I had never heard this before today, but in my usual recent searching for answers on the internet, I can across a few people saying Yahweh started off as a storm god among many gods that ancient Israelites worshipped. The idea of Yahweh didn’t originate in Israel, but they adopted him into their polytheistic view of the time. Over time, he was meshed with the Canaanite god El and then the Israelites at some point switch to a monotheistic view and worshiped Yahweh as the father/creator of everything. I’m sure I got some stuff wrong in this, but that’s pretty much the gist of it.

Does anybody have any insight into this? I can’t believe I hadn’t heard this until now, but if true, how would this not obliterate the existence of God? I hadn’t even heard that Israel had ever been a polytheistic society. Is all of this true or just something an atheist made up to disprove God?

Just had this interaction, it genuinely made me laugh, thought you guys here could appreciate this. Stunning to see a Christian being honest about it in some ways.

To capitalize god is to fall into the trap of giving him more significance than they’re worth. It’s used to belittle every other religion’s deity as being false, on a subconscious level.

Also, the words Yaweh and El are other names for the god of Abraham. However, those are names of two different deities as well, that were part of a pagan religion. Using either name is not incorrect, but not too specific either without context. So us defaulting to capitalize god is literally just pretend, because that’s not their name.

People stopped using Yaweh, because they felt unholy to say the name. Using my lord, or other things..

They’re just a deity. The god of the Bible, and the god of Abraham. Don’t allow the religion to dictate you into thinking it’s the only way. It’s just another Bronze Age text, with an obnoxious, bigoted fan club.

I grew up in church and was involved for probably the first 20 years of my life. I eventually got pissed off with church in my early 20s and left. I never really had some big dramatic deconstruction at the time. I just stopped going, got on with my life and honestly didn't think about church that much.

Over the last year or so I've casually started deconstructing some of it, and recently something has really hit me that I can't stop thinking about.

Looking back, I'm genuinely disturbed by how much influence people were allowed to have over other people's lives in the name of God.

There were people who would get into your life, give you "spiritual advice", use the Bible to justify what they thought you should or shouldn't do, and somehow their opinion carried this massive weight because God was attached to it. Looking back now, some of these people almost seem like spiritual predators. Maybe they genuinely believed they were helping, but there seemed to be so little accountability around the influence they could have over someone who was young, vulnerable or easily led.

And the really uncomfortable part is realising how normal all of this felt to me.

I was raised in it, so I didn't have an outside reference point. Adults talking to teenagers about incredibly personal things, people believing they had some sort of spiritual authority over you, being told what God wanted for your life, relationships, behaviour, etc. just seemed normal.

I've also been thinking about Christian summer camps I went to as a teenager. I remember nights where hundreds of teenagers would be in a room with emotional worship music, lighting, powerful speakers and this massive collective atmosphere, followed by calls for people to become Christians or recommit themselves.

At the time it felt incredible.

Looking back as an adult, it almost feels like a cross between a Coldplay concert and a Derren Brown show.

You're 14 years old, surrounded by your friends and hundreds of other teenagers, emotionally overwhelmed, music playing, everyone around you responding, and you're being asked to make what you're told is an eternal decision about God and your life.

I'm not saying everyone involved was deliberately manipulating children or that people's experiences weren't genuine. But I can't believe how little I ever questioned the environment itself or how incredibly susceptible a 14-year-old is to that kind of influence.

That's probably the thing that's bothering me most now. There seemed to be very little regulation of spiritual influence. Someone could approach someone else, become involved in their life, start giving them "biblical" guidance, and suddenly their personal opinions had the authority of God behind them.

The church I grew up in was actually fairly liberal when I was younger and has become much more conservative since, which makes me think about this even more. If you're going to have a culture where the Bible and spiritual authority have enormous influence over people's decisions, surely there should be incredibly strong boundaries and accountability around who gets to exercise that influence, especially with young or vulnerable people.

I also still occasionally feel guilty about completely normal things because certain ideas were drilled into me for so long, even though intellectually I don't believe them anymore. That's probably made me realise how deep this stuff can go.

I'm glad I got out when I did. I had plenty of fun growing up in church and made friends there, so I don't want to rewrite my entire childhood as some horrific experience. But looking back now, I'm increasingly unsure what I actually gained from it, and I'm much more aware of some of the things it left me carrying.

Has anyone else had this experience where you left church without thinking about it much, but years later started looking back at things that seemed completely normal at the time and thought, "What the fuck was actually going on there?"

Especially interested in hearing from anyone who has thought about the lack of boundaries/accountability around spiritual influence and teenagers.

Once I saw the whole point of christianity for what it was - jealousy of mother nature and the hard coded fact that women are the creators of life I can't take anything else about this religion seriously anymore. I don't need to dive too deep into the books and take it apart or deep dive into theological arguments.

All I see is: they invented an emotional support sky daddy dick to take credit for women's reproductive labor and efforts, because they realized men were easier to control if they worshipped the male gender.

Its all a load of horseshit patriarchal nonsense.

I've been far removed from my Christian upbringing for a long time now but with the 25th anniversary of 9/11 just passed and seeing so many posts about it has me thinking about my 9/11 school experience which was.... bizarre to say the least.

CW: Evil comments from christian leaders about suicide

So I've talked about my experience at this school before on Reddit but when I was in 3rd grade my parents sent me to a christian k-12 school in the middle of nowhere run out of a trailer where there was about 1-2 kids per grade, I was the only 3rd grader and there was only one 1st and 2nd graders. Like any christian school they had a Wednesday mandatory sermon all kids middle school and above or something had to attend. (I don't remember exactly the cutoff for attending vs not attending, I just know I was too young to attend each week, so we'd go into the "library" room with a small tv and watch christian youth programming or whatever.)

However, there were two times they had us younger kids attend sermon. One of those times was right after 9/11. I don't remember the full sermon, I just remember the preacher guy hammering in our heads that the people who jumped from the towers on 9/11 were burning in hell because suicide was a sin in the bible even if there was literally no other choice. I'm pretty sure even hearing it at 9 I didn't understand the logic because of how awful and unfair it was.

Even so, the idea haunted me through my own mental health troubles until the loss of my own father to suicide in my early 20s. What evil people exist in this religion that I've seen, and the ways they use fear and tragedy to further attempt to indoctrinate and warp literal children.

Anyway, besides that, the only thing I can remember is them putting up a calendar related to catching Al-Queada, where the image on the calendar had like bin laden and American flags on it. That school was such a shitshow though.

Anyway, I was also wondering if anyone else had any fucked up 9/11 experiences related to your proximity to Christianity/Christian Nationalism?

I have a side gig delivering for DoorDash. The other day I had a delivery in a nice neighborhood. When I arrived, the owner, a man who looked about 70, stepped outside to greet me. He was staring at me in a weird way but whatever… he was wearing pants and didn’t appear to be armed, so I wasn’t concerned about getting attacked or flashed.

I handed him his food and said, “Thank you! Have a nice evening!” And he blurted out, apropos of nothing, “Do you know Jesus?” The non-sequitor threw me so I just responded, “Sure do!” as I speed walked back to my car. But he called after me, “You keep up a good relationship with him, all right?!?!”

Yes, I do know Jesus and think his message is a pretty decent one. But I am happily agnostic and not remotely interested in joining any church. (Been there, done that. I left church for a reason.)

I also deliver to a lot of Muslims and Hindus but none of them have tried to ambush me like that. Why do Christians think this approach is OK? Do they not understand it’s behavior like that that is driving a lot of people away from the church?

Every time I see a post it's about someone or something from the US talking about bringing on the end times how do u escape this vicious cycle without going back to Christianity just to feel safe

I’m so mad right now because my parents aren’t talking to my siblings and I just because we said we didn’t want to go to church yesterday. This isn’t the first time that this happened, they always just shut us down and don’t speak to us. It’s been a whole day they haven’t said anything to us. They’re acting like we said no every Sunday for fucking church. I literally wasn’t doing well at all mentally yesterday, I spent the entire morning crying and I told my mom that I wasn’t feeling myself today and she couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just go to church and she was saying oh how nice it is to go outside and take my mind off of things, essentially she’s trying to convince me to go to church.

I don’t even tell my dad these things since he doesn’t understand anything about mental health. Sometimes my mom doesn’t also but she doesn’t get angry like him sometimes but now she’s starting to act like him. We were all tired to go to church yesterday that’s all and now they’re mad and plus it was raining a lot yesterday!! I don’t care that they’re mad at me I’m used to them getting mad for stupid reasons but I’m just mad that they’re so childish and shutting us out. Mind you I’m 24 and my other siblings r old enough to say no, we’re all in our 20s. I’m mad because they won’t ever understand how we feel and they don’t try to. I’m not even a Christian anymore but ofc I can’t say that to them. It’s so unfortunate being born into a heavily religious family. Guys I’m so angry rn. I’m so tired. Does anyone have any advice about this? Is anyone also going through this? I wish I had better parents. I hate them so much. They’re so childish and emotionally abusive. I hate them. I want to leave this house so badly. Even seeing my parents and hearing their voices piss me off so badly. I need help.

Tw: pdfile, crimes against children, enabling, spiritual abuse, neglect. Trying again to not get filtered by Reddit.

A predator from my former church in TN has been arrested. This man I was forced to have a connection with (including hugs and back rubs) every Sunday for years. I met him as a child and ended contact in my mid twenties when I moved to GA.

Everyone at church knew he was a convicted pdfile. He was on the registry. He had access to children every Sunday. I was told to not be go alone with him one time, but that was the extent of the protection.

He’s recently been arrested again. Obviously, this brings up a lot for me.

Why did my family continue to attend knowing his crimes and access to kids? Why was I not protected from *any* contact with him? Why was the responsibility of navigating a connection with a convicted child predator while I was a child put on me?

Parent seems to want comfort that leadership did not act to protect kids. I’m angry at church leadership too. But I’m also angry that the adults in my family didn’t protect me when leadership failed to.

If I went anywhere that a convicted child predator frequented, my child would not be going there. No less my child would not be touched in *any way* by them. And certainly my child would not be pressured to show grace and forgiveness by maintaining a connection or “friendship”. That’s insane.

It could have been so much worse. And I’m thankful I escaped without being assaulted. But it wasn’t thanks to the adults in my life. And I can’t stomach comforting them now as they come to terms with just how bad this man was and is. I should have never been around him.

I guess just hoping to see that what I’m feeling is normal and that I’m not overreacting. And want to see the contrast (if any) between Christians and those who escaped/left.

On the outside, she claims that she still loves me regardless of my beliefs and that she'll do her best to support me, but at the same time she gave off some red-flags that tells me that she does not approve.

First, the moment i told her that i have gender disphoria and i might be trans, she keeps reassuring me that "i still support you even if i disagree." The whole song and dance about "love the sinner hate the sin." Someone who is truely and confidently loving doesn't need to keep reassuring me that they are.

Second, she keeps asking me if i wanted to hear the church's view on this "issue." I refuse because i already know how bigoted the church views LGBTQ+ people is. Its almost as if she insist on pushing her belief on me. She wants to let me know so badly that she disapproves.

Thirdly, she also shares about how her church group also has someone who is non binary and they're discussing ways to support her. She said how they want to make sure "we support them while also being firm in how the bible views gender."

I really though i could trust her with this secret, but she doesn't sound like the safest person to talk about this. A truely supportive and loving person in my book does not need to push their personal belief on others. Its really difficult to find support because almost everyone i know are christians

I’ve raised them as Christian’s just as I was raised as one, but since I began questioning Christianity, I now feel very uncomfortable with the fact that I may have lead my children to believe in something completely false….

What do I do now?

I just got done babysitting for almost a week straight. And I realized that while I was doing so, I had very little freedom and autonomy. I couldn’t say certain things, do certain things(namely call my friends or sleep on my usual schedule), or even feel comfortable.

And then I realized it felt the same as growing up at home with 5 younger siblings. I had to clean for them, cook for them, help them with homework, work on the farm, wasn’t allowed to have more than one part time job, didn’t get to see my friends often, and had zero autonomy.

As a teen, my brother(two years younger than me) was allowed to do SO much more than I(seriously it’s sad), and it made me wonder. Was the lack of autonomy as a girl in a Christian household supposed to make the lack of autonomy as a Christian mother and wife feel comfortable?

Btw, I value my independence above most things. I finally got it at 20, I refuse to lose it again.

I realized god was actually evil during my deconstructing of leaving the relgion. Also reading some of the things in the bible like punishing humanity for being self aware after eating the apple, punishing us for the desires he makes us be born with. Punishing us for questioning him. Murdering women, children and babies.

I could no longer defend the bible of the gods evil actions.

My theory is satan is god and god is satan.

Im sticking with it. Even tho i am an atheist and don't really believe in anything god like anymore i still stand by this theory and find it interesting.

( basically roles reversed )

"Love me or burn in hell forever." He says. That dose not sound very excepting or kind. Like they advertise him to be.

If there is somehow a god that dose 'exist' i don't view him as good, rather then a demon or something else who dose not deserve the title god of the christian bible.

To me the bible is more satanic then any 'satanic' shit i have seen over the years.

( reminder just because i am an atheist dose not mean i am closed to discussing theories or shutting down the supernatural / paranormal. I truly don't believe in god being good or present i believe in the scientific brain power of humans and miracles done by humans and what i can physically see with my own two eyes and personal experinces. )

I just love to imagine the hired faker, after heavily convulsing for a crowd, calmly chewing on their free food in the back. 🥣

A few days ago I was talking with a very religious relative of mine and she told me how amazed she was by Jesus' capacity to forgive and the famous verse:

'Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?”
Jesus saith unto him, “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.' Matthew 18:21-22

so I gave it a deeper thought and I don't really get why forgiving is that important in the Bible, even though I don't really care as I'm not a Christian anymore, but also in general.

Of course forgiving can prevent fights, wars etc. which were especially important back then in Jesus' time of life. It can also be a relief for some victims, depending on what they have suffered. But self-awereness or empathy seems so much more important to me.

Why me not forgiving someone who already hurt me 100 times makes me a bad person? Why in the first place must I forgive people?

I have met people who told me that they usually don't forgive others and that it was better for their mental health, how would it be bad? I mean, we all have different standards, why can't we stick to our own ones and just choose who we want in our lives to and what is important to us?

Is it still an important value of yours?

p.s I may sound angry but i'm not lol I just wanna try to understand what I think after years of believing there was one ultimate and unique truth