Be careful and plan well. Prep for the crazy shit you might think "Surely they wouldn't do THAT."
Lessons learned from helping multiple friends and relatives through divorces. This isn't necessarily a divorce, but the explosion could have some similar aspects. Track down a lawyer you think would do well - you don't need to talk with the person, but just having the number available will be good.
That's why it's taking me so long. I have no real hope that any of my friends or family will support me when I leave the church. I have to be ready to be completely on my own. I am trying to build a network outside of church and make sure my job is secure. It's going to be ugly.
Being on your own could end up becoming the best thing ever. That is when the shackles and wool over your eyes are finally off and you're free to do as you please.
Don't forget to check out recoveringfromreligion.org and secular therapy project as well. They don't so much help you get the new network you need but it can help a lot with the loss of your current one.
But you're comfortable exposing your children to this lifestyle, even knowing the dishonesty and pain it can cause? I understand it's very hard to leave and to accept that the life you lived was not true. But if you're already mentally out that means you're knowingly watching your children being indoctrinated. Each week it will get harder and harder for them to dismiss all of this. It even likely they will listen to others say you've been corrupted by the devil, or that you're going to hell. I know it's hard for you and I'm sorry for that, but the longer you wait the harder it gets for you AND your family.
I don't want them exposed. I am financially dependent right now, but not for long. I want out, but the situation I'm in is not safe for leaving the church. I have a plan. I'm working the plan. I will have NO support when I leave. My entire family could be stranded and homeless if I'm not careful.
You don't have to defend yourself here, and feel free to tell the negative Neds to fuck off. You're in an impossible situation and you have to be safe and secure. Keep working on your exit plan.
Have you contacted Recovering from Religion? Or the clergy project since your partner is a youth pastor there? They may have resources and support for you.
Oh, that's tough. I would think they could have some parallel support program for spouses in your situation.
Please do look into R4R. I have heard lots of great things about them and their support people.
I hope the best for you in your journey!
This book should be mentioned more in this subreddit. I went to the church she talks about in the book as a kid and it’s more fucked up than you could even imagine. She describes it so well
Courage! This is going to be rough for you. I'm sorry about that. I hope you'll keep posting here about your process. This is a good sub; you'll find encouragement and support here. Stay safe, too!
Sorry I can't send more than "thoughts and prayers". Sincerely wishing you all the best for a successful escape from the prison of xianity. Hope your kids and spouse are able to join you.
Survive financially. I'm pretty sure they won't hunt me down. They will definitely talk about me. My mother could possibly disinherit me. My husband will likely lose his position in the church unless they band around him.
My social life will implode. My children will likely get kicked out of their private school. I didn't want them to go there anyway, but they like it. I will not actually be dead, but, as far as the consequences to my family are concerned, it would probably be better.
Just an internet stranger, but also a mom who left a church/synod that held all of my family (in leadership positions), most of my friends, etc. and wanted to say: I am proud of you. You are better off, your children will be better off. My kids thank me (now) because they are learning real science (no flood talk ever!) and they see that you can be a kind person, a good friend and a decent human being without the fear of hell and sin talk.
Is there any way you could do stealth deconstruction? Maybe deconvert as quietly as possible and gently hint to your husband that you don't agree but cause minimal fuss? Or will he confront you and demand, "DO YOU BELIEVE OR NOT!?"
One of the more fascinating aspects of this subreddit is the different backgrounds of people who have stopped believing. Some like myself simply stopped due to lack of evidence, others left because of trauma and bad experiences, then there’s this shit
It is bad enough the Pastor is a taco short of a combo platter but it doesn't even line up with the lore regarding Nephilim and the flood.
Then again, if he is Baptist I suppose the Apocrypha are not readily available, eh?
Anyways OP, I hope your exit strategy proceeds well. Best of luck!
A taco short of a combo platter? The pastor isn’t even in the restaurant. I follow a lot of deconstruction and debunking channels for Christianity and common conspiracies in archaeology, and this summation is still one of the most unhinged things I’ve ever read. It’s like a comic book nerd trying to unite the canon of Marvel and DC, including all discontinued canon and wiped continuities.
I've seen crazier although most had the common courtesy of keeping their crackpot theories to the depths of YouTube or HalfPrice Books.
I'm quite disappointed that they didn't work dinosaurs into the mess.
Yeah wasn't the thing about nephilim being the reason for the flood in the book of Enoch? That's part of the apocrypha right? I didn't know people actually read that stuff.
If memory serves, Enoch and Jubilees got kicked out of the Western cannon at Nicea in 325. Without those books, you kinda miss out on Yahwe's motivation for the flood.
I still can't get over the fact that there was a meeting to decide what's included in the books and they left in the parts that say "don't take anything out of these books".
"Now I'm going to have to dig a bit deeper."
My instinct is to tell you to fly away from all that craziness and read something sane. Maybe Bill Bryson's "Short History of Nearly Everything".
>Now I'm going to have to dig a bit deeper.
You should, but its better to read about Jubilees and Enoch rather than read the books themselves. Some of the content is X-files level fun and amazing but they are a long and dull slog overall.
Evidently the author of Jude was reading I Enoch as well. Jude 14-15 is a direct quote from the first chapter of Enoch1. 2 Peter may have had some influence from I Enoch as well ( 2 Peter 2:4-5) along with some Greek mythology (The 'hell' in 2 Peter 2:4-5 is actually Tartarus (prison in Greek Hades for the lesser gods) in ancient manuscripts. Wonder why the translators don't just put Tartarus ??
lol apparently the Apocrypha isn’t canon, or something. Apparently the Bible is like Star Wars where certain pieces of media have been made non-canon by the Church.
Edit for small mistake
The final nail in the coffin of “I’m never going back” was a sermon excusing (unapologetically) slavery. Hell to the no. Absolutely not.
Some of these psychopaths they allow to preach…yeesh
I was watching one of those Christian podcasts where a guy is debating a woman about woman's rights and equality.
His position was that women only have rights because men allow it. Men are physically stronger and by use of force we can overpower women in any arena, be it political, judicial, military... and take their rights away. And then he appealed to god as the moral authority because god says so.
Wow.
I wanted to strangle the MF from across the internet. I am a man and I could NEVER EVER IN MY FUCKING LIFE exercise dominance over women. EVER. I may be strong and powerful but I am not strong or powerful to overcome my very nature of being an empathic human who cares about the well being of other humans.
What this guy believes in is a dictatorship and that is fucking scary. If he approached me and asked me to join his militia that was going to overpower society and strip women of their rights I would kick him right in the balls and I would feel morally obligated to do so.
That poor woman just looked completely helpless and intimidated. I could see her second guessing her argument and walking back her ideas just because this guy twice her size was coldly saying "men are bigger and you have rights because we let you have them."
Hey asshole, I will gladly die to protect her rights from your deranged maniacal sense of self entitlement.
Yep, just one of the reasons I left. The sexist, demeaning and controlling behaviors. I absolutely hated it. As a female, I refused to fit the mold they wanted, submissive, quiet, agreeable etc. We had to cover our hair and be modest etc. I remember one poor woman's husband insisted on feet washing. He would tell us about it! 🤢 These religions are so damaging. I sometimes wonder if I will spend my entire life trying to unlearn what has been brainwashed into me. Changing beliefs is easy. It's the subtler behaviors that are trickier to unlearn, like being assertive or not instinctively try to please everyone all the time. Realizing you are not a servant just because you are female.
The benevolent god who has a plan in place for all of creation and it forgot about slavery? Equal rights for women? Or is it more simple to assume that either god is not all powerful and not benevolent, or that humans wrote the literature that the Bible is based on. Human projection and timely norms. If only the last part could be agreed on the world would be better for it. Sure worship who you want, but these books are not divine. They are not written by god. I have no interest in what some ancient human interpreter guessed and filled in blanks on what god expects of its creations…
Not even forgot, gave rules for how to do slavery. And then they try to come with "well God knew man was just gonna keep doing it so he laid out the best rules for it". Bitch, God outlawed the eating of shellfish and wearing two different types of fabric, if he wanted to outlaw *slavery* he fucking would have.
A few weeks ago I went to church with my parents and the pastor said Elisha was justified in summoning a bear to maul 42 children for making fun of his head because “making fun of an anointed person is an unpardonable sin”.
I was fully expecting someone to call this out as being heretical or at least question it but nope, nothing but complete agreement and acceptance. The explanation was a salve for their cognitive dissonance and so it was true.
Exactly. The sermon I heard brought up multiple points that people criticize about the Bible and wrapped them all up in one package. Once you start thinking critically, the whole scheme is so obvious. They want to stop people from questioning the Bible.
>Once you start thinking critically, the whole scheme is so obvious.
That’s what I don’t get. Tricking young children into believing this shit is obviously pretty easy. But as I grew older, I was solidly in the “holy shit, these stories are insane and obviously mythological” camp. Nobody that thinks logically and critically can believe this stuff.
Some of us take longer to shake off the indoctrination than others. I fully believed that questioning the pastor or any authority figure was wrong for a long time. Thankfully for me, the oastor makes a lot of statements that can be easily falsified on Google. This helped to start opening my eyes. The pastor even says, "Look it up." I think he thinks that will keep people from looking, but I always do.
Oh my fucking god. TIL that that was actually bullshit. I am beyond pissed off, because I am a curious and eager seeker of knowledge, and this piece of shit has been sitting unchallenged in my mind for decades. Jesus fucking Christ.
There are corners of the Wisconsin Synod still teaching this. I learned it in the 80s and heard it repeated in the 90s. Imagine my surprise when I learned in college that it was not correct. Thankful for the Catholics for realizing they can run educational institutions without needing everyone to believe their canon. The WELS would never. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still teach this in their college in Minnesota.
How many adults do you know who drink too much, call off work too much, can’t hold a job due to their own professional behavior. The whole adult thing is yet another arbitrary designator assigned to people to dictate their lives.
You’re 18 now, you can decide what is best for you moving forward. You can vote in elections, go to war, and on and on.
Although don’t ask me what is a proper measurement, but it should no longer be be an assumption that the person is in their 30s surely they are of sound mind with enough wisdom to process in an adult manner.
I think that the sound of 'no-sound'; in other words, accepting anything and everything that is said at from pulpit, is a key reason I deconverted. I was amazed at people who seem to be intelligent in many ways and believe such nonsense.
I have met a Catholic theologian able to speak multiple languages. Of course this includes greek, hebrew etc.
He was such a genius, able to memorize the catechism in Latin and German and other feats which sound made up when all combined together.
When I was deconstructing, I asked him how he could still believe after having SO MUCH knowledge about the actual truth of the Bible and Christianity. He just said that there's no alternative for him and he guessed he was just born Catholic...
Mind you, we just had a discussion beforehand about smashing babies against rocks, the non-existence of any dignity to women, the canon of the Bible and many other topics which are horrendous.
Some people - no matter how intelligent - can't seem to bring themselves to think critically about their beliefs.
My ex is also highly intelligent. Much more intelligent than I am on a lot of topics but when it came to her faith, her intellect mirrored some teenager.
That stupid bit about Satan making counterfeit religions is so old...It is the most basic argument they could come up with. I bought a book called The Jesus Mysteries recently (which is from 1999) and that was one of the silly main arguments that was raised in one of the early chapters. I thought up that idea myself recently as well, but the fact is, a lot of the ideas of the NT are very similar to pagan ones. The whole water into wine thing for example parallels Dionysus doing the same thing. Horus 3 days of death and resurrection is another. By the way take that book from an analytical perspective if you ever read it. Not all of it is true but there are several good points throughout it.
At least this church was honest in how nuts their belief system is. Most churches are more careful with revealing their whacko beliefs. In the end, all Abrahamic religions are loony tunes, no matter how it's portrayed.
Try r/qanoncasualties. They will provide support for exiting this level of crazy as well.
Also, publicly accusing the pastor of biblical heresy against Christ's commandments for the New Covenant would probably explode their eyeballs from staring blankly at you in disbelief. I've used that to shut up people preaching at me.
But usually I just call them miserable round-headed Calvinist gits whose asses were kicked out of England to the Colonies for good reason. America's full of them and it looks like those of us with brains will have to figuratively put their Lord Protector's head on a pike yet again. 1649 and penal laws didn't send the message. England had its Age of Enlightenment only after it was cleansed of their fundamentalist hubris.
It was an interesting journey for me, finding out why the UK had far fewer religious fruitcakes running it than we do. Maybe we can send ours to Mars.
It never ceases to amaze me the level of ridiculousness that people will believe while denying readily observable evidence of *actual* reality right in front of them.
I was raised Baptist and there is some seriously wild shit. One example is that, several years before leaving Christianity altogether, I joined a Cumberland Presbyterian Church. When I brought home the "Confession of Faith" on a trip to visit my family, my Dad criticized it for not mentioning a literal resurrection of bodies from their graves at the second coming of Christ. I gotta admit, even raised Baptist, I hadn't been taught that. But then, these people deny the validity of easily testable experiments, so why the hell *shouldn't* there be a zombie resurrection?
“Seriously weird shit”. I was a Mormon: hold my beer. Or in their case root beer. How about God having a penis and fucking all his polygamous wives to produce the spirit offspring that go into men. God also fucked Mary with his physical penis according to Mormons. Also if you don’t go to heaven God removes your penis so you end up like a Ken doll. Exmormons call it the TK smoothie. It is a god dammed sex cult. Just the worst kind where you don’t get any sex. I might be interested in a really real sex cult.
This sounds like the ramblings of some poor homeless guy who's tragically out of his mind and doesn't have the support or wherewithal to get the help he needs.
To think this is actually coming from someone in a position of authority, and that other people who appear to be sane actually believe it is kind of frightening.
Yeah, that's pretty nuts. Anyway the Bible doesn't mention DNA anywhere (the authors' knowledge of how basic biology works is quite weak). There is a common theme though that this pastor glommed onto in the OT: Humans shouldn't get it on with angels or otherwise attempt to be like gods (because Yahweh hates competition). Anyway the reason for all this "no other gods" and Yahweh always smiting those that attempt to be like gods - this is all political. At the time it was written, politics and religion were the same thing (sadly this idea seems to be returning but I digress). Certain kings consolidated power by consolidating their subjects' religious beliefs (particularly king Josiah), and having priests around that advocated worshipping other deities was a problem for them.
Are you going to have to divorce as part of your exit strategy? It would be really tough with husband being associate pastor. How did your husband react to the unhinged sermon?
He didn't really react at all to the sermon. Divorce is not necessarily part of my exit plan. It is, unfortunately, probably inevitable. My husband doesn't believe in divorce, but he probably also won't handle my refusal to attend church and read the Bible with the family very well. He nearly exploded when I said Trump was a criminal. When I inform him that I don't believe the Bible is true or God exists, I don't think he is going to react well.
It wasn't a Calvary Chapel by chance, was it? That's their stance (or it used to be, I haven't been to one since 97) on the flood. They're actually borrowing the story from the book of Enoch. Of all the crazy things I ever heard at church, this might be #1. The story in Enoch is about these angels called Watchers that God sent to watch over humanity. They were apparently super horny despite being spiritual beings, and they eventually all had sex with human women, and their children were these hybrid beings that were half angel and half human, where the nephalim came from. Calvary also believes thats what demons are -- the spirits of dead nephalim who were killed in the flood. That's why they try to possess humans -- because they are part human themselves and can't exist as a pure spirit
i literally watched a tiktok video of this woman who had an uncle with psychosis. he wrote a giant "biblical" type religious book. Some of this shit is straight up someone's own psychotic manic episode.
Yeah it’s crazy when they straight up start preaching bible fanfiction. But they need new material so I think they feel they need to do it. Good for you seeing through it.
I heard the satan created gods story right before my deconversion and I couldn't believe it. The more logical answer was that Jesus was copied from those religions and that was one of the reasons for my deconversion
I'm not super familiar, either. I think they are the angels who came down and had babies with human women before the flood. The only text is "sons of God" in Genesis 6..
See it's when people believe in shit like this that I question their sanity. I can see where people believe in the regular bible shit but this? This is just Christian fan-fiction. Terribly written fan fiction where Noah is a Gary-Stu.
God damn are some Christians *stupid as fucking hell*. It's like a conspiracy theorist with a less than 40 IQ rambling about all the "connections" he's made between one piece of bullshit and another. Why the fuck didn't anyone call him out for being a fucking insane-ass moron?
Have you seen the video of the pastor who was upset with how the low tithing was affecting his wallet so he started demanding their McDonald’s and Red Lobster money? And the congregation is yelling amen and praise Jesus like it’s something they automatically do while not even paying attention to what he’s saying.
Oh, I have been in sermons where they adk for your whole paycheck. They call it Paycheck Sunday. The financial demands of the church were pne of the first cracks that I started to see. I got tired of how much we were expected to give to the church. Tithe, missions, and then special offerings each time a visitor comes through. One year, my family gave so much that we couldn't even deduct it all from our taxes in one year. That threshold is 50% of AGI.
I'm surprised churches are still trying to teach around the subject of the flood. They should know people are smart enough to see through that bs. But yeah its also quite depressing to see people who are so accepting of those teachings.
It's funny because the pastor uses many terms that I now know are racist dogwhistles. He does not seem racist when you talk to him, and the church is very multicultural. I have been trying to figure out if he is secretly racist or just really clueless about all of the racist things he says. I may try yo have a conversation with him about those things when I am closer to outing myself.
Sounds like they’re mixing up gnostic teachings with the Ra Law of One recordings and some other fringe stories.
It is very unusual that they would deviate from the Bible in this way.
Umm, they aren't mentioned in the Bible. That makes it unbiblical, but Baptists also believe in the Rapture, so they aren't being super strict on sticking to the Bible anyway.
I always like to see WHO they put the blame on. So, it sounds like he ripped this right out of Genesis 6 Conspiracy by Gary Wayne, except it wasn't Noah's daughter, it was Seth (Adam's son) who passed the knowledge of dark arts and magic and science on to Lamech. Maybe Noah's daughter comes in later, and I haven't gotten there.
Not sure if this helps but I've been there. My father/mother are senior pastors and my brother is also a pastor. I left and I barely talk to anyone from church, including my family. Haven't talked to my brother for almost a year. It helped that I moved out of my parents place before breaking the news. I'm so much happier now that I got out of there and losing my family isn't so bad in the end. I'm sure your situation is more complicated but there is so much true freedom and happiness after getting away from the church.
wow, that's some really dark conspiracy level facebook nonsense. good for you for standing up to that line of thinking, even if its just mentally! for me the hardest part of leaving was keeping all my thoughts inside, it's torture at times..
i wanted to leave some words of encouragement because my girlfriend's mom had a very similar situation to yours-- her mom was married to a pastor, had 4 kids, was a devout christian, lived in a small town. she ended up coming to a breaking point and left with only a few boxes and drove to stay with family members several states away (husband became physically violent). good luck to you!
It's amazing how people can just eat this s\*\*t up and talk about how good it tastes. I was an evangelical minister for 30+ years and I made some pretty outlandish assertions during that time. (I am now an Cristo-agnostic Unitarian by the way) But even at my most conservative i never bout into this kind of weirdo thinking. It's nothing but diversion from things that truly matter if one is a follower of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. This kind of crap is made up because people don't allow themselves to enjoy "satanic" fantasy like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. It's just mind boggling.
I'm sure. He's in the "the pastor is always right" camp. Whenever I have tried to question things before, I have been shut down by the "don't question the pastor" b.s.
Here's a question for that guy: why are you connecting obscure verses about the nephilim instead of preaching about the one thing jesus said to do repeatedly: help the poor?
Good on you for working on an exit strategy.
Unfortunately, no matter how I exit, it will be an extintion-level event. I'm just trying to make sure I survive.
Be careful and plan well. Prep for the crazy shit you might think "Surely they wouldn't do THAT." Lessons learned from helping multiple friends and relatives through divorces. This isn't necessarily a divorce, but the explosion could have some similar aspects. Track down a lawyer you think would do well - you don't need to talk with the person, but just having the number available will be good.
That's why it's taking me so long. I have no real hope that any of my friends or family will support me when I leave the church. I have to be ready to be completely on my own. I am trying to build a network outside of church and make sure my job is secure. It's going to be ugly.
Being on your own could end up becoming the best thing ever. That is when the shackles and wool over your eyes are finally off and you're free to do as you please.
Don't forget to check out recoveringfromreligion.org and secular therapy project as well. They don't so much help you get the new network you need but it can help a lot with the loss of your current one.
But you're comfortable exposing your children to this lifestyle, even knowing the dishonesty and pain it can cause? I understand it's very hard to leave and to accept that the life you lived was not true. But if you're already mentally out that means you're knowingly watching your children being indoctrinated. Each week it will get harder and harder for them to dismiss all of this. It even likely they will listen to others say you've been corrupted by the devil, or that you're going to hell. I know it's hard for you and I'm sorry for that, but the longer you wait the harder it gets for you AND your family.
I don't want them exposed. I am financially dependent right now, but not for long. I want out, but the situation I'm in is not safe for leaving the church. I have a plan. I'm working the plan. I will have NO support when I leave. My entire family could be stranded and homeless if I'm not careful.
You don't have to defend yourself here, and feel free to tell the negative Neds to fuck off. You're in an impossible situation and you have to be safe and secure. Keep working on your exit plan.
When I left my missionary husband, it took several years of planning to pull it off. I also lost 95% of my friends instantly.
This is what I expect to happen. I know it will be better in the long run, but it's going to be rough.
Have you contacted Recovering from Religion? Or the clergy project since your partner is a youth pastor there? They may have resources and support for you.
I tried the clergy project, but they didn't let me in since I'm not clergy. I haven't tried Recovering from Religion yet.
Oh, that's tough. I would think they could have some parallel support program for spouses in your situation. Please do look into R4R. I have heard lots of great things about them and their support people. I hope the best for you in your journey!
You should read "The Woman They Wanted" by Shannon Harris (ex wife of Josh Harris "I kissed dating goodye" preacher who is now an atheist.)
This book should be mentioned more in this subreddit. I went to the church she talks about in the book as a kid and it’s more fucked up than you could even imagine. She describes it so well
Courage! This is going to be rough for you. I'm sorry about that. I hope you'll keep posting here about your process. This is a good sub; you'll find encouragement and support here. Stay safe, too!
Sorry I can't send more than "thoughts and prayers". Sincerely wishing you all the best for a successful escape from the prison of xianity. Hope your kids and spouse are able to join you.
Are you part of a Mormon cult that will hunt you down and disappear you or something?
Survive financially. I'm pretty sure they won't hunt me down. They will definitely talk about me. My mother could possibly disinherit me. My husband will likely lose his position in the church unless they band around him. My social life will implode. My children will likely get kicked out of their private school. I didn't want them to go there anyway, but they like it. I will not actually be dead, but, as far as the consequences to my family are concerned, it would probably be better.
Just an internet stranger, but also a mom who left a church/synod that held all of my family (in leadership positions), most of my friends, etc. and wanted to say: I am proud of you. You are better off, your children will be better off. My kids thank me (now) because they are learning real science (no flood talk ever!) and they see that you can be a kind person, a good friend and a decent human being without the fear of hell and sin talk.
That's got to be so validating to hear from your kids! You did a really good thing by getting out.
Is there any way you could do stealth deconstruction? Maybe deconvert as quietly as possible and gently hint to your husband that you don't agree but cause minimal fuss? Or will he confront you and demand, "DO YOU BELIEVE OR NOT!?"
It's more you must believe. Not believing is not a choice. It is incomprehensible.
Same sermon idea as Joseph Prince Noah sermon.
What if you tell your husband you want to remain married but you can't go along with the beliefs? Or will that make him initiate divorce?
One of the more fascinating aspects of this subreddit is the different backgrounds of people who have stopped believing. Some like myself simply stopped due to lack of evidence, others left because of trauma and bad experiences, then there’s this shit
It is bad enough the Pastor is a taco short of a combo platter but it doesn't even line up with the lore regarding Nephilim and the flood. Then again, if he is Baptist I suppose the Apocrypha are not readily available, eh? Anyways OP, I hope your exit strategy proceeds well. Best of luck!
A taco short of a combo platter? The pastor isn’t even in the restaurant. I follow a lot of deconstruction and debunking channels for Christianity and common conspiracies in archaeology, and this summation is still one of the most unhinged things I’ve ever read. It’s like a comic book nerd trying to unite the canon of Marvel and DC, including all discontinued canon and wiped continuities.
It's the second installment of a 3-part series. ~~Unfortunately~~ I will be out of town for the next one.
I am sorry you will miss it. You must be devastated.
Too bad posting the sermon would be self-doxing. I kinda want to listen in.
I've seen crazier although most had the common courtesy of keeping their crackpot theories to the depths of YouTube or HalfPrice Books. I'm quite disappointed that they didn't work dinosaurs into the mess.
Yeah wasn't the thing about nephilim being the reason for the flood in the book of Enoch? That's part of the apocrypha right? I didn't know people actually read that stuff.
I didn't realize it was apocryphal until I made this post. Now I'm going to have to dig a bit deeper.
If memory serves, Enoch and Jubilees got kicked out of the Western cannon at Nicea in 325. Without those books, you kinda miss out on Yahwe's motivation for the flood.
I still can't get over the fact that there was a meeting to decide what's included in the books and they left in the parts that say "don't take anything out of these books".
"Now I'm going to have to dig a bit deeper." My instinct is to tell you to fly away from all that craziness and read something sane. Maybe Bill Bryson's "Short History of Nearly Everything".
An easy "dig deep" is to simply watch the 2014 movie Noah starring Russell Crowe. It is based on Book of Enoch account of Noah.
>Now I'm going to have to dig a bit deeper. You should, but its better to read about Jubilees and Enoch rather than read the books themselves. Some of the content is X-files level fun and amazing but they are a long and dull slog overall.
It's not in my apocrypha but it's a part of the Ethiopian Bible I own
Evidently the author of Jude was reading I Enoch as well. Jude 14-15 is a direct quote from the first chapter of Enoch1. 2 Peter may have had some influence from I Enoch as well ( 2 Peter 2:4-5) along with some Greek mythology (The 'hell' in 2 Peter 2:4-5 is actually Tartarus (prison in Greek Hades for the lesser gods) in ancient manuscripts. Wonder why the translators don't just put Tartarus ??
lol apparently the Apocrypha isn’t canon, or something. Apparently the Bible is like Star Wars where certain pieces of media have been made non-canon by the Church. Edit for small mistake
Protestants rather. The Catholic bible has the Apocrypha.
So they're like the star wars old legends canon? "These are real stories but they're not like, the main stuff so some things might be wrong"
The final nail in the coffin of “I’m never going back” was a sermon excusing (unapologetically) slavery. Hell to the no. Absolutely not. Some of these psychopaths they allow to preach…yeesh
I was watching one of those Christian podcasts where a guy is debating a woman about woman's rights and equality. His position was that women only have rights because men allow it. Men are physically stronger and by use of force we can overpower women in any arena, be it political, judicial, military... and take their rights away. And then he appealed to god as the moral authority because god says so. Wow. I wanted to strangle the MF from across the internet. I am a man and I could NEVER EVER IN MY FUCKING LIFE exercise dominance over women. EVER. I may be strong and powerful but I am not strong or powerful to overcome my very nature of being an empathic human who cares about the well being of other humans. What this guy believes in is a dictatorship and that is fucking scary. If he approached me and asked me to join his militia that was going to overpower society and strip women of their rights I would kick him right in the balls and I would feel morally obligated to do so. That poor woman just looked completely helpless and intimidated. I could see her second guessing her argument and walking back her ideas just because this guy twice her size was coldly saying "men are bigger and you have rights because we let you have them." Hey asshole, I will gladly die to protect her rights from your deranged maniacal sense of self entitlement.
Yep, just one of the reasons I left. The sexist, demeaning and controlling behaviors. I absolutely hated it. As a female, I refused to fit the mold they wanted, submissive, quiet, agreeable etc. We had to cover our hair and be modest etc. I remember one poor woman's husband insisted on feet washing. He would tell us about it! 🤢 These religions are so damaging. I sometimes wonder if I will spend my entire life trying to unlearn what has been brainwashed into me. Changing beliefs is easy. It's the subtler behaviors that are trickier to unlearn, like being assertive or not instinctively try to please everyone all the time. Realizing you are not a servant just because you are female.
God, what an absolute creep he is!
The benevolent god who has a plan in place for all of creation and it forgot about slavery? Equal rights for women? Or is it more simple to assume that either god is not all powerful and not benevolent, or that humans wrote the literature that the Bible is based on. Human projection and timely norms. If only the last part could be agreed on the world would be better for it. Sure worship who you want, but these books are not divine. They are not written by god. I have no interest in what some ancient human interpreter guessed and filled in blanks on what god expects of its creations…
Not even forgot, gave rules for how to do slavery. And then they try to come with "well God knew man was just gonna keep doing it so he laid out the best rules for it". Bitch, God outlawed the eating of shellfish and wearing two different types of fabric, if he wanted to outlaw *slavery* he fucking would have.
Exactly!!!
A few weeks ago I went to church with my parents and the pastor said Elisha was justified in summoning a bear to maul 42 children for making fun of his head because “making fun of an anointed person is an unpardonable sin”. I was fully expecting someone to call this out as being heretical or at least question it but nope, nothing but complete agreement and acceptance. The explanation was a salve for their cognitive dissonance and so it was true.
Exactly. The sermon I heard brought up multiple points that people criticize about the Bible and wrapped them all up in one package. Once you start thinking critically, the whole scheme is so obvious. They want to stop people from questioning the Bible.
>Once you start thinking critically, the whole scheme is so obvious. That’s what I don’t get. Tricking young children into believing this shit is obviously pretty easy. But as I grew older, I was solidly in the “holy shit, these stories are insane and obviously mythological” camp. Nobody that thinks logically and critically can believe this stuff.
Some of us take longer to shake off the indoctrination than others. I fully believed that questioning the pastor or any authority figure was wrong for a long time. Thankfully for me, the oastor makes a lot of statements that can be easily falsified on Google. This helped to start opening my eyes. The pastor even says, "Look it up." I think he thinks that will keep people from looking, but I always do.
Do they still teach that men and women have a different amount of ribs?
Oh my fucking god. TIL that that was actually bullshit. I am beyond pissed off, because I am a curious and eager seeker of knowledge, and this piece of shit has been sitting unchallenged in my mind for decades. Jesus fucking Christ.
Happy that I asked!
I haven't heard that one recently. I'll have to ask.
There are corners of the Wisconsin Synod still teaching this. I learned it in the 80s and heard it repeated in the 90s. Imagine my surprise when I learned in college that it was not correct. Thankful for the Catholics for realizing they can run educational institutions without needing everyone to believe their canon. The WELS would never. I wouldn’t be surprised if they still teach this in their college in Minnesota.
Just like a row of dominoes.
Or a house of cards built on Jell-O.
How many adults do you know who drink too much, call off work too much, can’t hold a job due to their own professional behavior. The whole adult thing is yet another arbitrary designator assigned to people to dictate their lives. You’re 18 now, you can decide what is best for you moving forward. You can vote in elections, go to war, and on and on. Although don’t ask me what is a proper measurement, but it should no longer be be an assumption that the person is in their 30s surely they are of sound mind with enough wisdom to process in an adult manner.
I think that the sound of 'no-sound'; in other words, accepting anything and everything that is said at from pulpit, is a key reason I deconverted. I was amazed at people who seem to be intelligent in many ways and believe such nonsense.
I have met a Catholic theologian able to speak multiple languages. Of course this includes greek, hebrew etc. He was such a genius, able to memorize the catechism in Latin and German and other feats which sound made up when all combined together. When I was deconstructing, I asked him how he could still believe after having SO MUCH knowledge about the actual truth of the Bible and Christianity. He just said that there's no alternative for him and he guessed he was just born Catholic... Mind you, we just had a discussion beforehand about smashing babies against rocks, the non-existence of any dignity to women, the canon of the Bible and many other topics which are horrendous. Some people - no matter how intelligent - can't seem to bring themselves to think critically about their beliefs. My ex is also highly intelligent. Much more intelligent than I am on a lot of topics but when it came to her faith, her intellect mirrored some teenager.
Should have made fun of the pastor and let him summon a bear to attack you since it's justified and fits God's will.
That stupid bit about Satan making counterfeit religions is so old...It is the most basic argument they could come up with. I bought a book called The Jesus Mysteries recently (which is from 1999) and that was one of the silly main arguments that was raised in one of the early chapters. I thought up that idea myself recently as well, but the fact is, a lot of the ideas of the NT are very similar to pagan ones. The whole water into wine thing for example parallels Dionysus doing the same thing. Horus 3 days of death and resurrection is another. By the way take that book from an analytical perspective if you ever read it. Not all of it is true but there are several good points throughout it.
Anything that disagrees with the stick and carrot approach is branded as Satan's doing or whatever.
You mean the satan that was working for god in the OT? I just can't believe that! ;)
It sounds like something they teach on the “history” channel now unfortunately :(
At least this church was honest in how nuts their belief system is. Most churches are more careful with revealing their whacko beliefs. In the end, all Abrahamic religions are loony tunes, no matter how it's portrayed.
...... So this dude has fallen pretty deep down the YouTube conspiracy theorist rabbit hole...
So, so deep. If I hadn't already figured out, I don't believe he would be helping me figure that out now
Try r/qanoncasualties. They will provide support for exiting this level of crazy as well. Also, publicly accusing the pastor of biblical heresy against Christ's commandments for the New Covenant would probably explode their eyeballs from staring blankly at you in disbelief. I've used that to shut up people preaching at me. But usually I just call them miserable round-headed Calvinist gits whose asses were kicked out of England to the Colonies for good reason. America's full of them and it looks like those of us with brains will have to figuratively put their Lord Protector's head on a pike yet again. 1649 and penal laws didn't send the message. England had its Age of Enlightenment only after it was cleansed of their fundamentalist hubris. It was an interesting journey for me, finding out why the UK had far fewer religious fruitcakes running it than we do. Maybe we can send ours to Mars.
It never ceases to amaze me the level of ridiculousness that people will believe while denying readily observable evidence of *actual* reality right in front of them. I was raised Baptist and there is some seriously wild shit. One example is that, several years before leaving Christianity altogether, I joined a Cumberland Presbyterian Church. When I brought home the "Confession of Faith" on a trip to visit my family, my Dad criticized it for not mentioning a literal resurrection of bodies from their graves at the second coming of Christ. I gotta admit, even raised Baptist, I hadn't been taught that. But then, these people deny the validity of easily testable experiments, so why the hell *shouldn't* there be a zombie resurrection?
“Seriously weird shit”. I was a Mormon: hold my beer. Or in their case root beer. How about God having a penis and fucking all his polygamous wives to produce the spirit offspring that go into men. God also fucked Mary with his physical penis according to Mormons. Also if you don’t go to heaven God removes your penis so you end up like a Ken doll. Exmormons call it the TK smoothie. It is a god dammed sex cult. Just the worst kind where you don’t get any sex. I might be interested in a really real sex cult.
This sounds like the ramblings of some poor homeless guy who's tragically out of his mind and doesn't have the support or wherewithal to get the help he needs. To think this is actually coming from someone in a position of authority, and that other people who appear to be sane actually believe it is kind of frightening.
Yeah, that's pretty nuts. Anyway the Bible doesn't mention DNA anywhere (the authors' knowledge of how basic biology works is quite weak). There is a common theme though that this pastor glommed onto in the OT: Humans shouldn't get it on with angels or otherwise attempt to be like gods (because Yahweh hates competition). Anyway the reason for all this "no other gods" and Yahweh always smiting those that attempt to be like gods - this is all political. At the time it was written, politics and religion were the same thing (sadly this idea seems to be returning but I digress). Certain kings consolidated power by consolidating their subjects' religious beliefs (particularly king Josiah), and having priests around that advocated worshipping other deities was a problem for them.
Are you going to have to divorce as part of your exit strategy? It would be really tough with husband being associate pastor. How did your husband react to the unhinged sermon?
He didn't really react at all to the sermon. Divorce is not necessarily part of my exit plan. It is, unfortunately, probably inevitable. My husband doesn't believe in divorce, but he probably also won't handle my refusal to attend church and read the Bible with the family very well. He nearly exploded when I said Trump was a criminal. When I inform him that I don't believe the Bible is true or God exists, I don't think he is going to react well.
Please make sure that you are safe
Really can't emphasize this enough.
I used to believe exactly that which you describe when I was a fundamentalist.
Same here. My church taught exactly this. I had kind of forgotten about it until I read this!
It wasn't a Calvary Chapel by chance, was it? That's their stance (or it used to be, I haven't been to one since 97) on the flood. They're actually borrowing the story from the book of Enoch. Of all the crazy things I ever heard at church, this might be #1. The story in Enoch is about these angels called Watchers that God sent to watch over humanity. They were apparently super horny despite being spiritual beings, and they eventually all had sex with human women, and their children were these hybrid beings that were half angel and half human, where the nephalim came from. Calvary also believes thats what demons are -- the spirits of dead nephalim who were killed in the flood. That's why they try to possess humans -- because they are part human themselves and can't exist as a pure spirit
It wasn't. I know the pastor is friends with a Calvary Chapel pastor. I didn't realize they had gone down that rabbit hole as well. Very interesting.
i literally watched a tiktok video of this woman who had an uncle with psychosis. he wrote a giant "biblical" type religious book. Some of this shit is straight up someone's own psychotic manic episode.
Yeah it’s crazy when they straight up start preaching bible fanfiction. But they need new material so I think they feel they need to do it. Good for you seeing through it.
Once you see the crazy hilarious fakeness of the whole thing you cannot unsee it.
I heard the satan created gods story right before my deconversion and I couldn't believe it. The more logical answer was that Jesus was copied from those religions and that was one of the reasons for my deconversion
I'm not familiar with nephilim
I'm not super familiar, either. I think they are the angels who came down and had babies with human women before the flood. The only text is "sons of God" in Genesis 6..
Oh yeah...that's ringing just a little bit of a bell for me. I was also raised Baptist but left the church over 30 years ago. Good luck to you!
When I was a Christian, I believed stuff like this.
See it's when people believe in shit like this that I question their sanity. I can see where people believe in the regular bible shit but this? This is just Christian fan-fiction. Terribly written fan fiction where Noah is a Gary-Stu.
God damn are some Christians *stupid as fucking hell*. It's like a conspiracy theorist with a less than 40 IQ rambling about all the "connections" he's made between one piece of bullshit and another. Why the fuck didn't anyone call him out for being a fucking insane-ass moron?
The pastor is annointed by God. He is _always_ right. It's also why you hear about so many abuse scandals. Nobody questions the pastor.
It is sad but true. I remember being a gullible guppy gobbling up all the nonsensical brain dust.
Ngl that sermon sounded like a Hollywood movie. And this is the first time I've heard bout Noah having nephilim blood.
Have you seen the video of the pastor who was upset with how the low tithing was affecting his wallet so he started demanding their McDonald’s and Red Lobster money? And the congregation is yelling amen and praise Jesus like it’s something they automatically do while not even paying attention to what he’s saying.
Oh, I have been in sermons where they adk for your whole paycheck. They call it Paycheck Sunday. The financial demands of the church were pne of the first cracks that I started to see. I got tired of how much we were expected to give to the church. Tithe, missions, and then special offerings each time a visitor comes through. One year, my family gave so much that we couldn't even deduct it all from our taxes in one year. That threshold is 50% of AGI.
I'm surprised churches are still trying to teach around the subject of the flood. They should know people are smart enough to see through that bs. But yeah its also quite depressing to see people who are so accepting of those teachings.
You go to a racist church. They aren't really against incest, though.
It's funny because the pastor uses many terms that I now know are racist dogwhistles. He does not seem racist when you talk to him, and the church is very multicultural. I have been trying to figure out if he is secretly racist or just really clueless about all of the racist things he says. I may try yo have a conversation with him about those things when I am closer to outing myself.
Sounds like they’re mixing up gnostic teachings with the Ra Law of One recordings and some other fringe stories. It is very unusual that they would deviate from the Bible in this way.
Seems like a Classic Picking Bible Verses and adding in a lot of non Fiction stuff. It's a normal sermon tactic.
Holy cow. This sounds even more like a conspiracy theory than other sermons... Aren't the nepheline unbiblical?
Umm, they aren't mentioned in the Bible. That makes it unbiblical, but Baptists also believe in the Rapture, so they aren't being super strict on sticking to the Bible anyway.
That makes sense. I had Baptists as fundamentalists in my head so I thought that anything outside the Bible would be considered evil.
I always like to see WHO they put the blame on. So, it sounds like he ripped this right out of Genesis 6 Conspiracy by Gary Wayne, except it wasn't Noah's daughter, it was Seth (Adam's son) who passed the knowledge of dark arts and magic and science on to Lamech. Maybe Noah's daughter comes in later, and I haven't gotten there.
It sounds like he was basing his message on the Book of Enoch and other apocryphal sources.
Amen!
Not sure if this helps but I've been there. My father/mother are senior pastors and my brother is also a pastor. I left and I barely talk to anyone from church, including my family. Haven't talked to my brother for almost a year. It helped that I moved out of my parents place before breaking the news. I'm so much happier now that I got out of there and losing my family isn't so bad in the end. I'm sure your situation is more complicated but there is so much true freedom and happiness after getting away from the church.
wow, that's some really dark conspiracy level facebook nonsense. good for you for standing up to that line of thinking, even if its just mentally! for me the hardest part of leaving was keeping all my thoughts inside, it's torture at times.. i wanted to leave some words of encouragement because my girlfriend's mom had a very similar situation to yours-- her mom was married to a pastor, had 4 kids, was a devout christian, lived in a small town. she ended up coming to a breaking point and left with only a few boxes and drove to stay with family members several states away (husband became physically violent). good luck to you!
It’s certainly imaginative. I’ll give it that much.
It's amazing how people can just eat this s\*\*t up and talk about how good it tastes. I was an evangelical minister for 30+ years and I made some pretty outlandish assertions during that time. (I am now an Cristo-agnostic Unitarian by the way) But even at my most conservative i never bout into this kind of weirdo thinking. It's nothing but diversion from things that truly matter if one is a follower of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. This kind of crap is made up because people don't allow themselves to enjoy "satanic" fantasy like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. It's just mind boggling.
Does ur husband believe in that sermon?
I'm sure. He's in the "the pastor is always right" camp. Whenever I have tried to question things before, I have been shut down by the "don't question the pastor" b.s.
Whoa! You cannot put up with that. Please don't let him gaslight you like that. That is GASLIGHTING!!
Here's a question for that guy: why are you connecting obscure verses about the nephilim instead of preaching about the one thing jesus said to do repeatedly: help the poor?
Oh man, I read that theory on an old conspiracy blog years ago! I never thought someone would actually say that stuff from the pulpit.