God Slayer

I truly think the bible has many harmful/unhealthy teachings. People will try to deflect and say only when it’s twisted by abusive people or taught “wrong.” But no, I think it has harmful teachings at its very core. As an example:

When certain emotions are labeled as bad/evil/a flaw or something you just “shouldn’t do” it prevents many people from being able to process emotions healthily. See Ecc 7:9, Ecc 11:10, Col 3:8, Phil 4:6, James 3:16 as a few examples. I went through my life as a christian never really fully processing anything, and I was so emotionally unhealthy. Instead of viewing emotions as neutral signals from my body and sitting with them and letting them move through my body, I would read the thought terminating cliches of “don’t be anxious give it to god” or pray about it and continue to be disconnected from my body. I would feel shame when experiencing normal feelings of jealousy, anger, anxiety and feel like I was spiritually failing. That shame would cause me to continue to suppress those feelings instead of hearing and processing them, and it could cause it to come out in dysfunctional ways. And I see this in hundreds of people who are Christians in my life.

Yes this!!! The moralization of all human emotions is constant within Christianity and it created in me such an unhealthy relationship with my body and emotional experiences. Our emotions really are just pieces of information. They help us identify what our body needs. It's not wrong to be anxious. It's not wrong to be angry.

As a Christian I was continually taking a torch to my emotional landscape and trying to set it ablaze. I was hypervigilant in practicing my emotional control and it hurt me so much. A good amount of my time in therapy was spent asking the question "is it okay for me to feel this way?" and my therapist going ten rounds in the ring with the years of dogma I had seared into my nervous system.

Scrupulosity nearly killed me—the belief that my inner world was being constantly surveilled by god, and that every emotion and thought was a potential sin if there was even a hint of it not being worship, not being complete dissociative submission, the thought or feeling wasn’t pure,

Christianity not only exacerbated childhood trauma but then rewarded my reaction to it: die to self, be a nothing who only exists to be a conduit for god, which requires constant inner prayer, endlessly asking god to search my heart and reveal any sin, to forgive me for things I didn’t yet know but he surely did, to forgive me for needing to be patient with me.

And wow did that kind of inward examination and devotion to prayer skyrocket me into leadership—“you’re so faithful, you are so in tune with god, you are such an example.”

I nearly literally died because I refused to take care of myself, in fear that going to a therapist or a doctor was not trusting that god was capable, or that God’s will was to not heal me and I was going against that—

the cycle of not trusting feelings and thoughts, or my own body, never knowing if this was god testing me to build character, to build perseverance, to develop hope…isn’t that godly? Isn’t that holy? Isn’t that sanctification? Why would I ever pray against god doing that in me by asking for healing? Why would I ever reject his will for me to experience those things by going to a doctor?

“Wow, you have such tremendous faith!”

Some of you really, REALLY need to stop confidently stating what issues atheists do and don’t face, because it is glaringly obvious that you don’t know what you’re talking about. In the past couple weeks I’ve seen:

“Atheists don’t get called groomers or pedophiles like trans people do” - yes. yes, we absolutely do. And they used the exact same language - we’re preying on children, we’re perverting the wholesome family values of this country, we’re infiltrating schools to push our agenda, children are too young to know about these things so they have to be protected from our ideology until they’re old enough to have already been indoctrinated against it to make their own decisions. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying atheists have it worse and this has largely fallen out of favor in the mainstream conversation but like … it ABSOLUTELY happened and still happens, depending on where you are.

“When Christians clutch their pearls about ‘satanists’ they’re actually talking about religious minorities, not atheists” - have you ever, in your entire life, met a fundamentalist Christian? Like their whole thing is that atheists are devil worshippers sent by Satan to corrupt good Christian souls. Pointing out that atheists by definition don’t believe in Satan doesn’t work. I’ve tried. Like yeah they probably also hate other religions but to think that atheists are somehow exempt from that hatred is wild if you have literally ever seen one of these people talk.

“Fundamentalists don’t hate atheists the way they hate religious minorities because atheists don’t represent a threat to their religious hegemony” - aside from the above re: fundamentalists fucking hate atheists - atheists represent the PRIMARY threat to religious hegemony. Atheists have been fighting tooth and nail for decades to get the church out of governments and schools and mostly, we fucking won! Public schools aren’t allowed to force kids to pray anymore and they are allowed to teach evolution! Christian hegemony is bad now, but it was way, WAY worse a hundred years ago, and you primarily have atheists to thank for changing that. And by the way - most negative stereotypes about atheists come directly from those fights. That we’re “oversensitive” and “evangelical” and “want to force everyone to be atheists” comes from the fact that we keep suing to keep religion out of the government and people hated that, not because some people are shitty online.

Anyway, what with the current rise of Christofascism and the fact that some states seem to be gearing up to reintroduce mandatory prayer in schools, this is your weekly reminder that the fight is far from over and that you need to get over your weird hangups about atheists and start fucking helping us.

Almost everyone I work with, the majority of my family, and most of the people around me in my area sincerely think atheists are less than human because they are controlled by demons and out to ruin the world and indoctrinate children. My family had a larger emotional reaction to me being an atheist than they did me coming out about being severely abused. People have quit speaking to me entirely over it. I could easily lose my job if I am too publicly outspoken about being an atheist. (And yes they can do that, I live in an at will employment state.) People get disowned by their families for it here. Being an atheist where I live is literally hell and does come with a lot of challenges.

Release yourself from the idea that atheism is just whiny people on Reddit. It’s a beautiful and diverse group of people just like anyone else trying their best in a world that doesn’t want them to exist.

google search how to stop experiencing anticipatory grief when this world has taken so much from me already

It kinda sucks that you can’t be a proud atheist the way you can be a proud religious person. If you make a big deal about being an atheist that’s cringe, or it’s an attack on other people’s religion. I’m not defending genuine anti-theism, but it feels like so much as saying you don’t believe in god gets you lumped in with people who go out of their way to be dicks about religion. There’s so much cringe culture sentiment around annoying atheists, and I feel like no one addresses that.

Like, I’m thinking about my local pride, how there’s always an org for queer Christians, and sure, I’m glad that exists for them, but I just can’t shake the feeling that a group for queer atheists wouldn’t be received so well, at least not where I live.

If you’re not religious, that’s supposed to be something tiny that doesn’t matter. But not being religious in a religious town and a religious family is a part of my life. It’s a part of my queer identity. And it just sucks that I feel like I can’t take pride in it.

I feel the same way and it sucks because I am proud to be an atheist. Because it means I broke free of the intense cult abuse and manipulation done to me with my own strength. It means every day I survived my struggle with nihilism another day. It means I’ve learned to seek wisdom from within myself and that I trust myself in this life. It means I believe this one life I get is so so special because it’s the only one I get. It shapes my experience every day as a person in the Bible Belt. My atheism actually does say a lot about me and who I am. But if I’m outwardly proud of it I will be immediately hated as satanic, evil, selfish, egotistical, etc. (or cringe, annoying, a dick, anti theist, etc like op mentioned)

I’ve been saying, as a cult survivor, you all need to learn more about cult manipulation tactics. These pipelines use a lot of the same tactics. We are all humans, we can all be vulnerable to manipulation.

“Bi women bringing their cishet boyfriends to pride are sooo annoying!”

Quick question do you know for a fact that the bi women’s partner is a cishet man? Or are you just assuming things based on looks to have a reason to hate on bi women.

“We need to get rid of assumptions and boxes around sexuality and gender!”

Aggressively creates and enforces stereotypes, rules, and assumptions on people’s sexuality and gender

For pride month I crocheted a bunch of gay stuffies for people at work to take if they want 🥹🏳️‍🌈 (wish me luck I am in the Bible Belt) happy Pride Month! I love you all

Update: I added little affirmation signs for them to hold

Update 2: all have been excitedly claimed and I have requests for more :’) People loved them which is really wholesome.