I stumbled upon this channel thanks to RUclips recommendations, and thank you for sharing your story. I was also a Christian apostate, but I reconverted later, so I am a Christian now. You mentioned that you hoped, as a fresh atheist, to get the best responses from Christians and theists about the existence of God and so forth. You wanted the best arguments. Unfortunately, most people have completely terrible views and arguments for their most important beliefs, so you cannot go to popular level media to find the truth. You must do your due diligence and read academic works: Biblical Scholarship, Philosophy of Religion, etc. I claim to have some idea of what the better arguments for Christianity are, so maybe I can provide some resources. First, you also expressed certain views about Christianity that are incorrect. I am not sure if you meant that you actually believed them or were merely tempted to believe them (or something else?). You talked about how Christianity teaches that you are worthless, and you were worried about being good enough for God. Christianity teaches the opposite of that, so instead, you are worth a lot (why else would God incarnate as a human to sacrifice himself for all of humanity?) and there is no possible way to be good enough for God. Instead, Jesus died for us precisely because we were not good enough, and through him, we are forgiven. I think this is a fairly obvious truth about Christian doctrine, but if you want details, I can provide them. Now for the good stuff. It seems to me that you held a Young Earth Creationist view of the Bible. Did you think the earth was created in six days about six thousand years ago? I assumed Catholics rejected this view, but certain comments made it seem that you held that view. For example, most Christians do not believe that the flood in Genesis was global, and it seems obvious that Noah's children married other people and did not have incestous relationships. I think the YEC view of the Bible is completely false and leads many to apostatize because of how ridiculous it is. Does this describe your situation? For a better understanding of the Bible, see the biblical scholar John Walton's series "The Lost World of Genesis." As for arguments for God's existence, "Necessary Existence" by the philosophers Alexander Pruss and Joshua Rasmussen is great, but it is a bit technical. Joshua Rasmussen has more popular level books that you might be interested. [I originally posted links to fine tuning arguments for God and arguments for Christianity, but it looks like RUclips deletes comments with links automatically.] Let's go back to the views you expressed about Christianity that are false: that you are worthless and not good enough for God. You also talked about your bisexual tendencies. My hypothesis is this, you incorrectly thought you had to be good enough for God, but you knew that you had homosexual desires, so you inferred that you were not actually good enough for God, and this created tension (anxiety?). I probably did not understand your story correctly, but I would love to better understand your view. I would also be happy to provide more resources about arguments for God and so on. I study philosophy, especially philosophy of religion, so I love this stuff. I also admit that, as a Christian, I would love to see you go down the path I did and follow Jesus once again. You probably noticed that I have not talked about the problem of evil, which I assume played a large role in your deconstruction. I am happy to talk about that as well.
Nice share. I was also raised Catholic. Do you think Catholicism is overall more harmful or helpful?
I stumbled upon this channel thanks to RUclips recommendations, and thank you for sharing your story. I was also a Christian apostate, but I reconverted later, so I am a Christian now. You mentioned that you hoped, as a fresh atheist, to get the best responses from Christians and theists about the existence of God and so forth. You wanted the best arguments. Unfortunately, most people have completely terrible views and arguments for their most important beliefs, so you cannot go to popular level media to find the truth. You must do your due diligence and read academic works: Biblical Scholarship, Philosophy of Religion, etc. I claim to have some idea of what the better arguments for Christianity are, so maybe I can provide some resources.
First, you also expressed certain views about Christianity that are incorrect. I am not sure if you meant that you actually believed them or were merely tempted to believe them (or something else?). You talked about how Christianity teaches that you are worthless, and you were worried about being good enough for God. Christianity teaches the opposite of that, so instead, you are worth a lot (why else would God incarnate as a human to sacrifice himself for all of humanity?) and there is no possible way to be good enough for God. Instead, Jesus died for us precisely because we were not good enough, and through him, we are forgiven. I think this is a fairly obvious truth about Christian doctrine, but if you want details, I can provide them.
Now for the good stuff. It seems to me that you held a Young Earth Creationist view of the Bible. Did you think the earth was created in six days about six thousand years ago? I assumed Catholics rejected this view, but certain comments made it seem that you held that view. For example, most Christians do not believe that the flood in Genesis was global, and it seems obvious that Noah's children married other people and did not have incestous relationships. I think the YEC view of the Bible is completely false and leads many to apostatize because of how ridiculous it is. Does this describe your situation? For a better understanding of the Bible, see the biblical scholar John Walton's series "The Lost World of Genesis."
As for arguments for God's existence, "Necessary Existence" by the philosophers Alexander Pruss and Joshua Rasmussen is great, but it is a bit technical. Joshua Rasmussen has more popular level books that you might be interested. [I originally posted links to fine tuning arguments for God and arguments for Christianity, but it looks like RUclips deletes comments with links automatically.]
Let's go back to the views you expressed about Christianity that are false: that you are worthless and not good enough for God. You also talked about your bisexual tendencies. My hypothesis is this, you incorrectly thought you had to be good enough for God, but you knew that you had homosexual desires, so you inferred that you were not actually good enough for God, and this created tension (anxiety?). I probably did not understand your story correctly, but I would love to better understand your view. I would also be happy to provide more resources about arguments for God and so on. I study philosophy, especially philosophy of religion, so I love this stuff. I also admit that, as a Christian, I would love to see you go down the path I did and follow Jesus once again. You probably noticed that I have not talked about the problem of evil, which I assume played a large role in your deconstruction. I am happy to talk about that as well.