Confession

It's been about four years now since I officially wrote off Christianity.  Not once did I say I didn't or could never believe in a God (that I can think of) just that the Bible and the religion I was in proved to me not to be true.


Four years.



It's been a sad and glad time as I find my way out of the fear that most of my life was during my faith.



But, like I've also said, I am not done searching for truth.



A few things have become forefront on my mind lately.


Fundamentalism killed me and turned me into a heresy hunter and gnat strainer.

Exclusivistic ideas shut out all other world views and voices. Some of those would have been helpful.

All the intellectual exercises I went through via sermons, teachings, Bible studies, may have been a waste of time. As one question was answered, another would pop up. It was a never ending quest for an answer that may not even be found.

I should have trusted my intuition more and cared less what others (including me) thought about it.


And maybe I took it all way too seriously.

I'm a Liar, a Deceiver, and I Have no Morals

It's as if someone hasn't read a single thing I've written and just posts links to sermons and prophecy websites to somehow prove a point.





Maybe the reason Susan Zyp  (yes, I can post your full name too) can't stop writing about (or at least villanizing) me, is because she's got her own doubts?

The Bigger Picture

Susan,


Re being fooled: I guess it never really hit me that you would feel fooled and I am sorry that my deconversion made such an impression on you. Everything I said, thought, wrote here was 100% from the heart at the time. Why is it so inconceivable that people change their minds? They change when evidence doesn't line up with what reality shows. That is not to say that this is the end of learning and growing, not at all.


In being so laser-focused on Christianity and especially on the Bible narrowed my view. Now that I've been able to zoom out, see that this is only one of many religions, all of which espouse truth, has opened my mind to other possibilities. Maybe we're all saying the same thing in different ways.


I've said here a few times that if I would have just stuck to what I had in the beginning, without trying to make it all make sense, I would probably still believe. Maybe all those years of trying to make it make sense were a waste of precious time.


I'm still not completely given up on Spirituality, In fact, I think in many ways the rise and fall of religion for me was a necessary journey.


Not sure what I mean by that, but I'll leave it for now.





I've been looking into many things and a recent trip to our local Hindu Temple has piqued my interest about this faith tradition.

 No, I'm not a Hindu now, I just find it interesting that for all those years, I completely ignored a huge belief that I knew nothing about. All those people who see God in a different way, with their own traditions, scriptures, visions, saints are part of humanity also. I am glad to be seeing a bigger picture.


Also, I do think in retrospect listening to and watching so many different teachings and preachers stunted my own growth as to me not trusting the still small voice inside me.



Peace