What's your story

I guess this topic sort of applies to me in a way, but not really. I'm not atheist, but I am agnostic so I still fall in the category of not truly believing in a higher power. I'm also not going to discredit it completely though because there is no true way for us to know exactly. My story is pretty short and simple. My family really only went to church a lot when me, my brother, and my cousins were younger. As we got older we kind of just didn't go anymore and the more that we kind of learned about the world and religion and really paid attention to the bible, the more we kind of realized that stuff didn't add up. My brother is atheist and I'm agnostic. That's really all there is to it.

I realized a long time ago that there was no proof that any god existed. I find it interesting that each race or continent or sub culture seems to 'need' to believe that there is one for them. I don't fault them for it. But I do resent people insisting that I or others that do not believe as they do must 'convert'. I don't want to convert anyone, so don't force your views on me either. Live and let live is my motto.

Just like you I was raised in an Christian home but both of my parents were born again Christians and I had to be too. For most of my life I was a Christian. I was taught that the Bible was truth and the only truth in this world. If something did not line up with the Bible it not the Bible must be wrong. So you can see how at first I rejected all science that did not line up with the Bible like evolution and cosmology. As time went on in my adult life is close mindedness started to wane. I started to want to know what science had to offer regarding the origins of life and things like that. At first it was just curiosity I still believed that my Bible was right and they were wrong, but eventually I started to look at the info as a challenge to everything I knew to be right. I remember watching a PBS documentary on the Dover school board court case over intelligent design. I so badly waited the intelligent design advocate to give me something that would make me want to still believe that a creator, my creator created everything. Yet as I watched the arguments against ID were too complying to be ignored. Believe it or not that one show did more to start my journey to atheism than anything else. So I tried theistic evolution on for size but I couldn't understand why if there was no real Adam, no real Eve, no real Eden, and no real talking snake then how did sin enter humanity? Without sin entering humanity then why was Christ necessary? I could ask a preacher these questions because the only ones that I knew personally would tell me that all of that evolution stuff is from Satan. So I decided to listen and read what atheist had to say about the subject. After a while I abandoned all beliefs in a deity. Need to point out that along my journey I was a deist. I slowly inched out of the atheist closet and I finally embraced my lack of belief in deities. When I did this it was like a giant weight was lifted off of my shoulders. I no longer worried about the after life all I had to concern myself with was the present. When I was a Christian I was always worried that I was going to sin one day and either die before I asked for forgiveness or the rapture was going to happen before I asked for forgiveness. I would wake up from dreams that I missed the rapture. I would panic if I walked into a room that I thought should have someone in it thinking that I missed the rapture. Now I know that hell, the rapture and thing like that were just stories that I was told to keep me afraid and to keep me in line with the Christine message. Now that I do not believe in such non-sense I have never experienced any of these things. Ivansama thank you for sharing and letting me share my story.

People who have faith in Jesus don't need proof. Just think if you are wrong and you go to hell because you didn't believe. Not believing in Jesus and His Word does not take a load off anyone's back...especially if they end of being wrong. Of course, I know they will come to know it sooner or later.

The chaff feels the same way after it is sifted because it now knows that it will not be ground, it will not be kneaded and it will not be baked. However, what it does not know is that its happiness will be short-lived. After the grain is gathered into the barn, it would be tied into a bundle to burn in eternal fire. What I have learnt about science is that it does not have an answer to so many questions. As religion it has to rely on hypothesis, for example about the creation event. It is still presuming that the universe has evolved out of primordial atom, it all started from Big bang, but science has nothing to prove it. Science has no answer to the question, whether we are alone in this universe. Why there is life only on planet earth and why it is not existing on another planets? Science has no answer to question whether we are getting better or we are becoming worse. It does not know how it would all end up. At least religion tells us that we must not lose hope. We will end up in kingdom of heaven. I am quite comfortable with my faith, I am not comfortable with science.