My slow dimmer progression from on to off, like I said took almost a decade.
A couple years after that carpenter asking me "What if Jesus were just a man", I was taking a trade school computer course at the time a sicko went into Cafeteria called "Luby's" In Waco Tx, and murdered a couple dozen people. When I arrived to class, I was early, and there was only a couple of people there. I invited them to pray with me, but one lady looked at me and scoffed. At the time I was offended, but looking back at it now, I get it. She wasn't trying to offend me, but rolling her eyes at my cliche logic.
But it didn't end there. Years later I went to the Smithsonian where at the time, they had a hall full of Hindu/Buddhist statues of the Angkor Wat Cambodian dynasty which showed that the two religions mixed. And that more than prior events caused me to realize, if that mixing and influence can happen here, then maybe there is nothing original about any religion, and they all stem from human competition.
EVEN THEN though, I was still a bit of a diest, or "agnostic theist". It was not until college when I ran into my first open atheist, that I realized "off" was an ok position to hold.
BUT AGAIN, even after that, it wasn't until after college that I actively sought other atheists online, and over the years learned lots from other atheists. It isn't enough to claim "off" as a position. It is extremely important to be able to argue why "off" is the valid position.
A couple years after that carpenter asking me "What if Jesus were just a man", I was taking a trade school computer course at the time a sicko went into Cafeteria called "Luby's" In Waco Tx, and murdered a couple dozen people. When I arrived to class, I was early, and there was only a couple of people there. I invited them to pray with me, but one lady looked at me and scoffed. At the time I was offended, but looking back at it now, I get it. She wasn't trying to offend me, but rolling her eyes at my cliche logic.
But it didn't end there. Years later I went to the Smithsonian where at the time, they had a hall full of Hindu/Buddhist statues of the Angkor Wat Cambodian dynasty which showed that the two religions mixed. And that more than prior events caused me to realize, if that mixing and influence can happen here, then maybe there is nothing original about any religion, and they all stem from human competition.
EVEN THEN though, I was still a bit of a diest, or "agnostic theist". It was not until college when I ran into my first open atheist, that I realized "off" was an ok position to hold.
BUT AGAIN, even after that, it wasn't until after college that I actively sought other atheists online, and over the years learned lots from other atheists. It isn't enough to claim "off" as a position. It is extremely important to be able to argue why "off" is the valid position.
