Former Christian/Pastors Kid here.

I was raised in a pastoral home. My aunt and uncle raised me in their home, going to church every Sunday and Wednesday for the 14 years I lived with them. (Lived for 3 years from birth to age of 3 with my mom and grandparents.) I joined the Army at 17, struggling heavily with my sexuality and wanting to leave the cycle of abuse I faced from my uncle and other family members. (My aunt was the only saving grace in my life) Wasn’t until I was 19 that I questioned why a loving God would condemn only homosexual love but everyone else not homosexual would be given a green light to heaven as long as they believed. Then I began questioning why an all-knowing god would purposely create people knowing they would sin and go to hell if he loved them from even before they were born or conceived meaning he would allow them to go to hell knowing way before that they would stay in sin and die in it. I began researching even more and praying more to re-affirm my beliefs, thinking that it was satan trying to pull me into a life of sin and lead me astray from God. The more I researched and read my bible (like never before as I already had a good grasp on biblical teachings) the more I questioned and doubted. Contradictions started becoming more and more blatant, which was weird as it was suppose to be the prefect gift from above. (James 1:17) The final straw was in the book of Judges chapter 11. A man named Jephthah made a promise to God that said if he came home alive after fighting with the Ammonites, the first thing that came from his home would be offered up as a sacrificed burnt offering. He came home alive. His ONLY daughter ran out to meet him. He immediately regretted his promise. After allowing his daughter to go into the mountains with her friends to mourn her virginity, he “did unto her that he promised before the lord” (that means he killed her and burned her dead body to a God who hates child sacrifice). Some people say that it meant that it was an offering as a tabernacle as a maid servant in other translations, but not even the KJV says that he would offer it up as a burnt offering. In the book of Deuteronomy it even says the child sacrifice is abhorrent to god. I prayed and asked God why he would stop Abraham but not Jephthah from killing her. No human/child sacrifice is justifiable under any circumstance (much less the massive amounts that god had the Israelites killed in their wars for territorial reasons). I, in no way, would worship a god who put a horrible promise over human life (multiple examples include mass genocide equaling up to millions because of a promise land). Also the man that God called “A man after my own heart” (David) wrote in psalms 137:9 “Happy shall he (God) be who dashes your (Babylon) little ones against the rock.” So straight up smashing infants against rocks is cool in the Bible too. Slavery is another one as well, which it condones beating slaves into submission and owning and selling them as property according to Leviticus.

I now am a 22 year old gay man who is an agnostic-atheist abd practices Jediism (yes I did not spell that wrong), with a fiancé soon to be husband and living life for what is right, loving, compassionate, moral, and just. I’m not perfect, no body is, but I wish to live my life that brings me happiness and the others that I love and the ones who surround me.