They Lied to Me — 4 Reasons I Left Christianity

When I say, “they lied” to me, I mean it.

People I looked up to in my youth told me that God existed. Eventually, I started to question these things and I realized the enormous extent we all owe to our intuitions on these issues.

The people I looked up to in my youth knew that many of the tenets of Christianity require deep faith — not evidence. But they didn’t care to explain the ambiguity.

So, yes, they lied.

When teaching religion or atheism to impressionable young minds, it is always good to express it in uncertainty.

These apply to myself and myself alone. I am sure you have your own reasons for accepting the faith and I believe in your right to have them.

Please keep your faith. I believe it can help you and perhaps also influence the world positively, if you choose to separate church and state. In my case, I had to abandon it.

I left Christianity because of my great respect for the weight of evidence. It takes a lot to justify our views. It takes years of practice to learn how to study evidence, discern what is good empiricism, and know to what extent we ought to judge our own views.

Ultimately, “the great lie” in my journey was the strong belief I would remain a believer for the rest of my life. It was through books, conversation, and education that I left the promises of reformed (also known as Calvinist) theology.