Why You Can't Have a Relationship with God 

I don't poison ants in my garden They poison themselves by rejecting me

Relationships with an omnipresent being shouldn’t require mediators such as priests… this should be common sense.

I had an ant farm when I was a child and I woke up one Valentine’s Day and they had carved a tunnel in the shape of a heart. So I said “I love you too, ants”

"What does god need with a starship?" - Capt. Kirk "What does god need with tithings and adoration?" - Me

I used to think I had a relationship with God. It was my primary motivation, and was a source of comfort, yet I eventually had to admit to myself that it was entirely one-sided. I gave my time, tithe, free labor via several ministries, prayer, Bible study, my career goals, evangelism, etc. In exchange, God...umm? He was invisible, inaudible, didn't respond to anything, didn't do anything that couldn't be mistaken for random chance. I couldn't keep up the charade anymore. Either God didn't care or he didn't exist, and both possibilities were essentially the same thing from my perspective.

They say God is outside of space and time. You know what else is outside of space and time? Imaginary friends

Genius work, sir. I applaud you.

Imagine the arrogance one needs to have to seriously believe they could have a personal relationship with an all-knowing all-powerful being that created time and space.

thank you for creating a thorough and more palatable version of what i tell people- "an entity who breathed neutron stars & nebula into existence probably doesn't care if you masturbate or not".

"Lol, those primitive indigenous people worship the Sun!" "Dude, the Sun at least visibly exists." Edit: I'm getting famous here so it's time to thank my sponsor Raid: Shadow Legends.

A relationship with God sounds like a relationship with a child's imaginary friend.

Now, imagine a person whose sole ambition is to be King of the Ants, who seethes with eternal rage at ants for failing to worship him or obey a set of rules he's given them about certain ways they're not allowed to wave their antennae, and wants to torture them for eternity for their "rebellion." Would you respect this person, or consider them wise and benevolent?

The idea of a personal relationship with God is probably one of the first things that made me realize christians were confused about their own inner thoughts

"Behind my house are miles and miles of grassland. I once went to a spot I can't even see from my house. There I noticed an Anthill. Somewhere in there, underground, was an Ant, infinite smaller and less powerful than me. I want to have a relationship with it. I want it to be amazed by me, even if it will never understand or even see all of me. And if it says no I will crush it. Also if they could kill each other over disagreements of my personality, that would be great." -The Smartest Person that ever existed or will exist

This video should have millions of views. Such a powerful, true, empathetic, and loving message.

A personal relationship means there's some form of communication. Only your imagination will say god talks to you and loves you.

Rignt now there are 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 ants burning in my hell for not worshiping me. I hope the others learn from their blasphemy.

Babe wake up, Kratos posted

Being a born again for eleven years told me in no uncertain terms that god wants nothing to do with me. Never did before, during, or after.

bro I love your videos I grew up watching them. ever since I was 15, my whole life I've lived in a very legalistic home with cruel parents who put religion over school, mental health, or their relationship with me. It made me realize that nobody has it figured out, everyone is just desperately looking for a coping mechanism for death, Also Christians are some of the most self-centered egotistical and arrogant people I have ever known and have made it their goal to make me feel guilty for existing or feel like a piece of shit for wanting to enjoy my life and not be bound by meaningless restrictions that limit my experiences in this short life span I have to live. Thank you, dark matter, for making these videos they have helped me better understand reality and see it in new perspectives and I'm so grateful for that.

"If god doesnt exist hes beneath you, if he does exist hes beyond you" wooooow

POWERFUL STATEMENT: If it’s not real it is beneath you If it is real it’s beyond you

I am so close, I may look distant. So completely mixed with you, I may look separate. So out in the open, I appear hidden. So silent, because I am constantly talking with you. - Rumi

We can't even begin to comprehend what sort of being could interact with everyone and everything everywhere all at once.

As huge as the universe is, we are taught to believe that an entity who directs all of the universe is aware of - and offended by - the thoughts of what I might want to do involving my genitals with another person's genitals. That's just weird.

I felt the same way about this. Considering the idea of a perfect utopian standard that makes you feel like you deserve the most horrible fate in the afterlife, it's said that your creator loves you is very disheartening. Almost like Stockholm syndrome covered up.

Fictional deities will never love you back. But people can. Seek a loving relationship with people. Not gods

Damn, you made me like my fellow man for a second. That's a heck of an achievement, the misanthrope that I am. You're eloquent af. Great video.

human : i love ants so much, i will sacrifice my child for their sins ant: bro, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU

I love how succinctly you outlined the basic premise of the Duning-Kruger Effect.

I respectfully disagree. I have a pet ant named Charlie. We understand each other just fine. We’re also deeply spiritually connected. Checkmate!

i feel sad thinking about how much time ive wasted alone in prayer, study and worship thinking i was spending time with God.

That all makes perfect sense. The problem is that a religious person will acknowledge all of that and still reply " Yes, but amazingly, wonderfully, he does have a relationship with us!" 😬

A flower isn't beautiful because it lasts forever. Mortality is very scary... but its also what gives our life meaning. Its a catalyst of all we've accomplished.

DarkMatter2525, this! True 'perspective'! This is your true genius. You literally are truly awesome. 👍🏿👏🏾💙💙💙🥰✌🏻

Wow, dark matter. This was beautiful. Thank you for sharing your genius with us. You've taught me a lot over the years. I hope you're well,my friend.

I have thought about this or a long time; "Why would an omnipotent being who knows everything and can do anything want anything to do with me?" Your video sums up those thoughts perfectly!

Even without trying to comprehend everything you laid out here, the thing that helped get me out was realizing how egotistical it was to think that such a being would have personally and individually planned out things in my life and would listen if I asked for something. I love this channel. So glad I found it recently. Thanks for everything, keep up the good work.

Hypothetically, How different would Religions be if they were taxed like any normal business?

Instead of a relationship with "god," focus on the relationships with fellow humans - because we truly need each other. Excellent video.

Feel like a lot of people missed the point immediately... It's not about how "stupid" it is that these people believe in a God of any kind, it's about how that cannot even truthfully be a good idea in the first place. A being of such scale that it created the UNIVERSE, would have to be so big that if it's even possible for something like that to have a will, it's will would not even treat us with anything more than a slight twitch of the eye at our emergence and ending, if even that. Enough of that "hurr durr, they believe in a sky daddy, it's an imaginary friend!"... Have a brain, please. It's an old line.

My old church insisted it wasn’t God’s will for me to be a mom. I knew they were full of it the moment my kid was born 17 years ago.

I don't really think the ant analogy is the best honestly. I always heard a similar one when I was a Christian, in the form of: "god is so good and loving because he became human and was tortured and died as a human just to save us, think about it, would you do the same thing for an ant? Of course not, that shows how good God is." But I always thought, hey, if I knew FOR SURE 100% CERTAINTY that after being killed as an ant, I'd just come back to my human life like nothing happened, sure I'd do it! Sounds fun to go live an ant life and meet ants, with zero real consequences. I'll know it's gonna end badly, but whatever, that's a blip on my lifetime. So yeah, I do think I could have some cool relationships with ants. They'd never fully understand my human life, obviously, but I could get to understand ant life, ant concerns, ant struggles, ant aspirations.

Wow! I can honestly say that's one of the best RU-vid videos I've ever seen. If not the best. It's incredible!. I'm going to figure out how to send you something on patreon. 😊

Christians: God sacrificed his son for you Me: I didn't ask him to Christians: But he died for your sins so that you could get redemption. Humans are sinners Me: I didn't ask God to make me a sinner either. Wasn't him who created me, like all humans?

I'm so glad I found your videos. They are a great inspiration & a comfort to me as I deconstruct over 40 years of false beliefs and Faith, but people like you make me have a new faith in the goodness of people I was never allowed to believe in before. You are very wise and talented and a gift to us all. And I love the sound of your voice. Lol.

Oh my goodness! I usually don't comment, but that was amazing and inspiring. Thank you! I really needed that from one of my fellow atheists today. I appreciate your work sir. Please don't ever stop. We need you too.💯🌟😎❤️

"If life is to exist in a universe of this size, one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion." -Douglas Adams

I enjoy this quote by a very smart man! “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ― Epicurus

There is one thing I would like to add, the Gods invented were always human or human-like in the same way we assumed aliens would be human or human-like. This is true across many cultures the God of the bible supposedly made humanity in his image: Zeus from Greek mythology is depicted as a muscular man throwing lightning bolts, Odin from Norse mythology is depicted as an old man who is sometimes missing an eye, Anubis from ancient Egyptian mythology is depicted as a human body with a jackal head, Ganesh from Hinduism is depicted as a human body with an elephant head and extra arms briefly portrayed by Homer Simpson.

İ have nothing significant to add, just wanted to say that i really love your videos! Thanks for all the enjoyment and validation!

Theists will say its not God who needs us its us who need him.

Pareidolia is very often confused with apophenia. Pareidolia is a visual phenomenon. It's when your eyes see images in the randomness. Apophenia is more of a psychological phenomenon. It's when people connect things and find patterns in random events. Apophenia is often cited as the source of conspiracy theories.

This video is a masterpiece 🙌🏼. Great images and excellent analogy to deliver the message 👍🏼.

once again brilliant - thank you for the perspective.

A masterpiece! The absurdity of relationship with God.

Why would 'God', a perfect being, a complete being, create ANYTHING? Was it bored? Was it lacking something? Did it want to show off, to whom? Was it lonely? Any of these reasons and God is neither perfect nor complete. The fact that things exist at all prove there is no perfect, complete being that created them. If there was a being powerful enough to create everything, it would have done so to satisfy some MASSIVE deficiency. In which case, you wouldn't want to be in a relationship with it and it certainly would find no benefit in you.

If a god ain´t fixing my health and body every day and doesn´t give me money to be happy, why would I want him?

You can have a relationship with a toaster, a car, even a human being, but u can't have a relationship with a Kelpie, or the Tooth Fairy, or any deity for that matter. Absolutely you CAN BELIEVE you do, but of course that applies to any fictional figure.

Great content as always! I always appreciate the work you do DarkMatter!

Back with another banger! As long as you create I’ll watch!

Don't worry what gods want. Be a good person. If gods are real and good, they can reward you for being good. If gods are real and are evil, you don't want to be with them If gods aren't real, at least you were a good person.

Such a great video , so true ...goes for me in the same line as Carl Sagan's " pale blue dot"

I had relationships with mice, they only live about two years, it was hard to watch my most special one named Unique die. Time felt so unfair that day.

0:21 It would be the worst abusive relationship you could imagine. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” like a beaten dog.

Everyone should share this video as much as possible

Damn this was so well made

"If it's not real it's below you. If it's real it's beyond you." I'm so glad I found this channel and others like it. Theists find it really annoying but having people who have the knowledge set to explain why all of this is so foolish is important. That said, I'm inclined to agree, this was among one the best videos made on the channel. Stay amazing

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a street preacher only a few weeks ago. I asked the guy who he loved more, his daughter or God. Without a moments hesitation he answered that he loved God a billion times more than he loved his own child because God was a billion times more powerful and a billion times bigger. The thing is his six year old daughter was standing right beside him listening to everything he said. She heard him say that he loved God most of all.

Hello, thanks for this interesting video and thank God for it comming on my reccomendations! I am a theist (christian), so thought it could be useful to comment on this topic from my perspective. FYI this is the first comment that I ever make, so I truly mean it that information presented here matters to me. Firstly, I must say, that I have watched some of previous videos from this channel, but I didn't ponder much about whatever was said and forgot most of it. I believe that claims given here are genuine and raised questions are faithful, but I would say that delivery is not so much. Partially, I think that is because these videos are emotionally overwhelming with too many topics, that could be studied much more further separately. On one side, there are many good questions asked about character of God, but most of them are done as rhetorical, so I suspect there is an emerging foundational message of an agnostic "look, I just don't know and nobody knows" with "one should be humble about it" without proper evaluation. On the other hand, the answers that get presented as a christian response are frequently not orthodox view at all, so yet again this does not help for believers to actually understand thoughts provided by this channel better. But, I guess, that would be my rant against a part of vocal atheists I find on youtube and not necessarily this channel. I might be judging wrongly, I haven't been following this creator at all, but I imagined that based on comments under this video, there must be something attractive for atheists, but repelling for theists. Now why I watched this video? I think the question of whether creator (and I would say a sustainer) of the universe gives a bit about such weird creatures as us is truly an ultimate one regarding our existence. For all the possible views on existance, providing the why, I see this mystery to be with true binary options: yes or no, with no in-between. If the answer is no, then I think there is no justification needed nor possible, it means that it is a foundational property of the universe, to never be complete, always remaining a mystery (interesting thought regardless of religious views, I would say. In such way there is no infinity that god posseses, but the infinity is still present on never-ending mystery of relfection).Well, if let's say, that the answer is yes, then one could imagine there is no fundamental difference to our understanding of the universe whatsoever, but I would say that this is not true - we now would know that the universe is complete, possible to undersand in some currently unexplainable way (I imangine, one could wish to reach such knowledge, would doing that be enough to know god fully?). If for creator being all of the universe matters, there is literaly nothing that would have no value and, somebody could claim, that what has no value is the nothingness itself, but it's hard to say how could it exist based on our observations: we see that something does exist. So why should one place such stadards for God, that he must care about us? I am no theologician, but I say that god can have preferance of some things over the others only in a process of making more of the better things, because otherwise a creator of the universe that has no vision for one things while still maintaining preferance for something is a god of demands! This is a crucial point that I am very happy it was pointed out in a video: God does not need anything. As I see that is pure christian theology - god is infinite, all of creation is not. This is at the core of the gospel of Jesus for me - one could wish to find a method, a way to make a relationship with him, but there is none. All our methods are worldly, and God is nothing like the creation, which is but a reflection of him. Paraphrasing Jesus, for a man it is not possible, but not for God. So relationship that one could have with God is always initiated by God, who has no need for us. That at first might seem like a terrible one - there is no true bond between parties when they are not of equal power. But what God does is, actually, an example of an ideal relationship, otherworldly one. Sure, it makes sense that human do not feel much about things, truly nothing for the ants (what to say about quadrillions living microorgsnisms!), after all that is not our priority, when we are occupied with our own ignorance. The relationship that God gives is of no use for him, and that's the point. That's why he can do it, because there is no loss for him. This is of course a characteristic of a loving God, who sacrifices. I liked the analogies in this video, and size-time scales that show how unimaginably non-sensical for us and marvelous the universe is. I think that is a positive thought for every human to live by. Having an opportunity to be present and see that all is a gift. Regarding the technicalities (sorry for such word) of how relationship with God unfolds, I believe it makes sense for it to be highly varying for each person. I do not hear God speeking literal words in my head when I pray about what should I or not do (others might, I guess), but also I am opposed to thinking that God mainly works in sublte ways. I would say God is always central (as hazy as that sounds), active on everything that exists and it's either that, or god is (or is not at all) one of needs - no god yet again. If we let thought slide that in the eyes of God, creation needs to be served for sutainance and, in our own eyes, God is ultimately glorified in doing so, then there is really no better way of humbling ourselves in our own eyes than that. Thanks again for this video. Once again I stress that this topic is very valuable for theists. Have a nice day!

0 evidence for god , end of story.

Wow! Just perfect! Thank you as always

Also, let's not forget that the people who claim to have a relationship with God have to redefine the word "relationship" to get it to fit. A person in a relationship with God can't tell me anything about God that isn't part of the religion that other people in relationships with him can all attast to. What's God's personality like? What are his habits and hobbies? What does he do? In what meaningful way can you describe your relationship with God as a relationship?

Excellent. Thank you. Let’s hope more people will get the message eventually.

Hip hip hooray! I put this one in your top 10 as well. Excellent ❤

according to the bible he tried once to flush us all down, and everything went, except for a single floater... that kind of is how the ancient people thought god had a personal relationship with his people...

Conservative ant to other ants: "The giant beings designed and created us. What, you think we just came from nothing?!"

Four species of ants live in and around my house. In the local language, Mindanao Cebuano, the smallest of them is called "pila". That word means "how many?" or "how much?". When they swarm, it's impossible to count them. I loved the ant analogy. I really appreciate your videos on a subject that tends to attract criticism.

This is one of the best videos DarkMatter has produced.

I watch enough AntsCanada to know what you were talking about.😂 I literally called out ants as you were giving the question.

Great video as always. Finally decided to join the Darkmatter army :D

Beautifully done video! I absolutely love your work. Sharing it with everyone! Also, I LOVE ants and am so happy you featured them in this!

I’ve seen most all of your work and I love what you do. This one is amazing! I think it could be your best yet. I’ve watched it 4 -5 times since you posted it and I’ve shared it to many friends in hope they may appreciate it as much as I do. 😊

This video showing how insignificant our lives are in the big scheme of things Very eye opening

D&D. I've thought about what it would be like if a god really existed, and Dungeons & Dragons is what I came up with. You've got clerics and paladins. You've got people who are in direct contact with their gods, who can perform literal miracles on demand, who can literally cast a spell to talk directly and publicly to their deity. So I made my cleric a follower of Waukeen. He didn't spend his time chanting at the ceiling with his arms spread wide. He spent money. He worked for better pay for people, for a functioning and fair economy. Waukeen's temples became banks, operated by cleric clerks. When he visited a merchant, he wished _Blessings of Waukeen upon yourself and your establishment._ It became a bit of a running gag around the table, but Mallet Firesoul was a work-a-day religious man. Just like how people don't lose their freaking mind in-game when someone throws a firebolt, a world with real gods in it would be unremarkable. We don't point and cower at the sight of airplanes, we don't fetch our sharpened flint-tipped spears and attack the iron horses that zip by outside our homes, and we (mostly) don't panic when the Sun suddenly goes dark in the middle of the day and declare it a Sign(tm). We call that Tuesday. Perhaps the strongest evidence that gods don't exist is that: the people who believe in gods think miracles are amazing. We know miracles don't happen, we understand why people _think_ miracles happen and how people tell lies and make money off of miraculous claims; the only reason to think miracles are anything other than mundane occurrences are because they don't happen and believers need to pretend they're magical so they can feel reassured their imaginary friends are real. Look at the lunatic in the video, carrying a loudspeaker and wearing a hoodie with "Trust Jesus" printed on it. If his god actually existed, he wouldn't need to be an obnoxious parasite like he is; his god could make itself known in a non-intrusive normal everyday fashion. Instead, it's so _fake_ that you have to mentally cripple someone to the point where their whole life revolves around being a nuisance. My cleric didn't preach the Word of Waukeen. He didn't go around Inquisiting about people's investment portfolio. He didn't command people to trust that Waukeen's justice would ensure they get a fair wage some day in the afterlife. He did his job. His normal, everyday job. Which might've involved bashing some heads in when people tried to sell him into slavery for being a tiefling, but he only did it because a fair wage is better for the economy.

Without a shadow of a doubt, this is one of your best yet! Well done, as always! Cheers.

As a lifelong atheist I used to believe that people who claimed to have a personal relationship with God were simply lying (in fact, I assumed that everyone who professed to believe in God was lying, much like people who claim that Santa Claus is a real are lying), but over the course of about 25 years, I had the opportunity to get to really know a woman who I respect and trust very much, and I believe her when she says that she has a personal relationship with Jesus, that Jesus speaks directly to her when she prays, and sometimes he speaks to her even when she isn’t praying. I bring this up for the benefit of other atheists to understand that some people (perhaps very few, but at least some) who claim to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus are sincere, believing that they speak the truth. Obviously they are imagining the voices and/or visions that they experience, it’s likely something akin to schizophrenia where they don’t recognize that the voice they hear in their head is their own, but if one approaches interactions with them from the perspective that they are truthful not deceitful then conversations and interactions can be much more meaningful and productive.

Thanks you Darkmatter. I've finally abandoned my faith. I was brought up in a very over-religious home where they believed they were the chosen few among the Christians and they were the ones going to heaven and the other Christians(catholic,baptist church,all other denominations except the Billy Graham one which I don't really know the name correct me if I'm wrong) taught lies. I was really traumatised with the idea of hell and the afterlife.I was so so scared. I won't lie and say it just vanished but it is diminishing. I was afraid if I didn't believe in Jesus I'd be burnt or sent to a cold hell forever. I even lied to myself and others by telling them hell isn't a fiery place rather just a world where one is alone with his own inner torment due to his sins which again looking back at it is just as bad as the fiery hell. It was just a cope tbh and it just led me into deeper despair. I really really wish I didn't know any of this and just lived a life without religious indoctrination. Thanks for listening. (About my account; I ran a biblical channel for Christians, well mostly for money 😂but yeah I'm not really a Christian myself now. I've struggled with it long enough it's time to give it up)

This is exactly what has bugged me the most about the concept of these omni-gods. Their minds would be completely incomprehensible to us, it's sheer arrogance only humanity could conjure up to think they want to have, or are even capable of, any care for us, let alone having a relationship.

This video is humbling, thank you. Although I have encountered a supernatural love, it seems that everything in this world comes with conditions, eaven love. But this supernatural love was unconditional love. This love was offered not because it was getting something out of it, or benefiting from it in some way. It was offering it because that's simply what the essence of being is when it shares itself with you. So I would like to provide another perspective. Yes, there's nothing that the human can get from an aunt loving them. But the ant can definitely benefit from the human loving the ant. And you never know possibly by having love for this aunt, it will have a positive effect on all the other ants.And essentially that's what I've experienced in my spiritual walk. Hope you all will experience this unconditional love before you pass away.

Darkmatter has always been able to tap into such a profound introspection into how far off religious ideas are from what we actually experience in the real world. I can't even begin to express what a monumental impact these videos have done for me. It is mind boggling to stop and think about all existence in the way this video explains it without even trying to include a god. Thank you again for such an awe inspiring masterpiece that shines such a huge spotlight on how insignificant human beings are when we zoom out beyond our cosmic neighborhood. The arrogance one has to have in order to believe that if there was something out there capable of creating everything it would care about us more than everything else in the universe truly seems ridiculous. Especially when we think about it in the way this video explains. This video meticulously shows human beings honestly have more in common with the ants than any God would have with us by many orders of magnitude. The 4 decades I was a Christian really seemed like I was living my life blindfolded. Thank you for all you do!! It is a true testament to the human capacity to comprehend our existence at the true scale we are.

When I was a Christian, I learned that God is so majestic, that he is in the greatest as he is in the smallest of all things. So he can be with you individually and you can comprehend that part of God. That was also the time when I started to realize that what I think of God is actually what I think of the universe.

I need more cartoons dawg, I've watched each one 100 times 🙂👌🏾

knocked it out of the park as usual.

I often wonder why such a great mind like Einstein wouldn't question his own beliefs, from what i read Einstein believed in the Spinoza's god and that god was the universe, but with such a great mind you would think it would have been easy for him to disregard any fairytale doctrine

You can't have a relationship with something that doesn't exist.

I love your videos, thank you for your work dark matter

Chimaera ants do better than us... but they should not underestimate the infinite potential of human evolution!

I could see this video strengthening a believer's conviction: "Despite everything, God still loves me!"

Having a relationship with God is like having an imaginary girlfriend.