The closer you look at Christianity, the less it makes sense - Scott Staples
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Today I spoke with Scott Staples, who grew up as a pastor's kid, went to Bible college and seminary, and worked extensively in missions, but eventually deconverted as the claims of Christianity made less and less sense.
As we walked through his story, we touched on topics such as:
• Recommitting his life to Jesus to ensure that he was acknowledging that Jesus is both Savior and Lord (Master).
• Doing missions via YWAM (Youth With a Mission) through their Discipleship Training School (DTS).
• Sharing the Gospel and "bringing others to Christ."
• Being taught that we are all born sinners, separated from god from birth, damaged, and on our way to hell if we don't "get saved."
• Hearing the Christian message that Jesus died on the cross to take our punishment and to cover our sins in order to make a way for us to go to heaven.
• Feeling called by god to be a pastor and seeing family respond by saying that they already knew he would have that calling.
• Thinking that the reason he was not hearing from god was because of a problem with himself.
• Observing people pick and choose which verses they did and did not want to take seriously and apply to their own lives.
• Seeing life events that didn't add up to the idea that god was in control.
• Feeling like the closer he got to the god character, the more that god appeared to be hurting him.
• Grappling with the immense suffering in the world in light of his understanding of the goodness, love, omnipotence, and omniscience of the god character in the Bible.
• How Christians develop theological constructs to try to pretend that Christianity makes sense, but the closer you look at its claims and details, the less it makes any coherent sense at all.
• Healing from religious trauma, especially from the idea that our extreme wickedness was the direct reason Jesus had to be tortured and killed.
• Learning how to grieve death healthily and fully after realizing that there is no afterlife and that we will not see our loved ones again who have already died.
Thanks to Scott for sharing his amazing story!
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Connect with Scott:
/ scottydoozle
/ scottstaples
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Mentioned in this video:
The interview with Lydie Bousch:
• I am SO GLAD that I le...
My deconversion story:
• Harmonic Atheist - My ...
and
• Christianity is Mythol...
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Ending music by Eyal Raz, "Friends"
• Friends
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I found my walk with God so Abusive. Always fighting for his Pleasure, Mercy, Blessings. Praying, Fasting & Sacrificing out of Pure Love to Please & Obey him. Not pursuing my wants, desires or dreams in order to fulfill HIS WILL. All of this & He guarantees NOTHING IN RETURN. According to the Bible, not even Heaven is guaranteed if you mess up in just 1 area. I lived hating that I wasn’t Perfect like JESUS. I hated that he wouldn’t take my Homosexual desires away. The God I served was CRUEL & SELFISH!…I’m no longer angry, I just wish I had deconstructed before the age of 27. Life is now better, and I am pursuing a happy life with my husband beside me supporting my dreams.
Good to hear.
Promises from imaginary creatures are also imaginary!
The unrequited love of God.
It astounds me how many people have experienced this, yet continue to believe the dogma
I'm so glad you finally got away from all that! 💖
There are a lot of similarities between the biblical god & churches, and abusive parents & romantic partners. They use the same kind of tactics to devalue people & break their spirits, so they feel trapped/dependent on the abuser.
I’m glad you got away from the psychological manipulation.
Journey well my friend and live your life.
"The closer you look at Christianity, the less it makes sense"
Absolutely - great video - thanks.
Poor you
@@vladgor4099 It is the honest approach.
What evidence do you have of the man suggesting a supernatural to say, poor you?
@@user-lf8bn5jh4f So this god knew everything and setup the rules where people that didn't know right from wrong because they hadn't eaten the fruit yet could and did 'sin'.
Jesus is the problem and solution.
It's messed up.
Religion is propaganda, period. Christianity is definitely a piece of work!
Your guidance is within you.
Read Caesar's Messiah; it argues just that and is well researched.
@@lanazak773
I know it from within me. I don't need a book to guide me.
After over 50 long, arduous years of ‘serving the lord’, living with ALL the deep authentic questions, I’m happily in deconversion! Many years ago I was in an 11 year severely abusive marriage and the pastor of our church of over 2000 people, sided with ‘the head of the house’’! And every pastor I went to with questions, NEVER were able to answer my questions about parts of scripture! They ALL said we should never question our maker and to keep focusing on Jesus! (Which is not even the correct name!) Thank you for all you and your guests are are doing to help us come to terms with twisted mythology! 🥰🤗
I am sorry you had to go through the abuse. Abuse is wrong and I went through similar things. I do not like how the church deals with the issue. I mean how can someone who loves you be so cruel? I think there are such a thing as healthy boundaries which most churches I been do not subscribe. A God would never want anyone to go through that type of hardship and some of it is extremely scary....
@@louismilum8663 Thank you, Louismilum for your thoughtful comment.💜 I’m sorry you went through similar things too. I think a lot of people in the church and pastors act out of ignorance and/ or brain washing. You are absolutely right in that there are so many churches that have no idea about healthy boundaries. I’ve real ized that god, so called heavenly “father” would never want anyone to go through such cruelty! Thus my happy, deconversion. Peace and Love to you. 🥰
I'm sorry you went through that and not only didn't get support from your religious community but had to deal with them siding with your abuser.
It sometimes seems to me that our entire culture is based on a model of an abusive family and/or abusive cult. The way people, even non-religious people, tend to gravitate to perpetrators, for example. I think each person getting free of abuse, no matter the context, helps us get closer to becoming a society where this is not the norm.
You’re in rebellion.
Your channel has played a crucial role in my escape from this wild blood magic human sacrifice death cult
After growing up with a family of Christians I became one due to having traumatic experiences as a child. I never had a father either so looking to God as a “father” made me feel better. Just recently I found a revival church near me that was doing deliverances and I went through it for my sin of “lustful thoughts” and I basically put on a show for the entire church. Nothing happened. I didn’t feel God. & now looking back on everything I ever thought was God I was basically talking to myself. Your channel has really helped me feel not so alone. It’s hard for sure since I identified myself with this pretty much my entire life and to be freed from the chains of it is amazing and scary at the same time. Thank you!! ❤
Tim, this interview with Scott and evry guest you speak with are all parts of my experience in religion/christianity. No, I didn't have big degrees, or went to religious colleges but the mind searing toxic control, illusion, and brainwashing is the same. I watch as many interviews as possible, my therapy, and my liberation is the best thing that ever happened to me. Leaving religion is like no other freedom. Thank you for what you do.
Stone your kids is insane. This idea of a mafia boss that you most obey its even more insane.
That is why it requires faith, and you better not question it. The same can be said for psychopaths.
"The same can be said for psychopaths."
Psychopaths clearly wrote most of the qur'an and a fair bit of the bible. One cannot have empathy and believe, let alone worship, such monstrous deities.
@@Medietos "I have told them that they abuse his name doing that,"
How so?
Btw, IF there is a god, or gods, the torah, bible, qur'an, etc, all _insult_ any real god(s).
@@Medietos "the interpreters of it"
The very fact that there are numerous interpretations and tens of thousands of denominations just shows that it's nonsense.
Any intelligent person, let alone a god, would make sure that their message to people was bloody simple. The torah, bible, qur'an, etc insult any _real_ god(s) is such beings exist, and one way is by saying that they're so incompetent as to produce such messes.
Edited for a stupid grammatical error.
@@pineapplepenumbra Exactly, which shows me that men made god, not the other way around. The amount of Christian denominations/sects alone having different interpretations in one book causes the most chaos. Same goes for all the others religions.
@@TrisjenHarris-Teejaye1100 Yep. These gods are clearly merely the reflection of the deeply flawed men who made them up, complete with those flaws.
The fact that this isn't obvious to religious people is testament to the awful power and insidious nature of brainwashing.
We don’t (if we’re responsible) let children have access to porn or recreational drugs, so why is it legal to expose them to far more dangerous material, such as the torah, bible and qur’an?
The results of such exposure aren’t just potentially damaging to the children, but to the wider society, in a range of ways. No one under the age of 18 should be allowed to read such dangerous nonsense, it literally changes the way that people “think”, and it’s to their detriment.
This was an amazing interview! I related to a lot of his deconversion. Your interviews are always so heartfelt and connected. These stories are so important - keep sharing!
It was a lot of fun.
@@bobdobbs943 judging by all of your comments on this video you are not here for the same reasons other people are. What you are doing isn’t worth the time you spend doing it
@@bobdobbs943 it’s a process when people deconvert… it’s not easy and it’s not for the reasons people like you think. That’s why interviews like this that Tim does are appreciated because you get to heart of the people. They’re genuine and sincere.
@@bobdobbs943 make sure you subscribe so you can keep a watch out for mine ✌🏻
@@bobdobbs943 of course!! I really admire Seth!
Tim you got 6.66 subs, this channel is the mark of the beast lol. Great content, another great interview.
@@bobdobbs943 what is your version of the beast?
Fellow YWAM survivor here to! The things we did for them... it's insane
That's an appropriate word. Insane.
Also survived a month of YWAM
Which YWAM? My husband helped start one on CR. Along the way, I was not a fan as a Christian but then started questioning Christianity . Learned from rabbis and others and just done with the church and Christianity . My husband hit wind of it and nearly left me over it, when he had just started a church 3 years before. He resigned maybe out of embarrassment. He didn’t hear it from me as I knew it was catastrophic potentially but he heard it from someone else.
We’re better but he’s still fully involved in all that still
@@marilynsamaniego4652 "but he’s still fully involved in all that still"
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully, one day, he will start questioning, too, and then join you on the right side of it.
I always called it Youth Without Any Money
My pastor (also my brother) would describe the crucifixion in some detail on Easter some years. He didn’t mean to but, I now realize that was emotional blackmail. Luckily it didn’t work with me although, it does for many. An unfair and untrue burden to put on people.
@@yoso585 Well said. Its taught that people are born sinners and destined for hell!! The mind manipulation that goes on by fear in religion is criminal.
I’ve said the same to myself about the older I get.
What’s even more uncomfortable is when Christian’s feel they are so so right because a book says so.
This upload made my night! Thank you Tim!!
Everyone eventually wakes up to the sociopath God of the bible...For me it was Mathew 27.53 about the "zompie Apocalypse"..Do christians really believe that "MANY of the dead at the resurrection of Christ got out of their graves and just went back to their homes? Youde think there would be numerous testimonials of these people written in a whole chapter but alas none..Great interview Tim and guest always love the Reasons as to why people deconvert..Regards from Australia 🙋
Well, the same can be said of Jesus. Paul says we have 500 eyewitnesses in 1 Corthinians 15 but we don't have any of them.
And did they all just die again, or are they still wandering the earth?
Interesting and provocative question! I was trying to recall the name of a well known christian apologist who was fired from his teaching position at a conservative college, because he said that he does not believe that people literally got up from the graves and walked around Israel.
@@Matira269 Mike licona.
My sister who is a devote Christian for more than five decades actually didn't know about that zombie when I told her about it and had to look it up to believe me it's in the bible.
I can't imagine she never read that part of the gospel before so I concluded for me at a point a modem Christian's brain gets in "bible reading mode" where it just accepts everything written there but stores away such unlikely parts well shielded from the brains capability of asking "has that likely happened?"
Of course, winding back time 2000 years, I can well accept that there may have been a lot more of superstition going on among the people occupied with their daily struggles to survive, do that 500 corpses crawling out of their graves didn't seem that impossible to them.
You inspired me to google how The book of Enoch is quoted directly(or indirectly) in the new testament.When I did-it just blew my mind! Thanks for your suggestions and direction.
Except the Book of Enoch is never mentioned in the Bible. Not once.
"The closer you look at Christianity, the less it makes sense"
Absolutely, nothing makes an atheist quicker than actually reading that vile book.
Thanks - Gray
Really? It had the opposite for me, I saw how much better and more sane it was than what church and tv was telling me. Not saying that makes it true but I'm genuinely surprised people can read the Bible and not be overall impressed and inspired.
Btw yes the Bible is confusing when you don't use or have academia to help you understand and instead rely on reading it alone or trusting your pastor/church to explain.
@@youngknowledgeseeker Hi and there is a big old mistake in your think my friend.
The assumption that people are uneducated and need a bias "pastor/church to explain" these terrible passages is simply wrong.
I'll explain, would you accept a Bia Muslim apologetic to convince you of the teaching of Allah and that the Quran is real and true?
Of course you would not.
A church / pastor /vicar is there to keep paying bums on their seats.
Many don't care for the truth and spread disinformation and downright lies.
Look at the terrible money making pastors in the US that have kept churches open to keep their dollar in Covid.
No my friend you need to seek secular and unbiased bible scholars to find out where the bible comes from and the true meaning after the translation of these dead languages.
Take the incredibly vile verse of 'marry your rapist' no matter which way you cut it that is vile. Of course your pastor will tell you (by assertions and no good evidence) that the verse means something different to the actual reading.
You know what, when I grew up in the church I was told that the bible was so written by god that 'anyone' can pick it up and with a clear reading understand god's word. Therefore, you disagree with this doctrine because you think it needs 'filtering' through the bias sense of a pastor.
Can you tell me my friend how your 'pastor filter' is completely unbiased?
Of course not it's yet another mechanism to keep the gullible paying their 10%.
The book is vile because you are supporting such cruelty to your fellow people. Look at the crazy US which has just denied health care to 50% of its population based on a book that no one even knows who wrote.
I am educated to a very significant University level, and have read the bible many many times cover to cover. I know that book very well, most likely batter than you considering the decades spent in this cult of brainwashing children to believe in the totally unproven supernatural.
So please you have made some claims, do provide some good and sufficient evidence for your claims of why you believe in a god and then of your specific magical deity. Think of it as your first Peter three fifteen which you has supposed to provide when asked.
I mean whatever convinced you should convince me right?
Thanks - Gray
@@Dzanarika1 I agree - thanks
the bible is vile? Theres something dark you're hiding
@@vladgor4099 "the bible is vile? Theres something dark you're hiding"
Nope the bible has:
I recall as a child thinking it was a tad unfair that God struck down someone who was carrying his Ark with a bolt of lightning (2 Samuel 6:1-7 and 1 Chronicles 13:9-12). Surely his tripping and falling was an accident not punishable by death?
Something else that bares noting, is that if you believe God has written our lives and fates beforehand (it's also called Predestination), did Judas Iscariot have any choice in his betrayal of Jesus? Wasn't he predestined to be damned? Because some man had to be Jesus' betrayer, and one feels it is a bit much allocating this damnable act to any person.
Here's a list of bible verses that make one wonder just what sort of God Christians give their lives to in sincere patronage to what they call 'Holy'. If any readers have better examples (and I'm certain there must be) please be sure to add to the list. I know Christians will excuse the worst by saying 'Oh those are Old Testament" so I'll endeavour to try to quote liberally from the New.
1. God himself will kill tens of thousands if it pleases him: 1st Samuel 6:19 in the King James Version: “And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men (50,070)”. Kill 50 000 men for looking at something?
2. You can kill a woman if she seizes a man's private parts without his permission: Deuteronomy 25:11-1: If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.
3. Perversity and human trafficking condoned: "Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse." (1 Peter 2:18)
4. Sex slavery condoned: "When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again."
Exodus 21: 7-8
5. Divorce akin to debauchery: "Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery." (Luke 16:18)
6. Cannibalism: "And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son...." (II Kings 6:28-29)
7. If your genitals have been damaged, stay out of church: "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord."(Deuteronomy 23:1)
8. Incest and getting drunk with dad is no problem if the world is running thin on suitable DNA donors: And the elder said to the younger Our father is old, and there is no man left on the earth, to come in unto us after the manner of the whole earth. Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father. And they made their father drink wine that night: and the elder went in and lay with her father: but he perceived not neither when his daughter lay down, nor when she rose up. And the next day the elder said to the younger: Behold I lay last night with my father, let us make him drink wine also to night, and thou shalt lie with him, that we may save seed of our father. They made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in, and lay with him: and neither then did he perceive when she lay down, nor when she rose up. So the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father. [Genesis 19:31-36]
9. Looking at a woman with desire is akin to adultery: "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5:28)
10. But incestuous rape is cool: And when she had presented him the meat, he took hold of her, and said: Come lie with me, my sister. She answered him: Do not so, my brother, do not force me: for no such thing must be done in Israel. Do not thou this folly. [II Kings 13:8-12] But he would not hearken to her prayers, but being stronger overpowered her and lay with her. [II Kings 13:14]
11. Pray in private, and if you do so in church, do so quietly: Matt 6:5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others."
12. If you offend God he will kill you: "And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also." (Genesis 38:7-10)
13. God smites women, children and often animals with equal gusto, he seems to equal evil and wrong doing by association, rather than by being guilty of the personal, individual act: "Behold with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day." (II Chronicles 21:14-15)
14. Rev 21: 8 "liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Eternal damnation for lying? In South Africa murderers and rapists often get released for good behaviur, lying is politics.
And speaking of lying, the bible ends with one. It calls its message 'the good news' and concludes, "I am coming soon." Wrong on the 'soon' bit, and unless we've missed something, no one has come. But I get it, if 2000 years pass, soon after such a length of time must be VERY soon. If 10 000 years pass, soon must be very VERY soon.
Didn't watch it, but according to the title, I would say this. Every religions the more you look closer, the less make sense they are.
They make perfect sense as human creations with human fallibilities.
You've hit 6.66 subscribers! HAHAHAHAHA!!
Keep up the good work!!
I noticed that too 😂
@@thestaciesmompodcast
The reaon for 666 being "Man's number" is due to Carbon.
Mankind is the highest form of carbon life on earth.
"Carbon 12" has 6 protons,6 electrons and 6 neutrons.
The reason it is connected to the "BEAST" is because it represents our lower/selfish/animal self.
So when we gamble for example........we may play roulette.
Roulette has 36 numbers (and a zero).
1 to 36 if you add all the numbers together....they just happen to add up to.........guess what?
Go on....guess!
Your channel is therapeutic for me, a former protestant and Muslim. It can be so depressing to hear and watch theists pontificate their ignorance with smug certainty. Your interviews remind me that even the most rabid theist can be deconverted. I was a serious theist but not rabid. I deconverted in 1995. Keep up the good work.
Thank you very much!!
well done
How do I break away from my fear of hell? I’m no longer in the church, but I have extreme anxiety over hell, when I no longer believe it myself.
Your fear of hell is just anxiety, there is people that suffer from it chronically and others just temporarily.
Get into a healthy lifestyle, eat healthy ( what is debatable ), exercise ( but not exclusively, don't overdo it) get some productive and entertaining hobbies.
Be creative mate.
Also use your brain, there is no need to worry about a hell that dosesn't exist.
To realise that hell is a bs is to realise that this concept was made so that you could live in fear and obey the religion.
Christianity borrowed hell from Zoroastrianism.... However they borrowed it from the Babylonians and other Mesopotamia religions. I'm talking about thousands of years before Christianity.
Concept and blueprint of this was to control the citizens of certain Kings throughout history. They had to keep their citizens in check for the king the Lord thousands of years before. However it goes back to the Egyptians They also had similar places. However this goes back even more thousands to the Sumerians however their version is different.
What got me from the fear of hell and any anxiety that it may have had on me. Is I dug in deeper to all religions In the past and many thousands of years prior. Not just Mesopotamia but also Asia and other places on this Earth because all of them have some sort of connection with each other. The ones in Mesopotamia all have connections. The ones in Asia all have connections however they're different than the ones in Mesopotamia.
How can something give you anxiety that a human being made up to control other humans. Wasn't created by God or some special demigod. It was literally the politicians, Kings and religious leaders... They copied and borrowed from each other and we are still doing it to this very day. Not only in first world countries like America but second world and third world countries still do it to this day.
We as human beings have been doing this for thousands and thousands of years. And the proof is right in front of you and our own political system.
@@agrikantus9422 Research the origins of Hell. Adjust search the internet topic: The Origins Of Hell.
@@larrys9879 It's obviously man made.
@Renny Sorry to hear that :/ I agree with some of the other suggestions here to research the history of the doctrine of hell to realize that it was something that developed over time, and just a little too conveniently function to keep people in the fold.
I would say further that if a truly loving God does exist, there is nothing to worry about. Perhaps he might chastise us for falling short of the good, but no infinitely just and loving being could torture or allow his creation to be tortured for eternity. No finite transgression could warrant an infinite punishment. Even many Christians believe this (see universalism).
Hope this helps! As someone raised Jewish I never even heard about hell growing up, but I could see why it would be traumatizing to those coming from a Christian or Islamic background
If Christianity is true or you believe it to be true than having children is THE most cruel and evil thing one can do. If you’re just born into sin and might even born into a generational curse, then you must not have children
Wow, that is a really great point that I hadn’t thought of.
@@jayschumacher815 I thought so too. I never understood why Christians have kids if they think there’s a likely chance they’d go to hell or be cursed. I think there were Christian’s sects in the middle ages who didn’t have kids for this very reason. They thought it was immoral to have kids
@@Moriningland "I think there were Christian’s sects in the middle ages who didn’t have kids for this very reason. They thought it was immoral to have kids"
Yes, there were. They were called Cathars and were anti-natalists. Guess what the catholic church did to them? They murdered roughly 7% of the french population to get rid of them.
1:16:41 "....I eventually stumbled across your channel. I think I watched like five videos, and I thought 'I think I want to make this step'....then I saw the video with Lydie Bousch:...and the way she spoke about her life after deconversion gave me so much hope, and I was like, ' I think my life could actually be good now.' "
> When I heard someone unexpectedly say I helped them across the threshold into non-belief it had a profound positive affect on me. Good stuff.
It sounds like Tim has helped several people and is going to be helping so many more people in the future. Any chance for hope in humanity, like this, I'm taking it.
Thank you so much for that endorsement! Yes, definitely work taking the chance to leave the world and the next generation better than we found it.
I've been asking these same questions about the Bible for years and this the fist time I've ever heard them discussed in depth like you are. Thank you
Great to see you Tim and hope you are doing well. ❤ Hi Scott…I’m from Massachusetts too from outside of Boston.
I now live in Portland Maine…great to see you hear and yeah I was a Pentecostal for many years also and had to keep getting re-saved at least 50 times because I was such a damaged, lousy, rotten, wretched, miserable sinner 🤮 but now I look back and call it the INSANITY OF CHRISTIANITY and wasted 30 of my life in all that nonsense. I also love evil satanic Metal music LOL Metallica and Iron Maiden are my favorites except Satan doesn’t exist. 😀 WHAT TIM??? I’m so sorry your wife said she’d stone the kid’s and said it in front of them and hope it didn’t instill fear in them. Even when I was a Christian there’s no way I would ever consider something like that. That’s psychological abuse and that really upset me…it shows that Christianity is a CULT and how twisted it is! The children at Jonestown were killed by their mother’s by allowing them to drink the poison under the mind control of Jim Jones…I just hope your kid’s weren’t instilled with fear…I’m so sorry 😢😢😢 As for Jesus well I consider Jesus as Yahweh’s PROXI and of course he agreed with Yahweh because Jesus was a Jew and believed the Old Testament Tanakh which makes Jesus an EVIL PSYCHOPATH also.
I’m h😅😊😮😊
@@Medietos If there’s a Satan then it’s the Yahweh god. After diving deeply into scripture and mythology, it’s the Yahweh god who turned out to be the angel of light who is Satan and the Bible proves that. A loving god wouldn’t perform all of the evil atrocities that the Yahweh god did in the Bible…only a satanic evil demon would perform those thing’s. The Christian doctrine’s have people believing that Satan and Yahweh are 2 separate entities and they’re not…it’s the same entity. The Christian Satan was an invention of the early Roman church so that entity doesn’t exist. There was no such entity prior to the first century church and it’s never mentioned in Hebrew Scriptures. So seeing the Christian god Yahweh is the real Satan and if he exists I don’t bother with such an evil entity and won’t have anything to do with it so that thing called Yahweh can’t and doesn’t affect me…I just laugh in its face. There’s no truth to any of the New Testament and most of the Old Testament…it’s all a man made mythological invention to the point where researcher’s and biblical scholars are even debunking the Biblical Moses and the exodus…it never happened.
Tim, when I listen to your Christian apologetics side I almost want to undeconvert. Congrats on another great interview.
Grew up about an hour from South Bend, IN. I've been to the pub Fiddler's Hearth that he's talking about! This was cool. My dad was also a pastor. I totally relate
to hell not being at the forefront of his sermons, and yet you were still supposed to think that if you didn't believe- that's where you were going. That's why I've always said that the most dangerous Christians aren't the fire and brimstone ones. They are the ones with a watered-down belief in hell - it's not talked about much, but it's implied.
I've said much the same thing. The danger in Christianity isn't in the propensity of their imaginary threats- it's in the damage the thought-terminating memetics do to the general population's critical reasoning. The latter is far greater by volume-mass alone if we're talking about "liberal" (progressive) Christianity.
That being said, I would rather have 1 humane Christian than 100 alt-right neu-atheists.
I’ve heard it said so many times that God won’t speak to you because you are doubting him which is kind of funny, because if he would speak to you then you would believe in him
Here's a good question to ask: If it is all true, why does it look like it isn't?
Thank you for sharing your story.
I became an atheist at twelve when I reasoned a good god and hell we’re mutually exclusive. I was still tormented by the idea that I might be controlled by satanic forces 😂😢
It never made a shred of sense to me. As a child indoctrination was attempted but it was unsuccessful. I always thought it was nonsense on every level.
**WARNING - LONG RANT**
I grew up for the first 11 years in my life in a VERY religiously repressive home. My mum did (and still does) take it to the extreme. Mum and dad divorced shortly after she became christian because we (my sis and I) could not be around his unholy influence (he was/is Unitarian). It was NEVER enough to just be christian, we and everyone else around her had to adhere to HER idea of how the bible was supposed to be interpreted.
We went to church Sundays and Wednesdays, home womans bible study on Saturdays, and private christian school the rest of the week and during the summer was vacation bible school. I had to read the bible twice a day (minimum) so that we'd read the entire bible every year.
We prayed as soon as we woke up, again at breakfast, when we got in the car to go to school. At school we did a morning prayer, a prayer at bibie study, at lunch, and an end of the day prayer. We prayed again when we got in the car to go home, we prayed at dinner time, and again before bed. Then it got worse.
Mum joined YWAM...yes, the same one he was in. Mum's missions after DTS were in the middle of the jungle in Central America. I actually LOVED being down there as a kid, eating ripe tropical fruits right off the trees, splashing in the Caribbean. Then we went back stateside and mum started to work for the missions and go to nursing school. I never saw her. I was 9/10 yrs old, running around El Paso TX AND Juarez Mexico by myself with no supervision. EVERY penny we got went to the church. We couldn't pay rent, we depended on food stamps and food bank, church clothing drives, and second hand clothing - because every penny she had went to the church.
It got to be too much. I was seeing SOOO much hypocrisy in the church. So many "good christians" doing horrible illegal things, but being told we had to forgive them because they asked god for forgiveness. Yes, even "THAT" sin against kids!!!! I grew to HATE the church, HATE god...
I'm still deconstructing. It's hard when my mum (who I do very much love) is still brainwashed by that so called religion. I still get preached at. She refuses to see the inconstancies in the bible, the contradictions supposedly from god's own mouth. I can't do it anymore. I don't believe.
I have never had anyone fron church reach out to me when I left. No love at all. They do not leave their 99 sheep to find the lost one.
So very very true.
Ain’t that the truth. That’s because of that teaching about wiping the dust off your feet. Like just give up on people that won’t listen to the message.
So you realized that some people who claim to be of faith actually aren't. Or that people who believe still sin. You essentially realized what the bible teaches. That we all sin, and without Jesus we cant be saved. Unfortunate that you left truth, but at some point you'll have an opportunity to come back. If it's not too late by then.
If that lost 1 was a big donater, $$$ you will get chased after.😅
I woke up this morning hearing in my head, the lyrics to the hymn, Unworthy. Realizing that has been drilled into my head all my childhood.
I did a bunch of Group Work Camps. Lots of memories.
Given that Paul seems to have come up with many different ideas to those Jesus presumably taught, and that Jesus had different ideas to what the Jewish scriptures supposedly taught, then I figure that the progressive Christians are within their rights to do their own picking and choosing.
Given the codswallop taught by so many Christian theologies, hopefully some one will, some day, derive something better than what's being presented now.
If people would kill their own children because they heard God command it, would they do the deed while rejoicing? After all, to do it and feel miserable would be a slap in the face to God and one of his perfectly good and just commands meant for his own glory, surely.
Another great interview Tim.
Agree!! How can someone rejoice in killing their children?!! Imagine if Abraham were living today and went around telling his neighbours "I hear the voice telling me I must kill my son"? What would happen to Abraham? He'd be put in a mental hospital and assessed for schizophrenia for starters..
@@rickdavis2235
For the sake of brevity I'll just give one of each (except for your third request for "examples")
1. Paul taught that the only way to escape God's judgement either on a person's death or when God destroyed the world, was to have faith in Christ and his death and resurrection.
Jesus taught that God's kingdom was given to those who repented of their sins to God and who loved both God and their neighbours.
2. in the OT the afterlife was supposedly some kind of perpetual shadowy existence in a place called "sheol".
According to some who wrote about Jesus, he taught that the afterlife was in a glorious kingdom with God for some, and destruction for many others.
3. That was a question for the reader, a hypothetical, based on the notion that everything that happens is ordained by God, is perfectly good, and is for his glory.
@@rickdavis2235
1. Can you show me where in the OT the words "Jesus", or "Jesus Christ" or the phrase "Jesus is God" are explicitly mentioned?
2. The references you provided for Sheol being a place of waiting for an eventual resurrection are all from the NT. I don't see any from the OT. The NT is a Christian reinterpretation of older Hebrew writings. Historically, Christianity came out of Judaism, well after Judaism began. It was not the other way round.
3. Do you mean to say that you have never used hypotheticals, at all, in any conversation? Or that you just don't like answering them in these kinds of conversations?
Hypotheticals can be a great way for finding out what people actually think as opposed to what they say they think.
No, I don't think any Gods or gods exist. I am an atheist.
@@rickdavis2235
//1. What would Jesus have to say in order to convince you that He is God in the flesh in (John 1:1, 14)?//
Well something like a Road to Damascus experience would likely be very convincing.
Better still, assuming that you read these words within 10 hours of my posting them, then you immediately pray to Jesus that sometime within the next one day, a stranger come to the door of the house I am living at, knock, and when I open it, tell me:-
"Mary had a little lamb and the dog ate chicken pox"
- then tell me exactly what I will be eating for dinner in two day's time.
That happening would ginormously raise my confidence in the existence of Jesus as God.
//I ask because the Apostles knew He was God. //
I'm not so sure. In Mark, the earliest gospel, they seemed not to know who Jesus was. It's not until the gospel of John the latest gospel, that Jesus as God seems to be a firm theology.
//Even the Pharisees knew Jesus was claiming to be God and that's why they crucified Him; for blasphemy (John 10:33). //
Claiming to be God and actually being God are not necessarily the same thing. We have many folk across history claiming to be either God or Jesus, and I doubt you would believe them, just because they said so.
//Maybe I can help you understand if you tell me what you know about the trinity and why you think it's false.//
I don't have a dog in that fight at the moment. All I know is that both groups exist and that one group (the majority) claims that the Trinity does exist while the other group, the minority, claims that it does not exist. And each group will often finger point the other claiming that it preaches damnable heresy all the while each group uses God's clear, infallible and inerrant word, to make its case against the other.
I was involved in just such a dispute some 50+ years ago.
//2. Jesus is God.//
Christians say so. Jews and non Christians say not.
//The entire Bible is about our LORD and Savior, Christ Jesus.//
Jews would not agree with you. In fact they would say that the OT is not about Jesus at all, let alone Jesus as a messiah. This brings me to the following question:-
"Can you show me where in the OT the words "Jesus", or "Jesus Christ" or the phrase "Jesus is God" are explicitly mentioned?"
"The Old Testament says He is coming."
See my question just above. The OT says a messiah is coming but it's generally recognised that this is a military general or a mighty king anointed by God to free the Jews from some foreign oppressor.
//The New Testament says He is here.//
Of course. It was written by Jews and perhaps gentiles who were followers of Jesus. Bet the majority of Jews did not think that Jesus was the messiah.
//The Acts of the Apostles proclaim Him. The Epistles explain Him and Revelation says He is coming back.//
See above. Those books proclaim him and they reinterpret the OT books to suit their narrative about Jesus. But no where does the OT state that the messiah will be Jesus, Jesus Christ, nor that he will be executed and then rise after three days.
If any books did use those words and phrases explicitly then you would certainly have a case.
//The Bible says of humans, "we die once and then the judgement. //
It does say that. I agree. We die once. I disagree that we face judgement after death, save perhaps from our fellow humans who continue to live.
//How is Jesus coming back if He is dead?//
I don't think he is. And you folk have been saying that he will be coming back, and soon, for over 2,000 years. So I have very good reason to think you folk are wrong.
//When you interpret Scripture, every single verse must be evaluated in light of the totality of Scripture.//
Why?
The books of the bible were written by different humans over hundreds of years, often in very, very different circumstances.
//No man in Scripture has ever died, went to heaven and came back millenia later. //
Correct. I don't know of anyone who has done so.
// Your argument is based on your own opinion and not fact.//
So you assert. Rick, that is a two edged sword. I can just as easily assert:-
"Your argument is based on your own opinion and not fact."
//The Bible teaches Jesus is God ...//
The latter books of the bible teaches it. The OT does not. If you can find any verse in the OT which says that Jesus is God then let me know.
//... but you suppress the truth.//
So you assert. Paul was saying something silly when he made that associated claim.
//3. If you know the bible, the Sadducees and Pharisees were always trying to trap Jesus with hypothetical questions and He always responded with Scripture.//
Yes.
// Colossians 2:8 says; "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, which are based on human tradition and the spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ." //
Philosophy is great because nothing is sacred and it allows people to ask and think about all kinds of questions.
//Hypotheticals are philosophy and empty deception to trap new Christians who don't read or study the bible. //
Are you a new Christian?
//I'm sure I've used hypotheticals at times but they were never based on my opinion, always being based in biblical exegesis. //
I still fail to understand why you did not wish to answer my hypothetical.
//As an atheist, your world view cannot account for absolute morals, human dignity, self-awareness, empathy, sorrow, conscience or consciousness.//
So you assert. Again, to show you how easy it is to make such baseless claims, allow me to assert:-
"As an atheist, your world view cannot account for absolute morals, human dignity, self-awareness, empathy, sorrow, conscience or consciousness."
//If people were murdering children, why would you care ...//
Because I love my children and I have a deep sense of empathy for other parents and other children.
//if you're nothing more than a chemical accident brought about by random, unguided processes.//
But I don't think exactly that. I think randomness played a huge role in how we got to be here. But then so did non random things like the laws and processes of nature.
//Why should you expect every one else's brains to fizz the same as yours?//
Experience and knowledge of how our brains work. Experience tells me that my brains and the brains of others often think the same way. And often they do not. It depends on circumstances such as who I am talking to, as one example.
//You want to borrow for a Christian's world view to make sense of your own. //
How so?
Besides, I don't think atheism is a worldview. I don't think theism is either. Theists think all kinds of different and often conflicting things. Ditto for atheists. Theists have world views, but theism is only a part of a world view. Atheists have world views but atheism is only a part of a world view.
Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism are closer to world views because they have sacred texts which tell them what to think and how to act, to a large degree and to varying degrees.
//Why not kill your neighbor and eat him?//
Because of my sense of empathy. My conscience. My upbringing. The laws of the land. All of those things constrain me.
If you heard the voice of God telling you to kill your neighbour then would you, given that all that God does is good and for his own glory?
//Survival of the fittest; the strongest survives, less competition for food, etc.?//
That not exactly it at all. The fittest are those that live to reproduce the most successfully. As a result, the 'strongest' may be those who cooperate the best, those who bond together the best, and so on. It need have nothing to do with being able to beat up other people and other groups.
Very good discussion. Great guest. Very important topics. This is the meat of reality checks. This is the line to be explored. Raw truth. More often would benefit the masses sir. One man's opinion. Here is where everyone will attack my thought. Was Satan the antagonist or the Paul Revere protagonist in opposition to a psychopath diety. "Yea, hath God said?" Though the HEAVENS fall let truth shine. Mythology and -0- independent evidence = feel good fantasy.
“The power of paradox opens your eyes and blinds those who say they can see.” 🤦🏻♀️
I'm working on a video to expose the incredible damage Michael Card has done to people.
@@HarmonicAtheist wow!!! I grew up listening to him, Keith Green and many others. I don’t know much about him beyond his music. This should be interesting!!
It makes absolutely no logical sense
I noticed you brought up JP Moorland, and I feel the same way. I read his book when I was struggling to stay a Christian and I was so disappointed and embarrassed as a Christian that so many of my brothers and sisters in Christ look up to this dunce, and respect him as an authority on anything, let alone the mind of God.
Thanks,as always, Tim. You're looking great. I still wonder why I like your podcasts, because none of it has anything to do with old, forever-non-believer me.
But they're so interesting, and you are so articulate.
Best wishes to Scott and his wife.
Thanks
Loved the discussion and appreciate both of you. I do have a grammatical and/or semantical suggestion. I prefer using the term “Enlightenment” over de-conversion. Instead of saying I went thru a de-conversion, I say “ As I became more enlightened, the truth revealed itself etc… Using the word de-conversion gives the impression something was converted versus more knowledge penetrates and illuminated the truth.
facts
De-programmed might be another choice description.
If we actually followed logos (knowledge) and Sophia (wisdom) as the Gospels of John, Thomas and other books actually teach, we have no choice but to ask questions to build true faith.
Why does God hurt his children? Religious people like to say it’s Satan attacking you for being such a great Christian. That’s what I have heard.
If anyone is interested to hear from a biblical scholar who explores many issues, some I heard in this episode, not necessarily discussed in church, please check out Dr Michael Heiser, he is a Believer but he’s studied the ancient world, Greek, Hebrew, etc.
I've just started the interview but OH MY GOD I went to a work camp!!!! I've like, never met another person outside my church who did one and everyone not raised with it thinks the name is really sketchy xD
We built a wheelchair ramp and refloored a porch for a disabled older lady and her son! I also socialized the semi-feral kittens in her yard but I was not supposed to do that... Also had a vague maybe-crush on the guy in my small group who had emo hair but that was mostly just me being excited to see anyone alternative at all at work camp.
what a weird time that was
Apparently I'm just gonna keep responding as I listen. (at 47ish rn)
Not gonna lie, I find your dunking on liberal christianity a little uncompelling? It completely depends on where the random christian falls, and also where you draw the line of what you call a christian, but if a liberal christian is neither trinitarian nor considers god to be tri-omni, then you can't connect jesus and gods' acts together, nor can you assume that God had specific control over what is in the bible and how people interpret it.
Granted, at that point nothing in the bible can be trusted and Jesus' status as anything other than a street preacher is in question, but there are plenty of, say, unitarians who are fine with simply taking jesus sayings as some good wisdom, and some might even call themselves christians!
I am, granted, taking this from the perspective of someone who is now pretty used to neopagans' way of viewing religion, where the rules are made up and the points don't matter, so it can be reaaaally hard to see such a mode of religion as anything but athiesm that's still in denial, but as far as I can tell some people genuinely feel a pull to spiritual practice that they want to fulfill regardless of surety, and while I might associate that with some weird brain chemistry I also can't prove it isn't some invisible force, so hey, why not
As for people cherrypicking... yes? People cherry-picked when they decided what the bible should be, nothing new about changing what books and verses should count.. it only really becomes a problem when you have a religion that believes every word of its religious text is entirely divinely inspired, which is pretty rare in the big picture
Yes, there are so many things that don't make sense about Christianity, and perhaps one of the biggest things is this idea that we are supposed to SOMEHOW accept that God is three persons in one, that God SOMEHOW was able to come to Earth in human form, live and die on a cross, and yet at the same time he was also in Heaven watching himself living and dying on Earth.
Because, according to the Bible, whilst Jesus was on Earth he prayed to HIMSELF in Heaven as God the Father, and God, in Heaven, in turn, spoke about himself as Jesus on Earth saying "this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased", and this was supposed to be himself again speaking as the Holy Spirit, which is the third person of what Christians call the Trinity.
Oh, not to mention, as he was dying on a cross he then said to himself "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit", why would he say that if he HIMSELF is God? It would be as illogical as me using my right hand to put something into my left hand and then saying to myself "here, John, here's a gift for you" and me saying "why, thank you, John, that is so kind of you", that would sound pretty weird if I did that, right? And yet, that is effectively the kind of 'logic' that we are supposed to reconcile in order to be a Christian, we have to accept that God basically talks to HIMSELF as if he is more than one being.
How can this possibly make any sense? And yet, this is what we are being asked to accept in Christianity, and, depending on the denomination they are in (some Christians believe Jesus and God the Holy Spirit are separate beings) many Christians do accept this but under normal circumstances, they would never accept that three is also one and one is also three. They only make this special pleading when it comes to their Christian beliefs, all of a sudden, they allow the normal rules of logic to go out the window, and if you try to argue with them you will get "ah, but the natural man cannot understand the things of God" etc.
That passage is often used by them to justify any contradictions in the Bible or any faults with the God of the Bible, such as the way he encouraged genocide and drowned innocent babies in the flood "oh, but the natural man cannot understand the things of God", that always gets him off, in the eyes of Christians and when that fails they will then resort to "well who do you, a mere mortal, full of sin, think you are to question God the almighty, omniscient creator?" 😀
The trinitarian view is an apologetic. If Jesus and god aren’t one then they’re polytheistic. If Jesus is t a god he shouldn’t be worshiped. Early church members were asking these questions and early apologists invented the trinity.
@@rickdavis2235 What a tome of ignorance you've compiled there. If I feel up for educating you later I might respond. Otherwise, have fun with all that ignorance you seem to have put into paragraph form.
@@rickdavis2235 Well it certainly ISN'T easy to understand, I'll agree with that, in fact, that would be an understatement if anything. I mean, whilst you have tried to explain it, and may I say very articulately too, at the end of the day, the bottom line is that you're asking us to accept that God is SOMEHOW both three...and yet JUST one.
You are telling us that in SOMEWAY that is beyond our human ken, that God is three distinct persons...and yet he is also only ONE being, that he is three without actually being three, he is one but he is also three but only one, and whilst none of us can really get our heads around how this is even possible, we are expected to just accept it anyway, because it's all a part of God's great mystery and we as inferior beings just won't get it.
I know you might have a different way of putting it but that is what I am hearing you say here. Let me know if you think I am misunderstanding, but from what you seem to be saying, you think it's not so much about understanding it, it is more about accepting it, right? 🤔
I lost it at "here, John, here's a gift for you" 🎁😂 The illogic is hilarious sometimes!
Thank you both for speaking up on this issue. I cared for a woman with MS for 8 years and it really changed how I feel about my society (we don't have good infrastructure for the vulnerable and support for their caregivers is grossly lacking.) I did learn MS does impact the brain & my Boss drove everyone out of her life as she was very ill tempered (I tried to take clients nobody else would, but became completely burnt out when I was exploited by bosses and DHS--it's a Horrible field.) Folks should get help to care for loved ones at home as it's kinder safer & cheaper to keep people home--but the impact on their personal relationships without outside support is brutal. Sorry you both had to go thru that. PS Heat can cause MS episodes that accelerate their disease, so to the conservative woman in Arizona who said 100 degree weather is no big deal has clearly never done caregiving for the elderly or disabled: it can literally kill them.
Thank very much for your kind words. It's been a tough road but we are mapping our way through it. Best.
It is only after you have left a cult that you understand what it did to you and how it impacted you. Jim Jones, Charles Manson, and multi level pyramid scheme sales meetings are right there in the same category as religion. If you are lucky enough to make it out, you look back and are amazed that you were sucked into it to begin with.
The more I read the word and God the more it makes sense to me. Only people who don't have a personal relationship with Jesus can't understand Christianity
It's so validating, hearing about your "addiction," let's say, to Michael Card and John Michael Talbot, Tim. My parents had a bunch of their discs and I listened to a lot of it. In college, I also became super into their music, especially after a breakup.
Now, as an atheist, I recognize how well-done the music was, but some of the words and lyrics? What and absolute shitshow 😆
Card's song "God's Own Fool" comes to mind...
anyone else notice the subscriber amount right now? 6.66k 😄
I feel honored.
Me lol 🤣
It is now 9 months later and the subscriber amount is 9.99 , 6.666 turned upside down. Whatever does it mean? 😂
Amen!!!
i live next door to YWAM Tyler!
Tim, next time someone hits you with a "first cause" argument, explain the following two flaws: Necessitating that a thing have a cause requires the cause have a cause, and, secondly, the argument does not narrow the cause down to anything anthropomorphic, much less Christian versus Islamic, and the doctrine of the de facto morality of God (used to justify immorality of the god by human sense) means that one has no wherewithal to judge the proper god from any on offer (as the Christian reminds us, it's arrogant and foolhardy to trust in our mortal wiles and our mere sense of things). Furthermore, first cause arguments also throw a wrench in conceptions of free will that are in company with a total creator god belief, because by the former (the first cause principle) a free will cannot chance upon its ultimate status of either evil or good (by which it selects is chosen path) in a way that's devoid of external input, or, alternatively, an intrinsic variable quality that in turn contradicts the freedom in free will. The only way to get a free will that freely choses whether or not to be the good or the bad kind, is by granting it the same exception to the first cause principle that was granted to god; in short, meaning we have to have people's souls predating creation, making them morally untethered to a god's morality (save for by the god's power over things desired by said souls, which makes of the whole affair something completely reductive). The insistence that we freely choose which kind of free will to possess sets off an infinite regression problem, by missing that good chooses good and bad chooses bad, leaving us with the question of how we got to be the foundational good or the bad, and, since all that is, is of God's willed creation, we have to be either co-equal with god or we have to actually lack free will (since the infinite regression is infinite and therefore fallacious, of choosing good/bad by way of a goodness/badness, that we chose, because of our goodness/badness, that we chose...
@@rickdavis2235 One can understand what a "first self-necessary being" is and also treat it not as a logical conclusion but rather a hypothesis. Even the intrusion of the word "being" is a tip-off to more of the same sort of positing. Furthermore, I'm fully aware of the insertion of the phrase 'that begins to exist" into this argument, but it's back door way to engineer special pleading into the proceedings, and fools few. While this helps make the whole arrangement make computational sense, it involves givens that simply are not established (making it a way to make a singular first cause make sense).
Here's another way to explain the problem: The set up to the argument creates two categories of things in the universe - those that must have a cause and those that do not. According to the ends the designer or holder of the argument possess, the latter is not a category but an item. But if it can be said that a thing can be without having had a cause, then there is no end to the number of things that can be so proposed. When we turn our attention to the matter of evidence in this regard, we get into your fifth paragraph - we actually have no science indicating that the train cannot go on forever. Intuition, and my own bias, suggest that everything has a cause, but if we entertain the supposition of the argument at hand, then we can entertain certain particles doing the same un-caused emergence. If certain particles do this, then we have building blocks for complex interactions. Now we can see why "being" is a bit of a revealing word - the being (EVEN IF ITS YAWEH and thus we can dispatch with this argument and get to worshipping) - can be subsequent a physically complex arrival with at the end of the chain of causal events a banal un-caused emergence of some thing or things).
The question "what caused God" rejects this Gish Gallop. Obviously if you engineer the rhetoric in such a way that there is a class of things that have to have a cause and a class that does not, and then allow culturally founded intuition to make the leap that the latter class is singular, then you've achieved computational sense. And yes, the supposition that matter, from which the active physical universe sprang forth, always existed, is just as much a hypothesis as a first cause, but it's simply not MORE so. By asking this question we are merely keeping with the logic and those of us who try to remind ourselves that our intuition (that demands an engine pulling the train) reflects limitations in understanding. Intuition still wants to hang onto the idea, though, that if it can be the case that particles can come into existence from nothing that really this is an entrance through an as of yet undetected door (were this the case in the first place) and that the phenomenon itself owes itself to a phenomenon or a guy with a white beard or something in between that set it up that way. But you can see here that we've pushed the ball of understanding no further down the field - in any of this. All of your pushing back on me has to do with stipulations in the argument that offer it computation sense, but only in so far as language can do so, not in terms of sound logic. "Everything that begins" could be everything but one thing, or everything but billions of things. All this about the first self-necessary is simply ad hoc device - that's not how logic works. Even multiple causal end points is a product of intuition, not logic. If it's being envisioned as singular, I'm sure I don't need to make the point to you, it doesn't get us to anything at all related to any story of any "god" (not saying you made that move), much less a phenomenon containing intent, mind or morality. The self-necessary first cause is simply a place holder and, even if real, offers theism nothing.
@@rickdavis2235 My bias is with you - an infinite regression seems impossible. The problem though is that it's no more impossible than an infinite stasis for an individual thing, nor is it impossible, if one un-caused cause is possible, that many, and unsimilar, un-caused causes are.
What is that objective morality, by the way? You don't have to list its contents, just tell me the source and, if it's a Christian objective morality, the algorithm by which it's gleaned from the source (since, in this case, it's a bit complicated in my estimation).
Also, if an infinite regression is impossible, and if the quality of your free will was not set by God, then how does that quality find its position on the spectrum of quality?
Keep in mind, free will is not the same as the undeniable existence of latitudes that stand before creatures (aka freedom) but rather it refers to that which exploits said freedom (or else computers could be said to have free will, since they have lattitudes that stand before them, which they make choices on, but only according to, and imprisoned by, the program which defines them, which is what those who deny the existence of free will argue is happening in humans, only with far greater orders of complexity in the program, as well as intrusions of non-conscious, pseudo-random physics into the equations of choices).
We cannot be said to make the quality of our own free will (the opinion, proclivity, horsepower, wit, status on a binary of good and evil, or whatever other way you wish to envision the free will) because one here would either be refering to a making performed by the circumstantial self (the unfathomably complex mixture and readmixture of genetics and environment, at the frame-rate of reality (should such a thing exist), that never ceases, that the free will is concieved to be the vetoer and master of), or said making is done by the free will itself, which defeats the freedom of free will because that which makes a good free will is an intrinsically good free will making free will, and that which makes a bad free will is an intrinsically bad free will making free will, and the intrinsicness contradicts the freedom.
The last solution - that there is a third realm that does the setting is where we strike an infinite regression, because we wonder, if not God, nor the universe he created, what caused its capacity and/or proclivity in setting, and what caused that cause's proclivity, and on and on and on and on......
@@rickdavis2235 Not sure if you're responding after seeing the notification solely (which deletes paragraph breaks) or in UA-cam. Anyway, I've added additional breaks to separate the free will validation avenues.
@@rickdavis2235 I'm on a laptop. I just don't always look for opportunities to break it up, but it's good advice for me.
If you refresh you can see my edited/added paragraphs.
I took a glance at religion once and that was enough for me. I prefer to be a fully independent hypocrite and sinner.
So much of this story of God's thwarting the lives of those giving "their all to him." Fortunately, my pastor fathercwascso extraordinarily U N-successful at everything that knew 1st hand that "God NEVER provided" that I went into medicine, another brother became an engineer. Still, I tried to make it work. Saw my patients die after Pentecostal "healings."
Now, our entire country rejects science, even after >1 million deaths, continuing deaths of >400 deaths due to a virus, they believe to be fake. ALL in the name of Jesus.
you need another booster? 👀
I participated in a discipleship course and, when we did outreach in the street, I was mortified when about half a dozen of the young people in our group sensed that God wanted them to sing praises to him whilst doing totally gay dancing.
The dancing was a mixture of expressive dancing, folk dancing, genuflecting and sign language that was perfectly ok in the context of a church service but totally lame when done on a really noisy street corner with cars and trams going in every direction.
The traffic was so loud that none of the passers by could hear the singing. All they saw was a group of strange people doing weird dancing.
At our church we heard rumors that the neighborhood folks called us the crazy church. As kids we were encouraged to sing as loud as possible so the neighbors could hear the message in the songs.
You don't have to look very closely for it not to make sense.
6.66 followers watch out lol
That’s exactly what I believed when I was a kid attending Episcopal morning prayer and holy communion on alternate weeks at the sung service. In other words, I believed that anyone who’d been baptized was saved. But if you think about it, if that’s not true then of what use is baptism as a sacrament? And every church no matter how eccentric does baptize people. But if you must wait until you’re a young adult to prove that you really mean it then it must not be very efficacious. Another insight I got as a kid what the impression conveyed by modernist mainline Protestants that the age of miracles was clearly over and that moreover, Catholics were therefore primitives for believing in current miracles such as the Fatima Portugal apparitions with the three messages of Fatima. So right there I could have foretold my eventual apostasy as if the age of miracles is over, was TIME magazine correct in asserting that God was dead? And then AN Wilson’s book God’s Funeral just put the icing on the cake, as it were, describing in agonizing detail the modernist crisis in the Church of England. Because after all, if the Church of England dies then truly there must be no god in this Anglocentric world we inhabit here in North America.
Carl G. Jung said the same thing : Christianism does not make sense.
The more you look at the tenants of Christianity, the more you'll see that it's like every other cult throughout history. There's no better proof of this than Matthew 7:13-14 & Luke 13:24, the fact that those passages say that few shall find eternal life should be a major red flag to any objective readers that this is a cult.
1:29:30
That's crazy! I was just thinking about that Star Trek episode the other day!
Honestly nobody really knows but the problem is God is not telling anyone himself the truth people like to say God gives us signs or speak threw someone that is confusing just speak directly to us that is a better way to get someone attention
The theology of salvation by grace necessarily entails god choosing both who is saved and who isn't. The free will excuse that is regularly used just doesn't match with their theology. Therefore worshiping a god who knowingly creates billions to suffer eternal torment is not moral.
Scott is the classical contrarian. Doubting and questioning everything. Important people and often too little acknowledged in society. It must have been a relief for him to stop having to believe all these odd and awful things Religion has to offer. Enjoy that peace!!🎉❤ Another example, that many of these converted atheists are so much more sensitive and honest than the so called devout Christians. Hope your wife is doing well!! Great guy!❤🎉
Nobody's coming back
Baptised again, reminds me of confirmation in catholic tradition.
We are not taught to use our intelligence, we're taught to go along with the program. A big part of that program is to accept as fact that someone is always watching and powerful enough to punish you when you do something wrong... that's right, Stockholm Syndrome is the true name of the program as opposed to religion.
There's lots of religions: Christian, Muslim, politics, sports, monarchy and banking to name but a few.
De-conversion isn't the thing to do, educate is.
This is the biggest illness on the planet. A mental blindfold.
Star Trek analogs: Female-swoon Michael Forest as "Apollo": That's the church now....
Tim at 26:04 the interview talks about killing you child for god. I dont think thats what the Abraham Isaac story is about. I read a book called Fear and Trembling" abou Abraham and Isaac. Abdraham lived in a pagan culture where idols and religions that sacrfice thier children. to gods. God showed Abraham a better way of using a lamb for offering to god. Maybe it wasn't gods idea at all to sacrifice your child but mans idea of what god wants because its the highest sacrifice to you but not gods will.
1:13:10 Fear and Trembling by Soren Kirkaggard, a Danish philosopher.
Yes, I think you are right. And I also think the point of the Jephthah-story is that the God in the Bible had said several times though prophets that he does not want human sacrifice. Yet, Jephtha ignores the commandment not to make human sacrifice and promises to sacrifice the first human he meets when he comes home if he wins the war. And he wins the war, and then the first person he meets is his own beloved daughter. Oh no! I think it is meant as a cautionary tale.
And God in that story never told him to sacrifice a human, but Jephthah made that promise and he thinks he must keep his word, so he kills his daughter. However, I am not sure if the writers of the New Testament gets it either. Because Jephthah is commended as one of the good examples of faith in one of the letters in the NT, together with Moses and Abraham (who also seem to have been horrible persons and really bad fathers, btw).
Did you guys ever converse with atheists about theism prior to "de-conversion"? If so, how did you react?
I didn't. Christianity shelters people well.
@@HarmonicAtheist Is that caused by living in a community with little religious diversity? There's no way, even with the highly religious parent I have, that I could consider myself theistically sheltered.
@GB-ez6ge Very much sheltered. We were taught from toddler onwards not to discuss religion with unbelievers, no religion and no politics. Honestly, I don't think I ever interacted with a non-believer, which I knew were a non-believer. They didn't advertise it because they would be ostracised from the community.
Your headline attracted me. Appreciate your work. But I'd submit...it doesn't really take much to realize that Christianity is truly a MYTH. It's simply the POWER OF PURSUATION and the power of FEAR and the unknown that keeps us from asking the simplest questions & keeps people inside that bubble. I was truly 'born again' when I broke OUT of that freakin' bubble. Looking back, I just overlooked the most obvious conclusions. Keep up the great work!
Yes, indeed the more and deeper you look the less sense it makes. I've never met a Christian who knows what his starting point of knowledge was. They don't have a conceptual understanding of their worldview but a second-handed anti-conceptual understanding. I doubt there is a theist in the world who understands that his starting point is the belief that "wishing makes things so", i.e., the primacy of consciousness view of metaphysics which is the view that reality is subordinate to consciousness in the subject-object relationship which results in a lot of stolen concepts and self-contradictions.
Good job, whole lot of nothing you just said.
Haha... you have 6.66K subs... you devil you!
I noticed that too :) Onward and upward!
Lol
A shame these are so long. 30 minutes would be plenty.
You can stop and return to it several times till it’s over. Just remember where you left off.
Neither atheism and theism make any sense. There's no real proof for either position.
At least Christianity accounts for the concept of “making sense”. Materialism struggles on that score
Making sense of what?
@@HarmonicAtheist reality itself (and the perceptions we rely on to interpret it, i.e. laws of logic, etc.). Christianity posits that mind produced matter, which accounts for things like "laws of logic". Materialism posits that matter produced mind, which creates. . . said struggle
@@bretnicholson explain better what you mean please
Humm, NT supresedes?
Hebrews 13:8
Everything is consolidated--then, it's put into a pretty gift package. I hate this stuff....
Curcular logic?
People better make sure they are saved. That Jesus died for your sins was resurrected and died for your sins. That’s the Gospel. Otherwise, you’re not saved. Jesus is the way the tithe and the light. Buddha, Muhammad, yoga , new age does not save. To believe that he took your place is the Gospel. Plain and simple .
@LovebyJesus Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe."-- Archie Bunker
Jesus taught 2, not 10, not 12 commandments. He said with Heart, Soul and Mind, not by Faith and Belief! Yes most churches teach just the opposite and only by faith and belief you will be saved from the Old Testament's Angry god which is Jewish and not Christian!
Life is the Infinite Consciousness, experiencing the Infinite Possibilities, Infinitely.
We are "It", experiencing our infinite possibilities in our finite moment.
Our job is to make it interesting!
The moment a particle is a wave; it has to be a conscious wave!
Gravity is the conscious attraction among waves to create the illusion of particles,
and our experience-able Universe.
Max Planck states: "Consciousness is fundamental and matter is derived from Consciousness".
Tim: things may not work out for you and your wife.
Rebecca, are you hitting on Tim?
It's not very useful to discuss an imaginary "righteous" dope without also assessing our very real sadistic punitive legal systems that invoke this dope to sustain their pathetic addictions.
VOLUME is your friend. Maybe use some 😀
And yet they play hillsong 24/7
Thats cause he doesnt get evil beings and evil elites are real even if christinanity is false in general
Insane out of proportion medical debt - must serve the god of financialized capitalism.
Hi. So i just stumbled upon this video. I used to be very much into church.. christianity etc. Youth group.. you name it. I cant say im totally atheist but I do know ive been deconverting for quite a few years now.. towards more spirituality than believing nothing. But in saying that deconverting is truly hard you find yourself second guessing everything you ever believed.. you question everything you do, think etc. The guilt is extremely heavy. Coming out on the other side is very freeing .. not to say christianity is a cult per say but you are definitely de brain washing a lifestyle.
My evangelism is that the robots are coming. Yes, I say it here and I mean it. At least I did something. 😑
Kids are just miniature adults!👿
How dare you rely upon Aristotelian logiç!
The Christians that say we are under grace now so we don't have to obey the old testament are fooling themselves. All the laws of the old testament and all the actions of God,done directly or indirectly, expressed who he is,his character and his nature.And,according to Malachi and many other passages,Yahweh does not change.And Jesus said that not the littlest dot or tiitrle of the Law would pass away before heaven and earth passed away. The writer of the book (letter)of Hebrews said that Jesus was the "exact expression of God's nature." Jesus said that if you had seen him you have seen the Father.That pretty much says it all,in my book.Christians have a hard time reconciling the tyrant of the old testament to the supposedly loving and peaceful Jesus,but , never the less, the Father whom Jesus spoke of continuously and prayed to,and told his disciples to pray to,was the sadistic tribal war God of Israel.That's probably the biggest contradiction in the Bible that they don't want to face,and,therefore,go out of their way to rationalize. How they can read the passage where Jesus drives the money-changers out of the temple and saying, "You have made my Fathers (Yahweh's) house a den of thieves'-and not realize that he was speaking of the cruel and vicious God of the old testament-is beyond me.
Lies, damn lies and Christianity.
Very weird how all you people put God in with religion when a person or group of people who claimed to be religious did bad things to you. It's frustrating because you were so close to realizing the message of the bible. That we all are sinners and can only be redeemed through Christ. But hey, i guess for you it's easier to go back to your old ways, sadly.
Just because you couldn't understand Christianity doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.
@@rickdavis2235
Exactly Correct.
Accusing others of not understanding when they find it inconsistent isn’t evidence that it’s not inconsistent.
@@friendo6257
Would you tell how Christianity is inconsistent ?
@@ruth4019 There are dozens of contradictions, gospels include polemics of other gospels, details are inconsistent regarding when jesus was born, where he was born, who was king when he was born, how he's related to king david, etc. There is polytheism in the old testament but not in the new testament, inconsistencies about family ("honor thy father and thy mother", but also "if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple")... There are volumes of texts that detail these inconsistencies and volumes of texts that try to explain them away. They are well known to anyone who has spent any amount of time studying the bible.
@@friendo6257
There is no inconsistency regarding the birth place of Jesus Christ.No Gospel says that the birth place of Jesus Christ was other than "Bethlehem".
The King's name was Herod at the time of Jesus Christ's birth.
David was homosexual, adulterer and murderer.He also disobeyed God by marrying many wives and keeping concubines.It was a filthy lineage. Obviously, the Messiah had to be born pure.This prophecy was fulfilled in this way...when Joseph married Mary who was the mother of Jesus Christ;obviously, Jesus Christ legally became descendant of Joseph and Joseph was from the bloodline of King David.
By saying to hate father,mother,sister, brother in order to become his disciple Jesus Christ didn't mean to literally hate your father, mother, sister, brother but to give preference to him.This has roots in the event where God called Abraham to leave his family,place,pagan religion and follow God the Creator.(Genesis ch 12 onwards),and where God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son.Jesus Christ said in different words what God the Creator said earlier.
It's not so that Christianity is opposite to the polytheism of Judaism.Is you,your voice, your soul, three different beings ?
It is all you "one".Likewise, Jesus Christ is no other God than God the Creator.Jesus Christ was the Word Of God that was spoken by God in the beginning of the creation, I.e; "And God said, Let there be light..." (Genesis 1:3)
This word was incarnated 2000yrs ago and sent into the world through Virgin Mary for the salvation of mankind. God was abolishing the Old Covenant made with Israel and establishing the New Covenant with the world beginning from Israel. Jesus Christ is the New Covenant.
It’s unbelievable people fall for this nonsense!🎚️🤮