(December 30, 2015 at 11:07 am)abaris Wrote: I was, but never a devout one. It never played any major role in my life, apaert from some childish (as in very little) believes, without caring much about theology or actual scripture.
It was a very long road to not believing. I would say, from the age of 8 to the age of 27, maybe 30. It started with constantly asking questions. As in asking myself questions. The tales the priests told didn't make any sense and were revolting at times. Such as, as I mentioned in different threads, that god would take what's most dearest to us, if we sin. So, still a child, I viewed Jesus and God as two different personallities. God, the evil one, Jesus, the good one.
Especially my father, who was a technician, took great pains in interesting me in the world, it's wonders and it's history. So, at a very young age, we started to visit museums. Technical as well as natural. I loved it and, on a side note, in Vienna, we have a rather large collection of dinosaur remains´at the museum of natural history. My father explained to me, they were millions of years old and although I couldn't wrap my head around millions of years at the time, the lesson stuck.
Later on, at our equivalent of high school, I never questioned what our science and biology teachers told us about the world and I started to question scripture even more. It was more or less out of the windows, when I made my degree. But I wasn't entirely ready to give up yet. It took another decade, and funnily enough, it happened at a catholic site. There's a place in the woods, where I live. I used to go there, when I wanted to reflect and to be alone. It's a crossroads display and I watched the imagery and thought, that's all too simplistic. That was back in 1990 and that was the time when I left christianity for good. But I still wasn't ready to live totallly unguided and so I took to deism. I even meddled with some wiccans. Most of my lady friends consider themselves witches, but my conclusion, based on what I knew about the world and it's history, was that of a totally neutral entity, being behind it all. But a total neutral entity doesn't need worship, since it doesn't care one way or the other.
So, I left that one behind too. To this day, I haven't ruled out that total neutral entity, since I can't prove it's absence. But I'm well aware, that I, as so many others, am just filling the gaps of what I don't understand. But that's also the reason why it still reads agnostic in my sig.
I like this, thank you for sharing. So honest and real, it's true...I mean, maybe we all are agnostic at the end of the day. Agnostic is a place of knowledge while atheism is a place of belief. Seems the same, but it's really not. If anything, I don't cling to any religion per se, although I consider myself following Christianity in the sense that I believe in what Christ taught, but still not relegated to one set religion. I find myself identifying more as a spiritual person, with Christian undertones. There is a lot of the Bible that is illogical, and a lot of what priests, pastors, etc say that just leaves one confused, because they could just be shooting from the hip, and interpreting things as they wish. That's also a turn off for many with faith, because many feel that it's all a man made set of doctrine, at the end of the day...and it gains 'power' by mankind blurting out 'God did it.'
Your journey was long, indeed...I hope you are happy where you landed
