I was fortunate that my father was still agnostic at the time and wouldn’t allow my mother to force me to church after I decided I wasn’t going. He later converted after he was diagnosed with cancer, so had that happened earlier, I probably would have been shit out of luck.

As it was, my mother still harassed me for years after, until I finally cut contact.

They know. I stopped attending church in my teens, and my mother never stopped looking for opportunities to re-convert me. I no longer take her calls.

I want to add, this observation really stood out to me:

People feel drawn to religious communities because of that word, “community.” People want fellowship, to have other people who will love and support you. But I was struck by how lonely you seemed when you were in this lifestyle and when you were married. It seems a lot of people feel alone in this community.

People hail religion as a ready-made source of community. But I think this forgets how easily that community can isolate you and create a lonely environment. Just because you’re surrounded by people yelling about how they’re looking after your best interests doesn’t make it true.

Sorry, I was slow in removing this one.

I don’t see how they aren’t both rotten at the core. They both spring from the same Abrahamic religion. They both cite extremely fallible and frequently inaccurate texts as scriptures. They both cherry-pick what they want from scripture and knowledge. Neither is better than the other. The only reason that Christianity isn’t just as violent as Islam today is because most of the Christian world is leashed by secularism, which the Islamic world rejected a thousand years ago.

In fact, Jesus was very pro-war/conflict and anti-immigrant. Shall I quote the gospel verses demonstrating it?

Well, yes and no. Yes, during the Islamic Golden Age they successfully introduced a lot of valuable knowledge. There’s a reason our numbers are called “Arabic” and most of the stars we can see have Arabic names. However, the idea that they’ve been strictly defensive is not accurate. After the fall of the Golden Age, when clerics took back their power and declared mathematics to be satanic they began their campaign to establish a global caliphate. They’re brutal with anyone they consider sexually deviant or violate gender norms, and they’re not above attempting to invade a neighbor if they think they can get away with it in the name of Allah.

Just like Christianity throughout history.

The difference is that they have a lot of catching up to do before they can equal the atrocities of Christianity. And from the look of it, this lag isn’t from lack of trying. They just haven’t had as much time as Christians to commit all of the atrocities.

“Rules for thee but not for me.” Which brings us around to Wilhoit’s observation:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

Yay, more “both sides” bullshit!

Yup, Biden is absolutely the same as Trump. Nothing progressive has come out of his administration at all.

Since 2015, being horribly bigoted has been normalized. A lot of the MAGA crowd delight in admitting they want to see every person of color and competing religion drawn, quartered, hung, and burned to ash.

A fun way to turn their arguments around is to quote horrible bible verses (https://www.evilbible.com/) and attribute them to the Qu’ran. Get them going until you start quoting verses they recognize. “Oh wait, I guess that was from the Bible all along!”

Also, I fear no gods I know how to kill.

That’s an amazingly good point. Thank you!

How is it that humans are capable of recognizing that any amount of torture is immoral, but the alleged Source of all morality isn’t?

I’m here to offer support and guidance to people who are struggling with deconversion or agonizing over the decision to start. Posts that offer counter-apologetics are a good choice to that end.

So you’re looking for a way to defend Christianity?

Good point on providing the definition. Added to the post.

Why do you ask?

From Sam Harris:

Religious moderates imagine that theirs is the path to peace. But this very ideal of tolerance now drives us toward the abyss. Religious violence still plagues our world because our religions are intrinsically hostile to one another. Where they appear otherwise, it is because secular knowledge and secular interests have restrained the most lethal improprieties of faith. If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of our having dispensed with the dogma of faith.

In glad you found us! We’re pretty quiet at the moment, not enough people to really boost the community and I can only do so much. But the more people make the transition the better of we’ll be!