My Time with Teen Mania

     Having once been an extremely zealous believer who was part of an even more zealous Christian ministry group and now being an unbeliever in the existence of the Christian god, I decided it would be fitting to describe my time spent in this extreme right Christian organization, particularly as a part of their program known as the Honor Academy. I'm also hoping it helps bring things from that time period back to my memory so I can take things from my past and reflect on them and become a better person today because of things I have gone through.

    This Christian organization was called Teen Mania, which no longer exists as an organization as of 2015, and essentially Teen Mania existed to prompt and/or convert youth and young adults and use them to spread the message of the Gospel all over the world. This was done primarily through Acquire the Fire, which was basically a rock concert for teens as well as some sort of skit each year, and after all the music and skit would rile their emotions they would be given the gospel and would make a commitment to be faithful to God and to spread His word. They would also do Global Expeditions, which were missions trips teens and young adults would go on to spread the gospel in other countries. Their other program was the Honor Academy,  which is what I was a part of for two years.

TL ; DR if you don't want to read through my descriptions of Honor Academy life I've attached a few videos describing it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTK0ettqEEY ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7qpSMOD4nM

    I heard about Teen Mania's Honor Academy at Acquire the Fire around maybe 2005 or 2006. It was basically a place young Christians would go to for a year to grow in their faith and hopefully find their calling for their lives. Being an extremely naive and zealous Christian, I thought it was the perfect place to go to grow in my faith and that God would use it to further the rest of my life. I used the majority of my trust fund money from my deceased mother to pay for the first year I was there, and I graduated from high school a year early to attend sooner. 

    During our internship with the Honor Academy I stayed in a dorm with five other guys and we were called a core, and we had a core advisor who was around our age that would hold us accountable for following the rules and would be in charge of leading our core during the year. Every week I would meet with this core advisor who would ask me how I'm doing like if I've been struggling with masturbation, viewing porn, etc.

    Everyone had something called a "ministry placement," which was basically a job each intern would perform to help the campus run. I was a part of running breakfast for the next year and then I would volunteer to do so as well for the following year. Being as breakfast crew had to get up at around 4 am for work this caused myself and the others I worked with to be constantly tired and underslept during the year, because most of the events would go late into the night, causing us to get three or four or even two hours of sleep at times. Most of the good friends I made at the Honor Academy were from this ministry placement. One thing that would always irk me and still does is when we would be told we could not question anyone placed in authority because we are then ultimately questioning God who put the people in their place that put those people in their place.

    In the morning everyone would participate in corporate exercise, which was just exercising that the entire internship would have to do together. On a certain day of the week we would have Chapel where a speaker would typically visit and do a speech, and on Monday nights there would be worship and either on Monday nights as well or on another night Ron Luce would do a speech. The worship was extremely intense with people dancing and running around, etc.

    We would hold big events every so often called LTEs or Life Transforming Events. We did quite a few of these throughout the year. We did the UPG or Unreached People Group LTE which was probably the most fun, where certain interns would live like tribal groups and missionaries would have to convert them, and a fasting retreat where interns fasted for three days and they were not allowed to talk to each other and could only pray and focus on God. I did enjoy the hiking trip in Big Bend Texas which I did for both the years I was there.

    The most contentious LTE was ESOAL, or Emotionally Stretching Opportunity of A Lifetime. It was bootcamp for around 78 hours straight, with drill instructors that would verbally and physically abuse you and push you to your physical limits, and I've attached a video to show what it was like. I did this for two years. It was basically just a physical challenge for me because I'm crazy like that. Oh and because of the nature of it I ended up with staph infection in my leg and I finished it with an extreme open sore on the front of my toe and I could barely walk :/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOunedJ9OK4 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWhUL7-0wDo 

    My first reflection on the Honor Academy is that it was an extremely legalistic / strict culture. Making a commitment was taken very seriously at the Honor Academy, and at the beginning of the year everyone wanting to stay for the program made a commitment to stay for a year and follow the rules established. There were lots of rules at the Honor Academy, such as no dating (we were only to focus on God for that year), no listening to secular music, no viewing of pornography, no masturbation, no swearing, etc. If we were to violate any of these rules we were to "confess" to a leader and we would then go before an "honor council" that would decide what the consequences should be. If we did not "confess" in a timely manner we would be "dismissed" or kicked out of the program.There were lots of dismissals for untimely confessions during my time at the Honor Academy. I do recall the director David Hasz stating he believed God would pour His wrath out on you if you broke your commitment. This emphasis on keeping commitments as well as the emphasis on integrity often caused interns to either intentionally or unintentionally say hurtful things to one another when they were holding each other accountable. I myself became very legalistic and would treat others in ways I shouldn't have because I was trying to have integrity and I thought it was the right thing to do.

    Ron Luce who was a type A Personality and clearly had something psychologically wrong with him would typically do sermons on how we as believers should be changing the world. He would tell us not to be typical wimpy believers who aren't doing anything but to be world changers, and would give a story about comparing himself to a friend of his who didn't do what he did and that we shouldn't be like him. This was definitely a part of what would lead to losing my faith as it created a false illusion in me of me doing all these great things for God and then I became disillusioned when it wasn't happening. He would be constantly attacking the culture and talking about how evil it is and how we need to stand up and fight against it.

     I do recall there was a speaker one time who either was or knew someone that had previously lived a homosexual lifestyle and was now married and had nine kids, implying it is possible to no longer be gay, etc. Another speaker was giving stories of how he was extremely aggressive with teachers at a school he attended and at one point made a comment that you get peace by crushing your enemies. There was also a counselor at our campus who made suggestions like snapping yourself with a rubber band when you have a lustful thought and like the rest of the ministry believed being a homosexual was a sin. Another girl told me a that an older adult told her she was into witchcraft because she was disrespectful to her mother and the Bible says witchcraft is as idolatry. I myself was "disciplined" by the Honor Council for not rebuffing something a girl said to me that had feelings at the time.

    I spent a lot of this time very zealously seeking after God by reading the Bible and praying. The strict and legalistic culture definitely created an insecurity or stirred up an extreme insecurity in me of being afraid of doing something wrong and being dismissed which caused me a lot of anxiety during the two years I was there. The extreme atmosphere helped make me so extreme it was the last nail in the coffin for a ruptured friendship that never did heal, and it caused me to really hurt a girl that cared a lot about me. I made a lot of good friends in this place but I also hurt a lot of the ones outside of it.

    I made a lot of good friends and lot of memories but I can't help but wonder what direction my life would have gone in had I not made the decision to attend this place / never became fanatically religious. I gave up my last year of high school to attend there and even after leaving my second year I spent half of my twenties living in its shadow and feeling disillusioned by the hope it created in me of having an exciting life for God. I missed out on most of the things young adults should experience during my formative years due to both attending this place and the zealousness of my faith as a result and it definitely stunted my growth in a lot of ways that still negatively affect me. 

    I can't change the past or decisions I've made in the past, but I do wonder how I can take the experiences I have been through and use them to make myself a better person with who I am now.

The Failed Prayer

     One of the things that struck a blow to my faith was John chapter 17. In the context of this chapter Jesus is giving His disciples His last teachings before He is crucified and then resurrected three days later. After assuring His followers they would be persecuted for following Him and that He would send the "Comforter" or Holy Spirit who would lead them in the truth (another separate issue that struck a blow to my faith as well) He then closes off His last night with His disciples with a prayer. 

   Specifically, He prays that not only His disciples but all those who will believe after them will be united as one. His reasoning for this prayer is essentially that all those who would follow Him would have the same special unity He has with the Father, and that this special unity would show the world who He is (John 17:11, 21-24).

    This is the most clear example of unanswered prayer in the entire Bible or even in the history of Christianity. There are easily thousands of different denominations, with Christians pointing fingers at each other and saying they are right when the other one is wrong concerning their theology. There are Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Protestant Churches (with subdivisions such as Baptists, Lutherans, Church of Christ, Pentecostals, etc.). It would be easy to find Catholics who believe Protestants are not true Christians and vice versa. In the past Christians have even burned other Christians at the stake for believing "heretical" doctrines. There is no "Christian" church, there are thousands of separate churches that call themselves Christians and have anything but unity among themselves. There is plenty of backbiting, finger pointing, and vindictiveness, but no unity. God the Father either didn't care to answer Jesus's prayer or He is not powerful enough to do so. 

    There are ad hoc explanations given to save this claim from the clear contradictory evidence, such as it is because of personality differences among individuals, or that it is just disagreements among secondary doctrines but Christians still all believe the same core fundamental beliefs, etc. What these points attempt to deflect from however, is that no matter what the origin or origins of the disunity among Christians are, Jesus's prayer is still the most epicly failed prayer that has ever happened in the history of Christendom. Even if personality differences do lead to divisions which is certainly realistic and I have no doubt happens, it is equally as clear that much if not the majority of the division comes from God not making His truth clear to all believers, thus making Him the main culprit for the division in the first place. Christians do not all universally believe in the core tenets of Christianity either, such as the Holy Trinity, Christ shedding His blood as an atonement for sin, salvation is by faith alone through grace, etc. There are disagreements on whether or not Christ's death was even necessary for the forgiveness of sins, or what the nature of the Trinity is or even if there is a trinity, or if Christians must do good works in addition to their faith to attain salvation. To say only true Christians believe these doctrines is to not only create ad hoc fallacies but to add the logical fallacy of a no true scotsman fallacy as well.

    This failed prayer also seems to demonstrate how human the Bible really is. Nearly all of the disunity and disagreements in the Christian faith have sprung from the Bible. My immediate question was, would God really give us a book that causes so much confusion and disunity? Wouldn't He have at least made the book much less ambiguous? For that matter, why was the Bible even necessary if we were being given a Holy Spirit to lead and teach us the truth of God's way (1 John 2:27)? Given how off-kilter the Bible clearly is as is, this prayer certainly puts the nail in the coffin regarding any kind of idea that the Bible is a divinely inspired love-letter from God Himself.

    Another very interesting point with this failed prayer is how it shows that even Jesus couldn't follow His own teaching. Jesus says emphatically multiple times that if you ask anything you shall receive  (Matthew 7:7-12), and that 1 John 5:14 says if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. Yet here Jesus, the Son of God Himself, is praying for unity among those who would follow Him and His prayer has clearly gone unanswered. Although He says in Matthew chapter 7 that a father would not give a snake to a son that is asking for bread and so the Father surely wouldn't do the same with those who ask of Him, it seems very clear that God the Father did in fact give Jesus a snake when He asked for bread. If Jesus's own prayer can't hold up to His teachings, why should we follow Him at all?

Why I Believe the Christian God Does Not Exist

    When I first began my journey out of the Christian faith, one of the biggest factors that drove me away from it was how clearly the concept of the Christian god and the Christian worldview in general seemed to clearly contradict the reality I actually lived in. The claims that were made to reinforce the Christian worldview did not seem to  conform to reality from my perspective, and so clearly made it more and more improbably and unlikely that the Christian god exists. My goal in this blog post is to go through all the claims of the Christian faith that clearly contradict the reality we actually live in and in so doing make much more probably and unlikely that the Christian god exists.

    Claim # 1 - The Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God, without contradiction or error, that leads into God's truth and His salvation.

    There are so many issues with the idea of the Bible being "God's Word" that is perfect and without error it is almost hard to know where to start. 

*From beginning to end it is filled with countless contradictions and errors, something you would expect to see from a book written over several centuries by multitudes of authors. 

*The Old Testament in particular is full of immorality, much of it directly commanded by God Himself, and its patriarchal and misogynistic system of morality given by God is more a reflection of the culture of the time rather than the unchanging morality of a perfectly moral god. 

*It contradicts science on multiple fronts, claiming the moon gives its own light and that the earth is a flat plane surrounded by a dome. God created all animals including humans separately, two of every species can fit on one boat, etc. 

*The supposed "prophecies," quoted from the Old Testament concerning Jesus are vague, general, and unimpressive. All of the supposed prophecies are ripped out of their context in the Old Testament that had nothing to do with Jesus and are misused to apply them to Him. Many of the quoted prophecies are clearly not even prophecies in the Old Testament, and on at least one occasion a supposed prophecy doesn't even exist in the Old Testament. There is nothing supernatural nor impressive about the supposed prophecies of Jesus in the New Testament, but rather what is expected from a man-made religion.

    Claim # 2 - There is one Holy Spirit indwelling all believers and leading them into the knowledge of the truth.

    While John 16:13 says the Holy Spirit will lead believers into all knowledge of the truth, and 1 John 2:27 says the Holy Spirit teaches believers everything they need to know, reality clearly shows there is not one Holy Spirit leading all believers into the same truth. There are thousands of different denominations, all disagreeing on faith beliefs. Some Christians believe in eternal security, others believe salvation can be lost. Some believe God predestines individuals to heaven or hell, others believe in free-will. Christians can't even agree on when to take communion or even what the nature of communion is (is it symbolic or literally the body and blood of Christ when it is taken as a sacrament?). Despite Jesus praying in John 17 for unity among believers the Holy Spirit appears incapable of even getting believers to agree on whether or not Jesus's death was necessary for the forgiveness of sin, as some believers believe God forgives separately from Christ's death but Christ's death showed God's hatred for sin and how much He loves his human creation. Then others believe the souls of the last are annihilated after death or on the last day of judgment, while others believe in eternal torment in hell. 

    Believers will defend their stance by saying not all supposed believers have the Holy Spirit, or that not all believers listen to the Holy Spirit, etc., but these are clearly ad hoc explanations to save a claim that contradicts the reality we live in. These arguments also show that whether the Holy Spirit exists or not everything would still look the same, meaning there is no objective way to even know for certain the Holy Spirit exists. Given what has already been stated about the Bible (why would the Bible even be necessary if there's a Holy Spirit to lead us into the truth?), it is even more likely and fits with the nature of the reality that we live in that it these ideas are simply religious ideas in peoples' heads, hence the division and fighting over them. Ironically, with everything all of these believers disagree about they will agree on one thing: the Holy Spirit has given them the truth and everyone else that disagrees with them is wrong, reinforcing even further the likelihood that it's not a Holy Spirit at all but it is simply ideas in their head.

    Claim # 3 - God has created all human beings and has a plan for their lives

    We human beings are the products of the arbitrary decisions of our parents to have children, or even just to have sex as often times unwanted pregnancies occur. When a man ejaculates into a woman he releases approximately 100 million sperm, every one of which are capable of creating a completely unique human being, and which human being gets created is entirely based on which sperm gets to the woman's egg first. You and I exist because of chance naturalistic processes and arbitrary decisions of our parents, something not reflective of the idea that a personal creator God created us with purpose in mind. Apparently God doesn't love all of the millions of the other individuals that could have lived and never will as much as He loves me. Add to this all of the still births that happen, or fetuses that die in utero. This is hard to explain under the idea that a personal creator God creates humans with purpose in mind but is entirely compatible with the idea that we are born of chance naturalistic processes and sometimes those processes go wrong.

    Chance naturalistic births aside, nature itself shows signs that it was not created specifically with humans in mind, or created to be compatible with humans. Nature goes haywire and things such as floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. happen, all of which are deadly to human life and take hundreds of human lives on a regular basis. The sun, while giving the earth the heat it needs for life to survive, is actually too hot for the earth and just happens to be at the right distance so it doesn't completely fry the earth, although it is getting bigger every year and will eventually engulf and destroy the earth. It gives us sunburn and skin cancer, and can make us go blind if we stare directly at it. We are just one of tens of millions of animals that have evolved on the earth through naturalistic processes, and our species has even nearly gone extinct in our history. All of these things are difficult to explain under the idea that nature was designed perfectly for man, but are perfectly compatible with the idea that man evolved through naturalistic processes in an impersonal environment that did not exist solely with his benefit in mind. The sun just happens to have some beneficial effects on the earth, but we would expect to see what we see if it was not actually created with man in mind, and the same goes for nature as a whole. 

    Claim # 4 - God is all-powerful and all-loving yet He is in control of the world

    Of the claims on this list this is the one that is probably the most blatantly contradicted by reality. The Christian god is supposedly perfectly loving, just, and completely in control of this world, yet everything about the world we live in says the opposite. Children starve to death every day and suffer unimaginable abuse, murderers and rapists get away with their crime and never see justice, natural disasters occur regularly and kill tens of thousands of innocent men women and children around the globe. Nature in general operates through sheer cruel violence as organism often times violently kill one another for survival. People die miserable and painful deaths due to diseases or maladies such as cancer, others grow old and develop Alzheimer's or dementia and live out their days in pitiful misery. Children in certain areas of the world are forced by kidnappers to kill their parents and are turned into violent and savage children soldiers. 

    The world is exactly something you would expect to see if humans are the products of chance naturalistic processes; bloody, violent, and indifferent to human life. As with the idea of one Holy Spirit indwelling and teaching all believers, Christians are forced to come up with ad hoc explanations to rationalize away this clear contradiction with the reality we live in. Again, given in tandem with the other three claims given above, it is clear the idea of the Christian claim is much less likely and probable and that it simply contradicts the reality we live in.

Conclusion - Given the facts of the claims above, it seems very clear to myself that the odds of the Christian god existing are so low I can comfortably say the Christian god does not exist, and if the Christian god does exist He has given me a reality that so strongly contradicts any claims He makes about Himself that it would be extremely unjust and cruel for that God to punish me for using common sense and refusing to follow something that clearly contradicts everything I know about the world. The world is extremely cruel, vicious, and violent, and the Christian god would be the most cruel, vicious, sadistic, egotistical, and violent being that has ever existed, not a loving god that created humans out of the pure love of His heart, but rather a god that created human beings to satisfy His own egotistical selfish need to have praise and attention. If any being would ever deserve to go to hell it would be the Christian god.

    Christians will say I have to have an experience or feel god's power to know He is real. However, as far as I am concerned if I can't trust something with the objective evidence I am not trusting it with the subjective evidence I am given. These are my thoughts and reasons for why I do not believe the Christian god exists, and if there are more claims or thoughts to add to this please feel free to comment. Thank you for reading!

    

David Hume - The Origin of Moral Distinctions (A Treatise of Human Nature)

    Something I have been reading in David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature that has stuck out to me is his theory of the origin of moral distinctions, which as far as I can tell seems to be correct. In summary, his theory of the origin of moral distinctions is that we draw moral distinctions based on sensations of pain or pleasure that we receive from external objects, and the kind of pain or pleasure we receive from external objects such as humans causes us to draw moral distinctions.
    For example, if a white person believes it is immoral to force a black person into slavery the root of that moral distinction is the sensation of unpleasantness or pain that the white person receives from the idea of they themselves being forced into slavery because of their own skin color. They receive a sensation of unpleasantness that leads to a passion of aversion from the idea of they themselves being subjected to slavery because of their skin color, and the resemblance between this idea and the idea of a black person being forced into slavery allows them to easily transition that passion of aversion from themselves to the black person being forced into slavery. If there was no sensation of unpleasantness or pain that lead to a passion of aversion all there would be is passions and facts in the external objects as we examine them, and there would be no basis for drawing any moral distinctions. We would have no pain or pleasure to transfer to the idea of their situation in order draw a moral distinction.  
    I would also like to add another example for what Hume is saying. When a moral distinction is made even in religion  the root of that distinction is still a passion of aversion that stems from a sensation of unpleasantness. For example, religions such as Christianity or Islam will say homosexuality is immoral ultimately because of a passion of aversion to that concept. That passion of aversion stemmed from a sensation of unpleasantness that at some point someone had due to it being different from them and not what they considered normal. Stances against homosexuality is now considered immoral because society has shifted to where a passion of aversion to mistreatment of homosexuals is taking priority to a passion of aversion someone has from them simply being different.