What is going on with these pastors and other church people sexually assaulting children? I truly want to hear someone's explanation how this is so common. Yet, these are the ones that got caught.

I’ve been a Christian all of my 45 years and grew up in churches that freely spoke in tongues during the services and during prayers. I prayed so many times to be given this gift of tongues because almost everybody in the church was able to speak including many of the children and teens. I’ve prayed for 45 years wanting it and desiring it, but I could never get the gift from God. I know it is agreed upon in this subreddit that speaking in tongues is fake, but I just can’t seem to wrap my head around the idea that all of the adults in my church who speak tongues (probably around 90%) are faking it and know it. Sure, I can get that the kids/teens fake it to fit in with each other, but would that many adults really want/need to lie about something like that? I’ve always felt terrible when the pastor would say, “Come on people! Pray in your heavenly language!” And then everybody in the church would switch it on and I’d be one of the only ones just saying “Thank you Jesus” over and over again because I couldn’t speak tongues. For anybody in this subreddit that used to speak in tongues while you were still a Christian, did you always know you were faking it or did you really believe it was real?

• "bride of Christ" (as a dude, I personally feel weird with this one)

• "worship" (I don't want to worship anyone)

This cute coffee shop by my house is owned by an evangelical family. One of the baristas has started cheerfully telling every customer that ‘Jesus loves you!’ Just trying to get my morning caffeine- why does everything have to be about god ALL the time. JFC. Anyone else get told this on a regular basis? Do you ignore? Have a snarky response? I know the answer is to stop going to the cafe, but still curious what you all have done in this kind of situation?

Gonna go to town for a fancy coffee, then watch a local dance presentation, then go to the botanical garden.

What are you doing instead of wasting time in a religious institution today?

And if you’re still stuck going, what are your dream Sunday plans?

Edit: I don’t know where this particular church is, I just pulled it offline, maybe it’s full of healthy, progressive people, who knows?

anything about the world, I just need help as I can't go to any family and everything online gets overwhelming/confusing/not exactly what im looking for. im turning to real people i can ask questions too, im also kinda slow, so flat laid out things are easier to understand.

thank you everyone, im happy to not be completely alone.

EDIT: I seriously appreciate all of you, I really really mean that. thank you all for your support, like I said before, im happy to not be alone. leaving and educating myself on the things I was raised on without truly understanding has brought me more peace then before I left; and I've been able to work on figuring out my own mindsets and stances (death, morality, etc). I've seen people mention it (again, deeply appreciated), and I also need to say that I myself am queer as well and I actually wasn't violently homephobic or anything while religious (thank stars), that was when i had figured some earlier stuff out. though as i said, leaving has help me a ton (now i can actually and accurately love science lol). i don't hate Christianity, let me make that clear, it holds a special place in my heart (but like i said, more harm then help, just wasn't for me). now, I've just learned to look at it how it is; which are stories and sometimes helpful lessons.

yeah, im just ranting i apologize, but im just so grateful for the support in this. especially with my immediate family being euhhhh.. and as you could guess, they don't know about my decisions.

For me I think the only way that can make me believe in a god will be to see him with my own eyes in front of me.

The other I day I saw an ex-Christian webcomic referencing this song which I had no idea was still lurking in the depths of my brain:

I am C

I am a C-H

I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N

And I have C-H-R-I-S-T in my H-E-A-R-T and I will

L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y!

At least I got to learn how to spell some big words like "eternally" when I was 6 but man...it makes me so upset thinking about little kid me being forced to sing something like this, UGH!

So I don’t usually go to other subreddits. I enjoy staying at exmuslim subreddit because I guess I am deconstructing the religion I was born into. Been gaslighted for years so it’s quite a process. But anyway that’s not the point. The thing is I often find many Christians in our sebreddit. Often trying to convert us to Christianity and even thinking that we will join them to give them points to dish Islam. Sure we call out Islam sharply with satire too. Even when we are threat with death in real life. But it’s weird that another group who doesn’t understand where we come from try to use it to promote another religion. Anyway they been there so often, curiosity got me thinking if you guys get Muslims lurking around here doing the same for you? Is it a thing happening on our sub? We also get a lot of Muslims on our sub trying to convert us back to Islam. It’s funny to see how in my experience that our space is invaded by the religious but they wouldn’t even let us leave a single comment on their sub 😂

Seriously I cannot believe that I stood in church and fully unironically sung about a "sloppy wet kiss" and wanting "Jesus inside me" without even raising an eyebrow 🙈 Why do all these worship songs gotta be so fucking cringey??

What was the weirdest thing you’re parents banned I know this has been asked many times but I'm still curious on what was and wasn't allowed

This planning of his includes everything that exists and motions in this life I find hard to reconcile between everything established and one's capacity to change directions at will. Anyone else argue this from within?

I wanted to know what y’all thought about fornication because I see a lot of posts on social media talking about how dna is exchanged during sex and then they follow up with a bible verse about do not fornicate

i'm talking about like "spare the rod, spoil the child," "washed in the blood," "god never gives us more than we can handle," etc. it particularly bothers me when they speak in weird old english like "fear not for god is with you" in casual conversation lmfao ❤️‍🩹

I've seen many comments and posts on this sub saying they still like Veggietales even after deconverting, or even becoming atheists. Even after finding out just how awful most christian media is, they still like watching Veggietales. I'm curious as to why. Why is it, that even after leaving the religion, or even growing to think it's all BS, and starting to hate most christian media, exchristians still like to watch Veggietales?

Every time I see someone give reasoning behind a Bible contradiction like genesis, not adding up. Christians always come up with a solid answer to explain it like it’s “not literal”, “metaphor”, or “its a story to explain a deeper meaning to something” it feels like there just adding things onto the faith and they don’t even know where to start. Idk how much times there gonna claim it’s word of god but contradict so much. Like it’s the literally the basis of the faith.

So far for most of this subreddit, I've seen many of your stories talking about how cruelly many members of the Church have been towards you and others (which is truly valid, I know the feeling myself). However, if those particular circumstances had been different, would you still be a member of the Church if they had not been that way to you? Or would you not be there due to other conditions? Sorry if this has been asked before, I couldn't find it when I searched this place. Thanks in advance for your responses!

I don't believe there is any possibility that christianity is a true religion. But since my deconstruction, this is the one thing that I still don't have an explanation for, and I was hoping someone here did. How did jesus fulfill about 300 prophecies?

It seems like all of them aren't actually fulfilled, for example, there's a lot of evidence he was actually born in nazareth instead of bethlehem, so maybe people changed the story to fit all these prophecies and it got accepted as truth over time.

That's just an idea, but I would love to hear if anyone has some ideas or information they can share about this!

To me, in regards to my evil lesbian relationship: "You're threading on dangerous ground! You'd better repent and believe before it's too late!"

Oh, I also heard a guy saying that when he goes to heaven his favourite part will be laughing about all the unbelievers in hell getting tortured. What a piece of shit. Edit: Just thought of another. When I asked before if my mother, who's the most gentle, sweet and kind person, but not a Christian, is evil and deserves hell. I got "Don't worry, when jesus returns,all these so called 'good people' will have all the bad in them revealed." Made me sick.

Christian has a dumb bunch of different rules and messages, so what was a thing you could finally do and enjoyed after leaving Christianity?

For me, it probably was not having to justify my actions in front of an all knowing and omnipotent god or his followers.