Member-only story
Why Christianity Doesn’t Make Sense — Four Reasons I Left Christianity
It took me a long time to leave my beliefs. I left Christianity at the age of nineteen, after years of fervent conviction.
But I never want to tell you what to think. I want to reflect on my own journey. Hopefully, you will be able to gain something from it. But that doesn’t mean that I want you to think like me. Actually, I’d love for you to keep your beliefs.
Ultimately, 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.
The fervency of my youth and strong commitments to religion were undercut by skepticism and a proclivity to doubt myself.
Let me explain.
“And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.”
— Bertrand Russell
1. The Evidence
Very few — if any — people are persuaded by evidence, especially when it comes to religion.
If we were honest with ourselves, we’d realize how little we understand about man-made climate change; the efficacy of medicine; the utility of central banks; and much more.
We rely on authority because we simply do not have the time to study the thousands of topics that we could devote our time to.
As a result, I believe that atheists are not persuaded by evidence alone — nor are those with religious or spiritual beliefs.
That said, there are many reasons to doubt the claims of the Bible. It is precisely the fact that issues are so complex and multi-faceted that we ought to judge the ambiguous and perplexing claims of the Bible.
There are too many discrepancies in the Bible itself and, more importantly, immoral passages. What persuaded Paul and Jesus, not to mention Old Testament prophets, is far from what we consider good reasoning today.
