Scarletspider-lily

Scarlet || she/her || queer asian exvangelical || religion critical, not antitheist || blog for social and political stuff about religion, queer people, the environment, etc. Occasional references to media and art :)

[scarletspider-lily]

Rules and about me

This blog is meant for anyone to stumble upon, but I still hold firm to my beliefs and won’t censor myself for people. If you take issue with my tone or posts at any time, block me ! ALSO: i queue all my posts so me posting does not mean im online- most of the time i'm not.

I cater to exvangelicals (people who have left evangelical Christianity) first and foremost. I try to open up the convo to other religions, but my personal experiences make me talk about Christianity more.

I do not respect TERFS and radfems, please do not interact :)

This blog is strongly anti censorship and anti purity culture. I don’t get into ship discourse but if you know what I mean and have a problem with this, simply block or DNI

religious people are free to interact with my blog, as I think they can learn about atheist and ex religion viewpoints, but any proselytizing and preaching in the comments will result in a swift block!

atheists who hate religion are valid, but I do not support or encourage anti theist fascism :)

i don’t support islamaphobia, antisemitism, or racism (there is a difference between criticizing religions and partaking in that bigotry)

don’t police my tone, I will criticize and generalize not just christians but other religions frequently here! I’m aware religious people are not a monolith but I would like to avoid having a disclaimer on everything in this blog, when i already clarify and censor myself irl every second of the day.

I talk about other topics here and shout-out queer media and other media often.

if I make a mistake please call me out respectfully. i understand im capable of actually being disrespectful or saying something bigoted.

I dislike the term “culturally Christian” because of how it is used here, and other reasons. If you call me that I’ll still engage with you but don’t expect me to keel to that term politely lmao. Also specify how I am “culturally christian” if you insist on calling me that

VERY IMPORTANT: I reblog posts from random people sometimes as well as people who are controversial on this site for a number of reasons, or are just very well known. I do not agree with everything someone does if I reblog from them. My policy usually is that if I like a post and want it on my blog I’ll reblog.

about me:

I’m a queer Asian American woman in a not so great evangelical household. I'm an atheist who is sort of spiritual (when it comes to nature). This blog exists to call out Christo-fascism/Christian nationalism plaguing America, support atheists and people who left their religions, and for me to be authentic and honest away from prying eyes of people who may know me. I accept asks and confessions, as long as they are not malicious. Currently, I really welcome tips for those in toxic Christian households.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I think about this every year but this trend of American Christmas movies where characters act like Christmas is being forgotten/no one cares about it anymore/it's dying and needs to be saved/etc while the whole country has been flooded with Christmas since Halloween really is a perfect example of how (mainly white) American Christians always see themselves as the victims and persecuted minorities no matter what.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

"Nobody believes in Christmas anymore! We need to save it!" Okay well I've been hearing songs about Jesus in grocery stores since November 1st so forgive me for my doubt.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

"Well Christmas is celebrated a lot but the meaning behind it—" Man, shut the fuck up. Christians forced huge swaths of the world to convert under threat of death and forced their holidays down people's throats and now they're complaining that those holidays aren't being celebrated "the right way"? What an absolute joke. Leave me alone forever.

[brazenbutch-deactivated20250105]

Quitmormon.com (the pro-bono legal team who made it so the Mormon church couldn't stalk me after I left the church) is fundraising to get a full-time, paid lawyer, AND provide free mental health services to people leaving the Mormonism (mostly LGBT people and our allies)

I'm not one to post fundraisers, my followers know this, but if you can spare a few dollars to give to this incredible organization I would be so grateful

Here's the g*fundme

[deservedgrace]

one of the cult scholars i listen to said "most children are not being raised to die" months ago and i still think "being raised to die" sums up growing up in fundamentalist christianity so well.

my friends and i didn't know if we would grow up to be adults. we would have conversations about wanting the chance to be an adult and knew we were """selfish""" for wanting to live if it wasn't in god's plan. we were raised to believe that we would either be killed for being a christian (in the us no less) or that jesus was coming soon (rapture/end times theology). we knew it was "sinful" to want something outside of god's plan but we couldn't help ourselves.

we were members of the lord's army. we were to obey orders and lay down our life if necessary. "this life is just a test" they'd say. "our real life is our eternal life with the lord." none of this is real, it's just a test. if you pass, you get into heaven. if you fail, you're sent to eternal damnation and hellfire. this is an open book test, we've been given all the answers already. if you fail, it's your own fault.

being raised to die means that your future doesn't matter. jesus is coming soon. jesus is what matters. "set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. for you died, and your life is hidden with christ in god."

i've been out for years. i'm in my late 20's. i still don't know how to set my mind on earthly things. i still struggle to believe i have a future.

[theshoesofatiredman]

Something that's genuinely so eerie is that after spending enough time outside of Christianity, the responses that Christians give to questions or the things they say in conversation start to sound so canned it stops sounding like you're even talking with a person. It's like one moment I'm talking to my mother and the next she's telling me that God's ways are higher than our ways and in her feeble human mind she cannot begin to imagine what it's like to be God and somehow that means she doesn't have to view the amount of suffering in the world as a contradiction. And the shift is so jarring that it feels like I activated a sleeper agent, like I'm not talking to my mom anymore but the person she was programmed to be by her religion. And she sincerely believes what she's saying too. She may sound like she's parroting the party line but it's a lone she's bought into fully. And it's even crazier because I know I used to sound exactly the same. I know I used to code switch hard into the same sayings and had no awareness of how it sounded. They sound like they're in a cult

[anas-fromgaza]

Our Story from Gaza: Before and After 💔

Before the war, I lived with my parents, my brother, and my sister in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City. Our life was simple. We didn’t have much, but we had enough. Our home wasn’t big, but it was where we felt safe.

Every morning, my brother and sister went to school, and I went about my own daily routine. In the evenings, we would all sit together in the living room, talk about our day, and sometimes watch TV when the electricity was on. On weekends, we visited relatives, or just stayed home sharing food and conversations.

It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was normal. We had our small joys family meals, birthdays, laughter, even the quiet moments when nothing special was happening. That life, as simple as it was, meant everything to us.

Our home between before and after 🥺💔

The Day Everything Changed

When the bombing started, our lives turned upside down overnight. During the first week of the war, we had to run from our home in Shuja'iyya. We left in a hurry, carrying almost nothing with us. At that moment, I didn’t realize it would be the last time I’d see our house the way it was.

We moved to the Rimal neighborhood, thinking maybe it would be safer there. But it was there that we received the news that broke us completely: our home the place that held all our memories, our laughter, our life had been destroyed. Flattened to the ground.

Everything we had worked for, every piece of furniture, every photo, every little thing that made up our life, was gone in a moment. It wasn’t just walls and a roof it was the only place we felt safe, and now it was nothing but rubble💔💔💔

The Ongoing Struggle

Since that day, we’ve been on the move, never staying in one place for long. From Rimal to Al-Zawada, then to Rafah we’ve been displaced four times already. And with every move, we carry less with us, because there’s almost nothing left to carry.

Most nights we sleep on the floor, and sometimes in tents. The nights are freezing cold, and the days are unbearably hot. There’s no electricity, no clean water, no proper toilets. Even getting food has become a battle sometimes we wait for hours just to get a piece of bread to share.

We lost everything our jobs, our home, our income, and with it, a part of our dignity. What hurts the most is the constant fear. Every sound makes us wonder if it’s the next bomb, the next loss, the next goodbye.

We used to have dreams about the future. Now, all we dream about is making it to tomorrow alive 😪💔

As of today, April 15, 2025, the latest satellite images of our home show that it has been completely destroyed

Why We Are Asking for Help

We are the Anas family like many families in Gaza ordinary people who only wanted peace, a safe home, and a chance to live in dignity. But the war has taken everything from us: our home, our land, our jobs, our dreams, our stability… even our sleep.

It's hard to write this. It's hard to ask for help. But we are desperate.

How You Can Help

Please, if you are reading this, help us. Even a small donation could mean we can sleep under a real roof again, buy medicine, food, or clean water. It could help us bring back a little dignity to our lives.

We started a campaign to help us rebuild what the war destroyed. Every dollar makes a big difference.

* Our Goal: $40,000 USD

* Amount Raised So Far: [$22,236 USD]

We have collected $22,236 raised of $40,000 !🇵🇸

Update

I want to let you all know that my GoFundMe campaign has been closed by the platform. They decided to refund all donations back to the donors because of their strict policies.

But I cannot give up — my family still urgently needs support.

So, I have now moved the campaign to Chuffed, a trusted fundraising platform:

ANAS family from Gaza , Help Us Rebuild What the War Destroyed

Hello everyone,

Please, if you can, donate again through this new link or share it with others. Every bit of help means so much to me and my family. 💔🙏

You can donate through the official link:

ANAS family from Gaza , Help Us Rebuild What the War Destroyed

Hello everyone,

Even $20 will make a big difference and save us!

If you cannot donate, please share this story. You might reach someone who can.

This isn’t just a story. This is our life. And we're still living through it.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

IMPORTANT: This campaign is real and verified. You can see all updates and amounts raised directly on the link.

You can check here so you can donate with confidence👉verified ✅

If you came from the tags , I want to reassure you, don’t worry, because @gaza-evacuation-funds helps me to make the post reach the largest number of people

[bpdohwhatajoy]

how it feels being an atheist ex Christian with religious trauma

[winged-thinged]

I really hate how criticisms of religion by ex-members are dismissed as, oh, you had a bad experience with religion. Therefore you're traumatized/embittered to it, so your criticisms don't "count." But criticism from outside the religion doesn't "count," either, because oh, you just don't understand, you haven't lived it, you don't have the right perspective. But criticism from active members doesn't "count" either, because they're just heretics who aren't believing or practicing it right.

It's just a way to avoid taking accountability for the harm they're causing. But it bothers me, especially, ESPECIALLY when the concerns of ex-members are dismissed. Because these are the people you failed! These are the people who fell through the cracks! These are the people who wanted to belong, who know the community inside and out, who encountered the abuse or hypocrisy or whatever flaws there are in your community first hand. If you really cared about accountability and making your community safe for everyone, they should be the first people you'd be lining up to talk to!

[spencer-reid-superslut]

meme by me

[shadow-von-vamp]

it’s so funny when christians say ex christians never truly believed and were always faking like i was six years old being told if i didn’t believe i’d burn in hell for eternity surely i was trying my best

[hereticcoyote]

I think it should be clear to everyone at this point (especially those of us in the US) that the point of all these awful executive orders is not to actually get legal permission to enact them. theyre just giving orders to his followers. the goal is to tell his base what theyre supposed to believe. its to tell people that it is now normal, even encouraged, to be bigoted and cruel. and these people who call themselves christians treat every word out of this dumb fascist's mouth more like scripture than they ever did the bible. genuinely what the fuck is going on

[winged-thinged]

god forbid you be traumatized by your religion and have the gall to talk about it. because—okay, it’s not like people treat other kinds of trauma much better, but at least if you’re talking about your trauma from, like, poverty or abuse or something, you’re a little less likely to butt up against the sorts of topics that people stake their whole identities on.

whereas if you have the fucking gall to talk about your religious trauma, even if you’re very polite and restrained about it, even if you’re a good victim and just try to talk very straightforwardly about what happened to you without going out of your way to try to assign blame or anything—people will crawl out of the woodwork like fucking weevils champing at the bit to tell you how wrong you are. normal people, people who (nominally) believe in believing victims, people who would not act this way under other circumstances. no, it’s not like that. no, you must have misunderstood. you’re stupid, bitter, a liar, naive—how dare you try to insult to their truth, their faith, their way of life, their god.

you can say simply and honestly, the church hurt me. this is how. and you will simply get swarms of people going UM ACTUALLY THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN AND IF IT DID IT WAS YOUR FAULT. YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND THE THEOLOGY. YOU’RE DISTORTING AN ENTIRE RELIGION BASED ON ONE BAD EXPERIENCE. YOU’RE A BIGOT, ACTUALLY. like if posting about your experience with child abuse got you a wave of people going UM MY PARENTS DIDN’T DO THAT SO YOU MUST BE LYING. ALSO IT’S MISOGYNY TO ACCUSE YOUR MOM OF ABUSE. no compassion. no validation for the victim’s experiences. no examination of what enabled the abuse, or what currents of it carry on into your community. no space to breathe.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Just in case any of you are confused, TikTok being banned and coming back not even 24 hours later with a giant "we thank President Trump" message is NOT a win. It's a huge red flag and a sign that this was a thousand percent planned.

[mothercain]

i find it funny that conservatives try to paint me calling for the death and destruction of multi-billionaire CEOs as some radical "woke liberal" standpoint. as if that even has anything to do with politics, especially in this era of surface level circus politics. the same way they try to politicize the hurricanes or the wildfires destroying parts of america, as if climate change is somehow a red vs. blue issue. it's no secret i'm from a deeply conservative family in the sticks of florida and i still grew up hearing "i fought the law and the law won". the healthcare system has fucked each and every member of my family in a different way at one point or another, as is the case with pretty much every family in this scorched earth nation. remember when country music, the genre currently associated the heaviest with the most conservative faction of america, used to be staunchly anti-government and about sticking it to the man? remember when the coal miners, grandfathers to the "trump-er hillbillies" of appalachia that everyone loves to write off as ignorant, fought tooth and nail for unionization because the companies that were built off their labor didn't give a shit if they lived or died? since when has "upholding traditional values" gone hand in hand with... defending lawmakers and oil tycoons. my family and i complain about the same issues at the dinner table. the men in charge better hope they can keep their digital smokescreens running as long as they can because the moment the rednecks and the hippies lay down their swords long enough to realize they have the same enemy, all hell is gonna break loose.

[hollowboobtheory]

for the last fucking time, tiktok getting banned is BAD. this is a huge free speech concern. it's rooted in sinophobia. and it will set a really bad precedent that allows the government to ban any platform that doesn't let them control the media narrative

[hollowboobtheory]

the leftism bare minimum of fucking democracy leaving peoples bodies when a platform they don't personally like is on the chopping block

[luulapants]

Adding into the discussion of the incarcerated young people fighting fires in California:

I can think of no place worse than prison for emotionally stunting or regressing a person or for dismantling their ability to make good decisions.

You take an adult or child who maybe has exhibited some antisocial behaviors, right? So you remove them from whatever community and support network they have, put enormous financial and logistical barriers between them and any communication with that community. Incarcerate them hours from home in a place not accessible by train or plane with narrow visiting hours that conflict with people's work schedules, and maybe you're fighting to prevent in person visits at all, maybe you got a kickback from a company selling expensive video call visits so people can't even hug their kids when they drive 6 hours on a Wednesday to see them. Get a kickback from a phone service provider that's going to charge extortionate prices for every minute a person spends talking to their loved ones, and if the state passes a law saying you can't do that anymore, pivot and go after the mail. Subvert USPS. Get a kickback from a company that'll give prisoners shitty scans of letters or refuse to deliver it because it was flagged for drug contamination by a machine with a 70% false positive rate, force them instead to send texts at extortionate rates through their proprietary app.

Put them in an environment with a bunch of other people with social issues and force them to compete for resources. Give them no mental healthcare. If they are victimized by other prisoners, punish the victims with solitary confinement. Transfer people around so they can't form meaningful long-term friendships. Tell them that once they get out, it will be illegal for them to talk to any of the people they meet here.

Hire guards who have no qualifications other than a willingness to be a modern day slave overseer or the ignorance to not realize that's what it is, give them complete control over every aspect of other people's lives and tell them those people want to kill them and that any object can be covered in drugs so dangerous that touching them can kill. Allow the guards to traffic drugs into the prison with impunity. Have the guards discourage racial mixing because racial conflict in the prison means the prisoners won't join up against the staff.

You do all of this and you ask if a 20-year-old, who's been in the system since 14, is emotionally mature or psychologically healthy enough to choose to risk their life in exchange for slightly better living arrangements.

You take someone who has probably made some bad decisions, right? And you put them in a place where every detail of every day is decided for them: what they eat, when they eat, when they sleep, where they sleep, what clothes they wear, who they talk to, where they work. Or maybe you give them big decisions that have no right answer. Maybe at the start of the day, you open the cells and they have 10 minutes to decide if they want to be stuck in their cell all day - no shower, no recreation, no library - or go outside and be stuck in genpop all day - no napping, no alone time, no escape if someone is hassling you. You let them decide if they're going to eat breakfast at 3am (because there's too many meal shifts) or sleep in and spend their precious commissary funds on toaster strudel (they have no toaster) or sleep in and not eat even though you're barely giving them 1000 calories a day. You let them start to make decisions about how to spend their day, then you put them on lockdown, take all those decisions away.

You do all this and then you ask if anyone who's spent time in this environment has the decision-making skills to choose to risk their life in exchange for slightly better living arrangements.

All of the incarcerated firefighters in California are 18 or older, and all of them volunteered, but there is no world in which they were adequately prepared to make that decision.

[threeheadedhellbound]

every now and again, i try to put my grievances with christianity into a well-articulated speech but it ends up snowballing and becoming a beast of an argument. does anyone else feel this way?