Lisa Beth Wright, It is sad that you have had to cope with what you have.
It is appalling that others choose to abuse you - or anyone, simply because they don't like or disagree with what they've read or, more likely, have no empathy whatsoever.
It is disgustingly hypocritical to abuse another whilst claiming 'faith' in a supposedly omnipotent and 'loving' entity who also supposedly teaches 'love' and 'kindness' and 'turning the other cheek' and etc.
Religions are codes - sets of rules which dictate how people are expected to live and what punishments they can expect to receive if they break those rules.
They are a form of control which has been used countless times across thousands of years to 'justify' or 'excuse' discrimination, absurd and destructive attitudes to those not subscribing to the code, war - particular against those subscribing to another religion, torture to enforce their edicts, and much more perfidy, not least paedophilia.
I have no doubt that 'faith' has helped some people on some occasions because even belief in the imagined can influence one's thoughts and feelings. However, that is not evidence of an omnipotent entity having any basis in reality and, indeed, humanity has worshipped an estimated 8000 supposed gods in the last 200,000 years.
What may have been a positive intent of religion when it first arose, probably as early humans attempted to understand their world, was lost as some saw an opportunity to use common belief as a means of control. Once religion became hierarchical with self-declared appointees of a 'god' or 'God' on Earth, its value for understanding life and our world and universe was lost.
The final blow was the recognition by kings, queens and other dictators and autocrats of how religion could be marshalled to support their own ends and legitimacy - not least by 'divine' right to rule. The rest is history.
War after war. Natural disasters of what appears to be increasing magnitude. Amazing advances in science and technology but little or none, that I can see, in human empathy, caring, compassion & acceptance of difference as positive. Instead, the 'God is on our side' has become relatively ubiquitous across cultures, societies & nations and spawned endless cults & religions, almost all of which have been initiated by known fraudsters or confidence tricksters, often those who have been previously convicted of crimes and imprisoned.
The 'God' notion is nothing more than a habit. Its endorsement and protection by the State, a convenient mechanism to suggest its legitimacy, no matter how obscenely restrictive and cruel it may be.
It is probably too late to remove this permanent pandemic from our world but as long as it continues, so will many people act in the way of your abuser, of theocracies, of the Taliban, of Putin, of Cardinal Pell and of so many others who cause such devastating mental harm to individuals, such mistrust and ill-will as exist between Pakistan and India, such obscene control and penalties as are common in Saudi Arabia, such dispossession and poverty as is the lot of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli warmongers and such irrational and unnecessary malevolence as Putin's destruction of Ukrainian homes, utilities and infrastructure and the killing and injury of not only Ukrainians but Putin's own people.
All of those horrors are committed by individuals or nations that have 'God on their side'.
I'm glad that he, she or it is not on mine.
