There's not much for me to say, really.
I'm 33 and I've been fascinated by religion in the, can't-not-look-away-from-the-car-crash sense for the last 12 years of my life. I grew up mostly non-religious with some residual Catholic guilt from my mom and a completely religiously apathetic dad. I knew what Christians generally believed and held the notion that I was Christian by birth, but only attended services maybe four or five times in the first 18 years of my life and even then only at the invite of friends. My beliefs were closest to, 'this Christ figure has many of the features of mythology and most of this narrative probably didn't happen, but it's important for me to know and maybe there's something to be learned here.'
Then I got older and I realized that people actually do believe in an extreme, fundamentalist sense (yes, I know, something only an isolated left-coast kid could stumble into at the age of 19). Being confronted with the existence of fundamentalists and the knowledge that grown adults made decisions based on utter horseshit was a little shocking. The rethink that followed caused me to discard my tepid deism. Ever since then I've needed to understand why people cling to beliefs and in particular beliefs that are often in direct contradiction with our observations of the world.
Earlier in my life that involved taking classes on religion, myth, consciousness (neurosci) etc in college while I pursued degrees in physics and math. More recently I've been lurking in places like Christianforums.com, but I've become increasingly off-put by the staggering amount of rules (many of them very shortsighted) and one-sided moderation so I'm seeking out more fertile ground.
I'm 33 and I've been fascinated by religion in the, can't-not-look-away-from-the-car-crash sense for the last 12 years of my life. I grew up mostly non-religious with some residual Catholic guilt from my mom and a completely religiously apathetic dad. I knew what Christians generally believed and held the notion that I was Christian by birth, but only attended services maybe four or five times in the first 18 years of my life and even then only at the invite of friends. My beliefs were closest to, 'this Christ figure has many of the features of mythology and most of this narrative probably didn't happen, but it's important for me to know and maybe there's something to be learned here.'
Then I got older and I realized that people actually do believe in an extreme, fundamentalist sense (yes, I know, something only an isolated left-coast kid could stumble into at the age of 19). Being confronted with the existence of fundamentalists and the knowledge that grown adults made decisions based on utter horseshit was a little shocking. The rethink that followed caused me to discard my tepid deism. Ever since then I've needed to understand why people cling to beliefs and in particular beliefs that are often in direct contradiction with our observations of the world.
Earlier in my life that involved taking classes on religion, myth, consciousness (neurosci) etc in college while I pursued degrees in physics and math. More recently I've been lurking in places like Christianforums.com, but I've become increasingly off-put by the staggering amount of rules (many of them very shortsighted) and one-sided moderation so I'm seeking out more fertile ground.
