this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
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Mental Health
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Christianity.
I was raised in the Methodist and Baptist churches and had a series of experiences in my teenage years that made me question it, then once I went to college, getting to experience the wider world convinced me that what I'd been taught was bullshit. I actually named my YouTube channel 'Sacrilegious Heathen' because I once asked a televangelist about how god could allow certain things to happen to kids and he told me "That's sacrilege. You're talking like a heathen."
That said, they're very, very good at programming young people and I had an ingrained fear of spiritual warfare that took me two years to get over. I even de-baptized myself because ritualizing my deconversion helped me put that period of my life behind me.
I still begrudge my parents for it, TBH. There was a wealth of experience I missed out on as a child and a young man because I was afraid of angering god, and I'll never get to the opportunity to have that again.
Pisses me off.
How do you "de-baptize" thyself? Did you leap out of a pool? Did you procure unholy water?
It was a ritual I made up myself. Basically, baptism is done by water, so I de-baptized myself by fire.
I pricked my finger and made an X on my Bible with it, told God he could intervene if he wanted, and when (of course) nothing happened, I burned it.
I figured it was just like going to a new second church and telling them that you wanted to be baptized and then in front of everyone when you're up there in the baptismal pool with the preacher when they ask you if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and reject Satan and yadda yadda yadda, just be like "You know what, now that you mention it, no," and then getting out of the baptismal pool and walking out in the middle of a service.
Nah, there's no need for spectacle.
But that would be the literal exact opposite of a baptism.
I always enjoy when people quibble with me for no good reason. Have a nice day.