Doubt: My Deconversion

It's probably a year ago when I saw that video. It was called "My Deconversion from Christianity". Before I could fully process what that even meant, (thunder rumbles) it started to auto-play. I grew up in a Christian home. In the Christian subculture. And I want you to know, when I left home, I realized everything I thought I knew about Jesus was a lie. Creation, sin, hell, salvation. It's all a myth. (stirring ambient music) That video shook me, and I didn't even watch all of it. I was worried I'd be affected by it, and if I followed I'd lose my faith. So, I was like, "Whoa, nope." (stirring ambient music) Close video. (stirring ambient music) (camera shutter clicks) All my life, I've had questions about my faith, (stirring ambient music) about God and about religion. (upbeat ambient music) Now I wanna tell you my questions, (upbeat ambient music) my struggles, my doubts. I hope you can handle the truth. (upbeat ambient music) I shouldn't have been afraid to look at that video, but what really shook me, and by "shook" I mean just made me very doubtful, was thinking, "If God isn't real, if Jesus isn't real, my faith isn't real, and this life is all there is, and after that there's nothing." How dark, hopeless, pointless this all would be. (moody ambient music) We can't just be an accident. The chances are insane. I've heard to not question the Lord. When I ask "Why," is that offensive? Am I a bad Christian? (grass rustles) I'm just looking for compelling evidence. Like, there's a theory that Moses was on DMT that came from the acacia tree when he saw the burning bush. Was he lit? Was he high? Could the Bible stories have been influenced by hallucinogens? (voice echoes) (gentle ambient music) When I saw that video, it was sad. I mean, just hearing the title, "My Deconversion", (sighs) I guess it it made me afraid to explore my doubts. 'cause if I did. (gentle ambient music) (grass rustles) Somewhere along the line, the word "doubt" started to take on the baggage of "unbelief", but they're not the same thing. To doubt something means that you might have some questions. Maybe you believe part of it and maybe you have some questions about part of it. Unbelief is a state where you've decided that you don't think something is true at all. Many people believe that, in 1969, the United States successfully sent a small team of humans to the moon. They didn't go to the moon themselves, but they have good reasons to believe that this event happened. There are others, however, who do doubt whether it happened. Perhaps they heard interesting counter-data, plausible stories. The question has been raised in their minds. They're not saying that they definitely don't think that Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon. They just have some doubts. Maybe it really did happen, they'd just like to know more. Whereas a third group, (upbeat ambient music) they flat out do not believe that the moon landing was anything other than a production set in a Hollywood studio. They experience unbelief. (upbeat ambient music) Doubt. (fire crackles) Is it harmful to faith? Can I have doubts about my faith or is that a bad thing? I think it's more harmful to blindly believe what you were told without discovering it yourself because it's not real faith to believe in something just 'cause someone said it and say, "Okay!" (chuckles) (people laughing) (fire crackles) There's so much information out there, and so many different opinions, and I think it would be weird if we didn't have any doubts. Yeah, I think having doubt is normal and I think the idea of sharing something, even though it isn't, can be very harmful. It's actually good. Yeah, I just think that you have to open your mind up and just be able to see and understand other people's views. And that's a pretty big part 'cause if you don't allow yourself to see what other people believe then you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot (Lucia exhales) (people laughing) just by not allowing yourself to doubt. That's deep. (people laughing) (fire crackles) You ask for it. (fire crackles) Doubt is almost like a path that forks in different directions. As you explore your doubts, you can end up in a place of no longer believing, but believe it or not, that can be good. (stirring ambient music) Not everything you hear at church or from Christian people comes from the Bible and doubt can be a path to jettisoning things that people added onto the Word of God while retaining what is good and true in Christ. Jesus spent a good amount of time trying to show the religious leaders of the time that they had added a bunch of extra things to what God had said, weighing people down. The path of doubt can also lead, eventually, to belief, and more secure belief at that. Or in the meantime, it can lead to holding ground that we might label "Trusting uncertainty". (stirring ambient music) It starts with a spark of faith and that spark can be big or small. Maybe we trust that this world had to come from someone, but we wanna really know more of what he's like, or maybe we believe that Jesus died for our sins, but we're unsure about how we feel about the Bible. (stirring ambient music) I like talking with my friends, exploring our doubts together. It's part of taking ownership of our own beliefs. Last night, I kept wondering, do some people live by faith and others by fact? I mean, or maybe it's like, there's a gap between what we can possibly know and what we can't, and what we do in that gap is real faith. (stirring ambient music) (sighs) Sometimes I don't know what to do with the answers I come up with. (stirring ambient music) (leaves rustling) (stirring ambient music intensifies) (stirring ambient music) My granddad once told me, "Doubt is like a tunnel. When you enter a tunnel, at the beginning you can still see the light behind you, but at some point in the middle it's just darkness. You can't see the light where you came from (Jared pants) and you can't yet see the light at the end of the tunnel." (Jared pants) This is the scariest part of doubt. And when we're scared, sometimes what we wanna do most is to stop, to sit down and stay still. (Jared pants) (stirring ambient music) It seems safer somehow. (stirring ambient music) But when you're in this place, in the darkness of doubt, that's when you need to keep going, (stirring ambient music intensifies) to walk all the way through your doubt, (stirring ambient music) to the light at the end of the tunnel. (upbeat ambient music) Here's what I've learned. When I doubt, It can reveal my complacency, and the ideas I supposedly believe, but doubt itself becomes my fuel for digging deeper and becoming stronger. (stirring ambient music)