Story written by Matthew Rhodes

Disclaimer: This account contains discussion on abuse and sexual assault. Due to the nature of the contents being discussed, I will not name the specific church nor religious organization I was a part of, nor will I be specifying where I am from nor naming the university in which I attended for my undergraduate degree. Additionally, I am not a representative of my employer and shall not disclose that information. Thank you.

I appreciate that this organization is called “RecoverING from Religion,” not “RecoverED from Religion.” For many of us who grew up in a church setting, especially a fire-and-brimstone-type organization based on the literalist mysticism of the so-called “Good Book,” a complete recovery may take most of our lives to reach — if we even get there. From someone who spent 25 years in Christianity and was on the trajectory to attaining the highest possible level within the hierarchy, to a now-excommunicated atheist, I can safely say that leaving was the best thing to have ever devastated my life. This form of recovery requires catharsis, and I hope that my story on how I left my life behind can resonate with you in not feeling alone.

So, here we go.

My mother and I had just moved to the area after fleeing my abusive father, and she was looking for a daycare center that she could afford. It was a small town in rural America, so there were limited options on where to put me other than in the cow pastures of where we were, at the time, living. After a few trial and errors, she found a newly minted church that was offering daycare and preschool at a price that was within her budget. It wasn’t a prerequisite to get in, but my mother had assured the church’s minister and head teacher that I was already baptized.

On top of not having the words for understanding why my mother and I fled my father, and even less language for understanding the abuse we had gone through, I was plopped right away into daily prayers and Bible studies. I detested it immediately. Not just because I was made to eat my raisins (a stance I still adhere to), but because I had absolutely no interest in this continuous talk about death and blood — I had already seen so much violence that I recoiled at having to color-in Christ’s dead body on the cross.

I eventually made a name for myself in this little church as the thing to be pitied, especially as we became more engrained into the church since then becoming members and attending every Sunday. There was no real conversation about it — it’s the rural Midwest! And we don’t discuss those things. Which still largely remained the case even when I forced the issue and had to go to therapy as a 5-year-old and had to have the head teacher write a detailed account of my moments of sadness and rage to my therapist. These therapy sessions were mostly to collect information on the pending custody lawsuit, but nothing about me was ever really addressed.

When that was all over, I was simply left with confusion and anger. I knew I would never see my father again and had no clue on what to do with all of this emotional turmoil inside of me. When I was able to muster up the question of “Why?” to the available adults in my life, I had been repeatedly given the answer of, you guessed it, “God has a reason for everything.”

That was my introduction into theodicy, right away I was given the notion that my experience of cruelty had meaning to it. That at some point in my life, there might be some wellspring of goodness erupting out of my abuse and abandonment because God wouldn’t have let it happen otherwise. These sentiments were accompanied by a lot of “Well you wouldn’t have gotten to meet us if you hadn’t left,” and, “You’ll figure out all this stuff when you’re older,” and of course, “Pray about it.”

This is the software that had been installed into me from the beginning. Things will happen that may appear as devastation but will eventually be good things if I just trusted in God enough, and that all good things are from Him, including consequence. The adults did their best to occupy myself with Bible lessons and crafts and the sort to make sure that I wouldn’t spiral into emotional disarray questioning their and God’s methods (it’s called PTSD, but that was reserved for adults). Questioning the point of suffering was seen as disobedience; and obedience was, according to this church, not just the best way to worship and display God’s love, but the only way.

Fast forward a couple of years, I was still trying my best to control my emotions and not have outbursts or question God lest something else bad happened. Well, due to my lack of monkish devotion, I was molested by my closest friend. He was the son of the preeminent family of our church; I saw him almost every day during my childhood. When our parents found out, the punitive damages were severe for the both of us. A meeting with our minister was called and he visited each of our respective houses. I remember being excited by this, THE minister was coming to MY house, how interesting! It was a brief visit.

He did not ask if I was okay, he did not ask if I was scared, he did not ask any questions that would be required to ask a child who was a recent victim of sexual assault. No, instead I was asked if I had liked what happened. With what little understanding I had for what had happened and based on the wrath received by both sets of parents, I assured him that I did not. This was met with a nod and him turning to my mother saying, “We at least don’t have to worry about him being gay.” I didn’t even know what being gay meant but was sure glad I wasn’t. But wait — there was more good news! The minister told my mother and I that because the other boy and I had “gotten caught,” that it has been uncovered that this boy was being repeatedly raped by his cousin who was getting raped by his father. And because of my “efforts,” this cycle of abuse has ended. Then we prayed, and he departed.

I do want to preface, dear reader, that I do recognize the debilitating and horrendous nature of this experience in my life (and am in therapy for it), but it is a critical moment for me and religion and is an important piece for you to understand. Because after this conversation, I was overjoyed. I, as a 7-year-old-boy, had been an instrument for that mystic goodness from God. I had been used as an instrument in something cruel and life-altering to have something good happen. I did something good. I was witness to God’s love through this moment and I could get over what happened to me because the real bad guy got caught and everything was going to be all puppies and rainbows. Pain, suffering, and evil all had a purpose — and I got to see that purpose first-hand.

It built a fire within me, that I had this newfangled personal relationship with Jesus. That through unnamable pain, you will find God. It fundamentally changed everything for me.

I began to care. I paid attention in Bible studies, I focused on my schoolwork, and I was an active listener every Sunday morning. Regularly sitting next to the young boy who harmed me and his family. The congregation was none the wiser (the Midwest, remember?) and bygones were bygones. I was showing such interest into this whole “God thing” that I started going to the adult Bible study classes.

The head minister at my church was also a professor of philosophy and ethics at the local university, and he noticed that I had an inquisitive mind and brought to me some journals on bioethics he had. I instantly became hooked on this topic — it wasn’t just a fascinating field to me because it was a practical application of Christianity. We weren’t a wealthy church, and I had always wanted to do some form of mission work since I was very little. Finding something tangible for all of these confusing thoughts as well as my passion for learning about Christ and religion quickly became a reality in these little journals.

Around this same time (I was early middle school-age at this point) I had a music tutor from the same university who was also a TA for the university’s new apologetics course. He said it was pretty advanced, but if I was interested, I was more than welcome to sit in on a few of the lectures. I attended most every lecture, and did better in that class than I did any of my other classes at the time — better than most of the other actual college students. It felt like I had found my place, that this was what I was supposed to do with my life and I was even good at it. To boot, I also had this group of like-minded people who all seemed to appreciate me being there. I believed that the pain thus far in my life had led me here.

When high school rolled around, I had joined a youth program that was sponsored by the headquarters of our church for aspiring youth who want to become leaders within the church. I was a part of an elite group of young minds from across the country who were all interested in the same mission as myself: apologetics. Being as interested as I was in this little arena, I quickly excelled and was elected to be an educator for this conference the following 3 years. This position also allowed me to be a part of some mission work throughout the country in actually building churches, or going to major cities and hosting/speaking at national youth conventions. I was thriving in this environment, but I had certain internal conflicts that kept me from signing the dotted line into a pre-seminary program when it came time to attend university.

The conflict, ironically, was that I was far more interested in the practical application of Christ’s message than I was wearing a bathrobe every Sunday to preach to the uninterested. I excelled at mathematics and biology and with my love of bioethics I thought that pre-med was a better route for myself. I also began to deeply despise my congregation (Christ-like and Midwestern, I know) and question people; I became a cynic. Everyone knew so-and-so was an abusive drunk who was a church elder, or someone else was clearly having an affair with another person in the church, a number of kids from my youth group were in jail at one point or another for drugs/drinking driving/assault — I found it disgusting. My ego made me feel more ascended than the rest of the congregation, even the minister.

I brought this to his attention, I was nervous to bring it up to him because I knew that questioning the church and its members was a faux pas. However, much to my surprise, he was quite pleased with the question. He didn’t actually answer the question, but he did respond with a single sentence, “Matt, I think you’re here to save the church.” The Minister had told me that perhaps I am the one to keep this church afloat because of my skills in theology and my passion for helping people. For as much as I disagree with many of the sentiments of the satire news outlet The Babylon Bee, I uniquely remember one headline that read “Man Mistakes Indigestion for Pastoral Call.” I contemplated my divine indigestion for a long time.

With that thought at the forefront of my mind throughout my first year of college at a major university, I still wanted to see if I could take a stab at the sciences. I took many different courses (ranging from Introduction to Nanotechnology to accidentally registering for a graduate-level course called “How to Study Religion”) to try and help me figure out this bifurcation on whatever my “calling” really was saying to me. I was good at the sciences, but I enjoyed the philosophy and religion courses. In one of my philosophy courses, I remember my professor, an atheist, would refer to me as “The Christian” because I would frequently combat him whenever he referred to a philosopher as having “the God problem.”

But I felt lost and unseen, so I decided to transfer to a smaller Christian university that was associated with the church I was in. With my connections I had already made throughout the country via the church, I already knew a huge swath of folks here at this university. Many of the friends I had made with all of my travels were there and I had already met a handful of the faculty. I still had it in my mind that I would need some sort of degree that I could fall back on in case this seminary thing didn’t work out, so I went with a pre-law route while also taking all of my religion courses. Old Testament, New Testament, Biblical History, Christianity in America, Bioethics, and of course, Apologetics. Leaning fully into the study of the Bible and of philosophy surely would keep me on the path to righteousness as well as be a tool for something good in the world; at least that’s what I told myself.

But I refused to truly admit to this internal debate — because what else is the proper Christian to do other than feel internal conflict all the time? That’s how you know it’s working internally. Obedience like this should not feel natural. Besides, it seemed to be working externally as well. I was meeting with some of the higher authorities within the university/Church to where my name was getting passed around in a lot of circles above me for whatever interest they had in me. One conversation led to another and long story short, I had been given a path. Finishing undergrad at this university and to immediately begin seminary school afterwards, all my loans and payments covered, a city of my choice, money for missions work, and promises and handshakes that would lead me to the top of the hierarchical food chain within this church if not the very presidency itself. I knew the dogma and could defend it, I knew the Bible and could believe it, I was gregarious and a good leader and had an altruistic cup that never felt satiated. I had everything this church could offer, just had to sign the dotted line.

So, why didn’t I?

In college, I did an internship with a nonprofit that operated an orphanage in western Tanzania for orphaned, disabled, and albino children. During my time there, I met a young boy with cerebral palsy who, aside from a slight limp, seemed like any other child. I later learned he had been abandoned by his parents and found curled into a rigid fetal position behind their home after being left to die. With no doctors willing to treat him, the volunteers refused to give up. Through years of painstaking, improvised physical therapy (burying his body in packed sand to gradually stretch his warped limbs) they slowly helped him stand and eventually walk. By the time I met him, he was running, playing soccer, and helping with chores.

A lot of Christians would have seen such things and been all “Halleluiah, praise be!” and “See!? God’s work is here!” And yet, I didn’t see that. I didn’t see God in the fold; I saw no miracles. I saw the determination of life within the volunteers and this boy who had only known abandonment and pain on levels inconceivable. I saw something that was uniquely and wonderfully human. And I knew that my academic and professional trajectory needed more of whatever this unique moment was. I knew that I would never see this again in the church, I knew it greater than I knew my faith.

That was also in conjunction with the deterioration in my mental health and growing cynicism and disposition to those around me. I was surrounded by the piety of two sets of groups that I began to truly see: fascists and rapists (sometimes both if you’re lucky). With the election of The Man-in-Orange, there was an immediate response from sections of the student body (many of whom are of the clergy now) who began to boast of white supremacy and misogyny, and that the “damn woke liberal needs to be fed to the pits of hell” and so on. I took this with heated disgust, and frequently got into fights and arguments with those whose common ending retort was “fuck you.” Additionally, I was coming to find out that a number of these aspiring ministers and fully-fledged ministers were predators. Obviously all aspiring and eventual ministers have an active sex life (if this is how you find out, I’m very sorry), but some of them would speak to things that could not be defined in any other way as stalking, rape, and pedophilia.

So, I rescinded the offer, and said that the heinous, putrid, and illegal nature of this church is to surely be damned and even if it was possible to save, it was not worth my time to do so. The higher-ups who I told this to were not shocked by my dismissal nor by my accusations, they simply said there would still be time for them to make an offer again down the road. Out of spite and confusion, and feeling like I was beginning to lose my community and faith, I turned toward finding hope in the bottom of a bottle (along with other incredibly wise coping mechanisms I had; but again, that’s another article).

What came next was the destruction of my belief in organized religion.

I had become a Title IX advocate for my school. I wanted to stand up against the assaults that I knew were taking place in the most public way that I could so that others could trust me; and those who would flaunt their insidiousness would think otherwise. The reason why I tell you this, dear reader, is because I was acting in a way that I believed to be right and fighting for the system that I believed to be right and separate from those I had begun to despise. What I did not expect was that I would eventually need the services of the Title IX committee, as I became a victim of sexual assault myself.

For the sake of everyone’s privacy and my own wellbeing, I will not share any details apart from this: I thought that coming forward would have been the right thing to do, instead it was easily the worst decision of my life. It was my last semester of college, and I had been told just a few weeks out from graduating that the Title IX committee did not believe that men could be sexually assaulted, so much so that they were wanting to expel me and pursue legal recourse for believing me to be a fraud. Each of the investigative members was a minister. It wasn’t until 2 weeks out of my last exam that I had been informed my case was being dismissed by a higher authority (no, not God) on the grounds that the committee had no evidence to support their claims.

I had been completely shattered, and everyone knew. The situation was so convoluted and vile that there were moments where I genuinely considered taking my own life. I lost most of my friends at the school — repeatedly had notes slid under my dorm door telling me to kill myself or that I would burn in hell. Overnight I had people no longer sit next to me in class or at chapel, I had professors dismiss any conversation or interest I had in the classroom. I had the notion of faith and masculinity and sex obliterated within me. If it hadn’t been for the goodness of some folks who are still a part of my life today, I likely wouldn’t be here writing this for you. My understanding and faith through pain had shown the 7 year-old me to be wrong.

When I came home after graduation, I felt that I had gone back to ground zero. All I knew was this tiny town, had no hopes and dreams outside of trying to survive my own mind each night. Traumas and coping issues aside, I still believed in God — what I no longer believed in was this notion of organized religion. Something built upon the depravities of those elevated to positions of power could lead to nothing but ruin. However, I still believed that my church was something that could be a source of salvation and community for me, and that I had to further my personal relationship with God. It was something I could run to, I had nothing and no one else otherwise.

Then this little thing called COVID happened.

I was in a Red state, so the belief that COVID was even real never seeped into our borders much. I saw my town and especially my congregation turn from what had felt like innocuously conservative to something far more heinous and loathsome. There was a funeral where it was preached that the man who died (of COVID complications) was doing his Godly and American duty to have not taken the vaccine. My undergrad advisor wrote and publicized a manifesto about how racism and misogyny don’t exist, but that white men are superior and everyone else are really subhuman. Massive protests against any sort of mask mandate — with threats of violence coming from people wearing swastikas next to their cross necklaces. I had been screamed at or spat at multiple times for wearing a mask simply going to pick up groceries — bellowing damnations to me while I’m just trying to find toilet paper. The false pretense of Christian hospitality had all but eroded from my view.

With great irony, I had finished reading Ishmael on the morning of January, 6th, 2021. The following day I went to my church to consult with my ministers on how they felt about the insurrection.

“You know it’s all the Democrat’s fault, right? They’re the forces of evil and we need less of them. This [the insurrection] could have gone better.”

And that was it. That was where I gave up the ghost (and the Father, and the Son). Because I realized that there was nothing that these people could ever say to me again that I could trust and believe — and that they simply came from thousands of years of the same sort of people. People who have based their logical fallacies on the misinformation of broken storytelling, and gamed it to where they ascend to some certain authority. It was just a series of mental gymnastics to feign responsibility from the devastation and excruciations that they wrought. I was done.

I had some sense of relief, but I was too furious to focus on that. It wasn’t until some years after that I realized I had cut the last chord to my identity and community and felt the full weight of whatever sort of grief that is. There was no length of archeological literalism that could save me when it came to defending and believing in the Bible, and there was no ridiculousness too interesting to keep me believing in God on a more liberal approach to Christianity.

I sat down with my minister for dinner one day not long after I had made up my mind to leave the church and of any Christian faith. The man before me, someone who I at one point considered to be the only father I would ever have, was mostly silent when I told him that I no longer saw God in that building anymore. I told him that whatever God was being preached at these pro-orange pulpits was nothing short of a molestation upon the masses, and that I could no longer believe in, support, and be a part of such hatred.

His response was straightforward: that he cared for me, but that I was no longer allowed to commune as that church or any other affiliated church again unless I repent and went through the teachings again. And with a simple nod and finishing our burritos, I was excommunicated. There is an extensive process one must go through in this church to be excommunicated — something I fully expected to be put through; but he knew there was no winning me over. He knew of my life’s devastation and expedited the process. The proverbial “writing on the wall.”

So, I left. I left the church, the town, the state. I began my studies here in Colorado to learn what practical applications to helping people existed and how I could achieve them (public health) and studied and researched what bioethics actually meant. For a split second there, I had hoped that there maybe is a higher power we just don’t know about and in the end everything will be all kittens and rainbows. My Christian software was grasping for a placeholder for what my morality needed, for what my purpose in life needed. The tendrils of nihilism were validating my depression and entertained once more that perhaps my life should end.

However, dear reader, I am here today writing to you. What changed (again)?

I decided to be honest with myself for once; no more façade of piety and belief because I didn’t need it any longer and I had nothing left to lose. There was some part of me that had always thought this whole “thing” was bullshit — that there really was no divine being (at least not this blue-eyed white savior) and that humans were grasping for some sense of direction. Mankind’s creation of religions was just to create some validity in existence while also feigning responsibility (which then lead to power structures and oppression and so on). Most folks thought me an atheist anyway — intelligent without any interest in liturgical dogma and a desire to help others; so, I figured that maybe some others saw something I didn’t yet want to admit. It took me a very long time to admit to the thing I had truly believed all along because I refused to let my cynicism be the deciding factor. It was emotional and I had grown up to believe that emotions are bad and not to be a source of validity. Only to realize that my cynicism offered an epidemiological lens to see Christianity function more as a disease of power and oppression than anything divine.

After admitting to this, it was like driving out of a fog. The exhaustion from the mental gymnastics of Christianity began to ease and I started to see things clearer than I ever had before. Sure, it takes years to fully come out of a cult and substantiate oneself with, well, oneself — but stepping out of Plato’s (or in this case Jesus’) Cave and basking in the sunlight for the first time felt liberating. However, admittance of absurdity still leaves you largely with nothing. I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with that, so I started to dig for answers.

And I wasn’t exactly expecting the sources I found to have been so influential. Reading Nietzsche or Camus or whomever provided me with more of a drudgery of life rather than any type of motivation for living. But instead, I binged a little show called After Life, and at the same time, began reading essays and eventually the books by the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Together, these media helped me to realize the full gravity of responsibility and beauty of finding meaning in everything and everyone around me. It was the first time in my life that I realized I was at the helm, and that I had agency. Being a part of the greater whole is where there is value and choice and meaning in yourself and in others. Levinas was a spiritual atheist (arguably) who theorized that a person’s ethic comes from the simple notion that the existence of another person alone creates the moral imperative to love them, since you are as much of them as they are of you and wholly other at the same time. A paradoxical understanding of the world that is truly beautiful and has begun to repair the wound in myself that was put there by God from a very young age. It has been a long road to get here, and will continue to be so, but I am grateful for all that is good and holy (which is surprisingly little as it turns out) to have arrived to where I am today.

“Life is a sincerity.” — Levinas

Giving up the (Holy) Ghost was originally published in ExCommunications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I can’t remember

when I learned I killed Jesus

I grew up with that news

Cut my teeth on pews

Hyperempathy disorder makes me soak in

the pain of everything and everyone

How crushing to go through life feeling

like I hold the smoking gun

Please don’t let it be true I killed Jesus

Please don’t let be true that I’m bad

Tell how I can avoid hell

And also save all of my friends

Shame flickers in my chest

My body matures faster than I do

If I was bad before?

Now I’m dangerous, too

Don’t let them see your

midriff, back, shoulders, thighs, cleavage, bra strap

Now if I talk to a boy

I’m a whore

I’ve been playing with

these kids for years

But you sexualize my body

So I can’t anymore

They read my journal

onto which I weep

rivers and flash floods of pain

They learn I’m not straight

Ramping up their torture campaign

Dead of night

They drag me out of sleep

To hit me some more

and call me a creep

They spit the word bisexual

in my face

like a slur

Their disgust apparent

Their rage complete

I once again pretend to be straight

I say it was all a phase

I betray myself

I killed Jesus

And, I’m gay

I fall in love

I give her my heart

I write her songs

She paints me as art

I am going to hell

She is everything

I am going to hell

And so is she

Living without her

Is torture

I cry out my regret for years

old photos worn and warped

with my love and the salt of my tears

I did not choose to fall so deep

But deep into your soul, I went

I didn’t choose to walk away

It was hands in the air

with a gun to my head

My first tattoo

Pen buzzing across my ribs

I hide the symbol

of all she meant to me

Above my beating my heart

I carry it on my body,

I love you. I’m sorry.

I am still bad

I’m reminded at church

Like a curse,

I wish someone would name

Keep coming back

You’re not good enough

Etc, it’s always the same

Prayer doesn’t help

So I read the good book

No guides, no spin

And I am shook

The god of love

Kills for sport

Heartless, needlessly

Bottom line,

If he’d do it to them,

he’d also do it to me

Hell in the bible was a literal place

Where the bodies of criminals burned

Hell refers only to that

I am relieved to learn

I don’t believe in any gods now

Because, well, look around

I don’t believe our heathens sizzle underneath the ground

Jesus would’ve been my friend

We would’ve smoked a J,

and chilled

Bonding over the fact

we’re both mentally ill

When I hear the name, Jesus

I no longer flinch

I smile subversively

He wouldn’t like most of his followers

But he’d sure as hell like me

I Killed Jesus was originally published in ExCommunications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Who am I to offer this support? My name is Jim Larkin. I was raised in a Christian minister’s home. I come from a long legacy of Christian ministers and missionaries. And I was an ordained minister myself for a short 4-year period. It was as a minister that I was faced with questions I had never asked myself. After 4 years of ordained ministry I could no longer stand for what the Church taught. My issue was not with the historical Jesus, or even many of the teachings of Jesus. My issue was with how many of the teachings had been mistranslated and misconstrued by the Church, to mean something other than what I believed to be their original meaning.

After resigning my ordination and leaving the Church both professionally and personally, I struggled for years with the lingering effects of the beliefs that created guilt, shame, self-doubt, self-judgment, and self-criticism. “Love your neighbor as yourself” had become “Love your neighbor before or instead of yourself”. I lived a life of putting myself second third or fourth for the sake of what I thought was loving others, when what was really going on was devaluing myself. “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” became “Don’t be angry.” I became an emotional void, not being able to express, let alone access, any emotions. I call these negative effects “spiritual wounds”. Without conscious reflection and curiosity, we can leave the Church and remain under the influence of these wounding teachings for a very long time.

That’s why I created the program I call “Healing Your Spiritual Wounds”. For those of us who have left the Church, there are lots of wounds lingering around many teachings. Many of them having an original meaning that has been squeezed out of them and reworked into a hard and fast rule for walking an impossibly straight and narrow path rather than a guideline for enjoying life.

Written by Jim Larkin was originally published in ExCommunications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I am a Recovering from Religion support groups volunteer, and I would like to share a bit of my story as a way to show why I am excited to cheer on the American Humanist Association’s current effort to build bridges and encourage more connections between local humanist organizations and volunteering for RfR. I’m especially hopeful about the potential to encourage people from humanist organizations to go through training with RfR and even start their own support groups in local communities. I am particularly passionate about this because I have directly benefited from a support group facilitated at my local humanist organization, when my experience with religious trauma would otherwise have made it impossible for me to connect with any humanist efforts and my local secular community at all.

I live in the US “Bible Belt” and am quite literally surrounded by churches. I grew up Catholic but most of my childhood was spent in Broken Arrow, OK, listening to Seth Andrews’s hypnotic voice back when he was still presenting for a Christian radio station. (I now MUCH prefer listening to him on the Thinking Atheist channel 😃). I also heard non-stop from my peers that Catholics weren’t “real” Christians and that I was certainly going to hell because I worshipped statues. Those “friends” made it their mission to find nearly any excuse to lure me into their church buildings and proselytize at me; they would invite me to a “wrestling show” (look up the Power Team when you want a real trip) or to a “Halloween house” (full of sin and torture and hellfire… look up “Hell Houses” for fun nightmare fuel) and they would turn any offer at friendship or social groups into an altar call. I went for a good time with a new friend but instead found myself threatened with hellfire if I left without getting baptized. I got invited to a sleepover and had nightmares full of the horrors in the Left Behind movies that my “friends” used to show me what my future held if I didn’t repent.

The air around me was full of false pretenses and duplicity, and I wisely became suspicious of ANY social events taking place in or near an even slightly church-shaped building that wasn’t my own church. I was traumatized and doubtful of finding any new communities or friends ever again.

I ultimately deconverted from Catholicism as an adult, and even though doing so made my life substantially happier, it also left me with a profound sense of loss and isolation. I felt the most alone I have ever imagined someone could feel. But the only communities (church, choir, Bible study, service groups) that once brought me comfort now felt like poison wrapped with a pretty stained-glass-and-steeples bow. So in a time when I MOST desperately needed secular community and connection, I couldn’t tolerate the process of seeking it out because of my own religious trauma.

I even tried to visit a local humanist organization because I wanted to attend their Humanist Hangout. Sadly, the only hanging out I did was the time I spent hiding in the bathroom crying then ducking out the back door. Sometimes even in secular spaces it’s hard to shake the “church” vibe even when you know better intellectually.

Luckily that organization has one member who “got” it enough to set up a support group for people in any kind of religious transition. That member is ex-religious as well and based the group off of RfR’s model for support groups. They knew that people like me NEED this type of an outlet. It wasn’t evangelizing or pressure to join as a member, but simply a way to find healing while building a connection between leaving religion and a supportive secular space.

Because of this (and a lot of therapy), I am happy to share that I recently attended a Humanist “find out more about membership” meeting along with my (Catholic/believer) husband. We are seriously considering formal membership because the people and organization as a whole are just as welcoming to my atheism as to his theism - because they prioritize deed over creed and don’t evangelize or push beliefs. And I no longer spend visits crying in the bathroom; instead I’m increasingly involved and engaged in my community in ways I used to think were only possibly in a religion or church.

I am a lived example of why local AHA-connected organizations and their communities can and should consider getting some RfR-trained groups going. So: if you’re part of a Humanist organization in your community, please consider contacting Recovering from Religion about volunteering and maybe even starting your own support group. Not for the ulterior motive to get more members (ew)… but to support your community and fellow humans. And to show people like me that religion doesn’t get to say they own access to a supportive and compassionate community - at least not anymore.

Bridging the gap between religious trauma and secular community was originally published in ExCommunications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I was nineteen years old when I first opened up about the mixed swirls of emotions that were beginning to resurface from my childhood. I had just moved to Canada — a long way from home — and I was picked up from my high school by a family member I was staying with. That day I had a panic attack, feeling and gripping with emotions that maybe are familiar to you. My high school called my family member, and they drove to pick me up.

I remember sitting in my family member’s passenger seat as they took a left turn onto the avenue. They kept their eyes on the road and their hands firmly glued to the steering wheel. I turned to them, feeling lost and mostly alone. I was confused; at the time I was beginning to have flashbacks of memories my younger self had buried deeply. I didn’t know what to make of them or what to think of who the antagonist in them was. In that moment, that feeling of solitude pushed me to seek any form of comfort or guidance. I opened my mouth and spoke, the words pouring out of my mouth like a faucet. My family member listened, nodding while cruising down the avenue towards our home. When I was done, without taking their eyes off the stoplight, they told me two words I will never forget. “That’s normal.”

I was raised in a Christian household. My mom and dad were protestant; my mom had been raised in the church (she’s in her deconstruction era now, go mom!) and so I grew up in what many people — I included — would deem a stable household. We are a close family. My sister and I were never afraid to say exactly what was on our mind, which sometimes, admittedly, frustrated my mom. Discovering cuss words as a neurodiverse kid with echolalia and relentless stimming was one of these frustrating “growing up
moments.” (Sorry mom!)

My parents would do their best to understand what their kids liked, thought, and cared about. They would take me to the theatre to watch the movies I liked, drive me to ice cream parlors right before closing time, and when I left my beaver plushy at school, they would take the bus half an hour there and back to bring him home. We weren’t very religious, and my sister and I were often encouraged to think for ourselves. We didn’t
frequently attend church, stopping earlier on in my childhood due to some differences my parents had with the pastor. We didn’t even pray before meals unless my grandparents were over.
That isn’t to say we weren’t believers, but we were an extremely lenient family when it came to religious practices. You might be asking yourself “well, that doesn’t seem bad at all!” and to an extent, you are right. I was lucky in many ways in my upbringing, but this article is for those that struggle with religious trauma. Those that have experienced the side you don’t see and as you can imagine, if I’m writing this article, there is a side you don’t see in my upbringing. Everything I wrote was visible to those around me and I believe that was the hardest part in my deconstruction journey and my present journey as a critical Biblical Scholar.

Let me preface this by saying that I am still in contact with my family. I love them to death, and this article is not an attempt to tear into them. I’ve already done that. I’ve lashed out, cried, sobbed and struggled to grasp a reason to forgive and move on. The most painful part for me — and the topic of this article — in my journey through my trauma were the good memories. Anyone who has met my family would always tell me before they’d go home how nice they were and I’ve even gotten comments like “I wish my parents were as chill as yours.” But the side they don’t see is my memory of sitting on the couch in a psychiatrist’s office last spring as he told me “You have PTSD.”

It is painful to think about the side others don’t see. With religious trauma, especially in an extended family full of religious people, it often feels like you are the only one that A) sees the truth (whatever that may be) and B) that was hurt. So, when I decided to be vulnerable with my Christian family member that day in the car, my reality shattered. It felt like all of my confusion was just swept under a rug. I took a risk by sharing things
that people would certainly frown upon — people have — and react with shock or disgust. The worst kind of pain is when you want to open up to someone about the side no one sees, and they either don’t accept it, or they agree with the damage done to you. In my case, it was the latter.

After that encounter, I spent a year in confusion. I entered an unhealthy relationship which ended in disaster, and in June of that year after a terrible breakup, I gave into the “that’s normal” statement by becoming a Christian Fundamentalist. For about five months I was a devout protestant that attended church, bible studies, and listener to people that talk about the things that hurt me, fully believing them and delving into them
deeper. I was angry, hurt, and hateful, a period of my life that I look back upon in frustration and sadness because of my attempts to be a part of the side people see. A desperate attempt to turn the truth into a misunderstood lie. I now wish I had read something like this. Sometimes I ask myself if I knew that the side I saw was validating, would I have not have wasted five months of my life trying to ignore it?

Reality is, though, that the side people don’t see never goes away and there are people that will see it and accept it. I met my partner in August of that year, and in October during my transition to University, I had a mental crisis under the pressure of my many classes and new environment. I dove deeper into the theology and wrote out incoherent ramblings which I was praised for by fundamentalists in my circle. I chose to share it with my partner, and I will never forget how she texted back “I am worried about you.” I was confused at the time, because to me, this was the side people saw and liked. “This is normal, right?” I asked myself as I stared down at my phone. She helped me see the side you don’t see, and it shattered my already broken pieces into smaller ones, sending me into an existential crisis where I looked to gain that balance between the side people see and the side people don’t. It was my very first big step to recovery and acceptance.

She saw the side I chose to try to unsee and forget, and accepted it, offering advice and validating my pain. She was the first person that saw the side you don’t see and didn’t look away or deem it normal. Unintentionally, I opened up to her about my trauma and my flashbacks and she listened. She has since helped me through numerous flashbacks and is the only person that knows how to bring me out of them. I’m thankful for her, because she has been by my side through this long journey of navigating my PTSD and supported me in gathering the courage to write this piece.
This is all to say that there are people out there that will see the side people don’t see and there are even people that will see both, like my partner. It is important that you see both sides too. There is no immediate solution with religious family that has hurt you.

When you realize how much you were hurt by the people that were supposed to protect you, sometimes you have to make tough calls like “do I forgive them or do I cut them off?” You might struggle with the pleasant memories for a while, feeling guilty and blaming yourself because people don’t see the side you see. You might start thinking you’re the problem, but reality is, people aren’t all good or bad. People can hurt you, shatter you to pieces, while also making you smile and laugh, giving you good times.
The good memories won’t go away and neither will the bad ones. It’s important to accept that. When you make your decision on how to proceed, realize that you aren’t alone, that there are people that see the other side, that see both sides and still love you.

You have the power and ultimate decision to decide what to do and whatever you decide, must be what’s right for you. There will be people that will look into your abyss and hold your hand, comfort you, and see your side of the story. I see it. Every situation is unique and there is no black and white answer to dealing with religious family that has hurt you. I am thankful for the people around me that have helped me through this, including my mom, who put in work to understand what I’m wrestling with. It was unexpected for me that any Christian in my family would
understand, but my mom tried and now does. The side folks don’t see can have unpredictable solutions and leave you pleasantly surprised with things that never even occurred to you. Stay strong, remember that your experience is valid and that pain with this much internal turmoil is never normal.

The Side You Don’t See: Managing the Joy & Hurt Within Religious Family was originally published in ExCommunications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Speech Given Before the American Humanist Conference 7/28/25
Darrel Ray, Ed.D.

1. Introduction: Culture, Mating, and the Changing Landscape
One of the greatest joys in life is being in a long term, supportive and emotionally safe relationship. There is nothing quite like it. No matter what relationship style you choose, most of us are seeking something that provides a secure environment from which to face the world. Someone who has your back. Who can take you to the emergency room. Someone you can talk to after a difficult day. Who is emotionally and sexually available. Someone who actually cares and takes an active role in making your life easier and someone you can actively support and make their life more rewarding. These are things most of us want but they often seem hard to get, because they take time to develop and trust in another person.
At the same time, we see how often relationships fall apart. We see the fall-out, anger, feelings of betrayal, and vitriol in people who were once madly in love with each other. It is scary to think, “Two people who could not keep their hands off of each other five or 10 years ago. People who posted every step of their love life on social media, every kiss, every event, are now sworn mortal enemies!”
If relationships weren’t scary enough, we now can see them explode in real time on social media. It is enough to make anyone swear off dating or mating. But no matter what, we still want that warm, secure feeling that only a safe, close relationship can bring. The conflict is real and an important part of the recent, massive change in mating habits of the species known as homo sapiens.
So let’s dig in to Swipe Right, Swipe Left: A Humanist Response to Changing Mating Patterns.
If you want evidence that mating patterns have massively changed, we need look no further than the marriage rates across the globe. This single chart says much. While this only shows six countries, I could put up far more graphs on every continent and almost every country that will show a similar result.

At the same time, divorces have dramatically increased as a proportion of marriage in almost all countries. For example, in China the marriage rate has plummeted as the divorce rate has sky-rocketed. In the US, rates seem to have stabilized at about 50-55%. Far higher than 1970 or earlier.

If 50% of marriages end in divorce, within the remaining 50%, approximately half are sexually dead or other wise unhappy but still together. That means that no more than 25% of all marriages even come close to the ideal, happily ever after.
At the same time, birthrates have plummeted. Most countries in the world have birthrates below replacement - 2.1 births per woman. Italy, Spain, Germany, China, South Korea are all well below replacement rate. Even the US is around 1.66 births per woman. Were it not for immigration, the US would be losing population.

Something is changing globally in our mating strategies and it is happening fast – 40 years or less. Much digital ink has been spilled in trying to understand what is going on. I’m not sure anyone knows for sure.
I am guessing most of you are no longer in the dating world and you may be happily pair bonded with one or more partners. I am glad for anyone who is, because it is a great thing to have another human or humans in your corner and supporting you through life’s ups and downs. It is a wonderful thing to have someone you trust and that has your best interest at heart. So, what I say today may not be directly relevant to you if you are in a great relationship, but it will affect your children and grandchildren. I am a grandfather of two grandsons and have first-hand observation of some of the challenges the new generations are facing.
The cultural template that worked for centuries has dissolved. In the past, you married the boy or girl next door, or in your church or someone you found in college. In general, we found our mates in our local community or in close proximity.
With the globalization of dating, we can look across entire continents to find partners. This was not unheard of in the past, but it was usually associated with things like being stationed overseas in the military.

Mating today
Mating has changed. Not only are people not meeting at school or church, they are not even getting out to meet. Dating apps have taken the place of sock hops, school, or church socials or bars. Even the workplace is off limits for dating in many ways. Dating apps were invented to find and maybe marry someone without having to rely on all the old ways of meeting. Unfortunately, the cold hard fact is that dating apps are actually designed to keep you single. We now have a decade of research to show that swiping left or right does little to connect you to a potential mate. In fact, a dating app that actually helped you find a mate would lose customers! As a dating tool, there is precious little evidence they help anyone. In fact, they may be programming our brains in the opposite direction by deceiving us into thinking if we just keep swiping there is always a better option coming. It is no surprise that the algorithms used in dating apps and social media are very similar to those used in Casinos and the Lottery. They keep us engaged but not actually finding a mate. Pitifully few people win the Lottery, but people keep playing. A recent study found that mating closely correlates with social media use. For example, in Southern India, social media use is low but marriage rates have remained steady.
There have been many cultures on this planet that do not or did not follow the Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim models of marriage and relationships? The models that seem so normal to us are fairly recent in human history, and largely a product of patriarchal religious influence. I don’t know what mating will look like in 10, 20, or 50 years, but I doubt it will mirror the patriarchal monogamy or polygamy of the last millennium.
“If we are to chart a new course for relationships, beyond the religious and patriarchal templates of the past, then we must start by asking: What kind of partnerships foster autonomy, honesty, and mutual growth?”
“As Humanists, we have a rare opportunity — free from religious dogma — to reimagine love based on consent, autonomy, and mutual support.”
Questions: religion & pop Culture
How many of your assumptions about love and relationships came from religion, pop culture, or family — rather than from conscious choice?

Before we dive into individual choices and cultural beliefs, let’s zoom out. There’s something older than apps and deeper than hormones that helps humans form lasting bonds — and that’s community.

2. The Power of Community in Modern Mating
I think people looking to build strong, committed relationships face a much stronger headwind than I did in my 20s and 30s. In fact, I believe it’s harder for everyone than it was 30 or 40 years ago — for reasons I’ve already explored and many more. I don’t have any magic formulas or profound ideas, but I do think there are key factors that might facilitate relationship or family formation.
One important factor that is often overlooked is community. Communities give us structure instead of overwhelming choices and distractions. They offer a pool of people who likely to share core values. That’s why religion was such a successful way to find a mate in the past. Communities offer gentle support, helping us listen to and understand one another in ways that superficial dating apps never will. I’m not saying communities are the answer to current mating issues, but they have historically been essential to human connection and partnership.
As we develop local Humanist communities, I think we’ll see more and better opportunities for partnering. I’m fortunate to have helped start and continue supporting our Oasis organization in Kansas City. Within that community, I’ve seen several people find each other and form partnerships of many kinds. Oasis is a very poly-friendly organization. Most members are also humanists, atheists, and politically engaged. Oasis, Sunday Assembly, The Hub in Denver, the Ethical Society, FACT in San Antonio, Atheists United in Los Angeles — and many others — are growing and becoming more important in the Humanist ecosystem. In these communities, people feel safe to express themselves – gay, straight, trans, bi, asexual, etc.
This is a tumultuous time for relationships. We all want something: security, children, commitment, variety, stimulation, satisfaction — but many don’t know how to get it. The old cultural template has dissolved, and there is no clear path forward. Let’s have compassion for anyone struggling to find a partner or who feels confused or disheartened by today’s dating culture. If those of us who are currently in happy relationships were transported back to our 20s, I don’t think we’d do much better.
One piece of advice for those who may still be in the dating world: do NOT air your relationship issues on social media. Random strangers do not need to know about your private life. Keeping confidences and resolving conflicts privately is a sign of maturity and emotional regulation. If you can’t keep your private life private, you probably shouldn’t be in a relationship. It’s hard to build a close and trusting partnership when you can’t trust your partner to keep personal things confidential. The internet does not forget. How you deal with relationship issues NOW can come back to haunt you with future potential partners.
So what happens when the spark fades? What happens when two people, full of longing and love, find themselves facing unmet needs and unclear expectations?
Let’s talk about redefining marriage or long-term commitment.

3. Redefining, Marriage and the Realities of How Our Species Mates
Why do we want relationships? Sex and attraction are often the initiating spark, but those fade with time. It’s after the sexual edge has worn off that most people can begin building the foundation for a long-term, supportive relationship. This is also when we can make more rational decisions about how to shape the partnership. Relationships go through stages, each with its own challenges and rewards. Simply understanding this can help people be more intentional in how they love. Extremely few relationships of any kind, last a lifetime, but I believe there is much we can do to help them last a long time while being emotionally stable and rewarding. If it happens to last 50 years, that’s wonderful. But even a great 50-year relationship requires regular maintenance and intentionality.
My four grandparents were married for over 50 years, and very proud of it, but I can think of no more miserable people than my four grandparents. They did not like each other.
Just as we deconstruct religious indoctrination, we must also deconstruct sexual indoctrination. Take the concept of life-long marriage and sexual exclusivity — it’s a cultural construct. What if you were raised in a culture where sex wasn’t tied to marriage, but food had highly restrictive rules? That was the nature of pre-contact Hawaii, where marriage was mostly reserved for royalty, and people could be executed for eating the wrong food — but no one much cared who you slept with. Or consider the Na culture, once visited by Marco Polo, where words for “husband” and “wife” don’t exist, and fatherhood is unrecognized. Or the Amazonian tribes that practice partible paternity, where a woman believes she has to have sex with multiple men to have a healthy baby.
One of the most destructive cultural beliefs about relationships is the idea of ownership. I own and control your sexuality. We hear it in most love songs: “You belong to me,” “I can’t live without you,” “You’re my reason for living.” “Your Cheating Heart.” These are codependent sentiments, not healthy relationship goals. Most people eventually feel trapped when they’re treated as if they are an emotional slave to someone else. If a couple can’t negotiate autonomy, it’s often only a matter of time before one partner breaks the rules in order to reclaim independence.
I think it is very interesting that “Queer communities, by necessity, have long reinvented what love and commitment can look like — often more honestly and creatively than mainstream culture allows.”

As Humanists, we can rise above the cultural programming that traps us in unrealistic relationship assumptions. What do we want? I want a supportive partnership — a pair bond that allows each person to be who they are, not what others expect them to be. We can negotiate what trust means. What it means to be supportive. We can communicate our needs and desires while recognizing that our partner is not responsible for our happiness nor is our partner in control of our sexuality.

Which leads to the obvious question, “What is cheating?” It’s the violation of an agreement without consent. Why do most people cheat? Because they’re not getting a need met within the relationship’s existing rules and they don’t know how or can’t renegotiate the terms of the relationship with their partner for fear of losing their partner. But were those rules imposed by culture or social expectation? How can we renegotiate agreements to ensure greater fulfillment for both people? Are agreements made 10 or 20 years ago, realistic today? Can relationships be renegotiated or are they locked in stone? Does one partner’s beliefs about sexuality, dictate the other’s behavior?
Is enforced celibacy a true partnership? If one partner is no longer interested or attracted, does that mean the other must abstain?
These are questions Humanists can ask because we are not bound by religious moral requirements or dogma about sex and relationships. These questions aren’t easy to answer because the rules we’ve inherited from religion are deeply embedded in our minds and culture. But let’s remember: there’s nothing natural or universal about patriarchal ideas of marriage and sex. Mating, child-rearing, and sex can take many forms — if we are no longer constrained by those notions.
Redefining Trust and Autonomy
What does “cheating” mean to you? Is it a breach of trust — or a breach of expectations that were never truly agreed upon?
Have you ever felt trapped by a relationship ‘rule’ you never consciously chose?

And now, let’s name the sweet, seductive siren in the corner — romance. It makes our hearts flutter, our playlists tragic, and our judgment… questionable.

4. Romance: Beautiful, Powerful, Misleading
The elephant in the room is romance. Many of us love it. We listen to romantic songs, celebrate Valentine’s Day, and remember our first love. Romance is the expression of the intense feelings we experience when attraction blooms. It’s part of our biology as a sexual species. Whole industries exist to capitalize on our romantic fantasies: Hallmark movies, country music, The Eagles, most pop music, and so much more.
In the polyamory community, we call it New Relationship Energy — a gift from our biology. But it only lasts for a limited time. After that, you’ll need to stimulate other hormones and build a more grounded connection if you want to stay together.
Romance is fun, inspiring, and emotionally rich — but it’s also a Western invention. Most cultures don’t have what we call romance. While all cultures seem to have concepts of love, romantic kissing is unknown in 54% of surveyed cultures. When we spend more time comparing on a dating app than connecting, or chasing dopamine hit of romance, we begin to confuse stimulation with intimacy. That’s not love — that’s neural noise.

We should also mention that parasocial relationships, strong emotional connections formed with media personalities, can indirectly influence mating by altering an individual's expectations and ideal mate preferences. These expectations, shaped by media portrayals and parasocial connections, can sometimes lead to unrealistic standards for potential partners, potentially affecting real-life relationship dynamics.
I’m not here to kill romance. I’m here to say we can enjoy it while also treating it with the same critical thinking we apply to religion. Even the most passionate romantics don’t live out the lyrics they sing. The four Beatles were married nine times among them. Frank Sinatra was married four times. Marilyn Monroe, three. Many of the most famous religious leaders were married multiple times or had sexual affairs. None of those lives reflected the “I’ll love you forever” sentiments of the music they sang or movies they were in or the sermons they preached.
I tend to watch what people do, not what they say. As an animal species, we should follow our biology, not our mythology. Go ahead and enjoy romance — the thrill of a first kiss, the passion of a new love. But understand that, like the Wizard of Oz, there’s often not much behind the curtain.
When did you first realize that romance — as sold to us by movies and songs — doesn’t always match reality?
What would it mean to enjoy romance without being ruled by it?
While romance clouds our minds, social media scrambles our nervous systems. Let’s take a look at how tech and biology are rewiring our expectations of love — often without us noticing.

5. How Social Media and Biology Shape Our Love Lives
Social media is distorting our self-image, body image, and social expectations. As Humanists, we can ask hard questions: How is social media affecting my view of potential partners? My view of myself? What can I do to counter these effects?
We are animals. Hormonal animals. Our hormones affect us even when we don’t realize it. Social media manipulates perceptions and triggers sexual responses as well as stress responses. We need to learn to regulate its impact on us.
For example: When you are feeling disconnected, do you reach for connection or a screen?
 “What if we taught kids that love isn’t magic — it’s a skill set?”
Let’s now explore why so many relationships that begin with connection and passion eventually end in frustration — or fall apart entirely.

6. Satiation, Growth, and the Myth of the Soulmate
Why do breakups happen? Love doesn’t always end in heartbreak — sometimes it just ends in boredom. Or quiet resentment. Or two people wondering how they got from passion to parallel lives. Let’s talk about the reality of long-term relationships, and why growth often means change.
Satiation: People get tired of each other and don’t know how to keep the relationship alive. We’re animals — sex and attraction rely on novelty and stimulation.
Values conflict: Changes in values can cause major shifts in world views. A person leaves religion and their worldview shifts. If one changes political views, conflict may ensue. Sexual discovery may precipitate new feelings and need to explore or experience.
Why are breakups and divorce so emotionally devastating? Because too many relationships are codependent — two people seeking the security they didn’t feel in childhood, or trying to find a parent figure. Healthy relationships are not dominated by codependence or parent-child dynamics.
And I should include “The soulmate” idea. This is a romanticized relic — and a deeply religious one. If it were real, why are so many ‘soulmates’ divorced within a decade? It’s a notion that projects an unrealistic idea of human relationships. The idea that all things will be wonderful and nothing will change in the relationships because we are “soul mates.” I have seen so many people who spent years preparing for the wedding but were wholly unprepared for the marriage. Recent research shows that couples who spend more than $20,000 on the wedding are 1.6 times more likely to divorce than couples spending between $5 and 10K. Weddings of less than $1,000 had the lowest divorce rate.

I detest the idea of relationship failure. What if the end of a relationship isn’t a failure, but the natural completion of a season? Divorce would be so much more tolerable if it weren’t for the unrealistic, romantic beliefs on which marriage is built.

If the old models no longer work — and many clearly don’t — what can we build in their place? What does a relationship look like when it’s grounded not in dogma and romance, but in reason, compassion, and mutual respect? What if we looked at the end of long-term relationships as completion NOT failure? If we’re no longer following patriarchal blueprints or religious rules, what kind of relationship structures make sense? Humanism gives us the freedom — and the responsibility — to create better ones.

7. Rebuilding Relationships on Humanist Values
Is marriage a sex license? It was in the past — a central feature of patriarchal control. But women don’t owe men sex, in or out of marriage. And men don’t owe women celibacy or monogamy. We don’t own each other. We’re partners, not masters and servants. This principle applies equally to LGBTQ+ relationships.
Patriarchal beliefs make people — not just women — behave in ways that go against their nature. Happiness comes from within, not from your partner. A good partner enhances your life — they are not your life.
What if, instead of just sex education, we taught relationship education? What if we taught how our brains and bodies respond to attraction? How “love drugs” (NRE) affect our perception?
Let’s teach teens and young adults the biology of human connection. Help them move beyond Disney fantasies. Let them experience the thrill of new love — and also understand that New Relationship Energy is real, but temporary. When it fades, they’ll have the tools to decide what to do next.
Let’s bring this all down to earth. These ideas aren’t just theoretical — they play out in real lives, real relationships, and real struggles. Here are some case studies that show how Humanist values can help people navigate modern relationship dilemmas.
Case Studies: Humanist Ethics in Practice
Case Study 1: The Caregiver's Guilt
Background: A 53-year-old Catholic woman’s husband is terminally ill. She remains devoted to his care but starts a secret sexual relationship with someone she trusts.
Conflict: She experiences deep guilt and shame for wanting intimacy while her husband is dying.
Humanist Reflection: Instead of framing this as sin or betrayal, a Humanist approach would ask: Is she violating an ethical agreement — or responding to a human need for connection, comfort, and release? Could her needs be met honestly, if cultural shame didn’t cloud her judgment?
Takeaway: Humanism allows us to ask, “What does compassion for oneself and others look like in times of grief and change?”
Case Study 2: The Sexless Marriage and Digital Guilt
Background: A Baptist man is married to a woman who has always disliked sex. He has a long-term affair, then stops when she finds out and threatens divorce. He then and turns to porn for release. His wife finds out and equates porn use with infidelity. She threatens divorce again.
Conflict: He feels punished no matter what he does with no sexual outlet.
Humanist Reflection: Humanists might ask: Was the marriage agreement ever realistic? Does someone have the right to control another’s private sexuality? Is porn truly “cheating,” or does this reflect a clash of values never fully negotiated?
Takeaway: Honest renegotiation, not punishment, may be a more ethical response to desire discrepancies.
Case Study 3: The Adventurous Businesswoman
Background: A woman with a high sex drive travels often for work. Her husband avoids sex and leans on religious ideas of commitment. She joins a swingers club in another city and feels liberated — but guilty.
Conflict: She’s afraid to tell him the truth, knowing his reactions are grounded in religious rigidity.
Humanist Reflection: A Humanist couple might ask: Are both partners getting their needs met? Has the relationship evolved past its original agreements? Can sexual exclusivity be ethical if it harms one partner more than it helps the other?
Takeaway: Ethical non-monogamy may not be for everyone, but neither is silent deprivation.
Case Study 4: The Sunday School Teacher with a Traumatic Past
Background: A 39-year-old Sunday School teacher, raised in a deeply religious family, was sexually abused, as a child, by relatives. She now leads an abstinence-only program for teens while secretly engaging in casual sex with a secret partner.
Conflict: She feels enormous shame and cognitive dissonance between her teachings, her trauma, and her lived experience.
Humanist Reflection: A Humanist approach centers healing. Her duplicity is not moral failure — it’s a survival response to religious repression and unprocessed trauma. How might therapy, a secular community, and education help her integrate her desires with her values?
Takeaway: Healing requires honesty, not hypocrisy. And shame is not a strategy.
Case Study 5: The Unilateral Celibacy Ultimatum
Background: A 34-year-old man and his wife have four children. After their fourth child is born, she announces she never wants sex again. She adds that if he ever cheats, she’ll divorce him. Two years later, he does — and she follows through.
Conflict: He feels trapped between loyalty and unmet needs. She feels betrayed.
Humanist Reflection: A Humanist might ask: Can any person ethically demand celibacy from another without renegotiation? Should agreements remain fixed when one partner unilaterally changes the terms?
Takeaway: Relationships are not static contracts — they are living agreements. When needs change, conversations must follow.
Case Study 6: The Humanist Polyamorous Couple
Background: Two partners meet in a Humanist community. They are both polyamorous and enter into a transparent, values-based relationship. Over time, one partner feels jealousy.
Conflict: They worry jealousy means the relationship is failing.
Humanist Reflection: They don’t turn to rules or punishment. Instead, they work through feelings with communication, introspection, and empathy. They use jealousy as a cue to discuss unmet needs.
Takeaway: Jealousy isn’t a moral failure — it’s an emotional signal. A Humanist partnership treats it as data, not a death sentence.
Case Study 7
A deeply religious couple deconverts over a three year time period. Once out of religion, they become humanists. The process leads to a reexamination of their relationship and values. This leads them to divorce after 23 years and two children. They carefully managed their divorce using humanist values and compassion for each other. Today, three years later, they are closer as friends than they ever were as spouses.
Humanist Relationships
What do humanist relationship look like?
What ideas and ethics might guide us?
What principles might we teach our children?
Conclusion: The Future of Love Is Ours to Shape
In the end, our very biology is pointing the way. Across cultures and throughout history, even our most celebrated thinkers and artists — Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Margaret Atwood, Albert Ellis, Madeleine Murry O’Hare and so many more, including people named Humanist of the Year by this very organization. None of these people lived the monogamy for life ideology. While humans crave connection, we do not naturally pair bond for life. And yet, we continue to tell ourselves stories of forever love, soulmates, and lifelong fidelity as if they were laws of nature rather than cultural inventions. I would submit that simply living more honestly might actually help many relationships last longer, maybe even a lifetime.
Let’s stop making promises we can’t keep. As Humanists, we have the unique opportunity — and responsibility — to rethink relationships outside the confines of shame, control, and religious dogma. We can recognize that much of what passes for “morality” around relationships is actually about control — especially the control of women’s sexuality. That control is the lifeblood of patriarchal religions worldwide.
We need a new story — not a fairytale.
Romantic music, love poetry, and Hollywood endings are delightful illusions, just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. They’re fun. They’re nostalgic. But they’re not reality. And like any illusion, they become dangerous when we mistake them for maps of reality.
We are at a cultural inflection point. The institution of marriage, as we’ve known it, is faltering — not because people don’t care about commitment, but because the model we inherited does not fit our biology or current understanding of human mating behavior. No-fault divorce cracked the edifice of patriarchy; now it’s time to take the next step. Divorce may end marriages, but it doesn’t end the outdated assumptions that cause so much pain: the belief that love must be eternal, that sex equals morality, or that autonomy is betrayal.
Let’s build something better.
Let’s create a Humanist framework for relationships — one that prioritizes honesty, autonomy, and deep mutual respect. One that teaches the biology of love alongside the ethics of consent. One that affirms emotional safety, sexual freedom, and our evolving needs as human beings. If a relationship lasts a lifetime, wonderful! That does not make it better or worse than other relationships that do not last a lifetime.
We are not bound by superstition or tradition — but we are deeply bound by our humanity. Let us strive to build relationships not on guilt, ownership, or fantasy, but on freedom, empathy, and mutual flourishing. “We’re not here to own each other — we’re here to have each other’s backs. That’s not a fantasy. That’s the future of love.”
The future of love is not written.
We get to write it — thoughtfully, courageously, and together
Thank you

Swipe Right, Swipe Left: A Humanist Response to Changing Matting Patterns was originally published in ExCommunications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My Journey of Deconversion from Christianity to Non-Belief: A Story of a Domestic Violence Survivor’s Resilience and Overcoming Adversity

Written by: Sharon T. Chen

Journey stories are important because the written word enables us to connect on an emotional basis with others. We can present hundreds of logical arguments and facts concerning why people should not be attached to religious and superstitious beliefs, but religious belief is more emotional than logical and rational.

Non-theists can debate the validity of their holy books’ scripture or argue the existence of God, but we cannot deny a person’s personal religious experiences. When a religious person tells their story about how God worked some perceived miracle or how God somehow blessed, transformed, lifted and encouraged them, we can’t argue against that. It’s their story.

Telling our journey stories is a way to build a deeper level of understanding. Thinking about and creating our stories regarding our life history, life experiences, and influences on our lives can be related to family, friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. Everyone has different, exceptional life experiences with unique and special stories to share and teach others.

My own story is one of redemption and salvation — but my redemption involved turning away from religion, and my salvation came from science. I was born and raised in a religious, conservative Christian home in Charlotte, North Carolina.

My parents are both immigrants from Taiwan, and they moved to the United States in the 1980s. Their command of the English language and understanding of American culture were poor. Their acclimation to the United States was heavily dependent on their participation in the Charlotte Chinese Baptist Church.

The Christian Baptist church is where my parents first initially met each other. They dated for a short period of time before they made a decision to get married. After marriage, they gave birth to me as their first born, and two years later, my younger sister. As far back as I can remember, my family attended Sunday services at the conservative Christian Baptist church on a regular basis.

I was indoctrinated into being a conservative Christian by my family, friends, teachers, classmates, schools, and the conservative Christian church we attended. I was taught to believe in Jesus, Virgin Mary, and the existence of heaven and hell. We prayed in church, and I was taught to “give my life to god” and to avoid “sin.” I was taught homosexuality was a sin and that LGBT people went to hell.

My parents forbade my sister and me from dating, and I was told by my family, church, and teachers to save my virginity for marriage, which meant premarital sex was a major taboo. When I was in middle school, all of us girls were enrolled in the “Best Friends” program, an abstinence-only “sex education” program. The program merely consisted of “just say no” if boys wanted sex.

Throughout my entire childhood, I unfortunately endured extreme domestic/family violence and experienced severe physical, verbal, emotional, psychological, spiritual/religious, and sexual abuse, incest, trauma, and molestation perpetrated by my conservative Christian father.

My conservative Christian father was a very active volunteer at church, and he was highly respected by fellow church leaders and members of the congregation. However, he used his outward acts of service for the church as a deceptive mask to harbor many deep, dark secrets behind closed doors.

My father was a chronic alcoholic and domineering, psychopathic perpetrator of horrific violence. He was a sadistic sociopath who derived sick pleasure from abusing my mother, my sister, and me in every way possible: physically, verbally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually/religiously, and sexually assaulting, molesting, traumatizing, and humiliating us.

My father weaponized the Bible as a tool to repeatedly abuse, assault, control, molest, terrorize, threaten, and violate my mother, sister, and me. He claimed the Bible justified his abuse, violence, and mistreatment towards us. He was a gun owner who threatened on countless occasions to murder the three of us and burn down our home “to destroy the evidence,” so our bodies would never be found.

Both my parents constantly warned I would be sent away to a foster home, where I would be treated far worse by strangers if I ever told my school teachers or complained to authorities about the horrific abuse and violence that was taking place at home on a daily basis. As an innocent young child, I wholeheartedly believed every word of my parents as I did not know any better.

A middle school classmate noticed a bruise on my arm and asked me about it. I confided in her about the abuse and violence being perpetuated by my parents against me at home. She was sincerely concerned about my safety and worried about my well-being and told our homeroom teacher, who in turn, informed the middle school guidance counselor.

After lunch, I was pulled from algebra class and asked to speak with the guidance counselor. Out of my irrational fear of being removed from my family home, the only place I’d ever known, I lied and said I’d injured myself by accident. At the time, I thought I was in trouble because I’d never been removed from class. I wanted only to return to math class to avoid missing any important class material.

Back when I was an innocent child, I still believed in a just and merciful God. I used to kneel at my bed every night and fervently pray to God to kill me in my sleep. I desperately wished to die so I would not be forced to endure another day of extreme abuse and violence. It’s heartbreaking for me to think back now about how I started seriously contemplating suicide when I was a young child.

I did not wish to live and did not want to continue enduring the horrific abuse I experienced as a child at home every day. No one seemed to care about or love me, not even my own parents. I felt absolutely trapped in this living hell at home.

As a child, my parents would not allow me to seek mental health care since doing so would reveal their abuse and violence towards me, and they knew they would face severe legal repercussions. My immigrant parents came from a conservative, traditional Asian culture and attached a very negative stigma to psychological services. They viewed patients who sought mental health treatment as “crazy.”

At the age of 18, I was finally able to move out on my own, and I left my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I began to meet and learn from people of different races, ethnicities, socioeconomic classes, religions/non-religions, with family backgrounds and histories that were unlike the oppressive, conservative Christian culture I’d grown up with.

I was exposed to new, fascinating ideas, thoughts, and perspectives from my university professors and fellow college students. I learned about liberal. progressive Democrats and the concepts of socioeconomic and racial injustice, diversity, equity, and inclusion, women’s rights, and more. I was exposed for the first time to secular ideas. I began questioning the existence of God at this juncture.

All the rules and regulations I’d been taught to follow by my conservative Christian family and church as a means to salvation had brought me nothing but painful despair and misery throughout my entire life up to that point. I was exposed to an entirely new world in college in which I learned that I had value as an individual as well as learning critical thinking skills, philosophical logic, and scientific thought.

However, the years of abuse had left many scars. I sought help from a psychiatrist who finally diagnosed me with major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)/panic attacks, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). My psychiatrist prescribed antidepressant and antianxiety medications for me, and I also began intensive psychotherapy.

I sought out trauma-focused mental health counselors and therapists and successfully completed countless mental health treatments and therapies for my healing and recovery. I discovered the abuse and violence I experienced during my childhood was not my fault, and I was not to blame whatsoever despite what my conservative Christian family constantly told me. I also learned about concepts and techniques such as self-care, emotional regulation, and developing healthy boundaries.

The mental health treatments I received included Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, Somatic Experiencing (SE) therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) group therapy as well as medical treatments such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) treatment and esketamine treatment. In addition, I attended support groups for survivors of childhood abuse and incest, sexual assault, rape, and religious trauma.

My journey back from the brink had finally begun. However, I was about to take a huge and very dangerous detour in my journey of healing.

Food was my drug of choice back then. I used to binge eat massive amounts of food to desperately fill the empty void of nothingness I felt within and to cope with my feelings of depression, sadness, worthlessness, hopelessness, guilt, shame, fear, emotional numbness, fatigue, exhaustion, migraines, stomachaches, anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, flashbacks, difficulty with focus and concentration, and other symptoms. I preferred unhealthy junk food and fast food that provided me with momentary comfort.

I gained prodigious amounts of weight. The antidepressants I took increased my appetite, causing more weight gain. The weight gain made me feel even more depressed, and the depression made me eat ever increasing amounts of food, which became a vicious cycle. I developed social anxiety and hated going out in public because I feared strangers bullying and taunting me for my appearance.

I am 5 feet, 6 inches tall, and unbelievable as it may seem to most people, at my maximum, I weighed a staggering 321 pounds at my highest and had a BMI of 51.8. I was super morbidly obese, extremely unhealthy, and unfortunately, developed many serious, chronic health issues over the years.

Due to the excess weight, I used to get winded easily and ran out of energy very quickly. I could not stand or walk for more than a few minutes before I began experiencing excruciating pain in my back, forcing me to sit and rest before I could stand and walk again.

I suffered from numerous chronic, life-threatening health conditions, which included high blood pressure, high cholesterol, pre-diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, chronic back pain, knee pain, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hiatal hernia, and others. Since I have a family history of even more severe health issues such as stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, I saw the writing on the wall.

My super morbid obesity was literally killing me, and my future seemed bleak and hopeless. Due to my ever growing weight and developing serious, chronic health conditions which made my life excruciating painful and miserable physically and psychologically, I still had suicidal ideation, conducted detailed research on methods for ending my life, and even began to make active suicide plans.

Fortunately, President Barack Obama successfully passed the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as “Obamacare.” Obamacare was the first time in my life I had the opportunity to obtain health insurance as an adult. Luckily, I also discovered Dr. Peter C. Ng, MD, FACS, FASMBS at Rex Bariatrics and their amazing UNC Rex Health bariatric surgical team in Raleigh, North Carolina.

On Monday, October 6, 2014, I underwent a form of bariatric (weight loss) surgery called the duodenal switch with Dr. Peter Ng at UNC Rex Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina. Thanks to Dr. Ng and his compassionate bariatric team at UNC/Rex Healthcare, my recovery was finally back on track. Science, not religion, literally saved my life.

My closest friends volunteered to help me many times, and they’re absolutely critical to my success. Cathy took me to all my doctor’s appointments and was my biggest cheerleader. Joni was another amazing mentor and took excellent care of me at home while I was recovering from surgery. I would not be alive today if it weren’t for Barack Obama, Dr. Peter Ng, Cathy, Joni, and other dear friends.

I learned how to eat a healthy diet and began an exercise regimen to help take off all the excess weight. I worked tirelessly and pushed myself to the limit in terms of my diet, exercise, and lifestyle transformation. It was very difficult to say the least, but I succeeded, not through prayer or faith in God, but through hard work, sheer will, grit, perseverance, determination, and tenacity.

Ultimately, I lost 191 lbs — a weight loss I’m very happy and pleased to report I’ve maintained to this very day. I now weigh 130 lbs, which is exactly what I weighed when I was 18 years old, and I have a very healthy BMI of 21.0.

Since I’ve lost and kept off such a massive amount of weight, I no longer have any of the aforementioned health issues; they’ve all completely resolved themselves, for which I am very thankful. I eat a healthy diet, am physically fit, and lead a physically active, robust lifestyle. My friends lovingly refer to me as the “Energizer Bunny.”

I am happy and healthy now. I continue to take antidepressant medications and to see my psychiatrist and therapist because major depression is prone to relapse without ongoing treatment. I’ve developed a strong, iron-clad support system of compassionate, caring, kind, empathetic, generous chosen family and loved ones, all of whom I’m incredibly grateful to have in my life.

I do not begrudge faith to people who take comfort in religion; however, the toxic form of Christianity that consumed my childhood nearly ended my life. I was saved by science and human compassion. My will to keep fighting came not from a belief in a reward after death, but from learning of the inherent value each of us has here on earth while we are alive and breathing.

I visited my bariatric surgeon Dr. Ng for my annual follow-up visit last year on Wednesday, October 1, 2024. I received my blood work test results, and my labs were “perfect.” Every year, Dr. Ng laughingly tells me my blood test results are better than his own!

Dr. Ng is, without a doubt, my favorite surgeon since he literally saved my life. I’m exceptionally grateful for him and his expert surgical skills in performing the duodenal switch bariatric weight loss surgery on me, and I’m also tremendously thankful to the entire UNC Health Rex medical team.

Sunday, October 6, 2024 marked a significant date in my life; it was my ten-year surgiversary. In case you aren’t aware, a surgiversary is the anniversary of a surgery, most commonly associated with bariatric (weight loss) surgery, a medically necessary surgical procedure which profoundly changed my life with the best possible outcome.

I’ve been grateful and fortunate to find peace, bliss, happiness, and joy in life without the need for religion or belief in a god or higher power. I absolutely love my life, and I’m beyond excited and thrilled to experience all the fantastic joy and happiness that life has to offer. I finally love and truly believe in myself.

I’m an outgoing, hardworking, highly energetic Taiwanese American leader and activist. I’m self-employed and work tirelessly at multiple contract and freelance paid positions. My roles include working as a private military defense contractor with the U.S. Department of Defense by assisting active duty U.S. military personnel with their Mandarin speaking skills at a U.S. military base, as a Mandarin speaking private tutor, as an independent film & media contractor for Rob Underhill Productions, as a freelance writer & editor, and as a social media marketing manager.

I’m a multicultural individual with a global mindset. I’m known for my values and strength of character: ethics, integrity, perseverance, resilience, and tenacity. Brimming with confidence, commitment to excellence, fervent drive to succeed, innovative thinking, and positive, can-do, go-getter attitude. My passions and strengths include professional networking, social media marketing, event planning, business development, communication, leadership, writing/editing, and team building.

I’m well-connected politically and socially including CEOs, VPs, C-Suite executives, elected government officials, directors, leadership, management, business owners, entrepreneurs, physicians, attorneys, engineers, sales & marketing, real estate brokers, creatives, musicians, artists, innovators, and other powerful community leaders at local, state, and federal government levels, U.S Department of Defense (DoD), Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits in Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill/RDU/Triangle, North Carolina, United States, Taiwan, China, and elsewhere around the world.

I’m passionate about personal growth, living a fulfilling, purposeful life, and highly value community engagement. Most importantly I love volunteering, inspiring and motivating others, “paying it forward,” and having a positive impact on the community and world around me.

I spend much of my free time performing charity work, volunteering at my alma mater UNC-Chapel Hill, promoting business owners, and volunteering and canvassing for Democratic politicians and elected government officials at local, state, and federal levels of government.

I’m active in volunteering with many nonprofit organizations, mainly secular and non-religious, although I’ve cultivated and maintained dear, loving friendships with Called to Peace Ministries, a Christian-affiliated nonprofit organization that provides advocacy, education, support, and practical assistance to domestic violence survivors.

In addition, I love volunteering to help people who are struggling with their own weight loss challenges, and I always hope my own story will inspire them.

The causes I hold closest to my heart are ending domestic violence and abuse, ending poverty, promoting secular humanism, atheism, agnosticism, freethought, skepticism, critical thinking, and science education, advocating for separation of church and state, supporting mental health advocacy and research, supporting social, economic, and racial equality and justice and diversity, equity, inclusion, and helping people who are overweight and obese in their journeys to lead healthier, more physically active lives.

I’m extremely active politically and have volunteered countless hours for Democratic political candidates’ campaigns in Wake County/Raleigh/Triangle/RDU/RTP, North Carolina with their successful election and re-election to elected government office positions.

In addition, I’m very active in the atheist, agnostic, freethinker, secular humanist, and skeptic movement by participating in local, state, and national meetings and conferences with my favorite organizations including The Freethought Society, Recovering From Religion, Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Atheists, American Humanist Association, DragonCon’s Skeptics Track, OnlySky, Center for Freethought Equality, Center for Skeptical Inquiry, and countless others. I also enjoy volunteering for other liberal and progressive organizations that support ending domestic violence, advocate for mental health, women’s rights, gun control, comprehensive sex education, and more.

I enjoy cultural arts such as traveling domestically and internationally, learning about different languages and cultures, attending plays/theater and comedy shows, visiting museums, and going to concerts and hearing live music. I’ve traveled all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, and Asia including Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore.

I’m physically active, love adventure, and enjoy experiencing nature and being outdoors. I love spending time in nature and exercising outdoors, especially hiking and ziplining. I’ve also done parasailing, flyboarding, canoeing, kayaking, sailing, cruising, whitewater rafting, and been given countless opportunities to experience many other awesome adventures I’d never received before.

I absolutely live life to the fullest.

This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I want to help others improve their lives and feel the same joy as I do. If I can do it, you can too! Even if life seems bleak and dark and you feel like quitting, DON’T GIVE UP!

I promise you, life gets better; I’m living proof of that! I suffered through countless seemingly insurmountable adversities, barriers, challenges, and obstacles in my lifetime, but I also became a more empathetic, compassionate, loving, and kind human being.

I’m a resilient and tenacious survivor and thriver. I’m an unstoppable force of nature to be reckoned with; there’s absolutely nothing in the world that can stop me. My experiences have made me absolutely fearless: I fear nothing and no one.

My long-term goals are to become a published best-selling author, a highly sought after public motivational speaker, and to give TED talks. I want to speak to audiences around the world about my journey, grit, perseverance, resilience, determination, strength, and tenacity, and to inspire and motivate others to do the same.

Thanks so much for reading my story; feel free to share if you’d like and reach out to me if I can help!

Photo of Dr. Peter C. Ng, MD, FACS, FASMBS and me at UNC Rex Bariatrics Healthcare taken on Wednesday, October 1, 2024

(10-year surgiversary celebration of my duodenal switch, a bariatric surgery that Dr. Ng performed on Monday, October 6, 2014)

Recovering from Religion provides support to people coping with doubt, seeking answers about religion, and living without faith. We have telephone and chat helplines, local and virtual support groups, and an online peer support community. https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/

My Journey of Deconversion from Christianity to Non-Belief: A Story of a Domestic Violence… was originally published in ExCommunications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Summer is almost over, and Fall will greet us again. If you are religious or have been religious at some point, there are quite a few celebrations to look forward to this season.

My question is: Do they celebrate if you come from a religious family? Do you still celebrate?

If you have a story you want to share with us, feel free to do so! Anything is welcome. :)

“Over time, liturgical calendars incorporated autumnal celebrations, including Navaratri/Dasara in Hinduism, Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot in Judaism and Hallowtide in Christianity.” Halloween, also known as All Hallows’ Eve or All Saints’ Eve, is observed in several countries (…)”

The Summer Is Almost Over… was originally published in ExCommunications on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.