Why I no longer believe in the Christian God

If someone says they believe in God I usually ask, “Which God?” There have been so many Gods invented throughout history that it’s important to distinguish which one you believe in and what the attributes and characteristics of that God are.

If someone says they don’t believe in God the assumption is that they don’t believe in any God. That is usually true. In my case, I don’t believe in any God that I’ve learned about so far. This includes the Christian God that I was raised to believe in and followed and promoted throughout much of my adult life, including some time as a pastor. Some would say this makes me an agnostic atheist… I’m an atheist in terms of all the Gods I have heard about but I am agnostic in terms of whether a God may exist that I/we have not “discovered” yet.

In a way, everyone is an atheist. Let’s say for the sake of argument that there have been 5,000 Gods throughout history. You are probably an atheist regarding 4,999 of them. If you think about the reasons why you don’t believe in those Gods, the reasons I don’t believe in the Christian God are probably rather similar.

This is not going to be an intellectual article. I’m not going to try and prove or disprove anything. I’m just going to be talking about me. Why I came to the place where I no longer believe in Christianity. I could write an article (or book) on each topic below with all the nitty gritty arguments and counter-arguments, etc., but not in this article.

1. TRUTH

When I began my de-conversion journey I vowed to myself that I would go wherever the evidence led. I would not give special consideration to what I wanted to be true. Now, no one can be 100% unbiased. I admit that. And I, like everyone, did have biases. There were some reasons why I wanted the Christian God to exist and some reasons why I didn’t. However, I am quite in touch with myself and my thinking and I can usually tell when I’m clinging to some theory or “fact” just because I don’t want to let it go. So I was always conscious of the possibility of bias, and still am. Truth matters a lot to me, and I’d rather live my life guided by truth than by what’s familiar or what makes me feel good.

2. THE BIBLE

Throughout my life I did mental gymnastics in order to make sense of the Bible and to correlate it with the real world. I was pretty good at it. No matter what error or contradiction you threw at me I could probably come up with a reasonable rationalization for it. And there are a lot of them! This is the methodology of most apologists. They start with the premise that the Bible is true and then try to defend it from all accusations. That’s no way to determine truth. I finally had to admit that I had given the Bible tons of breaks; I did not hold it up to the same level of scrutiny as I did other things. When I removed my bias it quickly became evident that the collection of writings known as the Bible was exactly what I would expect if it were written over a long period of time by bronze and iron age men. There’s nothing special about it that shows the imprint of an omniscient God. Much of it is boring as hell. Lots of it is confusing and has led to hundreds of differing interpretations over the millennia. The morals are fairly consistent with the culture of the time. Much of it is horrifying. And so much of it is just plain wrong historically and scientifically. It’s a hot mess. I’m so happy I don’t have to defend it anymore!

3. PRAYER DOESN’T WORK

Most of us believe in prayer because we remember that time when we prayed for something and it happened! It is very difficult to know whether prayer works or not based on this personal anecdotal evidence. We forget, or explain away, the dozens of other times when we prayed and it didn’t happen. If you pray, good and bad things will happen. If you don’t pray, good and bad things will happen. It makes no difference. Praying to Jehovah or Jesus will get you exactly the same results as praying to Allah or Thor, or rubbing a rabbit’s foot, or chanting with the Buddhists, or doing nothing at all. Good things will happen. Bad things will happen. It’s only your interpretation that makes each event supernatural. And this is in spite of Jesus’ oft-repeated dictum… “Ask anything in my name and I will do it.” Clearly not true, as much as sincere believers have claimed it millions of times trying to conjure up magic. And even if everything is “random,” out of the billions of things that happen every day some things are going to look spookily coincidental. Christians are extremely skilled at defending why their prayers don’t have the desired outcome. I won’t list all the many excuses because you probably know them well. (What does your mind start doing when you find out that someone whom many people had prayed for died?) In the Christian mindset prayer never “fails.” The clincher for me was the question, “Why doesn’t God heal amputees?” The truth is that nothing “miraculous” happens that could only be explained by a God. If you take away the supernatural bias you can usually find a reasonable and natural explanation for anything that happens or doesn’t happen. And the more scientific knowledge advances the more true that is. In our prehistoric days we had no other explanation for weird or dramatic or traumatic things. There is no excuse for that anymore.

4. FAITH IS A DUMB WAY TO KNOW ANYTHING

Christianity is replete with admonitions to have faith… to believe in spite of insufficient evidence. It is considered a virtue! How dumb is that? Most religions rely on this tactic; they have to… because they have insufficient evidence!! Can you imagine a scientist saying, “I think Uranium decays more quickly than an apple. I have no evidence to prove it, but I choose to believe it!” The truth is we don’t rely on “faith” in real life. It would be disastrous. You might say, “I have faith that this chair will hold me up!” That is faith based on sufficient evidence. Big difference. That’s not really faith as I have defined it. We use that kind of faith all day long or we wouldn’t be able to function. When Mormons are witnessing they give people the Book of Mormon and say, “Don’t take our word for it. Read it for yourself and then ask the Holy Spirit to impress upon you whether it’s true or not.” And millions end up believing it. Enough said.

5. JESUS NEVER CAME BACK

Jesus clearly expected to come back soon. His followers clearly expected him to come back soon. Paul thought that Jesus’ return was so soon that it would be better not to get married. From what the Bible says it seems like all these people believed that Jesus would come back no later than 65 AD. Later on, probably to encourage those who had become disillusioned with His non-appearance, the writer of 2 Peter wrote, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Well that was helpful! God has no rational time-keeping system that we humans can comprehend? Then why tell us it is going to be “soon” if it means nothing to us? Were you just leading us on?? Obviously, it’s 2019 and Jesus still has not come back in spite of literally hundreds of dates that have been predicted during and since the first century. Every new date seems exciting… until the date comes and nothing happens. And then we start over. The truth is that Jesus’ promise did not happen when he said it would.

6. THE HOLY SPIRIT HAS NOT DONE HIS JOB

Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came He would “lead us into all truth.” That was surely comforting to the disciples who must have had lots of unanswered questions and possibly disagreed about some things after Jesus floated into the sky. Unfortunately, Christianity has had so many splits and factions and disagreements over just about every facet of doctrine that you can imagine. Let’s just pick one… “How is someone saved? How can I go to heaven?” You would think that such a fundamental and important and basic question as that would have one clear, unequivocal answer. You would be wrong! Disagreements abound over such things as, “What constitutes saving faith? Is faith more than belief? What is the role of “works?” Is baptism necessary? If so, which method, and at what age? Does the act of baptism save, or is it just a symbol? What about those who have not heard the gospel before they die? What about those who die before the “age of accountability?” What about the mentally incompetent? Can you lose your salvation once you have been truly saved? How can you be sure you are saved? Is placing your faith in Christ a free will decision or has God elected you prior to your birth, in spite of your will? What about suicide? Are children covered by their believing parents before they know better? Volumes and volumes and volumes have been written about these issues with no more clarity or agreement now than ever. This is just one example of dozens and dozens of doctrines, each of which is bitterly contested. If I were to ask you about these doctrines you would assure me that your take on it is the correct one, and you could prove it. Just like everyone else.

7. PAIN AND SUFFERING

If you have any awareness at all you know that there is a tremendous amount of unnecessary pain and suffering in this world. It’s horrible. What makes it even more intolerable is to be told that an all-loving, all-powerful God is in charge of it all. Christians have many excuses for His lack of action… free will, the Fall, the devil, God is teaching us a lesson, etc. It’s so much simpler to believe that this all-loving, all-powerful God just isn’t there. He provides nothing of value to the equation. If He does exist He’s got a lot to answer for.

8. JEHOVAH IS LIKE TRUMP

Now, to be fair, Trump was not a thing when I went through my de-conversion. But if the shoe fits… Jehovah is arrogant and self-possessed… Obsessed about people liking him. Nice speeches about how He loves everyone one day, blowing up cities or drowning the world the next. Dictator. Everything He does is automatically right and good and moral, for no other reason than He did it. Seems like a horrible mixture of a third world despot and an out-of-control toddler. If a being created the entire universe, I’m pretty sure he’s not petty and insecure. Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” That’s comical! Jehovah and Jesus could not be more dis-similar. Which is why many Christians try to avoid the Old Testament at all costs.

9. “CREATION” HAPPENED VERY SLOWLY AND SYSTEMATICALLY

There are still lots of things science is figuring out about how life started and how evolution works. However, a couple of things are abundantly clear. Animal species appeared on this earth over a very long period of time in a very systematic way; the earliest ones were single-celled organisms, followed by more and more complex beings, eventually leading to the most complex, homo sapiens. Best estimates are that this happened over billions of years, not 7 days. So… if the creation story in Genesis is not real then there was no Fall, we aren’t born in sin, we don’t need redemption, and there was no need for a savior. Christianity ends up seeming rather pointless.

Those were my biggest reasons. There were many other reasons, but at some point I finally admitted that I simply could not believe in Christianity anymore, even if I wanted to! My intellectual integrity would not allow it.

Do you still believe? Why or why not?

Don’t forget to like, share, subscribe, yada yada yada…