What if Christianity isn't true?
Transcript from my podcast with Mark (Confessions to My Acupuncturist Ep. 1)
Podcast Begins — Introducing Euwyn and After Nihilism
Mark: My name is Mark, and this is Euwyn. Today, we’ll be covering some stuff.
Euwyn: This month, I’ll have a book published under my name titled After Nihilism. The basic idea is that right now, in the world, everything feels default nihilist. People are suspicious of meaning. Like, does life have any meaning? Is there, you know, some higher thing about this universe? Most people might greet that question with some kind of suspicion.
So I’m kind of addressing it from that level. Everything right now is questioned, and people are very cynical. The basic premise, by the end, is to explore whether there’s a path forward for meaning.
Five years ago, I started writing it from the position of having a lot of thoughts, because that was a whole maybe five- to eight-year journey of figuring out my faith. So background for everyone: I grew up as a pastor’s kid, right? Born into a Christian family. Indoctrinated is a fair term, right? Like, I was basically brought up in the church and indoctrinated into the creed.
But then over time, I encountered a lot of doubt. I’m like, hey, you know, I’m not so sure about all these things. Why shouldn’t I do this? Why should I do that? It all feels like something that I was molded into versus something that I fought for myself.
So alongside a lot of that questioning came a lot of reading and questioning and figuring things out. I fondly remember one shower I had, where I think I was showering in the dark for some reason, and then I had so many thoughts. They all kind of just spilled out in my head as like, oh, one bullet point is this, and then second bullet point, third bullet point, and then this first bullet point adds into micro-bullet points.
And then my immediate thought was, I have to write this down. So that was the birth of the book. I would say it’s all born out of that personal wrestling with, at first, my faith. But at the end of the day, in the final form, it’s completely agnostic. So whether you’re Christian, Buddhist, I don’t know, a Satanist, you can read it the same way, right? It speaks to the same fundamental human condition that everyone has.
Growing Up as a Pastor’s Kid
Mark: So if I zoom into your own faith, it’s a very unique situation: pastor’s kid. You grew up as a Christian, a certain kind of Christian. If it’s okay with you, could you share some of the philosophical struggles that you went through?
Euwyn: For sure. I grew up in a church like many other pastor’s kids. I was forced to serve.
The way I’m saying it now makes it sound as if I was traumatized or something, but not really. It was quite a pleasant experience, honestly. So I was super involved that way, right? All the music stuff, the youth stuff. I was also very playful, so I was always running around the church, and everyone knew me as the naughty pastor’s kid.
But yes, over time, where my struggle started was really only when I moved to Australia. When you get out of a certain environment, or maybe people would say echo chamber, then you realize, oh, there are other signals or other forces or other possibilities out there.
And I always tell my dad, “Hey, Dad, I actually really applaud you because you sent me to Australia.” At one point, when I was 19, I had this really strong sense that I could have really gone either way. Like, I could have been a really good kid. There was a 50/50 chance I could have been way down the other side, whatever that looks like, right?
So yeah, I tell that to my dad and he chuckles. But a lot of the struggles came because people would ask me questions, being outside of the echo chamber. Nobody just takes what my reality was for what it was anymore. You know, “Why do you go to church every Sunday?”
And then at the time, I was also wrestling with those questions, but I found myself answering what I always answered, which is like, “Oh, you know, I think God is real.” And I found myself like a ventriloquist, I think. My mouth kept saying things that I didn’t actually think.
After a while, it became more and more apparent. There was this gap between what I was saying and what I was actually sure of. The feeling is very much like when you’re in school and you don’t know the answer, but the teacher calls you up to answer the question. Then you’re kind of making up an answer on the spot, you know? And it sounds good. It sounds like something you’ve said before. But is it correct? You have no idea. Is it actually honest? You have no idea.
So it’s that kind of feeling, I guess.
Mark: So is it like, you know, just now you used the word indoctrination, right? Is it like the indoctrination comes out, but then you doubt it in a way?
Euwyn: Yeah. Maybe it’s because when you’re in different circles or different environments, then you are also given different ways of looking at this thing that you’ve been brought up into.
It’s like you’ve always seen an apple from here and it looks good, but then you learn to see it from the other side, and it doesn’t quite look the way you expected.
At the end of the day, I think a lot of the doubt came mainly from questions, or just from being around other people. And then obviously, once that was born, the more I sort of had it within myself. I think the biggest moment that came to a head was actually also how I start the descent part of the book.
At one point, I just looked at my hands and I’m like, what is real? Like, I don’t even know what this is.
Mark: This was how many — one year in Australia?
Euwyn: Yeah, one or two years in, about there. I was like 20, 21 maybe. People would call that an existential crisis of sorts, or something.
Mark: Yeah, so it was quite a struggle, and you felt lost?
Euwyn: Yeah. Like, I don’t know what is real anymore. What is honest? Is there anything?
And I think this is where a lot of what I’m trying to write about is for people like what I was during that stage too. Because then the easy answer, the easy way out, is like, ah, you know what? There’s no meaning in life. Nothing exists. All these things you see out here, everyone else is just figments of your own imagination.
Which is, I think, more prevalent than we tend to think it is. I think a lot of people actually think that even when they are much older.
What Is a Spiritual Identity?
Mark: Yes. There’s this term that came up: spiritual identity. Just using those words, could you speak a little to that? What aspects might have changed? Because I bet you’re a very spiritual person. That’s why you’re struggling with this. What was the “before” spiritual identity? What was in the middle?
Euwyn: Yeah, I think every journey has a similar pattern, and that’s the one I also went through, right? First, you don’t question it. You just kind of grow up in it.
And then the next position is you start to question it, and then you go the other way around. You’re like, that is all wrong.
And then when you grow older, or you mature a bit, you learn to draw the line between the two. You’re like, you know, this is correct, but this is also correct. There’s something there. And you learn to have a higher perspective over the two.
Same thing with my spiritual identity. When I grew up, I was very much like, ah, you know, gung-ho Christian boy. I was telling my classmates, “Don’t swear. You can’t say swear words,” and stuff like that.
And then when I went through the existential crisis of sorts, I went the other way. I’m kind of like, you know what? I don’t know what is real. I don’t think anything exists, actually, and I can just do whatever I want.
Mark: So you went the other way. Let’s say you’re talking about vulgarities. You just went—
Euwyn: Yeah. I mean, I think I still kept myself grounded as far as I could. I didn’t just go crazy. But my internal view was that all of that was kind of questionable. I was indoctrinated, and now I’m veering the other way, and the honest position became like, you know, nothing is real, right?
But then it was only after thinking a lot, and actually, Kierkegaard — one of my favorite writers — I came across him, and I was like, he kind of helped me understand a lot too.
Discovering Kierkegaard
Mark: Okay. Because the listeners may not know — I only knew when we went to your house and you had these books. I know the guy Kierkegaard is a philosopher, but I didn’t know the connection to Christianity at all.
Euwyn: Kierkegaard is a very, very complicated figure. But I think one of the threads that is quite powerful even for me now is truth as subjective truth, basically.
So what is true is not just, you know, oh, there’s some scientific God-object out there in the universe that’s watching over you and trying to compel you to do what he wants you to do and all that. The truth is what is true for you, right?
Now a lot of people will say, like, oh, does that mean anything that’s true for you is right? Okay, let’s put that aside for now.
What that helped me realize too is, every time you’re wrestling with God, and you’re wrestling with spiritual identities and all that, all you’re wrestling with really is what is true for you. There’s always something that you’re trying to wrestle with, and that’s, I think, how I think about spiritual identities.
If you’re not a Christian, you’re something else. And if you’re not that — if you’re a Satanist, if you’re not that, you’re something else. I always like that Bob Dylan line about how you “must serve somebody.” I think like that, right?
So basically, the spiritual identity there is that, at the end of the day, you’re always looking for this truth that is true for you. And where you find that is kind of where you find God, in a way.
What that helped me realize at the time, when I started getting really deep into Kierkegaard, is: the church — it’s funny, because backstory is, Kierkegaard kind of hated the church too. He thinks the church basically imposes a lot of things on the individual that make them more like part of a crowd than actually a true Christian.
And that’s where he starts to say, no, actually being a true Christian means wrestling with God, and learning to wrestle with what is the truth. There is always a gap, right? You’re never like, “Oh, I’ve finally gotten God. I’ve finally gotten what is true for myself.” You’re always wrestling with that, but it’s how you attune yourself to that that makes all the difference.
Is Faith Supposed to Be a Struggle?
Mark: Okay, this is very interesting. There’s some meat in there. So you’re saying this Kierkegaard — I think there are many Christians who might be going through what you mentioned. There was something that caught me: part of the whole Christian journey is to continue struggling to find your own truth. The monolithic church truth is not it.
Euwyn: Yeah, correct. That’s quite complicated.
But yeah, Kierkegaard was known to hate the church. He hated the church because it represented the crowd, basically, right? It’s always like, ah, you must do this, you must believe this.
Kierkegaard, at the end of the day, identifies truth as something internal. So that’s where he’s like, the church is at fault for making truth external. Instead of you really going deep into yourself, truth in the eyes of the church becomes something like going to church every Sunday, being ingrained in the community, serving, and then going up the ranks — I don’t know, being a pastor and all that.
Mark: Yeah, there are some rules involved.
Euwyn: It becomes very — truth becomes flattened into some kind of adherence to a norm, right? And that’s where Kierkegaard, in a separate philosophical tangent, writes about Abraham as his hero, his big hero.
A lot of Christians who go to church treat truth as something very safe. Like, you just go to church, you abide by the right thing, you’ll be fine. You go to heaven. Okay, cool. That’s a done deal.
But then he writes about Abraham. Abraham, actually, in his book called Fear and Trembling, is the guy who obeyed God to the point of an absurd command, which is, I think, God said, “Go and sacrifice your son,” right?
And then Abraham was like, yes, cool, I’ll do that. And Kierkegaard basically writes about 100 pages saying it was such an absurd command because he couldn’t even tell anyone this. If he told Sarah, his wife, or other people that, “Hey, God told me to kill my son. I’m going to kill my son tonight,” it would be like, what the hell is wrong with you, right? You’re insane.
And so that is where Kierkegaard also writes that your true relationship with God is something you wrestle with internally, but it’s also sometimes very absurd. It might be very questionable too.
Going back to what we mentioned, a lot of pastors today will preach about Abraham in a very flat sort of way. They’re like, “Oh, you know, Abraham is the father of faith. He was the guy who really obeyed God. And so everyone must be like Abraham,” without actually reckoning with, no, Abraham was actually batshit crazy, you know — almost insane, if anybody knew what he was going to do before he did it.
So yeah, I think it’s that big separation between what’s subjectively true, and that is their relationship with God. And then the church sometimes flattens that a lot and makes things very safe, and then kind of imposes itself on this thing. It makes Christianity cheap.
Mark: Makes Christianity cheap.
Euwyn: Yeah.
Mark: Can you — cheap means what?
Euwyn: It cheapens or flattens what is supposed to be — I would say something like, it finitizes what is supposed to be infinite. It makes a big relationship feel like just adherence to laws, or participation in an in-group, or stuff like that.
Can Your Personal Truth Look Crazy?
Mark: Okay. Just now you said something that caught me also. You said something about your internal truth in relation to God. It can be quite ridiculous.
Euwyn: Yeah.
Mark: Okay. So how I understand it is, you could be living in a certain way or understanding the world in a certain way, and other people look at you and they’ll judge you. You can say you’re a lousy Christian, or you are spiritually wrong, or whatever.
There’s something about your internal life, or someone else’s internal life, that can be judged by others because it’s a bit weird, or it’s wrong, or it’s a bit crazy.
Euwyn: Yeah. That’s quite a contentious topic, even within the world of Kierkegaard, I would say.
Mark: You don’t mind sharing?
Euwyn: Kierkegaard was also writing in a world where a lot of philosophers were creating systems that boxed the individual in a concept, right?
For example, before Kierkegaard, a lot of philosophers, whether it’s Hegel or other people, would be like, this is humanity, and this is human consciousness. It’s like this, and this is the system that all human activity falls under.
And then Kierkegaard basically came as the knee-jerk response, like, you know, whatever systems any human can build, whether it’s a thousand-page textbook on what a human being is and what a human being should be, I am somehow still outside of that.
So his impulse is like, no matter what people say I am, I am something else. I am something deeper inside me. The truth is what is true for me. And then he writes at the end that he doesn’t know what this truth is yet, but he desires it.
Kierkegaard, I think, is really representative of finding your inner truth, basically.
Mark: For example, one might say — and this is a bit controversial — what about jihadists, right? What if your inner truth is to go and bomb something?
Euwyn: I see. Then that’s actually a good question. That’s actually a good rebuttal to Kierkegaard, but that’s where a lot of other things come into play. Perhaps that’ll be a separate rabbit hole.
But at the end of the day, I think where Kierkegaard comes in, and where that reflects in my journey, is like, okay, let’s forget the institution. Let’s forget morality, what people think is right and wrong. Let’s just learn to look deep within and reflect.
And when you look deep within, it’s never quite so simple as excavating. Some psychologists like to paint it as like, oh, you go into your childhood and all that. I don’t think it’s so simple.
It’s always like you go deep within and you kind of wrestle with something. Something that’s not there, something that’s there, something that I need, something I don’t have, something I should be but I’m not.
And to me, that’s just some version of saying that you’re wrestling with God. It’s a secular way of saying that, or a psychological way of saying that.
Mark: Yes.
Wrestling with God, Calling, and Purpose
Euwyn: And so the main thing is that turn, for me, was like the later stage of my journey, where I’m like, okay, at the end of the day, I am wrestling with this thing. I might do a lot of things that I feel are true for me that other people might question, and that’s fine.
I guess another secular/spiritual way of calling this is calling, right? You know, I’m here to find my calling, and then I’m going to exercise it even if it’s questionable. I’m not going to go and kill somebody. It’s a separate rabbit hole.
But at the end of the day, I’m trying to find that stake in myself where I’m like, I’m doing what I should be doing, which is also to say I’m doing what God wants me to do, in a convoluted sort of way. And then, yeah, just living out that sort of stance.
Mark: So I’m just thinking of a modern-day Christian, and I don’t know, the way you say it allows that person who feels like his journey, or his worldview, or even his morality, is a bit not like what the institution says. So then that gives this person a way forward, I feel.
Euwyn: Yep.
Mark: Because it allows, if I’m that person, then I can feel my way through. It could be a lifelong thing, and I can go to different congregations, or different spiritual leaders, pastors, or churches, and say, okay, I may not agree, but I learned something that is useful from here. Or I can go to others and disagree with most things, but I can still appreciate it.
It doesn’t have to be too black and white because I just take whatever works for me. That’s what I sort of take away. Is that it, essentially?
Euwyn: And I think that’s what everyone goes through too, right? Because even whether it’s a church or a family, actually.
Yeah, we just watched Michael, the movie on Michael Jackson. And I guess the church for Kierkegaard would have been like Michael Jackson’s dad. Because in the movie, basically, the whole of Michael Jackson’s life — without spoiling it — was spent trying to evade his dad’s control, right?
But then I guess if you put that in a way that reflects what I got a lot from Kierkegaard, but also from my own life, it’s like, hey, there are all these forces out there. A lot of things out there are there to box you into something, but you’re always slipping outside of that in search of the truth that’s true for you.
And you might end up challenging a lot of norms. I think that’s the whole point, right? Because, for example, what is right and wrong now was not the same as 300 years ago. So that’s a self-revising process, right? And perhaps you can play a part in that.
Final Reflections
Mark: Okay. Thank you for this conversation.
The thing that hit me was the truth that is true for you. Very clear.
So thank you for listening in to this convo. Kierkegaard and what’s true for you. I learned so much as an acupuncturist from Mr. Euwyn.
And thank you for listening. Bye-bye.