Never heard of your channel but your premise is wrong. There are no Kristians at all. All NT-derived nonJesuist sects are Hæresy, not Kristism/Jesuism: Orthodocsy is Petrism, Catholicism is papism, Anglicanism is mishmash, and Protestantism is Paulism as they do what Gospels expressly oppose like conversion of foreigners, family and marriage, popes, diet, public prayer, wealth, and don’t do what they require like drink poison, castration, amputation, playing with snakes, healing (not with drugs s as those incur death penalty as witchcraft in Revelation), speaking in tongues (not fake ones like Pentecostals), killing of unbelievers, and dying for the faketh. Belief is irrelevant-one must qualify for a religion and Gospels/Rev. withheld salvation from gentiles, nonvirgins, and women for the 144,000 Israelites at the endtime 1950 years ago. See my antitheism resources “Kristians don’t exist” (Medium). Evangelism is mainly based on Paul-the-antiKrist quoting when Epistles and Gospels contradict on essential premises like the nature of sin (Paul in Ro said everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of the god whereas Jèsu in Jn and 1Jn said the blind and nonwitnesses aren’t sinners and told two to go and sin no more), whether the heavenly father judges, or whether to marry and behave like kiddies. Apostolic succession isn’t biblical; Petro was explicitly the doorman, not a bishop, whom Jèsu literally named Satan, and Earth and heaven were supposed to die in their generation. Asides: the endonym for Kristian was Nazarene; there weren’t 10 stone commandments but 12 that sects censor to their own 10: one was that jhveh was the Israelites’ (not Americans’) god and another was that sin expires in a household after 4 or 5 generations so there was no need for a new covenant or redeemer; good thing as Jèsu was a sinner and crook [who falsified Isa 53 in six terms]: theft, vandalism, sabbath work, wrath, quackery, false witness, pretense, slander, hypocrity, prevarication, sedition, self-incrimination, blasfemy; God is not a name but translates Vulgate Deus, mistranslated from Vivloi ho theos for “thd god”-Abrahamism believes in many gods under deceptive disguises like sons, persons, anghels, heavenly host, heavenly council, plagiarized from pagan godheads (Ugaritic wind/weather and Zoroastrian fire/liht): the Kristian gods are properly logho, pneyma, Ghabrièl, Emmanuèl, basileia, decsio, and assumedly inherits Mikaèl and other anghels.
If you take a butter knife and lightly tap along the rim of the lid in the direction you would turn it a few times along the edge (don't hit it too hard you risk breaking the glass. I've tapped pretty hard leaving dents in the lid and I've never broke the glass so there's a pretty good margin of error, but still be careful)
@@jaclo3112 This is the best method, in my experience also. The teaspoon breaks the vacuum seal and then turning the lid is easy. A blunt table knife works too.
Two things to try, First is to run the jar lid under hot water for a minute then try because the lid will expand slightly, second is to flip the jar upside down and give it a firm whack on a solid surface, not hard enough to break it but hard enough to help release the vacuum. With these two tactics I can beak any wretched jar that dares not yield to my will.
Also, if their God is omnipotent, omnipresent, all-knowing, and all-powerful, then why couldn't they all be right? Why couldn't 72% of them be right and 28% wrong? They attempt to perform logical deduction without actually addressing and removing impossibilities to point to the probable answer. They just jump straight to "everyone but me must be wrong."
@@kylegonewild yup. One church could have it all right except for one or two minor things, or one BIG idea they are doing wrong. Hell, maybe they are perfect but they have a few liars in the congregation that muck it all up!
The “true Christian” thing always infuriated me growing up in a religious family. Even as a kid my thought was “you don’t get to decide who is and isn’t a ‘real’ Christian. You’re part of the religion, you don’t own it.”
Me too, people are so quick to disown their own the second their behavior seems undesirable. Christians are the one group of people I know to throw their own under the bus at a moments notice.
The fact that it’s people who decide who’s a “real” Christian and who’s not always looked to me like a pretty good sign that religion is manmade. Same for going to hell/heaven. Lots of Christians seem to knock exactly what it takes to go to either destination. How many (or how few) are humble enough to leave the judgment to god and to god only?
I loved/hated when I got the "true Christian" argument from the Christians I grew up under. Guys... You're the ones who shaped my view of Christianity the most.
I love when he says there is no man that is an infallible interpreter but fails to realize that in the text of the book he considers infallible it was written by profits that supposedly had the word of god given to them witch inherently makes the Bible fouled since it was written by man
When I deconverted, my overly zealous dad leaned hard into the fire and brimstone stuff, and reminded me for years how I deserved to be tortured for my sins. Knowing he based his whole life and reason around this religion, I finally pointed out to him that my mom and him hadn't been married in the church (catholic) which meant i was literally his sin since he committed adultery. So he could either love me for who I am and burn right beside me, or go to confession and admit to God and the priest he was sorry he ever had me. He chose confession.
Oh my goodness! I am so sorry!!! He chose to go to confession and say he was sorry he ever had you? I am so sorry. And this is my single biggest issue with religion. It can brainwash people in ways that very few things can and empathy and love go out the window. It is so heartbreaking.
... I'm really sorry that I have to state facts and push this button further. But he probably thinks you've deconverted _because_ you're a product of his sin, and that you're some kind of demonic being to tempt you away from God or something by your offer. I'm doing this to remind you he's not worth your time and consideration. I mean do you really even _want_ love from someone like him at this point? I truly hope you find true love and community elsewhere, or at the very least solace and freedom. I wish I could give you even an ounce of that which you deserve.
"It's like if they, say, watched a documentary about why smoking is bad. And then they were relieved at the end that they didn't show their brand they smoked. Which means that theirs is probably safe." Definitely using that quote. Thanks, Trevor.
I have no doubt this is a tactic cigarette companies have used. "We're not like those _other_ brands that give you lung cancer! We're the cool, sexy version of smoking!"
Yes!! I am looking for these terms!! Shia/sunni muslim sects!!! There is an on/off war between these sects, and they involved countries.... Knew this because my jerk of a father works in KSA and he told me about this!! Thanks a lot
@Mir ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AQARp3gyyG0.html This video does a significantly better job explaining it than I could. In fact this channel has many great videos on different movements and philosophical traditions both within Islam and various other faiths as well. Great place to learn about religion through an academic lens!
It’s that. It’s why I stopped claiming anyone to be “not a real Christian” and just declare what I really meant when I said that once I thought about it - believing Jesus is the son of God and God (the only actual requirement to count as a Christian) isn’t going to make anyone a good person, so there’s both good and bad people who are Christians, and people who are good or bad at being Christians. I’m bad at being a Christian and am not a good or bad person because I try to follow what I’ve learned and thought about to be good (if I was good, it would take less effort), while someone can be good at being Christian and be a rather annoying person (though not bad, since they’re trying too)… but someone who is a bad person is likely to be bad at being Christian as well.
Being a christian sounds like being part of a fandom for a series of books written by a vast collection of ghost writers that all kinda contradict each other. "Only the first seven books of the series are canon, because those reflect the original author's true vision" "Only the revised reboot series is canon because the og author came back and wove together all books from 1 to 20" "Well, the Gale of Shadows series is the best, the style of W. Z. Z. Timbuktu really capture the true essence of the series"
I think he doesn't want to discuss this on his channel, because it would be to controversial and he also might lose some of his female viewers if he would openly confess what he thinks about women.
I know people don’t often throw academic philosophy in RU-vid comments, but your comment reminded me of a text by Adorno called “Education After Auschwitz”. Great read, and you’ve basically summed up the spirit.
That was me when I was a fundie Catholic (the kind that still talks to God in Latin and acts like it's the 1950's) and I pretty much despised almost any Catholic that I perceived to be more "lukewarm" or liberal than I was so I was trying to gatekeep most American Catholics as delusional as that sounds. At that time I was also delusional enough to think that establishing a Catholic Saudi Arabia (monarchy and all) would solve all the "moral problems" the West had but that's the logical conclusion to the conservative thinking I had and for thinking that gays and abortion are the worst threats to civilization, with that mindset you may eventually start questioning the concepts of democracy and humans rights like I saw other fascist Catholics do. At that time I was already defending the Crusades and the Inquisition so perhaps this wasn't that surprising while Catholics more extreme than I was were defending the practice of burning people at the stake, if there was one thing people in some of the Facebook groups I was part of had in common is that we all fucking hated Protestants.
@@monus782 What changed? Or how did things shift? Sometimes things feel hopeless. Part of it is that I’m in Texas, so the only kind of person within 200 miles of me is conservatives maga evangelical lol
The difference among religions was explained to me as a child: _"We're right and everybody knows it. The rest are in willful rebellion."_ I imagine pretty much everyone else got this same talk.
One of those comments shown in the beginning is absolutely ridicoulus. "None of this adresses the catholic church." Bro do you want us to adress the catholic church? I dont think you do. Other churches can have the excuse of not being part of a gigantic organization. The entire organization has a terrible history and present.
Say what you like about the methods, you can't argue with the results. One need only look at the stark contrast of living standards, personal liberty, and quality of life of the christian world with any of its contemporaries around the world to see the obvious tremendously positive impacts of catholic influence on western civ and the. tremendous benifits our civilization has enjoyed bc of there guidance and stewardship.
@@gregsanich5183 that is in spute of that, not because of it. While we had the so called middle ages under the catholic church china had empires. The wests time to shine came after the catholic churches hold on europe was weakened. All those things you are talking about have more to do with labour movements than with the church. The catholic church mailny was a conservative influenve, fighting back on things like voting rights. I would recomend opening a history book and not a middle school one. Also, i was raped by a catholic priest when i was 8. Fuck you for defending that organization. It is the svum of the earth.
@@TheSmeltork if God really wanted us to follow it then he would've made it straight forward so we wouldn't have to have people interpret it. But because we need to interpret it there are many different interpretations with everyone claiming theirs is right. How do you know which one is right? If you read the bible and interpret it, how do you know your interpretation is any better than the millions of others claiming theirs is right? The Bible fails in that it can be misinterpreted. Thus it is not infallible
@@terrybrooks4174 That's litteraly what they said. They are the original commenter and the "what do you mean ?" was a reply to a now-deleted reply. But it's still nice to elaborate, in case someone doesn't get it first
This has always been my biggest question while growing up in the church. I always used to ask “so basically allll the other religions in this world are all going to hell simply for the fact that they were born into a religion they have no control over learning?” & no one in my family, no one in the church ever wanted to answer that question. It always bothered me to think that all people in all other religions in the world are all destined for hell simply bc they believe something different than ppl who call themselves Christians.
But if they actually had answered it they would gladly tell you that yes, BILLIONS of living people are destined to eternal torture simply because they were taught about the "wrong religion" from birth, but somehow this fact doesn't bother them at all
When I was a kid, my best friend was catholic. And at some point I remember my mom telling me catholics where "cheats and liars, and not going to heaven" because they didn't believe like our family (evangilical baptist). So I was super confused and concernedm like what did she mean by that? They're Christians too, why wouldn't they go to heaven? So I asked my friend about it, told her what my mom said, etc. And then I get in trouble for asking because she was upset about it and told her mom, who called mine, who then yelled at me about it. Kid me was like ??? wtf I was just asking a question??? Because this makes no sense???
Ah yes, the forever conundrum Christian kids face of "getting chewed out for publicly parroting the dogma our parents pushed on us in the first place."
I had completely different stories. I could remember that my nephew became an evangelical Christian before deciding to become non-denominational some time later. There was one time that he brought his evangelical congregation friends with his mom, brothers, and sisters to the park to meet my side of the family: my mom and I. Instinctively I thought this wasn't going to go well because the both of us were Catholic. Instead, there was a warm welcoming, peaceful dialogue, and exchanges. The evangelicals offered us food and we had a nice time. Even though we had our differences, we respected each others differences and considered what others have been through for them to come to their beliefs. I could also remember talking to a protestant very late at night during the fourth of July about intellectual concepts. I guess it comes down to letting go of tribalistic tendency to demonize others or having the "us vs. them" mentality and building bridges of understanding and putting yourself into other people's shoes so they can be seen for as who they are...…human beings.
Yeah, they are such humble people! They even try their best to make people not notice that hundred million dollar personal jet they bought! Such piety!
@@hughmongoose8966 A church with a giant sign out front, I'm sure. And at least in my home town, almost all of our public schools just happen to have churches right across the street so they're the first thing kids see at the beginning and end of every day. Churches are designed to be as conspicuous as possible.
"think, feel, and act as Jesus would" well I'll be darned. I've been railing against authority and fighting for the fair and kind treatment of all people for ages, so I guess I've been a Christian all along. Good to hear we don't need no preachers or fancy churches! Let's all get back to protesting for the rights of gay people everybody :)
I think there should be a giant March Madness/WWE Smackdown event where every denomination chooses someone to fight for them. Then the winner is the real form of Christianity.
That's what I've been saying! All them together in one room to fight it out the way God intended. Then we have all the other religions to the same thing for one final smack down and the winning representative of whatever sect is the one true relgion and we all agree to convert to the belief system of the random super buff Congolese tribeman that wins.
A christian Tournament of Power but with assholes and mofos in Plate Mail and/or Crusades era mail and greathelms. If I couod witness this, I would die a happy man.
As someone who was born and raised as Seventh Day Adventist and left Christianity, I struggled with so many things in this sect of Christianity because of extremist ideas not even found in other sects. Once I found out about the "Great Disappointment", I felt the cognitive dissonance hit me hard then. I went on a journey to figure out more, and the moment I lost faith was when I debated with a very well-respected Yugoslavian Biblical scholar in a class called "God and Human Life" (I went to Christian University at the time) where we broke down all the major world religions and their principles, but he made it some giant spectacle over Christianity like it's the only religion with the REAL truth, which I thought was disingenuous. lol I brought up how Heaven cannot be a perfect place and if that were the case why did Satan have the ability to sin when everything in Heaven was perfect? He really tried to give me apologetics at first but I made my biggest point that if God is an all powerful, all knowing, omnipotent being, why would he allow any of this to happen when angels were reported to have no will to disobey him? What made Satan so special? But somehow Satan convinced beings with no will to suddenly have some and decide to rebel? He couldn't answer me, and said in honesty that he didn't know. I became a full-blown atheist afterwards. I can't believe people are teaching this stuff and it's based on complete nonsense. I grew up in the 90s creationist era where they taught you everything but actual science, so much so that I was stunted in intellect when I transitioned from Christian private education to Public schools, and couldn't grasp normal, easy concepts like evolution, the universe, and how the Earth was billions of years old versus the well-accepted 6000 years Christians in the SDA community believe the Earth to be that old, I can't make this shit up. I'm so glad I got the fuck out. I still learn things outside of my indoctrination every day, and I get so upset knowing this info was actively hidden from me until I got a mind of my own and learned the truth for myself.
@@sehr.geheim I wasn't satisfied with just accepting that God exists as a child... I always received hostility for questioning, and I JUST wanted to know why I couldn't ask questions like "why are the scientists saying evolution is real when you say God made all animals in the garden?" And would get shit for it. They hate when you have evidence for things when they have zero proof of their own claims, and that was very telling to me. Something that bars you from fundamental truths every human should know cannot be considered a good thing.
I feel this, because Angelology and Demonology is what drove me away as well. I was taught Catholicism. In the interpretations I received Angels do have will but they have knowledge of God's true being and purpose. So they can choose to rebel but they do so knowing how grievous that is. Here's the problem. The idea that Lucifer understood, truly understood God's nature, he should've known he could never win. So either he's so stupid we shouldn't fear him, or something in there is a lie. Well, turns out it was, because I read a book called "Angels in the Catholic Tradition" by a Vatican theologian (don't recall his name right now) and in there it revealed that the angels closest to God, the Seraphim, have the duty of trying to comprehend God. Angels don't know, they just WANT to know. Right, so, that's frustrating, but it gets even worse when you apply the concept of the Boundless God and Time to it. God can't be bound by time, he must exist outside it, otherwise he's not all powerful because Time controls him. So what about angels? What I've found, most would interpret that the Angels are also unbound by Time, or at least immune to it's effects, unaging and unchanging. So we have the highest class of Angels, whose job it is to attempt to understand God, who probably aren't bound by Time, so they'll never figure it out. At this point, the Angels sound like the Church...almost like they're the product of the Church projecting its structure onto divinity. As much fun as the mythos of Abrahamic religions *can be* fun, especially when you take the older interpretation of other gods existing but this one just being very possessive, their own traditions about the minutiae of cosmology tends to reveal how much of their thoughts are complete prideful projection.
I was not ready for a bunch of talking about SDA teachings. Didn't realize how gross it'd make me feel. Ahhhhhhhhhh. This comment helped remind me I'm not the only one that escaped.
That's a very good point about Satan's will. If you have free will, but then he gets all mad about it, isn't that setting up mere mortals for failure? Was god just bored of Programmed Manchurian Candidates he couldn't punish? Sorry if that didn't make sense, but none of it makes sense 😃 It makes money
I used to be Christian. I asked several people which denomination was correct. They said a lot, but didn’t answer the question. This was a better explanation than all the elders in church could provide over the course of 7 years.
Here are six features that identify those who practice true religion: 1) God’s servants base their teachings on the Bible, not human beliefs or practices. (2Timothy 3:16,17.) 2)Those that practice true religion must only worship Jehovah God and make his name known. (Psalm 83:18; Matthew 4:10) 3)God’s people show genuine, unselfish love for one another. (John 13:35) 4)True Christians accept Jesus Christ as God’s means of salvation. (Acts 4:12) 5) True worshippers are no part of the world. (John 18:36) 6) Jesus’ true followers preach that God’s Kingdom is mankind’s only hope. (Matthew 24:14; 28:19,20)
@@sunnyjohnson992 can you explain the subject of predestination as described in Ephesians 1, and the latter portion of Romans 9 regarding vessels made for destruction?
@@sunnyjohnson992 Which bible and which translation, for a start? Also, can you define the jeopardy, or how it came about, either? And when is the 'I will be with you soon' business? Plus Romans 9:12 about the predestination thing, too? Next, why is SATAN OWED ANYTHING? And lastly, does John 14:12 enter into any of this, as a way to show the true believers? In anyway, at all. Meantime, you are part of this world whether you deny it or not. You are even chatting on this very internet, that you did not help construct. It offers IMMENSE opportunities, and even a new way of getting an even EXPANDED message across. So maybe you should use it. Fruitfully.
In studying scripture and the signs of God as objectively as I could, searching for the right denomination, I ended up realizing they were ALL baseless. The gospels don't reliably tell us what Jesus historically taught, because John is agreed by almost all scholars to be a forgery and Luke and Matthew just copy Mark. Mark itself is written anonymously long after Jesus's death and uses clear allegorical devices like the fig tree in the middle of the narrative, making it almost certainly a later myth. Which doesn't go into how we know that later versions of Mark were outright changed over time, so we don't have a high confidence that our oldest copies of Mark aren't highly edited, too. The closest we have to a contemporary account of Jesus was Paul, who was more concerned with his dreams about Jesus since he never met the guy and who went almost completely forgotten by early Christians. If it wasn't for Marcion, who was condemned as a heretic, we we wouldn't even have that. This is because it was clear from his texts that he didn't fully agree with Jesus's brother, James, who actually knew Jesus, but he also opposed a lot of other Christians who supposedly knew Jesus, like Peter. Given Paul's clear political agenda, he's completely unreliable, too. So anyone saying that Jesus taught X is, at best, trying to accurately reconcile three conflicting Biblical narratives (Paul, Mark, and John) that are all unreliable. This pretty much debunks the entire Christian religion, outside of maybe some Jesuit cultural Christians and some esoteric Cabalists who don't care about a historical Jesus, just the teachings attributed to him.
@@sunnyjohnson992 Shunning children fails to show love to fellow Christians. The Watchtower Society is the idol that all JW’s must worship now. They steal glory from the mythical character named Jehovah because all of the individual people leading the JWs have dangerous antisocial personality flaws & pathologies involving greed, manipulative actions, & narcissism as the key elements of psychopathic & sociopathic personality disorders that are universal warning signs of relationship abusers! You are not worshipping Jehovah, you are worshipping your very mortal, very human abusers! After you have achieved emancipation from these evil men, start thinking about "why does your supernatural abuser deserve your worship?", because he doesn't
Bro finding your channel makes me feel sane in retrospect once being christian. I like that you tackle a lot of the questions that Christians shy away from, or simply can’t answer.
If you are an atheist living in the US, then the chances are very good that you are an ex-Christian. There are quite a lot of us. It’s not our fault we were indoctrinated into Christianity as children. No need to feel that you weren’t sane. You were simply lied to constantly as most of us were. Glad you made it out!
Except you know we can answer pretty much all of those questions that people have, one might not like the answer but to pretend as if it doesn’t exist is the pinnacle of hubris as it relates to the oldest intellectual tradition in the west.
@@allthenewsordeath5772 the oldest intellectual tradition in the west? stoicism? pythagoreanism? atheism? epicurianism? science? sophism? what? surely you dont mean christianity .. cause thats less than 2k years old you know? ahhhh .. probably you dont lol
@@markhill3858 Your wording here is pretty clunky and in some cases outright incorrect, but not completely without merit, Aristotle certainly predated Christianity and the stoics arrived on the scene at approximately the same time, but everything else on that list is a later addition, and it is arguable weather Aristotelian reasoning and the stoic tradition would have survived at all had they not been co-opted into Christian thought. No ideas exist in a vacuum after all, and we can draw a line from Aristotle to Augustine, from Aristotle and Augustine to Aquinas, and from Aquinas to pretty much everyone in the so-called enlightenment, that is perhaps a oversimplification, but there is a lot of validity to the argument that without things like the school of Salamanca, you don’t have the scientific revolution. And once again I’ll say that typically anyone who says “Christianity doesn’t have an answer to X”, has not been paying attention, I mean one would think that a religion that was founded partially because a guy who did nothing wrong and got tortured to death, would have a thing or two to say about suffering and why bad things happen to good people and vice versa for example.
@@allthenewsordeath5772 eh .. socrates was a stoic you know .. hes what, about 400 years before christianity? aquinas is just a fucking nazi mate why would you give a shit about that genocidal lunatic? :) as to stoicism surviving .. its a MIRACLE it survived christianity .. marcus aurellius warned that chritians seemed "only capable of destruction" .. and destroy they indeed did, no library was safe when they appeared and a great deal was lost .. ask Hypatia about em lol
"It's why we don't see heretical Moslems, heretical Buddhists, heretical Jews" ALL THESE RELIGIONS HAVE DOGMA, SIR, AND WHERE THERE IS DOGMA THERE IS HERESY
The reason North Americans don't think about heretical Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews is that we don't get taught enough about those religions to know what's considered orthodox or heterodox or what different variations of each are out there. We're just straight up ignorant lol
Exactly, that statement is purest BS. I lived in a Buddhist country for many years. Budhhism has a reputation for being more chill and accepting of differences than other faiths--which is valid to a point. But they had their share of scammers ("donating money to me will bring you good karma in this life!"), scandals (sexual and otherwise), charges of heresy (one branch believes that Buddhists of all other schools are heretics that will suffer in one of the worst of the many Buddhist hells for many, many millennia), cult groups, hypocrites, etc. I even saw a Buddhist equivalent of a Chick tract. Whatever beliefs one holds, people will be people. Hypocrisy is an integral part of the human condition. We fail to live up to our values, and find excuses to justify our bad behavior (often while condemning others for the same behavior). We find reasons to look down on others that differ from us. We exploit people's vulnerabilities to benefit ourselves. This is common human behavior, with or without religion.
Alot of the religious mouth pieces that appear in this episode come so close to this realization but never hit the mark. It is impossible for every denomination to be right. They never realize that it is entirely possible for all of them to be wrong.
But for that to be possible they'd have to admit that humans aren't actually magical god lookalikes that can telepathically communicate with the supreme creator of the universe
What if it goes further than that? What if religion period is unnecessary because Jesus’ death on the cross reconciled you to God whether you believe it or not?
@@elisabethscott20 that's what would make the most sense from a perspective of unconditional love, but the new testament is pretty clear that his atonement was only for a select group of qualifying people
I don't think that's accurate. Most pastors, in my experience, genuinely feel like they have been chosen by God to preach and try to do their best at it. I think a lot of them even feel trapped in the work by their fear of Hell and community pressure. It's easy to blame the pastors, but I think they're usually victims of the faith.
@@AbandonedVoid Also, pastors have to put in a lot of work. They have to provide emotional support whenever someone in the congregation asks for it. As a Zoroastrian who hates establishment religion, I actually respect junior clergymen.
The fun thing about America (in particular) having so many religious denominations is that many of them split around the time of the Civil War. Those who profited from slavery created a theology of racial supremacy where slavery was good and justified in the sight of God, and those who didn't profit created a theology where racially based slavery was bad and sure to bring God's judgment.
Funny how that works eh? Look at the history of catholics and protestants. One group didn't like what was going on so split off and made their own denomination. Then the wars started. I shake my head thinking about how people act based on their interpretation of what amounts to a collection of poorly written fairy tales.
So I’m an ex evangelical/Protestant/southern baptist and I’m friends when an ex catholic. We’ve had some hilarious open conversations about how we viewed the others religion and just laughing about what we used to believe. It does get better, we can progress past the trauma. We grow and are able to laugh with others about our former beliefs. Just wanted to share this
You know why I love this channel? The amount of work you put in is obvious I can't imagine the time it takes to watch all the videos you extract clips from to put together into your video. That is a lot of work!
Not to mention the Movie Clips that perfectly fits the topics like, I have never seen most of them and some of them I just straight up forgot existing, but somehow he found it and it perfectly fit the topics that is currently discussed.
Once you're out it's pretty funny looking back in All it takes is for someone to acknowledge that they might be wrong for them to notice the fallacy behind it
When considering the question of "What Would Jesus Do?", one must understand that chasing vendors around the marketplace with a bullwhip OR floating around with a sword hanging from your mouth are things that are on the table.
My father always said two things: 1) Never confuse the road map you use to define reality as Reality Itself and 2) The finite mind cannot fully comprehend the infinite. The best thing we can do is make our best decisions based upon the information we have at hand knowing that whatever comes may be far different than we previously thought. Ultimately, we should always treat each other the way we would wish to be treated and agree to disagree without being disagreeable. For in the end it is easy enough to make enemies, but with a little more effort, why not make a friend instead?
Whenever I see people talk about different denominations of Christianity, they never talk about the Eastern Orthodox Church. I grew up Greek Orthodox, was baptized in it, was is Sunday School and even taught a class, was apart of the GOYA (similar to a youth group), and so on. I went to a Lutheran private school until I was 13, and that really messed with what I believed because they taught different things. And the Orthodox Easter is always later than regular Easter. So when this video was posted, it is Easter for most people, but it's Palm Sunday for the Orthodox faith (the church uses a different calendar). I remember the priest at the time talking to my sister about those Evangelical churches that are essentially concerts and the priest called them fake Christians. My sister laughed and I was in shock. He so casually dismissed these other Christians because of how they worshiped. It wasn't until high school that I started question the Orthodox church's values. I talked to my aunt (who is Baptist) about my faith and I went to a non-denominational Christian high school that showed me other way to believe. So I questioned if baptizing babies is right and why there is an obsession with icons and praying to saints. I started to believe without a denomination, or so I thought. Then in college, I started to become a bit more liberal but still considered myself Christian (and despite what Christians say, there are not as many radical liberal teachers trying to convert you). But then 2020 happened. I couldn't find a job, I had to stay at home with my parents, had very little money, and my mental health was on the decline. But I prayed to God to help me, to guide me, but I heard nothing. Then I was seeing how these so called Christians were treating the pandemic and the BML movement and just so many other things. I thought 'how can these people be Christian?' and tried to find the goodness in Christianity. But my family members started to question how I can call myself a Christian when I had liberal beliefs. And all the in fighting between different denominations and people calling others fake Christians that I started to step away from my faith (there are other reasons but that's not relevant). Now that it is Easter time, I'm feeling so alone and I honestly needed to just vent about this. I haven't talked to anyone in my family about my faith and it is really isolating me. I'm looking at what I wrote and I did not mean to write all of that but this video shows a huge problem that I have always had with Christianity. I really needed to get this off my chest. If you have read this far, I hope that you can find peace without your faith and move forward in your life.
Hi Sophia. I want to express gratitude for your comment and assure you that you’re not alone. I struggled a lot for the first few years and I still do occasionally. It’s very difficult to de-program our thought patterns. I hope you are well and I’m keeping you in my thoughts, non-religiously of course!
I grew up as a relatively conservative Catholic and almost became Eastern Orthodox back in high school but my father got pissed at me and I eventually backed down (in hindsight thank goodness I didn’t but that taught me that some people in my life couldn’t be trusted when it comes to revealing what I believe), for the next six years or so I then became more fundamentalist and doubled down (I started going to the Mass that is still done in Latin and in some ways is more similar to EO churches). Because I started questioning crucial doctrines like Original Sin (I know that the Eastern churches never believed that but I remember reading that they believe in something else) I started questioning other things and I found out through a then parish friend that the real reason why we had to oppose abortion and baptize babies was because if we don’t and they die they go straight to hell according to Augustine, at the very least that made me furious while questioning the goodness of the Christian god and it was the only time I ever blasphemed on purpose before I left (also some of those friends turned out to be hostile towards mainstream science and one in particular really thought that the world was only 6000 years old and that the Big Bang and evolution were nonsense). Eventually I did ditch Original Sin as a doctrine and that’s when most of the theology fell apart for me, I also tried more liberal churches like the Episcopalians (because their liturgy is similar) but soon I found that I was pretty liberal even for them theologically speaking so I ended up with the Unitarians where I could have some sort of community without the judgement for my changing beliefs (especially since I no longer consider myself to be a Christian), that did prevent me from being completely isolated as I lost a lot of friends and I can’t come out to some people in my family either. When I left (and that was a couple of months before the pandemic started) I went to a really dark place mentally as I felt I had nothing left to live for and I couldn’t find a job either, I felt like a complete failure while all of a sudden being devoid of purpose as for the longest time I thought I was meant to be a priest (I also had to stay at home with family while being broke, still am to some degree but these last two years have been a mixed blessing to me). I write these comments that are more like essays all the time in videos and channels like this one in part to not feel so alone and so they can help anyone who feels similarly, so it’s okay to vent if you feel like it and I hope you’re doing better as well.
R/exchristian on Reddit is absolutely amazing. I spent two years on a journey like yours and now deconstructing. That subreddit has really been a safe space for me. You are not alone. Much love to you
@Blackwater Pete I looked up the show 'What we do in the Shadows', it may be Matt Berry but I've never seen it so don't quote me 😉 (5 minute mark question)
I was bought up Catholic, became an atheist. Was converted at uni through some Presbyterians who attended a charismatic Baptist church. Baptised in an Assembly of God Church. Went to an interdenominational charismatic Bible School. Went to a Plymouth Brethren Church for a year, an AOG Church for a few years. Left because the preaching became increasingly heterodox, and a year later it came out that the pastor was abusing girls and women in the congregation. I attended a charismatic Baptist Church for a few years, and disagreed when they wanted to leave the Baptist Union to become a house Church. I felt denominations and specific teachings were peripheral to salvation, and that we should all love each other. Then I went to Taiwan to learn Mandarin so I could be a missionary in Mainland China. It grieved me that the western denominations had ahistorically been foisted upon the Chinese people. Six months later, I was an atheist again, as I am to this day.
Grew up Catholic in a relatively conservative Mexican family and became sort of agnostic in middle school, perhaps because I was just a kid trying to find meaning and direction in this vast universe I doubled down in my religious identity and when I started seeing discrepancies in the doctrine I almost became Eastern Orthodox in high school after listening to arguments similar to the ones featured here (we had moved to the US by then), that really pissed off my father and I eventually backed down so once again I doubled down on my Catholic identity and became sort of fundamentalist for the next ~6 years. Because of doctrines like Original Sin not making any sense to me anymore my faith in Christianity as a whole collapsed over two years ago and although I first tried more liberal churches like the Episcopalians and then Judaism I just sort of became a deist by then, for the next two years I wasn’t really sure what I believed so more commonly I called myself agnostic but a couple of months I realized I was an atheist as well. However, that faith transition turned out to be more traumatic than I initially thought as I had attached so much meaning to that religion and all of a sudden I had to start over and make meaning in a meaningless world (the thing I feared the most when I was still in). Becoming more devout was possibly the worst (or best) decision I ever made as that’s how I realized the doctrines didn’t make any sense and if I hadn’t maybe I’d just be sort of lax or cultural about it like so many American Catholics, at the same time I feel that I wasted years of my life being loyal to an institution that wasn’t telling the whole truth after all. Glad to hear that everything worked out for you.
@@dianestafford6968 Jesus said" Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until these things have happened." I'd say it's safe to say, that generation he was speaking to has long been gone and passed away. He was speaking to them directly, And no I'm not taking it out of context. That's exactly what it says.
I feel exactly this way about the "_real_ men don't do xyz" responses everytime a woman talks about her experience of misogyny. Abusers aren't some mythical creatures, they _are_ Real Men and Women, and there's a good chance that you know and love at least one of them. "Real men" is a handy qualifier to distance yourself from things you dont like.
I was a devout Catholic and it occupied most all of my developmental life. The guilt has never left and it leaves me in emotional shambles pretty frequently. The last thing I want to do is go back to the church, but my journey through deconstruction has been really tough. Thank you for making conducive thought pieces for me to turn off my own thoughts for. A viewpoint miles ahead of mine helping guide me to real inner peace, that I don’t think I’ll ever find in faith or a god, I look forward to the days you release a new video to help me regain my footing in turning away from the toxic beliefs I was never taught to challenge
@@jacksobrooks It’s a mess of contradictions that supposedly draws authority from older works (which are also a mess of contradictions) and it gets more and more unhinged as you go through it - culminating in the madman’s fever dream that is “The Book of Revelations.”
I see humor in this but it actually is a thing some people may need to be reminded of. many atheists were once Christians, or religious in another sense. and most of us having left the faith have definitely heard several renditions of the no true Scotsman fallacy, and it hurts. I'm happier now then i've ever been, but i know how much fear, panic, and pain i went through struggling with my doubts. It hurts when people want to call you a liar or believe you simply weren't sincere enough. It's genuinely terrifying deconverting and its easy to not realize ideas that were ingrained in us. I never realized just how negative some aspects of Christianity are until loooong after i had lost my faith, i was still defending Christianity (at least my mothers version of it) even for a few years after. So thank you for saying this. Some people need to be reminded that they have value, and that one shouldn't have to beg forgiveness for merely existing or even seeking happiness. I hope everyone has a hopping good easter
This is one of these things that made me start questioning religion. How can there be so many different religions, each of which claiming to be "...the one true religion." If God actually cared about what people believed in and how they worshipped, why didn't he/she/it come down and tell them which religion is true? Christianity is a microcosm of this problem, so many sects but little clarification.
More than that; if the Bible is the revealed word of God, then where are the passages that identify diseases as what they are: pathogens, rather than evil spirits? Think of the head start the world could have had on combating diseases and of how many vocal young women would not have met a horrible end burned at the stake!
All Religions and Spiritual Paths is supposed to Lead to God. Different Paths going up The Same Mountain. Often times people end up worshipping their religion and beliefs and this usually leads to fundementalism and fanaticism or extremism. Every Religion has bad apples but also some Good apples. Whatever Speaks to your Soul and resonates with you, that is Truth. Whenever you hear Truth, your Soul will Recognize it!
@@andrewortiz5797 That's just another religion and doesn't solve the problem. It also disregards religions that aren't monotheistic, like Buddhism and Neopaganism. You also have to completely redefine what "truth" means, which I'm pretty opposed to. Truth isn't just whatever we feel is right or whatever we want to believe in; truth is whatever body of facts is in accordance with external, objective reality. Contradictory claims can't all be true, because only one can accurately reflect reality. Ironically, I would call you an extremist for holding this perspective, because it falls so far outside of the mainstream, so you're kind of just part of the problem.
This is what really pushed me away from being a Christian - you could do literally everything they told you to but somebody else would always come along and say 'Yeah but you should actually be doing this.'. You literally cannot win with them.
I actually kinda stayed it, because the people around me assumed i was actually reading the bible all the time, so they just clocked me as different books on different days, in Public school i was asked a lot of questions and bullied a lot, could not understand why, but the Religion teacher loved me. I guess i just wanted to prove them wrong that Christians are not always the people that "need" help.
Maybe the question we should be asking isn’t “Which denomination is the right one?” but rather “Why do we have so many denominations in the first place?” The way I see it, Christianity as a whole is so fundamentally flawed yet so difficult for some people to abandon that, when met with overwhelming doubts about their faith, their typical thought process is “Oh no, don’t get us wrong. It’s not that God doesn’t exist or He shouldn’t be worshipped. We’re just not doing it the right way. Let’s reinvent the faith!” Yet every time one group of religious people find their comfort zone, it takes another group of people out of theirs, which may lead to creating another denomination, and the cycle never ends.
I was Catholic almost the whole time I was a Christian and I used the fact that there’s so many Protestant groups as further proof my church was right, my mindset at the time was that once you break away from the One True Church (whatever that means) there would be nothing but division within those who decide to disobey the pope and break away.
A true Christian is someone who acts like Jesus did. So... hung out with sinners, hung out with women, told people to pay their taxes, scoffed at people giving massive offerings that wouldn't be of any problem for them, kicked lenders out of the temple, and might have been gay. Sooo... people that modern "Christians" hate. a note. Most Quakers I know fit this bill to a T. But Quakers are generally pretty chill and forward-thinking for whatever time period they've popped up in. And oh boy did Buddhists have lots of sects. It got violent. Myself? I'm Pagan and kinda do my own thing.
Mr. Rogers is about the only christian in the media I can think of that fit the bill. Though I'll also nod along given what I know of Quakers throughout history.
@@wordforger THAT. That man is the closest to the second Christ we had. I didn’t know a whole lot about his early life until I watched the documentary, and MAN OH MAN, it was an emotional journey to say the least… The sad part is, is that my parents took the section of Clemmons being gay completely out of context. They legit took it as Fred telling him he couldn’t go to the gay bar because he’s “sinning”…like NO, that wasn’t it…AT…ALL. He was saying to not do it because if he were caught doing so, production would have potentially been stopped. He still wanted to teach children and say they’re loved just as they are, and he can’t do that if production were halted. He loved Clemmons AS HE IS. Fred may have been a registered Republican, but it’s clear his values do not mesh with what the GOP has been attempting for years. Fred lived his life as Christ did. That’s what drew people to him, he was a rare bird indeed ❤️❤️❤️
He also told them to feed the poor, give up what they owned to follow him and help the poor, and take care of prisoners and the widow (basically women) and orphans. If they don't do these things according to Matthew he will cast them into hell as a goat.... but here the church worship Paul and not Christ. they sure do love Paul he backs up their hate.
How is this a valid critism? It's the same thing as athiesm. Christians have such a variety of beliefs that they can't be referred to, our categorized collectively. Anything that anyone can say that is valid about christians, someone can always accurately make the valid response "not all christians", and they would be absolutely right. Just like athiesm, christianity covered the full spectrum of beliefs. There are even versions of christianity that are completely compatable with athiesm. So you can't ever really criticize christian beliefs, bc for every christian that believes it, there's another that doesn't. Making any definitive statement about christianity other than it seems to involve some type of Jesus figure in some capacity, is just not possible to do accurately.
You can tell he added in that "there's nothing wrong with that" just to make himself look less sexist; he definitely didn't think about it before hand. but as we know from watching these videos, he definitely is sexist.
:Gets to pearl gates: Well, St Peter I lived a virtuous life, was friendly to everyone and I went to church every sunday! St peter: Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah but this one time you prayed to a picture of jesus instead of a statue :hits button to hell:
I escaped from this insanity two years ago... It's not been easy.. my whole family and 99 percent of my friends are locked in .. constantly trying to "save" me but I'm glad to be finally thinking for myself and making my purpose instead of following one that is externally imposed
I heard someone say recently that we Christians spend our time pointing out which one of us doesn't act enough like Christ, and spending no time acting like Christ, ourselves.
Which one? Catholic? Baptist? Anglican, Lutheran, unitarian, pentecostal, Benedictine, etc.... .....bc those are all distinctly seperate religions each with their own diff beliefs. Right? It would be inaccurate and erroneous to referring to them as a single homogeneous, cohesive, group.
Atheism: What kind of fool do you take me for? Protestantism's the real Christianity, Catholicism's the real Christianity, Orthodoxy's the real Chrisitianity, I'M the real Christianity! Are there any other real Christianities I should know about?! Seventh-Day Adventist: Meow. Atheism: I'm outta here.
OMG THANK YOU!!! i call these bogus people out for saying "they aren't true christians" now because i just can't stand people from trying to distance themselves from all the bad parts of their religion anymore!
Which ones? The Anglicans? Catholic? Pentecostal? Baptists? ....bc you do realize those are all seperate religions with their own distinct beliefs, right? It's erroneous, and inaccurate to reffer to christians collectively in any capacity, bc they all have their own beliefs. Same as it is for athiests. Nobody can lump all athiests into any one group or category NC they cover all the categories, so do christians.
Another great video. So desperately tried to point this out to a friend who thought he knew the way and his church was correct even though they don’t read the Bible. He only wanted a church that enabled his sexism and homophobia and hatred for other people. He wanted to be right and everyone who didn’t agree with him was wrong and “making evil, good”. Happy Easter! Your videos are awesome and make me a Christian. I wish preachers and pastors used the lessons you do to help Christian’s be better.
@Ninja Penguin hard to say, I’m gay and very progressive and a free thinker, but I have personal reasons for believing in Christ. I also have my own reasoning and logic that concludes men have manipulated Gods Word to fit a political narrative countless times in history.
Every Christian church I was in claimed they were "true christians" but that term really made little sense to me as I thought, 'as long as you believe Jesus existed on earth and was God doesn't that make you Christian?' but apparently Christians care more about doctrines.
Ex mormon here. The one thing in the church that I really liked was that it answered the question of what we do in heaven. For other Christians, it is either singing praises to God or rejoicing watching people burn in hell. But in mormonism, we looked forward to having our own spirit babies ("celestial sex!" with our spouse(s)), creating our own planets, and helping them to become gods like ourselves. Certainly a lot less boring, and makes more sense than anything else I have (yet) heard.
This question is the reason I really don't want to go to heaven, I really dislike the thought of being eternal in any way even if it was to become godlike creating planets. Sex is unappealing here would remain unappealing in eternity.
My step-father quit the Mormon church after learning about Mountain Meadows Massacre. That wasn't very Christian of the Mormons. The second "m" isn't fooling anyone, and the magic underwear isn't working.
I was with you right up until you said Mormon heaven “makes more sense.” Which made me wonder if you’ve thought that one through. Because it makes just as little sense as all the other versions of heaven.
I dunno, the subset of christianity I used to be a part of seemed to believe heaven was like the garden of eden or something. Just life without the negative parts.
I tried going to that Sandals church for about five weeks around 15 years ago, mostly hoping they'd have some kind of support group because I didn't have the money for proper therapy. They were creepy, man. The whole wide-eyed, level-voiced, B-movie cult package. Very physically close, touchy but not gropey, hand-on-shoulder prayer circles. "Love bombing," as I understand. Except they forgot the "love" part and just bombed. Overly aggressive, total hard-sale recruitment mode. Asked how I spent my week, then immediately talked shit on any of my non-church interests. And what really sucked was, most individuals seemed like a genuinely friendly person, but that nature got twisted by all the half-baked self-contradicting "Love all unconditionally, under these conditions; also, not Them" programming. Like they had been genuinely looking for somewhere to put their love, and got led astray.
welcome to evangelical christianity it's a cult i honestly believe it to be one i grew up in a non-denominational (aka evangelical) church and family i quit believing that bs at 12 but i'm still shunned to this day at 34 because i'm queer and can see through all that crap.
“Anybody who gets upset or argues with this video lacks the faith to receive the gift..” well isn’t that fucking convenient? When will Christian arrogance end?
"When will Christian arrogance end?" It's part of the package. Arrogance is a natural byproduct of absolute certainty. No Christian can ever question it.
But....woman must shut up and be quiet as there is a 100% male quota on authority when it comes to religious stupidity, irrationality and generally making shit up straight out of our ass.
I started losing my faith when I discovered the conflicts between churches. There is supposedly only one true faith, which is given to us by the Holy Spirit, but I guess he is forgetful or just really bad at being consistent with what he tells the followers of Christ. I was quite cautious at first, so I talked to a lot of priests and what not to investigate further. What I found was extreme short-sightedness, coupled by an incredible fear of the unknown. One guy I talked to basically agreed with me that the bible didn't make any sense, but still believed hardcore in Jesus because he was too afraid to question the foundation of his faith. Understandable. I guess most religious people are governed by fear, for if their faith happens to be untrue, then all is lost basically.
Not only that, but they are told that they would be punished for even daring to question their faith. That's the whole point of the Adam and Eve story. They were punished for eating from the tree of knowledge. The bible itself recognises that knowledge is dangerous, because it leads people to question their faith. The church maintains control through fear and ignorance. I live in a very religious country, and christians here sometimes refer to themselves as "people with a fear of God", as if being afraid is some sort of virtue.
Many Christians are conditioned to view everything in their life as being in service to God. Are your friends encouraging you to live the life God wants for you? Can that hobby be used to do the Lord's work, or is it a worldly temptation? Even when you're at work, you have to continue to be a good servant of the Lord first, and above all else. So people are conditioned from childhood to not have their own opinions or preferences, and finding meaning in life without God sounds so impossible that they accuse atheists of secretly believing in God.
It’s funny because I find muslims tend to do this argument too. My family always does it, and funny enough they usually agree in principle with the person they’re claiming isn’t a true Muslim. 🤔
Seems like most religions do this huh..cuz most of them claim they speak the 1 truth(even tho they can't prove it)..so if there's variations..then they'll conflict and of course.. Divide..
A lot of the same arguments are used between denominations and religions My favorite is pascal's wager, it's a simple one that can be used for any theistic religion and as a result is often used for them
@@annaairahala9462 froggy likes to point out fallacies, nothing against you. It’s also an appeal to emotion, more specifically fear. See I like to do it too 😂
I spent 12 years searching for the "true" Christians. Hint: They aren't real. On a side note, for being saved by grace alone through faith alone...... there is a lot of works that are involved and if you don't do them then you are once again not a "true" Christian.
LITERALLY THIS. My old pastors kept saying "unlike other religions, Christianity doesn't require you to do a laundry list of things to be saved." And then in other sermons they would literally go through the list of things you need to be a real Christian.
@@theodoraa.9670 Ahahahahah oh man. Even better was the mounting anxiety courtesy of those Bible studies where we pored over Paul's laundry lists of do's and don'ts in the letters to the whoevers. Good times.
@@presentfuture7563 Only thing I learned about Paul through studying his letters was that he was an egotistical jerk and hated women. And watching christians bend over backwards to mold an interpretation of all the letters where Paul clearly states that women should be submissive to men and silent in church and shouldn't teach men to make all those things less sexist. But it's so easy to see they're just trying to do damage control. Because there was a time when those words were taught at face value, and the tune started to change about what those verses meant when women started gaining more equality in the world and stopped being treated as property of men. I know that this doesn't really have to do much with what you were talking about. But I just wanted to get some grievances about studying Paul's letters out of my system.
If we actually read the New Testament and Jesus's teachings, then just based on the Sermon of the Mount people should be voluntarily vagabond preachers who mutilate their own bodies when they break the mishvot. The only Christian denomination that comes close to this in the modern age are the Messianic Jews and they're still lightyears off
Yeah, as soon as I heard that I thought, "Isn't that something narcissists do?" Then again, a lot of these preachers come off narcissistic AF, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's something they do.
Here is a story, My mother is catholic, and am a free church of scotland. In her 20s she had an African priest give a sermon. He talked about his time in Ireland where he was invited to stay by missionaries he had met and whom also asked to talk to their parish. He said about how he travelled all over southern Ireland, enjoyed the food, the music, the land and the people and are some of the best Catholics in the world. The parish nodded their heads and admitted they were some of the best. He then went to say how good northern Ireland is and how good their food, their music, their land and their people were good and that their some of the best protestants in the world. The parish shook their heads and said their ok but their not as good as us Catholics, that we were better. I have yet to see a Christian yet, you are so concerned about being one or the other, catholic protestant that you have forgotten what it means to be a christian. It made them stop, it made them think and hopefully changed some of their minds. I just believe in a bit of hope.
Here’s another story. I just had Sunday lunch with friends. Talked with a lady from Poland who moved to Italy 20 years ago. She said she believed that Italians were the most religious people in the world (idk, perhaps bc of the pope) so she thought she would find herself among other Catholics like her. First time she went to church on Sunday it was deserted, literally just two people. She thought she had mistaken the hour of the mass but no, that was the regular attendance. I told her that when I was a kid, fifty years ago, I had already figured out that by the time I was an adult people would had stopped going to church. Even back then for most people religion was just a tradition and they only went to church because in a small village there was nowhere else to go and socialize. Now that everyone has a car, people go to the beach on Sunday and churches are empty. Let’s hope more and more people now trapped in millennia old mythology will eventually join us in worshipping nature instead of fictional gods. The Irish had a referendum not long ago and they approved abortion, which shows that the grip of the church is getting looser and looser.
@@pansepot1490 she would’ve had better luck had she moved to Mexico or around there, although the Church is declining in that country too it’s for different reasons (more people are converting to Protestant churches) and masses there and immigrant communities in the US where I now live tend to be full still but maybe the pandemic has changed things a bit (I very much followed my parents in following their religion until two years ago, I was the last child of the family to leave and I don’t know how my devout father is going to take it). I have some pretty pious uncles and when they visited Italy they also found the churches empty, my godparents went to Israel as part of their pilgrimage and when they passed through Tel Aviv they swear that it was the most godless place in earth.
Knowing which denomination is right is easy; just read The Bible and join the church that follows its teachings! You know that's true because it's the same answer you're going to get from EVERY denomination! 😐
Too bad a majority of Christians don't read the Bible themselves, they always have it read to them by someone else. Reading it yourself and thinking about it is one of the fastest ways to stop believing.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 In the Filipino adventist Christian cult sect that I'm in, the problem is even worse since members are explicitly discouraged from reading and interpreting the Bible for themselves as it is "not an open book" and that it is "shrouded in mystery". Only the ministers are allowed to interpret the "true word of God" and we are always bound to interpret the Bible wrong if we study it for ourselves.
@@vkyal5810 BITE Behavior control Information control Thought control Emotional control What you’ve just expressed clearly hits two of those four aspects of the BITE model of cult psychology. I wish you the best
@@dianestafford6968 Why would I expect Christians to be perfect? A "true" Christian, like so many other labels in the religion (heresy, bible-believing church, correct denomination, etc.), is purely subjective, and thus meaningless to those with differing opinions. Every Christian obviously thinks they are one, and will denounce any who hold to another version of Christianity as "false."
While I condemn Christianity and will do so until the day I abscond from this mortal coil, I would never say all Christians or all religious people are bad people. That's not what has been said in any of these videos either. Otherwise good people can believe bad things and cause harm with those beliefs unintentionally. My older brother is a very generous, helpful person who works hard to support his kids and loves him family deeply. He even respects my atheism where other family members brush it off or belittle it for no reason. He's also a Christian and doesn't think homosexual people should be legally allowed to get married because of the Bible, though he will acknowledge their existence doesn't affect him personally. There are even poignant, meaningful lessons to be gleaned from some passages in said Bible, but the religion more broadly is one that harms children, families, communities, LGBTQ+ people, and the poor. It might be good that you volunteer at soup kitchens and help run food drives for hungry children. Great even. A wonderful thing to do. That doesn't erase your pastor standing in front of a congregation of hundreds and preaching how living life as a non-heterosexual is an affront to creation and should be morally condemned. Or how addicts are failures who don't deserve sympathy. Or that staying in a marriage with someone who hurts you physically, mentally or emotionally is what this supposedly benevolent, loving creator wants from you. Thoughts and prayers all around when Timothy snaps after Marla gets a restraining order and now she can't make it today. Or any day ever again. Timothy really needs our understanding and forgiveness (and tithe money for legal defense funds) right now. Presumptions are made based on someone's stated religious beliefs, but it's the actions of those people that is used to judge them. Few places in society make as much use out of the No True Scotsman fallacy as religion. If you really are behaving "Christ-like" you don't need to tell people.
Of course their not all bad people. The same way people believing the Earth is flat aren't necessarily bad. It's just a matter of what they do with those beliefs, and what they let them influence. Maybe it's good that many of them are hypocrites...
I mean, you are making a point that doesn't need to be made. Literally no one disagrees with you, although you can are that devotion to any religion results in actions that bring great harm to others, whether or not they mean to.
@Mir Jesus = being made the righteousness of God John 14:6 New International Version 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
@@dianestafford6968 he does not hate Jesus he hates Christianity. There is a difference. If Jesus died for my sin debt I thank him very kindly for doing so. But consider: what if *you've* been deceived? How do you know that Satan hasn't infiltrated God's holy church to corrupt the souls of the righteous? How do you know that you aren't doing the devils work right now? If I was the devil, why would I show up in horns and brimstone if my goal was to damn people to the hellfire? Why wouldnt i dress up as a preacher and corrupt the faithful from within? The thing about being wrong: up until you find out, it feels exactly like being right.
thank you for what you do on this channel. this one specifically stands out to me because it’s honestly the biggest factor that got me to leave christianity behind. that whole sort of cognitive dissonance between “oh, salvation is a free gift” and “yeah but you also have to do this, this, and this, and this must be interpreted this way.” really just led me to give up because i slowly started to believe that nothing i’d do would ever be enough to save me, and that is really not a cash money way to feel when you’ve already got such a big fear of hell. not to mention, the more i heard about every supposed “one true” way to worship god, the more i started to think that maybe none of them could be right. another great video, as always; you articulated it really well.
So fitting for Resurrection Day lol. Thank you for all that you do. I grew up in the COGIC church and always had tons of questions but was just told to “have faith”. I love that you actually have a religious background and can truly speak to the lunacy of it without just bashing religion. I’m so happy I found your channel☺️
as someone who was raised seventh day adventist, there’s quite a few other wild teachings in there. it would be super interesting if you did a breakdown of SDA beliefs!!
I love that I got here early to your videos. I've greatly enjoyed your videos so far, including your podcasts. And yeah, for me, an outsider, if you claim you're a Christian, you're a Christian.
Which unfortunately due to this belief, it creates many stereotypes and there are some who just can’t get differentiate the difference between two different people. It is the same vice versa for any communities and it can happen to anyone (although thankfully there isn’t many I witnessed for now).
@@HuxtableK uhhh... I don't see how it can be solve. You have people claiming themselves to be Christians while never open a bible and went to church. Unless we differentiate association with individualisation (which works as then we see them as an individual instead of them associate this or that).
So glad to see a brief clip of Midnight Mass, one of the best bits of tv/film I’ve seen that explores religion and its place in and influence on culture
i genuinely love this channel so much; i have grown up in a very strict christian household where it is very much not allowed to ever doubt the faith, so it's so nice to hear someone talk about it like this and is very eye-opening
5:26 on the topic of "if 100s of people read something, they're going to come away with different opinions" If I write a meta analysis on, say, the effects of soy on the human body, including all the myths with counter evidence and then distribute that to everyone. And they read it, thoroughly, and still came away with radically different opinions, then I failed. A well written, evidence based text should not result in people with very different interpretations of the text. If I were to write a historical novel, a biography for example, I still wouldn't expect people to walk away with very different interpretations. Because the goal of a historical book is to convey "here's what we know about this person/event". Its based on evidence and therefore isn't supposed to be interpreted. Questioned maybe, but not interpreted differently. If I wrote that "Sally went to the soda fountain on Friday to meet her friends", I mean that she literally did that based on evidence. There isn't room for someone to say "oh that was a metaphor for her addiction to LSD and she was actually sitting in her room talking to stuffed animals", not unless that was established in any case. Now if I were to write a fictional story off the top of my head, perhaps based on real events or not, then there would be room for interpretation on the part of the audience. Because when writing fiction you are playing with the rules of reality, you are doing things intentionally. Random events in a well-written fiction simply do not exist, because everything builds up to the core point. And there might be multiple points within the story, some that even the author didn't realize. If you are writing instructions, or historical accounts, or fact based literature, you _cannot_ leave room for audience interpretation. The entire point behind writing that document is to convey a specific message, you can't risk the audience interpreting it wrong. So even though you could write a scientific study in prose with ample use of literary structures and an entire character arch, you wouldn't because then you aren't communicating the study properly. This is why scientific documents are so dry, because the writer can't risk the reader taking away the wrong information. The point of that writing is to convey information, not entertain, not make the audience think about a nebulous concept. If the purpose of a religious text were to instruct the reader or share historical information, then why is it written more similarly to a novel then a biography? Why is there room for audience interpretation? Sure you could say that its due to retranslations, or that the people at the time wouldn't have been interested in following along with something that was dry, but then the point remains that we, in the modern day, can't take the bible as literal. and yes, I know that is a position held by a lot of Christians, but the most problematic Christians are the ones who _do_ believe the bible is inerrant and literal. And then that brings up the question of "how do we know this was actually written/influenced by a deity if it is so open to interpretation?" It seems like a pretty poor way to communicate to your favorite species.
I think Paul, above everyone else, is responsible for getting the Christianity snowball rolling. As a former Mormon, I see Paul as a first century Joseph Smith who took Judaism and twisted it into "Christianity" much like Smith took protestantism and twisted it into Mormonism. The story around Paul is quite fascinating when you realize that he never even met Jesus in the flesh, his writings make up a large portion of the New Testament, he claimed to get his knowledge of Jesus through direct revelation, but his teachings are largely in opposition to what the bible says Jesus taught. For example, Jesus said to keep the law (the Mosaic law), and Paul said it was not necessary. I have brought this up to many Christians, and they never have good answers for this issue.
There’s a verse in the gospels where Jesus is talking to Peter, and he says “On this rock I will build my church” so ta-daaa Peter was the first pope and Jesus established the Catholic Church.
@@stringtheories9820 my guy i know the mythology of the early church. I got the lore. The catholic church is an institution. Even assuming it's an institution that descends from the early followers of Christ, that's a far different thing from it being established by Christ. Moreover, it's possible that you are extrapolating a lot from a small excerpt of Scripture. Is it possible when Jesus says that it's simply him giving the reigns to the disciple most fit to lead the movement he started, not him establishing the institution of the catholic church?
Very well done Trevor! Your video essays are of excellent quality. I was born and raised arch-catholic. My grandmother actually used labels such as Lutheran / Protestant as slurs. I do see your outside view, and it's correct.
My dad was raised Catholic but I was raised Lutheran like my mom. I was lucky enough to have been born in a family where these religious titles didn’t get in the way of our familial relationships. I even have a Jewish second cousin I share a birthday with!
This is an amazing video. In my search for "the right church" I've looked into many of the featured speakers, and heard these arguments. Having them all in one place is unreal and breaks down my frustration perfectly
I've always had my suspicions about the practice of referring to Christians as "sheep." Should one REALLY want to be a sheep? Sheep that are lucky, get shorn. The others are eaten.
Of course the term "sheep" is used metaphorically. Literally, they're very docile animals. At Matt.18:2-4 Jesus likened prospective members of the Kingdom to young children and their humility. Interestingly, he made a different statement about people that were just the opposite. (Matt.11:25) You're right, the opposite is true. People have been "shorn" and "eaten" by their religious leaders. It's been going on for a long time.(Matt.9:36)
That's actually EXACTLY how my mom thinks! She's been smoking a pack a day ($10-$12/day) of her "healthy" American Spirits!! She swears up & down her cigs are SAFE to chain smoke, despite her multiple severe health probs she didn't have until she started her addiction. She ignores that she can't afford it, that she bribes, blackmails & guilt-trips cig money out of everyone, especially me, her disabled daughter who's been stuck on a disability income much smaller than my minimum expenses already! Better yet, whenever she's confronted with how frequently she's promised & sworn she was quitting, she gets all defensive & accuses ME of being the reason she's so stressed out she NEEDED her cigs! Then she turns around & crucifies me for having no choice but to dump HALF my monthly income into the minimum meds I need to stay alive & out of the hospital, pretty much equating her cigs with my lifesaving medication! 🙄🙄🙄
Fuck that. I smoke American Spirits and I have no illusions about them being "healthy." No cigarettes are "healthy" even if they have less bad stuff in them. Nobody should make their addiction someone else's problem.
Listen, I don't know your life, but based on what I see here, I think you need to cut your mom out. She sounds toxic af and is only causing harm. It is okay to dump harmful family members. Please look after yourself first. I don't know if distancing yourself from her is even something you _can_ do, but if it is, I think you should consider it. And if it isn't, I would honestly still suggest you investigate why you can't and see if you can work it out. This situation just doesn't sound good for you. At the very least, please don't give her money if you need it. I know I might just be telling you things you already know, and I apologize if that is the case, but I would rather say something I don't need to then risk these things going unsaid. Please take care.
@@TITANia69420 Well, not really. I'm the one my family left behind so I could be the bait, the one who had no option to run off to start my own life, like my sister did at age 16, my dad did when I was 6, and all of my mom's siblings & her 4 husbands also split as soon as they could break her chains. As long as I can't escape, I'm constantly being controlled & used...
@@SilverDragonJay Thank you, but yeah, I've had 20yrs of going crazy trying to figure it out, begged family that moved across country to just take me & a bag or 2 of mine & just drop me off at any city along the way, but nobody ever took me seriously...
And the ride got super uncomfortable because he started pushing me when I was talking about my mom dying of cancer asking if I was praying for her if she was praying as if that would’ve saved her. I just told him I didn’t want to go any further, because I was starting to get offended and mad, but he kept pushing the Christian topic.
I've gone through some spiritual abuse and just realizing that some denominations I followed weren't as right as they thought they were. I've genuinely tried not to be a Christian anymore but "something" usually brings me back. In a good way. So I still believe in God, but I have a hard time believing the people who say they know who EXACTLY He is. All this to say.... It's really friggin' weird being a live human. Thanks so much for the video. I really like your channel!
I'm kinda pissed with that "nothing in this addresses the Catholic church" comment. Some people are really blind to some stuff. Like how much I was asked to turn my brain off when I was Catholic.
This "Search/Journey for being/ to become the Right Christian" is infuriating and isolating at best, in my experience.... Like, it is screams "Superior Moral High Ground"and I am better than you mindset... Or better yet.. Us vs them mentality.. Like imagine... no bad thoughts cause even in bad thoughts you have sinned, no to supporting LGBTQ+, no to any form of abortion, should give money for the church every sunday, try to preach god's word cause it is a duty to do so, pray everyday, have devotion every day, respect the sabbath even if it will cauae you your livelihood, Always Put God 1st... And everyone else second, even your immediate family, lover, dearest friends.... Follow him leaving all behind.... Always thinking is this sin or not?? Restricting worldly activities cause it is "unholy"... Cannot even listen to world music only Christian music.... Edit 2: That obey your parents and never question.. Or better yet, you are not allowed to question or you will be punished... Victim blaming when it comes to sexual assaults... Blatant sexism in the church... So more things to say.. Urggh I cannot totally imagine being a Christian being restricted of almost everything else... It is tiring especially to hate other people who ain't doing anything unto you.. I am done
Except you're not supposed to hate, but love, so you have to also convince yourself that going against whole communities and making them hate you is a form of love. I also got tired of it all.
@@lucidragon5260 Thanks for mentioning that.. Yeah, that right there.. The mental gymnastics of that... Being hateful=tough love... And not being hateful=abuse/bigot
As a fundie Catholic I did exactly a lot of the things you mentioned, I think they’re some of the things that contributed to my traumatic deconversion as they gave me meaning and direction in life and when I left they all became meaningless (even though they made me miserable sometimes) and had to start over in many ways, this was in addition to a lot of the rituals I followed like the Mass in Latin.
