This is a step-by-step guide to things that led me to leave Christianity. This article is mostly written for those who have been raised in fundamentalist Christian communities that take the bible as literal truth and who are very biased to protect this worldview. It is written for the mind that is curious or skeptical and is curious about how to deconstruct the worldview that was indoctrinated from the infant.
I will refrain from doing a deep dive into textual analysis as that will make this article too big, but that I have done in another series.
Given your worldview is shaped around a narrative, you need to find a way to break this narrative at its core.
Question the fundamental part of your religion. That is: Jesus. It's simple if Jesus, then Christianity. For believers who are deconverting, this may already be a harsh question to question Jesus or God. Because that is often seen as something the devil would want you to question, and no one should trust the devil! An easier route that you can take is the approach to question the narrative around Jesus and the worldview that comes with that.
Preparation:
- Learn that your view, and any other worldview, is subjective and different.
- Learn about logical reasoning (important for anything)
- Learn about Bias, especially cognitive bias
The deconstruction of narrative:
- Learn the timeline of when bible books are written.
- Learn about Paul and his influence on Christianity.
- Learn that the synoptic gospels are quite different from John’s.
- Learn about inconsistencies in the New Testament and Jesus' narrative.
- Learn that many authors of the bible books are not even authors
- Learn that religion is ever-changing and influenced by time and culture.
- Learn how religion is influenced and formed
- Learn the key differences between Judaism and Christianity.
- Learn about some theological/philosophical challenges for Christianity.
Scholarly Objections
Biblical Timeline
In the following points, I will address those timelines (Estimations taken from wikipedia):
Pre gospels: James — c. 65–85 CE, Galatians — c. 48 or 55 CE, 1 Thessalonians — c. 51 CE, 2 Thessalonians — c. 51 CE or post-70 CE, Philippians — c. 54–55 CE, Philemon — c. 54–55 CE, 1 Corinthians — c. 53–57 CE, 2 Corinthians — c. 55–58 CE, Romans — c. 57–58 CE
Gospels: Mark — c. 65–73 CE, Hebrews — c. 80–90 CE, Matthew — c. 80–90 CE, Luke — c. 80–90 CE, John — c. 90–110 CE, Acts — c. 80–90 CE, 1 Peter — c. 75–90 CE, Jude — Uncertain, but likely before 2 Peter, Revelation — c. 95 CE, 2 Peter — c. 110 CE, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Epistle to Titus — c. 100 CE, Epistles of John — c. 90–110 CE
The general takeaway, there is a narrative/traditional interpretation and a scholarly interpretation. The start of deconversion starts reading non-Christian / objective scholarly analysis of the bible. The order of The Bible is nicely chronological, while the actual timeline is nothing alike. The narrative of birth, childhood, persecution, death, then resurrection is a very late chronological composition. Deconstructing the timeline allows you to better see how the books are formed and the potential influences of different authors. For example, reading James is very similar to reading a classical Jewish book on how your efforts can save yourself. This book was Luther's biggest struggle when dealing with his reformation ‘saved by grace alone’. Seeing it in chronological context it makes sense because the belief of Jesus being God/savior hasn't been adopted. And the writer of James Likeley was more Jewish than a protestant Christian. Also, you can learn about the history of different sects trying to push forward their version and Christianity in the early days. And that there are quite some conflicts between what teachings ought to be leading ones.
Start with Paul
Paul never met, never spoke, and never saw Jesus. He only interacted with people who he claimed had direct experiences with him. He grew up in a Greek multicultural city called Tarsus and is a Roman citizen. Paul's ideas are super influential in Christianity, if he were not around Christianity would be very different if existing at all. Notice that Paul is mostly responsible for all literature on early Christian movements. This is important because Paul’s letters make up almost the entire Christian faith when it comes to Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins, and him being God in the flesh. And because his letters predate most other books it's quite reasonable to assume they have had a big influence on further literature. Is Paul credible, he claims his knowledge is from divine origins (Galatians 1:12, 1 Corinthians 11:23), and so does Muhammed. If you do not believe in him, why Paul? Think about that.
The gospels
In the common bible, they are the first books, but in the timeline, they come a few decades after Paul's letters. The three synoptic gospels are very similar but John is super different and contains almost all divinization statements of Jesus. John and Revelations are very similar in their extraordinary claims of Jesus, and the end times and judgment day. Look at the timeline and observe when they are written. Is it possible that it was influenced by decades of iterations on the initial Pauilan letters? Study the differences between the three gospels and John. And start reading books in isolation. Especially this is important because you will see differences in claims books make allowing you to break the narrative that all books are nicely sequential and aligned with each other without contradictions. E.g you will find out that in the Synoptic gospels, there are no ‘explicit’ claims that Jesus says he is God. Only mentions him being the Son of God/man. But that is used on many different occasions throughout the bible for different peoples or even Israel. All the I am statements and God-like statements are mostly from the gospel of John — written as the last book in the sequence by an unknown author. Paul attributes Jesus his divinity a lot as well, but again, Paul — the Roman who never saw or spoke to Jesus?
Infallible word of God
This is important because you may have been raised with the belief in an infallible word of God. If you can find, which you will, important key contradictions in the gospels, this is simply dismissable. Focus on translation credibility, questionable translations, and christification of the Old Testament. Especially Christians interpret many things from the OT — as the New Testament does too — in a Christian way. Look at those claims that people and authors make and see how Jews interpret the same texts. You will often find there is a very big interpretation difference.
Learn about the authors
Authorship of the bible books is very unclear, the tradition and scholars are very different in conclusion. The authorship of the gospels, acts, most of the epistles, and revelations, to name a few are most likely not written by the authors the narrative tells [wikipedia]. The narrative wants them to be John “the beloved disciple” or the other disciples writing their personal experiences, but that is not really what is happening according to most scholars [wikipedia]. Remember they were simple fisherman and most likely did not even know how to write. The only author that is mostly acknowledged is Paul for Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Thessalonians, and Philemon. Again look at the timeline and the possible influence this Greek Roman citizen had on the early Christian movement.
The changing nature of religion
Counting the number of denominations proves that religion is always changing. Count the number of Jewish sects and orientations. Look at the influences on when Judaism came in contact with Mesopotamia, Egypt, Canaan, and Babylon. Look at the influences of the Hellenistic Period, Roman influence and still changing as much as Christianity does. Realize that there is no single ‘Christianity’ or single ‘belief system’, and that your belief system is one of so many, possibly influenced by Calvin or Luther who themselves have very specific disagreements with 1500 years of Christian tradition. This is fundamental in being able to take a step back and allowing you to analyze other belief systems/claims. Look at the founders of your faith and see that they were normal failible human beings as well.
Learn about the differences in Judaism
If Jesus is the messiah without undouptable proof, why are there still Jews? Learn about the definition of messiah for them, learn that the messiah was never said to be a God or coming for the redemption of sins. If Jesus is not the Messiah, Christianity is irrelevant for the most part.
Learn about Hell
Sheol, Hades, Gehenn, Tatarus? The big fear of combat is the one of going to hell. Learn that Hell is recent in Christianity, mostly influenced by the Hellenistic period. And that Tatarus mentioned in 2 peter 2:4 and Hades are straight from the Greek mythologies. Hades is a Greek God. Most Jews don't have a concept of hell, or it plays a very minimal role. Also, Sheol, the leading concept up to the time around Jesus, was just referred to as the underground, a universal place for righteousness and wicked alike. Only in later times during the Hellenistic period, the hell become more of a place of suffering. Hell is a fluent definition and it became a place of eternal punishment mostly in the books of Revelation written decades after Jesus’ passing. Jesus in the Gospels does not speak about the reality of judgment and the consequences of rejecting God’s grace and salvation. This is later literature.
Theological objections
God offer to God: God incarnated as man, such that as that man, he can forgive sins that were done to himself. Why does God need to Offer Himself to Himself? If not to himself — to whom — if someone else — why is God subjective to someone else?
Infinite punishment for finite crime: God's love, and judgment qualities contradict. For example, if hell is an infinite (eternal) punishment for a finite crime, that raises questions regarding God's love/goodness and justice.
Divine Hiddenness: Why God’s existence isn’t more evident to everyone, particularly those who sincerely seek a relationship with God. Also, why is the proof of the salvation story so obscured? If it is that essential for man, why is it so hidden? Why are there so many different interpretations of this revelation? And why so many religions? Humans are left in the dark….
The problem of evil: If an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good deity exists, then evil would not exist. Because the amount of suffering, sicknesses, and random suffering could be prevented by this diety but is not. This exists thus this deity does not exist.
The Trinity: Did anyone ever find a solution? Do the 3-personalities contradict unity?
Original Sin (applicable if you think this is real history): God plants a one-of-a-kind beautiful fruity tree in the center of a garden, on which the entire animal and human race's destiny depends. He also permits an ill-intending talking snake to convince a person to eat from this tree. Given an infinite amount of time, it's quite obvious someone will touch it or eat from it. This one person turns the entire creation into suffering of which trillions of species have suffered. This is a contradiction of God's justice as it's far from any reasonable justice. Not to mention the knowledge of god allowing this, and also knowing how that is going to be solved by offering himself to himself. Any reasonable person would not have that tree there or have a more reasonable punishment. Even if the human race is really in need of an offer to God, why does God require this in the form of a Human sacrifice in the most terrific way? Christians can use this as an indication of the value of the sacrifice, but I would question why in the first place this cruel sacrifice has to be made.
Conclusion
This is a very minimal run down of the main things that lead me to question ‘the faith’ and being able to leave it. It took 5 years to be able to say ‘I do not believe in Jesus and my destiny is not hell’. There are tons of things that are related and every one of those points has books written on them discussing all the specifics. But I don't think you have to go to a full-scholarly level to understand how there are holes in the narrative. Deconstructing one belief system can be very challenging especially if you want to reason your way out of it.
But in the article, we covered that the authorship of many bible books is very unclear, the sources are influenced by culture over time. Humans with biases like all of us filtered their writings through their subjective lenses. Paul's influence and the timeline of the bible books raise a lot of questions about the narrative. The contradictions in the New Testament are many (just do some googling). The philosophical arguments in addition make the religious faith less and less appealing to the questioning person. I have not even started to dive into a literal reading of many stories which I think is not worth of time. Talking snakes, or fitting all animals of the world on a single boat, is something I once was seriously questioning, but now it is clear they serve as stories. It helped me a lot to read about other Christian denominations that had symbolic, metaphorical, and mystical interpretations of many of those stories.
Behind sight, or if you are non-religious, the above points like religion being influenced by culture, look simple and obvious, likewise a talking snake naturally does not exist. But remember that many people grow up in big communities that do believe those kinds of stories as if they are as real as you reading this. In my community, we had master/doctorated-level priests preaching about this as if it were normal. If your entire worldview is constructed on the premise of original sin, which is caused by this talking snake, you better find a good reason to justify it in some way. Usually, a small assumption of a talking snake is part of a big web of other assumptions that make it more plausible. Stating that this story is metaphorical contradicts the worldview that the bible is literal which is an axiom in itself. And the reasoning is that once you question one thing you can question everything. This I have seen left many people just accepting the axiom and avoiding accepting the painful answers.
Reading this article, even if you're convinced, won't change your mind directly. It takes physical neural pathways to be rewritten. You have to work and think about those points for some time to let it sink in what they mean and what the implications are. Eventually, it can create an opening for exploring things in a more free way. You will be able to consider other belief systems and be more skeptical. One last thing, I think is so super valuable to use a tool like ChatGpt to do fact-checking. It knows the bible better than any human being and you can ask it all the questions you have. The power is that it can reason objectively without cognitive bias.
Anyhow, wish you all the best on your journey, even if that eventually turns out religious. Just have an open mind for change and learn! Changing the world view is scary as you do not know what it will replace, but it's super rewarding once you see clearly how ignorant one was before. Self introspection is key!
