Don't worry, I'm not going back to my beginning, my birth; no, I want to summarize when I first realized I really didn't believe in the religion in which I was raised - and eventually extended my disbelief to all religions.
I'm a native Southerner. I was born in a part of Atlanta called East Point, although I bounced around the state during my childhood. However, no matter where I lived, religion was always a big part of the culture and of my own life - church on most Sundays, Bible Camp Week every summer. I even went to a Christian private school, Forrest Hills Christian School, in sixth and seventh grades. Trust me, I was very much steeped in the Bible-Thumping, Baptist religion of my forebears.
And as a geek, I of course tried to learn everything I could about the Bible. I asked tons of questions every chance I got, such as in Bible Study period in school and in Sunday School on weekends. Hell, I had even read the Bible, cover to cover, by the time I graduated from seventh grade.
But, maybe that was my downfall. Asking too many questions, demanding answers, and quickly realizing that there were tons of contradictions, impossibilities, and simply irrational stories and teachings within the Bible. And because I was asking all of these questions of different people in my life, I was getting different answers to the same questions! Talk about confusing. And if no one could even agree on many of the basics, how in the world could I accept and believe - well, any of it - if no one could agree on what exactly is supposed to be believed?!?
But even as I questioned it all, I just knew that I must be missing something. The adults in my life were so sure they were right! And they kept telling me how great it was to love, and to be loved by, the Lord. They all seemed to "get it" p- it seemed that they had found the answers and had unlocked the code of feeling the Spirit within them.
So I figured I must not have prayed enough. Or believed enough. Or served enough. Hell, I even worked on a Dial-a-Prayer line at my church! But no matter what I did or how hard I tried, I could not get to that elusive place that everyone seemed to have found.
But as I kept going back and rereading stuff, asking questions, and even trying to plot it all out on paper (I told you I was a geek - REALLY a geek), it just didn't make any sense! And then I figured that if this isn't making sense, maybe there was a flavor of Christianity, or even some other religion that does make sense. So, I started my search for that elusive religion that would make my whole world make sense again.
No matter how I tried, or what I read, it was all basically different facets of the same impenetrable object. I simply could not get it to make sense. No matter how hard I wanted to believe, and how hard I prayed, nothing happened. Nothing revealed itself to me - divinely or otherwise.
And then I realized why.
My logical, rational mind was railing against the very thing I wanted so much. My mind, my thoughts, my feelings were all that I was - and religion made no sense to me, to my Rational Self. Logic was the downfall of religion for me, as it was inherently illogical at its core, at least in my eyes.
So, by the end of my Eighth Grade year, I finally admitted to myself that I was, in fact, an Atheist. There simply was no way for me to believe, no matter how much I so desperately wanted to. And I even kept trying, in my own way. I kept studying, learning all that I could about religion in general, with a concentration on Christianity. I did it not only because I was interested, but also because - at least at first - I was hoping that I'd finally find something that would make it all make sense. And this study, this search has continued to this day - and each and every thing I learned has only served to strengthen my conviction that there are no gods.
So, that's the beginning of my story. Everything from this post forward will explore various findings in my research, questions I have had and some that I still have, and the areas found within many religions that continue to make no sense to me. However, I am not going to attack anyone's beliefs; I'm simply going to explain my questions and my perspectives on various areas of faith and religion - and I welcome any insight you, dear reader, can provide.
