YOU CANNOT LIBERATE WOMEN THROUGH GOD

I can honestly say I have never believed in religion. Not once.

Before writing this, I forced myself to sit and really think about it. I asked myself if there was ever a moment, any moment, where I genuinely believed what was written in the Bible. I was raised in a Catholic school, surrounded by scripture, ritual, and fear dressed up as morality. Still, there is no point in my life where religion made sense to me

.

Maybe that is because my reality contradicted it from the start.

I was taught that women are meant to be submissive and men are meant to be providers. Meanwhile, my father was an alcoholic, and my mother held our entire household together. She worked herself to the bone as a domestic worker, came home exhausted, and still had to deal with a man demanding money for beer, unconcerned with what his children would eat that night.

Religion tells women to submit to men like that and calls it divine order.

From childhood, I saw girls as better than boys. Not in theory. In lived reality. Girls in my classes were smarter, more disciplined, and outperformed boys in almost every subject. I watched boys transform the moment they gathered in groups. They moved in packs. They became cruel. By puberty, many no longer saw me as a friend, only as something to be violated.

This is not abstract ideology. This is what I lived.

I have watched men defend other men who abuse and rape women. I have seen my brothers do it. My male cousins. Men do not defend abuse by accident. They defend it like they are defending themselves. Like they know the line between “monster” and “man” is uncomfortably thin.

And then there is the Bible.

Deuteronomy 22:28–29 says that if a man rapes a virgin, he must pay her father and marry her. He is never allowed to divorce her.

That scripture alone should be enough for any reasonable woman to walk away from Christianity immediately. What kind of God treats rape as a property violation against a father? What kind of God forces a girl to marry her rapist? And I say girl intentionally, because when this “holy book” was written, girls were married as children.

No Abrahamic religion treats women as people. That is why I never fell for them.

In my twenties, after years of being pressured by friends, colleagues, strangers, and family members who insisted that it is “not okay” to believe in nothing, I drifted toward Buddhism. It seemed peaceful. Spiritual. Equal. From the outside, it looked gentle and enlightened.

I did not ask the obvious question soon enough. Why are there no women monks?

Buddhism is one of the most anti-woman religions in the world. Teachings attributed to Buddha describe women as polluted, inferior, and spiritually obstructed by menstruation, sex, childbirth, and death. In many traditions, women cannot achieve enlightenment unless they are reborn as men.

One attributed teaching states plainly that a woman cannot be fully enlightened, but a man can.

When I learned this, I almost lost my mind.

All of them? All of them.

Throw every religion away.

And then there is Islam, which repeatedly reinforces women’s inferiority. A religion that tells women they can be beaten by their husbands, that they must hide their bodies to avoid provoking men, that their existence is a temptation that needs controlling.

Religion has an iron grip on women, and it is not accidental.

Religion exists so men can invent rules for women and justify them with an authority higher than “because I said so.” It becomes “because God said so.” Watching women try to reclaim religions that were explicitly designed to control them is both tragic and infuriating.

I cannot take you seriously if you call yourself a feminist and a Christian. Feminism is the antithesis of Christianity. The foundations of Christianity are built on centuries of anti-woman beliefs. You cannot reform a system that requires your submission to function.

Christian feminism does not challenge patriarchy. It camouflages it. You are not just comforting yourself. You are convincing other women, often younger women, that a dangerous ideology is safe. How much reform do you really think those men will allow?

Women are an afterthought in Christianity. Literally. Created because man was bored. And the religion never lets you forget it.

If a religion collapses the moment women stop covering their heads or bodies to avoid male violence, that tells you everything you need to know. That religion was made by men, for men.

People defend religion because it provides three things.

Community. People like having somewhere to go every Sunday. They like being pep-talked into feeling hopeful. They like belonging to a group with events, travel, and shared identity.

Structure. People like rules, boundaries, and expectations. Standards create a sense of exclusivity and accomplishment. Religion gives people a framework to build their lives around.

Caring. Every religion claims to care about the poor, the sick, and the marginalized. Whether they actually do is irrelevant. Humans are social creatures. Many will join something objectively harmful if it promises moral purpose.

Atheism strips these things away and replaces them with nothing. I say this as an atheist. People who return to religion often are not seeking truth. They are seeking community, structure, and meaning. Religion packages those needs neatly and conveniently on every corner.

But none of that justifies what religion does to women.

What good comes from telling women that God forgives them instead of telling them they have not sinned at all? Why are we teaching women to seek absolution instead of teaching them to question authority?

People are dying. Fuck God. Stay focused.

I am tired of this watered-down, choice-feminist theology. It is weak. It is lazy. It is boring. And I am done pretending it is harmless.

Religion keeps abused women trapped in marriages. It tells them suffering is holy. It tells them obedience is virtue. That is not spiritual. That is dangerous.

And women deserve better than a system that survives by breaking them.