I had a conversation with a friend that has not left me alone. It followed me into the night. I woke up thinking about it, unsettled, disturbed, unable to shake the weight of it.
What shook me most was the idea that if God asks you to kill someone, then killing becomes right simply because God asked. That logic terrifies me. A commandment that says “do not kill” somehow sits comfortably next to stories where killing is authorised—children, parents, animals wiped out, violence justified, and women reduced to spoils. I cannot reconcile that. I cannot make it make sense. And the fact that people can defend it without flinching frightens me even more.
I struggle with the picture of a God who sacrifices his own son and calls it love. Who exactly benefits from that sacrifice? We’re told it’s for humanity, but humanity is still bleeding, still suffering, still dying in the same ways. What does seem clear is that this God demands constant praise, affection, loyalty, and devotion—and if you fail, the punishment is eternal. That does not feel like love. It feels like control dressed up as salvation.
What makes this harder is how belief shifts depending on circumstance. I know someone whose life became easier after she married someone who could provide stability. Before that, faith was strong, prayers were loud, dedication was deep—but life remained heavy. After that change, things softened. Doors opened. Peace followed. Now it’s easy to say, “With God, I will not fail.”
But I keep asking myself—what actually changed?
Was it God? Or was it money, support, access, safety, and relief from constant stress? Because I know many women who have dedicated their lives to God—given their businesses, their children, their time, their energy—and still failed. Still struggled. Still lost everything. Faith didn’t save them. Belief didn’t shield them.
Religion rarely allows space for that truth.
What troubles me most is how religion trains people to stop thinking. To stop asking questions. To stop examining cause and effect. Everything becomes spiritualised to the point where reality disappears. If you succeed, it’s God. If you fail, it’s the devil. If a child recovers in hospital, thank God. If a child dies because medical care was delayed in the name of faith, it was “God’s will.” Doctors do the work, science does the work, human hands do the work—but praise is redirected elsewhere. And when tragedy strikes, no one is accountable.
This way of thinking removes responsibility. It removes self-reflection. It removes growth. When was it ever your decision? Your oversight? Your mistake? Rarely, if ever. Religion hands people a script where they are never fully responsible for harm, yet always entitled to credit for success.
And that creates something dangerous—pride without accountability, obedience without thought, faith without humanity.
This conversation grabbed me somewhere deep. I am not writing from a place of calm or resolution. I am writing because something in me is unsettled. Because these contradictions are no longer abstract to me—they are personal. And I cannot pretend they don’t matter.
I am not at peace about it. And maybe that discomfort is the most honest place to start.