Ricky Brock

Ricky Brock is known as CaptainDadPool (@captaindadpool86) to his followers on TikTok. He is a married, stay-at-home dad with four boys. He also volunteers as American Atheists’ new State Director for Pennsylvania.

Ricky grew up with mild exposure to religion and became a fully committed Christian at 15, doing mission trips, street evangelism, and seminars, and joining the church drama team and worship band. He became obsessed with church and the Bible and wanted to become a pastor or Bible scholar. College became unaffordable after two years, so he left, joined the U.S. Army, and deployed to Iraq. After completing his tour, he returned to Bible college and finished his degree. However, due to his education and some of his experiences overseas, he began questioning his faith and eventually stopped believing in God entirely.

Ricky started making content on TikTok during the COVID-19 shutdown. A video about him leaving his faith unexpectedly went viral, and he now has over 470,000 followers. He continues to make daily content sharing his education, experiences, life, and hobbies, and giving advice on deconstruction and debating theists. In his words, “I want to show others that atheists are normal people.”

Sunday, April 9, 10:15am – 11am

The Polytheistic Origins of the Christian God

This presentation explores the history and development of the God of the Bible. The examination begins with God’s origins in much earlier Canaanite and Mesopotamian literature as one member of a pantheon of gods that were subject to the supreme god El and his wife Asherah. As time progressed, Yahweh would adopt many characteristics from the other deities as the Israelites grew and spread through other territories.

There is an astounding amount of evidence for this both within and outside of the Bible itself. Ricky won’t be presenting any "fringe" theories, only the ones that are taught by the majority of scholars in the field—many of whom Ricky has had the pleasure of interviewing on his YouTube channel.

A Bible college graduate, Ricky is asked questions all the time about the evolution of the Christian God. This presentation will be directed towards anyone who wants to learn something new.