What is Atheism? (How I became an Atheist from Christianity - Part 1)

By making this video, I have no ill will, I am sharing the world from how I see it. I may share some similar experiences.

[@jod35.]

Greetings everyone, I hope you are doing great. Kindly exercise an open mind in the comment section. To all my friends and family, I still love and feel the same way about you even though I stopped believing in some beliefs we all shared. I just hope we get to talk and exist the same way.

[@emilyd8884]

So u said u are an atheist now because lack of faith? Did u know that doubt comes from the enemy? Don't believe the enemies lies. Satan knows God is real. All the demons that were kicked out of heaven know God is real. Satan is known as the deceiver. You are being deceived. I know God is real because I experienced an actual miracle in my life. Have u ever read the Bible? New Testament? Did u ever have a personal relationship with God? Please respond when u can

[@ZionSmith-gj9ow]

@@emilyd8884 Who is Satan, who is the enemy? Who are you fighting against? your own rational thoughts? Why is the questioning of the Bible that has zero validity to its name evil? You are in a cult. Do you even know where the idea of Satan even comes from besides the propaganda you’ve been told your entire life to blame all your problems on a literal scapegoat? Because if you actually read your own little book, you’d know that God is literally Satan in the Bible. because the word Satan in Hebrew really just means accuser or adversey, which isn’t even a bad thing to begin with, like when he was an adversary of the isrealites or when he sent an angel to be an adversey of Beylum in chapters 22. Knowledge and the questioning of authority and what you have been told is not the real evil here; ignorance is. Secondly Belief is not choice; it is compulsion beyond the realm of choice achieved through convincing argumentation, concrete substantiary evidence, and trust. I do not choose what I believe not because it is the more attractive option; rather, I am compelled to believe what I think is true, whether I like it or not, because denial is not a requisite of the truth, which takes honest introspection. To truly make a choice, I must be clearly given the option, and if I can doubt whether the option even exists, then the option hasn't been clearly presented to me, therefore preventing me from being able to make a choice. Ironic god wouldn't be able to see the flaw in his system to get everyone to believe in him despite being omniscient, but somehow we are supposed to beleive he is all powerful and knows everything.

[@jod35.]

@@emilyd8884 I am. And even though it is hard for you accept that I was ever a true Christian, you will understand me in later parts of the series.

[@bdjlo2008]

@@emilyd8884 Satan is an imaginary character just like your God. There is no good evidence to support the evidence of God, Satan or any other imaginary entity. Bible is just a man made book with stories in it. Humans write stories. Stories can also be fictional. You can use the Bible for entertainment but not for truth.

[@Shellackle]

​@@emilyd8884How do you know the miracle you think you experienced wasn't an intentional misdirect by some other supernatural being? Wouldn't the most effective way for something like the devil to deceive people be to make them think they're worshipping god? I'd also like to know why you specifically choose Christanity, when there are hundreds of religions with all-powerful deities that have differing claims on how to live and what their god wants. Did you just pick at random? Were you simply born into your religion and never bothered to research outside of it?

[@DecoyAUT]

You did the right thing. Haters gonna hate anyhow, keep on going.

[@Eli-zg3tj]

This is the real "salvation" (pun intended) for Africa my friend. I left my country (Algeria) about 20 years ago when I could no longer reconcile my non-belief in islam or any other religion with living in a very religious society. The problem is I could clearly see how religion was and still is a major brake for any society to thrive on many levels... Today and thanks to the internet I am very happy to see Algerians and Africans all over social media speaking out about this issue with no fear because there should be nothing to fear when seeking and speaking about the truth and cobatting ignorance. Kudos to you especially for being in Uganda and speaking openly. You have all my respect and support my friend. Keep on the good work.

[@jod35.]

I also appreciate your kind comment

[@disproveofthis]

@@jod35. so you say you now have no eternal hope and have as much point in being here in the greater scheme of things as a fly on the wall and say to someone, "I also appreciate your kind comment" No wonder you walked away from Christianity !

[@Eesh_]

This is why KZbin was made, for normal people to make videos in their home to discuss or show things to other people. The simplicity and rarity of this type of content is also its greatest charm. Also, as a fellow Atheist, I recommend reading or watching videos on David Hume’s skepticism, or listening to Richard Dawkins/ Sam Harris speeches. If you are interested in critical thinking in particular, a great place to start is the debate between rationalism and empiricism, specifically Descartes vs someone like Hume. Good luck friend.

[@jod35.]

Thanks for watching. I have been a fan of Sam Harris. And to be honest it is his debate with William Laine Craige that started me on my journey to become an atheist. As much as I do not agree with everything he says of late, he really opened my mind to noticing the problem of evil in this world. Something that I will talk about in a later part of this series.

[@chrislyonm]

i love hearing empathetic atheist opinions. and it's oddly really difficult to find that kind of content on youtube. and it feels unusual since both myself, and most of the atheist people i meet try our best to be empathetic to those who still find supernatural claims convincing.

[@jod35.]

Thanks for watching. When I first became an atheist, I went through a phase of being the 'angry one,' quick to call out what I saw as false claims made by religious people. But over time, I realized that this approach wasn’t the most productive or effective way to engage with others.

[@anomite121]

nice, theres so many diverse atheism from around the world its good to see

[@scoobyaura-fr6dm]

as an agnostic atheist its pleasure to see my black fellow friend understand the delusion spread by different religions, I have a very similar stance on the existence of the universe

[@jod35.]

Thanks for watching

[@cagedgandalf3472]

As a fellow atheist, I’d like you to examine the three main claims of Abrahamic religions: that God is omnipotent/all-powerful, omniscient/all-knowing, and omnibenevolent/all-good. Consider how these attributes cannot coexist and are contradictory, as seen in the problem of evil and free will (and possibly many others like the paradoxes but eh I don't really find them that solid, these are the main ones). Understanding this has made me a Gnostic Atheist regarding Abrahamic religions, while I remain an Agnostic Atheist concerning other religions.

[@jod35.]

I actually talk about the problem of evil in the second part of this series. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gICQaZiChMeJgbMsi=252rtpoLl2jNMrF9

[@freeyourmind7538]

there is no such a thing like 'evil' in a meaningless, purposeless, pointless, moraless existence. Stop being Karens...please🙏🏾. It just...IS

[@exploremore2438]

​@@freeyourmind7538So without a god, existence to you is pointless, meaningless, purposeless and moral-less? Slave's mentality. I'm sorry you can't think for yourself and I'm pretty sure you are/were a sociopath, or psychopath or a morally depraved and sadistic person who is only been good because he wants to be rewarded in a fantasy afterlife

[@joe_karryy]

Agreed.. nothing is 100% good or 100% bad.. unless you believe in a fantasy religion

[@cagedgandalf3472]

@@freeyourmind7538 I agree, I mean they do believe that their God is all-good and all-powerful. There is no such thing as 'evil' according to their beliefs.

[@Betttty]

Shout out from south africa i feel the same and i hope you continue to make more videos ....subscribed

[@jod35.]

Thanks @Betttty

[@adhirajchoudhary5940]

Great buddy! More power to you

[@jod35.]

Thanks! You too!

[@repentedifyy]

Hey my brother Jonathan, I think this video is great and I appreciate the genuine stance you have in what you believe to be the truth. Skepticism is a key factor in life, it guides us to the truth. I am a born again Christian and i wasn’t born a Christian, so like you said the claim that some people would make about that isn’t the case at all. I searched for truth humbly and found myself at the foot of the cross. I would advise you look at the historical data for Jesus Christ’ ressurection (Paul’s 7 letters, 4 gospels, Josephus writings, and other documents from that period that mention christs ressurection). That is what really helped me believe and satisfied my skeptic mind! Love to you bro I’d love to chat with you more. Nathan

[@jod35.]

Greetings @repedifyy, I appreciate the thoughtful tone in your comment. You seem like the kind of Christian I could have a meaningful conversation with. When I was a Christian, I went through a period of losing faith. Even after that, I continued to explore history and study apologetics, and I found it difficult to believe when you have access to and knowledge of the historical context of the Christian faith. Watching scholars of the Bible helped me understand that many of the resurrection accounts are based on hearsay and not universally agreed upon by historians.

[@llamahguy7229]

​@jod35. Just a suggestion, but I recommend you study Thomas Aquinas' 5 ways. That's the reason why me, a born and raised athiest become philosophically conviced that God, specifically the classical theistic understanding of God, must exist. Ild be happy to rebut any concerns you have with the arguments. Science and study of history isn't the only way things can be known. Logical argumentation also works too

[@repentedifyy]

@@jod35. i appreciate that brother. Nothing is universally agreed upon by all historians. That means to essentially prove something allowing no other way to be. The majority of scholars (Christian and Atheist) do agree that Jesus really lived and Jesus really died on a cross and resurrected. This is all based on the historical evidence and data of course. We can even go further down the rabbit hole and question the evidence as you said. There is not such a well documented person in old history other then Jesus, there is writings of people who claimed it was sorcery and non Christian writings about Jesus, and the evidence of eyewitness that died not because they were Christian’s but because they claimed to see the dead Christ now risen from the dead (Apostles inc. Paul).

[@repentedifyy]

@@llamahguy7229 Amen absolutely will try and check that out 🙏 thanks for the suggestion brother

[@jod35.]

From my perspective, there's no consensus on the resurrection. If you thoroughly research Christ's resurrection, you'll find that there's no concrete evidence to support it. Belief in the resurrection is ultimately a matter of faith.

[@AcidSh33tz]

I’ll pray for you brother. One love

[@jod35.]

I’ve got my mom’s prayers. She has been doing so for years

[@GHOSTndMACHINZ]

Prayers do not work

[@AcidSh33tz]

@@GHOSTndMACHINZ if that is your belief but I’ll pray for you too 🙏🏽. Stay blessed family

[@GHOSTndMACHINZ]

@@AcidSh33tz its not a belief its a fact and if you have any evidence that can be independently verified that prayer worked at any instance you are welcome to present it. I will patiently wait.

[@disproveofthis]

@@GHOSTndMACHINZ you will get your varification one day when you shout and plead to God for mercy unless you repent. But Be blessed until that day bro.

[@macmac1022]

Ok, just a minute in so far and I want to bring up something about what you said about choosing to become an atheist. Huge fan of the socratic method so I will be using questions. #1 Is belief a choice or what a person is convinced of? #2 Can you just chose to believe the statue of liberty is in iran right now and really believe it? #3 If belief is not a choice but what a person is convinced of, is it justified for putting people in hell for lack of belief, something they have no control over? I think its the reasoning and evidence that moves us, but I am also a determinist and think libertarian free will is not correct so reasoning and evidence is what makes us act the way we do but that is hard to prove. But belief I think is pretty clear is not a choice.

[@jod35.]

Thanks for your comment. To clarify, when I said I "chose" to be an atheist, it wasn’t as if I just arbitrarily picked it. Rather, after years of searching for reasons to believe in God's existence and trying to strengthen my faith, I ultimately became convinced that it was something I couldn’t be certain of. So, it wasn’t simply choosing atheism-it was more about where my observations and reasoning led me. I didn’t come to atheism lightly; I was once religious, a Christian who read the Bible and practiced the faith. But over time, my understanding of the world made me question the existence of God. I agree with your point about belief not being a choice. Belief is really about what we are convinced of, based on the evidence and reasoning available to us. You can't just choose to believe in something like the Statue of Liberty being in Iran. It’s not about willpower but about what makes sense to us at a deeper level.

[@macmac1022]

@@jod35. Ya that is what I though. Its just the way we often speak. If this comment goes through I want to share something with you. This is a hypothesis of mine I have been working on about why people avoid answering questions. Its because of politicians that I really wanted to know the answer to this question. You might like it as you do seem to have good understanding and logic skills. I am going to ask you a question, and I am going to predict the answer you will have pop in your mind at first, and predict that will be a wrong answer. This works on most people and you can try if for yourself on others to see too, its an interesting conversation starter. A bat and a ball together cost 1.10, the bat costs 1.00 more then the ball, how much did the ball cost? You might have an answer of ten cents flash in your head right away with bias inaccurate fast mind but if you check that answer with your slow but more accurate conscious awareness, you can see that answer is wrong but it takes effort to do. The answer of ten cents is not the right answer but most people have that pop in their head because of the fast thinking mind that we rely on most of the time. The fast unconscious mind is taking everything in and trying to make sense of it really fast. Its 11 million bits a second. But sometimes it makes mistakes. The slow conscious mind is 40-50 bits and lazy but it can check things and bringing the unconscious mistake to conscious awareness it can correct it. The next thing to understand is about carl jung and the 4 ways the unconscious complex he called shadow deals with reality. The shadow is an unconscious complex that is defined as the repressed and suppressed aspects of the conscious self. there are constructive and destructive types of shadow. Carl jung emphasized the importance of being aware of shadow material and incorporating it into conscious awareness lest one project these attributes onto others. The human being deals with the reality of shadow in 4 ways. Denial, projection, integration and/or transmutation. Now I believe what is happening when a question that exposes a conflict in a belief, idea, something that someone said, or even about someone they idolize and the question gets avoided, that is the fast unconscious mind going into denial and the response is often a projection. This also can trigger and emotional response activating the amygdala more and the pre frontal cortex less where rational conscious thought is said to happen and the amygdala starts to get the body to flood itself with chemicals/hormones. Its like the fast mind knows conscious awareness will say its wrong. so it blocks it off to defend itself from admitting its wrong. in cases of denial and because it blocked off the rational mind, the responses are often irrational. Like personal attacks do not address the issue or answer the question. I think we can agree people have a very hard time now days admitting when they are wrong, I am not exempt from this myself I do realize. And we can see how badly questions avoidance effects us if you watch political meetings and watch them avoid questions all day long. Ok, so the first thing to go over is denial as that is the main one I expose with questions. A disowning or refusal to acknowledge something I think is a good definition for it here. There is a really good 2 minute video I use as an example of this. A streamer named vegan gains claiming lobsters have brains after some one said he can eat lobsters because they do not have brains. He googles it and starts to read what it says. When he gets to the part where is says neither insects nor lobsters have brains, he skips it and says they literally are insects then skips over that line and continues to read the rest. Just like in the fast thinking video, his fast mind already read that line and refused to acknowledge it in unconscious denial, and just skipped it. The person then tells him he skipped it and he reads it again and sees the line this time. Still being defensive of his claim and refusing to accept he was wrong, he tried to discredit the source and its the lobster institute of maine. If you would like to see the video for yourself its 2 minutes by destiny clips and the video is called " Destiny Reacts To Vegan Gains Ignoring Search Result That Contradicts Him". Justin turdo avoiding the question of how much his family was paid by the we charity 6 times in a row I think is denial as well. I think jordan peterson not being able to answer his own question of does he believe god exists and asking what do and you mean then saying no one knows what any of those words mean while being seemingly angry is think is another really good example of denial... and projection. And while JP find those words difficult, other people understand them easy. Even he does pretty much any other time they are used. So projection is next up. Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings. Many times a mind in denial will use projections for responses. Someone getting mad and telling the other person to not interrupt when they have been doing that a lot themselves would be an example. I have done this myself. The people who tell me I dont understand my own questions and my point is wrong when they do not even know what the point is are all examples as well. I ask them to steel man my position to show then understand my point and they just avoid that question as well clearly showing they do not understand my point. Now we have integration and/or transmutation. Integration is when you bring an unconscious behavior into conscious awareness and accept it. I know that I interrupt people talking sometimes even though I think that is wrong to do. I have a conscious awareness of it, but I have not been able to completely change the behavior.... yet. That is where transmutation comes in. Transmutation is to completely change that unconscious behavior. From being impatient to being patient, of from distrust to trust, hate into understanding and love even. So was this understandable or confusing? if you understand it, do you think its possibly true? Do you have any questions? If you have any tips I am would gladly listen.

[@Ohjeezno]

Hello friend from another continent. I just stumbled on your videos. They are nice to watch and hear your thoughts, as I recognize a lot of them. I have been brought up by my religious mother (she's a Christian), although from a very young age I already knew a lot of the things she taught me were not making much sense, if it comes to religion. So actually I have been an atheïst all my life. Now I am 46 and have given things a lot of thought, I came to some conclusions for myself: I do not necessarily discard the teachings of religion, but I see them symbolically. I don't see concepts like heaven and hell to be something for the afterlife, but for the present. So if you behave and act badly, your life will be hell. If you are kind and good and act accordingly, your life can be heaven. Also, I see God and Satan to be one and the same entity. God is Satan and vice versa. It makes for the universal balance, like Yin and Yang. There cannot be one without the other. The battle between good and evil is the struggle of the heart and mind. And therefore I conclude that I am god and the devil, myself. So therefore I cannot say that God created man to his own image. I tend to think it is the other way around ;) I am responsible for my own actions, and I have to make good and just choices to have a good life and create a good place for the people around me. But temptations are always there, and sometimes I made bad choices without even realizing it at the time. However, if I repent and I am serious about it, I can forgive myself. And I will do better next time. That was a lesson I learned only later in life after going through a very rough period. But that is in the past now. I also embraced the philosophy of Stoïcism. I wish that I have done that so much earlier in life. Even more than religion could, it taught me to act and live life with integrity. And that on it's own has cleared my heart and mind from a lot of troubles, and made my life better. Because of it, I tend to think I am a better human being now. At least I hope so :) That said, I wish you all the best and lots of inspiration for your philosophical journey. Greetings from The Netherlands :)

[@jod35.]

Thanks so much for the kind and honest comment. You can indeed achieve good morals and purpose and be a good person without being a theist. Thanks for watching. I hope I live to the age of 46.

[@Ohjeezno]

​@@jod35.And I wish to double that for you with good health and lots of blessings 🙂

[@jod35.]

Thanks

[@alexale5488]

How do you view the difference between "religious" and "spiritual" ? Personally I am "spiritual", by that I mean I believe in some sort of higher power and afterlife. But I am not particularly religious. I based my certainty on the study of NDEs.

[@jod35.]

I’ve honestly heard many people express similar thoughts. For me, though, I choose to be atheistic because I can't find any way to prove the existence of the spiritual as real.

[@alexale5488]

@@jod35.I understand. If you are interested, I could provide some arguments on why I think it does. But I want to know if you are curious about it or want that as I don't want to force feed them to you.

[@jod35.]

@@alexale5488 sure. Please do.

[@scoobyaura-fr6dm]

I'm telling ya my friend these religions are gonna disappear soon from the earth and everyone is gonnaget skeptic

[@jod35.]

I actually love to see the benefits that religion brings to people. Like community and a sense of purpose. I just don’t like the way it hinders critical thought

[@abiliv-lf9tz]

That feels as wishful as most religions 💀

[@scoobyaura-fr6dm]

@@jod35. the sense of purpose is bs , we are yet to find our purpose but currently we have no purpose and we have to create one ourselves

[@scoobyaura-fr6dm]

@@abiliv-lf9tz No it aint wishful its literally a prediction and surity of something thats gonnahappen

[@jod35.]

@@scoobyaura-fr6dm That is the truth

[@davidtimothy8724]

Hi! I am curious what you mean by "evidence for the existence of God".

[@jod35.]

Real, valid, testable, measurable, anything I won’t require faith to believe. It has to be very verifiable that if I told my brother, sister or any other person, they wouldn’t have to just trust me

[@davidtimothy8724]

@@jod35. "Real, valid, testable, won't require faith" I don't think this standard is sufficient for the existence of God because of probability If every time you and the entire world look at the sky and say the word "God" and then every time in the clouds the word "God" is written, you hear the sound "I am real", or a person comes down from the sky and you can examine his body, why won't you think that you or any other person are hallucinating also? Or an alien manipulating your sense data? if you can examine the man that claims to be God that magically appears and able to turn water into robots consistently in this world forever, why won't you think of him as just an alien claiming to be God with technology that "Science could not explain YET"?

[@davidtimothy8724]

@@jod35. "Real, Valid, Testable, Measurable, no Faith". This standard fails due to simple probability For example: - A man claiming to be God suddenly appears in the sky, witnessed by the entire world - You can examine his body with all technology that we have - He turns water into robots consistently, and you can test him reliably without fail - He makes the entire world watch the creation of the second universe - He teleports all people to another place called "heaven" for 1 billion years Does this count as evidence? If yes, why? Instead of believe him as God, Why won't you or the world think that: 1. They are just hallucinating 2. This man is an alien claming to be God with technology that "Science could not explain YET" 3. This alien just manipulating all your sense data If no, why?

[@davidtimothy8724]

@@jod35. "Real, Valid, Testable, Measurable, no Faith". This standard fails due to simple probability For example: - A man claiming to be God suddenly appears in the sky, witnessed by the entire world - You can examine his body with all technology that we have - He turns water into robots consistently, and you can test him reliably without fail - He makes the entire world watch the creation of the second universe - He teleports all people to another place called "heaven" for 1 billion years Does this count as evidence? If yes, why? Instead of believe him as God, Why won't you or the world think that: 1. They are just hallucinating 2. This man is an alien claming to be God with technology that "Science could not explain YET" 3. This alien just manipulating all your sense data If no, why?

[@davidtimothy8724]

@@jod35. "Real, Valid, Testable, Measurable, no Faith". This standard fails due to simple probability For example: - A man claiming to be god suddenly appears in the sky, witnessed by the entire world - You can examine his body with all technology that we have - He turns water into robots consistently, and you can test him reliably without fail - He makes the entire world watch the creation of the second universe - He teleports all people to another place called "heaven" for 1 billion years Does this count as evidence? If yes, why? Instead of believe him as god, Why won't you or the world think that: 1. They are just hallucinating 2. This man is an alien claming to be god with technology that "Science could not explain YET" 3. This alien just manipulating all your sense data If no, why?

[@macdougdoug]

Atheist : Does not believe in the existence of gods, or believes that gods do not exist.

[@jod35.]

Okay

[@abiliv-lf9tz]

Period Am an agnostic atheist Hui bruv ☕

[@jod35.]

@@abiliv-lf9tz Hello

[@saint1568]

My brother, i have not seen your video yet but all i can say is Don't turn away from Jesus Christ, if God was not answering or replying your prayers ask yourself -- What are you doing Wrong? and Ask God to learn his requirements over your life. Trust me God wants the Best for you, God wants you to succeed in life. Because Atheism doesn't make your life any better and the devil will have a legal right over your life because you turned away from God. Was an atheist before and it led me to reading or interested in worldly wisdom like the occult wisdom. The devil is very good at deceiving people, and he always makes you think that God doesn't love you

[@saint1568]

I pray you that you will learn the truth before it's too late

[@jod35.]

I hope so.

[@mesekkai]

​@@jod35. Dont listen to him. Its not your fault that you became an atheist ....you cant choose what you can or can't believe ...and if its anybody fault it is the "god" or "jesus" fault because they havent provided the evidence that you needed to believe them. Please please stay safe....

[@jod35.]

@@mesekkai Thanks so much

[@saint1568]

@@mesekkai the evidence is everywhere but you are not paying attention to it .......... Can I ask something as a atheist do you believe in witchcraft or voodoo????