Hostage to fear

[Redbeard The Pink]

Ok. Randy, leave Spacetime the fuck alone. People like you are part of the problem.

Hi Spacetime. Ignore Randy as much as possible until you're stronger in your un-faith. He tries really hard to sound like he knows what he's talking about, but his house is built on the sand of fallacy and goes washing downstream every time someone throws a bucket over it. He of course does not realize this and joyously goes adding bricks to the same destroyed house. Christians.

I, too, had a hard time letting myself admit that I really didn't believe any more. It took years of noticing that certain things just don't line up. The thing that gave me that final push of confidence was realizing that the historical non-existence of Jesus of Nazareth is MUCH more likely than his existence. To me (and a growing community of historians), it seems much more likely that Jesus of Nazareth was a humanized version of an earlier sub-god character named Jesus whose death and resurrection took place in the celestial realms, not on Earth.

To me, that was the final straw because it changes the nature of the "test" entirely. For modern christianity to have any chance at all of viability, Jesus has to have at least walked the earth, leaving it up to faith whether he really had magic powers. If he was an entirely fictional character, though, then the test changes from "Can you believe in me on weak evidence?" to "Can you believe in me even though I am actively pretending to be fictional, and building my universe to mislead you to that conclusion? Oh, and by the way, if you fall into the trap that I myself have so cleverly set, I will burn you forever. Lol."

Since then, I have of course realized that proving he simply lived still wouldn't be enough. Even if there were sufficient evidence (there isn't) to suggest that Jesus of Nazareth was based on a human and not another fictional character, there is still Zero evidence that his miracles happened, or that anything like them happens ever. There is no evidence of the Great Flood. There is no evidence that the Exodus happened, or that the Jews were ever slaves of Egypt in the first place. Virtually nothing in the Bible can be supported with any kind of observable, peer-reviewed evidence.

Dealing with your family is a relatable problem. My own family is heavily christian, and my dad actually just retired from preaching and is really devout. I haven't told most of them yet for fear of the backlash, but when I told my wife I found out that she was paying the whole thing lip service and never actively believed any of the crazy shit that I did. Thankfully she decided she could still live with me even if I believed things for which there is no evidence. I hope your wife has the same reaction, but if she doesn't, that's her choice. You don't deserve to live a lie just because your family won't see the truth, though. Don't put yourself through that.