# Why I'm no longer a Christian I recently reevaluated the evidence upon which I based my belief in the claims made by Christianity, and I concluded that it was insufficient to support many of them. Accordingly, I am no longer a Christian. I wish to offer an explanation for my change of opinion. When I became a Roman Catholic in 2017, I did not set down in writing an explanation for my decision. That was a mistake, as it not only deprived me of the chance to test the reasons for my conversion but also makes it harder for me now to be certain of what I had been thinking. Nonetheless, I think I was persuaded of the truth of Christianity by three types of evidence: 1. The testimony of the apostles; 2. Philosophical elegance; 3. My feelings. On this foundation I laid all the claims of Christianity. Among many other extraordinary claims, those include: that a transcendent being ("God") created the universe[1] and that man[2] has an eternal soul.[3] I think that the testimony about the miracles of Christ handed down by tradition and eventually written in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles provides some evidence for Christianity's claims, but it's weak. It's especially unpersuasive when it's read with an awareness of man's universal tendency to seek out and to believe claims which support his existing beliefs and to avoid and to dismiss contradictory evidence, often applying more scrutiny and a higher evidentiary standard to the latter: a tendency which is amplified in groups of persons, especially when the matter in question relates to the group's sense of identity. As for philosophical elegance and my feelings: Beauty is not indicative of truth, and "facts don't care about [my] feelings."[4] But what about other arguments for Christianity? It has often been asserted that as matter exists, and matter cannot be its own cause, there must be a prime cause which was itself caused by no other, and that that cause is God.[5] In my view, this argument simply relocates the inconvenient problem of existence—"Why is there something rather than nothing?"[6]—and wraps it in conveniently impenetrable mystery. If it seems absurd for space, matter, and asymmetry to come into existence on their own, how much more absurd is it for a sentient being always to have existed? Laymen commonly cite "miracles"—unlikely, unexplained, beneficent occurrences—as evidence of divine intervention (and the existence of divinity) yet fail to account for unlikely, unexplained evil occurrences or to acknowledge that unlikely things happen all the time.[7] To credit a sick person's spontaneous and unexpected healing towards God while dismissing a healthy person's spontaneous and unexpected sickness as merely an improbable happening is to cheat at counting: If I correctly predict the outcome of a coin toss 50% of the time, am I psychic? In sum, I think this evidence amounts to little more than hearsay,[8] and so I must concede that I do not believe all of the essential claims made by Christianity. That said, I don't disagree with every claim made by Christianity or every moral stance taken by the Church, and I acknowledge that her saints have merit and her art is beautiful.[9] Her teachings on virtue and the encouragement and advice of her priests have helped me to address some of my faults, to be patient with others' faults, and to become a better person, and I am grateful for that. ## Notes 1. See, e.g., Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 279 (online ed., as of July 1, 2023), ; cf. Genesis i. 1. 2. I use the word "man" and the masculine grammatical gender in the customary inclusive sense of referring to a human person of either gender. 3. See, e.g., Catechism of the Catholic Church, supra note 1, ¶ 366 (The "soul . . . does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection."). 4. The saying is associated with Mr. Ben Shapiro. E.g., Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings, Know Your Meme (last updated May 20, 2022), . 5. Cf., e.g., Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. I, ch. 13, available at ; Bp. Robert Barron, Bishop Barron on Scientism and God's Existence, at 4:03–5:35, YouTube (2012), . 6. Barron, supra note 5, at 5:26. 7. This is sometimes referred to as the law of truly large numbers: the principle that, "with a large enough number of independent samples, any highly implausible . . . result is likely to be observed." Law of truly large numbers, Wikipedia, (as of July 4, 2023). 8. I accept that the apostles acted in accordance with their belief in the claims of Christianity, but the same can be said of adherents of many other religions, ancient and modern. 9. Please consider this recording of the responsory Illumináre, Illumináre Jerúsalem by the monks of Barroux Abbey. Even the notation is beautiful: => illuminare.mp3 Audio recording => illuminare.svg Notation ## Navigation => index.gmi Site index => gemini://sdf.org/nepeta/why.gmi Gemini permalink for this page => http://nepeta.chaosnet.org/why.html HTTP permalink for this page