THIS WASN’T AN EXPERIMENT - IT WAS INDOCTRINATION

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSVM83aAAbU

A physics student claims she tested Christianity for five years and discovered that it “works.” But was this really a scientific experiment—or five years of deliberately conditioning herself to believe what she already wanted to believe?

In this episode of Breakdowns & Beatdowns, I respond to Biblical Bookworm’s video, “I Tested Christianity for Five Years.”

She presents her journey as an experiment: follow the advice of Catholic saints, pray according to their instructions, live as radically Christian as possible, and observe whether the promises of Christianity come true.

The problem is that an experiment is supposed to test a hypothesis while controlling for bias. This process did the opposite. She immersed herself exclusively in one religious tradition, read theological books every week, followed the practices of Catholic saints, repeatedly chose belief despite her doubts, and then interpreted the resulting emotions and experiences through the Christian framework she had spent years reinforcing.

That isn’t a controlled experiment. It’s self-indoctrination.

We examine her arguments concerning:

• Whether Christianity can meaningfully be described as “working”
• The difference between testing a claim and choosing to believe it
• Why immersing yourself in one worldview produces predictable results
• Prayer promises that require centuries of additional Catholic caveats
• The claim that pride prevents people from finding God
• Whether “God is love” is unique to Christianity
• The geographical distribution of religious belief
• Divine hiddenness and why blaming skeptics does not solve it
• Human suffering, natural disasters, disease, and animal suffering
• Why “Jesus suffered too” does not explain gratuitous suffering
• Prayer rules designed to make failure impossible
• The requirement that prayers conform to what God already intends to do
• How perseverance turns ordinary events into supposed answered prayers

Biblical Bookworm attempts to reverse three familiar objections to Christianity: religious geography, divine hiddenness, and the problem of suffering.

Her response to religious geography is essentially that everyone experiences love—and because Christianity says God is love, God is therefore universally available. But people experiencing love does not make them Christian, erase the geographical distribution of religion, or demonstrate that the Christian God exists.

Her answer to divine hiddenness is that God hides from people because of their intellectual pride. That does not explain why sincere, humble people seek God and find nothing. It simply shifts responsibility away from an allegedly omnipotent deity and places the blame on the nonbeliever.

Her answer to suffering focuses almost entirely on the pain created by imperfect human relationships. But imperfect love does not explain earthquakes, cancer, parasites, childhood disease, tsunamis, or the immense suffering experienced by animals long before humans ever appeared.

Finally, we examine the four conditions she says are necessary for prayer to work: humility, faith, perseverance, and requesting something consistent with God’s will. Together, these conditions make prayer effectively unfalsifiable. Pray repeatedly for something God already intends to do, interpret eventual success as an answer, and blame your pride, weak faith, impatience, or improper request whenever nothing happens.

After five years, she did not demonstrate that Christianity is true. She demonstrated that someone who repeatedly chooses belief, practices belief, studies belief, and interprets every experience through belief can eventually become convinced.

That may be personally meaningful—but it is not science, and it is not evidence.