HARMONIC ATHEIST - Will Thorpe: An apostate examines the bible and the claims of Christians

Описание: Today I spoke with Will Thorpe, who was a Christian for 20 years before his deconversion and the launch of his platform, Heretical Theology.

We touched on various topics and parts of his story, including:

• Growing up in a Methodist environment.
• Attending and being a counselor at Abstinence Camp,
• Hearing god's voice and knowing his will, especially regarding going into ministry.
• Working through marriage where one spouse deconverts a while before the other.
• Going through a deconstruction himself later.
• Experiencing the early part of deconstruction with the expectation that "god" is going to fill in the gaps and resolve the issues, such that the end expectation was of a stronger Christian faith--not a deconversion.
• Helping the church to understand that there are parts of their theology that are fundamentally dangerous to humanity.
• Seeing the sexist side of church up-close.
• Knowing the Bible inside and out, and yet not believing anymore.
• Hearing the perspectives of atheists and textual critics, which fueled the deconstruction process.
• Acknowledging that there are good things that the church does on the surface, but that doesn't rescue it from all the evil that it does.
• Learning to love your spouse for who they really are, not for their faith and theology, or lack thereof.
• Exemplifying the importance of "unequally yoked" spouses loving and truly listening to each other.
• Experiencing how the "light bulb" comes on in our minds when we allow the possibility that the Bible is full of errors.
• Realizing that elaborate Christian rationalizations and harmonizations don't actually work.
• Facing the conundrum of whether we have satisfactory answers to the discrepancies and issues of the Bible, or whether the alternative is more likely.
• Seeing the ridiculousness of how hard Christians try to ignore the pagan parallels of Jesus to the earlier Greco-Roman mystery cults.
• Noticing that the Christian worldview creates a susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
• Dealing with the cognitive dissonance of Christians who try to merge the Bible with science.
• Realizing how ignorant we were when we were Christians, and how much we lacked truth and reasoning when we were stuck in it.
• Seeing how Christian views of sexuality try to make us guilty of thought crimes.

Thanks to Will for all he does on the Heretical Theology platform, especially the ways he helps people to heal and thrive after deconversion.

_______________________________


Connect with Will!

Instagram
  / heretical_theology  

Facebook
  / heretical-theology-104007741125939  

Blog
https://hereticaltheology.blogspot.co...

_______________________________

Mentioned in the video:

Ehrman vs Wallace debate - Can We Trust the Text of the NT?
   • Ehrman vs Wallace - Can We Trust the Text ...  

Debate on whether the Catholic Church is a Force for Good
   • The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in...  

Hitchens - Atheist Anthem
   • Видео  

Yale Religious Courses (free)
https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies

____________________________________

Your support for my channel, Harmonic Atheist, is very appreciated. The more support I receive, the sooner I can do this full time!
--Tim

  / harmonicatheist