Why I'm No Longer a Christian - Joshua Tongol (Former Pastor/Missionary)

**Elen** · 29th September 2016, 17:01

Sober reasoning from Joshua. He's still got the values, but not the labels anymore. People that are steeped into religious faith can benefit from listening to this young man who can see the world for what it is, without the need to judge everyone round him. Basically he is showing the world to follow their own heart and think for themselves. This is a very serious step to take….thinking for themselves. Dare to be unique, dare to be what your heart tells you that you are.

He really is a breath of FRESH AIR.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EWHbFGTD4I

**Dreamtimer** · 30th September 2016, 00:29

Such good timing, Elen. Thanks for sharing this.

**Maggie** · 30th September 2016, 00:47

Originally posted by Elen

Sober reasoning from Joshua. He's still got the values, but not the labels anymore. People that are steeped into religious faith can benefit from listening to this young man who can see the world for what it is, without the need to judge everyone round him. Basically he is showing the world to follow their own heart and think for themselves. This is a very serious step to take….thinking for themselves. Dare to be unique, dare to be what your heart tells you that you are.

He really is a breath of FRESH AIR.

I think so TOO! I really like him and so thanks for posting the video here!

**bsbray** · 30th September 2016, 01:22

I wasn't raised in a particularly religious household so it wasn't as big of a deal for me to start questioning Christianity, and during that phase I could hardly tolerate to hear anything about Christianity and just wanted to point out a lot of problems in the Bible. But later I figured that some people can get a lot of Christianity just like some can get a lot out of Buddhism or Islam or can even get their rocks off imagining that everything is just a little particles that came into existence by chance and coalesced into sentient beings by random chance. If they're getting something out of it I wouldn't even bother to contest anyone's religious faith because to me all of it is "woo woo" and I already have enough "woo woo" of my own that I'm working on.

Kudos to that guy for being so honest with himself and for wanting to get to the "truth" of things, whatever that ends up being.

**Dreamtimer** · 30th September 2016, 03:10

I found it quite interesting that he spoke of still having the direct emotional experiences of God's presence and can still do healing. That seems really profound to me. It's a major change to not be a Christian anymore. But he clearly hasn't changed the core of who he is and what he does.

I could see God creating a reality that had a kind of evolution in it, development and adaptation certainly are natural things, but not just purely random joinings of particles. That's never made sense to me.

I also really liked how he talked about the double standards in his judgement that took him so long to see.