I grew up going to the Church of England and was pretty much atheist back then, I thought religion was history.
Then I went to University.
A friend turned out to be a born again christian, something he never mentioned before, until we got to University, then it was "do you want to come to our coffee evenings?"
I went along and slowly became convinced god was real.
An incident occurred that I still find difficult to talk about, so I'll leave that part out for now.
I went home for the summer and I started to have doubts. I kept on reading the bible, and noticing what I'd been taught in those "bible studies" didn't match what I was reading.
I was also praying about god taking away the fact that I'm gay. I was told it was my "cross to bear" but something was off about it. Nothing ever seemed to change. I was also told that "homosexuality does not occur in nature, therefore it's not natural!" - something I would learn was not true some years later.
As the incident caused me a lot of stress, I pushed it all away. I didn't want to be christian because I couldn't wrap my head around the contradictions, and I didn't want to be gay either. So I buried both of them.
They didn't react at first when I told them on my return. Then they turned up in a group of 10+, all crowding my door in the hall of residence. They quoted something relevant to the incident I mentioned earlier. I lost my temper, yelled at them to get out. After they'd gone, I burst into tears.
Some eight years later, I had a chance to talk about it all with a therapist and got an understanding what really happened during that incident. It wasn't as they described, there was actually a simpler, rational explanation. I was really angry after learning that.
I then looked into biblical errors and found there were quite a few and slowly over the years I went back to being atheist.
I recently had an assessment and confirmed I'm autistic; no wonder I struggled with making friends and socialising. I've learned how to be social but it's still alien to me. My first year at University I joined the god squad was great for someone who had difficulty making friends. They made it easy for me... it came with a price.
I did finally accept being gay, I'm with a guy now, we've been together for over 20 years now. It didn't go down well with my parents who said a lot of unpleasant things.
Here in the UK we don't talk much about religion. It is there, but very low key.
The one time I felt peace at a church was a carol service arranged by the gay christian movement - we all held candles and sang - it was a beautiful peaceful ceremony. The mince pies and mulled wine was great afterwards! Every other time at church, I just felt guilty and hated.
Then I went to University.
A friend turned out to be a born again christian, something he never mentioned before, until we got to University, then it was "do you want to come to our coffee evenings?"
I went along and slowly became convinced god was real.
An incident occurred that I still find difficult to talk about, so I'll leave that part out for now.
I went home for the summer and I started to have doubts. I kept on reading the bible, and noticing what I'd been taught in those "bible studies" didn't match what I was reading.
I was also praying about god taking away the fact that I'm gay. I was told it was my "cross to bear" but something was off about it. Nothing ever seemed to change. I was also told that "homosexuality does not occur in nature, therefore it's not natural!" - something I would learn was not true some years later.
As the incident caused me a lot of stress, I pushed it all away. I didn't want to be christian because I couldn't wrap my head around the contradictions, and I didn't want to be gay either. So I buried both of them.
They didn't react at first when I told them on my return. Then they turned up in a group of 10+, all crowding my door in the hall of residence. They quoted something relevant to the incident I mentioned earlier. I lost my temper, yelled at them to get out. After they'd gone, I burst into tears.
Some eight years later, I had a chance to talk about it all with a therapist and got an understanding what really happened during that incident. It wasn't as they described, there was actually a simpler, rational explanation. I was really angry after learning that.
I then looked into biblical errors and found there were quite a few and slowly over the years I went back to being atheist.
I recently had an assessment and confirmed I'm autistic; no wonder I struggled with making friends and socialising. I've learned how to be social but it's still alien to me. My first year at University I joined the god squad was great for someone who had difficulty making friends. They made it easy for me... it came with a price.
I did finally accept being gay, I'm with a guy now, we've been together for over 20 years now. It didn't go down well with my parents who said a lot of unpleasant things.
Here in the UK we don't talk much about religion. It is there, but very low key.
The one time I felt peace at a church was a carol service arranged by the gay christian movement - we all held candles and sang - it was a beautiful peaceful ceremony. The mince pies and mulled wine was great afterwards! Every other time at church, I just felt guilty and hated.
