Awful Things We Believed at My Evangelical University 

Smash that like button if Jesus saved you from THE BIG GAY

I once dated a girl who said, "logic is from the devil." I was speechless for days.

"you are not worthy of love but i love anyways" aka "im the only one that could love you" is probably the clearest sign of an abusive relationship

"Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn't there, and finding it." - Oscar Wilde

A big difference I find between religion and science is how they treat questions. In faith, questioning the religion is the worst thing you can do, while in science, questioning everything is the very basis of everything we know.

I literally decided to go to my Christian university hoping they could help me stop having feelings for my friend. That friend is now my girlfriend and I am so relieved I’m graduating this semester. Channels like this have helped me to re-examine my life and beliefs and I am so much happier as a result. 💖💜💙

"Education can weaken your faith" Well it's not false.

If education can weaken a faith, the faith is wrong.

On the topic of sexual repression - I’m a lesbian who went to a single sex religious school, and let me tell you I went through so much repression and guilt for having sexual urges, especially towards women. There was very much a culture of ‘dont talk about sex’ at my school from my memory.

"Education can weaken our faith" And Sexual education can reduce unwanted pregnancies Seeing the similarities yet? lol

My female cousin was expelled from an evangelical university because she had a girlfriend. She is bi and is still with the same partner over 10 years later.

I literally came inches away from suicide 7 years ago because of severe internalized homophobia thanks to religious education. Was standing on a chair with a noose around my neck, all I had to do was kick the chair away, but I didn't. I'm so lucky I managed to escape those toxic, self-loathing beliefs and find peace with who I am. I still have a lot of emotional scars though due to the fact that all those supposedly holy people who were supposed to help, protect and nurture me in my childhood instead harmed me and taught me to hate myself. I ended up severely emotionally stunned, I'm turning 30 soon and I feel like I have the emotional maturity most straight people have by 20 due to being so delayed in exploring love and relationships. I was 27 before I even had my first kiss or went on a date, during the last 2-3 years I've been having to learn all the things most people do in high school.

The "you are not worthy of love but I still love you" hit hard. Growing up in a extremely Christian house and liking women this tore me down, to this day I have issues with accepting love from others, mostly my family because I always feel like a don't deserve it, constant feelings of guilt and unworthiness shallow me whole everyday. The fact that christians fail to see how they are harming others with their "but God will always love you" hurts my soul, something as love from a "heavenly fatherly figure" has become haunting to me.

Imagine being in a math class and starting the class with prayer. I guess they say something from the Book of Numbers.

> goes to a *university* > the university: "Education can weaken our faith!" > 👄 👁️ 👁️

I've often wondered how a biological need can be considered a sin. It's like God saying that it's a sin to..pee.

i am way older than you but I have to thank you for this video. When I was a young man I attended an evangelical bible college in Los Angeles. While there I had a mental break down and confessed to my dean of students, that I had same sex attractions. I was prayed for, tongues were spoken, and I was told that I was cured. After the prayer I was told even though I was cured I would probably never have heterosexaul relationships. Well needless to say, those were true words since in fact I was not cured. I went through years of self denial and not until my mid twentys was I able to accept myself. It was even more years before I could recognize how utterly foolish all religions are. I wish I could have seen this video as a young adult. Thanks so much, I hope this helps some young people understand that you are who you are.

As an ex Muslim, I know how being heavily indoctrinated with BS feels like lol

Controversial opinion: Universities' such as the one Drew speaks of in this video should be illegal on the premise of brainwashing/ abuse

I did not attend a Christian university, but I did go to a private Christian school K-12. This school was also attached to the church my family attended (southern baptist). I’m 26 now but I’m still working to break down the ideas I was brainwashed to accept. Specifically, that I’m not deserving of love; it came as quite a shock to me how deeply I’d internalized this concept

It's embarrassing that we still have whole colleges devoted to promoting cognitive dissonance.

ive honestly been scared to click on this video for a few months. I am an ex culist it hurts knowing I believed in such horrific ideology and practices.... and I know in the last 10 years, I am STILL unlearning and deprogramming, so it is scary to know there is a lot more. But I need to know, so I can continue to grow.

Genetically Modified Skeptic, thank you so much! This video changed my life. Just a week or before this video was posted I finally came to terms with the fact I was bisexual. I was a deist at the time, but digging into Christian homophobia and pro-gay theology got me reading the bible and become a Christian again. This only lasted a few months though. When watching apologetics debate and answer questions, I found myself disagreeing with them, but I was still a believer. After watching enough Christian videos about why being gay is bad, your response videos to them started being suggested. I was skeptical of watching your videos once I found out you were an atheist, but the thumbnail and title for this one tickled my interest. I watched it, and it made me really realize just how absurd of a religion Christianity is and the crazy things otherwise reasonable people will do just to maintain faith in it. I later watched more of your stuff responding to homophobia, and although none of it made me an atheist, it got RU-vid to recommend another channel, therimintrees, to me. The videos looked like responses to my own objections to the bible; after reading the Torah and Job, I concluded Yahweh is a narcissistic child to ridiculous to exist in the real world. The videos by therimintrees let me hear someone with the same conclusion talk, and I finally admitted that God is not real. Immediately after saying it out loud, I was filled with joy. Now for anyone who thinks life without God is unlivable and sad, I say, "try believing in a world with a god who took part in making a book that is responsible for literal millennia of your people being slaughtered. That's what being a Christian is like for me. I want you to look at my face and imagine it being bashed in with rocks because of what your so-called lord of love told desert wandering savages with eye-for-an-eye ethics to do. How dare you not only try to tell me there is a god who loves me so much he is willing to honor kill me for not satisfying his fetish for impregnations but also try to coax me into believing I deserve death and the only reason you haven't killed me yet is because your idol said to love your enemies. Your so-called morals are illusive and based upon primitive laws of iron-age, animal-sacrificing bafoons who would have killed you yourself for your race. Jesus was not the Israeli god of weather, Yahweh. Yahweh was never real. If you actually read the bible in context, Yahweh is absolutely a tyrant who would never love you unless he gets something out of it. The text is not divinely inspired. Your religion is a lie. Get over it." That was my rant I guess. If anyone actually read this far, thank you for reading. I may have gotten caught up in the heat of the moment there, but I just want to say ever since I left the religion, my life has been so much better. I'm the kind of guy who thinks that if I'm in a religion, I need to genuinely believe it. I genuinely believed in Yahweh for quite some time, and it was living hell. I find my story to be an example of how Abrahamic religions are demonstrably harmful to a great number of people.

To which I simply respond: gay away the pray.

Wow. That narrative, "You are sinful and unworthy, but God still loves you." Take away the religious context and you're left with emotional manipulation and abuse... this is not okay!!

I'm so thankful that beyond having 2 atheistic grampas, my father was more interested in laying cement and brickwork around our house than take us to church, and my mom who would say, "well if he won't go, I'm not taking them alone."

I got kicked out of a Christian uni.... for violating their "honor code" I cant even describe how insane that place was

This pattern is also consistent with my experience at another private, Christian university. It’s not just evangelicals.

They're teaching their students how to actively engage in doublethink. I find it horrifying.

the first five minutes of this is why I left religion. This whole video described my private christian HIGH SCHOOL to the T. The full first ten minutes feels like you stepped back in time and described my high school years to me. The only difference is that our school didn't even acknowledge that gay people exist. Didn't talk about it. Didn't discuss conversion because "Gay" was something that happened to "other" people, not good christians. (Surprise, we had a trans student and multiple LGB students who came out in their late 20's). It's awful that universities do this to students. It was awful to have it done to me as a teenager, too

I left the church years ago and am only starting to realize the scars it left behind. Definitely subscribing. Thank you for this.

I went to a catholic university and they were totally chill with me being trans. The entire faculty was really accepting and understanding of my experience. Even the monks. In fact, the monks liked talking to me and asking questions about my lived experience. They were genuinely interested in learning about how people like me had to live and progress in our lives. I'm glad they weren't evangelicals, because they do not sound like they were genuinely interested in learning anything.

"Sexual purity" has got to be the weirdest concept ever created

As someone who is currently deconstructing my own faith, I appreciate videos like this, if only to be reminded that I'm never alone.

Wow, so true. I graduated from a bible college years ago, and by my last year was having some very serious questions. A couple days before graduation, all the seniors were handed a one page document listing 13 points of doctrine, and we had to sign it to graduate. At that point I was not down with those beliefs, and had to ask myself, do I sign this when I don't believe it and throw away all my years of diligent work, or do I refuse to sign so that I would be completely honest. After only a few minutes, I said the hell with it and signed the damn paper. The college had no right to steal my years of hard work. I have never regretted that decision.

"you're not in an environment that prioritizes education, you're in an environment that prioritizes that maintenance of specific beliefs." THIS

When I was in my teens, my peers where always advised to not study psychology at university as it would ruin their faith. No one ever said why it would. It was only after I got out of the Baptist cult that I was in that I realised that they would learn about the manipulative techniques that were used on them.

"If a set of beliefs is true, it can withstand scrutiny from any and all angles. There's no reason to be concerned that our beliefs may be challenged throughout our education if our beliefs are true" I agree wholeheartedly. It was the main reason why I started investigating Christianity thoroughly. And I threw away a lot of things that I grew up with in the process. I'm still a Christian though. I found out that if I were honest with myself, I wouldn't have thrown away Christianity because of Christianity, I would have thrown it away because of Christians. When I started investigating Christianity, I found out many things that I wouldn't have known if it were for my education. I simply started educating myself despite the "don't ask questions, trust God" attitude I got from some Christians. And boy I learned. The Bible contains errors, the Bible contains contradictions, there's parts of the Bible that we do not know the author of. There's parts of the Bible that were later additions. I learned a whole lot that I never knew, but if I were honest with myself, none of these things had any bearing on whether the account in the Bible is true or not. It didn't mean as much for it. And today, I consider myself an educated Christian, free for all kinds of ideas about how the earth and animals came to be. I accept the Big Bang, I accept evolution, be it theistic evolution. And I'm still educating myself further such that I may change my mind if new evidence contradicts with my current views. I really, really dislike the anti-education and sometimes anti-thinking view that some Christians seem to have. Christians really underestimate the value of an analytic mind and I have plans to educate the people in my church such that they start to think critically about their beliefs, like I did. Public education and science started from churches and Christians for crying out loud, where on earth did we go wrong?

The way I see it, religion is totally acceptable in any situation until your religion starts hurting others (including yourself), whether or not you know them personally. Once that line is crossed, that religion becomes unacceptable.

"Closeness to god is necessary to maintain sexual purity" I don't know what either of these things are and I don't think they matter very much.

I am now a second year student of an evangelical college, became an atheist 1 month ago, still in the closest and can relate to all that you've said

"Jesus can turn you straight." I don't know about you, but I'd go gay for Obi-wan Kenobi.

I still consider myself a believing catholic but have startinf falling away from my faith recently due to me being gay and getting a boyfriend. I recently stumbled upon your channel and it sounds like I’m goin through a similar thought process as you

I hate the people who built the system you are describing here. This is abuse.

As a gay man living in an atheist society, I've managed to avoid most everyday discrimination. But I have friends whom have had it much worse at the hands of religion, and it breaks my heart. I truly believe that videos like this are super important to LGBT people in religious spheres, and that they can help a lot. If nothing else, they give me tools so that I can try to help others. Keep up the good work.

Omg the "How did what you learned make you closer with God?" question is something I was put through at my Catholic high school several times. It was in stark contrast to the rest of what we did, which was generally pretty secular and thought-provoking.

Wow, this sounds so similar to my primary school I attended growing up. I was there for ten years and everything we learned had to have some connection to god, it was ridiculous. We were discouraged from free-thinking and simply instructed to blindly believe - it was insane. I literally didn't even meet an atheist until I was fourteen. My school was also in full support of bullying atheists and explained to us that to respect an atheist was to betray Jesus. They also explained to us the moral good of conversion therapy and when we had our first lesbian couple at school, our teachers forced them to break up as they were setting a bad example for other students, and who they were was plain disgusting and defies the laws of our god. My religious school experience was so tragically toxic that I honestly think all religious-based schools and universities should be illegal. These schools are indoctrinating young children and refusing to allow them to think independently. It needs to stop.

Liberty University grad here. Pretty much everything you described is true of LU.

"Hate the sin, love the sinner," is about the most emotionally and intellectually dishonest thing that Christians say. It completely negates the identity of large swathes of people. I went to my sister Christmas eve service (before COVID) and got soooo angry. I was looking at their youth and thinking that at least 10% of those kids would grow up learning to hate part of who they are. I know my sister wants to do good and does do a lot of good. But it makes me nauseous thinking about the abuse the church hands out while calling it salvation.

My family is extremely religious and I attended a private Christian school from 1st to 6th grade. It was hell for me, but now, I'd consider what I experience at home worse. As a biromantic, transgender agnostic athiest, there is nothing I personally believe that makes me unable to be who I am. But I experience a lot of turmoil and question if I'm actually going to hell, if I've damned myself somehow, etc. One of the worst parts is my mother claims she is a prophet and inserts her god complex into everything, especially when dealing with my mental illnesses, which she largely believes are nonexistent. She's also asked me if I still believe several times, and I've had to lie to her to avoid being severely punished or lectured. My grandparents, sisters, and other relatives are all also religious. If they knew my true identity, boy would I be in dangerous waters. I'm 16, by the way. Religion is a cult.

I've seen no evidence that "evangelical christian" and "university" are compatible terms.

To me as a "normal"-university student, what you are describing to me does not sound like a university, it sounds like a dangerous cult and I am absolutely terrified by the concept.

I quit church at an evangelical college. The more I learned about the religion, the less I believed.

I attended a Southern Baptist college in TN back in the late 70s-early 80s and my experiences mirrored yours closely. I was even on a track to become a Baptist minister. However, it was my experiences there, and my interactions with my fellow ministerial and other students which drove me further and further from belief. As I tried and failed to remain celibate, and struggled with my failures, I was faced with the expectation that I would maintain the great illusion when I was asked to be a guest speaker at religious services or to lead prayers. I found myself publicly condemning the activities I and my female partners (I was straight) were engaged in from the pulpit, while guiltily hiding those activities from public view. Even then I had a high sense of ethics so I simply stopped speaking on certain things in order to, at some level, not become a hypocrite. The problem was, that I knew other guys, who could cheerfully have sex on Saturday night with one young lady and another on Sunday morning and 2-3 hours later, with a straight face to boot, stand in front of a congregation and wail convincingly about the evils of lusting and fornicating. After 3 years of this I had had enough and I walked away. I went to church for a couple more years but as I witnessed hypocritical pastor after hypocritical deacon after hypocritical "church lady" I eventually left the church, and with the exception of tours of great cathedrals and the like have not set foot in a church in nearly 40 years.

Dude I really appreciate your videos. I was forced into religion at a young age and I have a lot of negative experiences from that time. I’m an atheist now, and I’m still processing through a lot of my childhood bullshit. I really appreciate your consistently caring and logical breakdown of topics like these. I find your videos a powerful tool to help process my religious trauma. Thank you for sharing yourself online.

Apparently, my life should be completely unmanageable as I spiral out of control and into a desperate abyss of depression, self loathing and drug abuse. It must piss them off to no end that I'm happier and healthier as an atheist.

When you're forced into church school, remain celibate because your parents promised to abandon you if you don't, then get constantly accused of being gay by the same people because they assumed you'd fail & need forgiveness...

This is such a worthwhile message. Subscribed just for this. Attended a similar university. Got an actually decent education in engineering but found myself questioning by sophomore year and fully agnostic by junior year. Was an absolutely gut-wrenching process wherein I had countless conversations with professors, counselors, other students and staff etc. etc. The interaction I'll never forget was from a former student who majored in business, went to work for an investment firm for 3 years and was "deeply troubled" by "the secularism of our society and of the world of finance" and came back to work for the university managing student accounts. For lack of better term he tried to "talk me out of" my new-found skepticism. He kept asking "what is it really that makes you not want to believe anymore". I gave him probably 6 or 7 different answers, each one getting more and more fundamental before I finally settled on answering "I prefer thinking over believing". After a long pause he said probably the most impactful thing I've ever heard; "You know, if I was going to miss out on the paradise of heaven in God's kingdom because of just one thing, I'd have to question if that thing is really worth doing." I stared at him for probably thirty seconds in disbelief. I'm much happier now that I graduated and don't have to attend mandatory church services three times a week.

Hi, I just really want to thank you, you've really helped me with my process of understanding that since I was a kid I've been lied to with all of this religion thing, This has been a liberating and also painful process but I'm gradually regaining my self-esteem back, and making peace with how much I like to make questions and be critical of ideas without caring about the judgment of christians close to my life and without being scared to death about burning eternally in a giant pool of fire. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Speaking as a Brit, it's almost inconceivable that stuff like this would be taught in UK universities.

I too went to an Evangelical University, back in 1977-78. Everything you say was your experience was also mine, decades apart. Amazing how they refuse to learn from their mistakes.

It's interesting to listen to your experience with Evangelical universities. I went to a Catholic Private School when I was in High School, and it was a rather dramatically different situation in my High School. We were required to attend Mass once a week and we did have a religion class each year, but rather notably, our religion teacher generally encouraged us to explore other ideologies and religions and to make up our own minds on what we believed. It was precisely what a religious school should be - we present you with information and you make up your own mind. It was even common knowledge in my High School that only about 32% of the student population was Catholic, and only about 51% of the school population were Christian in any sense of the word. Nearly half the School either believed in a different religion, were agnostic, or flat out atheistic. This was never brought up as a negative point by any of the school staff, and not participating in the communion during Mass was an entirely acceptable thing. At one point in my religion class, one semester was even devoted to comparative religion studies and we were simply required to give a presentation on the basic tenants and history of any world religion we wanted to. Unfortunately, that High School has since closed due to a lack of enrolment, but it was really a refreshingly different environment from what I hear is the typical environment at most Christian schools.

I became an atheist after listening toThe Amazing Atheist, Armoured Skeptic, Matt Dilahunty, Richard Dawkins, and a few other dudes like that. Most of them are very confrontational, they push their views without reservation and are openly against religions. Now that ive discovered you and your style, its been an interesting switch. Theres no new information, i spent years digging into this realm. But your style is very different, its almost like listening to a therapist explain these things to a patient. I mean that in a positive way. Its empathetic, polite, structured and detailed. This approach probably works for many who are not swayed by the Matt Dilahunty or Amazing Atheist styles. Im glad to discover that you exist

A school like that sounds like hell on earth. Pun intended.

its 100% true that education weaken your faith. When you learn how to use your brain, its a side effect, you actually get smart and start to ask questions :D

I love how centered, rational, and calm you are during your videos - no matter the topic. It adds a lot of weight to your presentation and I for one greatly appreciate that! Thank you.

When you talked about sex i remembered when an ex girlfriend literally got depression and dumped me because she got tired of getting talked to about how she was unholy and shitty. We really liked sex a lot but those fuckers actually ruined our relationship. Thankfully she saw how stupid that shit was later un life and we're still good friends (she's still Christian just doesn't let the stupid shit influence her anymore).

I had 4 years at a christian university, and the longer I was there, the more I realized I was not a christian. It took me a few years before I considered myself an atheist, but I did eventually get there.

9:40 : "Commitment to a belief regardless of what you learned is not an ideological strength, and when that commitment is required for the maintenence of a belief it's a sign that the belief is dependent on the believer's ignorance." I couldn't have put it better myself.

Drew, you are awesome. I am a 72-year young Gay male who believes in God, just not the man-made organized religions. Your videos are always an awesome way of rethinking certain subjects. Thank you, my friend. Stay safe & be well!!!

This reminds me a lot of my university. Mine wasn't quite as obsessive (we didn't have pre-class Bible studies and we only attended chapel twice a week, and there were only a few classes where we had to talk about our relationship with God) but I very much remember being encouraged to ask questions and examine my faith... to a point. I even had science professors who taught actual science and Biblical history professors who taught (at least some) actual history, and I, having been raised as a Biblical literalist, desperately wish those professors had taken the time to address these issues in the context of the narratives many of us were taught, but I guess going in expecting to have to spend time correcting your students' deeply held religious misinformation is probably not something professors should be expected to do. The sad thing is, it wasn't until years after I graduated that I finally started asking all my questions and realized how little religious authorities actually want that, even if they encourage it. They want you to ask questions that they can answer, and if they can't answer, it's "God works in mysterious ways" which is basically code for "shut up please."

In my (thankfully secular) school we have this tradition of a “marriage booth” at the back-to-school fair. Last year two girls got “married” and a Karen mom had a public freak out screaming that we would all burn in hell four our progressive ways and her son would no longer attend our school or some bs like that. It even got the “marriage booth” thing abolished, starting debates on the school newspaper, that’s how loud that asshat’s tantrum was.

"Evangelical University" sounds like an oxymoron.

My parents wanted me to go to Pensacola. My brother went to Cedarville. I didn't go to college. And my brother regrets going. But I've signed up for a local small state university to study Biology. We went to a christian highschool. When I contacted the university about which degree I should shoot for, they recommended Natural Sciences with Biology concentration. But it lacked a class on Evolution, about which I only know the basics. So I said, no, I want Biology with a Minor in Botany, because it requires the Evolution class. I think they were surprised about that. I think they're used to people wanting to avoid that class, especially people from private schools. I'm going back to school in my 30s, and this time I want the straight dope, not confirmation of my parents' religious biases. My parents are young earth creationists. They're not happy about this, but I'm not doing it for them, I'm doing it for me.

Thank you for sharing this. Really validated my experiences at a private evangelical christian university and I feel much less alone.

As a gay former Baptist, I would always get the shit about being told that I need to fix myself. As a 14 and 15 year old when I came out.

Commenting for algorithm

I am probably twice your age, but I feel a great deal of connection to your experiences. I was raised in the Bob Jones Evangelical faith and appreciate your videos so much. Totally accidental meeting here youtube.❤️

Man, you just described my teenage years and early 20s. This is what I hope to save my own children from.

Evangelical College is where you flunk by getting the questions right.

I feel so bad for those students...

Oh boy, I cant wait to go to university and leave my Christian Catholic school. Most students dont care much about religion but there are people who are homophobic which hurts so much. P.S. I am bi

I went to a similar evangelical university. For us though, chapel was mandatory daily. Go to chapel, sign in blah blah blah. If you missed more than one service, academic probation. Registration Day, sign a contract of faith....oof....Acting on any sexual urges was grounds for dismissal (without refund). When word got to the board of deans that I was gay, I was forced to meet with them. I was told, "We love you with the love of Christ, but for a tree to thrive, we must prune the decay from its branches." I was given 4 hours to pack my belongings, and leave campus. I was also told that if I ever wanted to come back, I would need to undergo 400 hrs of therapy with a school appointed therapist. 400 hrs of counselling with a school appointed minister, and volunteer 600 hrs of community service at a school appointed charity. These places are beyond toxic and abusive.

In my upbringing , I found myself afraid of scientific papers, especially about evolution, until I realized the folly of fearing knowledge

If god existed there would be no need to prove his existence

If god is perfect, how does education affect faith?

I don't understand how any of this is even legal. It's frankly abuse by any other name, of the worst kind at that. If the harm this can do to students is so well recorded (and it is) why are they allowed to operate in the manner they do. Too many people see "freedom of religion and the free exercise thereof" as a get out of jail free card, an excuse to commit atrocities, and they're only capable of seeing how wrong it is when other religions do it. Imagine the uproar if an Islamic University in the US did the exact same thing

"I can get it right this time!" You say as you try to make your life fit into a narrative that was never true to begin with, and when you fail again you blame yourself instead of the lie. We were gaslit.

Christian scientific method..."Do not put the Lord your God to the test".

Never will I understand how people can take the word of a book written thousands of years ago in a radically different society that has been translated hundreds of thousands of times into hundreds or thousands of different languages at face value.

I hate how there are people who have felt homosexual tendencies but then they realised that they werent homosexual and then use this as a justification that gay people can turn straight , that their god bought them back. Its okay obviously to experiment but discounting another persons whole experience is soo dumb.

As someone who is still forced to go to a very conservative Christian Reformed Church, thank you for this video. It is like a breath of fresh air from all of the religious stuff I have to hear on a regular basis.

"Don't worry, even though you aren't worthy of love, God still loves you" On the inside, this is framed as the sweetest, most righteous statement ever. On the outside, this is the language of abuse. I don't know how else to describe making autonomous adults think their biological feelings are dirty and evil but abuse. To think I almost subjected myself to this, but stopped after I saw the graduation rate (10%) and decided I wasn't willing to call my grandma a bad person (she's married to another woman) just to stay in school. In hindsight that might have been my best life decision.

One of my close friends works with Christopher Yuan, and we've had some *interesting* conversations around the intersection of sexual orientation/gender identity and Christianity. Yuan also spoke at my Christian college, mixing anecdotal "evidence" and cherry-picked data. If he wants to remain celibate, cool! But he shouldn't prescribe that on others.

I'm an ex protestant turned evangelical turned agnostic. I was in the evangelical church for some years. I know how it feels to have sexual urges and feel sooo damn guilty and "impure". I'm straight but I never fancied the idea of getting married; just unthinkable. But I had needs.... then I went on to fall in love with a man. And then I was no virgin no more... and every day I was thinking about how I would burn in hell. That is really horrible, and it ruins so much in a life. We had prayer-nights (wakes), chasing demons, so on and so forth, i've seen it all. I could make a long list of sufferings due to these churches I was a member of but I'll just say this: thank you for your video, it makes me feel less alone. Lots of ex Jehovas Witnesses and Mormons here on RU-vid and I enjoy listening to their stories, there are similarities - but how I'd love some ex Evangelicals/ Baptists to tell their story. I don't have the courage to make a video (English is my 3d language and I'm not the "public on camera" type) but I'd love to listen to other people's stories.

Oof, I know the feel, my parents raised me in this manner. At 36, I'm still battling to deal with that crap they forced down my throat.

I can only imagine what Biology class was like.

Daniel Sloss, an atheist comedian, after talking about his lack of belief and all said something akin to "if you believe as strongly as you claim you do, surely your faith won't be rocked by a stand up comedian's act" and that shows me that, yeah. a lot of Christians talk a big game about belief, but are much more insecure than they'd want you to know

Faith is believing despite a lack of evidence. Education is the presentation of facts and evidence. By definition, education will erode faith. The mental gymnastics people go through to get around simple logic baffles me.

The number one thing that has me eternally grateful for my time in the military, was breaking the foundation of my faith. I never went to a university but my time in the military from Basic training to EAS demolished and drastically changed the foundation of my world view and that allowed me to start discovering who I really am: At 18, I was borderline alt right, from an extremely christian house-hold where I was very much sheltered, and EXTREMELY in the closet and insecure with my sexuality At 25, I was much more center in my political views, I threw away many of my bigoted takes but had some hold-outs left over, I realized how wrong I was at 18 and actively resolved to change On 2/7/2022, the day of this reply I am 29, I've come out of the closet embracing the gay that's been there all along, I'm looking at socialism now seeing the appeal and most of my views now are very liberal, I am a gay liberal anime femboy now and honestly: I've NEVER been happier. Discarding christ was the best decision of my life, with christ, I'd be dead in ditch somewhere or in prison