My Essay on Christianity
By cups, aka David
The stances for this essay have changed since the piece was published. Please take this piece with a grain of salt, as it requires further revision in the future.
(This has not been fully fact-checked or verified, so please take the essay with a grain of salt and validate any claims that you may find skeptical.)
Before I start this document, I would like to clarify that this is not a document meant to attack any philosophical or theological (religious) stance, but rather to say what’s been on my mind for a while now. Please forgive me if I sound offensive towards any stance in any of these paragraphs or explanations, that is not my intention and it is to just simply explain my point of view.
I would also like to point out that these are heavily opinionated, and are not entirely objective. The goal of this document is so you can make your own judgement, either to disagree, agree, or be neutral in your stance regarding this document. If there are any mistakes, please point them out so I can inspect and correct said mistakes.
This essay is more so a testimony and a window for my own beliefs, ideologies, and ideas. I will also only focus on Christianity as that is what I (subjectively) believe is the only true religion and is what I was raised with. I apologise if there is any bias towards Christianity or against Christianity, as I had opposing viewpoints at the time.
Also, I do not intend for people to convert or deconvert from this document. Please keep your personal values and beliefs strong. This is just a way for me to express my thoughts and ideas, not to convince someone of believing or disbelieving in a religion, specifically Christianity.
Now that we have stated this, I will move on to my points.
As someone who was led to church and raised Catholic since I was a kid and took the sacraments of communion and reconciliation when I was around 6-7, I would say that I was more of a cultural Christian. Sure, I went to church, and even served in one for a little bit when I moved to Australia, but I didn’t really know much about my faith and my Bible. I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I sinned … not knowing the consequences of my actions. I barely repented, and if I did, it wasn’t true repentance but more so I treated it like a “get out of jail” card.
I am aware that it wasn’t right of me back then, and I try my best not to fall into those behaviours anymore. If you saw me before and what I was doing, you would not call me a Christian but rather a sinful boy who didn’t really care about the Bible or realised the mistakes he was doing fully.
Curiosity for Knowledge
As I got older, I wanted to be more serious about my faith. I’ve realised that I’ve been wrong in my choices, my thoughts, and in what I have done even if it is a slight mistake. I still haven’t fully read the Bible from front-to-cover, so please forgive me if I get some things wrong.
As I watched videos from Cliffe Knechtle (a Christian apologist who usually does debates and tries to give atheists an answer), I started to wonder and ponder, and seek for more answers. However, I decided to try the neutral approach of seeing what both sides of the spectrum looked like. There were many atheistic influencers such as Alex O’ Connor and Mindshift, and many Christian influencers such as Cliffe Knechtle (Give Me An Answer), The Messenger of Truth, Johnny Chang, and the Bible Project. While some claims and points from these influencers satisfied my beliefs and ideas, others didn’t. I then understood that some of my beliefs and ideas were under confirmation bias, believing that just because someone else who believes in the same thing as I do says something, their conveyed message must be true.
This eventually led to a partial deconstruction of my faith. I realised how misinformed I was, not just from the fact that I haven’t read the Bible, but also from the beliefs I once had. I realised my mistakes, and the fact that I was just using the label “Christian” in which I realised, maybe I wasn’t really Christian. I didn’t have the fundamentals right, and I was blindly following whatever people said (and maybe I still am, but I don’t know).
Now, this isn’t to invalidate or validate Christianity, nor atheism, anti-theism, or any other stance. I believe that everyone has the right to their own beliefs, and each theological/philosophical belief has its own claims that can be agreed upon. This is to simply say that my beliefs aren’t as strong as I thought it was, and it still isn’t.
Hindrances
With my faith now slightly deconstructed, it’s up to me to find the answers and reconstruct it back to wherever it leads me. To whatever truth is. However, I will state that there are a few hindrances to my barely existing faith.
The Ethics of Intervention
Divine intervention is a common concept found in the Bible that is acted by Yahweh, found in the books of Exodus and such other biblical books. While I will not delve into the specifics for each book as it all has its own reasons for intervention (which can be agreed upon), I will state my own opinion on this.
If He was to be fair to His people, the creations in which He created who still fell and were forgiven, shouldn’t He leave his creations to fend for themselves since he was no longer “needed” by these sinful people? Wouldn’t it be more fair for the humans to be influenced by their own decisions and conscience that they still have, without the intervention of supernatural affairs?
Also, there were many things that Yahweh did that were not evil in any way, but unfair. For example, when Yahweh hardened the Pharaoh’s heart instead of him fully hardening his own heart. He should not have sealed his fate, but rather He sealed his own fate.
Personally, I believe that in order for the highest power to be fair, it must not intervene in such worldly matters. Of course, I am not the highest power of all existence and neither is anyone else. I cannot define any of these rules, so I will say that this is one of my weakest hindrances that I could get over.
The Chosen People
Relating with the problem of intervention, why should there be a chosen people (which are the Israelites)? It would defeat the entire purpose of fairness and puts all other people at disadvantage. While this is basically destroyed under the new covenant with gentiles being able to be Christian, this is still an inherent issue simply because the Old Testament is directly linked with the New Testament. There should have been no chosen people at the start, and everyone should’ve been given a fair chance.
The Problem of Evil
While many atheists use this as a way to disprove theism as a whole (and more so Christianity), I would like to say that while this is a compelling argument, there are many flaws to this. I will get to the flaws later, but I will give you some points for this problem.
We live in a world of suffering. We see people living in poverty, some of which were exploited by loved ones or enemies which made them live in poverty. These people were probably kind and were trying to be good people but no, this was His will (or at least, he allowed it).
We see people living in slavery, days where they are just forced to work in hard labour with no escape. We see people living in countries where they have no freedom, where they are oppressed. We see people who don’t even know the Word yet are condemned simply because they don’t have enough education or development.
And the nail in the coffin, we see people who suffer from childhood diseases that can only be coped with and not treated. Science doesn’t have the answer (yet) and we are expected to think that is His will. There are crazy answers that seem inhumane, like “it is His will”, “it’s a trial”, or “it’s a punishment for the parents”. While I respect and acknowledge where these people come from, I’d have to disagree. With this specific problem, I am in pain when people believe that it is the children’s purpose to suffer. It should never be the purpose. It should never be the most significant portion of their life. No one should have to go through this.
However, on a neutral stance, I will say that there are many counterarguments for this. For example, who says that people have to be morally responsible for this? If there is no objective morality, why do people think they are morally responsible for evil? Shouldn’t people who believe in subjective morality be subject to apathy for the suffering of these people?
Either way, this is the most striking moral argument that is a hindrance to my faith today.
A Different Viewpoint
(This requires further citation and research. Please correct me If I get things wrong.)
While at this point we have talked about human suffering, people also take the viewpoint of animal suffering into account. There are quite a few flaws to this, but I will entertain the idea.
According to the Bible in Genesis, due to the fall, we all now suffer due to the actions of Adam and Eve. With this, animals were also cursed (Genesis 3:14) alongside this. Why is it that the animals were also cursed? Assuming the fact that animals had no free will or choice to do anything, they were cursed along with the actual wrongdoers according to the story of Genesis. Why is it that animals have to suffer along with humans for simply doing nothing?
This is a stance that I found peculiar, and makes many presuppositions such as the fact that animals must know that they are suffering. Take it as you will.
(It is also the main argument to the problem of evil for Alex O’ Connor, you can actually find a Jubilee Surrounded episode here. However, I do not find it reasonably fair since there were 25 Christians that may have had a lack of knowledge about the Bible, or simply did not have enough time due to being voted out or having the 20 minute limit for each argument.)
The Book of Job
(This requires further citation and research. Please correct me If I get things wrong.)
The Book of Job is an interesting book in the Bible found in the Old Testament. It speaks of the suffering of a man named Job, who believed in Yahweh and trusted in Him. However, the Accuser (Satan) had decided to discuss with Yahweh and opposed Him, and He… agreed? He decided to destroy everything in Job’s life and did not even explain why Job suffered in the end. This is the first chapter of the book.
He was told not to question Him, and He challenged Job as to how he can judge the world according to his own morality. Not even a single explanation as to why it happened.
While I see this as a story of inspiration for many Christians, I simply cannot fathom the amount of suffering that Job had to go through. Human lives are not replaceable. He was given back double on what he had before, but his old family still mattered. Everything was taken away from Him, and yet He is given all the praise. If this happened to me, I would not curse Him but I would simply cry because I would always question why He did this to me.
How can we trust in something that can take everything away from us? How can we trust a man who brought a fire into a home and claimed that the victim should be grateful that he is saving them from the fire he started? Sometimes as someone who is still barely holding on Christianity, I doubt that this book was real. I doubt that this was historically accurate, and I want to believe that this is a forgery but there is no clear evidence that it is. It is one of the books that upsets me.
The Concept of Free Will
There are many stances with the concept of free will. For Christianity, compatibilism is the most highly likely stance for people to take. Christians believe in a world where Yahweh’s will and our will co-exist. We have the ability to choose, He allows it. Determinism is also another highly likely conclusion. I, myself, will be biased upon libertarianism simply because that is what seems most plausible to me. Maybe not for you, but it is for me.
There is nothing wrong with the concept of free will, but it bothers me when it starts coming into The Fall and The Blame.
The Concept of Objective Morality
Objective morality is a hard topic to uncover typically because there is no definitive answer for this. Some people may state that morality is objective because people have an inner conscience and “the law is written in their hearts”. However, some people may also state that morality is subjective in opposition, saying that morality could’ve come from evolutionary processes of survival.
I personally do not currently have a stance for this concept because it is really hard to uncover. However, I will say that morality does not necessarily need to rely on a single book but it can be from wisdom earned through time.
The Possibilities of Subjective Morality
(This is a weak argument with no substance or evidence, please only skim through this for a small insight.)
Subjective morality is somewhat possible. If we were to take the evolutionary processes that were originally found in Darwinism, wouldn’t that mean that morality would also evolve with it? In order to survive, morality had to exist since the human race would slowly die out due to inhumane practices like murder and violence. There would be no line to mark in order for us to exist today.
The Fall and The Blame
We all know the story of Genesis 3, in which Adam and Eve ate from the apple of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which was caused by the serpent tempting Eve and therefore committing the original sin. Many atheistic and theistic (more specifically Christian) scholars can interpret this in many ways, such as a metaphorical, literal, or allegorical sense.
However, I myself fail to see how it was Eve’s fault other than the interpretation that Eve had wanted to be Yahweh himself. If Eve did not have the choice to know the difference between good and evil, could you even say she had the free will to choose? And another question (but it is slightly unrelated), why was it that Adam was to be blamed first and not Eve? And why did Yahweh not know (assuming he’s omnipresent) if Adam and Eve ate from the tree, was He waiting for them to say the truth first?
Then it moves further down as to why Yahweh let the serpent be in the tree in the first place. Some people would say that it was because Yahweh wanted humans (Adam and Eve originally) to truly love Him and he also loved His creation, who became Satan at the end. But instead of letting Satan or his serpent be in the Garden of Eden, could he not have just kicked the serpent or Satan out of the garden? Paradise could still have been achieved if the Fall never happened.
There are many rebuttals to this. One of which states that Eve did have free will as to choosing whether to eat from the tree or not. While the serpent did influence her, some may say that she was responsible for making the final decision considering that she knew about the commandment not to eat from the tree. However, this was before she knew about the knowledge or discernment between good and evil. Does this mean that she was responsible for something without discernment?
And to top this all off, in a metaphorical or allegorical sense, some of these questions still make sense. Why was the serpent there in the first place? Did Eve really have free will?
That is a major hindrance in my book, and most likely has many logical flaws.
The Credibility of It All
We all know and scholars know that the Bible was written by man. Christians state this is inspired by Yahweh. Then, this would mean that the Bible is not infallible because it was written by man, who can make mistakes. There are also forgeries that have been found in the Bible, and possible forgeries that are found in the canon Bible.
If there are forgeries in the Bible, how can we know for sure which ones are real? We can’t make a blanket decision, to regard or disregard such a historical and significant book. However, it lowers the credibility of the Bible we know today.
Some will even point out the Dead Sea Scrolls or ancient manuscripts that are used for modern translations today, but that only somewhat proves a few books in the Old Testament. What about the New Testament?
Nevertheless, scholars, theistic or atheistic, will figure out which ones are real and which ones are not. I personally do not have the knowledge or skill to decipher theology of any religion, especially Christianity but it still proves my point that the credibility of the Bible can be in a little weird gray area.
Strengtheners
While these hindrances have stopped me from fully believing or trusting in this religion anymore, there are things that have kept me in whether it is for good or for bad in terms of my wellbeing.
Pascal’s Wager
Taking a logical stance, with Christianity being the most plausible religion, Pascal’s Wager is what I believe is the best argument on whether or not I should believe in Yahweh. To summarise, if He exists and I believe, I will be blessed with heaven under Christ’s sacrifice. If He does not exist and I believe, I lose nothing. If He exists and I don’t believe, I receive eternal suffering or I am annihilated from existence. If He does not exist and I don’t believe, I lose nothing as well.
If we were thinking from a rational perspective, believing in Christ and the trinity will be more logically plausible than not, considering that I will have eternal suffering if I don’t. That is a logical argument that keeps me in the faith, but not the whole argument as to why.
The Moral Framework
If you were to take apart the ethics and morals of the Bible, disregarding the issues it somewhat allegedly allows such as slavery and rape, then I would say that the Bible is one of the greatest and most popular moral frameworks that you could ever use. That is most likely why there are many cultural Christians[1] today, with very few actually practicing Christianity and what the Bible states in terms of worship and spending time with Him.
Even I would continue with the moral framework, but I feel as if it is better that I actually believe and trust in the Lord. It’s like taking a shiny chest, but you leave the bar of gold behind.
The Sacrifice of Christ
No one can say that Christ’s sacrifice was not heroic, if not the most tragic but beloved sacrifices that He has ever made. The amount of suffering and pain that He had to go through just for His people was the greatest suffering in mankind and the world. Due to the empathy I have been blessed with, I would say that this is probably the most powerful irrational argument that anyone could say.
Guilt and Fear
There is a certain guilt and fear with deconstructing my own faith. It is like taking out the parts of a parachute piece by piece in slow motion while you are falling. I have my whole life to reconstruct the parachute, but I don’t even know when I’ll fall.
This is probably the worst reason as to why I am still hanging on. The whole point of the Bible is to show that you can have a relationship with Christ, and trust in Him. If I am deconstructing my faith, that relationship becomes hindered and eventually turns into nothing. No one wants to face eternal suffering, not even me.
Friends and Family
As someone who was raised in a Christian home with Christian friends in both of the countries I spent most of my life in, and being in a primary school with a Christian background, I can tell you that my best friends are both Christian, with varying denominations and my parents (mostly my mum) are solidified in their faith with Christ.
The amount of fear and loss that I would find simply because of my detachment to my faith would be immense, and I would lose my whole support system. I don’t want to lose the ones I hold close to mine, and I hope they don’t want to lose me either.
Sunk Cost Fallacy
Again, as someone who was raised Christian, I’ve spent the majority of my life in blind faith with Christ and detaching from said faith would shake up my moral framework, sense of identity, and my commitment to Christ as a whole. That’s why the Sunk Cost Fallacy is most likely the one that also keeps me into all of this.
Hope
I have a certain hope in the back of my head that maybe I am wrong right now, and the Bible’s teachings are right. So I keep my head up and try to believe, knowing that if I do, I will be with Him at the end. It’s irrational, but you can’t say that I’m entirely in the wrong as if I’m not human with the right to personal values and beliefs.
The Reality
In reality, there is no right answer. There isn’t an answer or definitive proof to anything, to atheism and theism (mostly major religions) alike. Let alone, we are covering the topic of the world’s biggest questions. Unsolvable questions. It would be arrogant to fully say that you know the answer to the reason as to why you are here and what your purpose is. While religion fills in that gap for you, and I still highly respect that. I don’t blame the people that claim to “know Him” (lukewarm, fake, or unaware hypocritical Christians) as the reason why people should deconstruct or even fully deconvert from their faith, as that is not the reason why Christianity exists. Christianity exists solely from the fact that Christ laid down his life for us, and it is our duty to uncover the truth of Christianity by ourselves and trust in His word, whether by “divine intervention” or out of simple curiosity.
I don’t blame any stance on the theological perspective of life. Those who are Christian say they have the answer, and I respect that. I respect that they have the belief that they actually do have a saviour who will save them from the evils of this world. The dwindling of good. The dwindling of peace. The dwindling of kindness.
And if Christians are supposedly right and Judgement Day arrives, then I will stand before Him and not even curse him. No, I will respect his decision. For if the Bible is right, he will be the fairest of them all. I will be satisfied with my condemnation even if that means I will have to suffer. It’s just the harsh truth. Even if I will cry (even from thinking about it), I will know that it was my fault that these harsh things happened to me, not Him. He gave me a chance, and I didn’t take it (that is, if He’s real).
Current Stance
After all of these problems with my faith, I will not say that I am fully an “atheist” of sorts or an “ex-Christian”. In fact, I will say Christianity is most likely one of the best religions out there simply because it may actually be the truth and has so much evidence for it. However, I cannot simply fully believe or trust in good faith because it is just so hard for me to believe anymore. I do believe that there is a higher power, and there are unexplainable moments and miracles. For example, how can we have a consciousness? How can we have the free will to make such decisions? How is it that this universe just banged out of nowhere? These are things that I simply cannot explain and would break my mind if I even tried.
So, if I had to label my own stance, I would consider myself an “agnostic theist” but still leaning into the Christian faith. I know that there is a higher power somewhere, but I cannot fully believe and trust in the story and theological accounts of the Bible, or any religious text. I would also say that I have a more “humanist” ideology, where I try to value each single person on the planet, whether good or bad.
The Hope to Improve
I know I’m not perfect, but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve. My life works through service for others and for the benefit of others, and to improve their lives to the best of my limited ability. Not through invasive questions or annoying and intrusive moments. I will be there to support and listen to people, to give motivation, an opinion that will benefit them to improve, and if none of these are what they want, I’ll at least be an entertainer. A musician and someone to laugh at or with.
I’ll never be perfect. In fact, no one will be. We have such a limited life, with such limited knowledge, and such limited wisdom. We all strive to be better, deep down. Even if you consider yourself the most terrible person, there is no such thing as “game over”. We all have a story, we choose how we tell it, and we only have one chance.
So, if His will really exists, He will allow us to change or change us. If He doesn’t exist, we try our best to improve ourselves in our limited life and limited-everything. We will never know which one is really occurring, but remember …
We were born to fail, but we have the choice to succeed.