Nov
11th
2019
Going Public: I'm No Longer a Christian, and Here's Why · 10:18pm Nov 11th, 2019
Within the last few weeks, I had a crisis of faith. I realized that some of the assertions on which I had based my faith weren't as reliable as I thought they were. After taking a closer look at what historians and textual critics had to say—and realizing that, contrary to what I may have once thought, they actually aren't just a bunch of God-hating reprobates intent on destroying religion, but rather genuine scholars who care as much about truth as any religious person does—I can no
2952433
Cool. I only ask because by deconversion was a lot slower than it seems yours was. I don’t have a record of any conversations I had when I was a Christian. I always thought it would be neat to see what kind of things I actually said and believed back then, instead of just what I remember lol.
2951808
I can't say I have gone back and reread any of my conversations from back then, but I do remember some of them.
2950149
Gotcha. Taking a critical look at ones beliefs is always difficult so I applaud anyone that does so-whether they end up agreeing with me or not.
Have you ever gone back and reread some of your old posts?
2949706
Yeah, I was a Christian at the time.
I had grown up being taught to believe in god, but my family didn't actually start attending church until I was 8. When I was 14, we left that church (a United Methodist church) and started going to a fundamental Baptist church (which meant KJV-only, no "worldy" music, etc.).
I had already been questioning some of the more strict teachings about music and things like that during college, and it wasn't long after that I started questioning KJV-onlyism as well. I gradually became skeptical of traditional church teachings and took a much more independent approach to studying and interpreting the bible, and I attended church less and less frequently until I stopped going altogether.
Eventually, my view of the bible as an infallible source of truth changed, and my faith was basically hanging on a thread, that thread being the assumption that god must have provided some undeniable proof of Jesus' divinity and resurrection.
But then, about a year ago, I happened to take a look at the Skeptics' Annotated Bible out of curiosity and I came across things it pointed out about Jesus that I hadn't noticed in the bible before. It really bothered me, and I decided that I needed to face my doubts head on and find out whether what I had been believing was really true or not. I chose to read How Jesus Became God by Bart Ehrman, and I learned just how plausible it is that Jesus could have really been just a mere man and that he never actually rose from the dead (meaning that god clearly had not provided any of the undeniable proof I thought he did). My faith was damaged beyond repair, and not long after that, I started reading books like God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens and Outgrowing God by Richard Dawkins that helped me to be even more confident in and satisfied with my de-conversion.
And that, more or less, is how I became an atheist.
I was glancing at an old post and noticed that you and I went back and fourth a few rounds where you seemed to identify as a Christian. Can I ask you about your journey (and timeline) to atheism?
Edit: This was back when your handle was Moody Jazz, which is why I didn’t recognize you more recently I guess lol.