Here is the transcript from this video:

I’m about to show you a clip of some random pastor on some random Sunday giving a sermon and it’s only 53 seconds of that sermon. It was cut by him, not by me. This is a short that he put out, but this little snapshot of Christianity, which I know that’s all it is. It’s not speaking for all Christians, but to know that that sermon is probably closer to an hour and that something like it is happening in the church down the street as well as the church across the world and it’s been happening for millennia and it’s going to keep happening and yes, the numbers are dropping. But to see the brainwashing, to see the robbing of what is human and refraraming it into some spiritual battle, to put an unnecessary burden on the individual already going through the throws of human suffering will never, not both amaze me that people are willing to do this, that this has gotten as much traction as it has, but also how used to it you can become. Um, I sat through thousands of sermons like this. Where was my mind? What had been taken from me that made it so that I could not see this the way that I see it now? And by the way, I really believe this. The way I’m seeing it now is just how it is. It’s not that I have some chip on my shoulder and I hate God or anything stupid like that. I just don’t have the software running any longer saying this is good. This does make sense. Listen to this or else. I didn’t have whatever virus was in my brain shutting down the logical parts, the parts that say, “Wait a second, that’s not fair. Wait a second, that doesn’t make sense. Wait, how would you test that? What does it even look like? How is this practical?” And it’s a strong term, but what came to my mind as I was kind of reflecting on this before putting together my thoughts better to share it was that term brainwashing. And I know you can hear from a lot of angry atheists who say, “H, the church is just out to brainwash you and steal your money.” I don’t necessarily agree. I think both of those things happen. But I think there are a lot of churches, a lot of pastors that really believe in what they’re saying and what they are doing. They really love the people around them and want the best for them. They just think the best is something else. And when you filter the entire reality of the universe through the God is real and it’s this particular God and I believe that in some capacity he had something to do with the word said in this book. When everything gets filtered through those levels first, what comes out will only make sense to the brain that is also working in that same fashion. And so it’s not that this clip from this sermon is specifically horrendously harmful. It’s actually just par for the course. But me being able to see that more clearly and how the average Christian thinking and preaching is so far removed from reality and puts the onus on individuals for crimes they never committed is, I think, where the vast majority of the harm lies. So, I hope I didn’t set this up and you’re like, “Wait, that’s a pretty average clip.” That’s the point. Let me show you and we’ll get into it. I doubt very strongly that any of you woke up this morning with a conscious thought that says, “Man, you know what I want to do today? I’m going to rebel against God and be the king of my own life today. That’s what I want to do. If you did, come see me in the lobby. We’ll lay hands on you and pray for you.” >> No, we don’t do that. What? It doesn’t sound like that. What What does it sound like? We wake up and our eyes pop open and the first thought is this. What do I got to do to survive today? Like what what do I need to make happen today? No one’s gonna take care of me, so I can’t trust anybody else. What do I have to do? I’m gonna have to do this all by myself. And if that’s true, that same voice, if if no one’s going to take care of me, then I’m going to have to turn these stones into bread. And that is a lot of pressure. And it’s in that moment of pressure that Jesus asks us to consider this question, who will be the king? >> I was close to giving him credit until I listened closer. But the opening lines there where he’s saying, “Hey, it’s not like we wake up thinking that we are going to rebel against God today.” And then he goes on to describe the reality of our situations. Wouldn’t it have been nice if for a second we could have had this moment of beautiful human connection with him saying, “That’s not rebelling against God.” But he doesn’t say that. He says, “That’s not what it sounds like, but that’s still what it is.” as he goes on to explain the ridiculous black or white fallacy of you either make God the king of your life or you’re the king of your life. This packed with inherently negative, awful conclusions for you. He takes the normal pressures of being alive. I have bills to pay. I need to feed my family. I need to find a way to keep getting this roof to be over my head. I need to fix or get help for these situations in my life, whether they’re physical or mental struggles, these responsibilities that we all have that can be crushing. He takes that those pressures, the experience of being human, and he reframes it as spiritual, specifically a cosmic power struggle between your evil nature and the perfect divine light of God. But genuinely, honestly, what the hell does it even mean to make God the king of your life? Now, as a previous Christian, I can give you an answer. And if you ask any pastor or youth group leader, Bible study teacher, whomever, your Christian mentor, what does that mean? They’re going to be able to tell you things, but will those things be consistent? Will they make sense? I know for a fact that they will not be. They might say, "Hey, just start reading the word more. You got to get to know your God. You got to see the plan he has for you. And you got to submit to that plan. That’s what letting God be the king of your life really means. Doing his will, not yours. Oh, so we don’t have free will. Or if we do want to be freed from the trivialities and suffering of everyday life, we have to do away with this very supposedly important special gift God gave us as to not make us robots. But what he actually wants is for us to be robots, just robots that choose to plug ourselves in. And okay, I’ll read the Bible to figure it out. what translation with what interpretation under what or which denomination of the one that you happen to believe in person that I’m speaking to that doesn’t seem like letting God be the king of my life. It seems like giving you control over which version of a madeup God and religion I bend the need to. Well, the Bible can be confusing, but you know what? Just listen to your pastor. Which pastor? Again, from which church and denomination and on which Sunday? because they say things all the time that contradict their previous sermon with no care in the world because we’re focusing on a new topic and we’re reading from a different part of the Bible. And why would they have to go through the effort of being consistent when their own God and holy book are not? Well, fine. You’re right. Men can be fallible. You need to follow the Holy Spirit. Well, how will I know if it’s the Holy Spirit or the voices in my head? How will I know it’s the Holy Spirit and not a devil or demon dressed up as an angel of light, which the Bible says can happen? Well, you can know by taking what they say, the Holy Spirit that is, and mapping it against the Bible to see if there’s agreement there. Again, which Bible and which interpretation? And what if I have a thought that is from myself that just so happens to be found somewhere biblically? And what if I get that in context or out of context? And does that mean I shouldn’t listen to that? that even though it’s from me and it aligns with the Bible, that doesn’t necessarily make it the Holy Spirit, right? Like, no, really, practically, how do I do this? Well, this would make sense to you if you would just stop trying to make it make sense. If you would stop leaning on your own understanding. After all, God’s ways are higher, and you just need to let him work in your life. Again, what the hell does that mean? And so, yes, I know for a fact there will be no consistent answer because there cannot be. And I also know, and we talked about this recently, but I’m finding it to be ever more true. There are two types of personalities, and I’m painting with a broad brush. There’s a spectrum in between, but you’re going to have people that that paralyzes that kills them with fear. Okay. Hey, listen. I don’t want to be the king of my life. I know I should give that over to God, but I am struggling to understand his voice, to know the difference between myself and him or my enemy. I’ve been to a couple churches and I’ve heard different things. I’ve read a couple Bible commentaries and they’re not agreeing with what the doctrine actually is, but I still believe in God. I still know he’s good and I still know I better do this. And so again, it freezes them. It harms them. It fills them with shame that they can’t figure it out that they’re not hearing from God. It fills them with doubt and fear about what will happen on top of their already real normal human problems. So it compounds their suffering instead of alleviating it. And then you have the second kind of personality. The personality that hears that and says, “Yep, I am in 100% agreement. I am only going to do what God tells me to do. I’m only going to seek after his will and I’m only going to read the Bible and make sure that it all aligns and I’m working in the spirit and all of these things.” And then whatever they think, whatever they talk themselves into or out of, whatever their personal biases already are, will conveniently map on to all of those things. and they will do whatever they were going to do anyways, but now under the will of God. And that too is a recipe for disaster. Okay, so that’s just the first point of like one of the first lines I wanted to cover. I don’t think this is going to be that long because it all ties back into this. That’s why I wanted to lay that foundation so clearly. But there’s another thought here that drives me wild. If you really had a perfect God who was really all knowing, who really created us and even if we did fall, completely understands the human condition, why would he take normal human living as a rebellion against him? Right? Like if even this pastor can get on board for a minute that we don’t wake up with these evil thoughts where we do not intend to rebel against God that I guess sometimes we just do when we make sure that we don’t starve to death that day. Why would it ever accidentally be that living and surviving and trying not to let everything we know and love fall away and suffer endlessly is the same thing as rebelling against our creator. And yet, if you do know the biblical story, if you do understand your place in this world under this God, you are broken and you deserve death and hell. Your very existence in this fallen state which he allowed you to be born into that you had nothing to do with is actually that grotesque and offensive to God that his only solution was to torture and crucify his only begotten son so that he could forgive you conditionally if you think and do the right things. What a messed up starting to the whole thing all of this is. If literally you with clear motives who are just trying to not die by default end up rebelling against your god in the pursuit of absolutely every instinct and survival mechanism that you have inside you. But we’ll leave that first sentence alone. We’re going to move on. We’re kind of going line by line because this is so short. But the next thing that happens is this joke. you’re nothing if not a good pastor if you don’t have some corny jokes and they’re always in this spiritual essence that if you did wake up like that that thing that would be horrific meet me in the lobby we’ll lay hands on you and pray for you spiritual speak you know we probably need to cast out these demons that have got you in an even more rebellious state against God but if the rebellions are actually the same whether you have the motive to rebel or not would you not be a smarter demon to not actually possess or influence people to be so disruptive to the point where you will be cast out of them. Wouldn’t it be better just to secretly play with their natural desires to not die or be in an immense amount of pain or watch the people they love not have food, water, or shelter? I swear the Christian ideas on demonology are so inconsistent on top of everything else, it almost falsifies the whole thing right there. Because should you be the person that actually wants and declares your own autonomy and says, “I am the only one that is going to do these things for me,” well then you must be devilpossessed to the point where you’ll be the punchline of the joke here as I in my spiritual authority would have to cast out such evil from your life. Hardy, horror, horror. Autonomy is treated like a spiritual sickness and one of the worst. By the way, it’s one of those subtle ways that Christian communities get people not to trust themselves. Again, we talked about this a little bit in one of my most recent videos around the concept of the flesh and that being all-encompassing of everything that is human and all of that equaling bad all the time. But not every desire is pride. Not every actor or want of independence is rebellion against a higher authority. Not every moment of self-p protection is sin. And not every person who says, “I need to think for myself or show me the evidence is trying to overthrow your God.” If your God can’t handle that, trust me, he’s not the one in power anyways. Sometimes maybe they’re just trying to stop outsourcing their everything to this invisible promise that never shows up. Maybe they’re starting to understand that obedience doesn’t actually equal freedom, which is how it is positioned to the believer. You want to be free of all the horrid things it is to be human. Make Jesus the king of your life. Oh, so don’t be free. Submit. Ah, there it is, Brandon. See, you just don’t want to submit. you don’t want to allow Jesus to rule your life. No, I don’t think there is a Jesus that’s alive to rule my life. And if there was, under these guidelines, I wouldn’t know what to do with that anyways. And when I did think I knew what to do with that anyways, and I did think he was alive, I really did give it all over to him. So trust me, it’s not a matter of being unwilling. And I would have gladly continued to in my thinking back then if I could have just held on to it. If it could have just actually stood up against scrutiny. But it couldn’t. It didn’t. So, I didn’t. And that doesn’t make me evil, and it doesn’t make me rejecting God, and it doesn’t make me wanting to just enjoy my sins or not be held accountable. None of that is true. But those are the lies that the religion of truth continues to spread. The next line is one we’ve already kind of covered, but I just want to be diligent here. It’s where he cops to, “No, we don’t do that. It doesn’t sound like that.” And then the psychological reframing of what rebellion actually sounds like, which again is just ordinary human experience being the most offensive thing possible to your perfect, loving, all- knowing God. And you can’t get me with that nonsense any longer. It’s actually a shift that I feel like I could just be more aware. It could just be what’s been put in front of me. But it does seem like there was this old style of hey all the things an atheist might be right like you do want to just reject God you’re not willing you wake up saying me I’m going to live the day for myself this hedenism aspect of our nature but now hopefully from push back against the insanity of those ideas it is getting more clever and more subtle where your intentions and motives don’t matter at all you as you exist exist as you are, even as a good person, even as someone who claims Jesus. You do defy God, just not as consciously as we used to try to convince you that you had before. And now I can preach on a spiritual crisis because you woke up today. It doesn’t matter what you thought or didn’t think, what you said or didn’t say. I, as the pastor, the mouthpiece for God on earth, aware of the holy scriptures, am putting out to you, the congregation paying essentially to listen to me condemn you. That you, as you exist, are not enough. You never will be. You’re always wrong. You’re completely broken. And even despite your best efforts or best intentions, you are a rebel against this perfect God. you are guilty because you were born human. I just won’t be intellectually honest enough as your pastor to say that shouldn’t equal the same things. And if it does, it only points to the error with the creator who allowed you to be created even postfall under these original sin conditions. But no, he’s perfect. So you’re at fault. And I’m just the middleman. I’m just loving you. I’m just giving you that warning. I’m just explaining this teaching. Barf. The ignorance that goes in to making these spiritual statements so that you can convict people and offer them the cure that never actually cures it just to blame them when the cure that was never there doesn’t work. Because of course it wouldn’t. Because it couldn’t because there is no God. Not this God anyways. and not acting in the way that the Bible claims or its followers claim. I am just so tired of the hardness of life for so many people only to be doubled down and used against them because you didn’t know what else to say on a Sunday morning. What do I need to make happen today? As one of these questions that he suggests is part of our rebellion against God is just being an adult. and unfortunately for many people a child. That’s responsibility. That’s planning. That’s staying alive. Proverbs 2:15 speaks about the plans of the diligent leading surely to abundance. That’s just one example of a verse that flies in the face of all of this. But then of course you have other verses that allude to the error, the stupidity of leaning on our own understanding, planning things for ourselves, which again is why you’ll never be able to have a consistent any version of this because your Bible and your believers are not and cannot be consistent. Which again should only point to the man-made nature of all of this rather than believing that it somehow got mucked up in the game of telephone. Christians don’t know what to do with wisdom. Do we condemn it or praise it? The Bible does both. I guess we’ll just use it like we do everything else for whatever point we want to make. If it’s a day where we need to say that Christ needs to be king, then wisdom will be condemned. But if it’s one of those sermons where we need to talk about being a good steward of what God has given us and being empowered in the way that God wanted us to have the autonomy to show that we are not these senseless robots, that we will eventually become in heaven. Then we’ll talk about the discernment of the Holy Spirit. Then we’ll talk about the Proverbs. Then we’ll talk about how God did give us these beautiful brains and to not use them as the greater offense to God. It’s so ridiculous. And yet it was me. I’m not bashing you who sat there Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and heard the mixed bag and took it and kept trying to apply it. And I don’t know why it took me so long. I really don’t. I guess that’s the power of that kind of reinforcement and indoctrination and the fear and the hope and the community and everything else that we’ve talked about keeps you in. But eventually, I think for anyone that does think about it enough, that is willing to be honest, they’re going to see the breaking points. They’re going to see the issues. Question then just becomes what I covered on my last episode. Is truth worth it? And I’ve seen people back away from that truth and I’ve seen them accept it. But what I don’t really see when people are willing to be honest about all of these issues is that actually there’s an answer in Jesus that makes it all clear. No, they’re sticking your head in the sand and pretending that that happens, but there is not that happening. The other thing I think I wanted to point out here was even in this example that he’s giving of the second kind of person, there’s still those smuggled in lines that show you that they’re the wrong person, that they’re on the wrong side of this hypothetical scenario. They’re the kind of person that thinks if I don’t take care of me, no one will. They’re the kind of person that’s constantly trying to make bread out of stone, one of the temptations of Jesus that he passed on. So, what are you implying there? Here’s the reality. We all get help. And those of us that are able to recognize that help will call it out more than others. But goodness gracious, it takes a lot more than me to survive. I am benefiting from a system of water delivery that was set up long before I was here and invented, not by God by the way, that allows me to whenever I am thirsty, take a drink. That is something that not everyone in human history has been able to say. And I recognize that help. I see all the shoulders that I am standing on and am at least willing to say there’s a bunch I don’t see that I bet I’m standing on. But not one of those pairs of shoulders belongs to Jesus Christ. Not once did he pay a bill. Not once did he alleviate suffering, anxiety, depression, or any other mental illness. We saw what he thought about those. You either casted it out as a demon or nothing. But we know that that’s not the case. Christians know that’s not the case. 45% I’m gonna check that stat, but I think that’s what I most recently read of people that attend church are on some kind of anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication. Even if that number is 5%, that’s crazy. Why do you not believe it’s a demon? Why are you not going to get an exorcism? Why are you wasting your money, your insurance on little white pills that are doing what Jesus said he does? But yet a vast majority of those believers will say, “Ah, it is Jesus. It is God who gave the medical professionals the understanding.” And when I get on medication that is available to me now, I am still being healed by Jesus. The silliest wraparounds ever to make excuses for the severely obvious. And my point here, and I know I got a little off track, is very simple. It is the irony of saying that the only person who can actually help you is the person you need to make king of your life when they are indeed the only person that has never shown up for anybody. Not because I think they’re evil and bad, but because they don’t exist. And I know a lot of people think they have shown up. But there’s a reality that you can test out. And I’m not telling you you should. But if you lie in your room for the next month, you’re going to die if you don’t order or cook your own food. If you don’t go get the medication and pay for it that you need. If you don’t show up tomorrow to your job to make a paycheck to pay that mortgage, in a month you’ll have starved to death or be exposed to the elements or you’ll at least be in horrendously more dire straits than you are now. It doesn’t matter how much you tithe. It doesn’t matter how much you believe in Jesus. That’s a fact. So waking up and saying, “What do I need to do with the help that I get around me because I’m not going to fall into this stupid definition of a typical non-believer?” is you being smart and you doing what you have to because there is no God to do it for you. And the pastor who plays with the in between there is dishonest. He says that’s a lot of pressure. He’s not being sympathetic. He’s being condescending. It’s a lot of unnecessary pressure you have that could be alleviated once you just give it over to God. Because the end there, what is the request? And he even frames it that way. Jesus is simply, however he said it exactly, inviting you to consider. No, this is not a consideration. This is not an invitation. This is a command. If we’re getting back to the biblical root here, you can tell this whole sermon was tried with a softer touch, but it’s just out of touch because that’s not the reality of the words that we read. You are not asked to consider this other way. You are commanded to or else. That’s it. Just be honest. Read more than the Gospels. Finish the damn thing. Read Revelation and tell me if that Jesus was just politely requesting that we consider an alternative healing method. He’s commanding to be king. In fact, more than that, he is commanding that you be slaves to him. He is commanding you to love him. He didn’t say, “A great thing is to love me.” He was answering, “What is the greatest command? To love the Lord your God with everything you are and have.” And then he tells us what to love is. to love is to obey. So no, Jesus only wants your utter full obedience and submission under threat. You can dress it up however you want, but that is all that you are doing. And how I know just how disingenuous and dishonest you are when you say things like this. This is brainwashing. This is controlling people. This is instilling new suffering and additional shame, guilt, and fear for people that are already just trying to survive. You say you love them because Jesus loves them. I love them because they’re humans. And because they’re humans and I know what it is to be human, I know what they can be going through even if I’m not myself. And the last thing I would want to do is give them false hope or worse just false promises on top of threats on top of condemnation all before lunch on a Sunday and right before you ask them to donate to your cause. Could you take 2 minutes to actually think through what you are saying and the effects that it has and give yourself a little bit of follow-up? Hold yourself with a little bit of accountability for the life advice that you’re doing out as perfect wisdom from a position of power. It’s one of those days where I’m clearly having a hard time stopping myself. So, here we go. Thank you for being here. I still have two other videos I need to film right now because I don’t have much time this week. So, you’re going to see this in my Sharing Fire episode tomorrow, which is on I think if I do my plan, it’s to cover a quote from the Kingdom of Heaven, the movie that I love dearly. And you’ll be seeing me wear this on my Thursday episode, our comment deep dive, where we’re going to be responding to a Christian that challenged me on truth in the comment section of my last video. So until all that, keep thinking. Thank you to my top tiers of support. My conicles, Anne, Boris, Chris, Grace, Steel, Narly, Will, Grant, GVI, Jimmy, Joe, Kaboga, Matthew, Perry, and Sean. My humanist heroes Chris, Craig, James, Jared, Christie, my atheist advocates, Aquitar, Caleb, Caleb, Dakota, Dan, Andrew, Jeff, Jeffrey, Jeremy, Jugs, Julie, Malcolm, Paul, Regga, Sparky, and Thomas, as well as all of my secular scholar patrons. If you enjoy Mind Shift, would you consider joining these fine people? Thanks, and have a great day.