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I don't struggle with same sex attraction: I'm very good at it.

Regarding the question of being in heaven when loved ones aren't, my very very Catholic dad had a disgusting view on this. As a kid, I asked him how we could be happy in heaven if people we loved were in hell, and he told me "in heaven you will gain the wisdom to learn why you should never have loved them in the first place" and I think that was my first step towards leaving the church

To all the trans and non-binary people out there who are going through similar things, my biggest advice to you is to choose yourself. If it is safe for you to do so and if you have the resources, choose yourself. Your happiness and comfort is worth it.

It’s kind of funny that Evangelicals can’t understand hypotheticals when Jesus spoke in mostly hypotheticals.

"hey I know y'all are going to be suffering in purgatory but can you take care of my plants?" That is a wild request! Haha

My conservative,  abusive,  super-Christian family were enraged that I stopped talking to them. I have a developmental disability and I got bullied and mistreated by my family pretty much from day one. My dad used to predict that I would become a "ward of the State" because he had no intention of caring for me once I became an adult.

Well, I finished school with no help from him (no special ed either). I got a job. I bought an entry-level motorcycle so that it would be easier to get to my job. Once I had a security deposit saved up, I moved out.

Instead of being proud of my, dad was angry at me because I didn’t need to toletate his abuse and his bullying in exchange for a roof over my head.

I haven't talked to him in decades. The rest of the family sided with him. That's that. I make my own way.

my girlfriend's parents disowned her and kicked her out while she was still dependent on them when she got outed as transgender. my parents stopped financially supporting me after i got outed and found out about my trans girlfriend. neither of us were legal adults then. all of our parents are evangelical christian and are heavily involved in the church, loving and caring for their members, yet they couldn't even come to love their own biological children. so much for christian love ❤

They dont understand, and dont want to understand how long we try not to be trans before coming out.

The long rambling letter about Wicca followed by the reveal that neither of them are even Wiccan made me laugh aloud, just amazing

Fun fact, in Romania we have a foundational myth where a guy gets into the Land of the Immortals and is warned never to go into the Valley of Sorrow. Which, of course he does, and that's when he remembers his parents, ages suddenly, and turns to dust as he's trying to get back to them.

I'm a straight, asexual female. Since I never had the slightest desire to get married and have children, my mother and church breatren always told me I was "weird", "abnormal", and "perverted". My pastor told me I was evil. Other people are told these things because they wanted to have sex. I was told these things because I didn't want to have sex. Hurtful and confusing.

22:10  They're ALWAYS claiming that gay marriage denigrates the institution of marriage.  That's like saying that preferring chocolate ice-cream somehow prevents others from liking vanilla.

Just example after example of “there is no hate like Christian love”

"Don't worry, I won't be sad about you suffering through hell on Earth" is an unhinged thing to say.

I remember the first time I realized (when I was a young Evangelical Christian) that it would be impossible for me to exist in heaven and be happy while also knowing that billions were burning in the worst agony forever in hell.

I was going around and around in my head about that, trying to parse it while sitting in church, and I realized that going to heaven would EITHER:
1) Make me not aware of anything outside of heaven, so effectively controlling the information I have access to and taking away free will, or
2) Completely change who I am as a person and take away my empathy or care for the suffering of others.

And I then got SCARED of going to heaven. I legitimately was grieving myself and everyone I thought was either in or going to heaven. It was a fuckin weird experience.

Had a conversation with an evangelical about intersex adults coming out against cosmetic surgery performed on children too young to consent to "correct" their bodies - he said "well there's probably even more who are glad it happened when they were too young to know what was happening".

But this man is firmly against gender affirming surgery. It doesn't read as cognitive dissonance to him because it's purely about a hatred and disgust of perceived abnormality.

Religious people not being able to understand metaphor, hypotheticals or Art is my constant experience. And they call using Logic an attempt to manipulate them.

Agnosticism confuses a lot of theists because they simply cannot accept uncertainty. Atheism is easier for them to understand because it's actually a position they can "debate."

As a trans guy, the irony for me is that being trans is a powerful form of embracing my identity and questioning (and in many cases rejecting) societal norms and misinformation, which is the exact experience that people are transphobic fear. There’s safety in being right, being normal, being someone whose beliefs and opinions aren’t challenging so that you’re guaranteed you’ll always be accepted and protected. They’re afraid of losing community, family, housing, acceptance, and especially the secure grip on reality where they “know” how things “are.”