Welcome, all! I hope this video can be cathartic for those of you who grew up like i did. Also, I hope to continue to shine a light on the harm of this religion whether fundamental or progressive. At the very least, i hope to entertain and educate a bit with these crazy stories from my childhood. Please give this one a like, comment, and share if you find it useful.
On your first point, I grew up in the Church of Christ. I was taught that God allowed demon possession in the 1st century so that Jesus could show his power. I was taught that demons weren't allowed on earth anymore since the spiritual gifts ceased because we don't need miracles anymore since the word of God was complete. However, when I went to Mexico to preach, even though I was still in the Church of Christ, it was a different culture. Many of the church of Christ Christians in Mexico do believe that demons are still on Earth, they believe in ghosts, and for a while, I told them that it wasn't possible. However, in my mind, I became scared and thought, could they really be here? I then started seeing shadow figures. The mind is so powerful, but it's also tricky. The mind can make your eyes see things that aren't really there. Now that I'm an atheist, I know it was just my mind playing tricks on me, but it was scary when I thought I was seeing shadow figures who I thought were demons.
Brandon, in all love and respect, you are really messing up by making all these videos. You have become the enemy of all that is good. There is literally hell to pay for such treason. First, you are tacitly approving child sex trafficking. That is, since atheists have no basis for morality, you therefore cannot condemn any behavior as being 'evil.' You can only tell the world that you make your own rules so everyone else is free to do the same. Hell is going to be a terrible place, but there are degrees. It will be worse for some, such as those who are blatantly attacking the way. The truth is the most important commodity on earth. By your own admission (I would hope), you do not claim to know the ultimate truths about life, its purpose, and its destiny. Do you not freely admit that, led by your limited, biased, and fallible intellect, you could definitely be wrong in making these horrifically evil videos? Will you even admit that? You are in the dark. I do not know if you have a background with the Christian faith, but I know, of a certainty, that you were never a Christian. That is because God is real. He made everything. He doesn't make sense to you because you cannot match God's intelligence nor His goodness. A Christian is someone who knows God. That is why I have absolute assurance because God is real and I know Him. You can know Christ. You cannot say that I did not warn you! Heaven is real, but all liars will have their place in the lake of fire! Know that if you scoff, you do so to your own eternal peril. One way or another, it won't affect my eternity! I just hope and pray that you will make things right with God. He died upon a Cross so that you may know Him - just by asking. Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
i didnt see the love and respect in telling me I approve of child trafficking. Your comments are disgusting, but are a great example of the reality of what I speak about in this video. @@kenshiloh
@@kenshilohAs an atheist, my morality comes from empathy and from common sense. That which I wouldn't want done to me, I don't do to others. Just as I wouldn't want my own children to be traff.icked, I don't want other people's children to be traff.icked By the way, you should read your Bible. I say read and not re-read because I can tell that you haven't read it. In Numbers 25, God told the israelites to kill all of the men, non-virgin women, boys, and infant boys and to spare only the virgin girls. What were a bunch of horny israelite soldiers going to do to virgin girls? That itself is genocide, kidnapping, and traff.icking. Your God is also proslavery. Leviticus 25:44-46 [44] So your male slave and your female slave will be of the people that are around you; From them you can buy male and female slaves. [45] You may also buy from the children of the strangers who live among you, and from their families born in your land, who are with you, whom you may possess. [46] And you may leave them as an inheritance to your children after you, as an hereditary possession; you will use them forever; But among your brothers the children of Israel you shall not rule each one over his brother harshly. Exodus 21:20-21 [20] And if a man strikes his servant or his maidservant with a stick, and dies under his hand, he shall be punished; [21] But if he survives for a day or two, he will not be punished, because he is his property. According to the Bible, if you were my slave, I could hurt you however much I desire to do so and I could cause you all the pain I wato to inflict upon you and as long as you don't die, your God is ok with that. I read scriptures like that, and I am filled with disgust and anger. That there are slaves and masters, masters whose property is a slave who has to serve his master and who can be whipped by his master, makes me so disgusted and angry. I cannot defend writings like that. It's immoral. Slavery is immoral. In the new testament it says in Ephesians 6:5 [5] Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in simplicity of heart, as Christ; And to Christian masters it says Ephesians 6:9 [9] And you, masters, do the same to them, forsaking threats, knowing that their Lord and yours is in heaven, and that with him there is no partiality. If God was really against slavery, he would have said MASTERS FREE YOUR FUCKING SLAVES AND LEAVE THEM ALONE BECAUSE EVERY HUMAN BEING DESERVES TO LIVE THEIR LIFE FREELY. According to the scriptures that I mentioned to you, biblically, it was okay for Europeans to go to Africa and make slaves and take them to the Americas. The Bible literally approves of this horrible barbarity. God is for that. It is awful. I can't see any positive side to slavery. It's horrible and shouldn't exist. If this God believes that it is okay for a person to be the property of another person and that when the master dies he can continue to be the slave of his children and the slave's children will also be slaves. I can't justify that. As an atheist, I posit that my own morality may exceeds the principles depicted in certain Biblical narratives, as I do not condone actions such as slavery, genocide, or the extreme punitive measures for transgressions like disobedience, homosexuality which has been scientifically been proven to be a natural part of some people's sexual identity and not a personal choice, or blasphemy that are sometimes associated with religious edicts. So, get out of here with your garbage. You're ignorant.
@@MindShift-Brandon Since I'm an atheist, I can't base my morality on anything. As if empathy and common sense weren't a thing. Also, God has been proven to be pro slavery, pro genocide, anti-feminist, and racist.
The adults teach all this terrifying shit to children then they're surprised and annoyed when children respond to that information poorly or with extreme fear. So intelligent
#3 hits home with me. I actually would not hang out with an uncle of mine who loved me, because he actually drunk a beer now and then. Looking back it makes me sick. He wasn’t an alcoholic, he just had a beer now and then. I was only 12 or 13, was taken to church 3 times a week, and this was my thought process. I’m 54 now, I stopped by his house the other day…..and had a beer with him.😊
The eating of the bread is symbolic of the period from the spring equinox to the summer solstice. The drinking of the blood (WINE) is the period from the summer solstice to the autumn equinox. Charity is the winter season of sharing the harvest of summer. Faith = spring, Hope = summer, and Charity = winter.
Hilarious too since the roots of the faith makes a clear distinction between alcohol consumption and intoxication. Alcohol is a gift from God, acceptable to use socially. Drunkenness and alcoholism are an abuse of those gifts. Those who have formed an addiction are strongly advised to avoid alcohol. Most end up with your typical "healthy" relationship with alcohol -- consuming 1 to 3 drinks in social and family settings and rarely if ever consuming any when alone.
I got saved every week to because i didn't want miss the Rapture. I also i realize now that when a Pastor is preaching on something shameful or condemning, it is generally because he is dealing with the issues himself.
It took me years to figure this out. When a preacher gets up there and screams crossdressers are going to burn in hell they are actually dealing with their own fears and struggles. We experienced this many times. We would go to the "leader" in private conversation on a Wednesday and Sunday morning what we went to talk about was the subject of the sermon. It was horror. I am still dealing with the trauma of those days
When I was in Pre-K, my parents celebrated Passover by having us watch the Charlton Hesston "Moses" film and explaining in detail the killing of the first born. I refused to go to bed until my parents put lamb's blood on our bedroom door. My dad humored me by putting a cup of blood over the doorway, but I kept crying that they didn't do it right. I stayed up all night watching the door, terrified a spirit would come in and kill my brother. Needless to say we never celebrated Passover again.
Wow. And what’s even more remarkable is how no one in the Christian and Jewish faiths cared about the innocent Egyptians kids slaughtered by the Israelites dead angels…a Sacarii.
I remember that exact story about the Columbine shooting and as a kid I thought, "that's so stupid. You could say aloud that you deny God's existence and he will know you don't mean it". But people definitely praised her for defending an invisible deity that should be PROTECTING her if he's real. Imagine how many people would convert to Christianity if the bullets literally bounced off like an invisible forcefield. That would be a very powerful statement of a God's existence.
Look up what happened this year at Lakewood in Houston. Worse was that a "good guy" with a gun, not only killed the wacko with a gun (who did NOT shoot anyone) PLUS the "good guy" damaged, with a bullet, the brain of the innocent wacko's son. If there is a "universal entity", this "news story" sure is "teaching" something different than the Columbine story....if true...worse... there are nutcases who don't think school shootings happen !!
Ad. "Imagine how many people would convert to Christianity if the bullets literally bounced off like an invisible forcefield. That would be a very powerful statement of a God's existence." vs. Luke 16 "27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ 30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”" Let's try a test first whether "the bullets literally bounced off like an invisible forcefield" would make any sense: Is evidence in form of found blood cells in dinosour bones (cf. "REAL BLOOD CELLS IN 65 MILLION YEAR OLD DINOSAUR BONES?"), from logical perspective, leading you into belief in old ages of dinosaurs proclaimed by evolutionism or is it more compatible with Biblical account on origin of the world?
@@stefansevcik1877 Oh, are you refering to the repeatedly debunked misinterpretation of a study, WHICH AUTHOR HERSELF SAID IS MISINTERPRETED? And why is a book having some dude's opinion used as some proof that it won't work?
Yep my parents are in their 60's They still think he's coming back. But when I point out that he isn't going to Rapture anyone They always follow it up with He's coming back for everyone on the day they die So what can you say to that?
@christophergibson7155 Do you know how many times Christians have been COMPLETELY WRONG about Jesus Christ's Second Coming? Hal Lindsey one of my Father's favorite Christian authors once predicted that The 1980's was The Last Decade in Human History and he BOLDLY DECLARED that Jesus was coming back sometime 1985-1989 My Father still has the book. Everytime they're wrong Christians move the goal posts It's obvious Jesus isn't going to Rapture anyone anytime soon. The only thing Christians have going for them is the uncertainty of The Afterlife and what happens after we die.
@christophergibson7155 Do you know how many times Christians have been COMPLETELY WRONG about Jesus's Second Coming and than moved the goal posts? Hal Lindsey one of my Father's favorite Christian Authors wrote a book in 1985 which my father still has why The 1980's was the last decade in Human History. Hal Lindsey BOLDLY DECLARED that Jesus would be coming back before the year 1990. And he confessed to being upset when The Berlin Wall fell because it meant WWIII wasn't going to happen and therefore it wasn't likely The Second Coming would happen either. Christians always move the goal posts when their predictions are wrong. The only thing they have going for them is the uncertainty of what happens after we die in The After Life if there is one.
@christophergibson7155 that's backwards. Recieve, Believe, repent makes more sense. Recieve evidence of God's existence. Believe that evidence Repent of your sins to that God. How are you so bad at this? I guess not learning from your mistakes is why you continue to try to convert people in RUclips comments.
Thanks so much for making this vid. I just discovered you today. My dad was an evangelical fundy pastor, bible literalist. This was a bit (or quite a bit) before your time, I was born in 1964 (the last year of the boomers) so I grew up in the 70s and 80s, a time of tim lahaye’s “left behind” paranoia, secret demonic cults that kill children the satanic panic), and when the “moral majority” became a thing. I had an experience a bit similar to yours regarding demon possession, but I just witnessed it I wasn’t directly involved. It was at night on a youth field trip, and there was a campfire. I heard weird sounds, scary sounds, so I went out and saw my male youth leader sitting on my female friend right by the campfire, yelling at the “demon”. It was TERRIFYING. I was also terrified of the rapture. Any time my parents weren’t around I was scared I’d been left behind. I had night terrors where I literally didn’t sleep for YEARS. It started in first grade. I fell asleep on the bus, in class, and was always exhausted. Then there was the evil EVIL influence of evangelical ministries especially “focus on that family” led by the monster James Dobson. He wrote a book in the 70s that told Christian parents to abuse their kids. Not just a little bit, but a lot. They shouldn’t kill us but anything short of murder was fine. And both my parents believed it. I was horrifically abused in the name of god and Jesus. It resulted, later in life, with my having bipolar disorder, ptsd and chronic anxiety. I didn’t even feel like a person, I felt like an empty shell. I ended up marrying a man who was violent, jealous, and would kill me if I didn’t love him back. He was exactly like the gawd of the bible. I became a drug addict for years. It wasn’t until my 30s that my life was so awful, I read the whole bible cover to cover for the first time. I was looking for answers in the bible but what I got was horror. Which led me to research compulsively for several years. In my early 40s, it suddenly hit me that it WAS ALL A LIE, AN ENORMOUS HOAX. I was SHOCKED!!!!!!!!! i never expected that to happen, not ever. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. Please keep sharing these vids. So many Christian ppl are miserable and don’t know why.
When your deity says if you die with a single sin on your soul then it's eternal torture with no chance of getting out, why WOULDN'T you adhere to the religion to the most extreme degree? According to their own book, all the not so extreme Christians are all going to hell.
@@MindShift-Brandon I thought the deal was that nobody, not even the most strict adherents, can be completely free of sin, but that's fine as long as you repent, admit that you're a terrible, broken person, and ask for the gift of salvation. But that's the issue of works vs faith that nobody can agree on, I guess. I want to know, however, when a Christian accuses atheists of "just wanting to sin", is it a good idea or not to respond that if you want to sin and get away with it, you should be a Christian, because then your sins will be forgiven?
@@reformCopyright Good point! Although a real Christian would not have that mentality. Personally, i chose to be a Calvinist because (I reasoned) if even 1% depended on me, i was doomed. Similar to Martin Luther and Paul the apostle, I KNEW that even my best thoughts or deeds were like filthy menstrual rags, so salvation had to be by faith ALONE, grace ALONE and Christ ALONE. And because "perfect love casts out all fear," i was not afraid of the future at all. All the other people in my home group were amazed that I had no fear, not even of God. I could understand Arminians thinking this way, because they are depending on their works to please God, but why would Reformed believers still be afraid? I think it's because they have fuzzy or polluted thinking on the topic. But no one has the time or interest to think it through.
But you already have to be extreme to believe anything like that in the first place. So yes, one extreme belief begets other extreme beliefs… but if you don’t have an initial extreme belief then you won’t develop more extreme beliefs and behaviors. That’s why cults aim to recruit young kids (gullible because they’re just little kids) and people in extreme desperate situations (willing to believe anything for a chance at hope and community).
@@emmanarotzky6565 Yep. I'm sure there is a connection between extremely religious people and things like conspiracy theorists. When you're made to believe total nonsense as fact then it's easier to believe other total nonsense as fact. Couple that with a strong in-group/out-group dynamic where YOU'RE the special one and everyone else not like you is bad and deserves the bad things that happen to them, and it's easy to convince people of just about anything. Just tell them they're special and they'll eat it up.
Solid…so very solid. I don’t talk a lot about this, but, in my late 20’s, the parental childhood abuse came to a head, and I deal with dissociation. My first husband insisted that we participate in very fundamentalist church groups and Bible studies, and so when their abuse (I realized that fundamentalism is extremely abusive) evoked dissociative reactions - the church folks would hold me down and try to drive the demons out What I needed (and finally got) was therapy with a trained psychologist, not being screamed over and told how horrible I was. I reached a point I could no longer deal with the Evangelical/Fundamentalist world, the Campus. Crusade witnessing campaigns, the women’s conferences where it was ‘be submissive, be in the kitchen, have children’, the Christian ‘bubble’ of Christian television, Christian bookstores, Christian schools, only other Christians as friends - I had to leave it behind I did become a Roman Catholic for a time, went through RCIA, even got a masters in theology from Loyola Marymount in 2008. I had been attracted to Roman Catholicism because there is some intellectual interest - the Doctors of the Church and Jesuits are extremely bright and rather mischievous (the priests at Loyola Marymount would say all kinds of things - on some level, they didn’t take it seriously). The child abuse scandal and the fact that half of humankind was denied any significant role - the whole Marian devotion, the WORSHIP, for all the Catholic protest that “we don’t worship Mary” is just a sop to women, something to be pointed to: “see! we value Mary!” - I couldn’t be a Roman Catholic any longer Watching the History Channel about WWII really caused me to wonder about the existence of God - how could this Being stand by while 70-80 million people died? How could God countenance slavery? child abuse? Poverty, disease and hunger? Thank you very much, Brandon
@@onedaya_martian1238Brandon's channel is my main go to channel, but there are lots of others too. Seen any vids of NonStampCollector? He's hilarious plus a fellow Aussie. He does ALL the speech himself!?
I did Quaker, loved that as it was concerned with helping people and not about what folks got up to in the bedroom. then I dabbled in Paganism as it was colourful but i thought it a bit silly so went Catholic as I loved the bells and smels, the statues and the pictures and renaisance music. Now i just enjoy the music, the churches and architecture and art, just like going into an old temple or mosque.
That story about the "demon possessed" boy broke my heart, both for him and for you + the other kids who were indoctrinated/conditioned into being complicit in his suffering
My Catholic mother attended an Assembly of God church for a few years when I was a kid. As someone with ASD, the constant noise, people moving and speaking violently, etc freaked me out and sent me into fits of withdrawal which of course were interpreted as demonic possession by the group. Nothing sends an autistic kid into more of a tailspin as having people touching her and screaming at her against her will. This happened many times. What finally made my mother stop going to the church was that my Jewish father (who never went because he thought that all Christian churches were the same) saw that I had stopped eating and was suicidal and asked why. It took a threat of divorce, not her kid becoming suicidal, to make my mother stop. I have informed her that if she ever rejoins, I am done with her for life. Everything Brandon said was true.
@@Charlotte_Martel Tears and hugs through the internet. Religious dogma IS a mental disorder, ASD is a physical issue requiring understanding, attention and care ... indoctrination is full on abuse.
@@jaynajuly2140 Thank you for the kind words. Yes, I am beyond grateful to my father for stepping in to stop this. It was especially difficult for him since he came from a traditional background where the mother rules the household, but he saved my life by doing so. I would have far rather that my mother beat me than to subject me to that torture.
The worst part of rapture anxiety by far is the guilt you feel for fearing the rapture. All the adults around you are excited, and you’re terrified you’ll never grow up… and you feel like a bad Christian for not also being excited.
Oh Brandon! Your point by point description of the altar call brought back so many memories' in the Southern Baptist Church. The guilt, the shame, the manipulation that I thought was the 'Holy Spirit'. It took me years to break free but I am now and living a more peaceful, fulfilled life than ever before. I love your channel!
@@MindShift-Brandon It was worth it. I triggered with you! Alter calls were always preceded by a story where some poor bastard was about to die in some way and at the last minute repented, barely missing going to hell. No wonder I was a bed wetter until I was six. Alter calls should come with free plastic sheets! 😳🥴🤫😭
Yes! It’s something you completely forget about when you stop going to church. At a funeral a few years ago, the speaker did an alter call and it brought it all rushing back.
One day, out of curiosity, I tried to conjure up Satan to see if he really existed, when to my surprise he suddenly appeared. I was terrified at how evil he was and I quickly banished him. Afterwards I realized that I had created Satan using the power of my own imagination. Later, when I tried to make God and Jesus appear, nothing happened.
The Creator KNOWS that thousands of years ago, Jesus Christ was hated, insulted, falsely accused, tortured, and murdered by arrogant, cruel, and merciless persons who were violently opposed and against Jesus Christ's authority and teachings about the "Kingdom of God" and "Resurrection of the Dead". Atheists and Christians just can't accept the TRUTH about themselves. Atheists, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and fanatics of all kinds of Religions KNOW and are fully aware that they are also opposed and against the authority and teachings of Jesus Christ about the "Kingdom of God" and "Resurrection of the Dead" exactly like the arrogant, merciless, and cruel murderers of Jesus Christ thousands of years ago. Atheists, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and fanatics of all kinds of Religions KNOW and are fully aware that they are Satan the Devil's spreaders of the LIES and false claims that - 1. the Creator is worthless, useless, and undeserving to be honored and respected as the True and Sovereign God 2. Jesus Christ is worthless, useless, and undeserving to be honored and respected as the Creator's Chosen King and Ruler of the heavens and the earth. The Creator's favor and reward of ETERNAL LIFE and existence on earth without sufferings, pains, griefs, sickness, and death is NOT for arrogant, cruel, hateful, and merciless persons NOT for liars, slanders, deceivers, traitors, and murderers but ONLY for lowly, ordinary, kind, and respectful persons on earth who honor and obey Jesus Christ as their loving, kind, and merciful Master and Heavenly King and believe his teachings about the "Kingdom of God" and "Resurrection of the Dead" The "Resurrection of the Dead" is NOT for arrogant, cruel, hateful, and merciless persons NOT for liars, slanderers, deceivers, traitors, and murderers but ONLY for lowly, ordinary, kind, and respectful persons who died recently and thousands of years ago like Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Job, Ruth, Naomi, King David, Jesus Christ's Followers and disciples, and many others, They will all be RESURRECTED back to life in the right and proper time so they can happily, abundantly, and peacefully live and exist on earth forever as subjects and citizens of the "KINGDOM of GOD" and fully enjoy the eternal love, kindness, goodness, generosities, compassions, favors, and blessings of the Creator and his Christ for eternity under the loving and kind rulership, guidance, and protection of Jesus Christ as the Creator's Chosen King and Ruler of the heavens and the earth.
@@larrytruelove8659 Playing dumb and denials by Evangelicals are rejected and dismissed at this point, by all non believers due to the horrible conduct and dishonorable character of the loudest, most hateful Christians the tens of millions of Cult-45 Evangelicals. This is not a non beliver perception problem. We know what we see, hear and suffer abuse from these Christians. This is Christianity's problem. And you won't convince us "they're not real Christians," and do you know why? They angrily retort the same thing back in reverse, and proclaim you're not a true Christian. And that's how the religion plays its gaslighting games.
@@larrytruelove8659 Playing dumb and denials by Evangelicals are rejected and dismissed at this point, by all non believers due to the conduct and character of the Evangelicals, the tens of millions of Cult-45 Evangelicals. This is _not_ a non beliver perception problem. We know what we see, hear and suffer abuse from these people. This is the religion's problem the everyone can see and hear. You can't hide it. And you won't convince us "they're not real belivers," and do you know why? They angrily retort the same thing back in reverse, and proclaim their detractors are not true belivers. And that's how the religion plays its gaslighting games.
@@larrytruelove8659 Of course you don't. But this is exactly the perception of non-believers. That means its not s non-belivers issue. It's a Christianity issue.
At risk of sounding like a broken record fantastic episode, Brandon. The honesty and sincerity and accurate information introduces exposes reality within the Christian faith, and actually opens the door for conversation. Thank you for what you do.
When Christians try to say I wasn’t really “saved” even though I genuinely spoke in tongues. They say “how can you be a nonbeliever?” Until I started asking the question; why do you assume this emotional experience of the human mind is from the god you believe in? That’s literally all it is; an extreme emotional human experience. This practice of letting your emotions pour out speaking in “tongues” is done in so many other religions of than Christianity. Yet despite their beliefs being genuine to them, Christians will claim they’re not or that they experienced “tongues of the devil”. It truly is preposterous.
I’m glad you’re speaking on this. I too have genuinely spoken in tongues and I’m having conflicting feelings about it. I’m deconstructing, and I’ve asked myself the question “well why can i speak in tongues then?’’ I haven’t found anyone else (except you now) who spoke in tongues and have stopped believing. I say all this to say- It’s comforting to know I’m not alone.
Where in the bible does it say jabbering in some unintelligible way should be expected? Giving the apostles the ability to communicate with people no matter what language they spoke I seem to recall but not this tongues thing that I have never seen any evidence of being a language and usually just appears to be similar sounding repeated sounds.
@@murph8411 It’s how they interpreted the scripture depending on what religious affiliation you were apart of. I’ve seen arguments for and against the “jabbering of unintelligible” tongues. Neither of them interests me anymore; only when I was a believer. My focus is on more important things. Such as making the most of the remaining years I have here on Earth.
I learned it was a "Trigger Effect". What the claim is God is actually a self hypnosis and then your mouth explodes with sounds that are not words. Total rubbish and is dangerous to do.
@@HelloYellowShooBluetongues is only used when it is a real language and there is someone to listen and translate. What those churches do is a theatric, magic trick.
I feel seen. The alienation of non-Christians (or different types of Christians,) was a huge part of my childhood. I probably missed out on a lot of relationships because I viewed others as "enemies. "
Hopefully the time missed with toxic relations was getting to know markb7135 better...and at least having fun. The scars of trauma from dystopian thinking don't make everyone stronger. Hugs from a person who enjoyed not being part of that crowd and finds those outside of it, who just view life without dogma or selfishness, the best kind of folks to 'hang" with. Regards.
@@jshud3Yes, when I realized Yahweh was originally a war god, and was turned into the One God, it all made so much more sense. If the only god you have is a war god, then your life is going to be all war.
Thanks for blurring the cool art for the squeamish among us. Means a lot that you listened. Wouldn't have even given feedback but I feel like your channel is one of the most important on RUclips. Don't want anything to distract from your words. I'm a forty year old woman who only started to realize the harm all this has caused me in the past year. Your humility, intelligence, and humanity are a huge comfort and I have already recommended your channel to someone. Thanks for being brave and selfless. It's helping me so much.
I was raised Sountern Baptist then 1st Baptist until high school then full gospel AG (Assembly of God! I can relate with everything you’ve said! I’m 72 and I believe I’ve been deconverting, deconstructing since I was about ten years old when I was ‘forced’ to go ‘down front’ to accept the lord! I had zero idea of what I was doing but my gramma told me I need to do it. About 6 months ago I made the final decision to deconstruct and talk about REALLY being born again!!! 🎉I’ve never been so free! Thank you for all you’re doing to help! 💜
As a former catholic altar boy, while I hold no love for the catholic church, I'm still always surprised and appalled about how people are treated in the evangelical church.
Yes, I am grateful for my skeptical semi-practicing Catholic family. Some time ago my wife and I found "Thief in the Night" on RUclips. She was terrified by it as a kid, and for her it still calls up disturbing feelings. But my Catholic background made me immune, I found it laughable.
Hahaha we burned our Pokémon cards too. The alakazam card burned green (due to the holographic coating or whatever) and my parents convinced me it was the satanicness burning off. Good times...um...I think.
My wife was brought up in a Pentecostal Church so I am familiar with all the things you brought up. She still strongly believes in the Devil and his demons who are regularly trying to harm us or move us away from God.
@BeccaYoley the channel on YT "Holy Koolaid" has some videos of televangelists and their "faith healing" meetings. Actual footage from the TV shows, interviews with the so-called "healed," some of the staff that worked behind the scenes setting up the stuff. After watching those videos, plus a few others by other channels, I am amazed that the FBI doesn't bust them under RICO. I suppose the First Amendment precludes it, but it should not. The millions they swindle from the gullible saps should be very troubling.
Look up the "the one trick they don't tell you about"!! This is making folks who have one leg slightly shorter than another, and thus have a limp, have the preacher "pray upon them". The preacher then pulls the shoe of person to be healed out a bit from the foot of the shorter leg and "PAISE TO GEEBUS ... A MIRACLE". "Religion...its leads to abuse."
@@onedaya_martian1238I've seen that debunked on a few videos on the Holy Koolaid channel, and even saw how they did that. Reminds me of a trick my dad used to play on the young nieces and nephews in our family; he would tell them he could pull one arm out farther than the other. He would pull it slowly and the kids watched that, not seeing that the long shirt sleeve was not moving. I hope I explained it clearly.
When I was 14My mother was so mad at me for not listening to her and talking back She sat on top of me and tried to cast out demons.... Apparently they wouldn't come out lol
This one made my heart hurt. Your childhood was fraught with feelings and ideas children should not have to deal with. The grace you show your mom is touching. She was indeed doing her best although her beliefs were/are ultimately harmful. I’ve recently thanked my parents for not raising me in a fundie church even though I grew up in a very conservative town. Keep up the good work!
I can relate to waaay too much to all of this. It still blows my mind how utterly nuts it sounds when said out loud. We spent time in both the Fundie church and the ‘holy-roller’ side…man. Thank you for doing vids like this one! So glad these stories are getting told. ❤
Brandon it takes courage to expose yourself and the broken mindset of your journey. I really think you are helping others who are struggling with their own personal journey out of a religious upbringing. As I read thru the comments in this video it is staggering to see how many people struggle with deconstructing, all because they were targeted as children.
You made me think about a time in after school religion class where I inadvertently “toed the line” in terms of the dogma of Catholicism. Around the time I was learning about the saints, I was learning about Greek Mythology in public school. I learned about the twelve major Olympian gods at the same time I was learning about the Twelve Apostles. Back to the point, in after school religion class we were learning about the saints. I, very cluelessly, raised my hand and asked, “Are the saints in anyway like the minor gods and goddesses in other religions?” The room went cold. My teacher gave me an icy glare. I was scared but I didn’t quite know what I said that was wrong. Next week, we had a lesson where we were taught about the “veneration” of the Saints as opposed to the worship of Christ. With hindsight being 20/20, I think my theological faux pas was the cause of the lesson. I never brought up polytheism again and, rather than praying to not go to hell, I prayed that the teacher wouldn’t punish me or worse, I prayed that the other kids wouldn’t beat me up after class. Odd how I feared earthly punishment more than divine punishment. Oh well, off to Room 101 I go! 😄
I wondered about this too! I didn't start really learning about religion until 7th grade when I went from public to Catholic school, and it just seemed to me like saints were lesser deities. I mean, why did you have to pray to a saint to pray on your behalf? Why not just talk straight to the Big Guy Himself? That's what my mom taught me. (Mom was raised Catholic, but hated the way the priests and nuns ran things. She never quite got over the faith though.) The worship of the Virgin Mary was really just a way of appropriating the mother fertility goddesses of the European pagan religions to make Christianity more palpable when Rome was forcing everyone to convert. But no, the Church is not anything like any other faith in the world. Nope, they're the real deal because they say so!
😂 the side eye, being told to stop asking questions and just have faith at my first catechism class let me know immediately that this was just doctrine school: write down what you're told and cram it so you can pass a test so you never have to do it again.
Honestly I believe this is a reason why syncretism with pagan faiths and beliefs kmost often indigenous) happens much more commonly in Catholicism than it does with other forms of Christianity. So many Catholic "saints" are actually pagan figures who were adapted into Christianity, like the Celtic goddess Brigid and Saint Bridget of Ireland, and how Catholicism and folk beliefs are heavily intertwined in Latin America.
- Demons are a fantastic character plot device. In fiction. - Being a child of the 80's End Times Prophecy was so stitched into the fabric of being an American it wasn't funny. - (Not in any way minimizing Christians who are actually persecuted in other countries), funny how American Christians will say they are persecuted, but I was the one getting rocks hurled at my head and being told I'd go to the bad-forever-place for not being one of them. And no, "not all Christians" but yes a whole lot of them. - My 8th grade Life Science teacher was a YEC. He refused to teach that unit, turned off the lights and left the room for 3 days while we read 5 chapters. In the dark. He told us "yes, it will be on the test, but I'm not teaching it to you." For super extra bland funzies, our health teacher was a YEC too. Thankfully the anatomy & physiology/physics teacher was a 'rum in the coffee' atheist and set us straight on some of the wonky biology. He also showed a video of natural child birth and we had zero pregnancies in my graduating class. Ah yes, the lovely music of the Russian hell hole. I remember that. - I think prophecy was really hyped up in the media at that time too. - I didn't deal much with Purity Culture, but I remember 1 specific church service where these girls had gotten caught sleeping with some slightly older boys, and the minister did this whole forgiveness thing over them, but in the same breath kicked my friend's older sister out of the church while her family was sitting right there because she listened to heavy metal music and dyed her hair black. All I could think was that the first girls families had enough money to pay the church, and my friend's parents didn't, because those girls dyed their hair too. I'd hate to think it was the difference between blonde and brunette, but hey, it was the 80's. Made this jet black haired kid feel real welcome. Oh, there was also a lady they convinced to stay with her abusive husband. That got bad. - Dad bought me Left Behind. It was so bad. So so so bad. It was an awful book. But the image of the neatly folded clothes stuck with me and I thought that was hilarious. - My parents didn't get me baptized as a baby. My prospective godparents were different flavors of Christian, and none of the churches would let all 4 of them in at the same time, so my mother said f-it. It was a topic of great concern while I was growing up. Not for me, for my Christian friends. - My autistic a-- wondering why everyone is raising their hands & swaying back & forth. Meanwhile I'm still trying to figure out what page we're supposed to be on. I forgot about the fainters in church, so thank you for that memory. I figured that was the perfume fumes. Some of my friends & I would practice fainting gracefully, so that behavior is probably largely performative.
That story of the boy being "exorcised" is horrifying and heart breaking. I am autistic and thankfully did not grow up in a religious environment, and while I still have a fair bit of trauma from what I did go through, I cannot imagine the lasting damage that must have done to that poor child. That makes me so angry.
It really makes me angry for him and every other neurodivergent kid who had to go through this, specially right now when Information is widely available.
My whole family got sucked into the I Found It movement in the early 1970s, I was about 22. The same charismatic movement that made Pentecostal practices more mainstream. Tongues (glossolalia), slain in the spirit, “healing” services and all. My dad became a pastor at around 50, my brother became a pastor, my sister and I taught Sunday School and VBS. I attended an Assembly of God church for a few years, then my brother’s non-denominational charismatic church. For almost 40 years I was a faithful follower. Never experiencing anything “spiritual “, having a single prayer answered or even knowing anyone who did left me feeling personally rejected and questioning the entire manmade cult. As a non-traditional college student the answers found in science and history made a lot more sense to me than the Bible’s fairytales. Traveling the world as a flight attendant showed me how every culture creates their own belief system. None are real or factually based. I have been free for about 10 years and it is completely liberating! I will never live in The Dark Ages again! My enlightenment came late in life but, at least it happened! Congrats to you Brandon for breaking free young enough to save your children from the guilt and shame produced by the dogma. I hope your wife has an epiphany soon! So much easier to be on the same path through life. My husband was resistant for a long time but, slowly he is coming around. Hard to change tracks later in life!
Thanks so much for this. So encouraging to hear about your husband. My wife and i had one of our best convos yet just last night via religion. I still see no end insight for her, but had my first glimmer of faint hope.
@@MindShift-Brandon The pandemic helped speed up my husband’s thought process in questioning the whole mythology. Just having that break from consistent re-enforcement of the cult beliefs was enormously helpful. He isn’t all the way there yet but, he is close! When I was still flying I had to work almost every Sundayl The break from re-indoctrination was all I needed to finish off what the science and exposure to other cultures had begun. Ever think of an extended holiday to a remote location? He, he, he! 😆 Just like deconverting a Moonie!
I, too, grew up in a fundamentalist family and church. Though I know my parents loved me and really thought they were doing their best, I now consider my upbringing to be abusive. When I was 9, my mother told me that my Presbyterian best friend was probably going to hell since she wasn't "saved" and instead believed in good works to get to heaven. I was traumatized for years.
@@artemis_studios6555 When I made the move from Independent Baptist to Methodist, my fundie friends literally told me that it really made no difference what church I was going to, since "those" churches were all the same.
I was raised in the Assembly of God denomination and it sounded like you were describing my childhood. It was all very traumatic and watching your video brought back some bad memories. I was terrified of communion, because before the ritual, we were all warned by the preacher that if we had partaken and were unworthy, then we would have Jesus' blood on our hands and would be cursed with disease or death. During worship, sometimes a man in our congregation would take out his handkerchief and go running circles around the pews, while shouting what sounded like a war whoop. Some people would fall over backwards with ushers catching and lowering them to the floor. It was called "being slain in the spirit". There was always a period where the congregation was supposed to stand up and give a testimony. There was a lot of peer pressure on everyone, and the pastor would not continue until at least two or three had spoken. I was continually threatened with the idea that the rapture could happen at any time. I was very frightened for my "unsaved" dad and relatives. I could go on, but suffice to say, I'm so glad that I finally escaped the clutches of the Christianity cult.
Total fantastical INSANITY !!! I've been there, almost exactly the same situation as you, Brandon. What a nightmare we had to endure!! Getting out of Christianity is the best thing you can do
Regarding demons, my friend and I were just talking about this the other day. As an elementary school child, you have no context for the frequency of things, and when adults would talk about demon possession, they would talk about it with as much frequency as say, someone getting in a car accident, or someone getting cancer, or someone having something unfortunate happen to them. And so you start to think "Wow, demon possession happens pretty frequently and so I really need to be careful to avoid this in the same way I'm careful when crossing the street" It was such a potent fear. I remember for a week in like 3rd grade I was terrified to go to bed because I would see shadows and my mind would think they were demons in my room.
As someone who is in the early stages of deconstruction I love these more personal and long formated videos. Especially because they go into the fundamentals of the christian faith. Thank you Brandon for your work
I was raised fundamentalist, we were Presbyterian first and later Baptist, and now I'm an atheist. All this stuff about speaking in tongues and casting out demons is so utterly bizarre to me.
Omg this just gave me PTSD. I swear I buried all of this in the back of my mind but I just relieved all my childhood trauma of growing up in a charismatic household. The part of the devil sitting at the end of the bed, jeez I couldn’t sleep for years as a child thinking the devil and demons were waiting to attack me. Thanks for sharing and being open to what many of us experienced over some insane nonsense.
My grandparents believed that Jesus would come again before they died. He didn't. My parents believed that Jesus would come again before they died. He didn't. All of my christian friends and family believe that Jesus will come again before we die. We'll see. I believed it for the majority of my life, going down to the altar pretty much every Sunday "just in case" my christianity "didn't take." The more I read my bible, the more upset with God I got and the less I believed. The more i watched people pray, believing with all of their hearts, for healing that didn't happen, the less I believed. I pretty much stopped praying because I figured if there was a god, he either wasn't listening or didn't care. Either way, he was going to do what HE wanted rather than what we were praying for. I finally realized that i flat-out no longer believed. Thank you, Brandon for another eye-opening video!
@@christophergibson7155Well, well. Another tool for "god" here to try to make people feel guilty for losing their faith. When you lose belief in god you lose faith in his other iterations at the same time, all three that are somehow one. I would think you could have figured that out yourself. A gradual realization that the god you've been raised to believe in has done next to nothing over the last couple thousand years when he is supposedly all powerful is a fairly compelling argument against his existence. It's not the only argument, I'll grant, but it's AWFULLY convincing, especially if you have a long life of dealing with his absence.
So, we had the same childhood! I was raised in non-denominational "progressive" Christianity but everything you've said was SPOT ON!! WOW!!! Please make another 15 lists because you're talking about everything I've ever gone through. Thank you for this, it's therapeutic and healing to know I'm not crazy and making my childhood up. The trauma sometimes makes me feel like it never happened or that I've suppressed some of the events that took place to protect myself. Recently, I told my therapist about my newfound atheism, and we began exploring why. Suddenly, all the traumatic memories came out and now, I'm facing them so I can heal. It's very emotional, painful, and scary. Watching your videos helps tremendously. PLEASE, if you can do another video like this, it's way more helpful than you'll ever know!
I can't begin to tell you how much this resonated with me. The part where you described alter call literally brought me back there in tears because of rhe trauma of thinking how evil I was and that I needed help. I hope anyone who reads this knows you are good, you are loverd as long as you are kind to people. The other thing that really was the falling from the holy Spirit crap. There was a guy named Mark shell that came to our church. We all went to the front, we were praying and speaking in tongues and then he'd come by and touch people's foreheads and they were supposed to then he'd come by and touch people's forehead and they would just fall. Well he came over to me and touch my forehead and I didn't drop. He then literally try to force me to the ground. instead of concluding that the entire thing was hystericals and emotion. I concluded that he was demonic and a false preacher. The mindset it soooo messed up. But I will say that that was one of the first cracks in my armor that made me think this is all crap. What an incredible video Brandon. Thank you.
Oh man. Thanks for sharing so much back. Whats amazing is that these more fundamentalist actions can show even faster how false it all is but they are typically coming with people who believe even more strongly. Such insanity!
Oh man, my mom was really into "End Time Prophecy" videos and they TERRIFIED ME as a child and sent me into an extremely dark and deep spiral of depression for years and years. i 100% believed that the world was going to end on september 23rd 2017 and it shattered my world. I just stayed in my room all day, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, i could go on and on and it wasn't just the end of the world but God himself and everything i read in the bible made me feel like a worthless piece of sh**. i started having suic*dal thoughts... ugh it was rough man.
I was utterly shocked that Apocalyptic dates were still given post 2000. There was such hype built around the new millennium that I thought that, when that failed, people would return to the more sensible (and more Biblical) notion of "No man knows the hour." One thing that I've always wondered is why, if adults REALLY believed that the End is near, they would even have children, go to university, get married, etc. Wouldn't they spend every moment of every day trying to save souls for the imminent destruction of everything? Makes no sense.
@@utubepunk Absolutely. Paul certainly seems to think that Jesus will return in Paul's generation or shortly there after, and that salvation/winning souls should be one's sole focus. Paul even says that marriage is only preferable if one cannot behave as a celibate and wishes to avoid hell for his sexual desire. Robert Price holds (and I agree) that Jesus' message only makes sense when one views it under the lens of Apocalypticism.
No doubt this is one of my top favorite, if not my favorite, Mind Shift episode with Brandon. I laughed so hard picturing young Brandon believing and going along with all this nonsense! Everything you said seems to go totally against the mature, intelligent and logical Brandon I have come to know on this channel. Fascinating stories for someone raised as a mainstream Catholic. Amazed you pulled out of that cultish culture.
This was 100% my whole childhood and even at 40, my parents text me almost daily, fear, panic, end times prep, and politics mixed with religion. Most of them time I dont reply because it just triggers everything.
I grew up in the Church of God which is almost exactly like the Assembly’s of God, so I can testify that this stuff is very normal in this denomination.
I also want to say that I think your mother was doing what she thought was right. I find myself bitter at being lied to, and being scared of hell and demons at at an age when I wasn’t developed enough to see that it was obvious bs. But, then I think, well, these people thought they were doing right. So, that leaves no one to really go after except the religion itself.
I keep coming back as I’m listening, this is so rich. You’re right! After you get the Holy Spirit you feel empowered. You have the same understanding as I over it. About it being a secret prayer language, not necessarily needing a translation but sometimes an interpretation. And the devil stealing normal prayer. I’ve been taught the same. I know it’s bunk but I still do it from time to time.
@@allenmitchell09 I try to be kind to my mother and her relatives in remembering that point. If one TRULY believes in hell and eternal torture, then the most loving thing he/she could do for his/her child is to try to save that child from such a horrific fate. Still, it has permanently wrecked my relationship with my mother to the point that I never left her alone with my children in fear of her brainwashing them.
Brandon, after all you experienced as a young person raised in the church, I'm quite impressed you made it out with your sanity intact. I know there are a multitude who do not. Thank you for putting yourself out there. It will have a profound, snowball effect in the future for those who were raised as you were. You made it, and you're a hero!
Man end times prophecies used to scare me to death when I was a Christian lol. Terrified me for years waiting for the moment, but thankfully I grew out of religion. Good video
Incredible video Brandon. My former church sadly checks off all these boxes. Your point that Jesus did not get baptized as a child is an astute one that surprisingly doesn’t get any attention when living a “Christ like Life”
Jesus, the sun, is baptized every January as the sun passes through Aquarius. As the lamb, he is "slain" as the sun passes through March (Aries constellation). We must also remember that the sun is born again at the winter solstice when the sun appears to move northward. This is necessary to go to Heaven aka the period from the spring equinox to the autumn equinox. The end of the world is the sun's passing over from winter to spring where a new sacred year begins again, and again, and again................
I wish I could have a one on one conversation with you. When you said how grateful you are that you won’t be passing this stuff to your children, it made me wonder how you and your wife handled that. I’d assume she would want them raised as Christian kids. It’s got to be so damn difficult to maneuver through this. I became an atheist right around the same time my daughter did. We were riding in our truck and she said, “Mommy, I don’t think I believe in god”. I said that I didn’t either. We had been having conversations about this because she went to a kids church thing with one of her friends (they were about 8-9 yrs old) & she liked the pastor. I asked her to ask him a couple questions (I forget what they were), he said he’d like to talk with me because he couldn’t give her an answer. I never met with him. The very next day I watched a Hitch video and I was done. This happened within 2 days so I (and my daughter) were lucky. You were MUCH more indoctrinated and I give you so much credit for getting out!! Sorry this is so long but you inspire me😊
I remember my very Catholic grandparents on my dad's side telling how much Jesus loved me and to beware the Devil around every corner. i was scared the Devil was going to tempt me to sin and then I would go to hell. I was also afraid that I did not love Jesus enough and as a result would be punished in hell. I remember my grandmother using the pictures in a church calendar to teach me the story of Genesis and the Fall of Man. In today's terms my grandparents were creationists because they considered the account in Genesis as literal history. Later, in High School I went to a Fundamentalist church with friends where I was shown the movie, "A thief in the Night" and its sequel. It scared the hell out of me. This was in the late 1970's when Hal Lindsey's book "The Late Great Planet Earth" was very popular in church circles. What impressed me as a teen was how well everything fit together in the fulfillment of prophecy. The Rapture was supposed to happen soon. I graduated from high school and time went on. Then the 80's came and went and the 90's came and went and the 20th Century came and went along with the 2nd Millennium. Now we are in the 21st Century and 24 years into the 3rd Millennium and we are still here. I wonder how many people my age that were taught the end was here in the 1970's still believe it? Having grown up Catholic and having also gone to Protestant Fundamentalist churches I have gotten it from both sides. I could tell you some things but that would involve a much longer post!
"A Thief in the Night" gave me such nightmares as a child. Even though I didn't believe in the Rapture theology, there was always that "What if?" doubt that plagued my mind. I recently re-watched it as an adult with my husband and was shocked at how any adult could have taken this seriously.
This is by far the most intelligent, compelling, and credible responses to these absurd, abusive and very damaging beliefs…it’s a testament to you that you emerged as healthy and well adjusted as you seem to be here. I greatly admire you….
The placement of the couch in our living room when I was a child allowed me to see the television and the garage door light. When that light came on, I changed the channel--twice, since the remote had a recall button. I've speculated about the idea of recruiting ex-fundamentalists as spies and operatives. We had our training in life in an authoritarian regime from birth.
My father was a Baptist pastor. My mother became a fundamentalist and constantly had the trinity broadcasting network on tv. She spent thousands of dollars on tithes and merchandise from megachurches. She took us to see Benny Hinn. She prayed in tounges , got drunk in the spirit, she went on a missionary trip to china when I was 7 years old. When I was in middle school my parents woke me for school to tell me that they saw Jesus come up the driveway and walk into my body…and meanwhile I just went to school thinking I don’t feel different and I’m sure no one at school has parents that say things like this to them.. she wanted to take me out of school because they taught us evolution theory. I’m 38 now and still struggle, I have anxiety and depression, my older brother has been in every religion and joined a few cults . I’m still so confused and I am very validated by your words. Thank you so much !!
Hi Brandon, thank you so much for this video. I am a Gay man, who is well in his 70's now and free from religion. During my teenage years I attended a very strict fundamentalist church, and I still continue to deal with the trauma from that experience. One part of your video brought back a memory that made me smile. In the early 1950's when I was 5 y/o, my father had a severe stroke and had to be hospitalized in the VA at Fayetteville, AR. My mother sent me to live with my cousins Perl and Johnny. This was fine with me since I loved their farm animals and living the rustic life. They had no running water, plumbing or electricity. My older sister had been adopted by them and she played the guitar for entertainment. We attended the Methodist church, but Perl and Johnny were Pentecostal Assembly of God. I had been to church with my cousins several times without any incident. However, the first Sunday after going to stay with them since my father had his stroke, I was introduced to the "Gifts of the Spirit" being in the congregation. The minister, Sister Mosher was giving a fiery sermon, when all at once my cousin Perl, who was setting next to me, jumped up, screamed, and fell to the floor. I of course thought that she too had just had a stroke and began crying hysterically. My cousin Johnny, who was outside under the trees with some other men whittling wood and chewing tobacco, came stomping in the church entrance. Cousin Johnny was a really big man. So, he just swooped little me up under his arm and took me outside. He said don't pay no mind, she will be just fine, she likes to crawl on the floor sometimes. The other men laughed, and I don't remember much more about that day.
I think you very accurately described much of the childhoods of MANY of us who were raised as "Evangeicals." It brings back many unhappy memories as well as being forced to acknowledge to myself the ways in which it has CONTINUED to effect me as an adult
Nobody should be put through such unbearable pressure to conform to a mentally abusive set of beliefs. You saved yourself from it and that is a great accomplishment. Thank you for helping others to understand how cultivating good critical thinking skills is a very good thing.
You know I started this video smiling and ready to be entertained. But as the video progressed, my smile faded and I realised, despite having only experienced probably 1/5 of what happened to you, how traumatic my memories are and how I believe I’ll always be messed up for life. Thanks for sharing and giving us hope Brandon.
2:47 I was terrified the first time I heard about the Sacrifice of Isaac. After Sunday School, I approached my own father and asked him if he would kill me if the Lord told me to do it. My Dad, bless him, got down on one knee and looked me straight in my eyes, and he said: “Tina, if the Lord told me to kill you, I would tell Him to go to Hell.” That was so much better than if he had said something typical like “G-d doesn’t ask us to do that anymore,” or some other lame-ass “explanation.” After this episode, my Dad forbade me to go to church for the next 4 years.
Wow brings back so many memories I can relate to most if not all. Thanks for the reminder of what current believers are still going thru that some of us battle thru during our exodus from religion,dogma and the immoral monster called gawd(s).
Knowing you’re not alone in something or certain thoughts brings so much comfort. Amazing video conveying the thoughts of so many people raised in Christianity.
So many of these hit so close to home! In the black church, folks would "catch the holy ghost" and that would mean jumping, shouting, crying, speaking in tongues, stomping their feet while flailing their arms...As a child I was really worried about someone getting hurt! I was told that was impossible because god would not allow someone to hurt themselves while praising him??!!! I also remember the fear in childhood...I grew up during the "Late Great Planet Earth" book by Hal Lindsey. Rapture fear is real! Finally my mom loved some PTL club and at some point in my teen years, I called in and was blessed with the gift of tongues! I know good and well then and now that I was just babbling, but I truly felt that I was not good enough unless I was able to do this. Brandon, you are helping me unpack so much nonsense that I experienced. Thank you once again!
This is so valuable. It took me years to realize the trauma I endured as a child. We were so young and so incapable of managing all this insanity and it is so easy to think that now, as grown ups, we should be able to move on. Our inner child need healing… forever. It is a lifelong process… but we don’t need to suffer alone.
I was raised in the Seventh Day Adventist church and in highschool I went on a mission trip to Peru in 2019. I was 16 at the time. While there we had worships every morning before we would go out and build solar panels. At one of these worships the principle of my school split the boys and girls into two groups. She stayed with the girls and then took out a baby wipe and rubbed it on her hands. She then asked all the girls to do the same as they passed it around the circle. When it got back to her she then held it up and asked us “Now how many of you would want this wipe?… this wipe represents what a Christian man will see you as if you sleep around before marriage. Do you want to be this dirty and unwanted wipe?” Looking back at this now makes me realize how INSANE this was
When I was a child, the two scariest people in my life were praying for me to speak in tongues. One was behind me with her hands on my shoulders, while the ither was standing in front of me holding my arms up. I was so scared I just started saying what I remember another adult saying and repeating it over and over again while crying, and they were so excited that I had finally been baptized in the holy spirit. In later years I prayed for my own language, a new one I hadn't heard before. It never happened. Honestly, I think it is people terrifying young people into speaking gibberish and calling it tongues.
I was a child, and addicted to being saved. I used to listen to a radio show that played at night, called Unchained. It was stories of "being saved" I used to lay in bed at night sobbing because I couldn't figure out the sin I had committed. But I would scour my memory and soul, until I found some slight. And I would abase myself until I felt thar feeling of being saved again. It's a terrible cycle.
I also heard about waking up to Satan at the foot of the bed. That story affected my sleep well into adulthood. I cannot believe they thought it was ok to share that with children.
Yeah I heard this as well. I have a feeling this story gets retold in various guises. I've heard various stories retold with different characters and settings.
Raised 7th Day Adventist, I remember coming home from public grade school one afternoon and telling my Mother that “my teacher said we were fish first and then grew legs and walked out of the ocean.” She blew up (as she was prone to doing) and I cringed in fear as she screamed about the stupidity of such a story and the evil lies being taught in the public school (we couldn’t afford the church school, although I did finally attend in 5th grade and was horribly bullied). She came with me to school the next day and angrily confronted my teacher demanding that she teach the truth: creationism. I was embarrassed that I had gotten my teacher (whom I adored) in trouble. The teacher tried to defend and clarify the curriculum, but was no match for my Mother who, dissatisfied, took it to the principal. Next she rounded up a group of other Christian parents and incensed they took it to the school board. I was excused from science lessons for the rest of the year.
So sorry to hear that. I believed in creation, bit it was before the ism... So i just wrote " the text book says .. blah blah, blah . Evolution"... I passed my exams. I learnt about evolution. Learning doesn't have to mean believing. No one got hurt. But your mum sounds like a panic artist, poor woman.
When I was young there were two older men in the church who would tell me personal things about myself and they caused me to think that God had revealed these things to them. Their other information to me was terrifying, full of losing your salvation and rapture anxiety. I believed their teachings because, after all, God had revealed things to them about me. These two men contributed to me becoming a Pentecostal basket case. But I believed them because I thought God was directly giving them information about me. Later I found out that my mom was giving them this information. For some reason, she was too intimidated by them to let me know. These two men did substantial mental damage to me. Damage that took me decades to come to terms with.
@@Plethorality Yes you are so right. These two men and many other people in the Pentecostal church made me a basket case and ruined my youth. For a long time, I blamed my mom, but I don't anymore. She was frightened and anxious to do the will of God. She was easy prey for these two abusive guys. Although I hate these two men for what they did to me, I also realize they may have also been manipulated by this faulty and terrifying religion. They may have thought they were doing the right thing. I am glad I finally found logic and could think my way out of this terrifying vortex. Thanks so much for your encouraging words. I greatly appreciate it.
@@ruthcrites Thanks so much. My departure from the Pentecostal church came shortly after a group from a Koinonia meeting took a picture with a polaroid camera (this was back in 1980). The camera produced a double exposure. But everyone including the pastor said that the shadow in the picture was Jesus. He proclaimed that Jesus had visited the Koinonia meeting. I would not give in. I told them all I really saw was a double exposure in the picture. There was severe pressure on me to say that it was Jesus in the picture. But by this time, I was beginning to think on my own. Thanks again for your comment.
My faith was so strong I couldn’t speak in tongues X I genuinely believed so hard I thought it would happen but it wouldn’t. It really bugged me, it definitely lead to some kind of doubt at some point.
I grew up (loosely) Catholic and it’s so fascinating learning about first-hand experiences of people growing up in fundamentalist Christianity. There are so many interesting differences and similarities (as I’m certain that there are differences between fundamentalist groups, since there are so many iterations). Apparently Catholics can be just as intensely-culty and fearful of anything secular, but I definitely didn’t get that impression when I was a kid or even when I went to Catholic high school (despite being an atheist already). Being surrounded by people who LITERALLY believe that the Eucharist is the LITERAL body and blood of Christ, however, is apparently one of the similarities. I look forward to seeing more from your channel and hearing about your process with deconstruction and wherever you’re at now!!
This video is accurately on point. I experienced all these things in my 55 years as an Evangelical Christian. So much time, and good things of life, lost in unending/unquestioning service to the hive-mind ecosystem of “church family.”
I can confirm everything you said taking place in Assemblies of God churches. I lived it too. I was a terrified 5 year old who told my mom I I didn't want to go to hell so she prayed a salvation prayer with me (she was delighted and so proud. And I was terrified.) I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues at every worship service and in my own private prayer. I believed the eating disorder I now know was the result of the tremendous anxiety I was carrying around because of my indoctrination was "sin" and so I was sure I was going to hell because no matter how hard I prayed I couldn't get rid of it. And I judged...oh how I judged everyone around me and thought it was compassion and love for their soul. Disgusting. Thank you for making this video, Brandon. I think it's my favorite one you've ever done because I can just relate SO HARD.
That is so sad that you had anxiety as a professing Christian. I have sensed there are quite a few on these channels who have never had the real assurance of peace, joy, and love of God in their salvation experience. There have been way too many false conversions to Christianity. The wrong motivations of the fear of Hell and displeasing the God of wrath. True repentance and totally trusting Jesus alone that He took the penalty, punishment, and judgment for your sin is so foundational to being free of the enslavement and curse of sin. I can attest to a most Loving, Gracious and Compassionate Savior; who has first loved me. I am so grateful for His wonderful salvation.
@@christophergibson7155bahaha, how ironic that _your_ very christian religion/bible is the cause of anxiety, fear and insecurities!! It's just _your choice_ to ignore this fact. You're the one trapped in your biblical religion. We're free 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@kamigiglio2559 So glad you are free of the terror, fear, anxiety and awful issues christianity/the bible spews onto folks. I hope you find healing for your eating disorder as you work through severing all ties mentally and emotionally with this horror religion. Take care of yourself! 💜
Every time I engage with "American" Christianity I feel a mixture of pity for those who practice it and relief for myself and those who grew out of it. Though I've always been an atheist, I went to a Christian elementary in Germany. Throughout 3rd and 4th grade, my principal was especially nasty, bullying me because of my atheist and Syrian-German background, spreading rumours about me being a fat Muslim who always goes to McDonald's, culminating in the swimming week when she pushed my head underwater on multiple occasions. Only recently, I could finally go to therapy in my university town and get some closure.
The problem is the American version of Christianity is way off target and every new year , it becomes an even more vast mixture of new age and lying signs and wonders. It’s no wonder people are walking away from it and becoming Atheists. But while many become Atheists, others are realizing that they are the Church and are reading the Bible themselves and getting away from the harlot system coming into existence which was prophesied in the Bible as occurring in the last days.
@@dasbus9834for 2 days they shall not see their king but on the third day he shall be forever in their sight. No one has seen God these last two thousand years but on the third day thy God will reveal himself. The Bible says 1000 years is as one day in Heaven so it’s only been close to 2 Days.. and on the third day, he shall be revealed.. we shall see
Oh man, i have so much compassion hearing what you’ve been through, that it makes my heart melt… And how funny, as i was thinking about how god made me found you channel, while you were speaking about the holly spirit and the pastor, it made me laugh… but really, i am so happy to have found you, i cannot thank the algorithm 😂 enough. Good work!! Bravo!! 👏🏼 ❤❤❤❤❤
It is insane. So, I think it’s okay to use the word as many times as you need to as to get your point made. Another great video! Thanks again Brandon!!
Welcome, all! I hope this video can be cathartic for those of you who grew up like i did. Also, I hope to continue to shine a light on the harm of this religion whether fundamental or progressive. At the very least, i hope to entertain and educate a bit with these crazy stories from my childhood. Please give this one a like, comment, and share if you find it useful.
On your first point, I grew up in the Church of Christ. I was taught that God allowed demon possession in the 1st century so that Jesus could show his power. I was taught that demons weren't allowed on earth anymore since the spiritual gifts ceased because we don't need miracles anymore since the word of God was complete.
However, when I went to Mexico to preach, even though I was still in the Church of Christ, it was a different culture. Many of the church of Christ Christians in Mexico do believe that demons are still on Earth, they believe in ghosts, and for a while, I told them that it wasn't possible. However, in my mind, I became scared and thought, could they really be here? I then started seeing shadow figures.
The mind is so powerful, but it's also tricky. The mind can make your eyes see things that aren't really there. Now that I'm an atheist, I know it was just my mind playing tricks on me, but it was scary when I thought I was seeing shadow figures who I thought were demons.
Brandon, in all love and respect, you are really messing up by making all these videos. You have become the enemy of all that is good. There is literally hell to pay for such treason.
First, you are tacitly approving child sex trafficking. That is, since atheists have no basis for morality, you therefore cannot condemn any behavior as being 'evil.' You can only tell the world that you make your own rules so everyone else is free to do the same.
Hell is going to be a terrible place, but there are degrees. It will be worse for some, such as those who are blatantly attacking the way. The truth is the most important commodity on earth. By your own admission (I would hope), you do not claim to know the ultimate truths about life, its purpose, and its destiny. Do you not freely admit that, led by your limited, biased, and fallible intellect, you could definitely be wrong in making these horrifically evil videos? Will you even admit that? You are in the dark.
I do not know if you have a background with the Christian faith, but I know, of a certainty, that you were never a Christian. That is because God is real. He made everything. He doesn't make sense to you because you cannot match God's intelligence nor His goodness.
A Christian is someone who knows God. That is why I have absolute assurance because God is real and I know Him. You can know Christ. You cannot say that I did not warn you! Heaven is real, but all liars will have their place in the lake of fire! Know that if you scoff, you do so to your own eternal peril. One way or another, it won't affect my eternity! I just hope and pray that you will make things right with God. He died upon a Cross so that you may know Him - just by asking. Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
i didnt see the love and respect in telling me I approve of child trafficking. Your comments are disgusting, but are a great example of the reality of what I speak about in this video. @@kenshiloh
@@kenshilohAs an atheist, my morality comes from empathy and from common sense. That which I wouldn't want done to me, I don't do to others. Just as I wouldn't want my own children to be traff.icked, I don't want other people's children to be traff.icked
By the way, you should read your Bible. I say read and not re-read because I can tell that you haven't read it. In Numbers 25, God told the israelites to kill all of the men, non-virgin women, boys, and infant boys and to spare only the virgin girls. What were a bunch of horny israelite soldiers going to do to virgin girls? That itself is genocide, kidnapping, and traff.icking.
Your God is also proslavery.
Leviticus 25:44-46
[44] So your male slave and your female slave will be of the people that are around you; From them you can buy male and female slaves. [45] You may also buy from the children of the strangers who live among you, and from their families born in your land, who are with you, whom you may possess. [46] And you may leave them as an inheritance to your children after you, as an hereditary possession; you will use them forever; But among your brothers the children of Israel you shall not rule each one over his brother harshly.
Exodus 21:20-21
[20] And if a man strikes his servant or his maidservant with a stick, and dies under his hand, he shall be punished; [21] But if he survives for a day or two, he will not be punished, because he is his property.
According to the Bible, if you were my slave, I could hurt you however much I desire to do so and I could cause you all the pain I wato to inflict upon you and as long as you don't die, your God is ok with that.
I read scriptures like that, and I am filled with disgust and anger. That there are slaves and masters, masters whose property is a slave who has to serve his master and who can be whipped by his master, makes me so disgusted and angry.
I cannot defend writings like that. It's immoral. Slavery is immoral. In the new testament it says in Ephesians 6:5
[5] Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in simplicity of heart, as Christ;
And to Christian masters it says Ephesians 6:9
[9] And you, masters, do the same to them, forsaking threats, knowing that their Lord and yours is in heaven, and that with him there is no partiality.
If God was really against slavery, he would have said MASTERS FREE YOUR FUCKING SLAVES AND LEAVE THEM ALONE BECAUSE EVERY HUMAN BEING DESERVES TO LIVE THEIR LIFE FREELY.
According to the scriptures that I mentioned to you, biblically, it was okay for Europeans to go to Africa and make slaves and take them to the Americas. The Bible literally approves of this horrible barbarity.
God is for that. It is awful. I can't see any positive side to slavery. It's horrible and shouldn't exist. If this God believes that it is okay for a person to be the property of another person and that when the master dies he can continue to be the slave of his children and the slave's children will also be slaves.
I can't justify that.
As an atheist, I posit that my own morality may exceeds the principles depicted in certain Biblical narratives, as I do not condone actions such as slavery, genocide, or the extreme punitive measures for transgressions like disobedience, homosexuality which has been scientifically been proven to be a natural part of some people's sexual identity and not a personal choice, or blasphemy that are sometimes associated with religious edicts.
So, get out of here with your garbage. You're ignorant.
@@MindShift-Brandon Since I'm an atheist, I can't base my morality on anything. As if empathy and common sense weren't a thing.
Also, God has been proven to be pro slavery, pro genocide, anti-feminist, and racist.
I can relate to almost EVERY WORD! People don’t understand how traumatic this kind of upbringing is!
i hope you're kenyan lol. i'm glad to see more of us consuming this kind of content that calls us to challenge the dogmatic religious beliefs
I would imagine what is actually traumatic is you perpetuating the dmns and serving them.
your statement here is dogmatic, a particularly absurd one at that. God has no use for those who let the dmns in.
tell me about it
Date conceived on April seventeen four.
I already proved Christ.
Every tongue will confess Christ is Lord.
The adults teach all this terrifying shit to children then they're surprised and annoyed when children respond to that information poorly or with extreme fear. So intelligent
Right?!!!
Religious indoctrination is abuse, pure and simple destructive abuse.
Or extreme anger in my case as a teenager going into my twenties and now in my mid thirties
That part exactly! Telling kids that the monster they think is under the bed is both real and a demon is awful.
Authority does not like to be questioned. It just wants to be obeyed. I have lots of terror and hatred from Christian Fundamentalism.
“All your evil seven year old thoughts” 😂😂😂you’re killing me🤣🤣
He isn't alone lol
#3 hits home with me. I actually would not hang out with an uncle of mine who loved me, because he actually drunk a beer now and then. Looking back it makes me sick. He wasn’t an alcoholic, he just had a beer now and then. I was only 12 or 13, was taken to church 3 times a week, and this was my thought process. I’m 54 now, I stopped by his house the other day…..and had a beer with him.😊
The eating of the bread is symbolic of the period from the spring equinox to the summer solstice. The drinking of the blood (WINE) is the period from the summer solstice to the autumn equinox. Charity is the winter season of sharing the harvest of summer. Faith = spring, Hope = summer, and Charity = winter.
I love that!
Hilarious too since the roots of the faith makes a clear distinction between alcohol consumption and intoxication. Alcohol is a gift from God, acceptable to use socially. Drunkenness and alcoholism are an abuse of those gifts. Those who have formed an addiction are strongly advised to avoid alcohol. Most end up with your typical "healthy" relationship with alcohol -- consuming 1 to 3 drinks in social and family settings and rarely if ever consuming any when alone.
@@aboutwhat1930
Don't forget the magic mushrooms aka Raven's bread.
Hello Mithraism in bible.
That is so sad. Dividing families.
I got saved every week to because i didn't want miss the Rapture. I also i realize now that when a Pastor is preaching on something shameful or condemning, it is generally because he is dealing with the issues himself.
That's really good insight! I never thought about that before.
@@The-Doubters-Diaryit becomes painfully...and monotonously obvious.
It took me years to figure this out. When a preacher gets up there and screams crossdressers are going to burn in hell they are actually dealing with their own fears and struggles. We experienced this many times. We would go to the "leader" in private conversation on a Wednesday and Sunday morning what we went to talk about was the subject of the sermon. It was horror.
I am still dealing with the trauma of those days
When I was in Pre-K, my parents celebrated Passover by having us watch the Charlton Hesston "Moses" film and explaining in detail the killing of the first born. I refused to go to bed until my parents put lamb's blood on our bedroom door. My dad humored me by putting a cup of blood over the doorway, but I kept crying that they didn't do it right. I stayed up all night watching the door, terrified a spirit would come in and kill my brother.
Needless to say we never celebrated Passover again.
Omg wtf.
Wow. And what’s even more remarkable is how no one in the Christian and Jewish faiths cared about the innocent Egyptians kids slaughtered by the Israelites dead angels…a Sacarii.
Where did he get a cup of blood???
@@zuglymonster cherry syrup 😉😁
Holy shit
the altar call reenactment was terrifyingly accurate... unlocked so many buried memories. you were spot on.
It just came right out of me. Kinda shocked and triggered myself there. Glad to help normalize though.
Yesssssss this
Horror. Alter calls are not in the Bible that I can see.
Sakes alive that was far too accurate 😯😂 thanks for sharing your experiences 💚
I was so triggered 😭😭😭😭
I remember that exact story about the Columbine shooting and as a kid I thought, "that's so stupid. You could say aloud that you deny God's existence and he will know you don't mean it". But people definitely praised her for defending an invisible deity that should be PROTECTING her if he's real. Imagine how many people would convert to Christianity if the bullets literally bounced off like an invisible forcefield. That would be a very powerful statement of a God's existence.
Yes! Why didn't the Almighty protect her if He's so great?
Spot on!
Look up what happened this year at Lakewood in Houston.
Worse was that a "good guy" with a gun, not only killed the wacko with a gun (who did NOT shoot anyone) PLUS the "good guy" damaged, with a bullet, the brain of the innocent wacko's son.
If there is a "universal entity", this "news story" sure is "teaching" something different than the Columbine story....if true...worse... there are nutcases who don't think school shootings happen !!
Ad. "Imagine how many people would convert to Christianity if the bullets literally bounced off like an invisible forcefield. That would be a very powerful statement of a God's existence."
vs. Luke 16 "27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”"
Let's try a test first whether "the bullets literally bounced off like an invisible forcefield" would make any sense: Is evidence in form of found blood cells in dinosour bones (cf. "REAL BLOOD CELLS IN 65 MILLION YEAR OLD DINOSAUR BONES?"), from logical perspective, leading you into belief in old ages of dinosaurs proclaimed by evolutionism or is it more compatible with Biblical account on origin of the world?
@@stefansevcik1877 Oh, are you refering to the repeatedly debunked misinterpretation of a study, WHICH AUTHOR HERSELF SAID IS MISINTERPRETED?
And why is a book having some dude's opinion used as some proof that it won't work?
As a former Christian raised fundie and now an atheist, Christianity and religion is such a mindf***.
Yep my parents are in their 60's They still think he's coming back. But when I point out that he isn't going to Rapture anyone They always follow it up with He's coming back for everyone on the day they die So what can you say to that?
@@joshuahall8176What can be said to YOU then? REPENT--BELIEVE--RECEIVE
@christophergibson7155 Do you know how many times Christians have been COMPLETELY WRONG about Jesus Christ's Second Coming? Hal Lindsey one of my Father's favorite Christian authors once predicted that The 1980's was The Last Decade in Human History and he BOLDLY DECLARED that Jesus was coming back sometime 1985-1989 My Father still has the book. Everytime they're wrong Christians move the goal posts It's obvious Jesus isn't going to Rapture anyone anytime soon. The only thing Christians have going for them is the uncertainty of The Afterlife and what happens after we die.
@christophergibson7155 Do you know how many times Christians have been COMPLETELY WRONG about Jesus's Second Coming and than moved the goal posts? Hal Lindsey one of my Father's favorite Christian Authors wrote a book in 1985 which my father still has why The 1980's was the last decade in Human History. Hal Lindsey BOLDLY DECLARED that Jesus would be coming back before the year 1990. And he confessed to being upset when The Berlin Wall fell because it meant WWIII wasn't going to happen and therefore it wasn't likely The Second Coming would happen either. Christians always move the goal posts when their predictions are wrong. The only thing they have going for them is the uncertainty of what happens after we die in The After Life if there is one.
@christophergibson7155 that's backwards. Recieve, Believe, repent makes more sense.
Recieve evidence of God's existence.
Believe that evidence
Repent of your sins to that God.
How are you so bad at this? I guess not learning from your mistakes is why you continue to try to convert people in RUclips comments.
Thanks so much for making this vid. I just discovered you today.
My dad was an evangelical fundy pastor, bible literalist. This was a bit (or quite a bit) before your time, I was born in 1964 (the last year of the boomers) so I grew up in the 70s and 80s, a time of tim lahaye’s “left behind” paranoia, secret demonic cults that kill children the satanic panic), and when the “moral majority” became a thing.
I had an experience a bit similar to yours regarding demon possession, but I just witnessed it I wasn’t directly involved. It was at night on a youth field trip, and there was a campfire. I heard weird sounds, scary sounds, so I went out and saw my male youth leader sitting on my female friend right by the campfire, yelling at the “demon”. It was TERRIFYING.
I was also terrified of the rapture. Any time my parents weren’t around I was scared I’d been left behind.
I had night terrors where I literally didn’t sleep for YEARS. It started in first grade. I fell asleep on the bus, in class, and was always exhausted.
Then there was the evil EVIL influence of evangelical ministries especially “focus on that family” led by the monster James Dobson. He wrote a book in the 70s that told Christian parents to abuse their kids. Not just a little bit, but a lot. They shouldn’t kill us but anything short of murder was fine. And both my parents believed it. I was horrifically abused in the name of god and Jesus.
It resulted, later in life, with my having bipolar disorder, ptsd and chronic anxiety. I didn’t even feel like a person, I felt like an empty shell. I ended up marrying a man who was violent, jealous, and would kill me if I didn’t love him back. He was exactly like the gawd of the bible. I became a drug addict for years. It wasn’t until my 30s that my life was so awful, I read the whole bible cover to cover for the first time. I was looking for answers in the bible but what I got was horror. Which led me to research compulsively for several years. In my early 40s, it suddenly hit me that it WAS ALL A LIE, AN ENORMOUS HOAX. I was SHOCKED!!!!!!!!! i never expected that to happen, not ever.
It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Please keep sharing these vids. So many Christian ppl are miserable and don’t know why.
Appreciate you sharing so much! And thanks for joining the channel!
When your deity says if you die with a single sin on your soul then it's eternal torture with no chance of getting out, why WOULDN'T you adhere to the religion to the most extreme degree? According to their own book, all the not so extreme Christians are all going to hell.
yup! its an extreme belief, requires extreme faith, demands extreme devotion and on and on. Trying to be cool about it just doesnt make sense lol.
@@MindShift-Brandon I thought the deal was that nobody, not even the most strict adherents, can be completely free of sin, but that's fine as long as you repent, admit that you're a terrible, broken person, and ask for the gift of salvation. But that's the issue of works vs faith that nobody can agree on, I guess. I want to know, however, when a Christian accuses atheists of "just wanting to sin", is it a good idea or not to respond that if you want to sin and get away with it, you should be a Christian, because then your sins will be forgiven?
@@reformCopyright Good point! Although a real Christian would not have that mentality. Personally, i chose to be a Calvinist because (I reasoned) if even 1% depended on me, i was doomed. Similar to Martin Luther and Paul the apostle, I KNEW that even my best thoughts or deeds were like filthy menstrual rags, so salvation had to be by faith ALONE, grace ALONE and Christ ALONE. And because "perfect love casts out all fear," i was not afraid of the future at all.
All the other people in my home group were amazed that I had no fear, not even of God. I could understand Arminians thinking this way, because they are depending on their works to please God, but why would Reformed believers still be afraid? I think it's because they have fuzzy or polluted thinking on the topic. But no one has the time or interest to think it through.
But you already have to be extreme to believe anything like that in the first place. So yes, one extreme belief begets other extreme beliefs… but if you don’t have an initial extreme belief then you won’t develop more extreme beliefs and behaviors. That’s why cults aim to recruit young kids (gullible because they’re just little kids) and people in extreme desperate situations (willing to believe anything for a chance at hope and community).
@@emmanarotzky6565 Yep. I'm sure there is a connection between extremely religious people and things like conspiracy theorists. When you're made to believe total nonsense as fact then it's easier to believe other total nonsense as fact. Couple that with a strong in-group/out-group dynamic where YOU'RE the special one and everyone else not like you is bad and deserves the bad things that happen to them, and it's easy to convince people of just about anything. Just tell them they're special and they'll eat it up.
Solid…so very solid.
I don’t talk a lot about this, but, in my late 20’s, the parental childhood abuse came to a head, and I deal with dissociation. My first husband insisted that we participate in very fundamentalist church groups and Bible studies, and so when their abuse (I realized that fundamentalism is extremely abusive) evoked dissociative reactions - the church folks would hold me down and try to drive the demons out
What I needed (and finally got) was therapy with a trained psychologist, not being screamed over and told how horrible I was. I reached a point I could no longer deal with the Evangelical/Fundamentalist world, the Campus. Crusade witnessing campaigns, the women’s conferences where it was ‘be submissive, be in the kitchen, have children’, the Christian ‘bubble’ of Christian television, Christian bookstores, Christian schools, only other Christians as friends - I had to leave it behind
I did become a Roman Catholic for a time, went through RCIA, even got a masters in theology from Loyola Marymount in 2008. I had been attracted to Roman Catholicism because there is some intellectual interest - the Doctors of the Church and Jesuits are extremely bright and rather mischievous (the priests at Loyola Marymount would say all kinds of things - on some level, they didn’t take it seriously). The child abuse scandal and the fact that half of humankind was denied any significant role - the whole Marian devotion, the WORSHIP, for all the Catholic protest that “we don’t worship Mary” is just a sop to women, something to be pointed to: “see! we value Mary!” - I couldn’t be a Roman Catholic any longer
Watching the History Channel about WWII really caused me to wonder about the existence of God - how could this Being stand by while 70-80 million people died? How could God countenance slavery? child abuse? Poverty, disease and hunger?
Thank you very much, Brandon
Love hearing more of your thoughts and stories. Thanks for being willing to be so open.
Look up Harmonic Atheist and TheramTrees. (if it is ok to suggest other channels here).
@@onedaya_martian1238Brandon's channel is my main go to channel, but there are lots of others too. Seen any vids of NonStampCollector? He's hilarious plus a fellow Aussie. He does ALL the speech himself!?
I did Quaker, loved that as it was concerned with helping people and not about what folks got up to in the bedroom. then I dabbled in Paganism as it was colourful but i thought it a bit silly so went Catholic as I loved the bells and smels, the statues and the pictures and renaisance music. Now i just enjoy the music, the churches and architecture and art, just like going into an old temple or mosque.
It's fascinating to me listening to the experiences of other former Christians. Thank you for sharing Brandon.
Glad to share. Thanks, Doug!
Right. The psychology is so interesting.
@@suicune2001and also that this religion was created as *psychological propoganda* ... certainly adds up! The bloke was a narcissistic psychopath.
That story about the "demon possessed" boy broke my heart, both for him and for you + the other kids who were indoctrinated/conditioned into being complicit in his suffering
My Catholic mother attended an Assembly of God church for a few years when I was a kid. As someone with ASD, the constant noise, people moving and speaking violently, etc freaked me out and sent me into fits of withdrawal which of course were interpreted as demonic possession by the group. Nothing sends an autistic kid into more of a tailspin as having people touching her and screaming at her against her will. This happened many times. What finally made my mother stop going to the church was that my Jewish father (who never went because he thought that all Christian churches were the same) saw that I had stopped eating and was suicidal and asked why. It took a threat of divorce, not her kid becoming suicidal, to make my mother stop. I have informed her that if she ever rejoins, I am done with her for life.
Everything Brandon said was true.
@@Charlotte_Martel thank you for sharing that, it sounds utterly horrible and I am so happy your dad advocated for your needs!
@@Charlotte_Martel Tears and hugs through the internet.
Religious dogma IS a mental disorder, ASD is a physical issue requiring understanding, attention and care ... indoctrination is full on abuse.
@@jaynajuly2140 Thank you for the kind words. Yes, I am beyond grateful to my father for stepping in to stop this. It was especially difficult for him since he came from a traditional background where the mother rules the household, but he saved my life by doing so. I would have far rather that my mother beat me than to subject me to that torture.
I doubt laying hands-on him and moaning about Demons did much good for his mental health.
The worst part of rapture anxiety by far is the guilt you feel for fearing the rapture. All the adults around you are excited, and you’re terrified you’ll never grow up… and you feel like a bad Christian for not also being excited.
Oh Brandon! Your point by point description of the altar call brought back so many memories' in the Southern Baptist Church. The guilt, the shame, the manipulation that I thought was the 'Holy Spirit'. It took me years to break free but I am now and living a more peaceful, fulfilled life than ever before. I love your channel!
So glad to hear you are free! I triggered myself a bit with that one. What a crazy thing!
@@MindShift-Brandon
It was worth it. I triggered with you! Alter calls were always preceded by a story where some poor bastard was about to die in some way and at the last minute repented, barely missing going to hell. No wonder I was a bed wetter until I was six. Alter calls should come with free plastic sheets! 😳🥴🤫😭
Yes! It’s something you completely forget about when you stop going to church. At a funeral a few years ago, the speaker did an alter call and it brought it all rushing back.
It's funny that Christians think non-believers live tortured lives. I am much happier now than ever since I left the church!
Yep, I remember too. I was an 8th Day Independent Fundamental Baptist. Similar traumatic experiences
One day, out of curiosity, I tried to conjure up Satan to see if he really existed, when to my surprise he suddenly appeared. I was terrified at how evil he was and I quickly banished him. Afterwards I realized that I had created Satan using the power of my own imagination.
Later, when I tried to make God and Jesus appear, nothing happened.
The Creator KNOWS
that thousands of years ago, Jesus Christ was hated, insulted, falsely accused, tortured, and murdered by arrogant, cruel, and merciless persons who were violently opposed and against Jesus Christ's authority and teachings about the "Kingdom of God" and "Resurrection of the Dead".
Atheists and Christians just can't accept the TRUTH about themselves.
Atheists, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and fanatics of all kinds of Religions
KNOW
and are fully aware that they are also opposed and against the authority and teachings of Jesus Christ about the "Kingdom of God" and "Resurrection of the Dead"
exactly like the arrogant, merciless, and cruel murderers of Jesus Christ thousands of years ago.
Atheists, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and fanatics of all kinds of Religions
KNOW
and are fully aware that they are Satan the Devil's spreaders of the LIES and false claims that -
1. the Creator is worthless, useless, and undeserving to be honored and respected as the True and Sovereign God
2. Jesus Christ is worthless, useless, and undeserving to be honored and respected as the Creator's Chosen King and Ruler of the heavens and the earth.
The Creator's favor and reward of ETERNAL LIFE and existence on earth without sufferings, pains, griefs, sickness, and death
is
NOT for arrogant, cruel, hateful, and merciless persons
NOT for liars, slanders, deceivers, traitors, and murderers
but
ONLY for lowly, ordinary, kind, and respectful persons on earth
who
honor and obey Jesus Christ as their loving, kind, and merciful Master and Heavenly King
and believe his teachings about the "Kingdom of God" and "Resurrection of the Dead"
The "Resurrection of the Dead"
is
NOT for arrogant, cruel, hateful, and merciless persons
NOT for liars, slanderers, deceivers, traitors, and murderers
but
ONLY for lowly, ordinary, kind, and respectful persons who died recently and thousands of years ago like Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Job, Ruth, Naomi, King David, Jesus Christ's Followers and disciples, and many others,
They will all be RESURRECTED back to life in the right and proper time so they can happily, abundantly, and peacefully live and exist on earth forever as subjects and citizens of the "KINGDOM of GOD"
and fully enjoy the eternal love, kindness, goodness, generosities, compassions, favors, and blessings of the Creator and his Christ for eternity
under the loving and kind rulership, guidance, and protection of Jesus Christ as the Creator's Chosen King and Ruler of the heavens and the earth.
? How
Did satan give you any confirmations? Donna Douglas did..
What comes out of fundamentalism? Constant threats of hyper violence and terrorism.
Fear...
Not sure what you mean. It’s not violent nor is violence taught. But a small number might believe that some people would be violent to them.
@@larrytruelove8659 Playing dumb and denials by Evangelicals are rejected and dismissed at this point, by all non believers due to the horrible conduct and dishonorable character of the loudest, most hateful Christians the tens of millions of Cult-45 Evangelicals. This is not a non beliver perception problem. We know what we see, hear and suffer abuse from these Christians. This is Christianity's problem.
And you won't convince us "they're not real Christians," and do you know why? They angrily retort the same thing back in reverse, and proclaim you're not a true Christian.
And that's how the religion plays its gaslighting games.
@@larrytruelove8659 Playing dumb and denials by Evangelicals are rejected and dismissed at this point, by all non believers due to the conduct and character of the Evangelicals, the tens of millions of Cult-45 Evangelicals.
This is _not_ a non beliver perception problem. We know what we see, hear and suffer abuse from these people. This is the religion's problem the everyone can see and hear. You can't hide it.
And you won't convince us "they're not real belivers," and do you know why? They angrily retort the same thing back in reverse, and proclaim their detractors are not true belivers.
And that's how the religion plays its gaslighting games.
@@larrytruelove8659 Of course you don't. But this is exactly the perception of non-believers. That means its not s non-belivers issue. It's a Christianity issue.
At risk of sounding like a broken record fantastic episode, Brandon. The honesty and sincerity and accurate information introduces exposes reality within the Christian faith, and actually opens the door for conversation. Thank you for what you do.
When Christians try to say I wasn’t really “saved” even though I genuinely spoke in tongues. They say “how can you be a nonbeliever?” Until I started asking the question; why do you assume this emotional experience of the human mind is from the god you believe in? That’s literally all it is; an extreme emotional human experience. This practice of letting your emotions pour out speaking in “tongues” is done in so many other religions of than Christianity. Yet despite their beliefs being genuine to them, Christians will claim they’re not or that they experienced “tongues of the devil”. It truly is preposterous.
I’m glad you’re speaking on this. I too have genuinely spoken in tongues and I’m having conflicting feelings about it. I’m deconstructing, and I’ve asked myself the question “well why can i speak in tongues then?’’ I haven’t found anyone else (except you now) who spoke in tongues and have stopped believing. I say all this to say- It’s comforting to know I’m not alone.
Where in the bible does it say jabbering in some unintelligible way should be expected?
Giving the apostles the ability to communicate with people no matter what language they spoke I seem to recall but not this tongues thing that I have never seen any evidence of being a language and usually just appears to be similar sounding repeated sounds.
@@murph8411 It’s how they interpreted the scripture depending on what religious affiliation you were apart of. I’ve seen arguments for and against the “jabbering of unintelligible” tongues. Neither of them interests me anymore; only when I was a believer. My focus is on more important things. Such as making the most of the remaining years I have here on Earth.
I learned it was a "Trigger Effect". What the claim is God is actually a self hypnosis and then your mouth explodes with sounds that are not words. Total rubbish and is dangerous to do.
@@HelloYellowShooBluetongues is only used when it is a real language and there is someone to listen and translate. What those churches do is a theatric, magic trick.
I could not smash the like button nearly as hard as Brandon's reason smashed fundamentalism !!!
Haha! Thank you much
Yes!!!
I feel seen.
The alienation of non-Christians (or different types of Christians,) was a huge part of my childhood.
I probably missed out on a lot of relationships because I viewed others as "enemies. "
Glad to help normalize!
Your comment Mark hit me right in the feels. That's so true.
Agree completely... too much warfare in Christianity for me... physical, spiritual, personal, worldly, etc...
Hopefully the time missed with toxic relations was getting to know markb7135 better...and at least having fun. The scars of trauma from dystopian thinking don't make everyone stronger.
Hugs from a person who enjoyed not being part of that crowd and finds those outside of it, who just view life without dogma or selfishness, the best kind of folks to 'hang" with.
Regards.
@@jshud3Yes, when I realized Yahweh was originally a war god, and was turned into the One God, it all made so much more sense. If the only god you have is a war god, then your life is going to be all war.
My church experience checks off all the items on the thumbnail. I'm looking forward to watching this
Hope it doesnt trudge up too much trauma! thanks for being here.
I have CPTSD from religion. I’m 62 and left religion four years ago and am amazed at what I’m learning about myself and how religion damaged my life.
At 58, i can relate.
Thanks for blurring the cool art for the squeamish among us. Means a lot that you listened. Wouldn't have even given feedback but I feel like your channel is one of the most important on RUclips. Don't want anything to distract from your words. I'm a forty year old woman who only started to realize the harm all this has caused me in the past year. Your humility, intelligence, and humanity are a huge comfort and I have already recommended your channel to someone. Thanks for being brave and selfless. It's helping me so much.
Thank you for this kindness.
I was raised Sountern Baptist then 1st Baptist until high school then full gospel AG (Assembly of God! I can relate with everything you’ve said! I’m 72 and I believe I’ve been deconverting, deconstructing since I was about ten years old when I was ‘forced’ to go ‘down front’ to accept the lord! I had zero idea of what I was doing but my gramma told me I need to do it. About 6 months ago I made the final decision to deconstruct and talk about REALLY being born again!!! 🎉I’ve never been so free! Thank you for all you’re doing to help! 💜
As a former catholic altar boy, while I hold no love for the catholic church, I'm still always surprised and appalled about how people are treated in the evangelical church.
Yeah it's strange to think "it could have been worse. Could have been Westborough baptist."
Yes, I am grateful for my skeptical semi-practicing Catholic family.
Some time ago my wife and I found "Thief in the Night" on RUclips. She was terrified by it as a kid, and for her it still calls up disturbing feelings. But my Catholic background made me immune, I found it laughable.
Things are different when you look down from the stage.
@@gmansard641those left behind movies are great SCIENCE FICTION!
@@VictorianMaid99 The Left Behind series was inspired by 1972s Thief in the Night and it sequels.
I went from being a christian fundamentalist to a mindshift fundamentalist. Its all about our dear orange leader
lol! Dear orange leader is a name I do not want association with, ha! but thanks
@@MindShift-BrandonYeah, usually, that makes one think of Trump...but your color scheme is what he's probably talking about...let's hope.
Alright. Time to make this name happen
Hahaha we burned our Pokémon cards too. The alakazam card burned green (due to the holographic coating or whatever) and my parents convinced me it was the satanicness burning off.
Good times...um...I think.
@@leakyshoes_o7What a shame to burn an old holo 😔
My wife was brought up in a Pentecostal Church so I am familiar with all the things you brought up. She still strongly believes in the Devil and his demons who are regularly trying to harm us or move us away from God.
So tough to break away from those thoughts
To me, that constant fear is a denial of the power, love, and grace of Jesus.
I love the wrist story, what a good example of how the faith healings really work.
@BeccaYoley the channel on YT "Holy Koolaid" has some videos of televangelists and their "faith healing" meetings. Actual footage from the TV shows, interviews with the so-called "healed," some of the staff that worked behind the scenes setting up the stuff. After watching those videos, plus a few others by other channels, I am amazed that the FBI doesn't bust them under RICO. I suppose the First Amendment precludes it, but it should not. The millions they swindle from the gullible saps should be very troubling.
Look up the "the one trick they don't tell you about"!! This is making folks who have one leg slightly shorter than another, and thus have a limp, have the preacher "pray upon them". The preacher then pulls the shoe of person to be healed out a bit from the foot of the shorter leg and "PAISE TO GEEBUS ... A MIRACLE".
"Religion...its leads to abuse."
@@onedaya_martian1238 I've seen those. Crazy stuff.
@@onedaya_martian1238 Yep, That used to happen at my church! They would tell people that's what was causing their backs to hurt. 😂
@@onedaya_martian1238I've seen that debunked on a few videos on the Holy Koolaid channel, and even saw how they did that. Reminds me of a trick my dad used to play on the young nieces and nephews in our family; he would tell them he could pull one arm out farther than the other. He would pull it slowly and the kids watched that, not seeing that the long shirt sleeve was not moving. I hope I explained it clearly.
When I was 14My mother was so mad at me for not listening to her and talking back She sat on top of me and tried to cast out demons.... Apparently they wouldn't come out lol
So sad. All these brainwashed parents just making up issues instead of parenting
You mom crushed you under her weight? That is horror.
@@VictorianMaid99yes and she was fat too
This is ‘effing insane! Thank you for your service to humanity, Brandon.
Thanks, man!
You’re welcome :) sounds like a lot of great content in the hopper.
'I am not going to pass this on to my children' : could be a t-shirt I would buy
This one made my heart hurt. Your childhood was fraught with feelings and ideas children should not have to deal with. The grace you show your mom is touching. She was indeed doing her best although her beliefs were/are ultimately harmful. I’ve recently thanked my parents for not raising me in a fundie church even though I grew up in a very conservative town. Keep up the good work!
Glad you have the information and good sense to be grateful.
I can relate to waaay too much to all of this. It still blows my mind how utterly nuts it sounds when said out loud. We spent time in both the Fundie church and the ‘holy-roller’ side…man. Thank you for doing vids like this one! So glad these stories are getting told. ❤
Brandon it takes courage to expose yourself and the broken mindset of your journey. I really think you are helping others who are struggling with their own personal journey out of a religious upbringing.
As I read thru the comments in this video it is staggering to see how many people struggle with deconstructing, all because they were targeted as children.
Yay! Breaking through 40k. Best of wishes on your continued success!
Many thanks for that!
Thought you were talking about the war hammer 40k fandom for a second, until I saw the subs count! Congratulations Brandon!
You made me think about a time in after school religion class where I inadvertently “toed the line” in terms of the dogma of Catholicism. Around the time I was learning about the saints, I was learning about Greek Mythology in public school. I learned about the twelve major Olympian gods at the same time I was learning about the Twelve Apostles. Back to the point, in after school religion class we were learning about the saints. I, very cluelessly, raised my hand and asked, “Are the saints in anyway like the minor gods and goddesses in other religions?” The room went cold. My teacher gave me an icy glare. I was scared but I didn’t quite know what I said that was wrong. Next week, we had a lesson where we were taught about the “veneration” of the Saints as opposed to the worship of Christ. With hindsight being 20/20, I think my theological faux pas was the cause of the lesson. I never brought up polytheism again and, rather than praying to not go to hell, I prayed that the teacher wouldn’t punish me or worse, I prayed that the other kids wouldn’t beat me up after class. Odd how I feared earthly punishment more than divine punishment.
Oh well, off to Room 101 I go! 😄
I wondered about this too! I didn't start really learning about religion until 7th grade when I went from public to Catholic school, and it just seemed to me like saints were lesser deities. I mean, why did you have to pray to a saint to pray on your behalf? Why not just talk straight to the Big Guy Himself? That's what my mom taught me. (Mom was raised Catholic, but hated the way the priests and nuns ran things. She never quite got over the faith though.) The worship of the Virgin Mary was really just a way of appropriating the mother fertility goddesses of the European pagan religions to make Christianity more palpable when Rome was forcing everyone to convert. But no, the Church is not anything like any other faith in the world. Nope, they're the real deal because they say so!
😂 the side eye, being told to stop asking questions and just have faith at my first catechism class let me know immediately that this was just doctrine school: write down what you're told and cram it so you can pass a test so you never have to do it again.
Honestly I believe this is a reason why syncretism with pagan faiths and beliefs kmost often indigenous) happens much more commonly in Catholicism than it does with other forms of Christianity.
So many Catholic "saints" are actually pagan figures who were adapted into Christianity, like the Celtic goddess Brigid and Saint Bridget of Ireland, and how Catholicism and folk beliefs are heavily intertwined in Latin America.
Yes they were assimilated and became saints.
- Demons are a fantastic character plot device. In fiction.
- Being a child of the 80's End Times Prophecy was so stitched into the fabric of being an American it wasn't funny.
- (Not in any way minimizing Christians who are actually persecuted in other countries), funny how American Christians will say they are persecuted, but I was the one getting rocks hurled at my head and being told I'd go to the bad-forever-place for not being one of them. And no, "not all Christians" but yes a whole lot of them.
- My 8th grade Life Science teacher was a YEC. He refused to teach that unit, turned off the lights and left the room for 3 days while we read 5 chapters. In the dark. He told us "yes, it will be on the test, but I'm not teaching it to you." For super extra bland funzies, our health teacher was a YEC too. Thankfully the anatomy & physiology/physics teacher was a 'rum in the coffee' atheist and set us straight on some of the wonky biology. He also showed a video of natural child birth and we had zero pregnancies in my graduating class. Ah yes, the lovely music of the Russian hell hole. I remember that.
- I think prophecy was really hyped up in the media at that time too.
- I didn't deal much with Purity Culture, but I remember 1 specific church service where these girls had gotten caught sleeping with some slightly older boys, and the minister did this whole forgiveness thing over them, but in the same breath kicked my friend's older sister out of the church while her family was sitting right there because she listened to heavy metal music and dyed her hair black. All I could think was that the first girls families had enough money to pay the church, and my friend's parents didn't, because those girls dyed their hair too. I'd hate to think it was the difference between blonde and brunette, but hey, it was the 80's. Made this jet black haired kid feel real welcome. Oh, there was also a lady they convinced to stay with her abusive husband. That got bad.
- Dad bought me Left Behind. It was so bad. So so so bad. It was an awful book. But the image of the neatly folded clothes stuck with me and I thought that was hilarious.
- My parents didn't get me baptized as a baby. My prospective godparents were different flavors of Christian, and none of the churches would let all 4 of them in at the same time, so my mother said f-it. It was a topic of great concern while I was growing up. Not for me, for my Christian friends.
- My autistic a-- wondering why everyone is raising their hands & swaying back & forth. Meanwhile I'm still trying to figure out what page we're supposed to be on. I forgot about the fainters in church, so thank you for that memory. I figured that was the perfume fumes. Some of my friends & I would practice fainting gracefully, so that behavior is probably largely performative.
80's Christians were pretty intense
@@DundaMifflin absolutely bonkers. LOL. I don't think it's gotten much better, it's just a slightly smaller circle of them.
That story of the boy being "exorcised" is horrifying and heart breaking.
I am autistic and thankfully did not grow up in a religious environment, and while I still have a fair bit of trauma from what I did go through, I cannot imagine the lasting damage that must have done to that poor child. That makes me so angry.
Yep. Trust me, you were better off without it. We were sitting ducks with out autistic innocence. Glad to be out. Still recovering.
It really makes me angry for him and every other neurodivergent kid who had to go through this, specially right now when Information is widely available.
My whole family got sucked into the I Found It movement in the early 1970s, I was about 22. The same charismatic movement that made Pentecostal practices more mainstream. Tongues (glossolalia), slain in the spirit, “healing” services and all. My dad became a pastor at around 50, my brother became a pastor, my sister and I taught Sunday School and VBS. I attended an Assembly of God church for a few years, then my brother’s non-denominational charismatic church. For almost 40 years I was a faithful follower. Never experiencing anything “spiritual “, having a single prayer answered or even knowing anyone who did left me feeling personally rejected and questioning the entire manmade cult. As a non-traditional college student the answers found in science and history made a lot more sense to me than the Bible’s fairytales. Traveling the world as a flight attendant showed me how every culture creates their own belief system. None are real or factually based. I have been free for about 10 years and it is completely liberating! I will never live in The Dark Ages again! My enlightenment came late in life but, at least it happened! Congrats to you Brandon for breaking free young enough to save your children from the guilt and shame produced by the dogma. I hope your wife has an epiphany soon! So much easier to be on the same path through life. My husband was resistant for a long time but, slowly he is coming around. Hard to change tracks later in life!
Thanks so much for this. So encouraging to hear about your husband. My wife and i had one of our best convos yet just last night via religion. I still see no end insight for her, but had my first glimmer of faint hope.
@@MindShift-Brandon The pandemic helped speed up my husband’s thought process in questioning the whole mythology. Just having that break from consistent re-enforcement of the cult beliefs was enormously helpful. He isn’t all the way there yet but, he is close! When I was still flying I had to work almost every Sundayl The break from re-indoctrination was all I needed to finish off what the science and exposure to other cultures had begun. Ever think of an extended holiday to a remote location? He, he, he! 😆 Just like deconverting a Moonie!
I, too, grew up in a fundamentalist family and church. Though I know my parents loved me and really thought they were doing their best, I now consider my upbringing to be abusive. When I was 9, my mother told me that my Presbyterian best friend was probably going to hell since she wasn't "saved" and instead believed in good works to get to heaven. I was traumatized for years.
As a former Presbyterian who was a former Evangelical I can completely resonate, also lol guess I was going to hell even then 😂
@@artemis_studios6555 When I made the move from Independent Baptist to Methodist, my fundie friends literally told me that it really made no difference what church I was going to, since "those" churches were all the same.
The thing is, presbyterians believed exactly that about other churches, because we we the elect, and were not saved by works... Oh boy....
Every denomination thinks they will be alone in heaven, apparently! So ridiculous!!!!@@Plethorality
I was raised in the Assembly of God denomination and it sounded like you were describing my childhood. It was all very traumatic and watching your video brought back some bad memories. I was terrified of communion, because before the ritual, we were all warned by the preacher that if we had partaken and were unworthy, then we would have Jesus' blood on our hands and would be cursed with disease or death.
During worship, sometimes a man in our congregation would take out his handkerchief and go running circles around the pews, while shouting what sounded like a war whoop. Some people would fall over backwards with ushers catching and lowering them to the floor. It was called "being slain in the spirit".
There was always a period where the congregation was supposed to stand up and give a testimony. There was a lot of peer pressure on everyone, and the pastor would not continue until at least two or three had spoken.
I was continually threatened with the idea that the rapture could happen at any time. I was very frightened for my "unsaved" dad and relatives.
I could go on, but suffice to say, I'm so glad that I finally escaped the clutches of the Christianity cult.
I can relate to so much.
Total fantastical INSANITY !!! I've been there, almost exactly the same situation as you, Brandon. What a nightmare we had to endure!! Getting out of Christianity is the best thing you can do
Regarding demons, my friend and I were just talking about this the other day. As an elementary school child, you have no context for the frequency of things, and when adults would talk about demon possession, they would talk about it with as much frequency as say, someone getting in a car accident, or someone getting cancer, or someone having something unfortunate happen to them. And so you start to think "Wow, demon possession happens pretty frequently and so I really need to be careful to avoid this in the same way I'm careful when crossing the street"
It was such a potent fear. I remember for a week in like 3rd grade I was terrified to go to bed because I would see shadows and my mind would think they were demons in my room.
Amazing video. It’s amazing how “normal “ all these things seemed at the time.
Exactly. Just another day of typical life. Thank yoh
As someone who is in the early stages of deconstruction I love these more personal and long formated videos. Especially because they go into the fundamentals of the christian faith. Thank you Brandon for your work
I look forward to listening to this for the next hour.
Thanks for being down for it!
@@MindShift-Brandon How was your trip?
@@Johnmhatheistlong! Lol. But happy to be back. Thanks.
I was raised fundamentalist, we were Presbyterian first and later Baptist, and now I'm an atheist. All this stuff about speaking in tongues and casting out demons is so utterly bizarre to me.
Its so normal to many of us..
Omg this just gave me PTSD. I swear I buried all of this in the back of my mind but I just relieved all my childhood trauma of growing up in a charismatic household. The part of the devil sitting at the end of the bed, jeez I couldn’t sleep for years as a child thinking the devil and demons were waiting to attack me. Thanks for sharing and being open to what many of us experienced over some insane nonsense.
You are not alone.
Definitely not alone.
In the Assemblies of God church I used to go to, we kept talking about getting soft carpets because people kept passing out from the holy spirit.
And then the only verse to back that up was the Roman soldiers falling backward… or something🙄
Bro, you are so spot on- especially about the altar calls. As a former pastor, that is EXACTLY the way we facilitated the Altar Call.
Thanks for the feedback. So glad we are out now!
So disgustingly manipulative! Glad you are a FORMER pastor!
That kind of altar call was abusive.
My grandparents believed that Jesus would come again before they died. He didn't. My parents believed that Jesus would come again before they died. He didn't. All of my christian friends and family believe that Jesus will come again before we die. We'll see. I believed it for the majority of my life, going down to the altar pretty much every Sunday "just in case" my christianity "didn't take." The more I read my bible, the more upset with God I got and the less I believed. The more i watched people pray, believing with all of their hearts, for healing that didn't happen, the less I believed. I pretty much stopped praying because I figured if there was a god, he either wasn't listening or didn't care. Either way, he was going to do what HE wanted rather than what we were praying for. I finally realized that i flat-out no longer believed. Thank you, Brandon for another eye-opening video!
On New Years Eve 1969, my grandma predicted that Jesus would return in 1970. He didn't.
@@davereese6614yeah because he's too busy finding people parking spots or finding their lost keys...😂😂😂😂
Sure sounds like you had your eyes on everyone else. What about Jesus? What happened to your love for Him?
@@christophergibson7155Well, well. Another tool for "god" here to try to make people feel guilty for losing their faith. When you lose belief in god you lose faith in his other iterations at the same time, all three that are somehow one. I would think you could have figured that out yourself. A gradual realization that the god you've been raised to believe in has done next to nothing over the last couple thousand years when he is supposedly all powerful is a fairly compelling argument against his existence. It's not the only argument, I'll grant, but it's AWFULLY convincing, especially if you have a long life of dealing with his absence.
"Just in case" is a very wrong attitude to have.... it's either out of love or get lost.
So, we had the same childhood! I was raised in non-denominational "progressive" Christianity but everything you've said was SPOT ON!! WOW!!! Please make another 15 lists because you're talking about everything I've ever gone through. Thank you for this, it's therapeutic and healing to know I'm not crazy and making my childhood up. The trauma sometimes makes me feel like it never happened or that I've suppressed some of the events that took place to protect myself. Recently, I told my therapist about my newfound atheism, and we began exploring why. Suddenly, all the traumatic memories came out and now, I'm facing them so I can heal. It's very emotional, painful, and scary. Watching your videos helps tremendously. PLEASE, if you can do another video like this, it's way more helpful than you'll ever know!
So very glad to help! Help me with the general 15 topics and i will do another with more stories for sure.
I can't begin to tell you how much this resonated with me. The part where you described alter call literally brought me back there in tears because of rhe trauma of thinking how evil I was and that I needed help. I hope anyone who reads this knows you are good, you are loverd as long as you are kind to people. The other thing that really was the falling from the holy Spirit crap. There was a guy named Mark shell that came to our church. We all went to the front, we were praying and speaking in tongues and then he'd come by and touch people's foreheads and they were supposed to then he'd come by and touch people's forehead and they would just fall. Well he came over to me and touch my forehead and I didn't drop. He then literally try to force me to the ground. instead of concluding that the entire thing was hystericals and emotion. I concluded that he was demonic and a false preacher. The mindset it soooo messed up. But I will say that that was one of the first cracks in my armor that made me think this is all crap. What an incredible video Brandon. Thank you.
Oh man. Thanks for sharing so much back. Whats amazing is that these more fundamentalist actions can show even faster how false it all is but they are typically coming with people who believe even more strongly. Such insanity!
@@MindShift-Brandon I totally agree
PS I need to do a better job proof reading my voice text! LOL
How is it possible for an Atheist to become a Christian ? I can relate to a Christian becoming an Atheist.
Oh man, my mom was really into "End Time Prophecy" videos and they TERRIFIED ME as a child and sent me into an extremely dark and deep spiral of depression for years and years. i 100% believed that the world was going to end on september 23rd 2017 and it shattered my world. I just stayed in my room all day, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, i could go on and on and it wasn't just the end of the world but God himself and everything i read in the bible made me feel like a worthless piece of sh**. i started having suic*dal thoughts... ugh it was rough man.
So very sorry to hear! Its so tragic what this god of peace and love actually induces.
I also believed it was going to be on 23 September 2017! I remember watching the sun rise on the 18th and being very disappointed
I was utterly shocked that Apocalyptic dates were still given post 2000. There was such hype built around the new millennium that I thought that, when that failed, people would return to the more sensible (and more Biblical) notion of "No man knows the hour."
One thing that I've always wondered is why, if adults REALLY believed that the End is near, they would even have children, go to university, get married, etc. Wouldn't they spend every moment of every day trying to save souls for the imminent destruction of everything? Makes no sense.
@@Charlotte_MartelIsn't there a few verses from Paul basically urging his fellow Christians not to get married because Jesus's return was imminent?
@@utubepunk Absolutely. Paul certainly seems to think that Jesus will return in Paul's generation or shortly there after, and that salvation/winning souls should be one's sole focus. Paul even says that marriage is only preferable if one cannot behave as a celibate and wishes to avoid hell for his sexual desire. Robert Price holds (and I agree) that Jesus' message only makes sense when one views it under the lens of Apocalypticism.
This the BEST video you have EVER DONE!!! So many memories unlocked😅. U hit so many points, you rock dude!!!!!
Appreciate the love!
No doubt this is one of my top favorite, if not my favorite, Mind Shift episode with Brandon. I laughed so hard picturing young Brandon believing and going along with all this nonsense! Everything you said seems to go totally against the mature, intelligent and logical Brandon I have come to know on this channel. Fascinating stories for someone raised as a mainstream Catholic. Amazed you pulled out of that cultish culture.
This was 100% my whole childhood and even at 40, my parents text me almost daily, fear, panic, end times prep, and politics mixed with religion. Most of them time I dont reply because it just triggers everything.
I grew up in the Church of God which is almost exactly like the Assembly’s of God, so I can testify that this stuff is very normal in this denomination.
I also want to say that I think your mother was doing what she thought was right. I find myself bitter at being lied to, and being scared of hell and demons at at an age when I wasn’t developed enough to see that it was obvious bs. But, then I think, well, these people thought they were doing right. So, that leaves no one to really go after except the religion itself.
I keep coming back as I’m listening, this is so rich. You’re right! After you get the Holy Spirit you feel empowered. You have the same understanding as I over it. About it being a secret prayer language, not necessarily needing a translation but sometimes an interpretation. And the devil stealing normal prayer. I’ve been taught the same. I know it’s bunk but I still do it from time to time.
@@allenmitchell09 I try to be kind to my mother and her relatives in remembering that point. If one TRULY believes in hell and eternal torture, then the most loving thing he/she could do for his/her child is to try to save that child from such a horrific fate. Still, it has permanently wrecked my relationship with my mother to the point that I never left her alone with my children in fear of her brainwashing them.
Brandon, after all you experienced as a young person raised in the church, I'm quite impressed you made it out with your sanity intact. I know there are a multitude who do not. Thank you for putting yourself out there. It will have a profound, snowball effect in the future for those who were raised as you were. You made it, and you're a hero!
That’s incredibly kind of you. Thank you!
Wow. Spot on. Demons, martyrdom, purity, tongues, all.of.it. So much fear, so much shame, so many mental gymnastics. This helps me so much, thank you.
Man end times prophecies used to scare me to death when I was a Christian lol. Terrified me for years waiting for the moment, but thankfully I grew out of religion. Good video
Incredible video Brandon. My former church sadly checks off all these boxes.
Your point that Jesus did not get baptized as a child is an astute one that surprisingly doesn’t get any attention when living a “Christ like Life”
Jesus, the sun, is baptized every January as the sun passes through Aquarius. As the lamb, he is "slain" as the sun passes through March (Aries constellation).
We must also remember that the sun is born again at the winter solstice when the sun appears to move northward. This is necessary to go to Heaven aka the period from the spring equinox to the autumn equinox. The end of the world is the sun's passing over from winter to spring where a new sacred year begins again, and again, and again................
That is some pagan belief
@@ladyeowyn42
Jesus will soon be resurrected. This happens at every pass over from winter to spring. He will probably spend the season with Venus.
I wish I could have a one on one conversation with you. When you said how grateful you are that you won’t be passing this stuff to your children, it made me wonder how you and your wife handled that. I’d assume she would want them raised as Christian kids. It’s got to be so damn difficult to maneuver through this. I became an atheist right around the same time my daughter did. We were riding in our truck and she said, “Mommy, I don’t think I believe in god”. I said that I didn’t either. We had been having conversations about this because she went to a kids church thing with one of her friends (they were about 8-9 yrs old) & she liked the pastor. I asked her to ask him a couple questions (I forget what they were), he said he’d like to talk with me because he couldn’t give her an answer. I never met with him. The very next day I watched a Hitch video and I was done. This happened within 2 days so I (and my daughter) were lucky. You were MUCH more indoctrinated and I give you so much credit for getting out!! Sorry this is so long but you inspire me😊
I remember my very Catholic grandparents on my dad's side telling how much Jesus loved me and to beware the Devil around every corner. i was scared the Devil was going to tempt me to sin and then I would go to hell. I was also afraid that I did not love Jesus enough and as a result would be punished in hell. I remember my grandmother using the pictures in a church calendar to teach me the story of Genesis and the Fall of Man. In today's terms my grandparents were creationists because they considered the account in Genesis as literal history. Later, in High School I went to a Fundamentalist church with friends where I was shown the movie, "A thief in the Night" and its sequel. It scared the hell out of me. This was in the late 1970's when Hal Lindsey's book "The Late Great Planet Earth" was very popular in church circles. What impressed me as a teen was how well everything fit together in the fulfillment of prophecy. The Rapture was supposed to happen soon. I graduated from high school and time went on. Then the 80's came and went and the 90's came and went and the 20th Century came and went along with the 2nd Millennium. Now we are in the 21st Century and 24 years into the 3rd Millennium and we are still here. I wonder how many people my age that were taught the end was here in the 1970's still believe it? Having grown up Catholic and having also gone to Protestant Fundamentalist churches I have gotten it from both sides. I could tell you some things but that would involve a much longer post!
"A Thief in the Night" gave me such nightmares as a child. Even though I didn't believe in the Rapture theology, there was always that "What if?" doubt that plagued my mind. I recently re-watched it as an adult with my husband and was shocked at how any adult could have taken this seriously.
This is by far the most intelligent, compelling, and credible responses to these absurd, abusive and very damaging beliefs…it’s a testament to you that you emerged as healthy and well adjusted as you seem to be here. I greatly admire you….
That is so kind and very encouraging. Thank you much for the comment. I have a part 2 coming out tomorrow on these 15 facets.
The placement of the couch in our living room when I was a child allowed me to see the television and the garage door light. When that light came on, I changed the channel--twice, since the remote had a recall button.
I've speculated about the idea of recruiting ex-fundamentalists as spies and operatives. We had our training in life in an authoritarian regime from birth.
lol! thats hilarious.
@@MindShift-BrandonWere you watching a' worldly 'channel of the' devil' perchance?
My father was a Baptist pastor. My mother became a fundamentalist and constantly had the trinity broadcasting network on tv. She spent thousands of dollars on tithes and merchandise from megachurches. She took us to see Benny Hinn. She prayed in tounges , got drunk in the spirit, she went on a missionary trip to china when I was 7 years old. When I was in middle school my parents woke me for school to tell me that they saw Jesus come up the driveway and walk into my body…and meanwhile I just went to school thinking I don’t feel different and I’m sure no one at school has parents that say things like this to them.. she wanted to take me out of school because they taught us evolution theory. I’m 38 now and still struggle, I have anxiety and depression, my older brother has been in every religion and joined a few cults . I’m still so confused and I am very validated by your words. Thank you so much !!
Hi Brandon, thank you so much for this video. I am a Gay man, who is well in his 70's now and free from religion. During my teenage years I attended a very strict fundamentalist church, and I still continue to deal with the trauma from that experience. One part of your video brought back a memory that made me smile. In the early 1950's when I was 5 y/o, my father had a severe stroke and had to be hospitalized in the VA at Fayetteville, AR. My mother sent me to live with my cousins Perl and Johnny. This was fine with me since I loved their farm animals and living the rustic life. They had no running water, plumbing or electricity. My older sister had been adopted by them and she played the guitar for entertainment. We attended the Methodist church, but Perl and Johnny were Pentecostal Assembly of God. I had been to church with my cousins several times without any incident. However, the first Sunday after going to stay with them since my father had his stroke, I was introduced to the "Gifts of the Spirit" being in the congregation. The minister, Sister Mosher was giving a fiery sermon, when all at once my cousin Perl, who was setting next to me, jumped up, screamed, and fell to the floor. I of course thought that she too had just had a stroke and began crying hysterically. My cousin Johnny, who was outside under the trees with some other men whittling wood and chewing tobacco, came stomping in the church entrance. Cousin Johnny was a really big man. So, he just swooped little me up under his arm and took me outside. He said don't pay no mind, she will be just fine, she likes to crawl on the floor sometimes. The other men laughed, and I don't remember much more about that day.
I think you very accurately described much of the childhoods of MANY of us who were raised as "Evangeicals." It brings back many unhappy memories as well as being forced to acknowledge to myself the ways in which it has CONTINUED to effect me as an adult
This is so traumatic I have to listen to this in parts on different days.
I understand. It brings a kot back, doesnt it!!?? So much manipulation, given in God's Name. So much was just a grift for money.
Nobody should be put through such unbearable pressure to conform to a mentally abusive set of beliefs. You saved yourself from it and that is a great accomplishment. Thank you for helping others to understand how cultivating good critical thinking skills is a very good thing.
You know I started this video smiling and ready to be entertained. But as the video progressed, my smile faded and I realised, despite having only experienced probably 1/5 of what happened to you, how traumatic my memories are and how I believe I’ll always be messed up for life. Thanks for sharing and giving us hope Brandon.
2:47 I was terrified the first time I heard about the Sacrifice of Isaac. After Sunday School, I approached my own father and asked him if he would kill me if the Lord told me to do it. My Dad, bless him, got down on one knee and looked me straight in my eyes, and he said:
“Tina, if the Lord told me to kill you, I would tell Him to go to Hell.”
That was so much better than if he had said something typical like “G-d doesn’t ask us to do that anymore,” or some other lame-ass “explanation.”
After this episode, my Dad forbade me to go to church for the next 4 years.
Based father
Another excellent video and very validating. Purity culture is so damaging.
Wow brings back so many memories I can relate to most if not all. Thanks for the reminder of what current believers are still going thru that some of us battle thru during our exodus from religion,dogma and the immoral monster called gawd(s).
Thank you!
Knowing you’re not alone in something or certain thoughts brings so much comfort. Amazing video conveying the thoughts of so many people raised in Christianity.
Got an Adbreak right in the middle of the “sounds of hell” clip. Accidental art right there.
😂
Lol!
Anyone who thinks, by now, that this planet is 6,000 years old has been straight up *robbed* of honest answers that they rightfully deserve.
So many of these hit so close to home! In the black church, folks would "catch the holy ghost" and that would mean jumping, shouting, crying, speaking in tongues, stomping their feet while flailing their arms...As a child I was really worried about someone getting hurt! I was told that was impossible because god would not allow someone to hurt themselves while praising him??!!! I also remember the fear in childhood...I grew up during the "Late Great Planet Earth" book by Hal Lindsey. Rapture fear is real! Finally my mom loved some PTL club and at some point in my teen years, I called in and was blessed with the gift of tongues! I know good and well then and now that I was just babbling, but I truly felt that I was not good enough unless I was able to do this. Brandon, you are helping me unpack so much nonsense that I experienced. Thank you once again!
Please do a longer video on each of these.
I really plan to.
This is so valuable. It took me years to realize the trauma I endured as a child. We were so young and so incapable of managing all this insanity and it is so easy to think that now, as grown ups, we should be able to move on. Our inner child need healing… forever. It is a lifelong process… but we don’t need to suffer alone.
I was raised in the Seventh Day Adventist church and in highschool I went on a mission trip to Peru in 2019. I was 16 at the time. While there we had worships every morning before we would go out and build solar panels. At one of these worships the principle of my school split the boys and girls into two groups. She stayed with the girls and then took out a baby wipe and rubbed it on her hands. She then asked all the girls to do the same as they passed it around the circle. When it got back to her she then held it up and asked us “Now how many of you would want this wipe?… this wipe represents what a Christian man will see you as if you sleep around before marriage. Do you want to be this dirty and unwanted wipe?”
Looking back at this now makes me realize how INSANE this was
When I was a child, the two scariest people in my life were praying for me to speak in tongues. One was behind me with her hands on my shoulders, while the ither was standing in front of me holding my arms up. I was so scared I just started saying what I remember another adult saying and repeating it over and over again while crying, and they were so excited that I had finally been baptized in the holy spirit. In later years I prayed for my own language, a new one I hadn't heard before. It never happened. Honestly, I think it is people terrifying young people into speaking gibberish and calling it tongues.
it's so creepy
Yes it is.
I was a child, and addicted to being saved. I used to listen to a radio show that played at night, called Unchained. It was stories of "being saved"
I used to lay in bed at night sobbing because I couldn't figure out the sin I had committed. But I would scour my memory and soul, until I found some slight. And I would abase myself until I felt thar feeling of being saved again.
It's a terrible cycle.
I also heard about waking up to Satan at the foot of the bed. That story affected my sleep well into adulthood. I cannot believe they thought it was ok to share that with children.
Me too! Way linger than i care to admit
Yeah I heard this as well. I have a feeling this story gets retold in various guises. I've heard various stories retold with different characters and settings.
Raised 7th Day Adventist, I remember coming home from public grade school one afternoon and telling my Mother that “my teacher said we were fish first and then grew legs and walked out of the ocean.” She blew up (as she was prone to doing) and I cringed in fear as she screamed about the stupidity of such a story and the evil lies being taught in the public school (we couldn’t afford the church school, although I did finally attend in 5th grade and was horribly bullied). She came with me to school the next day and angrily confronted my teacher demanding that she teach the truth: creationism. I was embarrassed that I had gotten my teacher (whom I adored) in trouble. The teacher tried to defend and clarify the curriculum, but was no match for my Mother who, dissatisfied, took it to the principal. Next she rounded up a group of other Christian parents and incensed they took it to the school board. I was excused from science lessons for the rest of the year.
So sorry to hear that. I believed in creation, bit it was before the ism... So i just wrote " the text book says .. blah blah, blah . Evolution"... I passed my exams. I learnt about evolution. Learning doesn't have to mean believing.
No one got hurt.
But your mum sounds like a panic artist, poor woman.
When I was young there were two older men in the church who would tell me personal things about myself and they caused me to think that God had revealed these things to them. Their other information to me was terrifying, full of losing your salvation and rapture anxiety. I believed their teachings because, after all, God had revealed things to them about me. These two men contributed to me becoming a Pentecostal basket case. But I believed them because I thought God was directly giving them information about me. Later I found out that my mom was giving them this information. For some reason, she was too intimidated by them to let me know. These two men did substantial mental damage to me. Damage that took me decades to come to terms with.
Fahhhhkk.... That is terrible!!! Wow! Your mum thought she was doing the right thing, but. Oh. Wow. No. Those bullying old men were abusive.
@@Plethorality Yes you are so right. These two men and many other people in the Pentecostal church made me a basket case and ruined my youth. For a long time, I blamed my mom, but I don't anymore. She was frightened and anxious to do the will of God. She was easy prey for these two abusive guys. Although I hate these two men for what they did to me, I also realize they may have also been manipulated by this faulty and terrifying religion. They may have thought they were doing the right thing. I am glad I finally found logic and could think my way out of this terrifying vortex. Thanks so much for your encouraging words. I greatly appreciate it.
Sorry you suffered that
@@ruthcrites Thanks so much. My departure from the Pentecostal church came shortly after a group from a Koinonia meeting took a picture with a polaroid camera (this was back in 1980). The camera produced a double exposure. But everyone including the pastor said that the shadow in the picture was Jesus. He proclaimed that Jesus had visited the Koinonia meeting. I would not give in. I told them all I really saw was a double exposure in the picture. There was severe pressure on me to say that it was Jesus in the picture. But by this time, I was beginning to think on my own. Thanks again for your comment.
My faith was so strong I couldn’t speak in tongues X I genuinely believed so hard I thought it would happen but it wouldn’t. It really bugged me, it definitely lead to some kind of doubt at some point.
I grew up (loosely) Catholic and it’s so fascinating learning about first-hand experiences of people growing up in fundamentalist Christianity.
There are so many interesting differences and similarities (as I’m certain that there are differences between fundamentalist groups, since there are so many iterations).
Apparently Catholics can be just as intensely-culty and fearful of anything secular, but I definitely didn’t get that impression when I was a kid or even when I went to Catholic high school (despite being an atheist already).
Being surrounded by people who LITERALLY believe that the Eucharist is the LITERAL body and blood of Christ, however, is apparently one of the similarities.
I look forward to seeing more from your channel and hearing about your process with deconstruction and wherever you’re at now!!
Happy sunday Brandon...the talibangelicals are off to church...so peaceful and quiet here in my lil village❤😂🎉
lol, i have never heard that term!
This video is accurately on point. I experienced all these things in my 55 years as an Evangelical Christian. So much time, and good things of life, lost in unending/unquestioning service to the hive-mind ecosystem of “church family.”
Love this guy. Intelligent, informed, well read. Possibly the best debunker of christianity i've come across.
Yes!! It really does feel like fever dream looking back on Christian memories. Too strange. Just crazy. Good video as usual 💗💗💗💗
I can confirm everything you said taking place in Assemblies of God churches. I lived it too. I was a terrified 5 year old who told my mom I I didn't want to go to hell so she prayed a salvation prayer with me (she was delighted and so proud. And I was terrified.) I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues at every worship service and in my own private prayer. I believed the eating disorder I now know was the result of the tremendous anxiety I was carrying around because of my indoctrination was "sin" and so I was sure I was going to hell because no matter how hard I prayed I couldn't get rid of it. And I judged...oh how I judged everyone around me and thought it was compassion and love for their soul. Disgusting. Thank you for making this video, Brandon. I think it's my favorite one you've ever done because I can just relate SO HARD.
That is so sad that you had anxiety as a professing Christian. I have sensed there are quite a few on these channels who have never had the real assurance of peace, joy, and love of God in their salvation experience. There have been way too many false conversions to Christianity. The wrong motivations of the fear of Hell and displeasing the God of wrath. True repentance and totally trusting Jesus alone that He took the penalty, punishment, and judgment for your sin is so foundational to being free of the enslavement and curse of sin. I can attest to a most Loving, Gracious and Compassionate Savior; who has first loved me. I am so grateful for His wonderful salvation.
@@christophergibson7155bahaha, how ironic that _your_ very christian religion/bible is the cause of anxiety, fear and insecurities!! It's just _your choice_ to ignore this fact. You're the one trapped in your biblical religion. We're free 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@kamigiglio2559 So glad you are free of the terror, fear, anxiety and awful issues christianity/the bible spews onto folks. I hope you find healing for your eating disorder as you work through severing all ties mentally and emotionally with this horror religion. Take care of yourself! 💜
oh man, yes all of that. thanks for sharing some back. What a mess we were in!
Every time I engage with "American" Christianity I feel a mixture of pity for those who practice it and relief for myself and those who grew out of it.
Though I've always been an atheist, I went to a Christian elementary in Germany.
Throughout 3rd and 4th grade, my principal was especially nasty, bullying me because of my atheist and Syrian-German background, spreading rumours about me being a fat Muslim who always goes to McDonald's, culminating in the swimming week when she pushed my head underwater on multiple occasions.
Only recently, I could finally go to therapy in my university town and get some closure.
The problem is the American version of Christianity is way off target and every new year , it becomes an even more vast mixture of new age and lying signs and wonders. It’s no wonder people are walking away from it and becoming Atheists. But while many become Atheists, others are realizing that they are the Church and are reading the Bible themselves and getting away from the harlot system coming into existence which was prophesied in the Bible as occurring in the last days.
@@davidrexford586 Let's see how long this 'last days' last.
@@AXKfUN9m 2000 years and counting 😉
@@dasbus9834for 2 days they shall not see their king but on the third day he shall be forever in their sight. No one has seen God these last two thousand years but on the third day thy God will reveal himself. The Bible says 1000 years is as one day in Heaven so it’s only been close to 2 Days.. and on the third day, he shall be revealed.. we shall see
@@davidrexford586 Not exactly the most useful prediction then, if it comes with such a huge degree of uncertainty.
Oh man, i have so much compassion hearing what you’ve been through, that it makes my heart melt…
And how funny, as i was thinking about how god made me found you channel, while you were speaking about the holly spirit and the pastor, it made me laugh… but really, i am so happy to have found you, i cannot thank the algorithm 😂 enough.
Good work!! Bravo!!
👏🏼 ❤❤❤❤❤
It is insane. So, I think it’s okay to use the word as many times as you need to as to get your point made. Another great video! Thanks again Brandon!!