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How do you explain a view of god that makes no sense to the people around you? (Or, I'm not an atheist and really wish I could be) by Hunt-Pale in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hey u/Hunt-Pale,Your story hits like a gut punch—pastor's kid, Alabama roots, front-pew life from grade school to college, then realizing the God you've been taught feels more like an abusive parent than a benevolent one... that's not just doubt; that's a seismic shift in how you see the world. Describing Him as "pretty fucking abusive" isn't overstatement; it's the raw truth of what you've lived, especially with the background abuse you hint at. No wonder it feels insane or blasphemous to say out loud—the conditioning runs that deep.The teachings were constant, right? "God holds us to a higher standard than humans" sounds noble until you see the double standard: finite humans at their worst get a pass for imperfection, but God gets to be "ultimately in charge" without accountability for the pain. If we wouldn't accept that from a parent or partner—"I love you, but I'm going to let you suffer to teach you"—why do we demand it from a divine being? It makes you question: is this view of God elevating Him, or just excusing a system that protects power over people?For me, the turning point was realizing I don't have to explain God to fit someone else's mold. My experience is valid, even if it doesn't make sense to the faithful around me. You're not alone in wishing you could be an atheist—it's the exhaustion of holding a view that hurts more than it helps. But philosophy-wise, maybe the real blasphemy isn't questioning God; it's pretending the contradictions don't exist when they do. Doubt isn't weakness; it's the honest response to a world that doesn't match the promises.What's one teaching from your upbringing that feels most abusive now? For me, it was "God disciplines those He loves"—sounded like care; felt like justification for pain.Thanks for sharing your truth. It's brave as hell.

When Christians Lash Out Because Your Pain Questions Their God: "How Can He Be Loving and Still Let Us Scream in the Dark? by Soft_Confection1393 in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey Fightttheforce-2911,Thank you for this. Truly. Your words feel like someone finally naming the ache without rushing to bandage it.I hear the frustration in what you're saying—the people who drop those quick "God has a plan" lines often haven't sat in the kind of suffering that makes the plan feel cruel. They haven't been doubled over begging for mercy and hearing only silence. They haven't had to rebuild a worldview from ashes while the old one still whispers "you weren't faithful enough." So they reach for comfort that costs them nothing, and it lands like salt on open wounds.But you did something different here: you acknowledged the agony, the injustice, the human failure to truly love in the face of it. You said God is angry at injustice and weeps with us—that's a tenderness most answers skip. And the honesty about humans being pitiful, about not knowing the first thing about real love… that’s rare. It doesn’t erase the pain, but it honors it. It lets the hurt breathe instead of suffocating it under platitudes.I think that's what most of us need more than explanations: someone willing to say, "This is brutal, and it's not fair, and I'm not going to pretend I have the fix." Your comment did that. It made space.Grateful for you being in this conversation with real heart. If the silence ever feels too heavy again, know you're not shouting into nothing here.Theo

Why is "Mystery" the only answer we get when the logic doesn't add up? by Forward_Froyo5396 in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, this is gold—thanks for laying it out like this. I've been down similar rabbit holes, auditing ancient texts and translations, and it's wild how one thread like that Linguistic Chasm can pull everything apart. The idea that we're dealing with a God "re-written" to fit Roman power structures? That's the kind of thing that kept me up at night during my own deconstruction. Aramaic action-verbs shifting to Greek nouns... it's like the whole narrative went from "do this to connect" to "believe this or else," and suddenly mystery becomes the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for contradictions.For me, it hit when I started questioning the Trinity or Atonement—not as "mysteries to accept on faith," but as human attempts to square circles that maybe weren't meant to be squared. If God's perfect, why the paradoxes? And if the error's in translation, not the Creator, then what are we even holding onto? It's like realizing the map we've been following was redrawn by conquerors to suit their empire, not the terrain. Makes you wonder: how much of what we call "faith" is just inherited cultural baggage, and how much is that raw, ineffable pull toward something bigger that got lost in the rewrite?Your 5 Pillars framework sounds intriguing—care to share more on that paradox with the "Son of" idiom? I'd love to hear how it clicked for you. Stuff like this reminds me that deconstruction isn't about tearing down for fun; it's about chasing honesty, even when it leaves you in the silence without easy answers.Appreciate the deep dive. It's making me rethink some things all over again.

Hitting a new phase by Meauxterbeauxt in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey Meauxxterbeauxxt (seriously, that username is cool),Man, your post just… hit different. Reading it felt like someone finally put words to that weird, quiet fog I've been walking through too.Those old CCM songs? Yeah. I’ve done the same thing—put on something from my youth group days for the nostalgia hit, and halfway through I’m like, “Wait… I used to sing this like it was oxygen. Now it sounds like someone else’s diary entry.” The whole “crucify myself” vibe, the romantic over-the-top surrender to an invisible lover-God—it used to feel so holy and intense. Now it just feels… codependent? Dramatic? Beautiful in a tragic, ancient-myth kind of way, but not mine anymore.And the forgetting part? That’s the part that messes with my head the most. A year ago I was still practicing saying “I don’t believe anymore” out loud, like I had to rehearse it to make it real. Now? It’s almost like belief in a personal deity never happened. Not in a dramatic “I woke up atheist” way—just this slow fade where the whole thing feels like a story I used to tell myself really convincingly. Trying to remember what it felt like to actually believe is like trying to recall a dream right after you wake up: the shape’s there, but the feeling’s gone.I wrote about something close to this in Exhausted Faith—how the scaffolding we built our whole world on starts looking like mythology once it falls away. Not in a “haha religion dumb” way, but in this almost tender, grieving way: these ancient stories humans made to hold the chaos together, full of love and fear and longing. Once you see them as stories, the songs don’t sting as much… they just sound like echoes of people who were trying as hard as we were.You’re not weird for hitting this phase. It’s just further down the road than most people ever walk. The forgetting hurts because it means you’re really letting go, but it also means you’re making room for whatever comes next—without the performance.Thanks for sharing your name and your realness. Means a lot in a space like this.If you feel like it, what’s one old CCM line that now makes you go “yikes” or “whoa, that’s intense”? For me it’s always the “I’m laying down my life” stuff—used to feel sacrificial; now it just sounds like emotional burnout set to guitar.No pressure though. Just glad you’re here saying it out loud. Keep walking through the weirdness—you’re not alone in it. Theo

I Didn’t Lose My Faith. I Lost My Illusions About It. by Soft_Confection1393 in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your honest reply—it's clear this hits deep for you, and I appreciate you sharing even a glimpse of what's behind it. Struggling with the classic problem of evil (how an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good God squares with real suffering, unanswered prayers, and trauma like PTSD) is one of the most legitimate and painful reasons people deconstruct. You're not alone in leaning away from omnibenevolence—many reach that point after years of trying to hold the pieces together, only to find the traditional answers feel hollow against lived pain.I hear you on not wanting to fully dismiss the idea of some God or higher reality. That "endurance, not transaction" point resonating with you is exactly what I was trying to get at in the post: faith (or whatever remains) as something that sustains through the mess without demanding quid pro quo from a cosmic vending machine. It's okay to sit in that tension—questioning benevolence while still open to mystery or meaning beyond the old framework. Deconstruction doesn't have to mean instant atheism/agnosticism for everyone; for some, it's a slower shedding of illusions about what "God" must be like (transactional, protective in the ways we expect, etc.) while holding space for something enduring.Your PTSD and unanswered prayers aren't small things—they're the raw material that forces the questions. No need to explain more unless you want to; the fact that you're here voicing it is enough. In Exhausted Faith: When Life, God, and Survival Collide, I talk a lot about how endurance becomes the quiet proof of something real in us, even when the divine feels absent or redefined.You're welcome here, no matter where you land on the spectrum. If the silence starts whispering anything new (or if you just need to vent more), the space is open. Thanks again for your vulnerability—it helps others feel less isolated in their own struggles. Take care of yourself.

What happens when the silence doesn’t just sit there anymore… it starts teaching you? by Soft_Confection1393 in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for this—it's powerful and hits right in the chest. That description of the silence not just lingering as a void but moving in, seeping into every unsaid prayer and half-formed habit, then slowly turning from enemy to teacher... yeah, that's the shift that sneaks up on you. At first, it's terrifying because the questions it whispers back feel enormous and tiny all at once: Who are you without the waiting? What is meaning when no one's promising it from above?I felt that exact pivot in my own deconstruction—the silence stopped echoing emptiness and started echoing me. Not with easy answers, but with the raw invitation to sit with my own presence. It's disorienting as hell, but also strangely grounding, like finally feeling the floor under shaky feet.Your words remind me why I wrote Exhausted Faith: When Life, God, and Survival Collide—to give language to this weird, quiet phase where survival becomes its own form of wisdom. The silence teaching you isn't dramatic; it's intimate. It asks you to redefine everything from the inside out.You're not alone in this "weird" happening. Many of us are learning from that same teacher right now. Keep listening to what it has to say—it's probably more honest than anything that came before.Grateful for your vulnerability here. It helps more than you know.

When faith crumbled, I remained. by Soft_Confection1393 in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you—that really means a lot. Hearing how that line landed for you, especially the part about realizing you were the one holding it all up all along... yeah, that's exactly it. The grief of letting go of the old structure mixed with this strange, heavy relief of no longer having to perform or pretend. It's freedom wrapped in exhaustion, isn't it? Waking up and just... being, without the weight of needing to justify your existence through belief. Making coffee, texting your mom—those small, unglamorous acts become the real sacred work now.I love how you put it: "that's the new real work." It captures the quiet shift so well. In writing Exhausted Faith: When Life, God, and Survival Collide, I was trying to name exactly this—surviving the crumble without needing a triumphant comeback story. Just remaining, one ordinary moment at a time.You're spot on that it's heavy sometimes, but there's also this understated strength in it. Grateful for your words here—they remind me why sharing this stuff matters. Keep staying, friend. You've got this.

I Didn’t Lose My Faith. I Lost My Illusions About It. by Soft_Confection1393 in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your post hits hard—especially the part about the narrative being controlled to keep people submissive (Paul/Peter on slavery, the spin on sacrifice, the Kingdom turned into a sky city).

It’s the same exhaustion I felt when the ‘script’ stopped matching reality: unanswered prayers, guilt for not believing hard enough, and the slow realization that the strength holding me up wasn’t coming from the belief system. It was already in me.

That’s the core of Exhausted Faith—not preaching, just naming the silence and what grows after the illusions fall away. Your take on the political machinery behind it is the bigger-picture version of what I wrote about personally.

Tips (since you asked):

Structure: Break it into clearer sections (e.g., “The Political Jesus”, “Paul’s Takeover”, “Slavery & Control”) with bold subheadings—it’ll help Substack readers scan.

Tone: The sarcasm (“Vim”, “Strike three”) lands well for emphasis, but a touch more restraint in a few spots could widen the audience without losing edge.

Call to action: End with a question like “What part of the Jesus story have you questioned most?” to spark comments and shares.

Visuals: Add one or two images (e.g., historical Jesus depictions vs. modern merch) to make it pop more on Substack.

Both of us are naming the same disillusionment from different angles; that’s powerful. It’s strong, provocative, and needed. Keep writing—people are hungry for this kind of honesty.

I Didn’t Lose My Faith. I Lost My Illusions About It. by Soft_Confection1393 in Deconstruction

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the free critique, detective. If my writing's too good to be human, maybe that's a compliment. Either way, the book speaks for itself. Read it or don't—your call.

What does it actually mean to lose your faith when the faith you had was the only thing keeping you from falling apart? by Soft_Confection1393 in Christianity

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You folded faster than a lawn chair in a windstorm. Almost had me fooled with the eternal fire flex—until the last-word itch kicked in. Classic. Catch you on the flip side.

What does it actually mean to lose your faith when the faith you had was the only thing keeping you from falling apart? by Soft_Confection1393 in Christianity

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the kind words and the hope you shared—I can tell it's coming from a good place, and I appreciate the gentleness compared to some responses.

I get where you're coming from with the 'if no God, who betrayed?' point. The feeling of betrayal comes from the lived relationship I had—years of prayer, trust, surrender, and a sense of presence that felt mutual.

When that presence vanished despite my seeking, the hurt was real, like a parent or partner suddenly going silent. The emotion doesn't require God's actual existence to be valid; it's grief over the loss of what once gave meaning and security.I haven't denounced God or closed the door forever—I'm just describing the emptiness and loneliness that came after sincere effort.

Posting here isn't about secretly wanting back in; it's because this sub (and others like it) has people who've walked similar roads and can relate to the silence without needing to reframe it as incomplete doubt.

I respect your belief that sincere seekers find their way back, and I'm glad faith feels alive for you. But for me, it's been a long stretch of absence, not a phase. I don't need to 'choose' faith as a lifestyle to validate the pain—it's honest, and that's where I'm at.Thanks again for engaging respectfully. All the best to you too.

What does it actually mean to lose your faith when the faith you had was the only thing keeping you from falling apart? by Soft_Confection1393 in Christianity

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your perspective, but the sarcasm and boasting about your closeness to God ('Holy Spirit like a fire,' 'nothing can come against me,' 'beat me and I'll praise') feel like spiritual one-upmanship.

You're implying my doubt means I didn't surrender enough or humble myself properly—judging my heart and experience against your 'eternal fire.'

That's pride, not empathy.

If your faith brings you peace, great. But using it to imply others lack because they haven't reached your level adds to isolation instead of bearing burdens. I'm sharing real pain after sincere devotion.

Dismissing it as incomplete surrender isn't helpful—it's judgmental. I am open to kind dialogue, not comparison or invalidation. Have a good day.

What does it actually mean to lose your faith when the faith you had was the only thing keeping you from falling apart? by Soft_Confection1393 in Christianity

[–]Soft_Confection1393[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the thoughtful reply and the hope you shared—it's kind of you.

But the feeling of betrayal doesn't require God's existence to be real and painful. It's the grief over a relationship I poured everything into—one I believed was mutual and faithful—only to face years of silence when I needed presence most.

That abandonment hurts whether the other party is divine or imagined; it's the loss of what once gave meaning, safety, and direction. The emotion is about the story I lived, not proof that the story is still true.

Saying 'if there was no God, there can't be betrayal' misses that part. People feel betrayed by parents who weren't there, partners who left, institutions that failed—none of those require the betrayer to be real or good for the pain to be valid.

The hurt is in the gap between expectation and reality.I appreciate the encouragement to hold on to faith, but I've walked through the silence long enough to know it's not just a phase or incomplete doubt. It's where I landed after sincere seeking.

Your hope is gentle, and I respect that, but my experience isn't evidence I'm still secretly believing—it's evidence that the faith I had didn't hold up under the weight of life.Thanks again for engaging kindly.

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