100+ Reasons I no longer believe

 

I was a committed Christian for the first 38 years of my life and people often ask me what caused you to lose your faith? 

 

There are so many reasons and these revelations came to me over time. 

They are in NO SPECIFIC ORDER. In this section I give these reasons, including stories from my past where I learnt certain lessons. In many cases these lessons were not learnt until after I became an Ex-Christian. 

 

You can click on individual reasons or start from the beginning and click your way through them.

 

Reasons you will NOT see on this list:

1.    God wouldn’t give me what I wanted in the way I wanted it
2.    God wouldn’t jump through hoops for me.
3.    The church caused me suffering and pain
4.    I wanted to rebel.
5.    I wanted to sin without having feelings of guilt.
6.  I hate God  

7.  I am angry at God 

 

Actual Reasons:

 

1) The Bible contains much out of touch and sometimes bad advice

2) Atheists are not evil horrible people

3) The bible encourages child abuse

4) If I had not been indoctrinated from birth I probably wouldn't have believed

5) The religion you end up in is most likely the result of the country you were born in

6) All other religions contain genuine believers too

7) The Bible contains absurd stories that can't be true

8) Christians were not any more moral than anyone else

9) Demons were not fleeing in the name of Jesus

10) Christianity is full of religious rituals

11) The Bible God sees women as possessions

12) I can still speak in tongues

13) Faith Healers are frauds

14) The Holy Spirit is a fraud

15) Real miracles were not taking place

16) The Bible god endorses slavery

17) The Bible contains blatant lies

18) The Bible contains broken promises

19) The Bible contains mythological creatures

20) The Bible contains unfulfilled prophecies

21) The Bible contains Just-So stories

22) God, angels and demons only visit when you are in bed

23) God set up a system that enabled sin to corrupt it

24) The Bible can be used to defend any crazy belief you want

25) A life in Christ didn’t bring happiness, joy and peace. Strong, healthy, real (not imaginary) relationships did

26) Prayer had no obvious effect on anything. Taking action yourself is what gets things done

27) People put on a pious façade at church

28) The strength/popularity of a church was always dependent on the charisma of the pastor

29) God needs humans to do everything for him… including his killing

30) New conversions return back to being sinners almost immediately

31) I see a god who endorses human sacrifice

32) Realising that what I thought had been God’s voice for so many years was just my own deep thoughts

33) The Holy Spirit does not strengthen people

34) I learned to think critically

35) Jesus's return is past its use-by date

36) Studying Preterism

37) Internet –Could not ignore logical arguments and challenges

38) Fertility drugs can override God's plan

39) Seeing that many Ex-Christians had similar experiences to me

40) Christians so much want to believe, they conjure up all sorts of crazy things as evidence of God

41) I started to understand evolution

42) God did not notify anyone I knew that I was no longer a believer 

43) The gospels are hearsay - not eyewitness accounts

44) The gospels were manipulated to reach target audiences

45) The Bible is written by many people with differing perspectives not consistent with each other

46) Nobody really knows who the true Christians are

47) The son of God applied faulty reasoning

48) Christians will lie, spread misinformation and exaggerate for Christ, even unwittingly

49) People have perfectly good reasons why they don’t believe

50) Malevolent or incompetent design

51) The lack of unity within Christianity

52) Christians misrepresent non-believers

53) God created Satan!

54) God is bloodthirsty

55) God created a place to torture all those who do not believe and worship him

56) God’s methods are so primitive and barbaric

57) God choosing to remain undetectable looks way too much like a non-existent God

58) I see people rejoicing because an innocent being is paying the price for their atrocities

59) Christianity destroyed many religions to gain influence

60) God has failed at many things he set out to do

61) Miracles always seem to have possible natural explanations

62) God changed between the Old and New Testaments thus contradicting the notion he never changes

63) God could not provide adequately translated Bibles

64) No amount of prayer or crying out to God stopped me from losing my faith

65) God's existence is NOT obvious

66) Jesus and God were not sinless

67) God's ignorance of mankind

68) God's ignorance of the universe

69) Paul was blatantly mistaken about so many things, yet Christians still use a lot of his teachings

70) The Holy Spirit does not do the things it’s promoted in the bible as doing

71) Christianity is just another religion and not a relationship with God

72) The bible is full of atrocities committed by God

73) The bible contains contradictions

74) The bible contains inaccurate science

75) The bible needs a branch of defence known as apologetics to justify it

76) God does not heal amputees

77) Jesus believed Old Testament stories to be true

78) There is more evidence against God's existence than for his existence

79) The God of the Gaps is shrinking

80) The disciples faith was very weak 

81) I sought but did not find

82) I see people glorifying the horrible death of an innocent being on the cross

83) Lack of growth in churches

84) Realising that a lot of my beliefs were false

85) The bible seems way too much like the word of ignorant man than the word of God

86) Realising that the things I thought were from God were not from God at all

87) God stands by while children suffer horrible neglect and abuse

88) Faith is not a good reason to believe something

89) Churches are multi-level marketing for God

90) You cannot choose to believe

91) Learning about how the brain works

92) Many aspects of Christianity are rip offs of older religions

93) My faith had been built on things from 20 years earlier

94) Prophecies made over churches I belonged to didn't happen

95) The bible contains inaccurate history

96) I still have much the same good strong morals as before

97) God does not keep his followers in check

98) God answers mundane prayers but not where it matters most

99) Christianity relies on scare tactics and emotional appeals

100) God often does not bless people who really deserve it

101) More and more of the bible is being considered metaphors

 

There may be people reading this list who think, "You're wrong about many of those things". It could be you are right and you might be able to convince me of a few. But from my perspective I believe I am right about all of them and if I am right, then surely I have many valid and rational reasons for disbelief? And even if you could show me that I'm wrong about say 10. There are still another 90 reasons I no longer believe. And I'm sure I can add to this list of 100. And probably will. 

You would need to change my perspective completely and know things only a god could know about me. Of course, a god could convince me easily if he really wanted to because he'd know exactly the things he needs to say or reveal. 

Maybe you can do better than God?