The Search for the True Christian

Hosted by Trevor Poelman

[ChrisHarperBooks]

I'm definetly a "weak athiest." I spent 5 minutes this morning battling with the lid of the salsa bottle. The bottle won.

[Mouse_]

when the end of their logic they arrive at "only one can be right", they forget that "all of us could be wrong" is just as probable.

[nicodemusedwards]

The “true Christian” thing always infuriated me growing up in a religious family. Even as a kid my thought was “you don’t get to decide who is and isn’t a ‘real’ Christian. You’re part of the religion, you don’t own it.”

[FritzMeowstro]

“An infallible book without an infallible interpreter is a worthless book” holy shit that guy just self destructed

[eddie-roo]

Being a christian sounds like being part of a fandom for a series of books written by a vast collection of ghost writers that all kinda contradict each other.

"Only the first seven books of the series are canon, because those reflect the original author's true vision"

"Only the revised reboot series is canon because the og author came back and wove together all books from 1 to 20"

"Well, the Gale of Shadows series is the best, the style of W. Z. Z. Timbuktu really capture the true essence of the series"

[nicholasschmidt]

"It's like if they, say, watched a documentary about why smoking is bad. And then they were relieved at the end that they didn't show their brand they smoked. Which means that theirs is probably safe."

Definitely using that quote. Thanks, Trevor.

[stardragon]

"You don't have a lot of heretical Muslims." No one tell him about the Shia/Sunni divide, it'll ruin his argument.

[suezuccati]

I think their "my authority is more legitimate than yours" routine is absolutely hillarious, they discuss like 5th graders about things.

[johnb]

When I deconverted, my overly zealous dad leaned hard into the fire and brimstone stuff, and reminded me for years how I deserved to be tortured for my sins. Knowing he based his whole life and reason around this religion, I finally pointed out to him that my mom and him hadn't been married in the church (catholic) which meant i was literally his sin since he committed adultery. So he could either love me for who I am and burn right beside me, or go to confession and admit to God and the priest he was sorry he ever had me.

He chose confession.

[mutedroar]

When I was a kid, my best friend was catholic. And at some point I remember my mom telling me catholics where "cheats and liars, and not going to heaven" because they didn't believe like our family (evangilical baptist). So I was super confused and concernedm like what did she mean by that? They're Christians too, why wouldn't they go to heaven? So I asked my friend about it, told her what my mom said, etc.

And then I get in trouble for asking because she was upset about it and told her mom, who called mine, who then yelled at me about it. Kid me was like ??? wtf I was just asking a question??? Because this makes no sense???

[BaronVonQuiply]

The difference among religions was explained to me as a child: _"We're right and everybody knows it. The rest are in willful rebellion."_

I imagine pretty much everyone else got this same talk.

[monkewithinternetaccess]

I used to be Christian. I asked several people which denomination was correct. They said a lot, but didn’t answer the question. This was a better explanation than all the elders in church could provide over the course of 7 years.

[errormessage]

As someone who was born and raised as Seventh Day Adventist and left Christianity, I struggled with so many things in this sect of Christianity because of extremist ideas not even found in other sects. Once I found out about the "Great Disappointment", I felt the cognitive dissonance hit me hard then. I went on a journey to figure out more, and the moment I lost faith was when I debated with a very well-respected Yugoslavian Biblical scholar in a class called "God and Human Life" (I went to Christian University at the time) where we broke down all the major world religions and their principles, but he made it some giant spectacle over Christianity like it's the only religion with the REAL truth, which I thought was disingenuous. lol

I brought up how Heaven cannot be a perfect place and if that were the case why did Satan have the ability to sin when everything in Heaven was perfect? He really tried to give me apologetics at first but I made my biggest point that if God is an all powerful, all knowing, omnipotent being, why would he allow any of this to happen when angels were reported to have no will to disobey him? What made Satan so special? But somehow Satan convinced beings with no will to suddenly have some and decide to rebel? He couldn't answer me, and said in honesty that he didn't know. I became a full-blown atheist afterwards. I can't believe people are teaching this stuff and it's based on complete nonsense. I grew up in the 90s creationist era where they taught you everything but actual science, so much so that I was stunted in intellect when I transitioned from Christian private education to Public schools, and couldn't grasp normal, easy concepts like evolution, the universe, and how the Earth was billions of years old versus the well-accepted 6000 years Christians in the SDA community believe the Earth to be that old, I can't make this shit up. I'm so glad I got the fuck out. I still learn things outside of my indoctrination every day, and I get so upset knowing this info was actively hidden from me until I got a mind of my own and learned the truth for myself.

[agreeableWitch]

"think, feel, and act as Jesus would" well I'll be darned. I've been railing against authority and fighting for the fair and kind treatment of all people for ages, so I guess I've been a Christian all along. Good to hear we don't need no preachers or fancy churches! Let's all get back to protesting for the rights of gay people everybody :)

[wingingglobe]

I love the way Allen just casually drops some sexism and then says "we're not going to argue about that right now" like it's a normal thing to do

[hellohsaytin]

The "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Classic. 🔥

[TheSmeltork]

The simple fact that the bible has to be interpreted and can be misinterpreted disqualifies it from infallibility.

[groofay]

"Don't draw attention to your piety!" the man screams from his pulpit in front of dozens or hundreds of people.

[theCommentDevil]

The only real Christian i ever met is a guy whose name was Christian. He had a pretty solid argument.

[tosreturns]

When considering the question of "What Would Jesus Do?", one must understand that chasing vendors around the marketplace with a bullwhip OR floating around with a sword hanging from your mouth are things that are on the table.