u/AdvantageIcy2608

Reading the Bible in it's entirety gave me such an eye opening moment. Asking and finding conversations going around in circles and circles is even more so shocking. It's so hard to accept that God doesn't love as much as I was taught, I feel so sick. Context doesn't make anything better, and I think it's becoming a bit of a phrase at this point. Periods, menopause, agonizing childbirth, male preeminence, and sexual dimorphism....

It's so painful to walk away from what used to be my source of comfort, but I want somewhere to go. Now all it does is cause me pain. So much pain. If God or anything is out there, why doesn't he want to talk to me if he sees how much I've been hurt? How do you get over God not loving you? I can't deny what I read. God doesn't love women, at least not as much as men.

Might be a throwaway account. Never been on Reddit before, so please bear with me.

I’ve cried about this so much already because it's all I feel like I can do, and it’s starting to feel pointless trying to pursue it because it’s not like God is going to come and answer me.

The version of God I’ve been encountering in the Old Testament feels nothing like what I was taught growing up. It's very distant, harsh, and very scary. Even Jesus in the New Testament doesn't say anything against those laws. Though he seems to be a more lenient person than YHWH, I can't help but remember that both God and Jesus are supposed to be the exact same thing.

I’ve been reading through the laws, especially the ones involving women, and they're so deeply scary The way authority, punishment, and agency are structured doesn’t match the idea of a God who cares equally and impartially for everyone even with the contexts I've been provided. Promiscuous women get stoned to death, honor killings are commanded, and raped engaged or married women that didn't call out are punished with the death penalty while there are no symmetrical laws for their male counterparts. Not to mention, men are the only ones who can initiate divorce while women are left to their mercy. There's also some terrible thing about masters/mistresses being allowed to beat their slaves as long as they don't kill them within a couple of days.

I keep trying to reconcile it, but the more I read, the worse it feels. I genuinely cannot imagine what life would have been like for women in that world, and it makes it really hard for me to see this as something good or just.

I don’t really know what I’m looking for by posting this. Maybe just to know if anyone else has felt this shift, where the image of God you grew up with starts to break apart when you actually read the text closely. It's even harder when the people in the faith I'm in don't seem to understand why this is all so difficult when I ask about them and say I just don't trust God or that Satan is manipulating me.