The Demise of my Faith
By Luke ~
It's been 11 years since I deconverted. I figured I'd share my story, as I find it therapeutic to do so. Still somewhat haunted by my Christian past. Sorry if this is a bit disjointed.
It all started in 2008. I was on Youtube. It was, I think, the heyday of Youtube atheism. (Thunderf00t vs. VenomfangX anyone? Lol.) One day I stumbled onto a video by user profmth Mitch. He talked about how Jesus failed to return when he promised he would. I was shocked and, frankly,
kinda excited. I remember thinking,
It was this video and others (by Thunderf00t, cdk007, etc) that propelled me to take a hard look at my faith. I ended up reading articles about atheism and evolution on Talk Origins and Infidels.org. Richard Carrier's essay "Why I Am Not a Christian" had a big impact on me. And reading about evolution essentially made me have an identity crisis. It was like,
I ordered books . . . lots of books, from Amazon. And took out books from the library. I was desperate to figure it all out. Biblical scholarship, philosophy of religion, and cognitive science of religion was my thing. Why did I believe in the first place? Is there actually a god? I spent an awful
lot of time reading academic books and articles, especially about Christian eschatology because of that video by profmth Mitch. I wanted to know for sure if profmth was right. Because if he was, then, as far as I was concerned, Christianity was definitely false.
After maybe 2 years I became convinced that Jesus was indeed a false prophet. That Christianity was false. Dale Allison (Constructing Jesus
, Ch. 2) and Edward Adams (The Stars Will Fall from Heaven
) persuaded me. Attempts by Christian academics to avoid the false prophet charge were unconvincing.
I ended up becoming very evangelistic about my atheism -- or loss of faith -- during this time. I wanted people to know that Christianity was false, and would write Facebook posts arguing for the falsity of Christianity. I relished getting into arguments with Christians.
I still remember when I first admitted to myself that I was an atheist -- that I had completely lost faith in God. It was when I had finished a book called "Atheist Universe
" by David Mills. He convinced me that Christianity -- at least of the Evangelical variety -- was bogus. Original sin, the doctrine of Hell, creationism, etc, all became unbelievable. . . . I couldn't believe I had accepted all of this. Losing my faith and seeing the world with new eyes was a surreal experience. Certainly something I'll never forget.
Virtually everyone in my family is an evangelical Christian. Some have tried to bring me back into the fold. I've been invited to church, out for coffee to chat, you know the drill. After I attended a multi-part apologetic sermon series with family members in 2012, I put together an anthology for them as a way of showing what I believe and why; to show them why I don't accept the standard arguments for faith; and to hopefully show them that I searched hard for the truth. Whether I succeeded in that I don't know. We don't talk much about religious matters anymore.
My interest in these big issues has waned considerably over the last couple years, admittedly, due to issues I won't get into. I do, however, still enjoy reading the stories of recent deconverts. Comments or questions welcome.
It all started in 2008. I was on Youtube. It was, I think, the heyday of Youtube atheism. (Thunderf00t vs. VenomfangX anyone? Lol.) One day I stumbled onto a video by user profmth Mitch. He talked about how Jesus failed to return when he promised he would. I was shocked and, frankly,
kinda excited. I remember thinking,
"What the hell, could he (prof) be right? Was Jesus wrong?"I ended up showing my mom. She just shook her head and said "nope," and walked away. Love my mom, but lol. This was the video:
It was this video and others (by Thunderf00t, cdk007, etc) that propelled me to take a hard look at my faith. I ended up reading articles about atheism and evolution on Talk Origins and Infidels.org. Richard Carrier's essay "Why I Am Not a Christian" had a big impact on me. And reading about evolution essentially made me have an identity crisis. It was like,
"Whoa, so I have no soul? Then who am I?"It's hard to describe how I felt -- it was just really weird. Kinda dreamlike.
I ordered books . . . lots of books, from Amazon. And took out books from the library. I was desperate to figure it all out. Biblical scholarship, philosophy of religion, and cognitive science of religion was my thing. Why did I believe in the first place? Is there actually a god? I spent an awful
lot of time reading academic books and articles, especially about Christian eschatology because of that video by profmth Mitch. I wanted to know for sure if profmth was right. Because if he was, then, as far as I was concerned, Christianity was definitely false.
After maybe 2 years I became convinced that Jesus was indeed a false prophet. That Christianity was false. Dale Allison (Constructing Jesus
, Ch. 2) and Edward Adams (The Stars Will Fall from Heaven) persuaded me. Attempts by Christian academics to avoid the false prophet charge were unconvincing.I ended up becoming very evangelistic about my atheism -- or loss of faith -- during this time. I wanted people to know that Christianity was false, and would write Facebook posts arguing for the falsity of Christianity. I relished getting into arguments with Christians.
I still remember when I first admitted to myself that I was an atheist -- that I had completely lost faith in God. It was when I had finished a book called "Atheist Universe
" by David Mills. He convinced me that Christianity -- at least of the Evangelical variety -- was bogus. Original sin, the doctrine of Hell, creationism, etc, all became unbelievable. . . . I couldn't believe I had accepted all of this. Losing my faith and seeing the world with new eyes was a surreal experience. Certainly something I'll never forget.Virtually everyone in my family is an evangelical Christian. Some have tried to bring me back into the fold. I've been invited to church, out for coffee to chat, you know the drill. After I attended a multi-part apologetic sermon series with family members in 2012, I put together an anthology for them as a way of showing what I believe and why; to show them why I don't accept the standard arguments for faith; and to hopefully show them that I searched hard for the truth. Whether I succeeded in that I don't know. We don't talk much about religious matters anymore.
My interest in these big issues has waned considerably over the last couple years, admittedly, due to issues I won't get into. I do, however, still enjoy reading the stories of recent deconverts. Comments or questions welcome.
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