliefs instead of organized religion.

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Your Local Raccoon

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