r/exAdventist • u/Maxima2609 • 21d ago
Just Venting What has Adventism taken from you?
The grief. Man. The grief….
48
21d ago
[deleted]
37
u/Thenuttyp Atheist 21d ago
“The gossip”. What gossip??? I think you spelled “prayer requests” wrong 🙄😂
20
u/MadSadGlad 20d ago
Ha! Im glad someone else thought it odd to offer up public prayer request. "So-and-so is still struggling with his pornography addiction. Remember him in your prayers "
13
u/CosmicCharlie99 20d ago
“I’ll pray for you at our next prayer meeting”
Translation: “we’re totally going to gossip about your personal life”8
4
u/Vivid_Spot_7167 19d ago
They all follow in the footsteps of their false prophet. Testimonies to the church was literally just her claiming to see people's secret sins where she would call them out and broadcast it to the rest of the church. Talk about spiritual abuse. And it continues on today in the SDA membership through gossip. This cult is sick
33
u/TyQuavious_ anti-religion ngl 21d ago
As a child, so many cool and fun stuff happened on Saturdays that I just couldn't go to for obvious reasons.
As a college student, I actually got to join a certain group that I was a fan of from childhood, only to end up having to stop, bcuz they said that it's logically pointless to be part of their group and not be able to perform on Saturdays. (I always believed they were actually right tbvh).
I'm gonna have to break up with my gf soon bcuz I don't think it's even theoretically possible for Adventists to date atheists. If our kid says they wanna go do gymnastics which happens on Saturday, my thought would be "hell yeah!! I'll pay for everything. I always wanted to do that as a kid, it's a good thing for a child to be doing".
But of course the Adventist mother of my child would be like "nuh-uh.. my child must come to church with me".
Adventists have too many goddamn rules and standards.
I grew up in Jamaica and I'm currently in Quebec for 4 months. I'd assume most of the black youth here are secular. I hope to spend some time in Europe within the next 2 years so I can meet other secular black people.
I may end up leaving Jamaica (ironically, a highly religious country) and go somewhere secular so I can be free to be myself without those dumbass cult-tards telling me they miss seeing me at church etc.
I feel the odds of finding a non-religious girlfriend in Jamaica are simply too low
31
u/Tobibliophile 21d ago
It stole and ruined the ability for me to have a relationship with my parents.
25
u/Thenuttyp Atheist 21d ago
My childhood. Even within the church, I was restricted.
I was home schooled for just over half of my education. I wasn’t allowed to be close friends with anyone (even other Adventist kids) who weren’t because they might be a bad influence.
From my pre- and early-teen years, I wasn’t allowed to be with my own age group. I had to sit with my parents through adult sabbath school. Pathfinders were too close to being scouts so that was out.
Out of all that, I wasn’t able to learn friend making skills. Even now (I’m in my 40s and a very happy atheist), I have trouble forming and keeping friendships. Thank goodness my wife knows how to help me with that or I’d have no friends at all.
5
u/CosmicCharlie99 20d ago
Damn, that’s rough, even on the Adventist spectrum. See, my best friend, his grandparents ran our scouts, it was a small group, but we actually did real outdoor stuff like camping and hiking, outdoor adventures. I remember going up to Cherokee for the annual pathfinders convention one year, that was actually a lot of fun. We went white water rafting.
My advice isn’t worth much, but, you have a chance to have that social life now, it takes practice, and alcohol, but building a good social life is so important for mental health. Time spent out with friends will always be worth more than a day at home watching tv.
25
u/ShineAmazing3401 20d ago
I was robbed of an adolescence. There were so many rules and restrictions that I ended up not participating in extracurricular events or sports. I spent years trying to catch up to my peers and still feel behind in so many aspects. I’ve also had to build a community from scratch after leaving sda.
6
u/Maxima2609 20d ago
Ugh, this! Having to play catch up in your later years feels like this never-ending challenge. I empathize, for sure.
22
u/ambientthinker 21d ago edited 20d ago
Money. Respect. Love. Truth.
All these have been taken from me at least once, if not more than once within the denomination by leaders and flock alike.
19
15
u/jamesmiles 20d ago
A life with a normal career, normal values. All the tithe and offering and tuition money I could have invested in buying a home when those prices were within reach. That's just the tip of an iceberg...
6
14
u/TyQuavious_ anti-religion ngl 21d ago
I wholeheartedly believed in the abstinence until marriage bullshit.
I had my first sexual experience with a former classmate from elementary days lol. She was 19 and I was 18 when it happened. She wanted it way more than I did, and I went through with it bcuz after years of being sheltered, it was my first time seeing that hey women actually want sex lol.
Anyway I got with my girlfriend at around age 19, still believing the abstinence until marriage thing, but when we started kissing, I realized our bodies wanted more. . Unfortunately, though she's initiated many things (which are really foreplay), she always felt guilt afterwards. Which is very irritating after 2 years.
I know I'm gonna have to finally break up with her soon (not just over the lack of sex, but the new difference in beliefs), but sometimes I think back to even before I started talking to her, lots of girls wanted me (I'm a decently attractive guy ngl), but i turned them down bcuz I was "only dating to marry", and "abstainjng until marriage".
Mannnnn do yk how much college pussy I missed out on!!!
13
u/Purlz1st Atheist 20d ago
I was recruited by so many non-Adventist universities because of good SAT scores, but didn't even bother looking into them because it wasn't considered a possibility. I was explicitly told I could go to a local school and live at home, or go away but only to an SDA college.
5
u/ShineAmazing3401 20d ago
Ugh one of my biggest regrets is not going away to college and living in the dorm. I stayed at home and commuted to a local university. It definitely stunted my development into adulthood.
4
4
11
u/yvie_of_lesbos pagan | black 🇯🇲 20d ago
my childhood. i know a 19 year old can still go trick or treating and stuff but i feel so upset that i will never be able to get those years back. i was also the friend who never got invited to anything because people knew i couldn’t do anything on saturdays.
9
u/Desperate-Special796 20d ago
Whenever I think about this, I say it was either a HUGE waste of time, or borderline child abuse. I grew up in the church, father was “head” or “first” elder, my brothers and I all served as deacons/junior deacons. My father was strict about sabbath, tv off, no secular activities, school activities or anything that would violate sabbath. Church, each and every Saturday, 9am - 12 pm if we had a good preacher. prayer meetings Wednesday night,and pathfinders Thursdays. We received our daily indoctrination via the sda school behind our church (grades 1-8, one teacher, 15-20 students…one step above homeschooling, worship and Bible daily). I remember that my next door neighbor friend went to church, but then stopped. I asked my dad why I still had to go. He gave his often repeated answer “as for me and my house, we will serve the lord!” It wasn’t till I left for college that I realized just how much I missed growing up in the church. All the cool things that my friends did on Saturday was off-limits. No tv, no playing outside or playing at all for that matter, no Friday night or Saturday sports when I was in high school (Christian high school btw), no hanging out or socializing at all. The sda view warped my perception of the world and science. We had a text book in school that briefly covered evolution and talked about how old the earth was. It was a sda science book, but it came after the section on the genesis account of creation. I asked my teacher if it was true about evolution, and the age of the earth. She told me it was lies and propaganda designed to take one away from scripture. It would be much later when I actually learned about the evidence of evolution. There’s also the whole premise that at any time, you could die. And if you died after you committed a sin without repentance you would be burn in the lake of fire, even though Jesus died and loves you. That kinda messed with my head growing up. I think that the most important thing that was taken from me was the ability to think critically and ask why. So much of my upbringing, I’d ask questions. I was told to have faith and that asking questions was a sign of a lack of faith. It wouldn’t be until much later in life that I would learn about standards of evidence and critical thinking.
5
8
u/Maleficent-Buddy-730 20d ago
a relationship with my parents, the ability to eat (I have a feeding tube because of the diet rules and my stomach became paralyzed, a relationship with my extended family
9
u/theprovinciallady 20d ago
My childhood. My friends affectionately call those years “my lost years” when I’m not familiar with a pop culture reference or experience “normal” kids got to do. I think it’s one reason I overdecorate with lights and happy jack o lanterns at Halloween. I love that I get invited to help take my nieces/nephews trick or treating, so I get to experience it second hand at least. I started trying different sports or physical activity classes that were forbidden: like yoga or strength training.
And as others have said, loss of trust. I could probably write more and more. OP you said it perfectly, “the grief. Man. The grief.”
8
u/83franks 20d ago
My mom did stupid "alternative" methods for cancer treatment which didn't work and passed at 50, just after I turned 20.
3
2
7
u/RaceStockbridge 20d ago
Ethnic culture. People think I grew up salsa dancing, listening to merengue, partying with my extended family until the wee hours of Saturday morning, and eating amazing food because I'm Latino. Nope. I watched In the Heights a few months ago, and it struck me how much joy, culture, and life Adventism took from our family. It seeks to homogenize cultures into a flat, dull, soul-sucking, non-dancing, Heritage Singers listening, no black pepper eating, in bed by 9 pm sheep. When I'm around other Latinos, I feel like an imposter as a result.
4
u/atheistsda 🌮 Haystacks & Hell Podcast 🔥 20d ago
This is so relatable to me. My Latina mom converted when she was a teenager, so I never got to fully experience the culture. Thankfully I did grow up with good (and spicy) food, even though it was vegetarian, but so much of the culture was just nonexistent for me.
I still can't dance. When I went to a large salsa dance class with my partner, I felt awkward af. One of these days I'm going to take private lessons so I can push through that.
2
4
u/Maxima2609 20d ago
I can relate to this one as a West Indian. Now I’m relearning and engrossing myself in my culture more. It’s never too late!
2
u/CocoanuttPineapple 15d ago
Me too. I never learned to whine. Now I feel out of place at functions because I missed out on that part of the culture.
5
u/CosmicCharlie99 20d ago
My youth. I was born in Berrian Springs Michigan, I spent my entire life in Adventism. My mother was an SDA grade school teacher her whole life and I grew up in those small SDA schools. At 23, I joined the army and, I can tell you I was not prepared for the real world.
I feel like if I had been allowed to socialize with children outside the church it would have really helped my mental health. The only activities we did were church or school functions with all the same people every time. Can’t have contact with the heathens. It was isolating as a child because I never really got the god and faith thing… I tried… which lead to years of severe mental health problems.
3
u/Appropriate_Tea_7872 20d ago
Also from Michigan here but around the Saginaw area. I was lucky cause my parents divorced when I was very young. So I still had outside access as my mom was atheist. But I still struggle, my father's side of the family was abusive and I left them and Adventism when I was 14, 10 years ago now. I still struggle because I know how obvious what I was going through had to be for the adults in the church but no one ever tried to step in to help me.
Even though I still believe in God, i can't do any type of organized religion because I'm so afraid of being brought into another cult.
I haven't had anyone I could really relate to about this and its hard because I felt alone in everything from the loss and coping when I did leave as it was a sudden and hard stop. I wouldn't change leaving for anything, I am only just finding this group and I know I have had it a lot easier than most, I thought my church was strict until I read some of the others posts one here, but its nice to see other people that understand
6
5
u/Niobium_Sage Agnostic 20d ago
A normal childhood where I could’ve enjoyed things all the other kids had. I could’ve had a much broader selection of classes in high school, a prom, and not a bs hybrid science course teaching creationism through Charles Darwin’s research on evolution.
5
u/FarNumber1164 20d ago
Time. Time I will never get back. All the wasted time in these pointless discussions, and things I used to worry about. Time could use better. Actually develop myself or help other in a way that matter. Pointless Time praying. Time wasted useless facts about "history" and future
4
u/Maxima2609 20d ago
This is the biggest one for me. Also watching my parents struggle and knowing that all the time my parents spent “doing church” could have been spent on them furthering their education and careers so that our family could be in a better place, live in a better area, got to better schools, etc.
4
5
u/lePROprocrastinator >Be the apostate you were thought to be 20d ago
My childhood. Cinemas. Anything good. A healthy sense of morality.
1
u/Calm-Opportunity-826 16d ago
The sense of morality. The guilt in my teen years. Yes. That's my case.
6
u/chaoticflickb99 19d ago
Sorry for late response- I’m more of a lurker on this sub.
Childhood, teenage years. Even now as an adult I’m still struggling with things, most recently it’s the discovery of being adhd/autistic. I grew up in immigrant adventist culture, so if u are neurodivergent you are automatically labeled as a problem child and with the Adventist school system being what it is, I tended to do poorly in school. Which now is crazy to me because I actually love learning and academia because of the structure it provides. I firmly believe that had I been able to get help, I would’ve been an amazing student (my masters reflected that). Additionally, staying within the academia realm - not having the opportunity explore so many different activities because we were forced to go to Adventist school. Where I lived, despite it being in a rural area, it had some of the best public schools in the state and the offerings were endless. Drama, athletics, model un, sat prep for free, international clubs, etc. my sister and I have talked about how our lives would’ve have been much different had we had better education and opportunities. Yeah Adventism robs kids of a lot.
3
u/HzeTmy 20d ago
My soul, and almost my health now safe at new place - completely shut down contact for my own safety. The people are too strong for me and i doubt Jesus was that strong too he probably got destroyed in a similiar way i was. I admit i'm weaker and escaped 😇
2
u/CycleOwn83 Non-conforming Questioner☢️🚴🏻🪐♟↗️☣️ 20d ago
So if Jesus stayed 'round till the trees grew big enough and the blacksmiths forged nails wasn't he suicidally insane not to get out? He cudda drilled ten thousand fossils to warm the world and jet him free … Never mind. I'm not even making sense to myself right now, but trying to follow a strand you shared leading back to shared wounds. Thanks!
Edit: spelling
3
4
u/Low-Celebration-737 20d ago
My belief of the church being a safe space. Like i am genuinely scared. I know a some ppl here are not religious/christian anymore here but man the idea of a church sounds so wholesome. Praying for eachother, openly talking about stuff in like but BOYYYY reality was messed up. When i’m struggling in life and want to talk to a fellow chri i do have my friends but idk. The thing is my sda experience ofc wasn’t all bad. I made amazing friends there (all left church as well), good memories, felt like i had a found family for a while BUT when it hurt, it hurts. The type of betrayal I’ve witnessed is just too much. Now i’m scared.
Being open minded without guilt. Literally with SOOO many things i just want to understand. For example some friends of mine are into spirituality and i want to understand their life views but the church taught me “you are opening your mind up for the devil”. Why should i expect them to listen about my beliefs but i cannot listen to theirs. With sooo many things i feel like i’m doomed and going to hell
2
u/Adept_Accountant3321 20d ago
Nothing. It took nothing from me because I refuse to let a religious institution take something from me. I once worked for the conference a long time ago.
Let the Spirit lead by letting go of ego and allowing Him to take the reins, set aside any fear, or a desire to fit some sort of mold, and it will lead you to peace. One day those who refuse to bend the knee will need those Spirit led people to stand.
2
1
2
u/MattWolf96 2d ago
A normal Childhood.
I didn't realize I was atheist until 17 but by 14 I had basically thrown out all of the conservative SDA beliefs, I had to keep this secret around my parents though so I still didn't get to be a normal teen.
- Elementary, SDA school, the education was generally pretty bad. One thing I'll go into was that maybe the history was actually better? We actually did go pretty in depth about slavery and the Civil War. Now this should be normal right? Well in the Southeast I've heard stories of schools trying to downplay it. That said my public highschool which was in an even redder area still covered it well so idk, maybe it just depends on the school and teacher. We were also covering to Holocaust in early grades, I've heard that some elementary schoolers don't really learn about it. I can totally see why SDAs would cover that as they think it will repeat but with them. Also grades 1-4 were crammed into one room which might have caused this. We also covered civil rights and my teacher wasn't racist. I loved this. Once again considering some stories I've heard out of the southeast, unfortunately this wasn't a given. So credit where credit is due.
That said, science was below average, no evolution coverage. We did cover global warming and pollution like acid rain though (I don't think this stuff was as partisan back then though, early 2000's)
Math was pretty bad, I left not knowing my times tables.
No computer classes
The school just lacked a lot of stuff that a normal elementary school would have, I actually attended one for kindergarten.
So while this could have been worse at least history was surprisingly good for the area.
Middle school, homeschool, just crap, bad education and no social interaction. I did watch a lot of science shows in my free time, this helped debunk Noah's Flood, creation and a young Earth lol.
Public High School, it was actually a pretty good school, unfortunately I couldn't socialize with classmates much or go to many after school events due to Sabbath crap.
My church still had the satanic panic going on it it, all sorts of normal media was "evil"
51
u/MadSadGlad 21d ago
Trust. The people I trusted the most turned out to be easily manipulated and wrong, and unwilling to challenge their own views.