Deconstructing Christianity: I Read the Bible Until It Talked Back (From Apologist To Erhman-Enns)

📲 JOIN THE OPTILAB ENGINE → https://www.theoptilab.com/engine
👨🏼‍🎓 JOIN THE ACADEMY → https://www.theoptilab.com/academy
🗓️ BOOK A CONSULTATION → https://www.theoptilab.com/consultations

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: This content is for educational and informational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or a recommendation to use any compound. Any compounds discussed may be investigational, and their safety, efficacy, appropriate dosing, long-term effects, contraindications, and drug interactions may not be established. Discussion of mechanism, preclinical or published research, or potential applications should not be interpreted as evidence of proven benefit in humans. Do not purchase, administer, use, or investigate any compound based on social media content. Always discuss health, performance, medications, supplements, or experimental therapies with a qualified healthcare professional.

🎓 ABOUT THIS VIDEO 
I spent years in Christian apologetics, like debating anybody who'd sit still, and then I learned Greek, Hebrew, Coptic and Syriac and the book started talking back. So this is my whole story with religion, from a Pentecostal retreat in Brazil where I said three words, God, help me, to a night at two in the morning going, why the fuck do we trust Paul?

Now look, it's long on purpose. I go through William James and The Varieties of Religious Experience, the Kalam cosmological argument and fine-tuning, textual criticism and the New Testament manuscripts I transcribed for the Münster institute, Hebrews 2:9, Bart Ehrman and Peter Enns, Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, the historical Jesus, and who God is to me now. Then it's where faith hits the body, like fasting, the steroid crash I'd called my spiritual life, and what the studies actually say about religion and your health.

I'm not here to convert you or deconvert you. I didn't lose it in one night, it was a drift. I read my way out of certainty, and I've never stopped loving this thing.

🏋️‍♂️ WORK WITH ME 
Apply for coaching → https://www.theoptilab.com/

💪 FOLLOW ME 
Instagram: https://instagram.com/optimalnathan 

🧠 TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro: a hormone problem or a God problem?
3:18 Sunday School Skeptic: Jonah, the Whale and Brazilian Pentecostalism
9:52 The Retreat: Religious Experience and William James
25:26 All In: Fasting in the Bible and the Steroid Crash
36:12 The Apologetics Years: Kalam Cosmological Argument, Fine-Tuning, William Lane Craig
49:20 The Languages: Textual Criticism, Codex Sinaiticus, Hebrews 2:9
1:04:37 What Broke the Certainty: Gospel Contradictions, Paul, Bart Ehrman and Peter Enns
1:12:52 The Philosophy of the Break: Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
1:22:02 Jerusalem and Leaving Academia
1:32:27 Who Jesus Is to Me Now: The Historical Jesus
1:43:10 Who God Is to Me Now: Apophatic Theology and the Problem of Evil
1:50:20 Faith, the Body and Optimization: Religion and Health Studies
1:56:31 Where I Land: Mark 16:8 and Deconstruction

SOURCES
Religious service attendance and mortality: Li et al. 2016, JAMA Intern Med, PMID 27183175
Attendance and deaths of despair: Chen et al. 2020, JAMA Psychiatry, PMID 32374360
Social relationships and mortality: Holt-Lunstad et al. 2010, PLoS Med, PMID 20668659
Religious struggle and mortality: Pargament et al. 2001, Arch Intern Med, PMID 11493130
Awe and IL-6: Stellar et al. 2015, Emotion, PMID 25603133
Time-restricted feeding in trained men: Moro et al. 2016, J Transl Med, PMID 27737674
24-hour fasting and thyroid hormones: Basolo et al. 2019, Thyroid, PMID 31298652
Hypogonadism after quitting steroids: Kanayama et al. 2015, Addiction, PMID 25598171
Books: William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902); Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (2007); Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (2005), Jesus, Interrupted (2009), How Jesus Became God (2014); Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation (2005), The Sin of Certainty (2016); Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament; John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion (1989); Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (1999)

TAGS
christian apologetics, bart ehrman, deconstruction christianity, historical jesus, did jesus exist, textual criticism, codex sinaiticus, kalam cosmological argument, the varieties of religious experience, charles taylor a secular age, peter enns, william lane craig, n t wright, science and religion, problem of evil, apophatic theology, biblical hebrew, misquoting jesus, ex christian, losing faith, optimal nathan