A journey to avoid truth
sent in by Wayne
I was a "cradle Catholic," but I didn't significantly believe any dogma until I was about 10, when I went through CCD and the whole First Communion experience. Eventually I slacked off of church and was just a lukewarm believer up through high school.
In college, I was increasingly drawn toward the Bible and Christian ideas, though initially in a universalist way. But increasing examination of my ideas led me toward Protestantism; I began to attend an Episcopal Church, but in private my ideas were driven toward the evangelicals. I went over to a Baptist church for the summer then went lukewarm for the rest of the school year.
Toward the end of that school year I began to investigate Catholicism, and I fell for the revisionist history of Catholic apologetics. I went over in my senior year, got really zealous, and even thought of priesthood. Then the lukewarmness set in over the course of last year.
I'd been increasingly uncomfortable with it, and I started looking into the Anglo-Catholic movement, wondering if another change might kickstart me again. Then I wandered into other websites, and saw a really good statement of the Problem of Evil. Doubt started in, I formulated a refutation of Pascal's Wager, and from there I started looking into Buddhism, as an atheistic religion. I remain unsold on Buddhism, but the atheistic arguments convinced me utterly: there is no God, we just make him in our image. I found something to free myself from the cycle of lukewarmth and zealotry: the real truth, like it or not.
URL: http://www.geocities.com/felianan/chessmain.html
City: Tabernacle
State: NJ
Country: USA
Became a Christian: 10 / 18
Ceased being a Christian: 22
Labels before: Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist
Labels now: Positive Atheist
Why I joined: Wanted to believe
Why I left: Realized I was feeding myself a line
Email Address: felianan at yahoo.com
I was a "cradle Catholic," but I didn't significantly believe any dogma until I was about 10, when I went through CCD and the whole First Communion experience. Eventually I slacked off of church and was just a lukewarm believer up through high school.
In college, I was increasingly drawn toward the Bible and Christian ideas, though initially in a universalist way. But increasing examination of my ideas led me toward Protestantism; I began to attend an Episcopal Church, but in private my ideas were driven toward the evangelicals. I went over to a Baptist church for the summer then went lukewarm for the rest of the school year.
Toward the end of that school year I began to investigate Catholicism, and I fell for the revisionist history of Catholic apologetics. I went over in my senior year, got really zealous, and even thought of priesthood. Then the lukewarmness set in over the course of last year.
I'd been increasingly uncomfortable with it, and I started looking into the Anglo-Catholic movement, wondering if another change might kickstart me again. Then I wandered into other websites, and saw a really good statement of the Problem of Evil. Doubt started in, I formulated a refutation of Pascal's Wager, and from there I started looking into Buddhism, as an atheistic religion. I remain unsold on Buddhism, but the atheistic arguments convinced me utterly: there is no God, we just make him in our image. I found something to free myself from the cycle of lukewarmth and zealotry: the real truth, like it or not.
URL: http://www.geocities.com/felianan/chessmain.html
City: Tabernacle
State: NJ
Country: USA
Became a Christian: 10 / 18
Ceased being a Christian: 22
Labels before: Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist
Labels now: Positive Atheist
Why I joined: Wanted to believe
Why I left: Realized I was feeding myself a line
Email Address: felianan at yahoo.com
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