Why I no longer believe in Christianity

In this post I want to outline why I have stopped believing in Christianity, and left the religion.

No benefits and carrying a burden

At one point I realized that I wasn't receiving the benefits of Christianity which includes the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), among which are love, joy and peace. I wasn't feeling anxious but I would not classify my feeling as peace, it was more like emotional numbness. Then I did not feel love for God or even my own mother, and I had no joy either. Jesus also says Christians will live life more abundantly (John 10:10), but that was not the case for me. My life pretty much sucked as my cognitive abilities have declined due to schizophrenia and the medications I am using.

Additionally I was suffering from intrusive blasphemous thoughts, and had feelings like God was judging me for every thought I had. So I was carrying a burden of maintaining pure thoughts in my mind and I couldn't get rid of this feeling. But Jesus says in the Bible that his burden is light and yoke is easy (Matthew 11:28-30). The less I cared about the thoughts or pleasing God, the lighter my burden became.

So if God is unable to provide these basic things like love, joy and peace, and lifting my burden, I began to question if he can deliver on his large promises such as forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

Almost no answered prayers

From 2019 to 2023 I had prayed probably hundreds of times and asked hundreds of people to pray for me. But maybe like 1 prayer in hundreds seemed to be answered, however they were so few that it could have just been coincidence. It's not like I was praying for a sports car, a mansion and boatloads of money, it was things like wisdom, the desire to study the Bible, peace and joy, and so on.

Ask and it shall be given you the Bible says (Matthew 7:7–8), that is not my experience either.

The unforgivable sin

Based on my research of the unforgivable sin I find that it is so vague that almost every denomination has their own definition, and there was almost no consistency in why people were suffering from having seemingly committed it (I believed that I had committed it). 

Some people could have just one bad thought and they experienced the Holy Spirit leaving them and him never coming back despite their best attempts to reconcile. Others could sin wilfully for years and still experience the presence of the Holy Spirit, or him leaving but then coming back later. Some people would say he never left them.

A natural explanation for this could be that it has something to do with the subconscious mind. That what they are experiencing is not actually God, but their subconscious mind creating a religious experience. Perhaps some have strong beliefs that God will never leave them, despite sinning, so that's what they experience. Others may have beliefs in the back of their mind that God takes wilful sinning very seriously, and they experience the Holy Spirit leaving them due to these wilful sins.

There's too many denominations

Currently there are over 40,000 different denominations of Christianity in the world and throughout history, and who knows how many non-denominational churches, cults and other independent groups that have their own beliefs. They all say that their way is the correct way, they all use the Bible to justify their beliefs and many of them say that they experience the Holy Spirit and are led by him. 

But this can't be true, Jesus says in the Bible that there is a narrow path and strait gate (Matthew 7:13-14), not that there are many paths and many gates. Apostle Paul says in Galatians 1:8 that whoever preaches another gospel should be accursed. But we see unbiblical and heretical denominations of Christianity flourishing, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and the Word of Faith movement. There is no indication God is cursing these denominations despite them preaching another gospel.

The Bible says God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), but this situation creates only confusion.

There's too many Bible translations

There's over 100 Bible translations in English. These are done by different translators and using different manuscripts. But Jesus says in Matthew 24:35 that his words will never pass away and Deuteronomy 4:2 says people should not add to or subtract from what God has commanded. 

However some translations significantly change the meaning of some verses, and other translations completely remove certain verses. This is why I was a "King James only" guy when I was a believer.

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 when 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 reliably be dated to 30-40 AD or any time when 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. In fact we don't know for sure who wrote the gospels.

Jesus predictions for the end times seemed to fail

What really broke me however was these verses that seem to predict an imminent return of Jesus Christ during the time when the disciples were still alive.

First we have Matthew 16:28 where Jesus basically says that some standing there with him would not taste of death before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Those disciples are now long dead, so they did taste of death already and Jesus has not returned.

Then we have Mark 14:61-62 where Jesus says to the Jewish high priest that he shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, among other things. In addition to this one we have Revelation 1:7 where it says that also they which pierced Jesus will see him coming in the clouds. If we look at Revelation 20:4-6 it says that the righteous will be resurrected first and rule with Jesus for 1000 years, after this the others will be resurrected. So the wicked people like the high priest and those which pierced Jesus would only have the opportunity to see him coming in the clouds when they were alive, according to these scriptures, as they won't be resurrected until after the 1000 year reign of Jesus.

Another example is 1 Thessalonians 4:17 where Paul says "then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds". This letter was written to some people who were alive at that time, and he was expecting at least some of them to make it to the "rapture". But this did not happen.

In Matthew 24 the disciples asked Jesus when the end will come and what will be the signs. So Jesus lists a number of things that will happen, and then he says in Matthew 24:34 "this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled". Some say it is the fig tree generation that he is referring to, something that will happen sometime in the future. But based on all the other scriptures predicting an imminent return I would have to assume that he is referring to a generation alive at his time or soon after.

Then there's 1 John 2:18 ESV where the author says that they have heard the antichrist is coming and therefore they know it is the last hour. Sure, in the King James Bible it says "last time" instead of "last hour". But I looked up the Greek word and it is "hōra" which means "hour" in other places in the Bible. So the author is definitely thinking the end is near, and this letter was written in 95-110 AD.

Finally in 2 Peter 3:4 it says "And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." So during that time we have people already mocking Christians because the second coming hadn't happened yet, so some people were probably expecting it to be imminent at the time. Then in 2 Peter 3:8 it says "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." As we can see when the predictions seemingly fail, they just push the time of the second coming further and further into the future. Now it's just an abstract concept among most modern Christians, they say it will happen sometime in the future but nobody knows the day or the hour (Matthew 24:36).

What do I believe now?

Right now I still believe a person named Jesus existed and might have been crucified, but I am skeptical of the bible and don't really believe in it, so I wouldn't consider myself a Christian anymore. We just don't have enough evidence to verify the bible stories as undeniable facts.

However I still believe in a one true God, as that seems most logical to me, so I am kind of an agnostic monotheist or deist, not sure which term to use. I don't know much about this God, if he or it is even a personal god like we picture Jesus as being, or some kind of being that is totally alien to me. Perhaps God is not even a person.

According to some Christian denominations I am still saved. When I first believed, I believed in "once saved, always saved" theology, which means I can never lose my salvation. According to universalism I will also go to heaven, even if I had never believed. Then we have annihilationism, according to which those who go to hell will eventually stop existing. And even according to the Catholic catechism 841 muslims and those who believe in the one true God are included in the plan of salvation.

It also says in the Bible that those who fall away can never be brought back to repentance (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.

So I will leave the door open for Jesus Christ, if he is the one true God and wants me, reach out to me anytime.

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