#still am christian but I have no fucking clue what denomination I would be called now

[wezbyathread]

I am Confusion

There are only two things that anyone really needs to know going into this. I'm white and I'm Christian. If we wanted to be specific, I'm exactly half Dutch, and the remaining stuff is a fun concoction of various other European countries, most of which is German. My father, apparently, didn't have it in him to continue the pure Dutch lineage (and neither did either of his brothers). In terms of my faith, I have been a devout Lutheran since I was a child. That is not to say that I haven't been exposed to different denominations. My parents divorced when I was young, which just about killed my Baby Boomer Grandparents. My dad was raised Baptist or Methodist, I can't quite remember, and after separating from my mother, gravitated towards a non-denominational setting. My mom, on the other hand, comes from a strong line of proud Lutherans.

When my parents were still together, we went to my grandmother's church. Zion was huge. Members numbered in the high thousands, the sanctuary had three isles, and they had four separate services throughout the weekend to accommodate everyone. When I was little, this did not bother me. My grandparents were highly respected, integral members, and, by extension, so was I. I was there every day of the week, if not for church on Sundays, then for kindergarten, or my sibling's basketball games, or my soccer games (with orange slices and everything), or I was visiting the graves of my older brother and my cousin, or it was summer and I was participating in the extravaganza that was VBS. All of this to say, church from the ages of 0 to 5 or 6, was quite literally my second home. That is until my parents divorced and it was forced to become my third.

From the ages of 5 to 10, I experienced some serious religious growing pains. Not only did I have to adjust to only seeing my dad on weekends, but now I had two different churches, with parents that took two different approaches to the faith. As I said above, my dad was only Lutheran for my mom's sake. He's not a particular dude, so this wasn't really a big deal for him. So when he married my step-mom, they found a church that better suited their combined beliefs. Well, okay, they searched for a church that better suited them. We cycled through a lot over the course of my childhood. Ultimately though, they settled for a non-denominational church that was drastically different from the hymnal/creed/sermon formula I was used to.

My mom, on the other hand, stayed true to Lutheranism. We moved to be closer to her job, which meant finding another church to call home. I grew up in St. Louis, which fortunately meant that I could throw a rock in any direction and it would probably hit some sort of Lutheran church. We settled at one for a number of years before we all collectively decided it was no longer the right fit for us. (I'll be honest, at 9 years old, I was partially motivated to "find a new church" by the fact that everything about it was boring. Leaving one could mean that I didn't have to go for a couple of weeks). Our decision to leave led us to Epiphany.

Epiphany, for lack of better phrasing, was a God-send for me. I was a shy kid, I am a shy person. I do not approach people of my own volition. But the kids at Epiphany did not have this issue. In the words of my younger brother, "they didn't act like they didn't know us." They immideatly welcomed us into their little group, and we quickly became the tightest knit circle of friends I've ever had. I was quickly enrolled in the three-year confirmation class held on Wednesday afternoons, and was effortlessly folded into the spirit of the community. I have never clicked anywhere as well as I did with the people of Epiphany, and I will forever be thankful to God for the family He gave me with them.

When I became part of that community, church became something more. I started listening to my Pastor's sermons because he wasn't some stranger, he was one of my best friend's dad. My input in bible studies became valuable, my opinion valued. I wanted learn and to understand.

Long story short, church has always been a huge part of my life, and it is the source of some of my greatest comforts in life as well as my biggest struggles.

Here's the thing, I also grew up in a single school district, one that was extremely liberal. So, in direct contrast too my religious background, at school I was taught to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, to stand against injustice, and fight for equality. To summarize my political views, let me just say that I have been heavily involved in musical theatre since 6th grade. And I'm on Tumblr.

I stand by these political beliefs and my religious ones. I'm a proud Democrat and a proud Lutheran (or as I like to call it Diet Catholic). But then I read the Bible, and I have no fucking clue how to make sense of anything.

What seems like common sense to me, is expressly forbidden. For so long, I told myself that it was not my place. I am unable to condem someone because I am a sinner myself. I am no better than any other person around me. I am not inherently righteous just because I happened to be raised in the faith. None of us are. A person's sin is between them and God, and an outside party (maybe with the exception of a Pastor) has no place to throw in their two cents. And this works great, until Jezebel has to swoop in at the last minute and has to fuck everything up with her sexual immorality. All of the sudden, I must repent for simply "tolorating" it.

Any discussion of homosexuality in a church setting makes me extremely uncomfortable because I am so afriad that I'm going to say something that has me thrown from the premiseses. Because God forbid I say that LGBTQ people are valid in the eyes of Jesus. I have also found that this is one thing I refuse to bend on. I know that, if it comes down to it, I will choose basic human decency over identifying as Christian.

I am not a confrontational person. I am not an activist, but every day I wish that I was. To quote John Mulaney, " I need everyone to like me so much." Which, unfortunately, means that I probably won't ever build the courage to actually say stuff that matters. It will always be one of my biggest regrets that I am not as outspoken as I should be.

Well this turned out to be much more of a rambling mess then I intended it to be, but I have an assignment to finish and I really don't feel like editing.

Thanks for sticking around,

Wez

[automatismoateo]

I am living proof that the grass is greener once you abandon your toxic family members. via /r/atheism

Submitted July 30, 2019 at 02:03AM by ifunnycadetbonespurs (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2GAEbDm) I am living proof that the grass is greener once you abandon your toxic family members.

Looking back on my life I was extremely lucky. I (31 M) was raised by a single mom who, although was religious, never set the stipulation of belief on me. She always left it up to me and made it clear that I had a choice (despite my current beliefs that we likely do not have a choice when it comes to beliefs). She couldn’t answer most of my questions but never discouraged me from asking them. Nonetheless I did end up believing heavily that Jesus Christ was my “personal Lord and Savior”. Whenever I was 16 years old I got into a bunch of trouble, mostly underage drinking, marijuana possession and then vehicular theft which landed me in jail. I ended up doing a little over year altogether before I reached 18 but while I was in there I read the Bible. I read it twice. It did in fact reinforce a lot of my beliefs and I remember feeling “a presence” so I went with it. Once I got out of jail I wanted, classically, to prove my religion to others. I wanted to save as many souls as I could. I started reading from all angles as I’ve always done. I’m not so much of a centrist politically, but I’m not ever going to fall into the trap of intellectually isolating myself. I read from all sides very regularly. So, naturally I wanted to read about external sources regarding the Bible. I wanted to read about the historicity of the Bible. As you can imagine that journey led me to the truth, which is that the book is proof of nothing; certainly nothing supernatural. I learned about all of these denominations, there’s different religions, even cults in which people clearly felt the same “presence”. The more and more I learned about history and science, the less I believed. I think having experiences with LSD and mushrooms really helped my critical thought process during this time. Then I went from one end to the other, wanting to prove as many Christians wrong as I could. These were dark times as I seem to have learned nothing from the first round of believing Christianity. I found myself evangelizing for atheism which sickened me. I came to understand that I can be a living example rather than trying to provide examples for everybody to not believe this or that. I kept doing me, kept researching, stopped putting my opinions out there; and it was great.

In the course of about a week I slowly came to the conclusion that I no longer would remain apathetic around false beliefs and fallacious claims. I vowed that I would now call them out, respectively. This began another dark time in my life. I found no matter how polite I was that the more I spread the truth and the value of critical thought, the more people thought I hated them and or their beliefs. I had relationships dropping left and right and I would be left asking myself afterwards, “Is this worth it?”. Before I get into the specific details on each family member, I want to clarify that Donald Trump aided this process greatly. I, in fact, had no clue that most of my family are scumbags. As you will see, it turns out many of them were and still are.

First it was my uncle. He is an evangelical Christian and a republican Trump supporter, something I never really noticed while I was a believer and even when I was de-converting back to atheism. One day my wife got a message from him on social media, it was a piece of garbage; Trumpian Christian evangelical fear mongering nationalist propaganda. Not having the social media app myself, I quickly downloaded it under the pretense that those were the rules now. We can share propaganda now with each other and our loved ones, great. So I started sending him Carlin quotes, Ricky Gervais quotes, small speeches by Sam Harris about Christianity and the like. As it should, this sparked many debates. I learned that my uncle thinks Hillary Clinton is knowingly working directly for Satan, liberals are trying to make everyone gay and/or trans, and 12-year-old rape victims should be forced to carry out the pregnancy and give birth to the rapist’s child. Honestly, he even alluded to his belief that the dad, the rapist, should be able to visit the child down the road. That’s what did it for me. Goodbye, Uncle. To be honest, that was when I deleted the app as well because his page was a cesspool that I became way too familiar with, and it caused me a great deal of worry while diminishing much of my already dwindling hope for future society.

Next it was my dad. This one was much shorter because my dad never gave a shit about me and stopped regularly reaching out when I was 6 so we never had a real relationship to terminate. It turned out to be a good thing though because he was insanely violent, alcoholic, and you guessed it—religious. Years after he left when I was 18, I was questioning my mom yet again as to why she would have babies with this obviously bad man and she admitted to me that he raped her and that’s how I was conceived. I had contact with my dad, however minimal, but that ended immediately upon learning this information. The sliver of a relationship we had was shit and toxic. The only real reason I continue to have any relationship with him is because of the societal view of “he’s still your dad.“ Still, it was my dad who used to abuse my mom in front of us regularly, he abused us kids as well and if you met my sister you would be able to see plainly how destructive that abuse turned out to be. My sister used to beat her dogs, and one time my dad came over and said, “what’s wrong with this dog?” because the dog was head shy when he went to pet it. I said to him, “She beat the dog so much that it’s head shy now.” He replied, “can she find me a girlfriend?” Think about how big of a piece of shit you must have to be to abuse your whole family, leave them and then come back years later to make jokes about enjoying how timid that abuse makes women. A separate time he came over when my kids were watching Mr. Rogers. He told me in front of my kids, “I never used to let you guys watch Mr. Rogers because I thought he was gay.” Again, he was a total piece of shit and still is today. Also I’d like to mention he’s an avid Trump supporter. Shocking. I cut him the fuck out and it’s been amazing. I made sure to mention to him and his new wife (who told us that she had been in abusive relationships before) that he broke his previous girlfriends ribs, raped my mom, and abused us all. She is still with him today.

Finally the most recent one which is my wife’s grandma. I know, I know, it sounds like it’s going to be cruel. Well the only cruel thing about this one was her. My 4 1/2-year-old daughter came to her house and was playing with dolls and Grandma asked her what she was doing. My daughter replied, “They are getting married.” But the problem was that they were two girl dolls. Then, apparently my grandma raised the issue and pushed back, telling my daughter that marriage is not for those couples. Thankfully my daughter also pushed back saying, “ I don't want to marry a boy, I want to marry a girl. My daddy showed me a video about it.” Now, I don’t think I need to say this but I’m not raising my daughter to believe that same sex marriage isn’t a reality. The fact is it exists, what’s more, I approve of it and when my daughter is an adult she can decide for herself. Whatever she decides has no significance to me or my love for her. As to the video, I don’t know specifically what she’s talking about but it’s likely that she may have been looking over my shoulder while I was watching wedding videos online of our many gay friends who have gotten married. Anyways, Grandma gets really mad and sends my wife and I a text message saying,

“I hope both of you are happy and proud of yourselves for working intensely to indoctrinate your precious, formerly innocent 4 1/2 year old daughter. How immature r you 2 feel u have to tell ___________ that you don't need to marry a man when u grow up and I quote her " I don't want 2 marry a boy; I want 2 marry a girl... my Daddy showed me a video about it". ( this came after she saw ___________ and my wedding photo.)

I felt sick to my stomach and it absolutely breaks my heart 2 see how you 2 r no different than parents who tell their kids 2 hate black people or " that brown church is bad they say bad things in there".

So immature, so hateful!!!

A little child can be taught to go w their parents 2 feed the needy or help / visit the elderly in a nursing home.. o, so many good honorable things.

Your beautiful children are being taught things that children r entirely too young 2 think about now. When they're older they can decide who they want 2 marry ... You two are so focused on telling her ( eventually ________) that gays r so wonderful and so mistreated... did u ever consider telling them that there r many other people who need love help encouragement and hugs... yes, hugs, ________.

What is your over zealous fascination with defending gays ? How about defending your Christian Grandma who has only ever tried to be kind loving 2 people.

I wanted planned 2 talk 2 You Both a week ago but you said you've been so stressed and _______ went 2 ER... yes, I prayed for him will continue to, whether I have your approval or not.

I won't be silent anymore as heartbreakingly sad this is for me 2 say, but if you want me to be a part of your family, you will have to immediately stop this hateful indoctrination, or I'll just bow out... with the greatest sadness I'll probably ever feel, except when ___________ died.

It hurts me so deeply that you are willing with strong determination, to indoctrinate your beautiful children with this Hateful diatribe!!! I can't hear it! the stress heartbreak is too much for me to take anymore.

Since my car's not working, I can't talk to you both, in person, unfortunately... hard when the kids are around... and they DEFINITELY DON'T NEED ANYMORE GRIEF PUT INTO THEIR INNOCENT SOULS!!

PLEASE DON'T TAKE AWAY ANY MORE OF THEIR INNOCENCE!

Your Heartbroken Grandma

( I know you won't chastise ___________ for the remark since she's only repeating what's she's been told).”

— END

So to clear up some things, I never said brown churches are bad, I never told my daughter to be gay, all I’ve done is explain to her that gay people exist and when you are older you get to choose whether or not you want to marry a boy, girl, or neither. Let’s say hypothetically I did try and indoctrinate her to be gay, that still wouldn’t equate me with white supremacists who are known for outright murder and violent racism. My response was brief, needless to say I ended that relationship as well. She isn’t my grandma to begin with, she’s my wife’s grandma. This one is probably the most satisfying toxic relationship to walk away from for me.

I’m writing just to explain to other people who may wonder if it’s worth it to cut out toxic, in this case religious, family members. It is worth it, I’ve never been happier. The lesson I have learned from all of this is; speak the truth and stand up to unfounded beliefs when you are around them. Don’t compromise that for anyone. There are some cases in which yes, maybe you have a 95-year-old grandma who is going to die any day now who believes gay people will burn forever in hell... do spare her. My wife’s grandma is 75 and sharp, she has no business threatening the very relationship with my daughter over her fear mongered beliefs that continue to poison her brain every night while watching Fox News.

EDIT: If you are a college student or are for one reason or another financially dependent on your parents, there’s no shame in waiting to “come out”. If you’re not being abused you should likely avoid contact and become financially independent before going all fallacy vigilante during thanksgiving.