Why I Am No Longer a Christian
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In this series the author (YouTuber Evid3nc3) explains his life as a born-again Christian, his deconversion, and his life as an atheist.
In the deconversion section, he shows how evidence, reason, and experiences related to prayer, morality, deconverted Christians, the Bible, and his relationship with God Himself all lead to his eventual inability to believe anymore.
The series Why I am no longer a Christian is not finished. It is a work in progress. Based on the author's current notes for the series, he should be releasing a new video in the series once a month until April 2012. Every new video will be automatically added in the playlist above.
Thank you so much for this set of videos. I admire your honesty and seriousness in all the subjects. My experience has some similarities with yours, I love the way you express them. Thank you again.
Hi I grew up in very similar circumstances as the man that's doing this documentary, I came from Pentecost , Holy Ghost speaking ,fire baptize Bible believing only church. My mother was abusive and strict and so was the church family, I was bully on a daily basis by my peers whip everyday whether I did wrong or not work like a dog and then on top of that I seen evil spirits every night that tormented me. So my opinion of God was that He was some dictator siting on his throne with the long yard stick ruler smacking your every time you did any wrong and I use to say to myself man It says in the Bible God is love well where in the world is it!!! So as a grown woman I started studying the Bible for myself and one thing I came across was James 2:19 It says You believe that there is one God you do well, even the demons believe and tremble! now as a child I had never read that scripture like I said earlier I seen evil spirits when I was growing up from the ages of six until I was thirteen and my mom use to tell me when you are scare say the name of Jesus and I did and they shook and then I learn as I got older to say the Blood of Jesus and they flee. I notice also that you said in one part of this documentary that Abraham had told Sarah lie and say she was his sister so Pharaoh would not kill him and that God had put a great plague on Pharaoh and all his house hold, and you thought that God was being unfair and unjust but that not true if you had read the Bible a little further you would have seen that Sarah is Abraham sister she is his half sister Gen 20 they had the same Father read the story for yourself the first part of the story you were talking about is in Gen 12. Now with all due respect I truly believe in science, philosophy,and ethics but nothing in this world can compare to the supernatural almighty God which created all of this and if you read the Bible read the whole thing and since you have the Holy ghost ask Him for all understanding because in your heart your heart you know the real truth!!! Don,t give God and the Bible a bad rap!!!! if you don't want to be a christian because you don,t want to be say it cut and dry be true to yourself don't Blame GOD.
Probably, there also should be a documentary called: Why I do believe in God to encourage true rationality and criticism.
Just some statistics to think about if you are going take the Bible as fundamenal, literal truth rather than spiritual truth. The world is currently about 33% Christian. Of all Christian faiths about 5% are fundamentalist Christian. This equates to 1.65% of the population. A fundamentalsit quoted below, 80% of fundamentalists have actually been born again. This means that .0033% of the population has met the rigid definition of being born again. So if you are lucky enough to be born into this world you have a 299 out 300 chance of being tortured in Hell for eternity. This seems to defy logic of what a loving creator would create and very diffucult for me to have faith in this scenario.
I dont like eternal torture as much as much as the next guy. I wish I could have blind FAITH, but I was created to have THOUGHT.
Interesting series to say the least. Quantum mechanics was brushed over which is unfortunate. Quantum Mechanics reveals particles being in multiple places at once and operating as waves until observed (and then collapsing into one reality). If I lose my wallet and no one knows where it is, and I look in one area thinking it is there but it is not, and then later find it where I initially left it, what is holding the "true" reality together? There must be an ultimate observer holding the principles we hold so dear (garnered from our perceptions) together.
An interesting quote -
"before we knew the math or the complexities of gravity we held without a doubt that if we drop it, it will fall - our hearts gave us the answers to it all." I guess we could say our observations gave us the answers but there is so much we are unable to observe - there are creatures that can see so many more colors than we can etc. If our senses and observations are so limited then we really can't draw any conclusions as there are likely countless other factors we are unable to observe. But our hearts sparked with the idea of "gravity" before it was rationally complicated into the understanding that we have of gravity today (a spark in the heart referring to a spark in our right brain). Our minds are not able to fully understand the concept of God because something as seemingly simple and fundamental to our world as gravity requires extraneous justifications to arrive at as a "truth." How could a spark in our hearts about the existence of God ever be proven? It's a choice we all must make based on the evidence at hand (limited by our extremely limited senses). In my eyes a just God would create a world where the following principal is true "whether you believe in you soul or you don't you are correct." - Just some food for thought.
I can appreciate everything the author here is saying, we live in a non-believing world. But what many atheists or non-believers miss is that just because you arrive at a conclusion that God is not real doesn't necessarily make Him not real. Truth is truth whether you choose to believe it or not. If I don't choose to believe in Santa Claus it doesn't make a difference because Santa Claus is not real, my belief has no bearing on reality. Your choice of choosing to not believe, your rationale given as to why God is not real, does not make Him unreal, truth lives whether I choose to believe it or not. The day you die you still must stand before Him and give an account for your soul. Where will your great reasons for why He does not exist then place you? All that you have said in your video, will it then make a difference when in hell you lift your eyes? Will you take such a chance with your eternal soul? If what the atheist says is true and there is no God, then let us do as the apostle Paul said let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. But if what the Christian says is true and there is a heaven and hell, and there is a judgement for sinners and God does exist. Then we all should take the time and prepare ourselves by living for Him with all our soul, mind and strength. Will you take such a chance with your eternal soul? I have said to many the atheist really is playing a game of Russian roulette with his soul.
I love this documentary. I did watch it in one sitting but I chuckled to myself towards the end when you commented about missing things and possibly watching it again - I had been constantly backing up when I realized you had said something I missed! Some of the things I found so interesting my brain continued on processing and contemplating without me even being aware of it until I realized you were talking about something different.
I loved the visual drawings and pictures to help me relate and learn.
And learn I did!
Thank you.
Just a small point -- healing is not the province of surgery and medicine. Although some injuries heal better if surgery (stitches, bone setting, etc.) is performed, that's different than saying that surgery or medicine is to healing as tectonic plates are to earthquakes. Healing is something that the body does on its own. Medical professionals do not "heal". There are no "healers". The ability of the body to heal itself is not "divine" and it requires no belief; it just is, like any other aspect of nature.
Belief in science does not mean you cannot believe in God. Belief in God does not mean you can't believe in science. Not everyone who claims to be a Christian is. And many who claim to be an atheist are not. In America you can believe what you want and be what you want so long as you do not advocate the harm or harm others.
Peace, SemperFi
Well good for you. You have made your choice. It is interesting to view the debates between people like Lane Craig and the late Hitchens. I think you set up your own evidential standards and then pooh pooh historical evidence for Jesus others submit. You are a working model for freedom of choice. No one has ever claimed that proof equals faith anyway. Thanks for the effort.
Although I strongly believe in God, and can honestly say after listening to your documentary, that I am an atheist. I guess I never really understood the meaning of atheism until now. I do not feel comfortable in any church. I,too started out a born again Christian in my early 20's.
I was raised in the Catholic Church and saw all the errors of blind belief at a very young age. It was like doing the same song and dance unquestioningly every week and thinking that was all I needed to do! In the first place, I didn't get it, and then I learned about all the horrors of the Catholic Church that are never taught or even talked about. Talk about an overgrown cult! Anyway, I am now church less, but there is a life force that is strong inside of me and all around me that I have no name for except God because it represents goodness and light in an otherwise dark world. I know now it's been with me all my life. I know anyone who uses God as an excuse to kill, does not acknowledge this goodness which is there for all of us, and that is a very unhappy way to live. Anyway I live a good life because I choose to! Thanks
bravo i think this was a very well put together explanation, someone would have to be extremely ignorant not to understand at least a little, it explains the transition very well, and i think it's close to what i went though as a christian myself :'(
Why I am no longer an Atheist.
In a previous life I used to post here under the screen name of Atheist13 but he died and I was born again in my current reincarnation. My conversion was brought about by the Holy Ghost himself, the sorely missed Chris Hitchens (PBUH). It was his writings and interviews as he underwent chemo etc. for the cancer that eventually killed him that made me see a huge difference in the terms and if it was good enough for Hitch, it was good enough for me.
From wiki.
A noted critic of religion and a self-described antitheist, he said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in God were correct", but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion.”
The man bore his plight with great dignity while receiving the most vile and hateful messages from the religious community who delighted in his suffering. If you think he spoke the truth about how religion poisons everything and how standing against it is a moral necessity convert to Antitheism at your earliest opportunity.
At bottom, religion is a stick used for punishment and control. At best it’s a comedy of errors that deserves to be laughed at for the pious morality it tries to enforce. All this while engaging in the vilest and most degenerate behaviour known to humanity.
Religion – digging a hole with stick.
Its life Jim but not as we know it.
If you take full responsibility for yourself and all your actions (and what can possibly be wrong with that?) you see there is no need for gods.
But to do this you have to be very brave and embrace the fact that you are ultimately alone on this Earth. For most people, especially the needy that is too terrifying to comprehend.
You got mindf--ked. Good work with this.
If our brains compose beliefs to help us adapt and evolve and they aren't actually true, then how can we believe our brain when it concludes Atheism? Hmmm
Religious faith also made it possible for an individual to devote his/her life for the betterment of someone else's. Love is illogical.
Thank you for sharing this. I am not an atheist, but I no longer believe the way that I once did.
He does present his evidence fine (I am an atheist), but he's too deep and over-thinks. I tired of his Generation X life-long never ending journey to answer WHY and what his identity is. He will always be searching for The Truth, and overvalues the concept of Truth, and he will be disappointed that it is a wasted journey. He will come full circle.
On a side-note, reading in-between the lines, he started his journey away from Christianity because he felt guilty about masturbating and sex. For someone that claims he is happy with his current evolving version of The Truth, he sure does come off slightly self-hating, cynical, and not full of joy.
DarkMatter2525 and Robert Ingersol pitch it much more effectively and simply, and come off as being the life of parties, while this guy seems like he'd suck the life out of a party with his search for God.
He STILL can't let go of the God concept?
hey guys psychology has taught me that god and religion is a way to deal with death salience, we all deal with our death salience different ways. this is where most of these arguments come from because if my belief system is right that mean yours is wrong and vice-versa, this scares us so we defend our belief system by attacking other belief systems. This is also why alot of psychologist stop being religious. i personally am and atheist but i think that religious lessons generally teach us to be kind and good people so i dont see the harm. on the other hand religious people should not try to force there beliefs on other people.
very well done and well explained a true master piece...as an agnostic atheist myself i have not had the same pattern than you did my parents were not truly religious but that teacher you had ...wow just wow i would have loved to talk to that man.
The network theory of faith in God is interesting, but it seems to be entirely concerned with the power of the mind, or the brain, to interpret reality. We know that the mind is incredibly powerful, but it has limitations. What if the mind could actually be an impediment to discovering truth? Certainly, we could find many examples of this phenomenon if we looked carefully. Many of the most beneficial scientific discoveries have been practically fortuitous. I think it has to do with fundamentally the way the mind works, the way people think. For example, sometimes to find a solution to a problem, we need to break free entirely from the way we were approaching that problem and look at it in a completely different way. I'm simply trying to point out that the mind, and scientific pursuit for that matter, can keep you stuck in a rut, stuck in one way of interpreting reality, which is inherently incomplete and therefore prone to error. As a physician, I've seen countless examples of this type of error in the field of medicine.
I'm only asking you to be more open-minded by accepting the limitations of your own mind. The way I see it, logic can be a useful tool, but will never lead you to truth.
There seems some misunderstanding concerning ignorance. Ignorance is the force behind discovery, not knowledge.
To have complete trust in your unbelief or to be completely sure of unbelief in God as a statement, strikes me as intellectually arrogant.
I'm not going to try and defend God as I simply don't need to, due to things we can observe and facts that we can conclude, pointing us to a necessity of a creator.
Is a YouTube confession really a documentary film?