From agnostic to Christian to monotheist (leaving the door open for Jesus)

This is a really long read, as I go through my whole journey. So you can skip to the sub-heading called "Am I really a child of God?" if you want to know what caused me to start doubting Christianity.

Young me

When I was young I did get top marks in my religion class and wanted to join Christianity because my friends were in the Lutheran church. But that never happened and I remained an agnostic for most of my life.

I am a truth seeker

As a truth seeker I wanted to know the truth about everything, so I found out that human civilization has many problems that will be difficult to solve. For example our economic system requires infinite growth to survive, but we live on a finite planet so that is not possible. Also pollution is a big problem stemming from our industrial civilization. Some might argue that climate change is also one significant problem that is hard for us to solve.

Humans are also flawed beings, so even if Western civilization bought into all of this and reduced their consumption of resources to more sustainable levels, it's still likely that other countries would increase their consumption as more materials and energy become available on the free market. And nobody is considering shutting down the free market.

So this caused me to think that we really need help from a higher power. First I thought maybe advanced alien civilizations would help us somehow. But there is no clear evidence of them having visited us, or even existing.

Conservative nationalism drove me toward Christ

Then in 2015 I became more conservative and nationalistic due to the flood of migrants entering my country and causing trouble. This caused me to be more interested in religion than space aliens, and I started looking into Christianity. I liked Catholicism first because they had still managed to stay conservative and their religion had outward beauty, like the many beautiful cathedrals and churches.

But then I asked God to show me the truth about Catholicism, and by chance I bumped into a post on an image board that showed Catholicism had many pagan and occult symbols and influences, and I later found out about their unbiblical traditions.

Then during a podcast someone mentioned that Protestant denominations were more in line with the Bible than Catholicism, so I began to look into that a bit more. Then again, by chance I bumped into a post on the same image board I visited earlier, and it contained a "Bible way to heaven" video and the sinner's prayer. So I decided I was ready to give Jesus a chance and so I said the sinners prayer while meaning it in my heart. This was in spring 2019.

My conversion to Christianity

After saying the sinner's prayer I became more interested in the Bible and I also got my emotions back, after decades of being emotionally numb due to my parents divorce and bullying in school. So I was already reaping some benefits of Christianity, and I do still believe religion has benefits, otherwise we would have ditched it a long time ago.

I began to study the Bible and watched lots of sermons from an independent fundamentalist baptist preacher on YouTube. He preached once saved always saved (OSAS) or free grace theology. That once we are saved, nothing can snatch us away from God, we are eternally secure. I really found this idea beautiful.

Not long after this I started looking for a baptist church in my country, I didn't find any IFB churches but I found a reformed baptist church that I started attending.

Speaking in tongues

One evening I was looking at videos on YouTube and found a video of a girl speaking in tongues. She was crying tears of joy and seemed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So I became interested in this and found a video of another lady guiding people to pray for the gift of tongues. 

As a bit of a skeptic, I tried speaking gibberish before doing the prayer, and I wasn't able to do it very well.

So I started praying with her, and suddenly I was filled with this energy and began to pray in tongues "fluently". It wasn't any language I could recognize though. This was my most powerful positive spiritual experience. I also read the comments in the video, and others were having the same experience, which strengthened my belief that this was from God.

Spiritual experiences

I began watching a pentecostal preacher on YouTube. It felt like God was guiding me to his videos. Because everytime I had finished watching a video, I would have questions, and YouTube would recommend me a new video that answered my questions (without me searching for anything). 

This eventually led me to another sect of Christianity, one that didn't believe in OSAS or free grace theology, but instead required works and obedience in addition to faith.

But the spiritual experiences and feelings continued to strengthen my belief that this was real. I felt the presence of God more strongly. Like he was always with me.

Disobedience

I had a YouTube channel that I had grown to become successful using immoral means and I began to feel guilty for this. Then it felt like God was telling me to make certain videos on the channel, but I was too afraid and didn't do it. So out of guilt and frustration I deleted the channel.

Then it felt like God was telling me to give away the money I had earned from the channel. But I was too afraid to do that as well, at least in one go. But I did start to give away some of it as donations.

Now I was working at the post office and had one free day during the week, and it felt like God wanted me to deliver religious flyers during this time to people in my area, but I was too lazy to do it. Things weren't really going well for me.

So then I began to have intrusive blasphemous thoughts and mild hallucinations, which I thought was spiritual warfare rather than mental illness.

My downfall

One day in October 2019, I was talking with what I thought was the Holy Spirit. I had the usual blapshemous intrusive thoughts that I was able to ignore or deal with, but then another strange thought entered my mind. It was something silly like "Obama is a vampire", and I thought what would happen if I said it out loud. It was a lie, but all sins were forgiven anyway so why not do it.

And so I did it, but what happened next was I felt a feeling of intense terror and saw the word "UNFORGIVABLE" in my mind. Then it felt like God was pulling my soul from my body, so I begged for mercy and the feeling stopped. Soon after this God's presence left me and I haven't felt it since then. It was a traumatic experience, but this was just the beginning.

Like a day and a half after this, I began to experience intense hallucinations. The Bible was radiating some kind of energy and demons were entering my body. So I thought I had lost the Holy Spirit and that I was being overtaken by demons who were going to make me do evil things. I thought I had to kill myself as fast as possible.

I jumped in my car and drove to a long stretch of road where I could pick up speed. Then I drove the car into a wooden light pole at high speed with no seat belt on. But as I flew around inside the car I felt nothing and didn't get any injuries. I thought I was an immortal reprobate zombie and tried to kill myself again by jumping in front of a moving van. This time I broke my arm and stopped what I was doing.

My stay at the mental hospital

The guy in the van called the ambulance, I found out later that he was actually an off-duty police officer. The ambulance took me to the hospital to fix my arm, and then I got sent to the mental hospital against my will. Although at this point I wasn't really resisting either.

While at the mental hospital, this entity contacted me, it claimed to be God. It was able to read my mind, insert verbal thoughts (and later visual images) into my mind, and also move my head for yes and no answers. Later it also said that "Jesus is come in the flesh", as per 1 John 4:1-3, so I believed that it was God.

Its goal was to manipulate me to do various things. Like it suggested I go out and tell random people on the street that Jesus loves them, and then I also went outside to hand out Christian flyers to spread the gospel, but that was an idea I already had from earlier.

I had more hallucinations in the mental hospital. For example after reading about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they were sent into the oven and were untouched by the flames, while sleeping I was woken up and surrounded by flames. I didn't see the flames as my eyes were closed, I just felt the heat and heard the flames crackling around me. I also had one hallucination where I felt I was being raptured or something.

Then I had false prophetic dreams about major cities being attacked with nuclear weapons, and one dream where I saw Jesus in the sky next to a giant bear and lion. These dreams were very vivid and I still remember them, whereas most dreams I tend to forget.

So this entity then gave me a date for the rapture and urged me to spread it online while I was at the mental hospital. Because I thought it was God, I did it and became kind of a mini false prophet.

Got out of the mental hospital

Not long after I got out of the mental hospital, I was on an image board talking with a guy who claimed to be a believer. The entity told me things about this guy and I said it to him. But later this supposed believer revealed that he wasn't a believer and had made up the whole story to test me. Then I knew this entity wasn't God, because God would have known the truth. It then revealed that it was a demon, which demons don't usually do according to some sources, as they like to stay hidden.

After this I started getting more intrusive blasphemous thoughts than before. But then I prayed and asked God if he was still with me, and felt the same kind of feelings I did when I started speaking in tongues. So I thought God was still with me, that there was this demon and then also the Holy Spirit in me. This entity that now claimed to be God again, also gave me emotions of joy and love, and even made me feel love for Jesus. It could also adjust how much I felt my faith, it could play around with my faith so that it was strong and weak.

This continued for about 2 years or so. I was still spreading the gospel both online and offline by handing out religious flyers, and even converted a few people to follow Jesus. The Bible says that we can do nothing without Jesus, so I thought God was still with me.

Another layer of deception revealed

But then this entity pretending to be the Holy Spirit would make mistakes. This caused me to have some doubts. Then one day when I was considering if this was actually multiple personality disorder, or dissociative identity disorder (DID) as it is now called, and not God. Then it pretended to be an alter or alternate personality that just found out it wasn't God. It made me feel sorrow and cry in a way I haven't cried before. So I felt sympathy for it and like it was real.

However when I looked up the symptoms for DID, it didn't really match my symptoms. Then it stopped pretending to be a split personality and continued its demonic behaviour.

What is this thing really? It can insert verbal and visual thoughts, it can move my body parts (usually I have to allow it), it can control my emotions and it can even enter my dreams sometimes. It says that it hates me, all other humans and God, and it says it's a demon. But it doesn't exist outside of my body, I have not witnessed any paranormal activities surrounding me, nor has any of my relatives or friends. So I would call it a demonic entity but not an actual demon.

Am I really a child of God?

The first cracks in my faith started to appear when I realized I wasn't experiencing any of the benefits or fruits of Christianity, it was just daily mental torment. Jesus says Christians will live life more abundantly and the Bible says in Galatians 5:22-23 that Christians will have fruit of the Spirit including love, joy and peace. I was having the opposite of those things. I wasn't living life more abundantly, I didn't feel love, joy or peace. Although I am not anxious either, I would call this emotional numbness rather than peace.

The Bible says that those who have been faithful in little things, will be faithful in the large things. So I thought, does this apply to God as well? If he delivers on the little promises like giving us love, joy and peace in this life, then surely he will deliver on the large ones such as forgiveness of sins and eternal life. But I wasn't receiving the little things, so I began to wonder if I will be granted the large promises.

Another crack in my faith appeared when God didn't answer almost any of my prayers, or prayers that other people had prayed for me. Ask and ye shall receive it says in the Bible. It's not like I was praying for a Ferrari and five million dollars, I was praying for things like the truth about my situation, to feel love, joy and peace, to get the spiritual thirst and hunger for reading scripture I had in the beginning and so on. Some prayers seemed to be answered, but it didn't happen consistently, like maybe 1 prayer out of hundreds was answered, so that could have just been coincidence as well.

40,000 denominations and confusion

Another thing that confused me was the amount of Christian denominations. Currently there are over 40,000 denominations of Christianity around the world and throughout history. This is not even counting the number of cults, non-denominational churches and other independent groups that have their own beliefs and interpretation of the Bible. 

But in the Bible it is said that there is one narrow path to heaven, and few there will be that find it (Matthew 7:14). So which of these views is correct? It gets really confusing. Paul also says in Galatians 1:8 that if someone preaches another gospel, let them be accursed. Yet there are so some denominations that are quite unbiblical which have flourished, such as Mormonism and the Word of Faith movement, those who teach the heretical prosperity gospel. Hardly any of these denominations seem to be outright cursed.

Critically examining Christianity

This led me to begin critically examining Christianity. One of the first posts on my blog regarding taking a critical look at the Bible was about the goodness of God. 

There I listed 9 or so questions which questioned the goodness of God. Like why didn't God send Satan directly to hell for his sin? Why did he allow Satan to stay on earth to deceive Adam and Eve, and thereby cause the fall of humanity? Why did God say the Israelites could eat meat for an entire month, but then striked them with a severe plague while the food was still in their mouth? Why did God kill a bunch of Israelites with snakes for complaining about the taste of the food he was providing? Why did the Israelites stone to death the person who picked up sticks on the Sabbath, but God didn't order David stoned for murder and adultery, instead punishing his infant son by killing him? This stuff just doesn't make sense to me, especially for a God claiming to be good. If any pagan deity or person did these things, they would be labeled as evil even by Christians.

Another question I had was, if God genuinely wants people to not sin, why does the conscience become seared after committing many heinous or sinful acts? It becomes silent and doesn't warn people about the bad things they are doing, even though the spiritual consequences are greater the more sin you do. 

From a natural perspective it makes sense that the conscience is seared. For example in war or famine, you might have to do bad things to survive, and if you get frozen by fear then you might die, so the conscience is dulled to keep you going. It seems the brain has been designed to prefer physical survival over being morally upright.

Failed predictions of the second coming?

That which really broke me, was the seemingly failed predictions of Jesus return in the Bible. Here are a few scriptures that seem to predict an imminent return of Jesus Christ.

Matthew 16:28 KJV "Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."

Mark 14:61-62 KJV "But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."

Matthew 24:34 KJV "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled"

Revelation 1:7 KJV "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen."

1 Thessalonians 4:17 KJV "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

1 John 2:18 ESV "Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour."

Let's unpack these verses. In Matthew 16:28 Jesus is talking to his disciples and said to them that some of those standing there will not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Those disciples are now physically dead, so they have tasted of death and Jesus is yet to return according to most Christians. Then in Mark 14:61-62 Jesus says to the high priest that he will see him coming in the clouds of heaven, same thing, that high priest is now dead.

In Matthew 24 the disciples asked when will the end come and what will be the signs, so Jesus lists a number of things that will happen when the end is near. But then he says in Matthew 24:34 that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Some say the generation Jesus mentions is the fig tree generation which will appear at some unspecified time in the future. But then Matthew 16:28 and Mark 14:61-62 don't make sense as he is referring to his disciples and high priest who were still alive.

Additionally we have Revelation 1:7 which says they also which pierced him (Jesus) will see Jesus coming in the clouds. And as I already mentioned in Mark 14:61-62 Jesus says to the high priest that he will see Jesus coming in the clouds. But according to Revelation 20:4-6 the righteous will be resurrected first and rule with Jesus for 1000 years, after which the others will be resurrected. So those who pierced Jesus are long dead and won't be resurrected before his second coming, so how will they see him coming in the clouds? Some say it is just referring to the Jews in general or Israel, but I don't buy it due to all the other scriptures predicting an imminent return.

Then we have 1 Thessalonians 4:17 where apostle Paul says we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds. "Them" he is referring to are the dead in Christ who will rise first. But this letter is written to some people who are alive at that time. So clearly Paul is thinking that some of them will be caught up into the clouds with the Lord, and not just people reading it far in the future. I would add that 1 Thessalonians was written before Mark or any of the gospels according to historians.

My final example is 1 John 2:18 which says it is the last hour, and it was written around 95-110 AD. So at that point they also thought Jesus second coming was imminent. KJV only people (like I was) would say the word was "time" instead of "hour" but I looked up the Greek word which is "hōra" and it means hour in the other parts of scripture where it is mentioned. 

There are probably a few more scriptures that seem to indicate the believers at that time were expecting Jesus to come soon, and there has been over 45 predictions of his return since year 500 AD. Currently there are predictions of Jesus returning in 2024, after 2025, 2029 and 2057.

The late arrival of the gospels

In addition to the other things I mentioned, I am confused about the four gospels. Jesus death, resurrection and ascent to heaven is supposed to have happened around 30 AD, but the first gospel, which was Mark, was written around 70 AD according to historians. Apostle Paul's letters came first, 1 Thessalonians was written around 50 AD. If God truly desires that everyone be saved, why not provide the best possible proof for the authenticity of the gospels? I know that in the past not many were able to read and write, but probably at least one of Jesus disciples was literate, the most likely being Matthew the tax collector. 

Why didn't at least one of the disciples record the events as they happened and provide copies to the others, so that they could have written evidence of Jesus ministry during the time it happened, or shortly thereafter? This could help many learned people to be saved as they require more proof. Does God not like most smart men and women, or why is he creating these unnecessary stumbling blocks? Right now there are no reports, diaries, letters or other writings about Jesus or his miracles that can reliable be dated to 30-40 AD or any other time he was on earth.

Seriously think about it, Jesus allegedly did all these miracles and was popular in some locations, but nobody wrote anything about him, or nothing that survived in the historical record. Couldn't God have used his power or providence to preserve these original texts? We don't even know from where the gospel writers got their source material or exactly when they were written as the gospels are not dated.

The last nail in the coffin

After some deliberation, the last nail in the coffin was the interview of Dr. Robert Cargill on the MythVision Podcast. He seems to have been a devout believer in Christ but he left the religion and still seems to retain some of the "fruit of the Spirit". He doesn't hate Christians or anything and seems to believe in many of the teachings of Jesus even after deconversion.

My current situation and leaving the door open for Jesus

It says those who fall away can never be brought back to repentance in Hebrews 6:4-6 but at the same time it says in Romans 11 that God is able to graft people in again, if they do not persist in unbelief. I have also witnessed some people who were believers in the past, became atheist or agnostic, and then found their way back to Christianity. So if the last parts of that are true, it does seem that people can return to the faith.

Currently I still believe in a one true God as that makes most sense to me, so I would call myself a monotheist. I do not hate Jesus or Christians and I don't want to dive head first into a decadent sinful lifestyle. I still want to be kind to people and follow many of Jesus teachings as I think they are good.

So according to several Christian denominations I am still saved. For example according to free grace theology you cannot lose salvation, and universalism says I will still enter heaven even if I don't believe in Jesus. According to Calvinism, I might be saved as I did attend a Calvinist church, or I was never saved and I am unable to be saved regardless of my personal desires, because God predestines specific people to be saved as per their beliefs. Even according to the Catholic catechism 841 the plan of salvation encompasses muslims as well as me, as I believe in a one true God. If annihilation is correct, then I might suffer for a while but then be destroyed and stop existing. But if there is no God, then I will also likely just stop existing after death. So personally I think not all hope has been lost.

I want to leave the door open for Jesus if he truly is the one true God. Reach out to me Jesus at any time.

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