#Deconversion

[seraphimfall]

there is an insane amount of antisemitism floating around right now.

i just want to say:

this blog loves and supports jewish people.

this blog does NOT conflate the israeli government, or the atrocities it commits, with jewish people.

this blog is disgusted with those who use or express antisemitism.

this blog knows that if someone needs to invoke antisemitism, they do not actually care about helping palestine or the palestinian people.

this blog will do its best to ensure that it remains a safe space for all.

[alienbycomics]

Content Warning: religion and transphobia⚠️

Happy Trans Day of Visibility 🏳️‍⚧️ I made a comic reflecting on my church upbringing as an eXvangelical trans person. The Jesus conservative Christians claim to represent looked lot more like many of the LGBTQ+ friends I know and love. Just some food for thought 💖

Here’s a link to a supplementary post: Jesus and Gender Non-Conformity in Christian Art

[dukeofankh]

I cannot express how jarring it was after being raised by a "Porn Addiction Coach" to get into a relationship with a woman and come face to face with the fact that she did actually want me to sexually desire her.

Like, in Evangelical Purity Culture, male desire was basically poison. It was a threat. It was this constant temptation that would destroy everything. And even after leaving, in the sort of queer, feminist spaces i spend most of my time in that wasn't something that pretty much anyone was spending time actively dissuading me from feeling.

But my desire is good. It's not something that I'm being accepted in spite of. It's a positive thing. It's a bonus. Not even just vanilla stuff, all the stuff I'd convinced myself were these weird terrible desires that were shameful to have.

It honestly took me over a decade to fully accept that. To stop dissociating during sex and confront that I was, in fact, being a massive perv and that was fantastic and preferable and that I could accept that into my self-image without shame or self hatred.

But it's important to do. It's important to leave relationships that don't welcome that part of you. To know that your sexuality is valuable and valid and worth owning and celebrating. Because the alternative is just...not being. Either existing as yourself and repressing the part of your identity that is sexual or allowing that sexuality to exist but turning off your self while it does.

[the-jesus-pill]

Teaching children thinking bad thoughts about someone is the same thing as murdering that person is fucked up. 

Thought crime doesn’t exist. No one has ever been harmed or killed by someone thinking negative thoughts about them. 

You know what has harmed people though? Teaching them they are evil for things they can’t control. Especially those who have intrusive thoughts. 

Here’s for everyone who has been taught their thoughts make them evil.

Intrusive thoughts are not your secret desires. 

They are involuntary. 

You don’t need to be ashamed of them. 

They will pass.

You are not committing taboo. 

No one can read your mind.

No one will ever know what’s in your thoughts unless you feel like telling them.

No one can judge you for what you are thinking, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.

Your thoughts are private

You are not a bad person.

[hulahoopsoupgroup]

the seven deadly sins are such bullshit fear tactics. if youve left the church, embrace them.

be proud of who you are. be happy when you look in the mirror and see how hot you are. yeah i see you flexing in the mirror after a workout. nice progress btw honey you look nice today.

dont worry about getting seconds, or thirds even, at dinner. dont worry about eating what society says is "too much" or "too little". eat until youre full. set aside what you cant finish for later so you dont waste food.

its okay to be greedy. its okay to want things for yourself. sometimes we see things that people have and we're like "dude i wish i had that." thats just human. envy and greed on that level are normal.

take a rest day. dont bother going to church this sunday. take a shower, read a book, drink some tea, eat some good food, pet a cat or dog. take care of yourself; its not lazy.

be angry with those who wronged you. punch a punching bag, write about how much you hate them, go work out aggressively and take care of your emotions in a way that doesnt hurt yourself or others. its okay to not forgive the people who hurt you. you arent doing anything wrong, babe.

embrace your sexuality (or, if it applies, asexuality, cause yall need love too). stop feeling shame for wanting pleasure. go read or watch something that turns you on. explore your body. ask your partner to try something new. if youre asexual, then fucking step on the people who say you need to have sexual attraction to be human. you dont. you dont need to be allosexual (or alloromantic) to "qualify as a human." we all experience life in different ways. find your way to experience it.

thought crime isnt real

do no harm but take no shit

[oxytocinatrocities]

Just a hunch.

Matt 25:31-45

[winged-thinged]

I lived for a while bending over backwards to try to justify how my liberal beliefs fit into my Catholicism, cherrypicking scripture and arguing with tradition. It's definitely possible. But you know what? It's exhausting, constantly fighting for a place in a community that ultimately does not want you and isn't interested in changing.

When I was a theology student, I snarled at people who suggested that what I was really doing was asserting my beliefs and then assigning them to God (because I knew that gay people were natural and good, and God was good, so God must think so too, right?). I talked a lot about "ongoing revelation." About "indwelling" and human reason. I had to justify it to myself, because I wasn't willing to question the foundation that I had built myself on.

Because so little of my belief was actually built on what the Church and the Bible said, many of the traditional debunking arguments just didn't work on me. I didn't think that. I was sure that I was right and those other Christians were wrong.

But all that work eventually begs the question. Is it worth it? Why call yourself a Christian at all, when you have already traveled so far away from the foundations of Christianity?

And so I took a good hard look at what most of the Christians around me actually believed and how they acted. I finally let myself ask the question: what if I do them the courtesy of taking them at their word? What if I take their claims seriously, instead of imposing my own ideas about right and wrong onto the god that they believe in?

And what I immediately felt was revulsion. If God was actually like what the Church teaches, and not like the image I had been building up in my head all these years, then I wanted nothing to do with him. I remember, shortly after asking myself this question, I took communion for what would turn out to be the last time. I couldn't swallow. I wanted to vomit. The idea of taking a deity who believed and acted like my community said he did into my body, letting him touch my soul, was despicable. I decided then and there that, if God was real, I'd rather go to hell than worship him. I walked away, and I have never looked back.

I am so much lighter, now, not having to twist myself into knots justifying how my beliefs fit into a Catholic structure. I cut out the middle man. It is enough to simply use my mind and my heart to observe the world decide what's right for me. I'm perfectly capable of philosophical and moral reasoning on my own. No divine revelations required.

[apostateoverrubies]

It's funny how certain religious people act like accepting LGBTQ rights will lead to paedophilia being normalized when they've already let that shit slide for centuries.

Then again, what else do you expect from people who value religion over the rights of children?

Don't let them trick you into thinking they care.

[joyfulapostate]

The first verse that stopped me in my tracks when I was rereading the Bible as an exchristian was Romans 7 verse 18. "For I know nothing good dwells in me."

I read that verse and I grabbed a pen and I underlined it and wrote in the margin, "For I know that good dwells in me."

It felt so powerful, to finally speak back after hearing these messages so passively before. And I was able to see the seeds of my harmful core beliefs in these verses: my learned helplessness, my low self esteem, my depression, and my fear. And I just kept going, underlining and rewriting verses that I thought were harmful. And those verses and the notes in the margin of my childhood bible eventually became this account.

I’ve been running this blog since 2020 and it’s been a wonderful experience, connecting with other people who are deconstructing or deconverting from Christianity, sharing our joy and our grief, trading tips on dealing with evangelizers, and recommending authors and other creators who are doing great things in this space.

I try to write what would have been helpful to me early on in my deconstruction. I know how difficult it is retrain our brains to stop reinforcing painful patterns. Because letting go of harmful Christian behaviors is in some ways harder than letting go of the beliefs themselves.

Thank you for following, liking, and sharing my work. It means the world to me that we have this opportunity to see the good in each other.

my linktree ♡

[apostate-in-an-alcove]

The Christian audacity to assume that every non-Christian, especially non-believers, are secretly miserable and unfulfilled because they're not Christian is definitely in one of the top ten insulting and degrading things Christians believe about other human beings.

[deservedgrace]

People coming at ex christians' criticisms of harmful doctrine with "that's not what it really means it actually means [xyz]" is offensive and disrespectful, and the big reasons are of course that it's dismissive and off topic at best, sometimes it's the same exact toxic and abusive belief repackaged to sound better, there's often elements of victim blaming thrown in along with diminishing harm, people tend to skip over any kind of empathy about the harm caused to jump into Them Being Correct, and yes of course all of that (and probably more I'm blanking on rn) is gross. But on the less severe end of things, it's honestly just kind of insulting to me that people think I have no possible idea of other interpretations lmao.

I do believe people are well within their right to look at something that's harmful and completely drop it and leave it behind without any further consideration. But that is not accurate to my experience and the majority of stories I've heard about people leaving christianity. Most stories I know involve several months to years of investigating texts, looking into different sects and interpretations, extensively studying history and context, begging knowledgeable people in your church to answer your questions and trying so hard to will yourself into allowing their non-answers to satisfy them in a frantic attempt to dig your nails into a faith that's slipping away but means more to you than anything. Some people just let go, and truly good for those people, but so many of us tried anything we could to compromise so we wouldn't have to.

There is this belief in a lot of churches that leaving is a casual decision, a flippant choice, something you pick because you want to sin or you were undisciplined or are falling into your human nature or are otherwise deficienct. That narrative doesn't fit nicely into the reality of many that leave: latching onto your faith long beyond the point of pain, but ignoring it because you're so desperate to salvage any semblance of the faith you once had.

I know the other interpretations. I know the history behind it. I know the context. And I know that if there was a way for me to maintain my faith without destroying myself, I would have found it.

[seraphimfall]

i’ve read so much tradcath bullshit the last two years. i can confidently say tradcath men fit into one of two categories:

“protestant-raised and converted to catholicism because of his crippling porn addiction and racist tendencies. reposts crusader and conquistador memes. is hated in his local parish.” tradcath

“catholic-raised band kid who ate his lunches with the religion teacher. smells like mildew. cut off all his friends that came out as gay after high school. now larps as an aquinian scholar and cries after jerking off.” tradcath

[sleepymick]

anyways, fuck religion

[wisteria-grows-here]

In light of the new announcements made by the Governing Body, I wanted to share a few reminders. If these changes bring anyone hope for a better future within the religion, I am not trying to take that from you. I believe we are all allowed to be happy.

Women are now allowed to wear pants to meetings - But we are still not allowed to divorce abusive spouses. We are forbidden from having any position of authority within the congregation. We are still considered the "weaker sex" who must submit to their husband's. There is still the pressure to have sex with one's husband because it is a "marital duty."

Witnesses are now allowed to speak to disfellowshipped individuals - But only to try and convert them back. Not to reconnect with old friends or to even ask them how they are doing after losing everything. Witnesses still cannot talk to us as people, but only through the means of conversion.

Men can grow beards - but still lack basic autonomy over their bodies. Still no tattoos or piercings. Still no "flamboyant" attire that might label them as homosexual.

All in all, I see these changes as new manipulation tactics. As a way for the organization to say, look how progressive we are being! Look how welcoming and supportive we are! They are trying to deflect from the long list of constraints against the members. Trying to hide the irreversible pain and trauma that is still inflicted upon disfellowshipped individuals. These changes are breadcrumbs. They do nothing to reverse the institutionalized horrors of Jehovah's Witnesses

For anyone reading this: may you go in peace and happiness 🩷🩷

[the-jesus-pill]

You’ve got to forgive yourself for being traumatized and needing to learn how to function again. 

Recovery isn’t always nightmares and depression, it’s forgetting to eat, being scared of what others might see as completely normal things, it’s getting random panic attacks, not knowing how to take care of yourself, not knowing how to live like an adult, even if you’re twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, of feeling like you’re failing to function in a world where everyone seems to have their shit together. 

If you need help, ask for it. Go to forums and ask for advice. Take advantage of community resources. Buy pre-sliced veggies and fruits, eat instant meals if you can’t cook for yourself today. Hire someone. Ask a neighbor for a favor. Buy any item you think might make life easier, even if you feel like you aren’t ‘disabled’ enough to have it. 

Some of the depression posts (ie open your windows, take a shower, go outside, call a friend) are really helpful but they’re not always enough. I’ve found advice for spoonies, people with chronic pain or other disabilities have the best tips because they know what it’s like to be bedridden, out of energy, stuck in a brain fog. 

You may never return back to the energy you had when you were younger and you might always need to use crutches to help you through life. It’s the same with medication. 

Trauma is a real thing that happens to you, it physically alters your brain and it’s alright to have lasting scars. 

You’re not broken, your life is not over and you can still be happy. 

It’s not your fault.

[hulahoopsoupgroup]

christians are so weird about intersex people. ive heard some of them say that intersex people shouldnt be allowed to date, marry, or have sex because it could be considered gay (which like wtf?)

and that their mere existence is the result of sin, and in a perfect world, they wouldnt exist. imagine being told that you exist because of sin, and that youre just a mistake that shouldnt exist. according to them, god doesnt make mistakes (except just making a ton of intersex people. oops)

its just so weird to me. every time ive asked my family their opinions about the topic, they just reply "thats a tiny percent of the population. they dont matter"

and thats just disgusting to me. i thought god "fearfully and wonderfully made" everybody? i thought god didnt make mistakes? i thought god wouldnt want us to shun his creation like they dont exist?