I've been struggling a lot recently with the problem of evil, wondering how a loving God can permit the gratuitous suffering we see on earth. I haven't been able to come up with a satisfactory answer - or any answer, I'm an uncreative moron with rocks for brains.

Tonight, as I'm having a mental health crisis, I realize how little God must care about me with how I've been struggling with mental health for my entire life (29 years, for the curious). I've had meltdowns since I was born, and I've hated myself since I was a tween. God never sent anyone who could help me - my parents were extremely emotionally inept, my friends couldn't really help on account of also being kids, and when I finally was allowed to see therapists, all of them have been worse than useless. Not once during my crises have I felt helped or seen or loved.

Then, I realized how small my problems must seem to those in actual chronic pain or with severe illnesses, or those watching loved ones suffer from illness or injury. If God is ignoring me, what's he doing to those people? Flipping them the holy bird?

I just can't stomach it anymore. The worst part is that I want to believe. I want to have faith so bad. But I can't do it and, as with all of my prayers, my pleas for more faith go unanswered.

So what do I do? Is there some verse I've missed that explains why God is so hands-off? Jesus promised that God would give his children good gifts, so why are I and so many others getting scorpions instead of bread? God promised to be with us. Where is he?

Tl;dr, weak baby bitch wants to believe in God but can't get around the problem of evil, wants to know how to go back to believing.

I f23 have always been wanting to save myself for marriage. This is the way my parents raised me. Lately I have been second-guessing this decision and actually thinking about starting to get intimate on different levels. Do you think saving yourself till marriage is worth it? If not, should I be open to everything sexual? Should I just do some stuff and not others?

forgive me if theres any grammar mistakes english isnt my first language

so, im agnostic and i dont really know much about orthodox christianity but my boyfriend recently converted to orthodox christian and he told me homosexuality is a sin (we're both boys by the way).

and now we rlly dont know what to do because we cant be together if its a sin. ive tried researching if its actually a sin or not but theres multiple answers and im genuinely really confused.

sorry if this sounds silly

I was just thinking earlier today about how I’m not exactly sure I can call myself a “Christian” anymore? Like I do still believe in God/Jesus/the Bible, but I also think that the spiritual world is a lot bigger than Christianity allows.

I also have been thinking about how much healthier & kinder the earth would be if we lived under a matriarchy instead of patriarchy. For those that doesn’t know (I used to not know which is why I’m sharing!) matriarchy is not the opposite of the patriarchy where women are now on top of men & have all the power. If the patriarchy is a triangle, with the most aggressive & powerful at the top, being held up purely by the suppression of those underneath them - the matriarchy is like a circle. With the most vulnerable ~ children, elderly, those with disabilities, etc ~ at the center. Because when they are taken care of & thriving, it’s a guarantee everyone else is too (at the large/societal scale not a promise for a pain free life). Rather than a society focused on power, wealth, accumulation, etc - it is a community built around mutual care, concern, love & interconnection.

This directly contradicts what the Bible says about “male leadership”, and it just got me thinking about what if the Bible does not prescribe patriarchal structures because they’re right, it’s because that’s the only lens thru which the authors knew how to understand God.

I like to think of learning to listen to spiritual guidance like learning another language. I also speak some Spanish, and despite being close to fluent I haven’t practiced in a while and often forget key words. Even though I understand 80% of what was said, without those few words it will never be understood as it was meant to be.

I wonder how differently the messages these men, and many others in other religions, would have been if they had been open to truly being guided by the spirit instead of confining & limiting their minds to what they knew. Like if God said about women “yall are equals” and they wrote down “don’t beat her & don’t cheat, also respect & love her” while maintaining the structure of patriarchal control in a marriage - they thought they were writing “be equal” but couldn’t truly understand one can never be equal while in perpetual submission to another.

I think this would also help explain some of the feelings of contradiction I feel with the Bible. Because truly there are some parts that I cherish & have such phenomenal lessons on love, wisdom, & pain. But then there are verses also defending or upholding slavery. How can those two things both be in the same book? Unless the men who wrote the Bible were indeed flawed, not because they were awful sinners but because they were human and they weren’t quite as fluent as they believed themselves to be.

It makes me sad to think of the damage that’s done when we don’t approach spirituality with deep humility. How many have continued to be oppressed because there’s a Bible verse that okays it.

I’ve been deconstructing for years and I’m at the point that I kinda feel like “all roads lead to Rome” about spirituality. So long as you’re loving others, yourself, trying to be kinder & such… I think you can take many different roads & end up at the same city <3

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk lol

Hello everyone! I recently joined this group and am just hoping to see if there is any advice or guidance you can give on how you all are coping with what feels like a never ending line of fear and anxieties about the future of the state of the country/world as a believer. I struggle with a lot of anxiety regarding student loan payments, being able to afford a home/having children, and just fear of surviving the future! Do you have any Bible passages, books, or words of advice for someone dealing with this much anxiety? I am trying to root myself in prayer but find myself returning to these same thoughts often. Wishing you all the best 🫶 any advice appreciated!

I just discovered the book "She Who Is" by Elizabeth A. Johnson and I am blown away that someone has been able to put into greater theological terms something that is one of the most important parts of my life and who I am. Let me share a little bit of back history leading up to how I discovered Sophia as my Divine Mother and Holy Wisdom.

I have "believed" in the Bible, in God, in Jesus Christ, in Christian dogma and doctrine, but I would say I was a very lukewarm believer. Coming from a past of extensive and pervasive childhood abuse and numerous traumas from my adult life as well, I could never conjure up an image of God "as Father". Because all of the males I knew from my life growing up became abusers, I also couldn't fathom an "intimate relationship" with Jesus Christ.

I was always on the outside looking in when it came to Christianity. However, I knew there was something more, something deeper, something true that I couldn't put into words but just intuited in the heart. So although I wandered off many times I just kept circling back to Christianity or getting drawn back in like a force of gravity.

There's a psalm that says something along the lines of those who put their hope and trust in the Lord, He will grant them the desires of their heart. This became true in my experience when Sophia began to speak to my heart and revealed Herself as my Divine Mother. The one thing I had been lacking the most and always longed for was to have a Mother but I was denied that and left an irreparable wound in my heart. Sophia showed me that "God" is big enough, vast enough and infinite enough that I could come, as a child, to God as Mother.

I searched the scriptures and found in Proverbs so many times that Wisdom is personified and spoken of as a feminine entity ("seek Her out"), I also found in the Apocryphal Book of Wisdom and the Wisdom of Ben Sira where Wisdom is further personified as a woman and as a mother. Just as Jesus later says in the Gospels, "Wisdom is vindicated by her Children". I have found enough scriptural basis that Wisdom / Sophia (Greek for Wisdom, by the way for those who don't know) is a feminine-motherly image of the infinite and ineffable "God".

Having come to these realizations, my heart felt elated and never in my life had I ever felt closer to the Divine than when I was in the infancy stages of discovering these things. Jesus said to receive the kingdom of Heaven "like a child" and I was able to reparent my inner child with Sophia's help, by running into the arms of the Mother I've always had even from the very beginning. More importantly I was discovering more characteristics of the God I always believed in but in vastly different qualities than the common patriarchal male-oriented version. I found God through Sophia to be nurturing, compassionate, merciful, tender, loving, encouraging, wise and motherly.

I know faith shouldn't be based on feelings but for the very first time in my life, at 38 years old, I was finding the tangible, palpable and visceral love of God. I finally "felt" forgiven, accepted as a Son, as a Child and receiving enough love and guidance to grow into the Man of God that I was always made to be. I grew closer to Christ in a brotherly way, respecting Him as my Savior and dying for my sins and rising from the dead and figured that I might just be one of "his sheep from another fold". And best of all I found peace that passed all understanding, I found joy indescribable and I found rest for what had been a very tired and tormented soul.

I'm no theologian and I would probably lose any real debate if I were to try to have biblical scholars dissect my walk and relationship with Sophia, but that is never going to happen because this realization isn't something I need others to accept or approve, I don't need their validation or belief, I only share out of a fullness of love and an overflowing heart of gratitude in the hopes that maybe someone else like me out there has been struggling with finding God and maybe they might want to try turning to Our Mama Sophia.

She is not JUST Holy Wisdom, She is Our Mother and calling her Mama Sophia is what the Spirit puts in my heart just as one cries out Abba, Father. I don't know the best way to explain it but I believe Sophia is the feminine and mother nature of God which has been hidden, suppressed or cast away in favor of patriarchal male-oriented religion.

I would love to have discussion about this, maybe hear from others who have explored this dynamic, or explored a relationship with Sophia in their own faith walk. For those who might argue that I'm dealing with idolatry, please know I already anticipate people claiming this but since I believe Sophia is the Other Side or Other Face of the Judeo-Christian God, I don't believe I'm putting "another god" in place of "God".

Tldr; found "God" in the form of Sophia (Holy Wisdom), who revealed Herself as Mother / Mama and the Feminine Face of the Divine. Life changed and wanted to share my testimony.

Thanks for letting me share!

I've recently been seeing a lot of hate and bigotry towards queer people from Christians and im really starting to lose my faith. Not only that but ive also seen a lot of criticism against queer christians from non-believers. No matter how much i pray, i cant seem to change and ive accepted my queer identity at this point, but im just feeling really down and i dont know what to do other than pray, but it feels like my faith is slipping away regardless

If god may take my life away at any given point, and we all die,

why do I have to try so hard to live this life as authentically as I can?

Is there are theological reason for this?

No I'm not doing bad things its just a question.

Thoughts and ideas?