Hi friends! 😽 If you want to help us keep making videos like this, please consider sending us a few bucks on Venmo @ Samantha-Shelley-1 🐬 OR, join our fabulous little 700-person Patreon community where we read 80s Mormon fiction and have the best time!!!! www.patreon.com/zelphontheshelf Or, if you’re a professional little minx, you can also donate via PayPal! www.paypal.com/paypalme/zelphontheshelf
and so validating!! I had so many uncomfy feelings growing up about the bible, but when you're 6 and adults are telling you mythology they believe to be true history it's so confusing!!
I have a unique perspective on this: I started following you guys to attempt to deconvert my mother in law and convert her to the “right” kind of Christianity. Unfortunately, in learning about how mormonism takes advantage of psychological principles to keep its followers in the system, I deconverted myself 😂 once you start learning about a religion with an outsider perspective, you slowly realize they’re all relying on the same manipulations.
every time this comment comes up in our notifs it makes me happy. glad to hear what we're doing is helping people who don't even have a mormon background. life becomes so much more interesting when we start asking questions rather than insisting we already have the right answers. best wishes for your journey ✌❤ -tanner
The opposite happened to me. I started watching this show when I hated all religions and saw all of them as categorically evil. Everything these two said really resonated with me at the time, because they are pious liberals. For that very reason, I now watch them with a mix of sadness and schadenfreude. I converted from liberal wokeism to a religion that works for me and I feel so free! I don’t think Mormonism, Christianity, Buddhism or Wokism promote good things in the world. Not anymore anyway. Those all are religions where asking questions is notably NOT a core tenet. I hope you find your peace in this world through whichever means works for you while not hurting anyone or infringing upon their rights🩵
@@Constantin9va anyone who talks about “liberal wokeism” as if it’s a religion, has never been either liberal or progressive. Way to wave the flag of homophobia and racism without saying outright that you’re a racist homophobe.
My new mantra when my mother tries to remind me that Christianity is there for me “when you’re ready to come back” is that there are healthier ways of finding purpose and community, and healthy systems don’t give you PTSD 😊
My mom told me she would never bring Christianity up around me again since it made me so upset (like my religious trauma is an irrational nuisance). She then insisted that she KNOWS I am going to heaven (even if I die a nonbeliever) because I was baptized.
Recently told my parents I’m not a believer so it resurfaced loads of emotions again. So glad to have your channel, bringing some humor and relatability to me! Hope y’all are doing well
Nail on the head, how Mormons view the world: it doesn't matter how good of a person you are, it matters what you believe in. My tbm parents recently forwarded me an email between them and some long-time friends updating them on the lives of their now adult children. The updates were LITERALLY just a status of their church attendance or lack thereof. About me they said, "her children have never heard a word of the gospel" and the reply was words of consolation and heartbreak despite the fact that I have a wonderfully healthy and happy family...😮💨
@amycahoon6272 because the long-time friends' email included an update of one of their children who was my childhood piano teacher that they "thought I'd be interested in", which was cool to read, I admit. (But because the friends' email was a reply, it included my parents' original email giving the synopsis of their own children's church status 🙄- not so cool to read.)
My finally leaving was when I realized the core doctrinal idea that is common to Christianity that Tanner ranted about the messed up God that created flawed people despite being omnipotent and all powerful. And when you finally accept that organized religions tend to have a power agenda, it tends to make you realize it might be a waste of time to try any others.
The history of the Bible is what finally made everything make sense. You’re totally right about mainstream Christians and evangelicals not even being interested in it. As a history nerd I was bound to find it lol
RE: Happiness. My non-religious father, when asked the "How are you?" would normally respond "60/40". You knew he was in a great mood when he said "70/30". KEEP UP THE GREAT CONTENT! Luv you both ❤
Prosperity doctrine was one of several things that broke my shelf. It was sold to me as some magical force that would provide wealth to me if I paid my tithing. It didn't really make much sense to me since there were a lot of people that I knew that paid their tithing regularly and fully but were still very much poor. I started seeing the church as more of a business than a church.
I'm thinking about how I managed to learn so much ancient near eastern history in Jerusalem without realizing it then? But there's the reason my belief in Christianity ultimately collapsed. I WAS learning. I saw the problems and holes in general Christianity but I was able to use my Mormon belief in a Restoration as a crutch to prevent me from facing what I wasn't ready to face at the time. Also, I love the idea of referring to Jesus as Joshua from now on. #MakeJesusJoshuaAgain
I've had such a similar world view to you guys for so long now, it must be so nice to have someone to bounce it off of. I know it's not a necessarily unique perspective and a lot of people come this this understanding, but I'm 24 and it feels like no one around me feels this way too or sees things this way too. If I find spiritual people it always ends up being about something not real (ie what you're describing with religions, but also new age things or atheists if they see our existence as purely meaningless). All that to say I hope I'm able to find more likeminded people like you guys sometime soon, it must feel good to not feel alone in it!!
I think the perspective you discussed about the evangelical relationship with the Bible is super interesting. I was raised evangelical, and we were forced to study the Bible CONSTANTLY. They wanted us to memorize it and interpret it exactly how they said to. I always thought evangelicals were super well-versed in scripture because of that. However, your point about the lacking historical context is very true. I never learned any of it until I deconstructed. So I went from having one understanding of the Bible to a completely different one just by adding that context. I never thought about it like that before!
I was following a channel where the creator had documented quite a lot of really horrible stuff that had happened in their earlier life. The other day they made a video about why they are a christian. I clicked on it curious to see how you could go through that kind of stuff and still believe in a loving God. Heart breakingly one of the first things they said was along the lines of I got into Christianity because I knew I could never be good enough without a god
It’s true that the “founding fathers” were for the most part deist (or completely atheist like Thomas Paine) enlightenment rationalists, but it is not true that they came to America to escape religion. If you’re talking about the pilgrims, they actually came here to establish an extremist theocracy that England in 1620 was too forward thinking to tolerate. The ancestors of the founding fathers, on the other hand, mostly came here for economic opportunity, etc.
my expression here was clumsy but yes i was referring specifically to the founding father’s resentment at paying taxes to the church of england, their consideration of former theocratic political structures, and their intentional exclusion of appeal to divine authority in the constitution, as well as the explicit statements against church and state.
I loved the discussion about the Witness. I've been getting into meditation and Buddhist thought recently, and I've come to realize that I am not my thoughts, I am not my emotions, and I am not my personality. So what am I? That's the question I'm continuing to explore.
Thank you Sam & Tanner for your perspective... As a Christian, it indeed does become difficult to avoid the tribalism that surrounds much of the religion today. I find as I get older I become more attracted to the concept of the "Red Letter Jesus", ie: based on the words he spoke throughout scripture or those highlighted in "red letter" editions of the Bible. To me, that should be the essence of the faith...
I quickly left Christianity and theism after leaving the LDS church. I thought about it constantly for about a year, whether or not I had any reason to believe in God. Finally I realized I didn't and my fears went away
Right around the 9 minute mark listening to Tanner talk about Isaiah being multiple people and Crack pot made me want to burst into laughter as I realized 'Isaiah was the og Q anon'.
For the first time ever I'm actually early to a video 😅 very excited to watch. As someone who grew up atheist I don't know much about religion or religious topics and your videos are very interesting and informative for me
It’s also heartbreaking to see people who suffer awful tragedies, and then they grapple for an explanation by saying “God has a plan even if we don’t understand it.” If god’s plan includes letting his “children” suffer, that’s no god for me.
@@ChannelPaul I can only imagine how tough it is to maintain your own culture right next to them, we're on the other side of the world and we still have to correct our kids writing 'mom' and 'aluminum' all the time.
Tanners rant around 45:44 was my church for today, so thank you - watching on a Sunday Beautiful way to think about the sense of self and ways of thinking and categories of thought
As someone who also converted to church as a teenager, I have to say that I always saw these stories as myths. It was when I found those myths to no longer be useful, but rather harmful (along with the organization that was built upon them), that I had to show myself to the door.
I did the same, but I insisted on letting the door hit my ass on the way out. Sometimes you need that physical ass-whoopin' to help prevent yourself from ever going back.
I started to be more and more shocked how literal and how concrete everything became. I always considered Bible stories to be stories with deep wisdom about how to live, not literally things and people and events that actually happened. There was nowhere left for me in the church because everyone knows all the answers and it’s black and white. And the most ignorant and extreme voice wins usually.
@@grantbeck9228 Same. At first I thought it was because I found myself in the Bible Belt South rather than the very progressive/over educated New England ward that I joined. Sadly no.
I also want to thank both of you for helping me realize spirituality and religion are separate. I don't need religion, but I am a spiritual person. Your conversations have helped me recognize the difference and allowed me to lean into my spirituality in a new, exciting, and more healing way.
when i realized there was no reason to keep believing in false mormon narratives that arent actually based in anything that actually happened, I quickly realized the whole Christian faith was founded on similar ridiculous stories without any basis in reality, so I lost belief ion Christ too. I like Jesus. I agree with Jesus's teachings like loving my neighbor and serving others and peacefully co-existing with everyone. I just don't believe Jesus was the son of God
Sounds like your thinking was similar to mine. Once you see Mormonism as a ludicrous fairytale it’s hard not to see virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, and other numerous non-possible things as anything but a fairytale.
@@valerieodonnell6764there is not a virgin birth prophecy in the Bible. That's a man made doctrine.... The Bible is good, it just needs to be studied. When you study the Old testament it is easier to discern the New and what doesn't belong in it at all.
Of course, we crave safety and learn that we may not be able to protect ourselves. We, therefore, hope someone/something will come along and give us the promise of safety. Hence, the key to manipulation is knowing what will make someone feel safe or unsafe.
The bible being an idol is something I never thought of but honestly makes so much sense. I've always taken for granted that the bible was what the Christian God would've wanted. It's honestly hard to make any statements on it tho cause any characterization of god I have is from the bible (and I guess the way Christians talk about him). But if we were to take the characterization of God from the story of Moses, he would hate people taking the words of humans and claiming they are god and then worshipping the book that the people write rather than actually worshipping him. The similarities between the bible and the golden calf are astonishing
Now I'm stuck with the image of Kenneth Copeland yelling and condemning "IN THE NAME OF JOSH I DEMAND..." Meanwhile some dude name Josh saying nah, that's out of my sphere of control
My faith journey began as a Unitarian Universalist youth, I always felt like there was more to understand than what my church community was teaching me. I converted to Christianity at 23 when I married a charismatic Christian and we attended an Anglican Church for years. Still didn’t find the spiritual experience I was looking for and I’ve been deconstructing for the last several years since my divorce. I’m once again seeking a church in order to have a community and for my daughter so she doesn’t feel “left out” of spirituality like I was growing up. It’s hard to grapple with the contradiction of devotion to the Bible and all its unsavory passages and a one loving god that dwells within us. This video really articulated a lot of my thoughts about how to approach faith after a faith crisis.
Consider joining a social club. You can be spiritual at home without any connection to organized religion. Sometimes finding a different congregation isn’t the answer. You can be devoted to the Bible without having anyone else around you to tell you how to interpret it.
We need to have a conversation about the book you need to put together. It's a missing link in your presentation, and something your viewers would buy buy buy buy. I know how to get it published. Been involved with publishing for decades. Let's talk.
@@ZelphOntheShelf So many things I can tell you about publishing and getting your book out there. And avoiding the scammers in publishing who you won't have to deal with as you can handle it all yourself - I'll show you. And ways to use print-on-demand in your favor so you can alter your book whenever you want to alter a sentence or chapter, also doing that all yourself - it's easy. And it will be for sale internationally, with the $$ going directly to your account. And you can plug it on every video to send people to purchase it. Let's have a Zoom. PS: I don't want, and won't accept any money from you. I want you to have your own book so people can learn what you teach. It's important stuff. And, you can make more $$$.
Deconstructing Jesus was harder for me than deconstructing Mormonism. I felt so attached to his love, understanding, and sacrifice. But then I realized I can get all that from the actual people in my life and myself. I never seriously considered Christianity because, like everyone is saying, it was too easy to see through it all after deconstructing Mormonism. It is very hard for me to feel connected to any religion now even though I crave feeling those “special” feelings, which I realize now was mostly MUSIC. Lol. I now find those feelings in music, nature, movies, human connection. I have reconnected with my Jewish ancestry because of my Jewish boyfriend of 6 years, though I must say I still struggle to truly connect with it because of the trauma of growing up Mormon and leaving it. I feel like I was meant to be Jewish but the religious trauma …
Growing up my parents compared me to Isaac, who was supposed to be someone representing Jesus. You don’t need the context behind this comparison, but now I really want to write a story from Jesus’s point of view in a fantasy setting where he could be in that situation. Knowing that the individual sheep was worth leaving the fold to find, but that HE specifically wasn’t worth saving. That his god wanted HIM to die for everyone else, and he had to be PERFECT for his whole life to set an example for humankind. That one misstep could ruin EVERYTHING.
@@flutenanyidk1806 he died to become our high priest, our mediator to God, he was willing to leave this earth for the faith in the promise he was given. He is very valuable to us and to God. To think God didn't save him is a misunderstanding of scripture.
As a canadian I can tell you that I personally do say "bloody" but mostly just when I say *"Jesus bloody fucking christ on a god damn easter stick!"* ...I wonder if that will get censored.
Learning about Constantine and the First Council of Nicaea is pretty cool if you're interested on how the organization got created. Constantine wasn't even Christian, but he made christianty legal and as a very roman emperor, the church had to be organized "à la Roman". So the church hierarchy is based on the roman hierarchy and there were 5 patriarchs (aka popes) to begin with. Rome and Constantinople each had one and the roman patriarch is now the pope whereas the one in constantinople became later the seat of the orthodox church after the split. So just seeing that even the pope wasn't supposed to be head of church, the 5 were equally at the top, shows how things had changed.
Also, since christianty wasn't legal before then, the council was VERY necessary if they wanted to make ONE church. The way christians practiced before then were in isolated small groups, since they had to keep it secret. Therefore, the First Council of Nicaea took a lot of the representatives of the small disjointed congregations and told them to get along. To decide what "truly" is christianty. Right then and there, other branches who rejected the roman version at the council got created. It's really interesting to see them argue over if Jesus was the son of god or how the trinity works.
Tanner, great, clear explanation of witness consciousness. It was such a revelation for me when I discovered it and came to understand it. I believe we should be taught this from a very young age, but Religion doesn’t want THAT happening!!
There are no heroes, only ordinary people all equally capable of great kindness and great evil and no kindness disqualifies someone from doing evil and no evil disqualifies someone from acting out of kindness.
25:10 in my town they leave these little comic books about how anyone who doesn't believe in their faith is burning in hell. I actually find them ironically entertaining.
Hey, for whoever this might be helpful: I've found channels like Paulogia and GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic to be my favorite for genuine, calm, deep discourse about Christianity that is as non-triggering as it gets. They've really helped me deconstruct everything and rebuild in a healthier, more skeptical way. They both avoid inflammatory rhetoric as much as possible and seek to reach out to everybody who will listen, not push people away, and prove that they are themselves constantly improving and changing their mind according to new information in a way that is consistent with what they teach. Seriously, they've helped me learn to live in better harmony with people who believe differently and to empathize with them better, and how to have calm, genuine discourse with others.
Hey Tanner, I agree with your basic point about the Torah being written centuries later and being an aggregate of various stories and so on. But you go on to provide a geopolitical explanation for the themes of the Torah, and I can't help but think that the same point applies here -- millennia later, we don't have a perfect grasp of why the Torah was written and I doubt that it could simply be boiled down to wartime propaganda.
@@ZelphOntheShelf that's understandable -- I'm really glad you touched on the topic in general bc you're right, not enough people know about it. thanks for responding -- appreciate you guys a lot.
Can you talk about Utah's approach to homelessness? I'll be honest, I read a single NPR article about it, but it seems like they're doing it differently than the rest of the country.
I've looked into Christianity a little. Can't get my head around the Trinity no matter how many different people I've asked about it. I don't understand how anyone can see the book of Genius as historical rather than myth. I don't vibe with "original sin" or the idea of eternal torture in hell. I refuse to believe in hell. It doesn't accomplish anything. Because of my lack of belief in hell, the atonement of Jesus isn't necessary. I don't think Jesus was resurrected from the dead. But the teachings attributed to Jesus are mostly nice.
reading a very interesting book now, jesus and john wayne… which says that it’s religious groups that coopted american politics, and less the contrary. really good book, i’m shocked and appalled
Haha my cat always try to bury stuff in the kitchen. It does not work though, because I don't have a dirt floor. How is Tanner on his own shirt?!! 🤯🤯🤯🤠
Placing the Bible as an idol is a fascinating perspective. I am a Christian but have always had issues with the concept of divine inspiration, especially because plenty of Holy Texts (Books of Thomas and Mary Magdalene) were intentionally excluded because they didn’t agree with a certain element of church.
26:05 Tanner nailed it here. And sadly it’s people who are conditioned to accept abuse that think this wacky story is somehow “loving.” If a real person did the same things god supposedly did, they would be serving multiple life sentences in prison.
Once I started looking hard at the BOM and left the church... I had to start researching the Bible. I had to throw out religions. I have room for a creator or creators, but they will show me through the language of their creations... math and physics. Not some human idea of right or wrong. I don't need to follow a ancient Hebrew wind diety.
I deconstructed Jesus before i left Mormonism officially. I tried being a good little Jesus girl to try and hold myself together. Went to non-denominational Bible studies, Belong tour events, etc. So it was not for a lack of trying to believe--both Mormonism and Christianity. I just couldn't reconcile the "God of Love" i had constructed in my mind and the God described by the Bible and the teachings of Mormon prophets.
It's so weird to me how Christians can conveniently IGNORE most of the Bible (the many horrible and crazy things in it), focus on the few parts that are uplifting, poetic, etc., and insist that Christianity is 100% nice and loving. 🙄
i would love to look at some of the sources for all the history of the bible stuff! i want to get deeper into it, and cross reference it. i trust you, tanner, but i don’t want to just take your word for it 😂
At the end of the day, all of us are 'culturally Christian,' 'culturally Mormon,' 'culturally Buddhist,' and so on, depending on where we grew up. Whether we like it or not, we are a product of those religions even if we grew up in a non-practicing family. I think it's possible to reject the supernatural elements of religion whilst enjoying the cultural aspects you grew up with, and even taking inspiration from them from time to time. I've learnt that this definitely seems harder for ex-Mormons! Ex-Anglicans, it seems, can go on enjoying Christmas, Easter, perhaps getting their baby christened purely as a cultural celebration. I'm curious if ex-Mormons have any celebrations or events that they hold on to despite leaving, or if it really is an all-or-nothing situation.
When I was still a believing Mormon I thought it was funny that Christians found it so hard to believe a 14 yr old boy would have visitations from angels and god himself but had no problem believing Jesus was born from a virgin mother and rose from the dead. To me Mormonism was no crazier than any other form of Christianity. When I finally admitted to myself what I always knew deep down (that’s it’s all nonsense) I just couldn’t bring myself to keep believing in more nonsense.
How beautiful are your sandaled feet, princess! The curves of your thighs are like jewelry, the handiwork of a master. Your navel is a rounded bowl; it never lacks mixed wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat surrounded by lilies. Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Song of Songs 7:1-3
@@Moraca101 Jesus said "I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly" Jesus answered, “... but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all ; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
@@howardedward5339 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. - Matthew 6:1-7 Least you couldve done is read the whole book
I love this episode and everything in it but everyone else has made good points on this so I’ll only contribute by saying the unmoving cat-animated human-unmoving bear pic visual experience was really cool 😂 But no seriously, thanks!
Once you see how the sausage is made, you can deconstruct all religions and see they all use the same template more or less. You pull a thread, it unravels quickly.
Christ did quote the Torah "love thy God" and "love thy neighbor" and his stint in the temple when he was young was about reading and interpreting what was written. So he knew his stuff but none of that matters anymore, even if he said those things 2000 years ago
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I love when Tanner has one of his historical rants - so informative and cool to learn! Always look forward to that 👌🏼🤓
and so validating!! I had so many uncomfy feelings growing up about the bible, but when you're 6 and adults are telling you mythology they believe to be true history it's so confusing!!
They're really the best rants 😄
seriously I love critical Bible history time with Tanner
I'm always awe-struck ❤❤❤❤
When he said "should i keep going?" I was like YES!
I have a unique perspective on this: I started following you guys to attempt to deconvert my mother in law and convert her to the “right” kind of Christianity. Unfortunately, in learning about how mormonism takes advantage of psychological principles to keep its followers in the system, I deconverted myself 😂 once you start learning about a religion with an outsider perspective, you slowly realize they’re all relying on the same manipulations.
every time this comment comes up in our notifs it makes me happy. glad to hear what we're doing is helping people who don't even have a mormon background. life becomes so much more interesting when we start asking questions rather than insisting we already have the right answers. best wishes for your journey ✌❤
-tanner
I came away with the same opinion.
The opposite happened to me. I started watching this show when I hated all religions and saw all of them as categorically evil. Everything these two said really resonated with me at the time, because they are pious liberals. For that very reason, I now watch them with a mix of sadness and schadenfreude. I converted from liberal wokeism to a religion that works for me and I feel so free! I don’t think Mormonism, Christianity, Buddhism or Wokism promote good things in the world. Not anymore anyway. Those all are religions where asking questions is notably NOT a core tenet. I hope you find your peace in this world through whichever means works for you while not hurting anyone or infringing upon their rights🩵
@@Constantin9va who are your recent favorite youtubers now?
@@Constantin9va anyone who talks about “liberal wokeism” as if it’s a religion, has never been either liberal or progressive. Way to wave the flag of homophobia and racism without saying outright that you’re a racist homophobe.
My new mantra when my mother tries to remind me that Christianity is there for me “when you’re ready to come back” is that there are healthier ways of finding purpose and community, and healthy systems don’t give you PTSD 😊
My mom told me she would never bring Christianity up around me again since it made me so upset (like my religious trauma is an irrational nuisance). She then insisted that she KNOWS I am going to heaven (even if I die a nonbeliever) because I was baptized.
One of your best episodes. "Josh would never hang with you!" Perfect.
Agreed! 55:25 💯% Also, whenever I hear Josh(ua), I think of The Composer from The World Ends with You. 😅
This 100% needs to be a tshirt.
Recently told my parents I’m not a believer so it resurfaced loads of emotions again. So glad to have your channel, bringing some humor and relatability to me! Hope y’all are doing well
💜💜💜💜💜
Nail on the head, how Mormons view the world: it doesn't matter how good of a person you are, it matters what you believe in. My tbm parents recently forwarded me an email between them and some long-time friends updating them on the lives of their now adult children. The updates were LITERALLY just a status of their church attendance or lack thereof. About me they said, "her children have never heard a word of the gospel" and the reply was words of consolation and heartbreak despite the fact that I have a wonderfully healthy and happy family...😮💨
Why the heck did they forward that to you???
@amycahoon6272 because the long-time friends' email included an update of one of their children who was my childhood piano teacher that they "thought I'd be interested in", which was cool to read, I admit. (But because the friends' email was a reply, it included my parents' original email giving the synopsis of their own children's church status 🙄- not so cool to read.)
@@CritThinkng Sounds like it was a mistake to send it, but that really sucks - it shouldn't matter so much to our parents that we don't believe
My finally leaving was when I realized the core doctrinal idea that is common to Christianity that Tanner ranted about the messed up God that created flawed people despite being omnipotent and all powerful. And when you finally accept that organized religions tend to have a power agenda, it tends to make you realize it might be a waste of time to try any others.
The history of the Bible is what finally made everything make sense. You’re totally right about mainstream Christians and evangelicals not even being interested in it. As a history nerd I was bound to find it lol
You had me at “cat vomit” ❤
RE: Happiness. My non-religious father, when asked the "How are you?" would normally respond "60/40". You knew he was in a great mood when he said "70/30". KEEP UP THE GREAT CONTENT! Luv you both ❤
Prosperity doctrine was one of several things that broke my shelf. It was sold to me as some magical force that would provide wealth to me if I paid my tithing. It didn't really make much sense to me since there were a lot of people that I knew that paid their tithing regularly and fully but were still very much poor. I started seeing the church as more of a business than a church.
I'm thinking about how I managed to learn so much ancient near eastern history in Jerusalem without realizing it then?
But there's the reason my belief in Christianity ultimately collapsed. I WAS learning. I saw the problems and holes in general Christianity but I was able to use my Mormon belief in a Restoration as a crutch to prevent me from facing what I wasn't ready to face at the time.
Also, I love the idea of referring to Jesus as Joshua from now on.
#MakeJesusJoshuaAgain
I listened to this in the car behind a truck that said "Isaiah 40:31 TRUST" on the back
I've had such a similar world view to you guys for so long now, it must be so nice to have someone to bounce it off of. I know it's not a necessarily unique perspective and a lot of people come this this understanding, but I'm 24 and it feels like no one around me feels this way too or sees things this way too. If I find spiritual people it always ends up being about something not real (ie what you're describing with religions, but also new age things or atheists if they see our existence as purely meaningless). All that to say I hope I'm able to find more likeminded people like you guys sometime soon, it must feel good to not feel alone in it!!
Banksy slow blinking at the camera 20 minutes in 🥺
I think the perspective you discussed about the evangelical relationship with the Bible is super interesting. I was raised evangelical, and we were forced to study the Bible CONSTANTLY. They wanted us to memorize it and interpret it exactly how they said to. I always thought evangelicals were super well-versed in scripture because of that. However, your point about the lacking historical context is very true. I never learned any of it until I deconstructed. So I went from having one understanding of the Bible to a completely different one just by adding that context. I never thought about it like that before!
I'm impressed with how much content you've been creating lately.
I was following a channel where the creator had documented quite a lot of really horrible stuff that had happened in their earlier life. The other day they made a video about why they are a christian. I clicked on it curious to see how you could go through that kind of stuff and still believe in a loving God. Heart breakingly one of the first things they said was along the lines of I got into Christianity because I knew I could never be good enough without a god
It’s true that the “founding fathers” were for the most part deist (or completely atheist like Thomas Paine) enlightenment rationalists, but it is not true that they came to America to escape religion. If you’re talking about the pilgrims, they actually came here to establish an extremist theocracy that England in 1620 was too forward thinking to tolerate. The ancestors of the founding fathers, on the other hand, mostly came here for economic opportunity, etc.
my expression here was clumsy but yes i was referring specifically to the founding father’s resentment at paying taxes to the church of england, their consideration of former theocratic political structures, and their intentional exclusion of appeal to divine authority in the constitution, as well as the explicit statements against church and state.
I had a thought about what Mormons say, they "feel it in their heart that the gospel is true"....well, I KNOW it in my brain that it's not true
I loved the discussion about the Witness. I've been getting into meditation and Buddhist thought recently, and I've come to realize that I am not my thoughts, I am not my emotions, and I am not my personality. So what am I? That's the question I'm continuing to explore.
Josh doesn’t have quite the same ring, lol. Josh came to save us from our sins😂
Thank you Sam & Tanner for your perspective... As a Christian, it indeed does become difficult to avoid the tribalism that surrounds much of the religion today. I find as I get older I become more attracted to the concept of the "Red Letter Jesus", ie: based on the words he spoke throughout scripture or those highlighted in "red letter" editions of the Bible.
To me, that should be the essence of the faith...
I quickly left Christianity and theism after leaving the LDS church. I thought about it constantly for about a year, whether or not I had any reason to believe in God. Finally I realized I didn't and my fears went away
For me it took about two days but I think I was leaning that way for a long time just based on my life experiences
Right around the 9 minute mark listening to Tanner talk about Isaiah being multiple people and Crack pot made me want to burst into laughter as I realized 'Isaiah was the og Q anon'.
Josh 😂😂 This is a great video. Lots of the topics have been on my mind recently so it was nice to listen to your perspectives.
For the first time ever I'm actually early to a video 😅 very excited to watch. As someone who grew up atheist I don't know much about religion or religious topics and your videos are very interesting and informative for me
Thank you, this video actually helped me with my faith a lot and made me feel peaceful. You're very informed and insightful.
Love y’all. Your takes do for real help me unclench from fear.
I left Christianity when I realized that if Jesus is God, he left me in a cult for 40 years. I loved him so much. That love wasn’t reciprocated.
It’s also heartbreaking to see people who suffer awful tragedies, and then they grapple for an explanation by saying “God has a plan even if we don’t understand it.”
If god’s plan includes letting his “children” suffer, that’s no god for me.
Canadians do say a lot of British things like "bloody" minus the accent haha - we also spell things with the extra u's like colour and honour.
You mean you spell it correctly 😂. God save the king
Those are not extra u's those are just u's - Australian
@@KaceyRepublic Pardon my phrasing, I was framing this as a Canadian who's used to explaining our ways to American neighbours constantly 😅
@@ChannelPaul I can only imagine how tough it is to maintain your own culture right next to them, we're on the other side of the world and we still have to correct our kids writing 'mom' and 'aluminum' all the time.
We're being so spoiled with all this Zelph content recently :')
Most people who defend the Bible haven’t read it in it’s entirety, haven’t studied religion, haven’t studied history, don’t see the whole picture.
It seems like a lot more people are actually reading their Bible and throwing out religion and creeds. They do not fit together, that's for sure.
So do you think pastors/priests/theologican have never study anything?
@@Przylepek11 I think they study what other men have concluded.
Merch idea on a t shirt/mug: "Through Josh are we saved."
Tanners rant around 45:44 was my church for today, so thank you - watching on a Sunday
Beautiful way to think about the sense of self and ways of thinking and categories of thought
🤍🤍🤍!
thank you guys so much for being here for people, for helping me process the universe, myself, and humanity after leaving a high-control religion.
This is wonderful. You have put my thoughts into words because you are tying the pieces together. 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
This is a pet peeve of mine! Thanks for addressing it!
As someone who also converted to church as a teenager, I have to say that I always saw these stories as myths. It was when I found those myths to no longer be useful, but rather harmful (along with the organization that was built upon them), that I had to show myself to the door.
I did the same, but I insisted on letting the door hit my ass on the way out. Sometimes you need that physical ass-whoopin' to help prevent yourself from ever going back.
I started to be more and more shocked how literal and how concrete everything became. I always considered Bible stories to be stories with deep wisdom about how to live, not literally things and people and events that actually happened. There was nowhere left for me in the church because everyone knows all the answers and it’s black and white. And the most ignorant and extreme voice wins usually.
@@grantbeck9228 Same. At first I thought it was because I found myself in the Bible Belt South rather than the very progressive/over educated New England ward that I joined. Sadly no.
Sam, your kitty is so adorable !
Banxy took center-stage this time and never left the whole show. He REALLY needs his own channel!
I also want to thank both of you for helping me realize spirituality and religion are separate. I don't need religion, but I am a spiritual person. Your conversations have helped me recognize the difference and allowed me to lean into my spirituality in a new, exciting, and more healing way.
💜💜💜💜💜!!!!!
I needed this video! Love you both
LOVE YOU!!!!
I’m here for the cat drama honestly.
We’re willing to escalate it
omg Tanner you’re such a mood in this video, love it!!
The cat vomit got me real excited for the religion discussion TBH
Classic!
when i realized there was no reason to keep believing in false mormon narratives that arent actually based in anything that actually happened, I quickly realized the whole Christian faith was founded on similar ridiculous stories without any basis in reality, so I lost belief ion Christ too. I like Jesus. I agree with Jesus's teachings like loving my neighbor and serving others and peacefully co-existing with everyone. I just don't believe Jesus was the son of God
Sounds like your thinking was similar to mine. Once you see Mormonism as a ludicrous fairytale it’s hard not to see virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, and other numerous non-possible things as anything but a fairytale.
@@valerieodonnell6764there is not a virgin birth prophecy in the Bible. That's a man made doctrine.... The Bible is good, it just needs to be studied. When you study the Old testament it is easier to discern the New and what doesn't belong in it at all.
Of course, we crave safety and learn that we may not be able to protect ourselves. We, therefore, hope someone/something will come along and give us the promise of safety. Hence, the key to manipulation is knowing what will make someone feel safe or unsafe.
As a UU - love the occasional shout out lmao
Baseless claims made in 1820 are the same as baseless claims made in 33 AD. I became an atheist before I finally left Mormonism for good.
I really enjoyed the talk on meditation, very well put.
amazing video! I love your talks, it gives me a starting point when I meditate and keeps me open to being kind to myself
The bible being an idol is something I never thought of but honestly makes so much sense. I've always taken for granted that the bible was what the Christian God would've wanted. It's honestly hard to make any statements on it tho cause any characterization of god I have is from the bible (and I guess the way Christians talk about him). But if we were to take the characterization of God from the story of Moses, he would hate people taking the words of humans and claiming they are god and then worshipping the book that the people write rather than actually worshipping him. The similarities between the bible and the golden calf are astonishing
I am loving this! 🎉🌈🌻🌟🦄
i'm watching banksy and pretending he is the one talking. preach banksy!
Go off queens 🎉
Love you guys ❤ cheered me right up as I was cleaning had this on in the background 👌🏽 would recommend 😆
Now I'm stuck with the image of Kenneth Copeland yelling and condemning "IN THE NAME OF JOSH I DEMAND..."
Meanwhile some dude name Josh saying nah, that's out of my sphere of control
Loved this informative rant ❤🎉
😄 Little man facing the camera this go around. 🐈🧡
Thank you both for stimulating my mind :)
Spittng out some truth bombs right here!
There’s Jesus bath water?? Where can I buy?? 👀
Jordan Peterson belaboring points is as funny as it is tiresome. There's a guy that really loves the sound of his own voice.
My faith journey began as a Unitarian Universalist youth, I always felt like there was more to understand than what my church community was teaching me. I converted to Christianity at 23 when I married a charismatic Christian and we attended an Anglican Church for years. Still didn’t find the spiritual experience I was looking for and I’ve been deconstructing for the last several years since my divorce. I’m once again seeking a church in order to have a community and for my daughter so she doesn’t feel “left out” of spirituality like I was growing up. It’s hard to grapple with the contradiction of devotion to the Bible and all its unsavory passages and a one loving god that dwells within us. This video really articulated a lot of my thoughts about how to approach faith after a faith crisis.
Consider joining a social club. You can be spiritual at home without any connection to organized religion. Sometimes finding a different congregation isn’t the answer. You can be devoted to the Bible without having anyone else around you to tell you how to interpret it.
We need to have a conversation about the book you need to put together. It's a missing link in your presentation, and something your viewers would buy buy buy buy. I know how to get it published. Been involved with publishing for decades. Let's talk.
👀👀
@@ZelphOntheShelf So many things I can tell you about publishing and getting your book out there. And avoiding the scammers in publishing who you won't have to deal with as you can handle it all yourself - I'll show you. And ways to use print-on-demand in your favor so you can alter your book whenever you want to alter a sentence or chapter, also doing that all yourself - it's easy. And it will be for sale internationally, with the $$ going directly to your account. And you can plug it on every video to send people to purchase it. Let's have a Zoom. PS: I don't want, and won't accept any money from you. I want you to have your own book so people can learn what you teach. It's important stuff. And, you can make more $$$.
Deconstructing Jesus was harder for me than deconstructing Mormonism. I felt so attached to his love, understanding, and sacrifice. But then I realized I can get all that from the actual people in my life and myself. I never seriously considered Christianity because, like everyone is saying, it was too easy to see through it all after deconstructing Mormonism. It is very hard for me to feel connected to any religion now even though I crave feeling those “special” feelings, which I realize now was mostly MUSIC. Lol. I now find those feelings in music, nature, movies, human connection. I have reconnected with my Jewish ancestry because of my Jewish boyfriend of 6 years, though I must say I still struggle to truly connect with it because of the trauma of growing up Mormon and leaving it. I feel like I was meant to be Jewish but the religious trauma …
Growing up my parents compared me to Isaac, who was supposed to be someone representing Jesus. You don’t need the context behind this comparison, but now I really want to write a story from Jesus’s point of view in a fantasy setting where he could be in that situation. Knowing that the individual sheep was worth leaving the fold to find, but that HE specifically wasn’t worth saving. That his god wanted HIM to die for everyone else, and he had to be PERFECT for his whole life to set an example for humankind. That one misstep could ruin EVERYTHING.
@@flutenanyidk1806
he died to become our high priest, our mediator to God, he was willing to leave this earth for the faith in the promise he was given. He is very valuable to us and to God. To think God didn't save him is a misunderstanding of scripture.
As a canadian I can tell you that I personally do say "bloody" but mostly just when I say *"Jesus bloody fucking christ on a god damn easter stick!"*
...I wonder if that will get censored.
❤️❤️❤️ love you guys
Learning about Constantine and the First Council of Nicaea is pretty cool if you're interested on how the organization got created. Constantine wasn't even Christian, but he made christianty legal and as a very roman emperor, the church had to be organized "à la Roman". So the church hierarchy is based on the roman hierarchy and there were 5 patriarchs (aka popes) to begin with. Rome and Constantinople each had one and the roman patriarch is now the pope whereas the one in constantinople became later the seat of the orthodox church after the split. So just seeing that even the pope wasn't supposed to be head of church, the 5 were equally at the top, shows how things had changed.
Also, since christianty wasn't legal before then, the council was VERY necessary if they wanted to make ONE church. The way christians practiced before then were in isolated small groups, since they had to keep it secret. Therefore, the First Council of Nicaea took a lot of the representatives of the small disjointed congregations and told them to get along. To decide what "truly" is christianty. Right then and there, other branches who rejected the roman version at the council got created. It's really interesting to see them argue over if Jesus was the son of god or how the trinity works.
Tanner, great, clear explanation of witness consciousness. It was such a revelation for me when I discovered it and came to understand it. I believe we should be taught this from a very young age, but Religion doesn’t want THAT happening!!
There are no heroes, only ordinary people all equally capable of great kindness and great evil and no kindness disqualifies someone from doing evil and no evil disqualifies someone from acting out of kindness.
25:10 in my town they leave these little comic books about how anyone who doesn't believe in their faith is burning in hell. I actually find them ironically entertaining.
Hey, for whoever this might be helpful: I've found channels like Paulogia and GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic to be my favorite for genuine, calm, deep discourse about Christianity that is as non-triggering as it gets. They've really helped me deconstruct everything and rebuild in a healthier, more skeptical way. They both avoid inflammatory rhetoric as much as possible and seek to reach out to everybody who will listen, not push people away, and prove that they are themselves constantly improving and changing their mind according to new information in a way that is consistent with what they teach.
Seriously, they've helped me learn to live in better harmony with people who believe differently and to empathize with them better, and how to have calm, genuine discourse with others.
love GMS, will have to check out Paulogia!
Ack! You have a flame point toasted marshmallow cat like mine!
:)
"Don't trust your heros". Does that mean I can't trust Batman?
Re: Gandhi, one of the girls he slept naked alongside was his then 18 y/o grandniece. 🙃
🤮🤮🤮
Quick reminder that the book of revelations was written on an island famous for its psychedelic shrooms 🍄
Seems to be one of the better ones!
Hey Tanner, I agree with your basic point about the Torah being written centuries later and being an aggregate of various stories and so on. But you go on to provide a geopolitical explanation for the themes of the Torah, and I can't help but think that the same point applies here -- millennia later, we don't have a perfect grasp of why the Torah was written and I doubt that it could simply be boiled down to wartime propaganda.
you’re totally right, that was definitely an oversimplification. just harping on a significant aspect that doesn’t get a lot of airtime.
@@ZelphOntheShelf that's understandable -- I'm really glad you touched on the topic in general bc you're right, not enough people know about it. thanks for responding -- appreciate you guys a lot.
Can you talk about Utah's approach to homelessness? I'll be honest, I read a single NPR article about it, but it seems like they're doing it differently than the rest of the country.
I've looked into Christianity a little. Can't get my head around the Trinity no matter how many different people I've asked about it. I don't understand how anyone can see the book of Genius as historical rather than myth. I don't vibe with "original sin" or the idea of eternal torture in hell. I refuse to believe in hell. It doesn't accomplish anything. Because of my lack of belief in hell, the atonement of Jesus isn't necessary. I don't think Jesus was resurrected from the dead. But the teachings attributed to Jesus are mostly nice.
reading a very interesting book now, jesus and john wayne… which says that it’s religious groups that coopted american politics, and less the contrary. really good book, i’m shocked and appalled
Haha my cat always try to bury stuff in the kitchen. It does not work though, because I don't have a dirt floor. How is Tanner on his own shirt?!! 🤯🤯🤯🤠
Placing the Bible as an idol is a fascinating perspective. I am a Christian but have always had issues with the concept of divine inspiration, especially because plenty of Holy Texts (Books of Thomas and Mary Magdalene) were intentionally excluded because they didn’t agree with a certain element of church.
Some guy named Joshua 😂
26:05 Tanner nailed it here. And sadly it’s people who are conditioned to accept abuse that think this wacky story is somehow “loving.” If a real person did the same things god supposedly did, they would be serving multiple life sentences in prison.
Once I started looking hard at the BOM and left the church... I had to start researching the Bible. I had to throw out religions. I have room for a creator or creators, but they will show me through the language of their creations... math and physics. Not some human idea of right or wrong. I don't need to follow a ancient Hebrew wind diety.
I deconstructed Jesus before i left Mormonism officially. I tried being a good little Jesus girl to try and hold myself together. Went to non-denominational Bible studies, Belong tour events, etc. So it was not for a lack of trying to believe--both Mormonism and Christianity. I just couldn't reconcile the "God of Love" i had constructed in my mind and the God described by the Bible and the teachings of Mormon prophets.
It's so weird to me how Christians can conveniently IGNORE most of the Bible (the many horrible and crazy things in it), focus on the few parts that are uplifting, poetic, etc., and insist that Christianity is 100% nice and loving. 🙄
i would love to look at some of the sources for all the history of the bible stuff! i want to get deeper into it, and cross reference it. i trust you, tanner, but i don’t want to just take your word for it 😂
As a Canadian, no we don’t say Bloody
Yeah yeah Jesus where can I get an Arizona Iced Tee Shirt
At the end of the day, all of us are 'culturally Christian,' 'culturally Mormon,' 'culturally Buddhist,' and so on, depending on where we grew up. Whether we like it or not, we are a product of those religions even if we grew up in a non-practicing family. I think it's possible to reject the supernatural elements of religion whilst enjoying the cultural aspects you grew up with, and even taking inspiration from them from time to time. I've learnt that this definitely seems harder for ex-Mormons! Ex-Anglicans, it seems, can go on enjoying Christmas, Easter, perhaps getting their baby christened purely as a cultural celebration. I'm curious if ex-Mormons have any celebrations or events that they hold on to despite leaving, or if it really is an all-or-nothing situation.
When I was still a believing Mormon I thought it was funny that Christians found it so hard to believe a 14 yr old boy would have visitations from angels and god himself but had no problem believing Jesus was born from a virgin mother and rose from the dead. To me Mormonism was no crazier than any other form of Christianity. When I finally admitted to myself what I always knew deep down (that’s it’s all nonsense) I just couldn’t bring myself to keep believing in more nonsense.
Definitely calling Jesus “Josh” from now on
"For by the things created, I am known, so that man is without excuse".
How beautiful are your sandaled feet, princess!
The curves of your thighs are like jewelry, the handiwork of a master.
Your navel is a rounded bowl; it never lacks mixed wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat surrounded by lilies. Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
Song of Songs 7:1-3
@@Moraca101 Jesus said "I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly"
Jesus answered, “... but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all ; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
@@howardedward5339 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. - Matthew 6:1-7
Least you couldve done is read the whole book
I love this episode and everything in it but everyone else has made good points on this so I’ll only contribute by saying the unmoving cat-animated human-unmoving bear pic visual experience was really cool 😂
But no seriously, thanks!
Once you see how the sausage is made, you can deconstruct all religions and see they all use the same template more or less. You pull a thread, it unravels quickly.
Christ did quote the Torah "love thy God" and "love thy neighbor" and his stint in the temple when he was young was about reading and interpreting what was written. So he knew his stuff but none of that matters anymore, even if he said those things 2000 years ago
I wish for more talk about the idolatry around scripture. What would Josh say?