I used to pray to Jesus every day. I used to read the Bible every day. I used to want to be a Pastor of a church. I was a fervent, dedicated and vocal Evangelical Christian until a few months after my 18th birthday. And then it all stopped.

I identified as a born again Christian from age five. And despite my entire upbringing and family being centred around Christianity and even though almost all of my personal values and social life at the time hinged on it. At age eighteen I called bullshit on all the church had taught me.

It all stopped making any sense and I’d love to tell you why.

I’m going to tell you why I don’t believe in the Christian God anymore and why you probably shouldn’t either.

This is not an attempt to disprove the existence of God. That technically can never be truly accomplished. What follows is merely an account of my own reasons for leaving the Church and my reasons why I’m glad God (probably) doesn’t exist.

Jesus Ain’t That Guy

Jesus is a character who garners a lot of respect even outside of the Church. Despite some of Christianitys darker sides he is seen as the “kind and ambivalent” side of the religion. And in some ways he is that. There are stories of Jesus showing extreme kindness and compassion but once you dig beneath the surface a little further you discover Jesus really ain’t that guy.

Much like a villain from a 1984esque tale Jesus was an advocator of fucking thought crime. Don’t believe me? Check out Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28 where Jesus describes how merely feeling anger towards someone is as morally reprehensible as killing him and that lusting after someone is as bad as committing adultery.

And how should human beings be held accountable for their thought crimes Jesus? By burning in Hell of course. In the Bible Jesus actually talks about Hell much more than he talks about Heaven. Indeed the most dramatic and barbaric depictions of Hell come from Jesus himself.

The central figure of the Religion was not the kind teacher I had been taught to believe he was. Rather he taught and believed things which were totalitarian. What kind of monster believes that human beings who merely think the wrong thoughts deserve eternal torture. Seeing Jesus for who he really was was the beginning of my disillusionment with Christianity.

If Jesus was the best my faith had to offer and he believed and taught these kinds of things, what kind of faith was I following?

The Human Ego of the Christian God.

Here’s something most people outside of Christianity don’t know and something people inside the Church would never admit. The Christian God is a very insecure and egotistical character. There are several verses and passages in the Bible which describe God's passion for his own glory, Isaiah 48:9-11 being just one.

God's goal is to be worshipped by us. Seen as glorious and splendid.

In fact renowned Christian Pastor John Piper claims that “God’s ultimate goal is to uphold and display the glory of his name.” Now most Christians will hear this and respond with “He is God the one true great being in all of history, he has every right to seek his own glory and demand constant praise”

But let’s actually think about this for a second. If you were a God who was so enlightened and so above the pitfalls of humanity (which God is described to be) would you care about glory? Would you care about being praised and worshipped all of the time? You created the cosmos and can just travel through time and witness all your marvellous creation but instead your main pursuit is ensuring that some primates on this tiny spec of dust are all worshipping you and calling you the top motherfucker. I don’t get it.

We are nothing compared to the grand universe that God claims to have created and yet according to the Bible he gets jealous over us? No seriously! In the Bible Gods like an insecure partner when you’re talking to a member of your preferred sex who isn’t them.

The guy gets obscenely jealous. If you don’t believe me go here: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God,-Jealous

Is jealousy a trait of a God? Is an ego which demands constant praise and validation a trait of a God? I don’t think so. I think they’re very human traits. Very negative human traits. A God who is characterised as having such ugly human traits isn’t a God that is likely to exist.

God The Scarecrow

God's actions after we’re dead and his lack of action while we’re alive are the issues upon which my faith finally died.

The Christian conceptions of Heaven and Hell are some of the most vile and distorted depictions of justice and morality humans have ever come up with.

The idea of punishing someone eternally for actions taken within a finite lifetime is not only ludicrous, it’s immoral. Bar an immensely tiny minority of people no one deserves eternal torture.

Christians rationalise this eternal punishment by claiming we are held to God's standards, not our own. Is that fair? Is that just? According to the Bible God created us inherently inferior to him by nature. The Bible says we are “born with sin.” We are born not good enough and then held to the conduct standards of a Supreme being and tortured for eternity if we put one toe out of line.

That’s not justice. That’s not holiness. That’s sadism.

Once you combine the nature of Hell with Predestination, you arrive at a truly dark realisation about the true nature of this so-called Loving God.

Predestination is the doctrine that God has “eternally chosen those whom he intends to save”. Essentially, everyone who ends up in Heaven is chosen to go there by God and everyone who ends up in Hell is Chosen to go there by God. There is nothing you can do to change or escape your fate. Free will doesn’t exist in the Christian gospel.

This is not a gospel of love or peace or justice. It’s the story of a being who would send billions of souls whom he claims to love to eternal damnation despite being perfectly able to save them.

The most classic and in my opinion most compelling argument against God is that if you look at the world around you, it’s quite clear that if God is all powerful, he cannot be all good. A child under the age of five dies of starvation every minute. From all causes of death ten children under the age of five die every minute. I think those stats sum up the point that the story of human history is one long tale of suffering. Endless, dreadful and at times unimaginable suffering.

For a primate which evolved in brutal environments and as a species that is still relatively adolescent. That story is a sad but expected outcome of our history.

For a human race created for a purpose by an all loving and all powerful God it simply doesn’t make sense. A God who claims to be all loving and all powerful would quite simply intervene in the suffering of humans and make this world we occupy a better one. And the fact that he clearly doesn’t shows that he probably doesn’t exist. I don’t care what you have to say back to that, you’ll never change my mind.

These were the thoughts I found myself thinking as I began to doubt Christianity. I saw a God who claimed to be fair, yet decided to let billions of people burn for eternity for the sole reason that they hadn’t been chosen and hadn’t lived up to the standards of a God.

A God who claimed to be all loving and all powerful yet let billions of his beloved suffer horrendously day in day out.

No true God would lie about himself like this. No true God would be as sadistic as this. No true God would be as evil as this. His faults were that of human ego and no true God would suffer the egotism of humans. Only a God we created would be like this.

As my faith dwindled and dwindled I realised the truth about the Christian God, we invented him. Once you dare to question him, once you see through the mysticism and objectively analyse how good and moral this God actually is, you see him for what he is.

A scarecrow. A lie. Another human invention intended to explain that which we couldn’t explain and control that which we couldn’t control.

There are so many compelling arguments against the Christian God beyond the ones I’ve talked about. I haven’t even touched the scientific arguments. These are just some of the reasons it doesn’t make sense to believe in him. There are many, many more out there if you dare to look.

Why People Keep Believing

I’m convinced that deep down the majority of Christians have extreme doubts about their beliefs. Deep down they know their God doesn’t exist, they know they’re living a lie and they know that being a part of that religion isn’t who they are. But they stay. They keep believing. Why? Because they’re scared.

Maybe they’re afraid of confronting life on their own two feet. Religion engrains learned helplessness in people. I mean when you're taught from birth that you need a God to get through life, the prospect of life without one seems too daunting to face.

Perhaps it’s not quite that. Perhaps they could face life just fine by themselves but too many of their relationships now revolve around God. And abandoning God would disrupt those relationships possibly beyond repair. They’re afraid of having to re-define their current relationships or perhaps even having to start new ones. It’s a brave thing to abandon the thread that ties together your entire social world once you realise the thread is bullshit.

Or maybe Religion is the only thing they feel matters in life or the only thing that makes them feel that life matters. They continue to listen, feed upon and re-distribute the lies because if God doesn’t exist.. Then is there truly any point to life?

It is a sad thing to live a lie out of nothing but fear. So if you’re a Christian and you’re reading this and you’ve ever thought about leaving the Church here’s my advice. Take the fucking leap. If you are thinking about leaving then deep down whether you admit it or not you’re too far gone to ever go back to Church with any conviction in your beliefs. Take the leap and face the shit as it comes. Leaving the Church is no easy thing and life will almost certainly get worse for you. But it will also get better and you’ll no longer be living a lie.

To any former Christians who have left the Church but sometimes have doubts about their decision.. Keep going! You did the right thing and I know life is probably in some ways harder now. But you were honest with yourself and saw through the bullshit. Give yourself the credit you deserve for that and keep going my friends.

I have so much more to say about leaving religion, the lies the Church tells its children and how to live a life in a modern world your Church always taught you was evil. Feel free to follow along.

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