Assuming all the stories are true and accurate, Jesus from the Bible was a pretty chill dude and good human. His dad, on the other hand, makes Hitler look like Mr Rogers. So there’s that.
I used to believe it all, but the more I learned, the more I questioned, the more I questioned, the more it all fell apart.
Notable things that led to my deconstruction/atheism:
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The sheer number of times the Bible has been edited. From key words omitted or added to entire books added or removed. It’s like a cobbled together series of Grimms Fairy Tales and Op Ed news articles by hundreds of people for over a thousand years. If it was real then why has it been edited and changed so much though history? Couldn’t a god that wrote that make it divine and unalterable.
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The sheer number of contradictions.
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The fact that there are countless thousands of other religions all claiming to be the only one. Most have their own books. Their own prophets. Their own stories. There’s a ton of overlap and commonality, almost as if they all pull from similar cultural stories. If any religion were true, wouldn’t that god have some way to make their religion the only one? And if you want to argue that it is a test of some sort then it’s a crazy test because it’s impossible to ever choose one out of thousands of clones and spinoffs.
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If it is all true, why did the god need people to write a book to tell the story, but did it hundreds of years after the Jesus stuff and thousands of years after the creation stuff? Couldn’t the lore book have been created and existed on a little pedestal for all to see or something? What about the millions of people that died before it was written? What about all the people that have lived and died having never heard about it even once? It’s unfathomable.
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If religion is good and right and moral then why are priests, pastors, and other religious leaders the ones committing so many SAs and other awful behaviors? Similarly, why is an entire political party so intertwined and permeated with religion while committing the most awful of actions?
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Lastly, go read the old testament, specifically all the stories where the response to almost everything is murder and genocide. Like, one person commits some sin and the god just murders everyone and burns the whole city down. Seriously? That’s “good”? That’s worthy of belief and worship? The flood story. The Jericho story. The Sodom and Gammorah story. Etc etc. That god’s solution to everything is psychopathic mass destruction and death. You’d think a good god would come down and be like “Hey guys, let’s talk”.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from. My dad was a real asshole as well. He’d literally rather leave me dying in a ditch than suffer a single word of criticism from me. Weird how that works, huh? Almost like there is some truth to the Bible after all…
Unfortunately, I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ― Stephen Roberts
This is the sort of intellectual conmanship that I’m sure is very impressive to a 15 year old, but people who talk like that do not have your best interests at heart.
I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
I deconverted two decades ago and nothing wrong came out of it. If anything, the immoral hypocrites who provoked problems from within the faith kept creating those problems and covering for each other, so things would have gone better if more people deconverted.
I’m sorry you weren’t in a good mental place to healthily finish the process though.
Thanks, I appreciate that. But I hope you do understand that this is not the average experience for the vast majority of people who become atheist, right?
Would you care to share what you may have done differently?
Just to be clear, I am by no means advocating for anyone to return to their parents’ church if they found it to be full of assholes and hypocrites. Rather, what I am saying is that unless you manage to live a more moral life than those you left behind, you aren’t likely to end up anywhere good in life, and to the extent you use atheism as an excuse for being a shitty person, you’ll be just as much of a hypocrite as those you condemn.
Salvation from what?
I don’t see any proof that there is a god or gods out there. Nor that there is any sort of objective morality. Nor a single shred of evidence for any of it. All the evidence is circular and answers one question while adding another. You may say the Bible says so, but how do we know the Bible is true? And you may say because God said so. So how do we know that is true? You have to assume that either a god or the Bible is true, but you can’t prove it. How do we know your God is the real one and not The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster ™️ ? You can’t prove your god any more than I could prove that. And that’s the issue.
If you can’t even prove there is a god or morality or anything then why should I assume there is anything to be saved from?
I don’t believe in gods or religions or the concept of “sin” and “salvation” at all anymore. I just can’t without some form of proof. I can’t accept the “because it is” or “because God said so” or “because Bible said so” anymore. All of those things require you to believe in them first and then add on “proofs”. But for every proof you can add there is also a proof to the contrary.
And on top of that, I am so much happier and less anxious and less worried and stressed now after getting out of all that. The constant fear and worry about my soul and eternity and salvation and converting others and all that was so much. It was painful to live like that. After letting it all go I am so much happier and at peace with myself and the universe than before. I don’t ever want to go back into a system where hellfire and brimstone is yelled at me. Or even worse a system where a god demands that I worship and love him OR ELSE SUFFER FOREVER! Because that isn’t love, it’s manipulation and control and threats and fear.
I simply can’t anymore. I burned out all my ability to ignore reality and believe elaborate stories. And I honestly don’t think I can ever go back to blindly believing it all. It feels like waking up from a fever dream.
Alright then, I guess you will just have to find out for yourself, won’t you.
