This video was brought to you by Debunked – More about that at the end of the video.
You
ever have one of those moments where you’re revisiting something from your past – something
that used to feel so normal, benign, or even positive at the time. But when you re-encounter
or reflect back on it years later you suddenly realize just how messed up it actually was? Like
when you joke about your childhood trauma assuming everyone experienced the same thing – but instead
of laughing, the whole room just goes silent and everyone gives you sad eyes. Or when you go back
and watch an old comedy show that really didn’t age well. Or you read through your old journal
entries or social media posts and suddenly realize that you’ve actually come a long way,
but used to parrot some pretty ignorant ideas and possess some kinda backwards perspectives.
And sure if we’re constantly learning and growing I think that’s normal, and at every
point in our life, future us won’t be able to look back at us without a tinge of the cringe.
Over the last decade or so of deconstructing my faith, I’ve had a lot of those moments
where a religious idea that sounded so totally normal – in the presence of new
information – becomes jaw-droppingly awful. Ideas which I was once conditioned to believe
(even cherish) suddenly… you see them in a very different light. One such example
happened to me just recently here in Brazil. There was a specific Christian idea which was
instilled in me repeatedly since childhood which I once yearned and hoped for as a
Christian… a Christian dream which most believers still cherish and think that they want – but
that I now realize is incredibly dark, toxic, and actually a bit of a nightmare.
What’s up everybody, right now I’m in Rio De Janeiro,
behind the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love it here in Brazil,
and this monument is extremely impressive, but no matter where I go in this city this
gigantic religious monument hovers overhead – staring down from its lofty perch. It watches
as I wander the city – watches me eat breakfast – it even feels like Jesus is watching me poop
(assuming he can see through walls). I’m not going crazy... yet... but it does make
me wonder if statue-Jesus’ x-ray vision is thwarted by sheets of lead like Superman’s.
Harrison?
Harrison!
You better not be going in there to fap again. Oh
no you don’t! Tissue?
Raised in the church, time and again, I heard pastors celebrate God’s omnipresence
and omniscience quoting verse where God says things like:
“The eyes of the Lord are in every place, Watching the evil and the good.”
“Behold, I am with you always.” Or:
He said “Never will I leave you and never will I forsake you.” This is God’s promise!
I’m watching you Wasowski – Always watching! Growing up in youth group, we even sang a song
with the lyrics, “Where can I run from your presence, where can I run.” Which comes from
a Psalm talking about how no matter where you try to flee from God, you can’t escape him.
And even if you just want to be left alone so you take to the skies or make off to the underworld,
even THERE his “right hand will take hold of me.”
Several years back I was in a pretty emotionally abusive relationship with an anxious partner who
didn’t care much for healthy boundaries. And I remember Googling, “Signs you’re
in an emotionally abusive relationship.” While I was sitting on the toilet with my
phone. Because that was the only time I had any semblance of privacy. And after just 5 minutes,
she pounded on the door and accused me of trying to get away from her by taking long poops.
I didn’t really realize just how unhealthy that dynamic was, because not too many years before
that, I was straight up rejoicing at God’s all-seeing nature and took comfort in the
fact that he was always there with me no matter what. And for us naïve little youth group kids,
God was an ever-present tender-hearted father. But while healthy parents respect
their kid’s autonomy and teach them to become more independent,
God wasn’t just around to turn to if we were hurting, lost, or confused. He was constantly
there holding our hands (like it or not) – a crutch for loneliness – a personal back seat
speed tap cop. And yet we viewed it as an ever-present comfort in times of trouble.
In a way, kinda like Jolly Old Saint Nick.
He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.
OK, admittedly the lyrics of that Christmas song make Santa seem creepy as hell. But if
you stop and think about it, the portrayal of the Christian God is so so much worse.
Instead of a jolly old man who brings gifts for the good children, this god demands unending
groveling worship. And instead of the bad kids just missing out or maybe getting a
lump of coal in a sock (which their mom has to wash later)... He oh so benevolently punishes
these naughty kiddos with torture and hellfire forever – a punishment entirely disproportionate
to the finite “crime” committed! Unless… they repent of everything that they’ve ever done,
and worship the very ground he walks on. Sure, Christians might retort that he’s
there to mercifully save them, but to save them from who? Who is it that they believe is keeping
score – tallying up their every misdeed. Who is it that wrote the rules they have to live
by. Who is it that they believe made the entire system – rigged in such a way where they were
born sinful – doomed to fail – and commanded to be perfect. It makes us objects in a cruel
experiment whereby we are created sick and then ordered to be well. An impossible feat
(under pain of eternal torture). And just who exactly do they claim made this eternally scorched
prison for them in the first place? Oh, but that’s not fair, he showed just how deep his love was for
us by killing his own son for a couple days?! Forgive me for not being impressed by the oh so
benevolent mercies of this mythological monster that they choose to worship. But I didn’t ask him
to do that. I didn’t ask to be born. Did I have a say in original sin? I’m sorry,
but all of this feels pretty non-consensual to me. Because this, my friends, is not what a kind,
healthy relationship looks like – this Christian take on God normalizes narcissistic
abuse – because they’re taught that it’s the embodiment of goodness (even how God behaves).
This teaches Christian children to cling to an absolute egomaniacal psychopath and tells them
they can never escape his domineering presence. It makes countless Christians blind to this kind
of abuse. Without even realizing it, otherwise loving parents are normalizing unhealthy behavior
to their children. And their children are being groomed for toxic relationships. Because
in one-on-one situations, this kind of behavior is psychological and emotional abuse. At scale,
it’s text-book fear-based authoritarianism – and it would make me wonder if this was
where Orwell got his inspiration from? Except that Orwell’s dystopia was a mild frolic in
a field of dandelions when juxtaposed next to this never ending barbaric nightmare. At least
Big Brother couldn’t read people’s thoughts or judge them for feeling anger or damn them for
having oh so harmful lust-filled fantasies play out in the privacy of their own cranial jelly.
Do we really want everything we’ve ever done every thought we’ve ever had but never acted on to be
logged and recorded, remembered, and used against us? Is this really a fantasy worth craving? And
before you rattle off some BS retort of “Well, if you’ve got nothing to hide, you have nothing
to fear.” Tell me that you’ve never had a shameful intrusive thought that wouldn’t go away or done
something inappropriate, embarrassing, or messed up in some way you wish you could forget. Getting
called out for such actions in public is the absolute worst. But can you imagine if every
single wrong thing we did, said, or thought was logged for divine sentencing? If you were made
to feel worse than dirt for being the filthy sinner you were created as, and then were oh
so mercifully given the opportunity to grovel in worship before the all-seeing watcher. Somehow,
that doesn’t really feel like a gift. And yet this is exactly what most
Christians I know believe – and yearn for. It’s the hand they reveal when they blurt
out to an unconvinced atheist that, “you’ll see when you’re burning in hell! You’ll see.” And yet
almost no Christian that I know seems to really grasp the consequences of having an omnipresent
judge. So they engage in wishful thinking – hoping – BELIEVING – that the endorphin-induced
goosebumps and butterflies they get when they force themselves to believe hard enough are
somehow evidence that God is currently with them. But my God am I glad that a goosebump is just
a goosebump. And a shiver down my spine isn’t some supernatural entity tickling my backbone.
Because isn’t social media bad enough! I mean hell, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen
someone canceled for posting something politically incorrect to their feed and thought to myself how
lucky I was that these platforms weren’t around to capture my dark unfiltered high school humor.
Because who hasn’t said or done something they regretted and wished they could forget. Who hasn’t
gotten away with something they’re now ashamed of. And I don’t mean wiping a booger under the
desk or farting in an elevator and blaming it on a kid. Or hiding your morning wood in church with
a Bible. On a side note, I'm convinced that 90% of guys who hold their Bibles like this while singing
in church are actually hiding awkward boners. Until recently, the notion that everything we
do could be recorded, analyzed, and punished was laughably infeasible – even the Snowden
leaks about the NSA revealed that there was too much data captured but not nearly enough manpower
to process all of it. 1984’s version with someone watching a two-way TV in every house would have
required unscalable manpower. But with the rise of AI, sensors and mics on every phone,
and cameras on every street corner, this dystopia grows ever closer. Hell,
in parts of China, with their ever-growing social credit system tracking the populations every move,
it’s rapidly nearing reality. But China doesn’t threaten
eternal hellfire (they might if they could – who knows). But the Christian God does. And
Christians are OK with it – even take comfort in it at times. They grovel and beg for forgiveness,
tearfully confess their every sin, before a divine creator. To my American audience,
I just have to ask. If you’re a conservative Christian, and you care about “muh freedom!”
If you believe that the 2nd amendment exists as a safeguard against authoritarianism,
that every human has a right to privacy, and that the government shouldn’t be able
to illegally search your home, WHY the hell do you find the thought of an omnipresent cop comforting?
And just think about how absurd this thought is? Do you give half a damn about the thoughts of an
ant?! Or the actions of an amoeba? Highly advanced aliens probably don’t visit earth simply because
we’re too primitively stupid and insignificant for them to even take interest. Just how ego-centric
do we have to be to believe that an infinitely powerful, all-knowing, ever-present deity gives
two shits that you touch yourself at night. Dylan! Or the fact that I just said a naughty word? Gasp!
Look, when you live with a partner or family member long enough you inevitably come face
to face with their flaws, and in a healthy relationship, you learn to understand, forgive,
and accept each other. You know that underneath that skin sack is an imperfect human being just
like you - with big flaws but an even bigger heart. And sure, it's nice if they apologize for
their messes, but you don't require them to grovel and beg for forgiveness. And choosing to forgive
them doesn't make you worthy of worship. Good people choose to see the good in other people.
Because good people know they themselves make mistakes too – and this world sure as hell could
use more compassion. We don’t need the threat of an all-seeing eye or omnipresent overlord to keep
us in check. We screw up; we learn; we grow. That’s not to say that actions should never
have consequences. And sometimes our screw ups are embarrassing as hell, but other times we’re
grateful no caught what we said. Others tend to quickly forget our most humbling moments even as
we continue to beat ourselves over the head for it. And this social shame is usually bad
enough – it's a brutal teacher that keeps us pining over our failures long after everyone
around us has forgotten all about them. Our loved ones just forgive us, and they don’t
need a blood sacrifice to do it. We move forward doing our best to be better people - learning
to show grace to the other imperfect screwups that we surround ourselves with. And we do all
of that out of a desire to grow and a love for others – NOT because someone’s always watching.
And sure, if you don’t believe in hell, but buy into a more soft/loving teddy bear of a Jesus,
it would be nice to know that we had an all-powerful loving father helping us through
life’s difficult moments. But think of it so: every time you thought you God gave you strength
or guidance. That was actually you! You reached down deep. You pulled it out from within yourself,
because you are an incredible badass capable of so much more than you know. When you needed guidance,
that trusty voice in your head was YOUR intuition. And when others came
at just the right time to help you, they weren’t magically sent from God. You simply experienced
the kindness of others. Because that is what true, healthy, kindness actually looks like.
Since I first started reconsidering my faith nearly a decade ago,
this has hardly been the only religious idea I’ve re-evaluated. But deconstructing your
entire worldview is hard – and establishing a new set of beliefs based on truth can be even
tougher (especially when we’re surrounded by sea of competing ideas). Which is why I recommend…
…Uh… past me, what the heck are you doing? Well, I’m trying to figure out how the world
works using logic and reason and science and critical thinking, but just when I thought I
had it all figured out, this theologian named William Lane Craig started blasting me with
religious apologetics, and his word salad is sooooo confusing, so I’ve mapped out all his
arguments in the form of logical syllogisms, and now I’m going through Wikipedia and memorizing an
extensive list of logical fallacies and trying to see if any of his arguments hold water.
Dude, why don’t you just play Debunked? What now?
There’s literally a card game you can play where you pair fallacious arguments with the
logical fallacies they commit. It’s super fun, fast-paced, and has hilarious illustrations.
Plus you and your friends learn how to spot logical fallacies and think more rationally.
But won’t that make William Lane Craig cry?
That’s half the fun!
But… it sounds too simple… I still need to memorize all these arguments first, right?
Nope. You just need to know the rules of the game – which take like 2 minutes to learn.
Well, I need to know all the logical fallacies at least first?
Not even. You don’t mean to say
that I just wasted the last 10 hours writing out all these syllogisms... Can’t I just finish them
first. I only have a few more hours to go. I mean, you can, but why reinvent the wheel
when Debunked is so much easier and way more fun? Plus, this way, you don’t have to give up
your social life. Just click the link in the video description below to snag your copy of
Debunked today. You can thank me later. Everything that begins to exist has a
cause. The universe began to exist. Therefore the universe has a cause.