Seth Andrews: Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot
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- čas přidán 19. 06. 2017
- Seth Andrews gave this speech June 3, 2017 in Toronto at the Imagine 7 conference. It's a humorous (and perhaps therapeutic) romp through Seth's religious past...and the often bizarre words and attitudes that reflected his Christian faith.
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I grew up in an EXTREMELY religious family. When I was a teen I decided it wasn't for me. I've been a happy unbeliever for years. Recently I ran into a childhood friend and we started talking. The conversation moved to religion and I mentioned that I was an unbeliever cause things just didn't factually add up to me. She started
Hello everyone! I'm a fellow Atheist right from the heartland of Catholicism 🇮🇹. I've been a Catholic Christian until the age of 14, when I got out of my local church slamming its door with a loud bang. I've done both Communion and Confirmation, but after the latter I decided to leave Christianity for good. The thing that made me an non-believer was the day when my cousin came out as gay, and the horrendous treatment he received from all those people who pretend to "love thy neighbour". And I never understood the very Christian obsession for family and marriage...you don't get married in the name of Jesus, you do it because you really want to. Pretty basic and simple, right? I'm 34 now, and been an Atheist for 20 years.
One of my Christian friends told me I should read the Bible. I told him I have read the Bible, cover to cover, twice, and it’s the main reason I’m an Atheist.
My favorite meme is Jesus standing behind the surgeon saying, "What are you doing?! I put that tumor there for a reason!"
I got slapped by a nun when I asked "Where are the dinosaurs in the Bible?"
A story I heard told by one of the soldiers who liberated a concentration camp during WW2. He found, carved into the wall in one of the bunk houses, a quote that read "If there is a god he will have to beg my forgiveness when I meet him." Sums up how I feel pretty well.
In about 1977 when I was a medical student at Yale, I attended a presentation with a visiting professor who was to be challenged to make a particularly difficult diagnosis before the faculty and students. The visiting professor asked that the doors to the auditorium be locked because he was about to tell a story that might offend the lay staff at the hospital. He began by noting that many in the hospital were wearing badges stating that doctors only treat patients while God heals them. He noted that these badges reminded him of a story from long ago in Jerusalem. A man was on his hands and knees tending to his small garden inside a low wall when a religious man riding a donkey spoke to him from outside the wall. The religious man said, "You and the Lord have created quite a beautiful garden." The man working in his garden looked up and said, "Me and the Lord hell. You should have seen it when the Lord had it all to himself!"
I have carried guilt with me for over 13 years because the last words I said to my boyfriend was “I love you” instead of praying for him before he entered the procedure room that he died in. Even though I’ve deconstructed and deconverted from Christianity over the last 6 months it’s not until this very moment, watching this video that I’m freed from that guilt. I truly am free. Thank you 🥰
As a brain tumor survivor I’m glad I went with science and because of that I’m able to raise me kids to day.
At 14 yrs old, I was kicked out of my "Open Bible" Pentecostal church for questioning their BS and it was one of the highlights of my life. Spirituality is so much cleaner than organized religion with hate mongering.
What is curious to me is how many of us who were raised in strict "Christian" homes knew deep within us at very early ages that what we were being told and taught were not TRUE? I was forced to attend Church but by the age of 6 it was just a weekly "duty" that I had to perform. My siblings continue to be "true believers" and have shunned me. What an amazing thing to be related to those who expound on love and yet have no earthly idea what "love" is?
When I was 11 years old and starting to think for myself, I asked our priest,who had just heard my confession and gave me 5 “Hail Marys’ and 3 “Our Fathers’ to recite as a penance, why was talking to god and Jesus’s mother considered punishment? He told me to go away, and that I was in danger of being cast into eternal damnation, I did go away, and I stayed away. Thank you Father Doyle.
I dated a Christian who could not only say stupid shit, she was sometimes cruel and inconsiderate, using her faith as a pretext to judge others. In the end I couldn’t bear her lack of real empathy, the startling absence of human kindness, the braindead apologetics for casual bigotry and smug, conceited nastiness. She was more impressed with an invisible skyman than real human beings.
“Religion is like a pair of shoes… Find one that fits you, but don’t make me wear your shoes. “
You were not alone. There are hordes of people talking like idiots. My parents made me go to church but even as a 6 year old I was not able to accept what they tried to convince me of at the church. It did not make sense and it still doesn't.
I was adopted by a mormon family at 8 years old and I've struggled with it horribly for decades. I'm very relieved and at ease after learning about Christopher Hitchens and reading his book.
Don't feel bad: after being raised in a pastor's home, getting a masters degree in biblical studies, teaching biblical Greek to seminarians, and being a minister myself for seventeen years, it wasn't until the month of my fortieth birthday that it hit me like a ton of bricks that it wasn't true. Paul said he wasn't ashamed of the gospel of Christ. He should have been.
"You're going to hell unless you believe this.."
In the 1970s my Mother took us to church. I will never forget the moment I became an atheist. I was 7 years old and in the pews with my Mom and brother. The preacher started going off on the sins of divorce and especially divorced woman and single Mothers. My single and twice divorced Mother stood up, grabbed my brother and I and walked out of church in protest. We never went back. This taught me that a persons moral center has nothing to do with God or The Bible. If my Mother could pick add choose her faith, then anyone including me could do so as well. Right then and there I knew it was all BS.
oh wow wow wow. I think I am in love!!!! I don't think my husband would even mind because Seth is so wonderful lol. I too grew up in a fundy evangelical home. My parents worshipped at the alter of that horrible human James Dobson who was responsible for the horrific abuse of a generation of christian children. I was thoroughly indoctrinated, went to church, sunday school, prayer meetings, youth group, choir practice....I was told that every word of the bible is true. I had NIGHTMARES about being "left behind" in the rapture (the Tim LaHaye thing was big when I was growing up). In fact, from the time I started school I had such bad night terrors that I would go to school with ZERO sleep. Then I got in trouble for falling asleep in class. This also led to a lifetime of insomnia and bipolar disorder. Like Seth, I was in my 30s when I first started to question, where I got the courage to question. Because I was raised to believe that if you do not have faith, even for 10 minutes, if you die in that ten minutes you will go to hell. Lack of faith was the only unforgiveable sin. I started to research. I read EVERYTHING about the truth of the bible so I could get my questions answered. If I asked an uncomfortable question to my parents, I would likely get hit for "blasphemy". So I wanted biblical answers to my questions. It took about 5 years of obsessive reading and research and this led, very unexpectedly, to atheism. In fact, it was a shock that i will always remember. I was reading Dawkins very late at night and it suddenly hit me that CHRISTIANITY WASN'T TRUE, IT WAS THE GREATEST HOAX EVER PERPETRATED ON MANKIND. My life opened up after that. I left an abusive husband (who was violent and jealous, just like god), became an environmentalist, and made me care for people's welfare in THIS world. I was able to develop empathy because I was finally able to access my conscience after years of terror that I was relying too much "on my own wisdom". I didn't expect to give my life story here, but this video really ripped the bandaid off for me, the trauma of religion, and I am so grateful for Seth because the best way for me to heal from that trauma is through LAUGHTER. Thanks for reading :)