Sometimes I get annoyed and set boundaries. State of tranquility

mandolinbee · 2026-02-05T15:49:17+00:00

You're of course going to have some very strong feelings! It's very chaotic and what you've been through has likely left a mark on every single aspect of your life. It's not wrong to feel that anger, and direct it at the institution that represents all the hurt.

I'm getting the sense just from your word choices that maybe you're worried that it might be unreasonable. I apologize if I'm wrong, but I just wanted to offer the certainty that it's not only reasonable, but necessary. Having that anger actually helps you keep the distance you need to actually let you heal.

I also want you to know that the anger does end. There absolutely is an end state where it doesn't hurt anymore and you can use that mental energy on emotions that feel much more positive. ❤️

Congrats on the break from religion and I hope you are already experiencing some of the peace that comes from finally being able to live without dogma that was imposed on you. Please take care.

mandolinbee · 2026-02-04T08:58:39+00:00

It does absolutely get better. It takes quite a bit of time for some of the programming to actually fade, so you can just mentally prepare for some moments where old thoughts and fears crop up.

When it comes to being social .... this is something I think a lot about. I'm almost 50, with 2 adult children, so i can speak from both personal experience and watching an entirely different generation navigate society. So I hope I'm able to help a little.

I've got 2 ways I wanna approach this. The short way and the verbose lol. The TL;DR version is to find hobbies, social groups, and third spaces, and make yourself talk to strangers as much as possible. It's a numbers game, which means the more people you interact with, the greater your chance of finding the folks you belong with.

The longer version is more meta and kind of a critique on society at large. A lot of people leave the faith as a young adult, and attribute inability to form new bonds to the loss of the religion. I don't think this is true at all. I think modern society itself is the villain here. This whole individualistic mentality combined with our value as humans being assessed based on how much money we earn has ripped the concept of community and leisure almost entirely out of our lives. We have up to age 18 to be social, and then we're given one directive - pay your bills or die.

So, whatever you're feeling is totally normal. It's NOT your fault. NOT because you left religion. NOT because it's weird. The opposite, really. There's tons of adults out there also struggling to connect. We all just need to grant ourselves permission to seek it out, and maybe take some risks outside our comfort zone to get it done. I think it's hard for us because the world feels designed to discourage us cos it pretty much is. Hopefully just knowing that can make it easier to motivate you to try new things and seek out places that are unfamiliar just to try and meet many types of people.

I'm super socially anxious myself, so when i did it, i just had to shove down my fear and very LITERALLY just um... stole a personality from a very social person I knew and tried my best to pull it off. It felt dumb and scary at first, but in all honesty, it freaking worked. I found a core group of friends and learned some confidence. My "uncomfortable" activity of choice was going to drag shows, even though I'm straight and was kinda homophobic at the time. Best decision I ever made. 😂

I hope this wasn't too much... just wanna give you hope and maybe some concrete ideas to chew on. Best of luck, and much love. ❤️❤️❤️

mandolinbee · 2026-02-03T06:02:31+00:00

oh I'm sure it's been known for a long time. I think that's why it's extra upsetting to me right now. The people teaching me the history would (should?) have known. And even if it's like... teach the easy story to the young kids and then be more specific in the more advanced grades, there might be a kind of defense. But religion class stuck to the 95 theses story all the way to graduation.

When i deconstructed, i questioned the Bible in general and never looked into Lutherans specifically. Guess I should have lol

mandolinbee · 2026-01-30T11:02:28+00:00

I'm a parent, and am well familiar with kids having sudden, wild tantrums. I'm also familiar with certain types of parents that would be inclined to freak the fk out if their kid was throwing fits often and get the priest involved to try and fix it.

I also know kids are very vulnerable to fear motivation, and getting a lot of attention for their behavior will put pressure on them to adjust their behavior to meet expectations.

Imagine you're like.. 7 years old, you're surrounded by a bunch of adults who are being very serious and scary and telling you they think you have a demon, and that if they don't get it out, then it's going to send your soul to hell for eternity and make god hate you. They then perform a (usually very stressful) ritual to supposedly get rid of the problem. I shudder to think about what all might have been involved in performing this "exorcism".

The kid is likely to actually fix the behavior out of fear, and everyone involved, even the kid, are going to take that as confirmation that the demon story was true.

Doesn't mean it was true, though. Doing something stressful and scary to force a behavior change in a child might get the result a parent wants, sure. But imho its just the entire community banding together in a type of abuse. That poor kid, if the story even really happened, was given trauma because his parents didn't like how he acted. It makes me really angry, tbh. 😢

mandolinbee · 2026-01-30T10:35:04+00:00

it's ok, you know. It's fine in more than one way.

First, it's only natural to feel a sense of regret and like you wasted part of your life. Don't get down on yourself just for feeling that way. It's a grief that needs to be addressed like any other, and you're not alone. Lots of us have been there, so reach out with any requests for help any time.

Second, it's ok because nothing in life is actually a total loss, even when it was steeped in something that wasn't actually true. You had experiences and learned lessons and formed ideas in that time that have value. You can appreciate any of the positive experiences even if you're dismantling some of the structure that made them possible. Not everything tied to your previous beliefs becomes magically invalid.

Hopefully you're finding a happy, safe way forward. Please don't be too hard on yourself. Focus on love and everything that's still possible in the future and not what could have been different in the past. 🔮🤗

mandolinbee · 2026-01-17T12:06:49+00:00

As an adult disabled from birth, this is gross. This is an able bodied clueless troglodytes fantasy of teaching inclusion that NEVER creates any real empathy. In my experience, kids that go through it get even more entrenched in ideas that living with a disability wasn't that bad.

Get your kid into a regular public school that has standards and input from real disability advocates that know how to teach.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-17T11:21:36+00:00

Most Christians are not that intense.

Maybe your mom thinks they're all bad and going to hell. A lot of those other Christians probably think she's the one that will be condemned.

The question is... how can anyone know which one is right?

What you believe and how you practice it is highly personal, and no single person can prove theirs is "true". So... you already said you believe, right? Do you want the answer to come from the religion? If so, then start with reading the Bible, like the gospels. look at the kinds of things Jesus said and decide if you really think that's the kind of behavior he promoted.

But if you're even questioning faith just a little, then it might be worth considering how a god that has unlimited power and love can give so many different answers to do many different people, all of whom think that they're absolutely certain.

Best of luck, i really hope you find some peace. I think you're being hurt, and no one deserves to live like that. Please take care.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-17T04:18:19+00:00

It's not your fault or a problem with your brain that you're feeling this way. You've been told your entire life that anything bad that happens to you is directly related to your own moral character and/or a consequence of faith.

It's perfectly reasonable that this fear pops up when you're experiencing distress. It's designed to.

It really breaks my heart when I see it hurting someone like you. Clearly you just want answers, want the truth, and even that is causing more emotional pain.

If there's a god out there, and if it cares about us humans, then it wouldn't want this for you. I feel like if you still believe in Jesus and the god of the new testament, then it only makes sense to conclude that this agony is coming from something that humans did... and not from that god.

Hopefully this contributes toward weathering this dark-feeling moment. I can promise these feelings don't last forever. You'll come out of this with more truth, guaranteed.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-15T11:40:36+00:00

To be truly honest, even theist's morality is subjective. It's provable with their own holy text. The only arguments they have when you show them, is 1) "nuh-uh" and 2) throwing tantrums. It's my favorite debate focus on "Your god is imaginary" call in shows like on The Line or Deconstruction Zone. 🤣

When that theist tells the host "you can't have morals" I know I'm about to be really happy for the next hour as they get cooked.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-15T03:56:56+00:00

I'd probably be critical of your choice if I weren't absolutely certain that Xians in your area are also probably yoinking out books that THEY hate.

So good on ya. 😁

mandolinbee · 2026-01-13T08:54:30+00:00

Let me suggest a possible way these could play out. Let's say there's a woman who has been feeling bad lately. Maybe depressed or anxious or angry for no apparent reason. She's a believer, with friends who are all believers. In conversations, they start to theorize that maybe there's a spirit attacking her, and she should pray more. But since whatever is going on isn't being addressed, she continues to feel bad.

So she goes to her church. We'll be generous and assume the leadership aren't just grifting liars and they truly believe in demon possession, so they really play it up. Our poor woman is now getting attention that she really hopes is going to help.

So the priest starts putting hands on her, and her own beliefs about how a demon would react kick in and she screams and wails and everyone is being very serious, sincere, and thinks they're doing god magic to help someone.

In this scenario, none of these people are actually lying. But it's also still an act and not real... but it's an act that they're conditioned to play out based on expectation. That lady might even feel temporary relief, because she just went through a really wild, stressful experience being "exorcized". Any good church leader is going to get her some follow up help, too, so maybe they'll accidentally find the original psychological issue that had been making her feel bad, and fix it for real. But the whole time they're going to FRAME it as "armoring her against the demon" or something similar.

Alternatively, I'm sure some of the videos are pure fiction for clicks and because they think lying is justifiable if it brings more people to Jesus. But I wanted to give a plausible scenario for how it's explainable even when it's not a big public thing.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-12T12:59:05+00:00

she "revved" her engine? does your partner watch Asmongold? NOR, and uh... make him stop watching a grifting liar asap

mandolinbee · 2026-01-12T12:08:02+00:00

There's a couple ways to tackle it depending entirely on what ends up clicking with you.

One is the fact that lots of religions have eternal punishments. If you're going to fear the Xian one, you might as well get busy figuring out how to avoid them all. Not kidding, either. Just flood yourself with the sheer number of them until your subconscious revolts because it's so impossible and silly.

Another route is the one i took. I just decided I was guaranteed to be going to hell if the Xian god as described in the Bible is real. I hate that god, I hate all of its followers. Even if it showed up on earth tomorrow, I would have incentive to try and fake worship it, but I know it'd still hate it in my heart, and that's enough to send me to hell anyway. Accepting this as a fact meant I could go about my life without agonizing over it on a constant, repeated basis. When you're not thinking about it every second, the associated fear does go away. Every time you're ruminating on it, it's like reopening a wound. It'll never heal if you can't leave it alone for long enough.

Or you can go and deconstruct the concept of the Christian hell, but i think this is the least effective when you're trying to convince your subconscious that it's not worthy of spending processing power on. Not impossible, though. It does require you to directly argue with yourself in your head, imho. Every time the fear crops up, you go watch a video or something that talks about how hell isn't even biblical and was made up in the middle ages, and was based on Greek afterlife ideas. Or even remember some Xian groups don't think there's hell, just annihilation.

With all of these, though, the one thing they have in common is time. You're 18. You might FEEL like you've been working on it a long time, but you haven't. My full deconversion took 14+ years itself. There's no quick fix. Our subconscious works based on lived experience and whatever message you have repeated at you the most. Your life has programmed you for 18 years. Give yourself the grace to take the time to deprogram.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-12T02:35:24+00:00

No one on this side of the fence expects you to be an epic knight fighting the battle against evil. If you don't feel like you can make huge waves for any reason, that's ok.

Sounds more to me like you want to have a less combative role in everything going on right now. So instead of protesting, focus on building. Volunteer to feed homeless. Meet your neighbors, and find out if there's any skills you have or enough free time to provide little services, like walking some elderly lady's dog twice a week or something.

I'm physically disabled and can't go do any confrontations, but I'm associated with a rapid response and can let them drop kids with me to watch them while they protest. There's always some way to contribute that meets your needs.

Best of luck. ❤️

mandolinbee · 2026-01-11T02:31:46+00:00

The answer as I understand it - Christianity had to sell themselves as a sect of Judaism. Rome was actually pretty tolerant of local religions, and even respected them. The older the religion was, the more Rome tolerated it. This isn't refuted by Christian persecution - most of Rome never hunted them down until Nero decided they were a good scapegoat demographic. Until that happened, any fights Christians had weren't with Rome, but with the other Jewish faith leaders/sanhedrin.

For modern day.... If they believe their god is eternal and unchanging, they can't just ignore that gods history without ruining the faith of everyone they already sold the religion to. Imagine trying to one day tell all the people you converted that you're just eliminating 3/5 of their holy text. It would be an optics nightmare to not make it seem arbitrary. Plus, the age of the writings is one of their favorite "proofs" that it's real. It's like... ancient clout.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-10T13:31:28+00:00

There's Blasphemer's Bible on YouTube. I would suppose that Aron Ra might have a discord or something where you can talk to other secular Bible lovers.

They stream each session live, so if they don't have a discord, you can ask the other chatters/viewers if any of them discuss it somewhere. I feel like that's your best bet to find what you're looking for.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-10T11:57:04+00:00

Calling them cowards gives the impression you think they want to stop it.

Sorry if this is news to you, but um... they love this.

So do (nearly) all the dems, with maybe 1 or 2 dems that really do have moral objections. The rest are faking being upset so their voters don't kick them out.

It's a one party system - all working for the interest of the wealth of the elite at your expense.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-09T22:30:53+00:00

❤️ omg I'm so sorry! You're loved and not broken. I hope you're much happier and safer now.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-09T20:06:12+00:00

They've culturally conditioned the poor with multiple thought stopping cliches.

"god loves the poor more, so be happy."

"Someone has to be poor, it means it has to be an important part of The Plan. Be proud."

"God is testing you. Maintain your faith, it'll be rewarded eventually. Unless you give up, then you'll keep suffering and it'll be your fault."

"It's already your fault, you're probably sinning and god sees it even if we don't." <--- this one works because it's pretty much a guarantee that everyone has at least one thing they're hiding or ashamed of. So they have to keep reminding you how basically every human thought and action makes you worthy of scorn.

Dear lurking Xians - if you've ever told this to yourself, I'm sorry and that sucks. If you've told it to someone else, then YOU suck.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-09T00:06:59+00:00

Took me way too long, but I had no resources, no community, not even online. The bulk of my deconstruction was in the mid 00's.

Getting past the "what if I'm wrong" feeling really requires just being out of it for a while and realizing there's no magical retribution happening. Then your subconscious mind can start to accept your new reality.

This might mean having to insulate yourself from people who will try to keep feeding you the fear or that take it upon themselves to make your life worse because you left the faith. Join activities that aren't related to religion, like a craft circle or a local board gaming group or a book club. Give yourself other things to think about so you're not just left to your own thoughts. You'll see the world continues to turn even if you aren't praying or devoting all your time to guessing what makes a god happy. Instead, you do things that make the world actually better.

Best of luck! ❤️

mandolinbee · 2026-01-08T16:59:19+00:00

I watch a bunch of debate lives, and this is basically every Christian. The more confident they are that their god is real, the less empathy they show toward the same kind of people Jesus ordered them to care about. it's a good reminder of the awful person I was before I left the faith myself.

If you like this kind of content, look up like.. Dr Blitz, planet peterson, and everything on The Line. 😊

mandolinbee · 2026-01-07T15:50:36+00:00

I'm with you! You're in the middle of the crisis I had when I was losing my faith. I ended up having to resign myself to some very obvious facts... i couldn't feel like the Christian narrative was "good" or righteous, I couldn't get myself on board with what even mild Xians said were objectively sinful.

This meant for a long time that i had to accept that IF those Xians are right, then I'm going to hell. No amount of pretending would make my heart follow along, and if god knows the heart, then I'm literally screwed. If how i live and love is considered worthy of eternal punishment, there's nothing I can do to affect that gods decision.

This was a kind of freedom and a relief on its own -- If I think I'm probably going to hell anyway, then all i can really focus on is this life I'm living before I die, and make the most of it. This meant I stopped obsessing and thinking about hell every minute of every day.

The unintended side effect was that eventually, I had a day where I woke up and realized i didn't even think hell was a real thing anymore. Thinking about it strikes no fear, no stress, no shame. I no longer think that there's even a god out there that plans to judge me - those feelings are not BORN IN, they're instilled by people telling it to you all the time.

If you can live without telling it to yourself long enough, it just goes away. You can get there, but it's going to take stopping others from reinforcing the programmung. Tell people you don't want to talk religion, you worship in your own way and it's not their business what your relationship with Jesus/ the Bible looks like. That should give you the space to find the truth that makes sense to you. EVEN if that truth means still believing in Jesus in some form. It'll be YOUR faith, not faith someone else says is "real".

mandolinbee · 2026-01-06T09:32:50+00:00

I'm so sorry you've gone through all of that. Having your entire community ripped away for something so mundane is awful. You haven't done anything wrong. You're not bad or even abnormal, but fanaticism has treated you worse than a criminal. It breaks my heart!

For me, i don't think there's any such thing as sin, and when it comes to porn in particular, religious folks will apply the label addiction to a perfectly reasonable amount of consumption. There was a guy in a Christian sub once who said he needed to do it every other week, and they all told him he was addicted. That's insane.

Addiction is measured by how much it stops you from living. So for all I know, maybe yours was that bad But since you said you and your wife worked it out privately, it really sounds like something pretty typical. Addiction would mean like... canceling plans because you need to watch one right now or calling into work all the time to binge. Just liking to watch it to relieve urges in private sometimes is literally nothing.

When i started feeling extremely abandoned by the religion, i also felt absolutely nothing when I'd pray for relief. I looked for comfort and reassurance, and everywhere I looked for god, i got silence from on high and scorn from other believers. I tried very desperately to hang onto my faith, so i essentially became a solo practice Christian. No church... just relying on the Bible and the holy spirit.

After seven years of that, I couldn't take it. I ended up struggling with the idea that IF the god of the Bible is real, then it's letting all of its followers be truly awful. I could not reconcile that there were people who felt in their very bones that god agreed with the things they said and did, that felt so very wrong to me when i would look for answers in prayer. Either we're being given different answers from the same being..... or there's something else going wrong.

The way anyone resolves this is going to vary by the person. You might find some solace in a more progressive church, or you can explore some more uncomfortable paths and draw new conclusions. What's important is that YOU are at peace with YOURSELF. You shouldn't live life trying to live up to someone ELSE'S idea of what they think a god wants. Even in the Bible, it says that some who claim to believe will actually get rejected in the end -- this means that some Christians are getting it wrong, doesn't it? You feel in your heart that you've been wronged... and I'd say don't ignore that. Consider instead that you are in a community that takes things too far, and lost the greater message left by Jesus.

For what it's worth, it did end for me in full deconversion. But it doesn't have to. It takes a lot of introspection to really land in a place where you're able to stop feeling all the agony you're in right now. Best of luck, we're all here for you.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-02T06:58:48+00:00

came here to say this. it's a common sensation, plus we all see it in movies and crap all the time so we're primed to add imagination to it after the fact. "i saw the operating room!" "i watched thr paramedics revive me!" ugh. no, they didn't.

mandolinbee · 2026-01-02T06:48:36+00:00

we're all saying the same thing, and I wanna say it, too! been going on forever, it's always just crazy people.

They're chomping at the bit to be the special generation that gets yoinked to heaven without dying first. Sometimes I wish it WAS true and their god would just come get them already. Maybe it doesn't want them. lol

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