It’s a brand new day. August is upon us. Today is the fourth, and it’s 2026. The year is going by fast.

Honestly, I have nothing to write about. But that’s the journey of writing. Take my hand and let’s walk together.

The last few weeks, I’ve shifted or even crystallized the position of my faith. I declared to the world that I no longer believe Jesus is God.

I even said I don’t believe in the New Testament, and I no longer will be going to church.

How are you feeling? Do you think I’m lost? Will you continue to walk with me?

We are all on a journey. The most important thing in my life was the walk I had with God in my teens.

I loved church, I loved meeting new people, I loved being radically honest with others.

The weight of my life against another's soul. The fact that I had an impact on someone’s life, either to give them life or to give them to death.

I felt responsible for everyone I met. To be the best friend, the best stranger, to be the best leader, and to radically love those who are wandering.

But here’s the thing. I am wandering. That radical love I had for others is far less towards me.

I feel ashamed; I live broken with Schizoaffective disorder; I’m in between jobs right now; I feel like a failure.

I don't know what I'm living toward anymore.

The very person whom I made my life mission to reach out to is the very person I’ve become.

What do we do? Will you continue to walk with me?

It’s amazing because if you read my book, you’d realize I’ve lived many lives and been through incredibly hard things for a person who’s only 35 years old.

To think all of the twists and turns led me here, sitting in a room in West Haven under the grace of living with my family, having no income and looking for a job, and writing now is the most amazing thing I’m thinking about today.

I’ve traveled to Japan, Mexico, and Haiti. I’ve been to Puerto Rico. I’ve been hospitalized 18 times, attended a Christian University only to be kicked out and banned at 20.

I worked and excelled in sales, earning $20,000 in 2016.

I lost a hundred pounds and ran a half marathon.

I lived with bipolar disorder and now schizoaffective disorder.

A friend gave me $9,000 to pay down my student loan debt. Another gave me $3,000 to help me get back on my feet after a traumatic episode in a mental hospital in 2019, where I was assaulted a few times and lost a front tooth.

I worked in health care, giving medications to my clients, making sure they took them every night.

All the while managing my own med compliance, treating schizoaffective disorder.

I lived in a home where rent was $275 a month, and my landlord gave me a free ’96 Odyssey to help me drive to work.

I’ve lived an amazing life with countless individuals who walked alongside me just like you are doing today.

Now, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. You don’t know what keeps me up at night and the fears I live with from the trauma of these disorders.

The constant striving of the wind trying to capture this invisible force.

Maybe this isn't the first time I've had to rebuild. It's just the first time I've had to rebuild without the identity I trusted most.

Now, I am stripped away of my identity and rebuilding again.

Well, good day.

As I part ways with trying to understand the Bible or defend why I don’t believe Jesus is God, I wonder where this leads me.

I write about my faith journey, psychology, and philosophy, so when I stopped believing in the Bible, I asked a friend, “What do I even write about now?”

He suggested taking a break. I wish I could, but I genuinely enjoy writing.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the corner store for a few loosies. Over time, I’ve gotten to know the worker there, Casey, and I asked him what he practices; I’m always curious about how people apply their faith to daily life. He told me Hinduism, which resonated because I had dipped my toes into it a few years back.

Leaving Christianity left an undeniable void, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to navigate life without that old structure. There are a lot of old assumptions and fears I'm still untangling.

Intellectually, I know I don’t align with ideas like total depravity, predestination, or sacrifice-based rituals. But internally, the fear doesn’t disappear overnight.

So today, I bought the Bhagavad Gita. I’m listening to it and using AI as a tool to help me process its core premises. So far, it fits.

I can already hear old voices bemoaning me for looking elsewhere instead of submitting to Christ. But fear not, all paths lead to God. :D

Chapter 4, Verse 11, Krishna explicitly says: "In whatever way people approach me, in that same way I receive them. All paths lead to me."

Let’s take a look at Hinduism and what it is and isn’t.

Many Hindus refer to their tradition as Sanātana Dharma, often translated as 'eternal way' or 'eternal order.'

Because it views truth as universal and accessible to anyone, the mindset is simple: you don't "join" Hinduism; you simply begin practicing Dharma.

For many Hindu traditions, the emphasis is less on joining a belief system and more on living in alignment with Dharma.

Instead of a set of rules you must believe to avoid punishment, think of Hindu philosophy as a mindset for navigating reality.

These are my simplified notes after reading and discussing the concepts with AI.

1. You Have Two “Selves” (Purusha vs. Prakriti)

• Prakriti (The Field): Your physical body, your emotions, your brain’s thoughts, and the physical world around you. It is constantly changing.

• Purusha (The Observer): The quiet, eternal awareness inside you that watches the thoughts and feelings happen.

• The Insight: This perspective suggests that anxiety belongs to the changing mind rather than to your deepest identity.

2. Energy Shifts in Real Time (The Gunas)

Your mind and the world move through three shifting states:

• Sattva: Clear, peaceful, present.

• Rajas: Driven, frantic, anxious, restless.

• Tamas: Heavy, frozen, exhausted, numb.

• The Application: You stop judging yourself for being exhausted or anxious. Instead of saying “I’m broken,” you notice: “My nervous system is in Tamas/Rajas right now,” and you take gentle steps toward Sattva.

3. Your Duty in the Immediate Present (Dharma)

• Dharma isn’t a massive, grand destiny. It simply means doing the necessary, honest action right in front of you.

• If you are hungry, your dharma is to eat. If you are exhausted, your dharma is to rest. It shrinks your focus down from “fixing your entire life” to just managing the next ten minutes.

4. Focusing on Input, Releasing Output (Karma Yoga)

• Karma is action. Karma Yoga is doing your best on the input (your effort) while completely letting go of the output (the result, what people think, or how it turns out).

• You hit “send” on the email or write your essay, and then you put the weight down.

Pretty cool. Now, compared with the form of Christianity I experienced, these ideas carry far less shame and guilt.

I’ve found that by understanding and applying and even learning, theology became burdensome.

Here’s my recent confusion: Ezekiel chapter 18 says the sins of the father cannot be passed to the son. Like the son cannot inherit the sins of his father.

If we understand that concept in Ezekiel, then how do we reconcile the sins of Adam being inherited into my life? I didn’t disobey God in the Garden. Why should I be held accountable for the sins of Adam?

I've asked several people this question and received different answers. Perhaps there's a satisfying reconciliation. I simply haven't found one yet.

Just to be clear, I’m not converting to Hinduism; I’m curious, and I’m exploring other faiths in my life. In the past, I wrote about Judaism, and I appreciate their philosophy and their history. However, I’m not converting to Judaism.

If I'm honest, I felt the need to clarify that because part of me still expects to be judged for looking outside Christianity. Old beliefs don't disappear overnight. Even when your mind changes, your nervous system often takes much longer to catch up.

Writing for me helps me process my thoughts and synthesize what I hear and learn. It’s healthy for me. I welcome different viewpoints and, look, I may be wrong, which I’m okay with.

I was going to vent about a conversation with someone that I had regarding faith, but it’s not worth my time. People will have different viewpoints, especially when their careers depend on it.

Right now in my life, I’ve come to terms with not believing in Christ. I’m okay with the reality that, under the evangelical system, I’m marked for eternal damnation.

However, because of a lack of faith, do I hate my neighbor and start lying, get drunk, start stealing, and continue practicing porn because none of it matters? Whatever sin you can think of, does my behavior get thrown out the window because I don’t believe or have a worldview of Christ?

I believe in God, and I am wrestling with Jesus as God. Could there be a point where I believe he is the savior, that he died for my sins, and that he was a ransom to pay a debt to a holy and just God?

Maybe I won’t rule that out.

Right now, I know what I have been through. I’ve lived with and experienced psychosis, mania, and depression. I’ve lost my mind a lot in my life, and I almost died by suicide a few years ago.

It’s a miracle for me to write and use logic today. It feels like people look past that when they talk to me because I have a level of competence.

When I think about my thinking, the reason why I write and understand the logic of what I believe and the evangelical space in which I believed is that I grew up in it and it was my life.

It was my identity, the way I made friends.

Part of me wants to let go and not dwell on it. Like, what’s the point of making a defense or studying a system of belief when I don’t believe in it anymore?

Maybe that’s my nihilism in me. Or, maybe it’s self-preservation.

All that to say, as much as I want to document what I am learning and how all of this makes sense, it’s okay for me to drop it.

I don’t want to argue with people and get into a debate. We live in a time where we have the freedom to practice and believe in any God.

I simply don’t believe Jesus is God.

I do believe my actions and work do matter, and it’s not by faith alone. I live with the understanding that God will judge me for that.

If I find out that it’s by having the correct doctrine and creed that saves me, well, so be it.

Alright, so here we are. Over the past week, I wrote about stepping away from practicing Christianity and from viewing Jesus as God.

I’m still wrestling with it, starting from ground zero and building my way from there.

There’s a lot to learn, and by no way do I have all the answers. I do feel, though, in my journey of faith and living, I have a responsibility for how I treat my neighbor and the decisions I make.

I also have an incredible responsibility for my health. I say that because over the past week, I’ve drunk alcohol and smoked weed.

It was an escape, and it allowed me not to think about the stuff I wrote about and to live in the moment.

So I don’t know if that helps my credibility of what I say or makes me human. Now I realized I don’t want to make a practice of drinking alcohol or smoking weed. Only because it doesn’t help with my schizoaffective disorder, and I have to be honest about that.

I’ve worked so hard to remain in remission and be out of the hospital, and I’ve come a long way in understanding my psychosis and my delusions.

All that to say, I’m here today returning to the Source and thinking through making wise decisions moving forward.

Now, I’m almost six weeks sober from practicing porn and about a week sober from not smoking cigarettes.

I don’t know what to believe yet. All I know is that I do believe in God, and I believe Jesus was a real Jewish teacher.

Whether he was God in the flesh, I don’t believe that now, nor do I believe I have to worship him.

HOWEVER, I do want to continue to study the New Testament and study the life of Jesus. It’s not all or nothing, or at least I don’t want to practice all or nothing.

I find that Christianity is a language. It’s a language that I have grown up in, and it has allowed me to make a lot of friends and share the human experience with strangers.

Because it’s a language to me, I want to become as fluent as possible because there are billions of people out that practice Christianity.

It allows me to have empathy for my neighbor.

Now you might say there are other worldviews out there too. I want to be fluent in all religions too. I’ve become a student of Judaism, and it’s one of my favorite worldviews to study and attempt to practice to the best of my ability as a non-Jew.

Anyway, I wanted to share what I was learning today. I was doing more research into Unitarianism, and it’s very appealing to me since I don’t believe Jesus is God.

But then I started researching Unitarian Universalism, which is an interesting religion. From what I understand, it’s welcoming to all faiths and walks of life.

Now, I’m not ready to dive into that church, but I respect it.

What’s interesting is there aren’t many strictly Unitarian churches out there. The belief is that there is One God and that Jesus is not God. A majority, if not all, churches are Trinitarian, but some churches, like Jehovah's Witnesses, don’t believe in Jesus as God.

That’s a whole can of worms, and I’m sure I’ll write about experiences with the JWs because a few of my friends were practicing JWs.

Anyway, let’s get back to something I found interesting called Christian Universalism.

Unlike Unitarian Universalism, which drops all creeds and can feel a bit too unstructured or out-there for me, Christian Universalism stays rooted in the biblical narrative.

The core idea is simple: that God’s love and mercy are so complete that ultimately, all of creation and humanity will be restored or saved.

For a long time, I felt like the only choice was between rigid traditional Christianity (where most of humanity faces eternal torment) or walking away from the Bible entirely.

Realizing that early Church history and many Jewish traditions had a completely different view of God’s justice opened up a third option. It presents a God whose ultimate goal is restoration, not permanent condemnation.

I’m not signing my name on the dotted line of any new dogma today.

But exploring Christian Universalism helps me reframe the God I grew up with, moving away from a system based on fear and toward one based on ultimate love and responsibility.

And then I used to lean toward annihilationism, the idea that God eventually erases or destroys the souls who aren’t aligned with Him.

I used to think there wasn’t much biblical backing for it, but the deeper I look, the more I see it’s actually heavily supported in Scripture. The text constantly talks about the wicked “perishing,” “turning to ashes,” or being “destroyed soul and body”, not tortured forever in hellfire.

Even so, annihilationism still leaves me wrestling.

It implies that God ultimately destroys His own image over a lack of correct theology.

When you compare eternal conscious torment, annihilationism, and universal restoration, you realize the historical Bible presents a much wider, more complex conversation about justice than modern fear-driven preaching lets on.

At the end of the day, whether I’m studying Christian Universalism, learning from Jewish tradition, or maintaining my health routine, the goal is the same: stay grounded, take care of my mind and body, treat people well, and keep seeking truth without getting lost in the extremes.

Thanks for reading and being on this journey with me. More soon.

“Hey guys — to those of you who know me, thank you for your time and company over the years.

I’ve decided that I no longer believe in the New Testament or practice Christianity, so I will no longer be attending Cornerstone. I may stop by occasionally since my family goes there, but as far as my own involvement, I’m stepping back.

Thank you for reading my thoughts over the years. I’ll stop texting the main group after this, but if anyone wants to reach out directly to understand where I’m coming from, my line is open. Take care.”

I had to draw a firm line the other night. I couldn’t keep pretending or living under the illusion that I’m a Christian when I don’t believe in Jesus as deity or practice the faith.

Right now, I’m examining the mechanics of modern Christianity. People interpret the Bible through many lenses, but today I am laying out a side-by-side forensic look at the two primary ways Jesus’ identity is interpreted: Trinitarianism and Unitarianism.

The Core Question:

Is Jesus the Almighty Creator taking on Human Flesh (Trinitarianism), or is He a distinct human messenger fully authorized to act on God’s behalf (Unitarianism)?

1. Trinitarianism: The Case for Deity

Trinitarians argue that Jesus shares the divine identity, essence, and authority of Yahweh.

• Pre-Existence & Creation (John 1:1, Colossians 1:16–17):

  • Argument: “The Word” (Logos) isn’t just an idea; it’s a person who existed before time and created all things. In Isaiah 44:24, Yahweh says He created the universe alone. If Colossians says everything was created through and for Jesus, Jesus must share Yahweh’s divine nature.

• The “I Am” Claims (John 8:58, John 10:30):

  • Argument: When Jesus says “Before Abraham was, I am,” he invokes the divine name from Exodus 3:14. The crowd immediately picked up stones for blasphemy because they understood he was claiming to be God.

• Exercising Divine Prerogatives (Mark 2:5–7, John 9:38):

  • Argument: Jesus directly forgave sins on his own authority (which only God can do) and accepted worship (proskuneo). In Scripture, angels reject worship (Rev 22:8–9), but Jesus accepts it.

• Applying Yahweh Texts to Jesus (Philippians 2:9–11, Hebrews 1:8):

  • Argument: Paul applies Isaiah 45:23 (“To me every knee shall bow”) directly to Jesus. In Hebrews 1:8, the Father Himself addresses the Son as God (Theos).

2. Unitarianism: The Case for Absolute Monotheism

Unitarians read the text through ancient Jewish monotheism, arguing Jesus is a human messenger, prophet, and agent—not Almighty God.

• Explicit Distinctions Jesus Makes (John 17:3, Mark 10:18, Mark 13:32):

  • Argument: Jesus explicitly calls the Father “the only true God” (John 17:3) and deflects ultimate goodness to God alone (Mark 10:18). Furthermore, Jesus admits he does not know the time of his return—if God is all-knowing, but Jesus had limited knowledge, Jesus cannot be God.

• The Ancient Law of Agency (Shaliach):

  • Argument: In Jewish law, an authorized agent (Shaliach) acts with the full power and authority of the principal (“A man’s agent is as the man himself”). Jesus forgiving sins and performing miracles is not proof he is God, but proof he was fully authorized by God (John 5:19, 30).

• Apostolic Teaching (1 Timothy 2:5, Acts 2:22):

  • Argument: Paul specifically calls Jesus “the man Christ Jesus” who mediates between humans and the “one God.” In Acts 2:22, Peter introduces Jesus not as God in the flesh, but as “a man accredited by God.”

• Logical & Theological Contradictions:

  • Argument: Scripture states God cannot be tempted (James 1:13) and cannot die (1 Tim 6:16). Yet Jesus was tempted (Hebrews 4:15) and died. If God died, the universe collapsed; if only a “human nature” died, then a human saved us, not God.

When you lay both arguments side by side without church tradition dictating the answer, you can see why this debate has lasted two millennia:

• Trinitarians attempt to harmonize passages in which Jesus performs divine acts by positioning a multi-person Godhead.

• Unitarians preserve strict Old Testament monotheism, viewing Jesus as the exalted human representative of Yahweh.

My goal isn't to tell you what to believe, but to lay both interpretations side by side so you can examine the text and the reasoning behind each one.

I no longer accept the New Testament as binding authority in the way I once did, though I continue to study it and wrestle with its claims.

Maybe one day I’ll land somewhere where I do believe, but right now I’m wrestling.

I’m starting at ground zero, and I don’t believe Jesus is God; I lean more towards Unitarianism.

Well, well, well, if it isn’t me just looking at Scripture again and trying to figure out what the church says and what is said in the Old Testament and New Testament.

Today was cool. I prayed, and God actually answered the prayer. Was it hindsight or me creating a narrative that God answered my prayer? I don’t know, but here’s where I am today.

I selected three verses from the Old Testament; one of them is quoted a lot at the church I attend. And that’s Malachi 3:10.

¹⁰ Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

Malachi 3:10

I’ve been told that if we tithe to the church, we put God to the test and he will be faithful to bless me and that there will be no need.

Fine, okay, great. That’s an Old Testament verse.

Here’s my point: let’s look at Ezekiel 18:21-22.

21 “But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22 None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live.

Ezekiel 18:21-22

God says if a wicked person turns away from all his sins he has committed and does what is right and just, he will surely live. None of his transgressions will be remembered, and he will live for the righteousness he has done.

Great, perfect. Ezekiel describes repentance and righteousness in terms of turning from wickedness and doing what is just and right. The New Testament frames repentance around faith in Christ. How do these fit together?

Do we now apply that to our lives?

Or, now what about Deuteronomy 26:12:

12 “When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled.”

Deuteronomy 26:12

Here’s what it's saying: after ALL the tithes you have given, then give it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled.

Do we apply that to our lives now?

It seems easy to emphasize certain passages while giving much less attention to others.

My question isn't whether that's always wrong, but what principle determines which passages we carry forward and which we don't.

It’s easy to say give a tenth because Malachi 3:10 says to test God and see how he will bless you.

The New Testament appears to emphasize generous, voluntary giving rather than prescribing a fixed tenth.

⁷ Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Corinthians 9:7

Look, I’m doing my best not to debate people. I’m wrestling outwardly and inwardly with the Biblical text.

I want to live a life that is righteous before God, knowing that one day I will give an account for how I lived.

Some would say, “Well, Barnaby, you cannot live a righteous life, only through Jesus.”

Fine, great. Then another passage often cited is Isaiah 64:6:

We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

Isaiah 64:6

I'm not trying to dismantle Christianity or prove anyone wrong.

I'm trying to understand how Christians determine which parts of Scripture are applied directly today, which are interpreted through Christ, and which are understood differently under the New Covenant.

If the Bible is one story, I want to know how the pieces fit together rather than assuming they do.

I’m doing my best to understand the hermeneutics: How should Scripture be interpreted?

I'm not asking these questions because I reject the Bible. I'm asking them because I take it seriously enough to want to understand it on its own terms rather than simply accepting whatever interpretation I inherited.

I live with schizoaffective disorder. Without medication, my mind becomes delusional. I’m going to share something personal and something I haven’t really talked about.

In 2021, I was re-diagnosed as schizoaffective from bipolar disorder. I was unclear why the doctors had recategorized me, but last night it made complete sense.

As you’ve noticed, I’ve been deconstructing and reconstructing my faith through my posts.

I’ve talked about Christianity and Judaism and leaning more towards Judaism in practice than I do Christianity.

Which is fine. I have a deep respect for the Jewish people and their philosophy. But let’s get one thing straight: I’m not a Jew, nor do I intend to be one.

As I said, I wonder why doctors at the time thought I had a thought disorder and a mood disorder such as schizoaffective.

It makes sense now as I have been reflecting on everything, and it’s because I had a hyperfocus and delusion of Judaism, thinking I was chosen and that I was an actual Jew.

I was hospitalized twice in 2021. Once in May for a couple of weeks and the second in June after my suicide attempt.

The first visit was because I was manic and in active psychosis. I thought things like the Earth as an organism, and we are its cells.

I thought there was a second coming that I orchestrated and that my family was chosen to usher in a new age.

And then I thought I was a Jew because a Jewish supervisor told me I was a Tzadik back in 2018 when I was working as a garage door tech.

It got to my head, and I ran with it.

I believe I am a good person with flaws like thinking I am God or Christ or believing I can change people.

My point is this: when I was in a controlled environment in the hospital, I still exhibited delusional behaviors, and that’s why I was diagnosed with schizoaffective and it makes complete sense now.

It’s completely rare and uncommon that someone with my condition can rationalize and have insight into why they are delusional and why they have their diagnosis.

There’s a term called anosognosia, where it’s the inability neurologically to understand why a person has a condition.

For the mental illness community, it’s prevalent.

Anyway, that’s my heart and my insight that I recently discovered last night. It’s funny because I went out of my way wearing the Star of David, buying tzitzit, buying a yarmulke, buying a prayer shawl, and going kosher.

That was last year and this year too, so I still had the delusion even after being medicated.

I no longer practice those things, and I really don’t want to practice Judaism at all. But I recognized the obsession and the delusion.

I do want to get this off my chest, though.

I don’t believe I need a personal relationship with Jesus, nor do I believe in the New Testament. I don’t believe I have to worship Jesus as God, and I don’t believe in the Trinity.

So where does this lead me?

Should I believe there is no God and become an atheist?

Nope. I do believe in the Creator, and I do have direct access to Him. I don’t need a mediator to commune with Him.

I also believe in the Noahide principles.

These are not complex religious rituals; they are a bedrock of basic human morality and divine order.

1. Do not worship idols: (Acknowledge and worship only the One Supreme Creator).

2. Do not blaspheme: (Do not curse or desecrate the name of God).

3. Do not murder: (Respect human life as an image of God).

4. Do not steal: (Respect the property, rights, and livelihood of others).

5. Do not commit sexual immorality: (Maintain healthy, moral family structures and boundaries).

6. Do not eat flesh taken from a live animal: (Show compassion and avoid unnecessary cruelty to animals).

7. Establish courts of justice: (Build a fair, functional society that enforces moral law and protects the innocent).

I’m a non-Jew, and as I said, I don’t believe I have to convert to be in right standing before God or the community or to be a good person.

But that’s a little about me. I’m open to change, but the evidence about Jesus is pretty clear, and my new mindset makes logical sense, and I feel comfortable in my decision to walk away from Christianity.

Thanks for walking with me and witnessing my thoughts change over time. It’s been a pleasure to document all this.

If you haven’t noticed already, I constantly wrestle with the reality of this world and different faith systems.

Some days I wonder if I have actual belief in God or Jesus; other days I submit to something far bigger than myself. But as I study Judaism, I find a deep appreciation for its structure—it makes far more sense to me than standard Christian theology. Maybe one day I’ll begin a formal journey to convert to Judaism. But that’s a marathon, not a sprint, and it requires a serious commitment.

Today, I want to dive into some Jewish philosophy and break down the fundamental differences between mainstream Christianity and Jewish thought.

Before I begin, I want to share a core piece of who I am: I believe your behavior and character determine who you are—not what you profess to believe.

Show me your actions, and I’ll show you your heart. If your daily life isn’t congruent with what you profess, it’s time to reexamine who you are and why you believe what you believe.

The Foundation of Modern Christianity: Faith Alone

To understand where modern Christianity gets its view of human nature, we have to look at thinkers like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Saint Augustine.

Martin Luther built the entire Protestant Reformation around the Latin phrase Sola Fide, which literally means “Faith Alone.”

For Luther, human beings were so fundamentally flawed (Total Depravity) that no amount of good deeds, self-discipline, or ethical living could ever make them “good” in God’s eyes. Salvation was a free gift received purely through mental belief and trust in Jesus—completely severed from a person’s physical actions or works.

While Luther saw this as liberating, it created a massive cultural side-effect: it severed action from identity. When a system preaches that your daily conduct doesn’t affect your fundamental standing, it opens the door for people to treat character, self-mastery, and behavioral discipline as optional side projects rather than the main event.

The Dark Side of Reformation History

It’s difficult to face, but Martin Luther was also a virulent antisemite.

Earlier in his career, in 1523, Luther wrote a treatise titled That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, criticizing the Catholic Church for treating Jewish people poorly. However, his tolerance was conditional: he believed that once Christianity was “reformed,” Jewish people would convert en masse to his new movement.

When Jewish communities predictably rejected his theology, Luther turned intensely hostile. In 1543, three years before his death, he published a 65,000-word treatise titled On the Jews and Their Lies. In it, he advocated for horrific, concrete violence:

• Burning down synagogues and Jewish schools.

• Destroying Jewish homes and prayer books.

• Forbidding rabbis from teaching under threat of death.

• Stripping legal protections, confiscating property, and forcing Jewish people into hard labor.

• Explicitly writing that Christians were “at fault for not slaying them.”

Four centuries later, the Nazi regime explicitly weaponized Luther’s late writings, displaying copies of On the Jews and Their Lies at the Nuremberg rallies as historical justification for their atrocities. (In modern times, most major Lutheran denominations have formally denounced and repudiated these texts.)

It raises a serious question: How can a system built on “faith alone” separate a founding theologian’s abstract doctrines from such destructive real-world hatred?

Replacement Theology: Augustine and Calvin

If we look at John Calvin and Saint Augustine, we see a similar underlying pattern: Supersessionism (or “Replacement Theology”)—the belief that the Church replaced Israel, that Jewish observance of the Law became obsolete, and that Jewish suffering was divine punishment.

• Saint Augustine (354–430 CE): Augustine established the policy that Christians must not kill Jews, but his reasoning was degrading: he argued Jewish people were meant to survive in a state of subjugation and misery as a living “witness” to the consequences of rejecting Jesus.

• John Calvin (1509–1564): While Calvin insisted on human depravity across the board and didn’t call for violence, he still viewed living Jewish practice (Halakha) as “stubborn,” “blind,” and spiritually dead.

Neither Augustine nor Calvin published genocidal pamphlets as Luther did, but both operated inside a framework where a person’s real-world behavioral integrity (Ma’aseh) was secondary to whether they held the “correct” abstract theology.

Moving Beyond “Faith Alone”

I don’t believe in Calvinism or Original Sin. I don’t believe I need a blood sacrifice to cleanse me, nor do I build my life around escaping to Heaven or Hell. I don’t have empirical evidence for an afterlife, and I’m not concerned with obsessing over it.

I care about accountability right now in this physical world.

Is it “works”? Absolutely. Your actions and deeds are what determine who you are as a person and validate what you believe—not a prayer of salvation or a verbal profession.

This is where Jewish philosophy stands in stark contrast to Protestantism.

The Jewish Framework: Action-First Ethics

Judaism is a religion of Halakha (walking/acting) and Mitzvot (concrete actions). Faith (Emunah) in Jewish thought isn’t an abstract feeling or intellectual agreement; it means faithfulness—how you actually show up and execute. (Even the New Testament writer James, writing from a deeply Jewish background, argued that “faith without works is dead.”)

Here are the core pillars of this framework:

1. Dual Inclinations and Agency

In Jewish thought, humans aren’t born fundamentally broken. We are born with two inclinations:

• Yetzer HaTov: The inclination toward good, order, and responsibility.

• Yetzer HaRa: The inclination toward self-gratification and chaos.

You possess complete agency and free will to master these inclinations through discipline and choice.

2. Olam HaZeh (This World)

Traditional Judaism focuses almost entirely on Olam HaZeh—this physical world, right here, right now—rather than Olam HaBa (The World to Come).

• The present moment is what counts: The job site, your daily habits, and your relationships are the main stage, not a dress rehearsal for Heaven.

• Purpose is found in action: Your duty isn’t to escape this life, but to actively build integrity, do good work, and bring order to the world around you today.

In ancient Hebrew, “Good” (Tov) literally means functional, complete, and working as intended. Conversely, “Sin” (Chet) translates to “missing the mark”—it is dysfunction.

3. Teshuva: Actionable Course Correction

When you “miss the mark,” Judaism doesn’t ask for abstract guilt. It requires Teshuva—a concrete, four-step process of returning to alignment:

1. Vidui (Acknowledgment): Be completely honest with yourself. “I messed up, or I fell into a bad pattern.”

2. Charata (Regret): Recognize that the action was dysfunctional and inconsistent with who you want to be.

3. Azivat HaChet (Stopping the Behavior): Cut off the habit in real-time.

4. Kabbalah L’Atid (Future Commitment): Build a clear plan so that when temptation arises again, you choose differently.

4. Daily Principles for the Real World

• Mitzvah (מִצְוָה): An ethical deed. Performing a functional, good act in the physical world connects you to purpose, regardless of how you “feel” inside at that exact moment.

• Derech Eretz (דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ): “The way of the land.” This refers to decency, professionalism, and a strong work ethic. Before high theology, a person is expected to carry their weight, show up on time, and act with basic decency.

• Kavanah (כַּוָּנָה): Intentional focus. Bringing your full presence and mind to the task in front of you—whether sweeping a floor, carrying a ladder, or turning down a cheap distraction.

Character is Built from the Outside In

Instead of waiting to feel “holy” or “saved” before acting right, Jewish ethics teaches that your actions shape your mind.

When you practice self-mastery (Hitpa’el), stay sober, and treat people with fairness (Tzedek), those physical, real-world choices literally forge who you are as a man. God isn’t found by staring at the clouds waiting for a sign; purpose is found in how you treat your neighbor, how honest you are in business, and how disciplined you remain in private.

In many modern frameworks, there is a subtle separation between a person’s “spiritual status” and their daily conduct. You can claim a personal relationship with God on Sunday and act with zero integrity on Monday because the system framed salvation around what you believe rather than how you discipline yourself.

An Action-First framework (Ma’aseh) rejects that split. You cannot separate the tree from its fruit. If a system or a person produces real-world dysfunction and cruelty, the system has failed in practice.

Integrity isn’t an abstract idea—it’s proven by how you show up and execute every single day.

Years ago, I shared that I wasn’t a Christian because I was deep into one of my addictions, and I was completely trapped and isolated.

The shame and guilt halted me, and I wanted to end my life because I felt like whatever I did, whether that was confessing or repenting, it was never enough.

I felt like there was no point of return for me.

The weight of my suicide attempt fell over my addiction to porn and being a filthy person who constantly fell short of the standard.

It was in that moment I shared that I wasn’t a Christian. I didn’t fit the mold of church, and I didn’t want to go to church, read my Bible, or pray.

So how much was I a Christian then?

The questions for me are the following:

Are you able to forgive without following Jesus?

Are you able to love without following Jesus?

Are you able to have empathy without following Jesus?

Does Jesus eliminate my sin?

What is sin?

Am I born in it?

Is there any goodness on Earth?

Do you need goodness with the knowledge of Jesus?

Can I be a good person?

Can I stop drinking, smoking, looking at porn, and lose weight all the while not believing Jesus?

If I can do all those things without believing in Jesus, then what’s the point of following Jesus?

Is it words or actions that matter?

If I confess Jesus, but do not love my neighbor or forgive, then am I a Christian?

Likewise, if I don’t confess Jesus, but love my neighbor and forgive them, then am I a Christian?

If I denounce Christianity, but stop looking at porn, stop smoking cigarettes, become healthy, treat my body as a temple, forgive my neighbor, love my neighbor, and feed the poor and the lowly, then am I going to Hell?

If you say yes, then I’d like for you to rethink your position as a Christian and what it means.

Going to Heaven isn’t by confession or saying a prayer of salvation on a Sunday.

Nor is it becoming a member of a church, reading your Bible, or praying that will save you.

You cannot do anything to be saved.

Let’s look at two people:

The Christian who understands Greek and Hebrew, goes to Seminary, attends Church every Sunday, and prays all the time. Yet cannot stop watching porn, lies to cover up his habit, and has a hard time forgiving his family and doesn’t love the poor. He says the prayer of salvation and does his best to follow the rules. Is he going to Heaven?

Then you take a person who doesn’t follow Jesus and even denounces Him, but yet loves his fellow human, cares for the poor, forgives his neighbor, doesn’t practice porn, is not a glutton, doesn’t smoke. Is he going to Heaven?

I know this is binary, and people are way more complicated than this, but if there is a good and just God, he’s not going to look at a religious hypocrite who uses Jesus to get into Heaven and rejects the person who embodies Christ's life.

When you look at Matthew 25.

When did we serve Jesus?

The answer in that story is as beautiful as it is terrifying to the religious establishment: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”

It turns out, the King wasn’t looking for a brand name or a confession of faith. He was looking for a cup of water given to a thirsty soul.

The ultimate irony of my life is that the religious system made salvation entirely about a transaction of words, while the universe operates on the currency of action.

They taught me to fear a legalistic trap, all while ignoring the fact that their version of “faith” left people trapped in the same cycles of secret shame, hypocrisy, and despair that almost took my life years ago.

So where does that leave me on this Sunday afternoon?

It leaves me standing outside the cage.

If choosing to be an “unbeliever” means I finally have the clarity to respect my body, the strength to conquer my addictions, and the genuine capacity to love and forgive the people around me, then I accept the title.

I will no longer let a system define me as “filthy” just because I refuse to play their game of fear-induced performance.

I am stepping away from the altar of cheap words.

I don’t need a religious label to be a man of integrity. I don’t need the threat of hell to compel me to be kind, and I don’t need the promise of a golden ticket to make me treat my body like a temple.

Goodness doesn’t belong to the church; it belongs to the people who actually choose to live it.

If a just and loving God exists, He will recognize His own reflection in a life lived with love, service, and sobriety—regardless of the name on the building I didn’t walk into.

And if He doesn’t? If a Creator would truly condemn a man for choosing radical honesty, health, and love over a blind, hypocritical contract? Then that is not a God worthy of a sovereign man’s worship anyway.

The panic button they installed in my brain is losing its power. The old security alarms are ringing, but the door is wide open, and I am walking through it.

I am choosing the substance over the shadow. I am choosing reality over the label. I am choosing life.

I completed the first week of my remote work through Upwork. And it’s going well. I feel like I have a grasp of the process and the technology.

Below are my notes talking to Gemini about some things I was learning in behavioral psychology and psychology in general.

Thought-Action Fusion:

A clinical cognitive distortion where a person believes that merely thinking about a bad or forbidden action is the moral or physical equivalent of actually carrying it out (e.g., believing an intrusive thought makes you a bad person).

The “What the Hell” Effect:

A behavioral trap where a minor slip-up (like looking at a trigger for five minutes) causes a total collapse of willpower because your brain says, “Well, I already messed up, I might as well go all the way.” Breaking this loop requires strong prefrontal control.

Paracletos (Παράκλητος):

The ancient Greek word translated as “The Holy Spirit” or “Comforter.” It literally means “Legal Advocate” or “Defense Attorney.” It denotes an active agent who stands beside someone to defend them, protect their rights, and bring legal order out of chaos.

Confabulation (The Brain’s Fiction Writers):

What it is:

A clinical term for when the brain unconsciously creates a false narrative or explanation for a behavior or event, completely believing it to be the absolute truth.

How it works:

When people don’t understand why they did something or why an event happened, System 1 hates leaving a blank space in the data. It automatically invents a story to fill the gap.

Moral Scrupulosity (Religious OCD):

What it is:

A psychological distortion where a person is obsessively preoccupied with spiritual or moral perfection. It turns a person’s conscience into a hypervigilant, untamed beast.

How it works:

Someone experiencing scrupulosity lives in constant, paralyzing fear that they have sinned, thought a bad thought, or displeased God. They constantly analyze their internal data stream looking for “errors” (sins) and perform repetitive rituals (like constant repenting or begging for forgiveness) to clear the panic.

Ego-Dystonic vs. Ego-Syntonic (The Identity Test):

Ego-Dystonic thoughts and impulses are those that completely contradict your core values, identity, and who you actually want to be. They feel invasive and alien (like intrusive thoughts of violence or manic impulses).

Ego-Syntonic thoughts are those that align perfectly with your true desires, personality, and self-image.

Hebbian Learning (The Wiring Law):

What it is:

A foundational rule of neuroscience often summarized as: “Cells that fire together, wire together.”

How it works:

Every time you repeat a thought pattern or a behavioral loop (like using a specific substance or app for comfort), the neurons responsible for that action fire simultaneously. Over decades, they build a massive, lightning-fast biological superhighway in your brain.

Behavioral Substitution:

What it is:

The process of keeping the same Cue and the same Reward, but completely changing the Routine in the middle.

Dopamine Baseline Down-Regulation (The Reset):

What it is:

The biological process where your brain heals from a hyper-stimulus. When you flood your brain with massive dopamine spikes (like pornography or drugs), the brain protects itself by hiding its dopamine receptors.

This makes normal life feel boring and gray. When you stop the hyper-stimulus, your brain slowly brings those receptors back online.

I learn a lot through AI, and I try to take notes of what I learn.

As a side note: I’m over a month clean from using porn. Which is a big milestone.

I was able to understand my process through behavioral psychology and logic to change the behavior.

Another side note: my faith has been something I’ve been navigating over the years. I believe God is real and that Jesus did exist, but I’m not sure if I should call myself a Christian or even follow Jesus.

So much of my life has been living in fear. I don’t believe Jesus died for my sins or that we are born into sin. These are Penal Substitution Atonement and Original Sin.

I’m not sure if I understand my relationship with Christ, or even call it that, because I don’t pray anymore or hardly read my Bible.

I’m open to the idea of it, but I don’t know. I feel like I’m in the space of being Agnostic when it comes to my faith.

There are people in church who tried to help me overcome the struggle of porn. They have a program and back it up with verses.

But I can’t relate to it. It doesn’t answer the Why of my behavior. Understanding the mechanics of these companies online to keep you hooked, that made more sense to me.

The Bible doesn’t talk about high-speed internet or porn. It doesn’t talk about the behavioral loops and why we are hooked on something like porn.

I guess for me what has helped a lot is Addiction by Design and the Casino Effect plus the Skinner Box.

All that to say I’ve found something that has worked for me in my sobriety. The next two things are understanding my cigarette consumption and losing weight.

But I’m not trying to modulate those behaviors just yet. I’m focusing on my porn habit and then taking the next two habits from there.

That’s where I’m at, and I hope you enjoyed the update.

This year marks a major milestone for me: five years of stable remission with Schizoaffective Disorder. It is a victory built on a steady daily foundation of medication compliance Invega, Trintellix, and Lamictal along with rigorous sleep hygiene.

With my brain chemistry balanced, my mind has been freed up to look outward. Lately, I’ve been fascinated by determinism, behavioral psychology, and neuroscience. I want to understand why we do what we do.

I’m no academic expert, but I’ve been running my own behavioral experiments. And recently, I used what I learned to secure another victory I am deeply proud of: I am three weeks sober from pornography and masturbation.

My success didn't come from sheer willpower. It came from finally understanding how my behavior was being hijacked by the technology I use every day.

Enter the "Machine Zone"

I am not a conspiracy theorist. I cannot prove that tech companies are inherently nefarious. But I can absolutely confirm that they are not altruistic, and they do not have our best interests at heart. They are built for one thing: engagement.

In my research, I stumbled into how casinos design modern slot machines. They talk about a state of mind called the "Machine Zone." It’s a hypnotic loop where a gambler becomes so engrossed in the screen that they completely disregard their physical environment, their clock, and even their own bodily needs.

The moment I read that, a lightbulb went off. That is exactly what social media and endless scrolling do to our brains. We are being lured into a digital Machine Zone.

The Digital Player Tracking Card

In a modern casino, they give you a loyalty card. It’s a player tracking system. Every time you slide that card into a machine, it tracks your exact behaviors how fast you bet, when you pause, what triggers you to spend more, and when you are about to quit.

We think our phones are just tools, but we all carry a digital player tracking system in our pockets.

[Your Device]

   Tracks Sites Visited

   Monitors App Downloads

   Measures Time Spent Scrolling

   Creates a Behavioral Profile

Every app we download and every site we engage with is tracking our behaviors, building a profile on our impulses, and feeding us exactly what we need to stay tethered to the screen. For me, that tracking loop constantly led me back to pornography.

Tethering to Reality

Understanding the mechanics of the trap is what allowed me to break out of it.

Recognizing that tech platforms use casino-grade psychological tricks to manipulate my behavior allowed me to step back. It took the shame out of the equation and turned it into a problem of behavioral engineering.

By mapping my triggers, understanding the algorithms, and relying on the rock-solid foundation of my medications and sleep, I've been able to pull myself out of the digital loop. I am no longer tethered to the machine. I am finally tethered to reality.

Time is a river that forgets my name

the closer it gets to the ocean

Time sped as I tread in the ocean

waiting to be rescued

Boats float by as I am left uncertain,

soaked in the bellow of time

No boat turns around, no signal is sent,

I swim for an island on borrowed intent

Sands tug my feet as I’m unable to retreat,

Time is all around, and I’m left profound

Chemicals:

Every sway conveys this array of chemicals

I don’t know why, as I try to keep

the profanity of my sanity

Surrounded by a crowd in my head,

my dread makes me misled

Each person claps at my collapse

There is no cause for the applause,

just a reaction to my action.

Wandering the streets,

squandering my soul

beneath my feet

My head turns as I yearn for peace,

pills slow the imbalance of my talents

Whispers within as it begins,

the air becomes crisper

I enjoy this form of thinking, and we’ll probably be more intentional with using it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERIKAH!

Have you ever heard of the Feynman Technique?

The idea is: If you can’t explain a concept to a kid or someone who is struggling, you don't actually understand it yet.

Sometimes I get super in the weeds with something, and I end up overexplaining that.

I learned about the Feynman Technique recently, and it made me want to test it.

About a year ago, I learned about Panpsychism. Never heard of it? Well, today I’m going to break it down to you using the Feynman Technique.

Panpsychism is the philosophical view that consciousness, mind, or subjective experience is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of all physical matter.

Pretty cool, right?

Or, at least weird enough to be worth thinking about.

So what does that mean?

Well, the technique involves a four-step process.

Step 1: Deconstruct (The Kid Test)

Panpsychism sounds like a massive, terrifying word, but let’s look at it like we’re explaining it to an 8-year-old.

Think about your favorite stuffed animal or a rock you found in the yard.

Normally, we think that only humans and animals can feel things or be awake inside. Panpsychism says that everything in the universe has a tiny, tiny spark of awareness, even that rock.

It’s not saying the rock can think about math or wonder what’s for dinner, but it means that the building blocks of the rock have a basic form of “feeling” or presence.

Consciousness isn’t a special trick that only human brains can do; it’s baked right into the ingredients of the universe, just like gravity or electricity.

Step 2: Identify the Gaps (The Speed Bump)

Now, as I’m writing this, I hit a speed bump.

A critic might look at me and say, “Wait a minute, Barnaby. Are you telling me my smartphone is alive and watching me?”

This is where Step 2 of the technique kicks in. I have to pause and realize where my explanation gets shaky.

If I can’t answer that, I don’t fully understand it yet. So, I go back to the source. Panpsychists argue that simply piling matter together isn't enough. What matters is how it's organized.

A human brain is a highly organized combination where tiny sparks of awareness join together to make a big, complex consciousness.

A smartphone or a rock is just a "heap" of matter. The individual building blocks of matter might each possess a primitive form of awareness, but they aren't organized in a way that forms a single, unified mind.

Identifying that gap allows me to sharpen my understanding.

Step 3: Create an Analogy (The Picture)

To make sure this sticks, let’s use an analogy. Imagine the universe is a giant ocean of light.

Many mainstream theories treat consciousness as something that appears only when matter becomes sufficiently complex. Panpsychism tells a different story.

It says the room was already full of light.

Human brains are just highly advanced magnifying glasses that focus the existing light into a sharp, brilliant beam.

We didn’t invent consciousness; we just concentrated it.

Step 4: Transmit (The Teacher Test)

The final step is turning around and passing it on.

If you can walk away from reading this and explain to a friend over coffee tomorrow that “Panpsychism just means consciousness is an ingredient of matter, not a byproduct of it,” then the technique worked.

I learned it, I simplified it, and now you can teach it.

That’s why I like Panpsychism so much, because I don't know if Panpsychism is true. Very few philosophers or neuroscientists do.

What I like is that it offers a radically different way of thinking about consciousness. Instead of treating awareness as something the universe accidentally produced, it imagines awareness as something the universe always contained.

In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I wanted a layer of meta-cognition within this very writing. Meta-cognition just means “thinking about thinking.”

My goal today wasn’t just to teach you a wild philosophy or a study trick.

It was to use two completely different, unfamiliar terms, Panpsychism and the Feynman Technique, and layer them together so you could watch the process of learning happen alive on the page.

When you learn how to look at your own thoughts like this, the world stops looking like an overwhelming, messy place.

You realize that any big problem, complex idea, or difficult season can be broken down, understood, and mastered.

You just have to be willing to look at the pieces, find the picture that makes sense, and pass it on.

Learning isn’t about collecting bigger words.

It’s making big ideas small enough that someone else can carry them.

If you can do that, you probably understand the idea better than you did before.

That’s the Feynman Technique.

That’s my TED Talk.

Last night I went to our church life group, where a group of men sat around a fire pit and talked about life.

I often enjoy these times because I get to share what is on my heart, offer my own insight, and listen to the experiences of other men.

A lot of these guys are older than I am, and I consider it a real privilege to interact with older men who have lived more life than I have.

A couple of them talked about times when they believed God, or the Holy Spirit, directed them to help someone or give money away.

I thought that was great, but it left me wondering: How do I hear the Holy Spirit? How does He speak to me in my own life?

I live with schizoaffective disorder, a condition that affects both mood and thought.

Before I got on the right medication, I heard voices.

Ever since I was young, I have also lived with thousands of suicidal thoughts. Eventually, I acted on those thoughts and took a bottle of lithium.

I write today because I survived, even though I should have died.

I say all of that because, in some church circles, when I told people I was having suicidal ideation, they would tell me it was the devil attacking me.

Maybe they meant well. But when you live with a condition that can distort thought, mood, and perception, you have to be very careful about assigning every internal experience to an invisible spiritual force.

I do not know exactly how the devil works. I do not know exactly how the Holy Spirit works either. These are invisible realities, and most of the time, all I have is hindsight.

So I have had to ask a different question.

Instead of asking, “Did I hear a voice?” I ask, “What did this experience produce?”

Did it move me toward clarity or confusion?

Did it move me toward truth or fantasy?

Did it make me more honest, more grounded, more loving, and more responsible?

Or did it push me toward fear, chaos, impulsivity, isolation, and self-destruction?

Because of my mental health history, I cannot safely assume that every intense thought, inner voice, emotional shift, or coincidence is the Holy Spirit.

Intensity is not proof.

A thought can feel powerful and still be wrong.

A feeling can feel spiritual and still be unstable.

A voice can sound authoritative and still be untrustworthy.

For me, discernment has to involve more than emotion.

First, I do not believe the Holy Spirit is a source of chaos.

Paul writes that God is not the author of confusion but of peace. That does not mean every emotional church service is false, or that speaking in tongues automatically means something is wrong. But I do believe there is a danger when churches confuse emotional intensity with spiritual authority.

People can yell, cry, shake, or speak loudly and still be caught up in human emotion.

Noise is not the same thing as truth.

When I think about how the Holy Spirit works in me, I usually recognize Him more clearly in hindsight.

I notice a shift in understanding.

I notice that something hidden becomes harder to avoid.

I notice that I am being moved toward honesty.

Over the past couple of weeks, I did an audit of my addictive online behavior. I looked closely at the casino effect, the algorithms, the sexual content, the compulsive loops, and the ways I had been using the internet to escape.

I experienced that growing clarity as the Holy Spirit revealing a dark area of my life.

I do not mean that God whispered a secret diagnosis into my ear.

I mean that the truth became harder to avoid.

I began seeing the machinery behind my behavior, and that insight moved me toward repentance, honesty, and change.

Then there was the car crash about a month ago.

I walked away without an injury.

I cannot prove why I survived, and I do not want to pretend I understand the invisible mechanics behind it.

I do not know whether God directly intervened, whether the angle of the impact protected me, whether the safety systems did their job, or whether all of those things worked together.

What I do know is that I experienced my survival as mercy.

I went to church that same day, and I was prayed over that night.

That experience made me realize I needed to reorient myself toward Christ and place Him back at the foundation of my life.

I admit that I do not fully understand the invisible world.

I do not want to speak with false certainty about things I cannot see.

But when I look at Scripture, I do see patterns in how the Spirit of God is described.

In the opening chapters of Genesis, the Spirit of God, the Ruach Elohim, is hovering over the face of the deep.

The Hebrew word ruach can mean spirit, wind, or breath.

The world is described as tohu va-vohu, formless and void.

Then order begins to emerge.

Light appears.

Structure develops.

What was chaotic becomes formed.

That image matters to me.

The Spirit brings order out of chaos.

The Spirit moves creation toward life.

Then, in the New Testament, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete, from the Greek word Parakletos.

That word can mean Helper, Advocate, Comforter, or someone called alongside another person.

It has legal meaning, but it is broader than simply “defense attorney.”

The Holy Spirit is the One who comes alongside.

The One who helps.

The One who comforts.

The One who advocates.

That gives me another way to understand how the Holy Spirit works.

If I claim to follow Christ, then I should become the kind of person who comes alongside others.

I should advocate for people who are ignored, misunderstood, or condemned.

People with mental illness.

The poor.

The hungry.

The suicidal.

The drug addict.

The porn addict.

The lonely.

The ashamed.

The person whose suffering is easier to judge than to understand.

If the Holy Spirit is an Advocate and Comforter, then Christians should become people who advocate and comfort.

Not just people who talk about invisible spiritual forces.

Not just people who tell someone, “The devil is attacking you,” and then walk away.

We should be willing to enter the tangible reality of another person’s pain.

This is where Scripture brings the invisible back into the visible world.

1 John 4:20 says:

“For whoever does not love their brother, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

And 1 John 3:18 says:

“Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

Those verses compel me to look at the actual people in front of me.

I may not always know whether a thought came from God, from my own mind, from my illness, from fear, or from an ordinary moment of human insight.

But I can examine what I do next.

Do I love the person I can see?

Do I tell the truth?

Do I become more grounded?

Do I protect vulnerable people?

Do I turn compassion into action?

Do I become more willing to advocate for someone who has been ignored?

For me, this is one of the clearest ways I understand the Holy Spirit.

Not primarily as a mysterious voice giving me secret instructions.

Not as emotional chaos.

Not as fear.

But as a movement toward truth, order, courage, compassion, and love expressed through action.

The Holy Spirit does not ask me to abandon wisdom, medication, Scripture, community, or reality.

He does not need me to become less grounded in order to become more spiritual.

Instead, I believe He moves me toward a life that is more honest, more stable, more loving, and more willing to stand beside those who are suffering.

That is how I have come to understand His voice in my life.

The past few articles I have written about porn and the casino effect have been a great way to map out the psychological mechanics of the trap. But to truly understand the depth of this issue, we also have to look at the theological weight of the practice of porn.

For argument’s sake, I do believe porn is a sin. But not for the reasons most mainstream recovery groups think.

In traditional circles, “sin” is treated like a heavy moral stain or a character flaw. But if you look at the original, ancient Hebrew, the word used is Khata. Khata is actually an ancient archery term. It literally means “to fail” or “to miss the target.”

When we look at the Biblical understanding of intimacy and how we should relate to it, God doesn’t disapprove of sex, and he doesn’t want us to suppress sexual desire. Instead, in the proper context, he wants us to explore those desires in a healthy, real-world relationship.

You look at the Song of Songs, clearly, that is the most intensely sexualized book in the Bible. Then, if you look at Proverbs 7, that whole chapter is about the folly of a man who throws his life away sleeping with another man’s wife.

So yes, porn is a sin because it is a Khata, it is missing the target of what intimacy is actually designed to be.

When I enter into the state of the ludic loop while viewing porn or using JOI (the online live web chats that connect me with actual women), that loop becomes the mechanical trap that forces the Khata. The predatory algorithm hijacks my trajectory, ensuring I miss the real goal.

I found something interesting, and it’s what I’m going to break down in this article.

I have been thinking a lot about my own attraction in life and what it means. When it comes to real women in the real world, I hardly ever get aroused. Part of it is because of the safety I found behind the digital screen of porn, and part of it is because the real world often feels too high-chaos for my nervous system to automatically unlock.

I realized I would rather have the mind of a woman before getting intimate.

JOI was an interesting mechanism for me because it involved live women I would interact with. We would agree to play, and we would share that virtual intimacy with each other. But here’s the thing: I was always looking for a deeper relationship with the woman I was talking to.

Often, I’d stay behind and try to connect with them after having post-nut clarity. Once the immediate chemical urgency cleared out and my brain quieted down, my true baseline desire would step forward. I wanted to understand their point of view and what made them take steps with me to share that intimacy.

I’d often ask them if they believed in God, or if they thought what we did was a sin. I’d ask what their fears were and what they did for a living.

I’d tell them my own story of suicide, my mental health condition, and tell them honestly that I was a virgin at 35, which they never believed. I clung to those moments because they found me attractive, which is validation I don’t easily get in the real world.

Anyway, I say all that to say that this specific pattern is what finally led me to understand my own sexuality.

When I found out there is an entire scientific study of human attraction called the Split Attraction Model, I got curious and wondered where I actually landed on the spectrum.

Below is the breakdown of different orientation labels used in sexology:

• Sapiosexual: Primary attraction is triggered exclusively by someone’s intellect and mind.

• Demisexual: Falls on the asexual spectrum. Secondary attraction (sexual/romantic) only activates after a deep emotional or intellectual bond is formed.

• Graysexual: People who experience sexual attraction very rarely, only under highly specific circumstances, or at a very low intensity.

• Asexual: The baseline absence of sexual attraction to others (though they can still experience deep romantic or intellectual attraction).

• Allosexual: A scientific catch-all term for anyone who experiences traditional, regular sexual attraction (heterosexual, bisexual, gay, etc.).

• Pansexual: Attraction to people regardless of their gender identity or biological sex.

At first, I thought I was entirely asexual because I didn’t experience automatic sexual attraction to everyday people in passing. But then I looked at the data: I did experience sexual attraction to the women on JOI, and I deeply craved talking to them afterward. So, pure asexuality is out.

Then I looked at sapiosexual. For a second, I thought I was there because I find the mind of a woman fascinating to know. But intellect isn’t the only thing that triggers me; physical beauty is still the initial gateway that opens the door. So, pure sapiosexuality is out, too.

Then there’s demisexual. That makes a lot of sense for me because my attraction requires a heavy foundation of emotional safety and deep communication to stay alive. But I’m not solely demisexual based on the visual reality of how I navigated those apps.

Where I truly land is Graysexual, operating with a heavy Demisexual dynamic. My attraction is rare, highly conditional, and context-dependent. My system is like a high-security vault; it requires a specific environment of absolute safety, order, and intellectual or emotional depth before the key will turn.

What’s funny is that most of my guy friends are allosexual, where it’s just regular, automatic attraction to the physical world around them. But for me, the architecture of desire requires a much deeper blueprint.

I’m not broken; I just refuse to settle for the body when what I’m actually hunting for is the mind.

I’ve been thinking about what my vices really mean. People from church tell me to read the Bible more to help me transform into the man I am supposed to be.

To be a prepared soldier. Which is fine, but I think there’s a more foundational way of looking at behaviors like smoking cigarettes or porn.

I know for me, a lot of my time lately has been thinking about the casino effect, the ludic loop, and the Skinner box.

Deeper than that is analyzing my porn behavior.

I don’t think calling porn a sin gets to the root of why I used it.

Whether someone believes porn is sinful or not, that still leaves another question unanswered:

Why did it become such a powerful lever in my life?

That is the question I’ve been trying to understand.

It’s much deeper than that.

Can porn be destructive? Yes.

It’s a false sense of intimacy, and it enslaves a lot of men and women.

Either contributing to the industry like OnlyFans or consuming the content on PornHub or JOI.

When I was younger, I lived in a chaotic environment. My parents were always arguing with each other.

I have speech problems. I had a religious framework that played into my guilt and shame.

As I got older, I took that blueprint and applied it to my adult life.

I viewed porn and masturbated as a sense of control.

To have some sort of power in my life.

This is where the concepts of power and agency intersect.

At its core, power literally means "to be able."

As a kid, I wasn't able to change my environment, so my brain found a loophole, a predictable lever to pull to force my nervous system to feel safe.

But as an adult, this survival mechanism easily morphs into a Skinner box.

When I face modern stress, uncertainty, or a chaotic room, the old blueprint kicks in, and my brain reaches for that same artificial lever.

The ludic loop of the casino effect tricks me into thinking I am exercising power, when in reality, I am just reacting to the trap.

True agency isn't about pulling a chemical lever to escape the room; it's about realizing I am an adult now, and I have the actual power to change my reality and walk out of the box entirely.

Which is why I don’t think porn is the root of my problem.

And while I understand why people tell me to read Scripture more, I don’t think the solution is as simple as reading more verses and expecting the behavior to disappear.

That doesn’t mean Scripture has no value.

Scripture can shape identity, values, perspective, and even remind us of who we want to become.

But for me, it doesn’t answer the deeper question of why I keep reaching for the same lever in the first place.

If my nervous system learned to associate porn with safety, control, comfort, or relief, then simply labeling the behavior as sin doesn’t fully explain the loop.

It describes the behavior, but it doesn’t explain the mechanism driving it.

The question that interests me is not just, “How do I stop?” but “What need is this behavior trying to meet?”

Because if I don’t understand the need underneath it, I may stop pulling one lever only to start pulling another.

Two things were dictating my mind when I viewed porn:

1. Absolute Control: It was a private world where I called all the shots. Nobody could touch it, dictate it, or take it away from me.

2. Instant Chemical Comfort: It flooded a stressed, powerless nervous system with dopamine and endorphins, acting as an immediate and reliable emotional shield against the outside world.

Now, one could say, well, it’s about boredom and isolation that are the root cause of behaviors like porn or smoking cigarettes.

But it’s much deeper.

That’s my whole point; it’s not that porn is a sin. It’s about wanting power and being in an environment of a Skinner box that gives me the illusion of power.

This is why people shy away from the word “power.”

In religious circles, power is often treated as something inherently corrupt or prideful.

We are told to be humble, which is frequently misinterpreted as being passive or powerless.

But if you actually look at Scripture, Jesus isn’t trying to strip men of their power to make them passive robots.

He is trying to restore their true agency.

When Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind,” he explicitly pairs power with self-mastery.

The original Greek concept there is about capability—the ability to act. God doesn’t want you panicking in a Skinner box; He wants you to have a sound mind that can see the trap and choose differently.

The same goes for the famous verse in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

People use this as a hype-up tagline, but the context is entirely about contentment.

Paul says he learned how to be content whether he was starving or full, abased or abounding.

True contentment isn’t passivity.

It is the highest form of power imaginable.

It means your internal state is no longer at the mercy of your external environment.

When you are anchored, the shadows on the wall and the cravings in the afternoon slump lose their ability to manipulate you.

You don’t need to frantically pull a chemical lever to force yourself to feel better, because your nervous system is already secure.

We are not defined by any single, broken part of our past, nor are we defined by the chemical loops we’ve used to survive.

We are the larger process trying to coordinate all those pieces, the philosopher, the scared kid, the disciplined adult, into something coherent.

Reclaiming your agency starts the moment you stop fighting for an illusion of power and start choosing real self-mastery.

What lever are you ready to stop pulling today?