ANCIENT ECHOES PODCAST: WHY I NO LONGER BELIEVE IN GOD (JESSUP PA)

BY JERIC YURKANIN

As I continued questioning Christianity, I eventually realized that the biggest question was no longer whether God exists. The bigger question became: Why do human beings believe at all?

The more I studied religion, psychology, history, and human behavior, the more I became convinced that belief itself is one of the most powerful forces in human life. Human beings do not simply seek facts. We seek meaning. We seek purpose. We seek hope. We seek certainty. We seek belonging. We seek explanations for suffering and death. Religion often provides all of these things at once.

This realization helped me understand why religion survives even when predictions fail, doctrines change, leaders disappoint, and contradictions emerge. Religion is not merely a collection of ideas. It is a system that meets deep emotional and psychological needs. Those needs do not disappear simply because evidence is questioned.

One of the strongest human desires is the desire for certainty. Uncertainty can be uncomfortable. Most people want answers to life’s biggest questions. Why are we here? What happens after death? Why do bad things happen? Is there a purpose to suffering? Is justice real? Religion often provides clear answers where uncertainty exists.

The problem is that having an answer is not the same thing as having the correct answer. Human beings frequently choose certainty over uncertainty, even when evidence is limited. A confident explanation often feels better than admitting, “I don’t know.”

For much of my life, religion gave me certainty. It provided answers to difficult questions. It told me where I came from, why I existed, and what would happen after I died. Those answers were comforting. The challenge came when I began asking whether those answers were actually supported by evidence or whether I accepted them because they reduced uncertainty.

Many people assume that doubt is the opposite of faith. I eventually came to see doubt differently. Doubt is often simply the recognition that certainty may not be justified. Doubt can be uncomfortable, but it can also be intellectually honest. Sometimes the most truthful answer is admitting that we do not know.

Another powerful force behind religion is the fear of death. Every human being knows they will die. This awareness separates us from most other animals. We can imagine our future. We can imagine our own mortality. We know that our lives are temporary.

That knowledge can be frightening.

Religion often addresses that fear directly. Christianity promises eternal life. It promises reunion with loved ones. It promises that death is not the end. These beliefs provide comfort in the face of one of humanity’s deepest anxieties.

I do not think this comfort should be dismissed lightly. Losing loved ones is painful. Facing our own mortality is difficult. It is understandable why promises of heaven and eternal life are appealing. The question, however, is whether something is true because it comforts us or whether it is true because evidence supports it.

History suggests that human beings have always created stories to help cope with death. Ancient civilizations developed afterlife beliefs long before Christianity existed. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and countless other cultures imagined some form of continued existence after death. This pattern suggests that the desire for an afterlife may be deeply connected to human psychology.

Another factor that influenced my thinking was the human tendency to see purpose everywhere. We naturally search for meaning. When something good happens, we look for a reason. When tragedy strikes, we want an explanation. Randomness can feel unsatisfying.

Religion often transforms uncertainty into purpose. Suffering becomes part of a plan. Tragedy becomes a lesson. Hardship becomes a test. Every event is woven into a larger narrative. This can be emotionally powerful because it reassures people that their pain is meaningful.

Yet I began to wonder whether people sometimes create purpose because the alternative feels too uncomfortable. It can be difficult to accept that some events may simply be the result of chance, natural processes, or human choices rather than part of a cosmic plan.

One of the most revealing observations for me was how often different religions fulfill the same psychological needs while teaching contradictory doctrines. Christians find meaning through Jesus. Muslims find meaning through Islam. Hindus find meaning through Hindu traditions. Buddhists find meaning through Buddhist teachings.

Each religion provides community, identity, purpose, hope, and comfort. Yet they cannot all be correct in every claim they make about reality.

This suggests that the emotional benefits of religion may not necessarily prove its truth. Instead, those benefits may reflect common human needs that different belief systems satisfy in different ways.

I also became increasingly aware of how much belief is reinforced by repetition. If a person hears the same ideas repeatedly from childhood, those ideas begin to feel self-evident. Churches, schools, families, books, sermons, songs, and traditions all reinforce the same worldview. Over time, belief can feel less like a conclusion and more like an assumption.

This process is not unique to religion. Political beliefs, cultural values, and social norms often develop in similar ways. Repetition creates familiarity, and familiarity often creates confidence.

That realization led me to ask an uncomfortable question: How many of my beliefs were based on evidence, and how many were based on repetition?

Another thing I noticed was that religion often provides identity during uncertain times. When people experience loss, illness, loneliness, economic hardship, or major life transitions, religion can offer stability. It gives people a story to belong to and a community that shares their values.

Again, this does not mean religion is false. It simply means that religion often serves functions beyond determining truth. It helps people cope with life’s difficulties.

The more I examined these psychological and social factors, the more I realized that religion’s power may come less from evidence and more from its ability to meet human needs. It provides answers, belonging, comfort, hope, purpose, identity, and emotional security.

These benefits help explain why religion remains influential even when traditional claims are challenged by history, science, or critical scholarship.

One of the most difficult lessons I learned was that people can sincerely believe things that are not true. Sincerity is not evidence. Good intentions are not evidence. Strong emotions are not evidence. Entire communities can be sincere and still be mistaken.

History is filled with examples of widespread beliefs that later proved inaccurate. The fact that many people believe something does not automatically make it true.

This realization encouraged me to separate two different questions. The first question is whether a belief helps people. The second question is whether the belief is true. Those questions are related, but they are not identical.

A belief can provide comfort without being true.

A belief can create community without being true.

A belief can reduce fear without being true.

A belief can provide meaning without being true.

Understanding that distinction changed how I approached religion.

Ultimately, I concluded that the human need to believe may explain much of religion’s endurance. Human beings seek certainty in an uncertain world. We seek hope in the face of suffering. We seek meaning in the face of chaos. We seek comfort in the face of death.

Religion offers answers to those needs.

Whether those answers are ultimately true is a separate question—one that each person must examine honestly, critically, and with intellectual humility.

For me, recognizing the psychological power of belief did not answer every question about God. What it did was help me understand why religion remains so compelling to so many people, even in a world where evidence, history, and science often challenge traditional religious claims.

In the end, I became less interested in defending beliefs and more interested in understanding why people believe them in the first place. That shift changed my perspective on religion, faith, doubt, and the human search for meaning more than any single argument ever could.