What's up, skeptics? Thomas Westbrook here. Happy New Year! In my last two videos I shared with you
just how religious my upbringing was and what my journey out of my faith looked like.
I teased the possibility of a video about a vision that I'd had to gauge your interest and there was a lot of it! So, by popular demand,
here's my road to Damascus story. The tale of my vision.
Not THAT vision!
You already know that my family were evangelical Christian missionaries traveling to foreign countries to spread the gospel.
Growing up in the mission field, I heard a lot of people's testimonies -
the stories of how they became Christians or were "saved" as we called it - and even as kids we were encouraged to frequently share our own testimonies.
It was almost like a rite of passage.
The crazier stories almost seemed to win people higher status and respect in the community.
I don't know how many times I heard other Christians say things like "She has such a cool testimony,
God saved her from a life of prostitution
and heroin addiction..." or "That man is a true warrior for God!
She was telling me how he cast out six demons in Bolivia! Praise Jesus!"
You think I'm making this stuff up, but I'm dead serious here!
Everyone wanted to be special. The highest honor you could achieve was to be chosen by God and it was almost a 'duty' -
"doodie" - to use our testimony to bring lost souls into the kingdom of God,
even if it meant glossing over a few details or exaggerating a little. So I set out to experience God in my life.
I attended revival meetings, prayed and fasted and looked for signs of Him everywhere.
And by the time that I got to college and joined a Christian fraternity,
I had what I thought was a pretty damn cool testimony.
This is the story of my vision as I would have told it in 2010.
In the fall of 2009, I was doing a study abroad in Russia.
We traveled all over from Saint Petersburg to Moscow.
But one of our field trips was to the ancient historic region of Vladimir Suzdal
where a gorgeous ancient Orthodox Church sat on a hill. I had never been there before or seen it in my life.
But, on the way out to the church,
I was sitting in the back of the bus (and I'm not a hundred percent sure if it was a dream or a vision because I couldn't completely tell if I was asleep or awake)
but I saw myself inside of a small building.
I looked outside the windows and I saw a light in the sky in the shape of a cross descending to the earth.
In my heart,
I knew that it was the second coming of Jesus and I ran outside into the field and threw myself on my knees begging Jesus,
"You can't come back now! I'm not ready!" As though God's will revolved around me!
"There's still so much left to accomplish and so many people who haven't heard about You yet!"
I felt the warmth of His light on my face and I heard Jesus audibly reply, "Hurry my child for you don't have much time!"
The light receded into the sky and I was left standing in the field.
I turned around,only to see that the building that I had just rushed out of was a tall white church.
Before I jolted it out of it.
I passed it off as a dream at first, and didn't give a lot of thought to it
until we got out of the bus and hiked to our destination.
It was EXACTLY the same church that I had seen in my vision! Same field, same tree line, everything!
I was shocked! But I thought I was crazy, so I didn't really mention it
until a few weeks later when we went to Moscow. At an Art Museum, there in a small corner on the second floor, was a painting of
the exact same church, with light in the shape of the cross coming out of the clouds!
I knew in that moment that God had appeared to me so that I could share that story and bring people to Him.
...Except that's the story I told as a Christian. And while every detail of it is technically true,
that's not the whole story. You see, while I'd never been to that village or seen the church in person,
It's an extremely famous church in Russia that dates back to the 12th century AD,
called the "Church of the Intercession on the Nerl".
I'd almost certainly encountered images, flyers or posters of it somewhere without even consciously realizing it.
And I do distinctly remember watching a video about Vladimir Suzdal with my professor
that showed, mentioned, and highlighted that exact church just a week or two before we went.
The church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site..It's been an iconic part of Russian history for over 800 years.
It sits just above water level so that when the river floods, it appears to be floating, and can be seen for miles as you approach.
There are a LOT more than just one painting of it.
On the way out to the church, I was sick as a dog.
I'd drank or eaten something that was waging a full-blown jihad against my digestive tract.
While I was actively playing a delightful game of tooter-poop - which is exactly what it sounds like -
I had barely slept the night before, and my emergency outhouse runs
had depleted all but a shred of squares on the emergency roll of toilet paper
that my friends had graciously let me borrow. I say "borrow", but I never gave it back.
Needless to say, I was sick, sleep-deprived, and my internal snooze mechanism was in full-blown trampoline mode.
The perfect conditions for crazy dreams or hallucinations.
Lastly, my visions weren't anywhere near as detailed as I made it out to be.
The church I saw was vague and could have been any white church.
I don't remember the power lines, or the river, or the nearby village that would have been visible,
or any of the other buildings right next to the church.
I didn't see any of that in my vision. Just a plain white church. A bright light in a field.
But, none of that extra info made it into my testimony, because when you're encouraged to share your testimony with as many people as possible,
and you're told that your story could be the difference between their eternal salvation or eternal damnation, the doubtful details become secondary.
We weren't encouraged to seek truth. We were encouraged to seek God, under the assumption that God IS truth.
And when you're looking for God in everything, you're bound to see patterns and confirmation bias everywhere you look.
This is why eye-witness testimony is so unreliable.
Because people miss-remember, fib, exaggerate, hallucinate, miss, or deliberately leave out details, and have agendas.
Even if they have the purest intentions.
Visions are also not a unique experience to Christianity.
Sure, I saw Jesus. But that's because I was brought up with that story and had been heavily exposed to the Bible.
People have visions of cult leaders, of Hindu gurus, of Greek gods... you name it.
Does that disprove God's existence? No.
And experiences like this may feel deeply personal. And it probably will strike an intense emotional chord, but this is not reliable data.
It is not measurable, falsifiable, independently verifiable, empirical evidence. It's subjective garbage.
So the next time that someone tells you that they know God is real because they felt or experienced Him,
or had a deep spiritual experience, take it with a grain of salt.
Thank you guys so much for your ongoing Support of my work,
and to all my patrons without whom this channel would not be possible.
I really hope that you liked this video, and if you did give it a like and share it with your friends.
Dare to be curious, but don't drink the kool-aid!