What Was/is The Single Thing In Christianity That You Found Unbelievable

[Castiel233]

For me, it was the idea that I could contact the creator on the universe just using my mind from a kneeling position 

[florduh]

At first, Genesis. Eventually, all of it.

[Burny]

The standard thing that most people start questioning. How can a perfect God be in control of such a fu(ked up world?

[R. S. Martin]

That Jesus' dead body prevented or saved human souls from hell. Even as a child I somehow knew that material physical bodies were inferior to spirits or souls and heavens and hells. I also KNEW that a righteous God would never ask someone to die even temporarily if the death served no practical end. Not finding a practical end was the primary reason for my deconversion.

[EyesOpened]

Oh my.....where to start?

 

Adam&Eve issues, A perfect good God acting like a murderous lunitic, zero physical proof of God, the endless decrepencies in the Bible/many bibles, numerous religions claiming to be the ONE TRUE religion.....and many more.

[EyesOpened]

Oh my.....where to start?

Adam&Eve issues, A perfect good God acting like a murderous lunitic, zero physical proof of God, the endless decrepencies in the Bible/many bibles, numerous religions claiming to be the ONE TRUE religion.....and many more.

All of those aside, i would probably say Noahs Ark. That one is pretty unbelievable.

[Guest sylensikeelyoo]

Faith Healing. Prophesy. Old Testament miracles. Personal God. It's hard to pinpoint just one thing. I guess the biggest thing to me was that when I was little, I was told that God would speak to me and show himself to me if I just prayed and asked him to. He never did, no matter how hard I prayed, no matter how devout of a servant to him I was. HE NEVER showed himself. Or answered. Because he's made up. Like Santa Claus.

[Castiel233]

To be fair, if Christianity is true, then nothing in it, in terms of the things described in the Bible are impossible. A god that can create a universe, can do what ever He likes......................however as others have no doubt noticed,  you can devote yourself to prayer and never get any feed back, it seems  

[RenaissanceWoman]

I never believed people who raved about a "close personal relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." You know, the types who "walk hand-in-hand with Jesus every day," oohing and aahing like he's the love of their life. Yes, I "loved" Jesus (I guess), but I didn't loooooooooove him. I just couldn't feel it. What was I doing wrong?

 

Now I feel sorry for them, because their idea of a "good" relationship obviously involves pouring your heart but getting silence in return (or cryptic "signs" that could really go either way). Divorce that slacker.

[Ravenstar]

Noah's Ark… then Hell, and it cascaded from there

[amateur]

Even as a kid, I realized Adam and Eve didn't make a lot of sense.  I completely got that they were set up to fail.  God put the tree right in the middle of the damn garden and said, "Eat anything you like but the fruit of this tree."  Even a kid knows the next sentence!  Of course they eat it!  Then somehow it's all their fault and not god's?  I didn't get that.

 

It continued from there.

[Castiel233]

Even as a kid, I realized Adam and Eve didn't make a lot of sense.  I completely got that they were set up to fail.  God put the tree right in the middle of the damn garden and said, "Eat anything you like but the fruit of this tree."  Even a kid knows the next sentence!  Of course they eat it!  Then somehow it's all their fault and not god's?  I didn't get that.

 

It continued from there.

God should either have put the tree elsewhere, or booted the snake up the arse and over the wall before he could open his mouth, if His tree and magical fruits were so important to Him 

[Brother Jeff]

The ridiculous story about the talking snake and the two obviously mythical people and the magic fruit from the magic tree. Noah's Ark. The Tower of Babel. Jesus magically Magically Undeadening Himself is pretty unbelievable too, and of course there's no evidence for it other than the contradictory Gospel accounts. Genesis 1:1. It gets basic science totally wrong and it's wrong about the universe being magically created by a god. The list could go on and on and on if I really thought about it. Glory!

[Brother Jeff]

The standard thing that most people start questioning. How can a perfect God be in control of such a fu(ked up world?

 

That's easy to answer, Brother! The Talking Snake is the god of this flat world right now (2 Cor. 4:4), and that's why it's so fucked up! But Kryasst is gonna ride His Sky Horse down from the Sky Kingdom very soon and kick the Talking Snake's ass for good! Then He'll magically recreate this flat world and the Sky Kingdom (the New Jerusalem) will magically fly down and land on the new flat earth, and everything will be glorious! At least, I think that's the way it all magically works out. Hopefully, the Holy Spook magically helped me remember the biblical mythology correctly. Glory!

[Brother Jeff]

I just couldn't feel it. What was I doing wrong?

 

Are you sure you were really slaved, Sister? Did you really mean it when you asked Kryasst to cum into your farts and slave your inner spook? Did you have the magical witness of the Lard? Did you feel the Holy Spook magically confirming to your inner spook that you belong to Him? Did you walk with Him and talk with Him along life's merry way? You can KNOW that you are really slaved, Sister! If you pray this prayer like you really mean it and believe in your farts that the Holy Farter magically Magically Undeadened the Lard Jesus Kryasst, you will be slaved for sure, and there won't be a damn thing the Talking Snake can do about it! Close your eyes, bow your head, and say this prayer with a humble heart, Sister. 

 

O Magic Sky Farter, I know that I have broken your laws and the shit I have done that pisses you off has separated me from you. I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from that shit and stop doing shit that pisses you off. Please forgive me, and help me avoid pissing you off again. I believe that your son who is also somehow magically you, Jesus Kryasst, died for the shit I did that pissed you off, was magically undeadened, is alive and living in the sky, and hears me talking to myself. I invite Jesus to become the Lard of my life, to rule and reign in my farts from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spook to magically help me do shit that pleases You, and to do Your kind of shit for the rest of my life. In Jesus’ name I talk to myself, Amen. Glory!

 

 

Now you are really SLAVED, Sister! Glory! Don't let the Talking Snake try to talk you out of it! Be sure to share your magical thinking about Kryasst with someone else very soon. Also be sure to read the pleasant parts of the Book of Myths every day. Talk to the Lard and ask for the Holy Spook's magical guidance. I'm sharing your new-found Sky Joy, Sister! Glory!

[Brother Jeff]

Faith Healing. Prophesy. Old Testament miracles. Personal God. It's hard to pinpoint just one thing. I guess the biggest thing to me was that when I was little, I was told that God would speak to me and show himself to me if I just prayed and asked him to. He never did, no matter how hard I prayed, no matter how devout of a servant to him I was. HE NEVER showed himself. Or answered. Because he's made up. Like Santa Claus.

 

Like I asked Sister RW, are you sure you were really slaved? Did you do shit that pissed Jesus off? That shit will block the magical blessings of the Lard! Even if you accidentally do shit that pisses Jesus off and don't realize it, that will keep you from having a good relationship with the Lard. That's why it's important to ask forgiveness for sins of commission and omission. Ask the Lard to forgive you for the shit you did that you didn't even know pissed Him off!

 

The Holy Farter won't hear the prayers of people who are not really slaved. You need to be sure, Sister, and try again! Give the Lard another chance! He wants to make love to you from the Sky Kingdom! Glory!

[GoldenWolf]

Creation - i believed but had some issues with. Where were the dinosaurs? I knew there was heaps of evidence for the earth being millions of years old, but Genesis never covered that.

 

The Forbidden Fruit tree being within reach of Adam and Eve - he could've just.. you know, not make the fucking tree with the magical fruit and not put it in the fucking garden where Adam and Eve could EASILY GET TO IT.

 

The virgin birth - sounds like some bullshit somebody would make to get away with cheating

 

Noah's ark - i just saw it as a story, there was no fucking way a boat made by a complete amateur would hold EVERY SINGLE CREATURE ON EARTH. 

 

I believed these things, I was just very confused by them. 

[Bhim]

I could have readily summoned the mental compartmentalization to believe in ex nihilo creation, flood myths, parting seas and resurrections. For me it was eternal hell. And not even at an intellectual level. Believing that most of my family and friends are going to spend an eternity in conscious torment entailed a lifestyle to which I was unwilling to submit myself, and this is why I left Jesus behind.

[Guest sylensikeelyoo]

 

Faith Healing. Prophesy. Old Testament miracles. Personal God. It's hard to pinpoint just one thing. I guess the biggest thing to me was that when I was little, I was told that God would speak to me and show himself to me if I just prayed and asked him to. He never did, no matter how hard I prayed, no matter how devout of a servant to him I was. HE NEVER showed himself. Or answered. Because he's made up. Like Santa Claus.

 

 

Like I asked Sister RW, are you sure you were really slaved? Did you do shit that pissed Jesus off? That shit will block the magical blessings of the Lard! Even if you accidentally do shit that pisses Jesus off and don't realize it, that will keep you from having a good relationship with the Lard. That's why it's important to ask forgiveness for sins of commission and omission. Ask the Lard to forgive you for the shit you did that you didn't even know pissed Him off!

 

The Holy Farter won't hear the prayers of people who are not really slaved. You need to be sure, Sister, and try again! Give the Lard another chance! He wants to make love to you from the Sky Kingdom! Glory!

But...Brother Jeff, I thought I was slaved! I prayed the magical spell and invited Kryasst into my fart, but I guessed I said the spell wrong or something because I did my best to stop pissing the Holy Farter off! Guess maybe the Holy Spook saw that I didn't put my thoughts in a magical jail of forgetfulness, and my thoughts must have pissed him off or something. Guess I gotta try to say the spell again. Maybe give the pastor more money. I dunno. Anyways, HOLLY-LOOOO-YUUHHHH I'll just pretend I'm slaved until I get good and slaved for real! GLORY!

[Brother Jeff]

Creation - i believed but had some issues with. Where were the dinosaurs? I knew there was heaps of evidence for the earth being millions of years old, but Genesis never covered that.

 

The Forbidden Fruit tree being within reach of Adam and Eve - he could've just.. you know, not make the fucking tree with the magical fruit and not put it in the fucking garden where Adam and Eve could EASILY GET TO IT.

 

The virgin birth - sounds like some bullshit somebody would make to get away with cheating

 

Noah's ark - i just saw it as a story, there was no fucking way a boat made by a complete amateur would hold EVERY SINGLE CREATURE ON EARTH. 

 

I believed these things, I was just very confused by them. 

 

What about this creature?

 

 

Glory!

[ConsiderTheSource]

For me it was really nothing directly from the bible itself.  For me, it was that I could never reconcile how believers went about their day to day lives living, what appeared to be at the time, numerous different patterns.  Most of the time folks lived lives that had little resemblance to what's in the bible, nor did they resemble what was being preached every Sunday.  Yet... no one... but me (it seemed at the time) acted like they were are all concerned.  Lying. Affairs with the assistant pastor's wife...leading to two marriages destroyed.  Child abuse at the church.... with no one coming forward to "be there" for the parents.  And, many other odd behaviors, mostly small stuff, but it was all out of place.  Why would folks behave this way if there truly was a god who created one's very being?  Why the disingenuousness of it all??  Nothing fit together.  And.... the big one... why did the world "behave" so randomly?  Why were some prayers "answered", others ignored?  Why did some hard working good people not get decent employment, while others not nearly as good got great jobs?  Nothing fit.  Nothing.

 

I kept processing processing processing pretty much daily.... trying to figure it all out.  This went on for over 25 years.  About 16 years into it I determined that I would never solve or reconcile the difference; not could I stop processing.  It drove me a bit batty.

 

Then, one day, a thought crossed my mind, one that I had not considered.  "What if god is imaginary?"  What if he is in all of these people's minds, but it not real".  What would this mean for how they behaved, and how the world seems to work in randomlike ways?  OMg... all of sudden everything I was process was actually falling into place.  All of sudden, I could make sense of most everything around me.  I swear that I literally rewrote my entire mental operating statement in that one hour or so.  I went online.  I googled "god is imaginary"'; and, up popped up a website with 50 plus proofs for why god was imaginary, confirming how I was now processing the world.  OMg!!!!!!  It was such an unexpected and amazing experience!

 

For the first year or so after that all I had to do was say "god is imaginary" in my mind whenever conflicts "appeared"; and, my new operating system would figure it out in less than a minute or two....EVERYTIME!   Now, I rarely even have you use this "reboot phrase".  And... the most surprising thing of all... NO MORE PROCESSING CAUSE THE WORLD, for the first time in my life MADE 100% sense!   And... my adult lifetime of anxiety simply disappeared..something I was not searching for. 

 

Clearly no one's mental operating system is born "with sin" or other defect.  We are born with just basic mental operating instructions, and the world programs our mental operating system with its own agenda.  Now that I have definitely and totally rebooted restarted my mental operating system I am operating, for the first time, rationally, contently, and happy.  I am in control of my mind, and no outside agency.  It is soooooo wonderful and great!  Happy! Happy Joy! Joy!

[DoubtingNate]

adam and eve.. original sin.. how everyone could be descended from one couple and how a spiritual curse could be passed down genetically to the entire human race.. how everyone is supposed to burn in hell forever because of this, and God's best solution was sacrificing himself to save everyone from his own wrath by way of vicarious atonement.

 

I think the thing that really got me was realizing that human beings have existed in some form for hundreds of thousands of years before anyone was ever told about this.

[disillusioned]

The biggest thing for me was that I was unable to see how anyone could convincingly claim to know the will of God.

 

I reached a point where I realized that I had spent most of my life waiting to hear from God, and that he had always been silent. None of my believing friends or family members who claimed to hear from God were ever able to expain to me how they know it was God who was guiding them. This led me to be very skeptical that anyone could be sure that they had heard from God.

Of course, this left me with the Bible, but that only removes the problem by one step. To claim that the authors of the Bible were inspired is to claim that they heard from God. How can we know this? And if there is no reason to think it is inspired, and it clearly isn't historically accurate, then the whole thing could very well be a crock of shit.

 

Then I went "wait a second, why do I believe this again?", and the only answer I had was indoctrination. From there it was a short walk out the door.

[Burny]

For me it was really nothing directly from the bible itself.  For me, it was that I could never reconcile how believers went about their day to day lives living, what appeared to be at the time, numerous different patterns.  Most of the time folks lived lives that had little resemblance to what's in the bible, nor did they resemble what was being preached every Sunday.  Yet... no one... but me (it seemed at the time) acted like they were are all concerned.  Lying. Affairs with the assistant pastor's wife...leading to two marriages destroyed.  Child abuse at the church.... with no one coming forward to "be there" for the parents.  And, many other odd behaviors, mostly small stuff, but it was all out of place.  Why would folks behave this way if there truly was a god who created one's very being?  Why the disingenuousness of it all??  Nothing fit together.  And.... the big one... why did the world "behave" so randomly?  Why were some prayers "answered", others ignored?  Why did some hard working good people not get decent employment, while others not nearly as good got great jobs?  Nothing fit.  Nothing.

 

I kept processing processing processing pretty much daily.... trying to figure it all out.  This went on for over 25 years.  About 16 years into it I determined that I would never solve or reconcile the difference; not could I stop processing.  It drove me a bit batty.

 

Then, one day, a thought crossed my mind, one that I had not considered.  "What if god is imaginary?"  What if he is in all of these people's minds, but it not real".  What would this mean for how they behaved, and how the world seems to work in randomlike ways?  OMg... all of sudden everything I was process was actually falling into place.  All of sudden, I could make sense of most everything around me.  I swear that I literally rewrote my entire mental operating statement in that one hour or so.  I went online.  I googled "god is imaginary"'; and, up popped up a website with 50 plus proofs for why god was imaginary, confirming how I was now processing the world.  OMg!!!!!!  It was such an unexpected and amazing experience!

 

For the first year or so after that all I had to do was say "god is imaginary" in my mind whenever conflicts "appeared"; and, my new operating system would figure it out in less than a minute or two....EVERYTIME!   Now, I rarely even have you use this "reboot phrase".  And... the most surprising thing of all... NO MORE PROCESSING CAUSE THE WORLD, for the first time in my life MADE 100% sense!   And... my adult lifetime of anxiety simply disappeared..something I was not searching for. 

 

Clearly no one's mental operating system is born "with sin" or other defect.  We are born with just basic mental operating instructions, and the world programs our mental operating system with its own agenda.  Now that I have definitely and totally rebooted restarted my mental operating system I am operating, for the first time, rationally, contently, and happy.  I am in control of my mind, and no outside agency.  It is soooooo wonderful and great!  Happy! Happy Joy! Joy!

This is very similar to my deconversion. Same great web site too (and lots of Hitchens).

[RenaissanceWoman]

... Close your eyes, bow your head, and say this prayer with a humble heart, Sister. 

 

Brother Jeff, I totally get your humor here, and I'm smiling as I type this, but I still kinda want to kick your ass over this.